St. John the
Evangelist
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 3:17).
Originally they were fishermen and fished with their father in the Lake of Genesareth Jordan to Galilee
and apparently both John and the others remained for some time with Jesus (cf.
John 12:12, 22; 4:2, 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. 4:18-22; Mark 1:16-20). In the lists of the Apostles John has the second
place (Acts 1:13), the third (Mark 3:17), and the fourth (Mat.10:3; Luke 6:14),
yet always after James with the exception of a few passages (Luke 8:51; 9:28 in
the Greek text; Acts 1:13).
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 5:37), of the
Transfiguration (Mat.17:1), and of the Agony in Gethsemani (Mat.26:37). Only he
and Peter were sent into the city to make the preparation for the Last Supper (Luke
22:8). At the Supper itself his place was next to Christ on Whose breast he
leaned (John 13:23, 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 18:15). 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 19:25-27). After the Resurrection
John with Peter was the first of the disciples to hasten to the grave (John 20:2-10).
When later Christ appeared at the Lake
of Genesareth John Temple (Acts 3:1 sqq.). With Peter he is also
thrown into prison (Acts 4:3).
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 12:1-17).
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 18:27, 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 16:6 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. 2:9). When Paul came again to Jerusalem after the second
and after the third journey (Acts 18:22; 21:17 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 1:1-5; 4:14), 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
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.” 3:39:4). 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. 75:“Ad Theodoram,” 3: 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. 5:33:4). 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. 3:1:1), and that he had lived there until the reign of Trajan (loc.
cit. 2:22:5). With Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 3:13:1) 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. 36), 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.” 3:3:4); 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.” 6:10). On the other hand the
stories told in the apocryphal Acts of John, which appeared as early as the
second century, are unhistorical invention.
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).
Orthodox Church of Pakistan
www.ocpak.com
by: Fr. Cyril Amer
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