John, the Eagle

"The spiritual bird, fast-flying, God-seeing -- I mean John the theologian -- ascends beyond all visible and invisible creation, passes through all thought and intellect, and, deified, enters into God who deifies him...

...John, the observer of the inmost truth, in the paradise of paradises, in the very cause of all, heard the one Word through which all things are made.

It was permitted to him to speak this Word, and to proclaim it, as far as it may be proclaimed, to human beings. Therefore most confidently he cried out, 'In the beginning was the Word.'...

...Behold heaven opened and the mystery of the highest and holiest Trinity revealed!

'In the beginning was the Word...and the Word was made flesh.'" 

(From a homily of John Scotus Eriugena on the Prologue to John's Gospel)