The Gospel
The unique power and character of the Gospel as the living account of the life of Christ, surpassing all prophecy. Lacordaire compares the Gospel's impact to the first sight of the Alps; it stops the reader and makes him cry out. The Gospel reveals Christ no longer in prophecy but in His true and perceptible form.
Pope Clement VIII, Jerome's Prefaces, On Worship
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ON THE WORSHIP OF JESUS CHRIST IN THE SCRIPTURES.
— The capital moment of Scripture is the Gospel: the veil falls forever and what was hidden manifests in true form. A man has appeared -- God himself -- and we are about to hear him.
"But the capital moment of Scripture is not there; it is in the Gospel, that is to say, in the living and personal account of the life of Christ."
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ON THE WORSHIP OF JESUS CHRIST IN THE SCRIPTURES.
— The Gospel needs no precautions; however far one is from Christ, it strikes a great blow at the door of the soul. Lacordaire compares it to the first sight of the Alps.
"it is impossible not to feel before that luminous and merciful figure one of the greatest blows ever struck at the door of a human soul."
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ON THE WORSHIP OF JESUS CHRIST IN THE SCRIPTURES.
— The Gospel is the history of a man such as the earth had never seen: born poor, lived poor, died poor, yet filled the world with his name with a breadth and duration leaving no room for anything human.
"It is a man who was born poor, who lived poor, and who died poor; who, from his very poverty, did not make a pedestal for any greatness"
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II. JEROME TO PAULINUS.
— Jerome describes the four Evangelists as the four-horse chariot of the Lord and true Cherubim, covered with eyes, going wherever the Holy Spirit carries them.
"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John -- the four-horse chariot of the Lord and the true Cherubim, which is interpreted as 'multitude of knowledge' -- are covered with eyes throughout the whole body"