Pre-eminently the Evangelist of the divinity of Christ, St. John is well placed near the crib to teach us of the hidden grandeurs of the Infant God. He was the author of the fourth Gospel, three Epistles and of the Apocalypse. His passages on the pre-existence of the Word, who by His Incarnation became the light of the world and life of our souls, are among the most fundamental and finest of the New Testament. In Christian art St. John is symbolized by the eagle, a bird with a penetrating eye which soars above the highest peaks. Unlike the other Apostles he escaped martyrdom and died at an advanced age at Ephesus; he appears to have spent the last years of his life at the head of the Churches of Asia Minor.