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St. John the Evangelist
I. NEW TESTAMENT ACCOUNTS
John was the son of Zebedee and Salome, and the brother of James the Greater.
In the Gospels the two brothers are often called after their father the sons of
Zebedee
and received from Christ the honourable title of Boanerges, i.e. sons
of thunder
(Mark, iii, 17). Originally they were fishermen and fished with
their father in the Lake of Genesareth. According to the usual and entirely
probable explanation they became, however, for a time disciples of John the
Baptist, and were called by Christ from the circle of John's followers, together
with Peter and Andrew, to become His disciples (John, i, 35-42). The first
disciples returned with their new Master from the Jordan to Galilee and
apparently both John and the others remained for some time with Jesus (cf. John
ii, 12, 22; iv, 2, 8, 27 sqq.). Yet after the second return from Judea, John and
his companions went back again to their trade of fishing until he and they were
called by Christ to definitive discipleship (Matt., iv 18-22; Mark, i, 16-20).
In the lists of the Apostles John has the second place (Acts, i, 13), the third
(Mark, iii, 17), and the fourth (Matt., x, 3; Luke, vi, 14), yet always after
James with the exception of a few passages (Luke, viii, 51; ix, 28 in the Greek
text; Acts, i, 13).
From James being thus placed first, the conclusion is drawn that John was the
younger of the two brothers. In any case John had a prominent position in the
Apostolic body. Peter, James, and he were the only witnesses of the raising of
Jairus's daughter (Mark, v, 37), of the Transfiguration (Matt., xvii, 1), and of
the Agony in Gethsemani (Matt., xxvi, 37). Only he and Peter were sent into the
city to make the preparation for the Last Supper (Luke, xxii, 8). At the Supper
itself his place was next to Christ on Whose breast he leaned (John, xiii, 23,
25). According to the general interpretation John was also that other disciple
who with Peter followed Christ after the arrest into the palace of the
high-priest (John, xviii, 15). John alone remained near his beloved Master at
the foot of the Cross on Calvary with the Mother of Jesus and the pious women,
and took the desolate Mother into his care as the last legacy of Christ (John,
xix, 25-27). After the Resurrection John with Peter was the first of the
disciples to hasten to the grave and he was the first to believe that Christ had
truly risen (John, xx, 2-10). When later Christ appeared at the Lake of
Genesareth John was also the first of the seven disciples present who recognized
his Master standing on the shore (John, xxi, 7). The Fourth Evangelist has shown
us most clearly how close the relationship was in which he always stood to his
Lord and Master by the title with which he is accustomed to indicate himself
without giving his name: the disciple whom Jesus loved
. After Christ's
Ascension and the Descent of the Holy Spirit, John took, together with Peter, a
prominent part in the founding and guidance of the Church. We see him in the
company of Peter at the healing of the lame man in the Temple (Acts, iii, 1
sqq.). With Peter he is also thrown into prison (Acts, iv, 3). Again, we find
him with the prince of the Apostles visiting the newly converted in Samaria
(Acts, viii, 14).
We have no positive information concerning the duration of this activity in
Palestine. Apparently John in common with the other Apostles remained some
twelve years in this first field of labour, until the persecution of Herod
Agrippa I led to the scattering of the Apostles through the various provinces of
the Roman Empire (cf. Acts, xii, 1-17). Notwithstanding the opinion to the
contrary of many writers, it does not appear improbable that John then went for
the first time to Asia Minor and exercised his Apostolic office in various
provinces there. In any case a Christian community was already in existence at
Ephesus before Paul's first labours there (cf. the brethren
, Acts, xviii, 27,
in addition to Priscilla and Aquila), and it is easy to connect a sojourn of
John in these provinces with the fact that the Holy Ghost did not permit the
Apostle Paul on his second missionary journey to proclaim the Gospel in Asia,
Mysia, and Bithynia (Acts, xvi, 6 sq.). There is just as little against such an
acceptation in the later account in Acts of St. Paul's third missionary journey.
But in any case such a sojourn by John in Asia in this first period was neither
long nor uninterrupted. He returned with the other disciples to Jerusalem for
the Apostolic Council (about A.D. 51). St. Paul in opposing his enemies in
Galatia names John explicitly along with Peter and James the Less as a pillar
of the Church
, and refers to the recognition which his Apostolic preaching of a
Gospel free from the law received from these three, the most prominent men of
the old Mother-Church at Jerusalem (Gal., ii, 9). When Paul came again to
Jerusalem after the second and after the third journey (Acts, xviii, 22; xxi, 17
sq.) he seems no longer to have met John there. Some wish to draw the conclusion
from this that John left Palestine between the years 52 and 55.
Of the other New-Testament writings, it is only from the three Epistles of
John and the Apocalypse that anything further is learned concerning the person
of the Apostle. We may be permitted here to take as proven the unity of the
author of these three writings handed down under the name of John and his
identity with the Evangelist. Both the Epistles and the Apocalypse, however,
presuppose that their author John belonged to the multitude of personal
eyewitnesses of the life and work of Christ (cf. especially I John, i, 1-5; iv,
14), that he had lived for a long time in Asia Minor, was thoroughly acquainted
with the conditions existing in the various Christian communities there, and
that he had a position of authority recognized by all Christian communities as
leader of this part of the Church. Moreover, the Apocalypse tells us that its
author was on the island of Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of
Jesus
, when he was honoured with the heavenly Revelation contained in the
Apocalypse (Apoc., i, 9).
II. THE ALLEGED PRESBYTER JOHN
The author of the Second and Third Epistles of John designates himself in the
superscription of each by the name (ho presbyteros), the ancient
, the old
.
Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, also uses the same name to designate the
Presbyter John
as in addition to Aristion, his particular authority, directly
after he has named the presbyters Andrew, Peter, Philip, Thomas, James, John,
and Matthew (in Eusebius, Hist. eccl.
, III, xxxix, 4). Eusebius was the first
to draw, on account of these words of Papias, the distinction between a
Presbyter John and the Apostle John, and this distinction was also spread in
Western Europe by St. Jerome on the authority of Eusebius. The opinion of
Eusebius has been frequently revived by modern writers, chiefly to support the
denial of the Apostolic origin of the Fourth Gospel. The distinction, however,
has no historical basis. First, the testimony of Eusebius in this matter is not
worthy of belief. He contradicts himself, as in his Chronicle
he expressly
calls the Apostle John the teacher of Papias (ad annum Abrah 2114
), as does
Jerome also in Ep. lxxv, Ad Theodoram
, iii, and in De viris illustribus
,
xviii. Eusebius was also influenced by his erroneous doctrinal opinions as he
denied the Apostolic origin of the Apocalypse and ascribed this writing to an
author differing from St. John but of the same name. St. Irenaeus also
positively designates the Apostle and Evangelist John as the teacher of Papias,
and neither he nor any other writer before Eusebius had any idea of a second
John in Asia (Adv. haer., V, xxxiii, 4). In what Papias himself says the
connection plainly shows that in this passage by the word presbyters only
Apostles can be understood. If John is mentioned twice the explanation lies in
the peculiar relationship in which Papias stood to this, his most eminent
teacher. By inquiring of others he had learned some things indirectly from John,
just as he had from the other Apostles referred to. In addition he had received
information concerning the teachings and acts of Jesus directly, without the
intervention of others, from the still living Presbyter John
, as he also had
from Aristion. Thus the teaching of Papias casts absolutely no doubt upon what
the New-Testament writings presuppose and expressly mention concerning the
residence of the Evangelist John in Asia.
III. THE LATER ACCOUNTS OF JOHN
The Christian writers of the second and third centuries testify to us as a
tradition universally recognized and doubted by no one that the Apostle and
Evangelist John lived in Asia Minor in the last decades of the first century and
from Ephesus had guided the Churches of that province. In his Dialogue with
Tryphon
(Chapter 81) St. Justin Martyr refers to John, one of the Apostles of
Christ
as a witness who had lived with us
, that is, at Ephesus. St. Irenæus
speaks in very many places of the Apostle John and his residence in Asia and
expressly declares that he wrote his Gospel at Ephesus (Adv. haer., III, i, 1),
and that he had lived there until the reign of Trajan (loc. cit., II, xxii, 5).
With Eusebius (Hist. eccl., III, xiii, 1) and others we are obliged to place the
Apostle's banishment to Patmos in the reign of the Emperor Domitian (81-96).
Previous to this, according to Tertullian's testimony (De praescript., xxxvi),
John had been thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil before the Porta Latina at
Rome without suffering injury. After Domitian's death the Apostle returned to
Ephesus during the reign of Trajan, and at Ephesus he died about A.D. 100 at a
great age. Tradition reports many beautiful traits of the last years of his life:
that he refused to remain under the same roof with Cerinthus (Irenaeus Ad.
haer.
, III, iii, 4); his touching anxiety about a youth who had become a robber
(Clemens Alex., Quis dives salvetur
, xiii); his constantly repeated words of
exhortation at the end of his life, Little children, love one another
(Jerome,
Comm. in ep. ad. Gal.
, vi, 10). On the other hand the stories told in the
apocryphal Acts of John, which appeared as early as the second century, are
unhistorical invention.
IV. FEASTS OF ST. JOHN
St. John is commemorated on 27 December, which he originally shared with St.
James the Greater. At Rome the feast was reserved to St. John alone at an early
date, though both names are found in the Carthage Calendar, the Hieronymian
Martyrology, and the Gallican liturgical books. The departure
or assumption
of the Apostle is noted in the Menology of Constantinople and the Calendar of
Naples (26 September), which seems to have been regarded as the date of his
death. The feast of St. John before the Latin Gate, supposed to commemorate the
dedication of the church near the Porta Latina, is first mentioned in the
Sacramentary of Adrian I (772-95).
V. ST. JOHN IN CHRISTIAN ART
Early Christian art usually represents St. John with an eagle, symbolizing
the heights to which he rises in the first chapter of his Gospel. The chalice as
symbolic of St. John, which, according to some authorities, was not adopted
until the thirteenth century, is sometimes interpreted with reference to the
Last Supper, again as connected with the legend according to which St. John was
handed a cup of poisoned wine, from which, at his blessing, the poison rose in
the shape of a serpent. Perhaps the most natural explanation is to be found in
the words of Christ to John and James My chalice indeed you shall drink
(Matthew 20:23).
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