what it is, is symbolic of something more.”  The Fourth Gospel is steeped in symbolism of this kind.  The eight miracles which St. John selects are obviously chosen for their symbolic value; indeed, he seems to regard them mainly as acted parables.  His favourite word for miracles is [Greek:  semeia], “signs” or “symbols.”  It is true that he also calls them “works,” but this is not to distinguish them as supernatural.  All Christ’s actions are “works,” as parts of His one “work.”  As evidences of His Divinity, such “works” are inferior to His “words,” being symbolic and external.  Only those who cannot believe on the evidence of the words and their echo in the heart, may strengthen their weak faith by the miracles.  But “blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed.”  And besides these “signs,” we have, in place of the Synoptic parables, a wealth of allegories, in which Christ is symbolised as the Bread of Life, the Light of the World, the Door of the Sheep, the good Shepherd, the Way, and the true Vine.  Wind and water are also made to play their part.  Moreover, there is much unobtrusive symbolism in descriptive phrases, as when he says that Nicodemus came by night, that Judas went out into the night, and that blood and water flowed from our Lord’s side; and the washing of the disciples’ feet was a symbolic act which the disciples were to understand hereafter.  Thus all things in the world may remind us of Him who made them, and who is their sustaining life.

In treating of St. John, it was necessary to protest against the tendency of some commentators to interpret him simply as a speculative mystic of the Alexandrian type.  But when we turn to St. Paul, we find reason to think that this side of his theology has been very much underestimated, and that the distinctive features of Mysticism are even more marked in him than in St. John.  This is not surprising, for our blessed Lord’s discourses, in which nearly all the doctrinal teaching of St. John is contained, are for all Christians; they rise above the oppositions which must always divide human thought and human thinkers.  In St. Paul, large-minded as he was, and inspired as we believe him to be, we may be allowed to see an example of that particular type which we are considering.

St. Paul states in the clearest manner that Christ appeared to him, and that this revelation was the foundation of his Christianity and apostolic commission.  “Neither did I receive the Gospel from man,[71]” he says, “nor was I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ.”  It appears that he did not at first[72] think it necessary to “confer with flesh and blood”—­to collect evidence about our Lord’s ministry, His death and resurrection; he had “seen” and felt Him, and that was enough.  “It was the good pleasure of God to reveal His Son in me,[73]” he says simply, using the favourite mystical phraseology.  The study of “evidences,” in the usual sense of the term in apologetics, he