‘That they might have life’: the Good Shepherd and the Victorian Church

Abstract

In the Good Shepherd passage in the fourth Gospel, Jesus explains that he lays down his own earthly life (ψυχην) for the sheep (10.11) in order that they may have Life (ξωην, 10.10). Victorian preachers and commentators frequently referred to the figure of the Good Shepherd, which provided consolation to young and old and became the subject of thousands of stained glass windows throughout the Empire. Many Victorian charitable institutions, such as hospices and ‘magdalens’, were named after the Good Shepherd, a figure who also became a focus for devotional literature and art. During and after the Gorham controversy, John 10 and its teaching on the shepherd, the flock and the sheepfold became subjects of debate in relation to ecclesiology and figured in the sacred art of the Pre-Raphaelites. In the second half of the century there was a deepening sense of the beauty of the Good Shepherd, both morally and aesthetically.