CHAPTER V.

ST JOHN A DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH.

THIS chapter may well begin with a sentence that I have already quoted: "From St John the Fathers have drawn almost all their arguments against the Arians, against the Servetians, against the Nestorians, against the Eutychians, and like heretics. The Doctors of the Schools likewise have learned from him the whole of their knowledge and teaching about the Blessed Trinity, that is, God, Three and One."

The reason for this is that he gained his knowledge directly from the Sacred Heart of Jesus, on which he lay. Let us listen to the teaching of the Saints about this. St Dionysius, the Areopagite, calls him "the Sun of the Church." St Jerome says, "Now let there be heard the clarion of the Gospel of that son of thunder, whom Jesus loved most, who drank in the streams of doctrine from the Heart of

our Saviour." St Augustine: "From the Heart of Christ he drank in the secret things of Divine Wisdom, and deeper streams of graces than all others." St Ambrose: "Lying on the Temple of the Word, he saw plainly the treasure-house of the Divine fulness." St Jerome again : 'John lay on His Breast that he might drink in the streams of wisdom, and be able to say, 'In the beginning was the Word;' for in the Heart of Christ all the treasures of knowledge and wisdom are hidden." St Bede: "Deservedly that man lies on His Heart, to whom He grants the greatest gifts of wisdom and marvellous. knowledge." St Lawrence Justinian, speaking of St John, says: "By contemplation thou searchest out the mysteries of wisdom; thou dwellest with the Angels; thou hast thy place amongst the Archangels; on the wing of thy spiritual vision thou dost pass through all the other legions of these holy choirs; to thee are opened the unspeakable treasures of wisdom; to thee are revealed the mysteries of holy revelations, the depth and height of the Divine Nature, the Eternal Generation of the Word; and before thee is spread out the triumphal kingdom of the glory of Heaven." Cornelius a

Lapide, from whom I take these quotations, adds that John lay on the Breast of Jesus that he might drink in the most secret and sublime mysteries of his Gospel and Apocalypse, and then reveal them to the world. Hence the Church sings in his office: "This is John who lay on the Breast of the Lord at the Last Supper; blessed Apostle, to whom Heavenly secrets were revealed. He drank in the streams of his Gospel from the sacred Fountain of the Heart of our Lord. Jesus loved him, because his chastity and purity had made him worthy of a greater love. Greatly to be honoured is Blessed John, who lay on the Heart of our Lord." St Chrysostom says that the Angels learned much from St John, and that the very Cherubim and Seraphim listened with eagerness to his Gospel and Apocalypse. The prayer in the Breviary for St John's Day speaks of him as a most special light of the Church: "Enlighten Thy Church, O Lord, in Thy mercy; that being illuminated by the teaching of Blessed John, Thy Apostle and Evangelist, it may come to Thy gift of everlasting life."

Thus we may have some little idea of what St John is in the splendour of his doctrine.

"The Only-Begotten Son, who is in the Bosom of the Father," says Cornelius, "revealed to St John, lying on His Breast, as His purest and dearest friend, secrets and sacraments of the Godhead, that had been hidden from the beginning of the world. John, like a son of thunder, has told us those things: and, like a flame of fire, he has enlightened the whole world with the Divinity of the Word and with the burning of His charity. If you want to understand this, read our Lord's last words in the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth chapters of his Gospel. They breathe nothing but the fire of Divine love." St Epiphanius says: "John truly is a son of thunder by the sublime eloquence that is so specially his; and, as if by clouds from the mysteries of wisdom, he has taught us wonderful truths about the Eternal Son."

Here it may be convenient to set down what is found in St John's Gospel alone, and not in the others; and also two remarkable appearances of the blessed Saint. St John alone gives us an account of the turning of water into wine at Cana of Galilee: of the first driving out of the buyers and sellers from the

Temple of the healing of the ruler's son at Capharnaum: of the healing of the paralytic at the pool called Bethsaida: of the giving sight to the man born blind: of the raising of Lazarus of the falling backward of the soldiers who came to take Him: of the blood and water that flowed from His pierced side when He was dead on the Cross: of the second miraculous draught of fishes: of the power of forgiving sins, given to the Apostles after the Resurrection by our Lord breathing on them, and so giving them the Holy Ghost.

These are miracles; but beside these St John alone records many wonderful discourses of our Lord; discourses far more wonderful than any others that have ever been spoken, for "never did man speak like Him. St John was like the Mother of God in this, as in so many other things, and faithfully kept all our Lord's words in his heart. Amongst the discourses that I mean are those with Nicodemus, and with the woman of Samaria, and with the Jews, when He healed the man who had been ill for eight and thirty years. Then there is that most wondrous discourse about the Bread of life, which He spoke also to the