PROLOGUE

At the time of writing on the book of the Gospel written by St. Luke, where he expounds with a certain fullness of detail the actions of the Lord, it seems appropriate to explain it first. the genre: it is historical. Doubtless the divine Scriptures are free from the laws of human knowledge, more painted with the search for language than with the reality of things; yet, if one seeks in these divine Scriptures the very thing which some judge as admirable, one will find it.

There are three things which the philosophers of this world have judged particularly eminent: I mean that wisdom is of three kinds: or natural, or moral, or rational. All three, we have already been able to discover them in the Old Testament. What meaning, indeed, can have the three wells, that of the Vision (Gen., XVI, 14), that of the Abundance (Ib., XXVI, 33), and that of the Oath (Ib., XXI, 32 ), except that this triple gift existed among the patriarchs?

 The rational is the well of the Vision: because reasoning sharpens the eyes of intelligence and purifies the sight of the soul. The well of Abundance is ethics: for it is after the retreat of the Allophylae, image and figure of the vices of the flesh, that Isaac meets the living water of the soul; good morals are a pure source, and kindness to men makes generosity to others by crushing itself. The third well, that of the Oath, is natural wisdom: it understands what is above nature or in nature; for to affirm and swear by taking God to witness is to reach the Divine himself, invoking the Master of nature as a witness of good faith.

And do not the three books of Solomon, the Proverbs, the Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs show us that Solomon the holy was versed in this triple wisdom? He wrote about rationality and ethics in Proverbs; on the natural in Ecclesiastes, because "vanity of vanities, and all is vanity" (Eccl., I, 2) in what is in the world, because "creation is enslaved to vanity" (Rom., VIII, 20); As for the moral and the rational, they are in the Song of Songs: for when the love of the heavenly Word spreads in our hearts and the holy soul enters, so to speak, into society with the spiritual, admirable mysteries reveal themselves.

 So are the evangelists. What wisdom do you think they lacked? Both possess the different kinds, and each has its own distinct kind in which it excels. There is truly natural wisdom in the book entitled Gospel According to St. John; for no one, I do not fear to say it, has seen with a more sublime wisdom the majesty of God, has revealed it to us in more appropriate terms. He rose above the clouds, above the heavenly powers, above the angels to discover the Word that was in the beginning and see the Word that is in God. Is he a moralist who more than S. Matthieu details the activities of the man and gives us rules of life? - What is more rational, what more admirable rapprochement than that chosen by Mark for his beginning: "Behold, I send my angel" (I, 2) and "a voice cries in the desert" (I, 3): it excites our surprise at once and teaches us that man must be accepted by humility, abstinence and fidelity, following the example of St. John the Baptist, who rose to immortality through these degrees: his clothes, his food, his message.

For St. Luke, he held to a rather historical kind and revealed to us in greater numbers the wonders accomplished by the Lord. And yet the resources of all wisdom are contained in the narrative of this gospel. Is it for natural wisdom an object more elevated than the revelation of the creative role of the Holy Spirit in the very incarnation of the Lord? This is a natural lesson: creation by the Spirit; so David, teacher of natural wisdom, said, "Send your Spirit, and they will be created" (Ps 103, 30). ? The same book teaches the moral, since in the Beatitudes it teaches me how to lead me, how I must love my enemy, not to fight back or give a blow to hit me, to be beneficent, to lend without hope of recovery but not without profit or reward: because the reward comes more readily to those who do not expect it. ? He has even taught the rational, since I read that fidelity in little things guarantees fidelity in the great (XVI, 10). ? To return to the natural, he still teaches that the heavenly powers will be shaken (XXI, 26), that the sun has for Master the only Son of God, during the Passion from which the darkness came in broad daylight, the earth was in In the dark, the sun disappeared.

 Thus all the supremacy wrongly claimed by the prudence of the world is in reality the prerogative of spiritual wisdom: especially given? Do we dare to allow ourselves this boldness? that our very faith, that the very mystery of the Trinity can not subsist without this triple wisdom. We must believe, with the natural, to the Father who has begotten us a Redeemer, with the morality that the Son has, as a man, obeyed his Father until death, thus redeeming us, and with the rational that the Spirit has placed in the hearts of men the art of honoring God and directing their lives.

 And that no one thinks that we are establishing a difference of power or activity: the reproach could as well reach S. Paul. Nor did he make any difference when he said, "There is a sharing of graces, but one Spirit; there is job sharing, but one Lord; there is a sharing of activities, but it is the same God who performs all things in all "(I Cor., XII, 4-6). Now the Son accomplishes all things and in all, because you read elsewhere that "Christ is all in all" (Col., III, 11). The Holy Spirit Himself also fulfills them, for "all things are accomplished by one and the same Spirit, who cuts everyone's share according to his will" (I Cor., XII, 11). There is, then, no difference of activity, no separation, from the moment that, whether in the Father, in the Son, or in the Holy Spirit, there resides a plenitude of power which does not yield to any other.

 Let us, then, be attentive to these considerations during our reading: they will emerge more clearly in the course of the text, for "who seeks finds, and who strikes, sees himself open" (Matt., VII, 8). Attention forces the door of truth. So, let us obey the precepts of heaven; for it is not in vain that it was said to man, to the exclusion of all animals, "By the sweat of your brow you shall eat your bread" (Gen. III, 19). For other animals, naturally devoid of reason, God commanded the earth to ensure their food; for man alone and so that he exercises the reason with which he is endowed, work becomes the law of life. Since he does not content himself with the grazing of other animals, since he is not satisfied with fruit species, common food assured to all, but that he seeks delicacy and varied dishes, brings his delights from the countries of Overseas, glean its delights in the waves, it must not refuse, asking his life at work, to endure a moment of work for eternal life. He who comes to take part in the struggles of these holy inquiries, who lays the worries of the present life exposed to error and, stripped of all evil, champion of the good, the members of the soul impregnated with the oil of the Spirit, mingling with the struggles for truth, will undoubtedly merit the endless reward of holy crowns. For "the good work bears great fruits" (Sag., III, 15) and the more numerous the combats, the richer is the crown of virtues.

But back to our subject. It is in the form of history, we said, that this book of the Gospel was written. So we see that, compared to others, he puts his care into reporting facts rather than formulating precepts. Even, in the manner of a story, it begins with a story: "There was," said he, "in the days when Herod reigned in Judea, a priest named Zacharia," and he continues until bout this episode. This is the same reason why those who want to recognize in the four animal figures revealed by the Apocalypse the emblem of the four books of the Gospel hold that this one is represented under the features of the bull. The bull is the sacerdotal victim (see Lev., IV, 3): there is therefore a relationship between the bull and this gospel which, beginning with the priests, ends with the bull charged with the sins of all and immolated for the life of the whole world. He is the sacerdotal bull. He is both the bull and the priest: the priest, because he intercedes for us - for "we have an advocate," and it is he, "with the Father" (I John, II, 1) - the bull, for his blood has purified us and redeemed us. And here is a happy encounter: the gospel according to St. Matthew, as we have said, is moral: and this opinion has been taken into account, since morality is said to be proper to man.

Many, however, believe that it is Our Lord who, in the four Gospels, is represented by the symbols of the four animals. He is the man, the lion, the bull, the eagle: the man, since he is born of Mary; the lion, because he is strong; the bull, because AI is a victim; the eagle, because He is resurrection.

 But the features of animals are drawn in each book so that the content of each agrees with their nature, their power, their prerogative or their marvelous character. No doubt all this is found in all these books; and yet in each of them there is as a fullness of this or that characteristic. One has recounted the human origin (of Christ) and formed the morality of man by more abundant precepts; another begins by expressing the divine power of that king, son of a king, force of force, truth of truth, whose vital resources have defied death; the third prelude by a sacerdotal sacrifice, and extends more abundantly upon the very immolation of the bull; the fourth has detailed more than the others the wonders of the divine resurrection.

"All are one, therefore, and unique in all," as we have just read (Col., III, 11 or Ephes., IV, 6); It does not vary from one to the other, but it is true of all.

But let us finally approach the very text of the Gospel.