Saint John the Evangelist

“ When he was eight years of age, he helped his father, who bought wooden figures for his son to carve. One day as he was going about buying idols, the angel of the Lord met him, and told him that idols were the abode of Satan, and commanded him to cast them from his hands; and he taught him the Faith of our Lord Jesus Christ. And Saint John returned to his father and said unto him, “There is no god but God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth; I will not worship the work of men’s hands.” When his father heard this, he tied him up in the prison house. ”

“ John does not, in applying these semi-abstract words to God, attenuate in the slightest degree His personality. God is Love, but He also exercises love. "God so loved the world." And He is not only the "white radiance" that "for ever shines"; He can "draw" us to Himself, and "send" His Son to bring us back to Him.
The word "Logos" does not occur in any of the discourses. The identification of Christ with the "Word" or "Reason" of the philosophers is St. John's own. But the statements in the prologue are all confirmed by our Lord's own words as reported by the evangelist. ”

“ John is the Evangelist of Dogma; and if there be anything in the world which is jealous, that thing is Love. Indifference to Truth, and laxity of Belief, are the growing characteristics of the age. But you will find that St. John has about four or five times as much about Truth as all the other three Evangelists; while the act of Faith receives as frequent mention in his writings alone as in all the rest of the New Testament Canon put together [327] . ”

“ John, I say; that John who like John the Evangelist was indeed a disciple of Jesus and an Apostle; and so to speak ever reclined on the breast and heart of the Lord. Remember him, I say. Follow him. Think of his purity, his faith, his doctrine, and holiness. Remember
him ever as your teacher and nurse, in whose bosom and embraces you as it were grew up. Who was the teacher in common both of you and of me: whose disciples and pupils we are. Read his writings. Hold fast his instruction. Embrace his faith and merits. ”

“ How strange it must have appeared to the disciples themselves that He made no sign of movement, notwithstanding the message. Perhaps John's scrupulous carefulness in pointing out that His love was Christ's reason for His quiescence may reflect a remembrance of the doubts that had crept over the minds of himself and his brethren during these two days of strange inaction. The Evangelist will have us learn a lesson, which reaches far beyond the instance in hand, and casts light on many dark places. ”

“ In history John stands and must ever stand alone. He was one of the two who first accepted the call of Christ to come to Him: he was the last of the Apostles to repeat, in another and yet as true a sense, that invitation to multitudes of men. He was one of those two who first saw what may be called the beginning of the Christian Church, in the little booth by the Jordan: and the last one of the Twelve to remember its fuller establishments in the Upper Chamber of Jerusalem. He was the last man who had seen the last prophet who told of the coming Messiah ”

“ Being prevented in due season by God’s grace, Father John was devout, and is worthy of remembrance, for that going on day by day he reached forward continually to the things that are before, being a notable lover of poverty, one that kept lowliness and loved sobriety. He was the very beauty of purity, a pattern of simplicity, a strong upholder of discipline, an enemy of sin, a light of virtue, an ensample of devotion, strong in faith, long suffering in hope, prodigal in charity, and one that did convert many from the vanity of the world. ”

“ The creating, sustaining touch of His Hand is ever upon each of us, upon all the world.
Though He cannot do all for us He would except as we gladly come and let Him. What He is giving us is so much. It's our all. Yet it is the smaller part. There's the fuller part. This is the whole drive of John's story, this fuller part. Out of Him Jesus, into us will come the newer, the better, the abundant quality of life, if He may have His way.
And John adds,—"and the life was the light of men." He was what we have. He gives Himself; not things, but a person. With God everything is personal. ”

“ It is one of the chief results of the Incarnation itself. It begins to act upon us first, when the Gospels become something more to us than a mere history, when we realise in some degree how He walked. But it is not complete until we know that all this is not merely of the past, but of the present; that He is not dead, but living; that we may therefore use that little word is about Christ in the lofty sense of St. John—"even as He is pure;" "in Him is no sin;" "even as He is righteous;" "He is the propitiation for our sins." ”

“ But He who had sat by the well did not ask this proof of her desire for reformation. 'Woman,' He said, 'believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.' All she had asked—all that most Samaritans or Jews would have disputed about—was where they ought to worship. The thought upon which Jesus fixes her mind, is the Being to be worshipped. That new name, which John said the Son was come to reveal, is now proclaimed in the ears of a separatist and a sinner. He speaks not of the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, but of the Father. ”

“ To John, after he had seen and pondered the words and the life of Jesus, all his ideas of the Father were altered. He learned that God is love, and that to infinite love, while there remains one thing to give, one step of nearness to the loved to be taken, love has not its perfect expression. It came upon him as a revelation that God was really in the world. Are we to refuse to God any true participation in the strife between good and evil? Is God to be kept out of all reality? ”

“ He was "God manifested in flesh." He was not only the Son of God, He was God the Son: "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father. I and the Father are one." The greatness of John was proved in this, that like his Lord he was meek and lowly in heart. Neither before nor since has a son of Adam lived in whom these divine qualities were more evident. No sublimer, no more God-like utterance ever passed the lips of man than John's answer to his disciples: "A man can receive nothing except it have been given him from heaven. ”

“ Like all other good things, you can turn prayer to your spiritual detriment, when you have recourse to it through vain glory. Be thoroughly convinced of the truth expressed by the Evangelist St. John, that he is a liar who says that he loves God, and does not keep his commandments. ”

“ And they asked him, and said unto him, Why then baptizest thou, if thou art not the Christ, neither Elijah, neither the prophet? John answered them, saying, I baptize with water: in the midst of you standeth One whom ye know not, even He that cometh after me, the latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy to unloose. These things were done in Bethany beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing. On the morrow he seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world! ”

“ The Son of Man was to be neither a Nazarite nor an Essene.
While Jesus later directed that the apostles should go forth, as John had, preaching the gospel and instructing believers, he laid emphasis on the proclamation of the "good tidings of the kingdom of heaven." He unfailingly impressed upon his associates that they must "show forth love, compassion, and sympathy." He early taught his followers that the kingdom of heaven was a spiritual experience having to do with the enthronement of God in the hearts of men. ”

“ Through the door of the Upper Room left ajar by three Evangelists, we catch glimpses of the group around the table of the Last Supper. Through it as opened wide by John we hear the voice of Jesus as He utters His farewell words. He comforts His disciples and tells of heavenly mansions. He gives His peace in their tribulations. He promises the Holy Spirit as a Comforter. He closes His address, even in this hour of sadness and apparent defeat, with these wonderful words, "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." ”

“ Toward the end of his ministrations, in which he suffered many persecutions, he was banished to the Isle of Patmos, where he wrote the Book of Revelation. When he returned from this exile, he continued his work until he died at the advanced age of over 90 years. His traditional grave is at Ephesus. The two principal symbols of St. John are the eagle with book, (explained in connection with the symbols of the four Evangelists on page 44) and the chalice, the latter sometimes having a serpent issuing from it. ”

“ John's influence on the world has diminished as men have receded further from his age; but Jesus is King of the ages. He creates, He fashions, He leads them forth; He is with us always, to the end of the age. We have not to go back through the centuries to find Him in the cradle or in Mary's arms, in the fishing-boat or on the mountain, on the cross or in the grave ”

“ Our faith in the Resurrection is not affected by them so long as we live upon God's word, and not upon the letters of a book. When we change the one for the other, it must perish; no arguments or explanations will keep it alive. St. John, in some respects, differs from them all. I think many would have been glad if he had differed more widely. There is a dislike in our day, in Protestant countries, to any notice of angelical visitations. Romanists, and some who are not Romanists, would denounce the feeling as a sign that we are losing all faith in the spiritual world. ”

“ Especially a lively sense of God’s infinite greatness, and of our littleness and infirmities, powerfully impressed on our minds by assiduous prayer, soon brings us to a conviction that pride is the root of all our disorders; and enables us to discover its disguises, and to banish it out of our souls. By fidelity and perseverance St. John obtained the victory over himself, and became most eminent in meekness, humility, silence, obedience, modesty, and patience.
When the abbot died our saint was earnestly entreated by the greatest part of the monks to accept that dignity ”

“ In fact there can be no real progress in virtue without temptation.
4. St. John now sees the souls of those who participate with Christ in the government of His Church. They are the saints who worshipped not the beast nor his image, nor received his character on their forehead, and especially they are the martyrs who gave their lives "for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God." "Judgment was given unto them," for as St. Paul says: "the saints shall judge this world." ”

“ In fact, what John laid as the foundation of his Gospel,—that the Christ who came to redeem was He by whom all things were at first made,—Jesus also advanced as the first step in His revelation of Himself. He appears as the Source of life, whose will pervades all things. He comes, not as a stranger or interloper who has no sympathy with existing things, but as the faithful Creator, who loves all that He has made, and can use all things for the good of men. He is at home in the world, and enters physical nature as its King, who can use it for His high ends. ”

“ The author, since deceased, was the Abbé Le Hir, M. Renan's instructor in Hebrew at Saint Sulpice, and pronounced by his pupil one of the first of European Hebraists and scientific theologians.]
[Pg 54]
DISCOURSE IV. THE IMAGE OF ST. JOHN'S SOUL IN HIS EPISTLE. "He that loveth pureness of heart, for the grace of his lips the king shall be his friend."—Prov. xxii. 11.
ὁ θεμελιος.... ὁ δευτερος σαπφειρος.—Apoc. xxi. 19.
"We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not. ”

“ Jesus of Nazareth comes down to the earth from heaven and is above us all. The Son of Man has descended from God, and the words of God he will declare to you. For the Father in heaven gives not the spirit by measure to his own Son. The Father loves his Son and will presently put all things in the hands of this Son. He who believes in the Son has eternal life. And these words which I speak are true and abiding."
These disciples were amazed at John's pronouncement, so much so that they departed in silence. John was also much agitated, for he perceived that he had uttered a prophecy. ”

“ He has found that Jesus, with whom he lived on terms of the most intimate friendship, whose words he listened to, the working of whose feelings he had scanned, whose works he had witnessed, was the Son of God. I say the mere fact that such a man as John seeks to persuade us of the divinity of Christ goes far to prove that Christ was Divine. This was the impression His life left on the man who knew Him best, and who was, judging from his own life and Gospel, better able to judge than any man who has since lived. ”

“ It is true that he has carried us back to the beginning of all things, instead of introducing us to the manger in Bethlehem, or telling us first of the preaching of John in the wilderness. It is true that he has told us of the Word who was with God, before he has used the name of Jesus Christ. It is true that throughout his Gospel he has been presenting to us Jesus Christ as the Word of God, the Giver of light and life to men. It is true that this has been his explanation of the signs which Jesus did when He fed the multitude, or healed the sick, or raised the dead. ”