Prologue — Prologue of Saint Jerome

This is John the Evangelist, one of the disciples of the Lord, who was chosen by God as a virgin, whom God called from his wedding, when he wished to marry.

II. A twofold testimony of his virginity is given in this Gospel: both that he is called beloved above all the others by God; and that to him the Lord entrusted his mother when he was hanging on the cross, so that a virgin should protect a virgin.

III. Finally revealing in the Gospel, that he was an inaugurating work of the incorruptible Word, he alone bears witness that the Word became flesh, and the light was not comprehended by the darkness, setting down the first sign that the Lord did at a wedding: showing that he himself was there: so that he could demonstrate to his readers that where the Lord was invited, the wedding wine had to run out: and that to the unchanged old ones, all the new things that are instituted by Christ would appear. But he wrote this Gospel in Asia, after he had written the book of Revelation on the island of Patmos: so that to him to whom in the beginning of the canon the incorruptible beginning is predicted in Genesis, to him also the incorruptible end through a virgin in Revelation would be rendered; by Christ’s saying: I am the alpha and omega.

IV. And this is John, who knowing that the day of his passing away was upon him, having called together his disciples in Ephesus, and presenting Christ through many experiences of signs, and descending into the place dug out for his tomb, having made his prayer was placed with his fathers: he is found as much a stranger to the sorrow of death as he was a foreigner to the corruption of the flesh.

V. But he wrote his Gospel after everyone else: and this was owing to the Virgin. However the disposition of these writings in time or the ordering of the books, will not then be explained in detail by us, so that having granted the desire to know, both for those seeking the fruit of labor, and for God, the teaching of a master may be preserved.