Divinity has revealed itself at all times in human history, not only through Nature but also through men of unique suitability and receptive to these revelations.
Of some, humanity has ancient traditions preserved and transmitted in writing from generation to generation until our days. Thus, in India, the Bhagavad Gita was originated, which dates back to the Vedas, about 5,000 years before the Christian Era. In China, 600 years before Christ Jesus, the Tao Te Ching of Lao-Tse appeared. These books, plus the Four Noble Truths of Gautam Siddhartha the Buddha, guide the spiritual life of almost all of Asia.
More than 2,000 years ago, the message of Jesus appeared in the Middle East, recorded by four of his disciples under the name of the Gospel, which is the primary spiritual guidance book of the Christian West.
In the 20th century, the Fifth Gospel of the Apostle Thomas was discovered in Egypt, which refers to the secret words of Jesus.
These messages - small in quantity, immense in quality - represent the soul of humankind for several millennia.
The Gospel of Jesus revolves entirely around two fundamental points: the mystical experience of the first commandment and the ethical living of the second; commandments that represent the structure of all the law and the prophets. These two fundamental poles of the Gospel are called, in today’s language, self-knowledge and self-realization.
“You shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free” – these prophetic words of Jesus are the quintessence of his message. The mystical experience of self-knowledge and its overflow in the ethical living of self-realization represent the alpha and omega of the Gospel, substantially coinciding with the announcement of all the great spiritual Masters of humanity.
To comprehend and live this message is to comprehend and realize oneself, is to fulfil earthly destiny and achieve happiness.
And the Gospel is the good news, the positive message that Jesus announced and which at first was revealed orally by the apostles; later, it appeared in writing to broaden and deepen in the souls of the faithful the knowledge of revealed truths.
Four of these documents were received in the New Testament canon and contain the gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Many Christians in the first century recorded the life and works of Jesus in writing. Still, the Church only recognized as canonical the four gospels known today, not for denying the historicity of the other narratives, but for having only these four in their favour, as proofs enough to vouch for their divine inspiration. Like those four streams of water that watered the earthly paradise thus, the four crystalline fountains of the gospels fertilize the Eden of the new covenant, the Church of God. Putting in correlation with the evangelists the grand vision of Ezekiel about the four living beings, attributing to Matthew the symbol of man, Mark, the lion, Luke the bull, and John, the eagle.1
The titles of the gospels do not come from the evangelists, as in the past, historical works were not usually presented with the author's name. However, they go back to apostolic times, so much so that the author of the second-century Muratorian Fragment, which is a copy of the oldest known list of the books of the New Testament as well as St. Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria.
Although literarily autonomous and independent, the first three gospels nevertheless present a remarkable agreement in terms of content and exposition. To better highlight this harmony, a parallel was drawn between these three evangelical texts, which resulted in an exciting synopsis, being these writings called Synoptic Gospels and their authors: the Synoptics.
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1)- The so-called Four Rivers of Paradise would be four branches of rivers from a source that was born in Eden and which, according to the Bible, were the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Gihon and the Phison.
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