This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true.
Ver. 24. This is the disciple] Not the doctor, the master, as Magistri nostri Parisienses. So the Sorbonists will needs be styled. The schoolmen have their Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Seraphicus, Doctor resolutissimus. So Bacon the Carmelite was called, because he would endure no guessing or maybes. The Italian friars, as they increase in their supposed holiness, so they proceed in their titles, from Padre Benedicto to Padre Angelo, then Archangelo, Cherubino, and lastly, Cerephino, which is the top of perfection. Our evangelist delights not in any of these swelling titles. He doth not so much as name himself in all this work of his, takes no other style than the beloved disciple, makes no more of himself than a witness to the truth, a recorder of what he had heard and seen. The proud person speaks "great swelling words of vanity," 2 Peter 2:18; he loves uppermost rooms, and to be called Rabbi, Rabbi, to be cried up and pointed at for a nonesuch,Matthew 23:6. I hear, saith Tertullian (speaking of the pope, who then began to peep out), that there is a decree published in peremptory terms, Pontifex scilicet Maximus, Episcopus episcoporum, &c. I ever hated the pride of that Roman Church, saith Basil. a Ambition, like the crocodile, groweth while it liveth; like the ivy, which rising at the feet, will overtop the highest wall; or, like the marigold (a flower of no good smell), which opens and shuts with the sun. Humility, on the contrary, is like the lily, saith Bernard, or violet which grows low to the ground, hangs the head downward, and hides itself with its own leaves. It prefers the Euge well done of conscience before the Hic est This is of the world: and were it not that its fragrant smell betrays it to the observation of others, would choose to live and die in its well contenting secrecy.
a Odi fastum illius ecclesiae. Hunc οφρυν δυτικην appellare solitus est.