Commontide
Red-Letter Day
Apostle & Evangelist
December 27 · d. 100
also known as John the Apostle, St. John, John the Divine, The Beloved Disciple
John, called the Beloved Disciple, leaned on the Lord's breast at the Last Supper and stood beneath the cross to receive his mother into his keeping. The church remembers him as the witness behind the Fourth Gospel, the Johannine letters, and the Apocalypse. His feast falls December 27, in the octave of the Lord's nativity.
He came late, after the other Gospels were already in circulation, and he came differently. Where Matthew, Mark, and Luke had told the story of Jesus from the days of his ministry, John began before the foundation of the world. John opens his Gospel with the eternal Word made man: "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."
The man behind that sentence is the apostle the Fourth Gospel itself calls only the disciple whom Jesus loved. He is the one who reclined next to the Lord at the supper, who alone among the Twelve stood at the foot of the cross, who ran with Peter to the empty tomb on the third day and outran him, who recognized the risen Lord on the lake of Tiberias before Peter did. To this disciple, from the cross, the Lord gave his own mother into keeping, and from that hour, the Gospel says, the disciple took her unto his own home.
The church remembered him afterward at Ephesus. There, in the great city of Asia Minor where Paul had once preached for two years in the school of Tyrannus, John lived into great old age, the last of the apostles, governing the churches of the province and forming the disciples who would carry the apostolic memory into the second century: Polycarp of Smyrna, who as a boy sat at John's feet and as an old bishop went to the fire for the faith.
He suffered for the gospel without dying for it. The tradition remembered that in the persecution of Domitian, near the end of the first century, John was condemned and exiled to the rocky island of Patmos in the Aegean, and there, on a Lord's Day, he was in the Spirit and saw the heavens opened. After Domitian's death he returned to Ephesus, where, the church remembers, he continued to teach the new commandment he had received from the Lord: that the disciples love one another. The fathers preserved a story that in his last years, when he was too old to walk to the assembly and had to be carried in, he would say nothing else but this, over and over: little children, love one another. When they asked him why always the same word, he said: because it is the Lord's commandment, and if this alone is done, it is enough.
The Anglican calendar holds John the apostle as the witness behind the Fourth Gospel, the three Epistles of John, and the Revelation. Patristic attribution is unanimous from the late second century onward. As Irenaeus writes in Against Heresies 3.1.1, in Roberts's translation in the Ante-Nicene Fathers: "Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia." Irenaeus had his information from Polycarp of Smyrna, who as a boy had known John; that puts this notice two generations from the apostle. The other principal patristic witnesses, all preserved or quoted in Eusebius of Caesarea's early-fourth-century Ecclesiastical History, are Papias of Hierapolis (c. 130, EH 3.39), Clement of Alexandria (EH 3.23), and Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus (c. 190, EH 5.24), who wrote to Rome in the Quartodeciman controversy and located John's tomb in his own city.
Of John's life after the resurrection the New Testament itself says little. The Acts of the Apostles shows him with Peter at the Beautiful Gate of the temple and before the Sanhedrin in the early Jerusalem chapters; Paul names him at Galatians 2:9 as one of the three pillars of the Jerusalem church. The rest is the memory of the church of Asia, transmitted through Polycarp, Polycrates, Papias, and Clement of Alexandria, and gathered up by Eusebius. In McGiffert's translation in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Eusebius records of the years after Domitian's death: "At that time the apostle and evangelist John, the one whom Jesus loved, was still living in Asia, and governing the churches of that region, having returned after the death of Domitian from his exile on the island." The reign of Domitian ended in 96; the tradition therefore places John's death at Ephesus in great old age near the end of the first century or just into the second.
The believing tradition holds the apostle John as the witness behind the Fourth Gospel. Modern critical scholarship treats the question of whose hand wrote the printed Greek text separately from the question of whose apostolic memory stands behind the work. Papias's own words, preserved by Eusebius at EH 3.39, name John twice, once among the apostles whose teaching he inquired after, and then a second time as 'the presbyter John' still living in his own day; this double notice is the patristic seed of both the medieval 'two Johns at Ephesus' tradition and of much modern Johannine scholarship. Richard Bauckham reads the canonical Gospel as the apostolic testimony of the Beloved Disciple himself; Martin Hengel reads it as the work of a dominant 'elder John' standing within a Johannine school anchored in the apostle's witness. The question of the hand on the page is held with appropriate care.
The Anglican calendar (BCP 2019) keeps December 27 as a red-letter feast in the octave of the Lord's nativity; the liturgical color is white, as for an apostle who was not martyred. By ancient Western reckoning John stands with Stephen on the 26th and the Holy Innocents on the 28th as the comites Christi, the companions of Christ at his coming: martyr in will though not in deed.
His evangelist symbol is the eagle, the bird that alone can look full into the sun, for the Gospel that begins not on earth but in the eternal Word. He is patron of theologians, writers, editors, and publishers, and of friendship. The Cave of the Apocalypse on Patmos remains a place of pilgrimage; the ruins of Justinian's basilica over the traditional tomb at Ephesus stand on Ayasuluk Hill in Selçuk.
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The Gospel According to John(Koine Greek, late first century)
Patristic attribution unanimous from Irenaeus (c. 180) onward, anchored in the memory of the Asian churches that John taught into great old age. Modern critical scholarship treats the question of the hand on the page as separate from the question of the apostolic witness behind it; the believing tradition holds John the Beloved Disciple as the witness, and the Anglican calendar keeps that tradition.
Other translations: ESV (Crossway)
Public domain: KJV at Wikisource
The First, Second, and Third Epistles of John(Koine Greek, late first century)
1 John was universally received from the earliest period; 2 and 3 John were among the antilegomena Eusebius lists at EH 3.25 but were received into the canon. All three are grouped with the Fourth Gospel as products of a Johannine circle whose memory the church has anchored to the apostle.
Public domain: 1 John (KJV) at Wikisource, 2 John (KJV) at Wikisource, 3 John (KJV) at Wikisource
The Revelation of John (Apocalypse)(Koine Greek, c. 95 CE)
Justin Martyr (Dialogue 81) and Irenaeus (AH 5.30.3) explicitly attribute the Apocalypse to the apostle John, and Western tradition consistently named him. Dionysius of Alexandria's stylistic case (preserved at Eusebius EH 7.25) for a different John of Patmos made Eastern reception cautious for a time. The Anglican calendar holds the traditional attribution while the modern critical question remains open.
Public domain: Revelation (KJV) at Wikisource
Against Heresies 3.1.1 (Irenaeus on the Fourth Gospel)(Greek (preserved in Latin), c. 180)
The earliest unambiguous patristic notice that John, the disciple who leaned on the Lord's breast, published a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus. Irenaeus had his information from Polycarp of Smyrna, who as a boy had known John; this puts the notice two generations from the apostle and gives it unusual weight.
Public domain: AH 3.1.1 at New Advent
Ecclesiastical History 3.18, 3.23, 3.39, 5.24 (Eusebius on John at Ephesus)(Greek, c. 325)
Eusebius is the great gathering basin for the second- and third-century memory of John at Ephesus: the Domitianic exile to Patmos and return (3.18, 3.23), Papias's double notice of 'John' and 'the elder John' (3.39), and Polycrates of Ephesus locating the apostle's tomb in his own city (5.24). The four chapters together are the indispensable patristic primer for John's life after the resurrection.
Public domain: EH 3.18 at CCEL, EH 3.23 at CCEL, EH 3.39 at CCEL, EH 5.24 (Polycrates) at New Advent
John for Everyone (2 volumes)(English, 2004)
Recommended: N. T. Wright, John for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1-10 and Part 2: Chapters 11-21 (Westminster John Knox Press, 2004)
The lay-accessible entry point. Wright walks the reader through the Fourth Gospel chapter by chapter in short, prayable sections, taking John's high theology seriously while keeping it in a register a thoughtful parishioner can pray with. Part 2 (chs 11-21) continues the same treatment through the Passion, resurrection, and the lakeside breakfast (ASIN 0664227902). The book to put first in a reader's hand who wants to read John with company.
The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple: Narrative, History, and Theology in the Gospel of John(English, 2007)
Recommended: Baker Academic (2007)
The deeper scholarly-believing pick for the reader who has finished Wright and wants the contemporary academic case for reading the Fourth Gospel as the eyewitness testimony its own narrator claims it to be. Bauckham is patient, technical, and reverent, written by one of the most respected New Testament historians of his generation.
Further reading. Richard Bauckham, The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple (Baker Academic, 2007), is the most sustained recent academic case for reading the Fourth Gospel as the eyewitness testimony its own narrator claims it to be; written by one of the most respected New Testament historians of his generation, and the best contemporary entry for a reader who wants to take the apostolic Johannine witness seriously. Martin Hengel, The Johannine Question (SCM Press / Trinity Press International, 1989), is the decisive late-twentieth-century study of the Johannine corpus as the work of a single dominant teacher at Ephesus standing within an apostolic school; small, careful, reverent in tone, and the academic watershed for the question. Read either or both alongside the Fourth Gospel itself.
Online resources. The primary patristic notices for John's life after the resurrection are gathered in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, books 3 and 5, in McGiffert's translation at CCEL; Irenaeus's witness is in Against Heresies 3.1.1, in Roberts's translation at New Advent.
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John is expounded the grace of God, or he in whom grace is, or to whom it is given of our Lord, and therefore been understood four privileges that be in the blessed S. John. The first was the noble love of Jesu Christ, for he loved him more than the other and showed to him of greater love, and therefore he is said the grace of God, also as gracious God. And to him he was more gracious than to Peter, for he loved him much, but he is love of courage and of sign, and this that is of signs is double. That one is for to show familiarity and that other is in giving benefices. As to the first he loved that one and the other equally, as to the second he loved more John, and as to the third, he loved more Peter. The second was virginity when he was chosen virgin of God, and therefore it is said in what is that grace, for grace of virginity is in a virgin, and when he would marry he was called of God. The third is the revelation of the secrets of our Lord, therefore it is said to whom grace is given, for to him was given to know many secrets and profound, as of the divinity of the Son of God, and of the end of the world. The fourth is the recommendation of the mother of God, which gift of grace was given of our Lord, for this gift was given to him when the mother was given to him into keeping. And Miletus, Bishop of Liege, wrote his life, the which Isidore abridged and set it in the book of nativities of the life and the death of holy fathers.
S. John the apostle and evangelist was son of Zebedee, which had married the third sister of our Lady to wife, and that was brother to S. James of Galicia. This said John signifies as much as the grace of God, and well might he have such a name, for he had of our Lord four graces above the other apostles. The first is that he was beloved of our Lord. The second was, that our Lord kept to him his virginity like as S. Jerome says, for he was at his wedding, and he abode a clean virgin. The third is that our Lord made him to have much great revelation and knowledge of his divinity, and of the finishing of the world, like as it appears in the beginnings of his evangel, and in the Apocalypse. The fourth grace is that our Lord committed to him in especial the keeping of his sweet mother. He was, after the ascension of our Lord, in Jerusalem with the apostles and others, and after that they were, by the ordinance of the Holy Ghost, confirmed in the christian faith by the universal world, S. John came into Greece where he conversed and converted much people and founded many churches in the christian faith as well by miracles as by doctrine.
In this time Domitian was Emperor of Rome, which made right great persecutions unto christian men, and did do take S. John, and did him to be brought to Rome and made him to be cast into a vat or a ton full of hot oil in the presence of the senators, of which he issued out, by the help of God, more pure and more fair, without feeling of any more heat or chauffing, than he entered in. After this that emperor saw that he ceased not to preach the christian faith, he sent him into exile unto an isle called Patmos. There was S. John alone, and was visited of angels and governed; there wrote he by the revelation of our Lord the Apocalypse, which contained the secrets of holy church and of the world to come.
In this same year was Domitian the emperor, for his evils, put to death, and all that he had done was revoked by the senators and defeated, and thus was S. John brought again from his exile with great honour into Ephesus; and all the people of Ephesus came against him singing and saying: Blessed be he that comes in the name of our Lord. In that way he raised a woman which was named Drusiana, which had much loved S. John and well kept his commandments. And her friends brought her tofore S. John all weeping and saving to him: Lo! here is Drusiana which much loved you and did your commandments, and is dead, and desired nothing so much as your return, and that she might see you tofore her death. Now you are come hither and she may not see you. S. John had great pity on her that was dead, and of the people that wept for her, and commanded that they should set down the bier, and unbind and take away the clothes from her. And when they had so done he said, hearing all, with a loud voice, Drusiana, my Lord God Jesu Christ arises you; Drusiana arise, and go into your house, and make ready for me some refection. Anon she arose and went in to her house for to do the commandment of S. John, and the people made three hours long a great noise and cry, saying there is but one God, and that is he whom S. John preaches.
It happed on another day that Crato the philosopher made a great assembly of people in the midst of the city, for to show to them how they ought to despise the world. And he had ordained two young men brethren which were much rich, and had made them to sell their patrimony and therewith to buy precious stones, the which these two young men brake in the presence of the people, for to show how these precious and great riches of the world be soon destroyed. That same time S. John passed by, and said to Crato the philosopher: This manner for to despise the world that you show is vain and foolish demonstrance, for it seeks to have the praising of the world, and God reproves it. My good master Jesu Christ said to a man that demanded of him how he might come to everlasting life, that he should go and sell his goods and give it, and great dread to lose that which he has so dear and with great pain gotten Sixthly, avaunting and praising, for the riches give occasion to be vain glorious and to praise and glorify himself. And by this it appears that presently is lost the weal of humility, without which the grace of God may not be had, and thus is gotten, for the world to come, pain and torment by over-great pride. Scripture then, nature, creature, fortune, business and care, avaunting and praising, ought to make us withdraw for to love riches. S. John approved to these two men his doctrine, with his miracles, to be true. And you in the name of him did miracles tofore that you were sorry and repented you of that you had given your riches to poor people. Now is that grace from you departed and you become meschant and wretches, which were in the faith strong and mighty. And tofore, the evil spirits had fear and dread of you, and by your commandment they issued out of bodies human, now have you fear and dread of them and be become their servants. For whoso loves the riches of this world, he is servant unto a devil named Mammon, and is bond and serf in keeping the riches in which he sets his affiance. And hereof says the Holy Ghost by the prophet David: In imagine pertransit homo, etc.: Vainly is the man distroubled which assembles treasure in this world, and knows not for whom it is, for when he shall die he shall bear nothing with him, and he wots not who shall dispend it, for naked we came upon the earth and all naked shall we re-enter into it. And to a meschant man it suffices not when he has enough, but he is busy day and night to get more without rest. For the riches make him fearful to lose that he has gotten, and brings to him many businesses and evil rest in making worldly delights. And he, dispurveyed, death comes which takes all from him, and bears nothing with him save his proper sins. When S. John had said all this there was brought tofore him a young man dead, which only had been in marriage thirty days. And his mother and friends wept sore, which tofore S. John kneeled down on their knees, praying him that he would raise him to life. S. John had great pity, and when he had long wept he bade to loose and unbind the body and said: O Satheus, which were blinded with fleshly love, soon you have lost your soul, and because you knew not your maker Jesu Christ, you are fallen ignorantly into the leash of the right evil fiends, wherefore I weep and pray that you may be releved from death to life, and show you to these twain, Actius and Eugenius, what great glory they have lost and what pain they have deserved. Anon Satheus releved him in yielding thankings to S. John, and blamed much the two disciples in saying: I saw your two angels weep and the devils demene joy of your perdition, also I saw the realm of heaven made ready for you and full of all delights, and you have follily gotten for you the place of hell, dark and tenebrous, full of dragons and of all pains, and therefore it behoves you to pray to the apostle of God that he remise and bring you again to your salvation, like as he has revived me goodly. And among all other pains, this Satheus recites these that be contained in two verses following:
Vermes et umbrae, flagellum, frigus et ignis, Dæmonis aspectus, scelerum confusio, luctus.
that is to say: worms, darkness, scourges, cold, heat, sight of devil, confusion of sins, and wailing. Anon then these two men by right great repentance prayed S. John that he would pray for them, to whom S. John answered that they should do penance thirty days long, and pray to God that the rods of gold and the precious stones might return to their first proper natures. After these thirty days they came to S. John and said to him: Fair father, you have always preached misericord and mercy, and commanded that one should pardon another his trespass, we be contrite and repentant of our sins and weep with our eyes for this evil worldly covetise, the which we have by them received, and therefore we pray you that you have mercy on us. And S. John answered: Our Lord God when he made mention of the sinner he said, I will not the death of the sinner, but that he be converted and live, for great joy is in Heaven of a sinner repentant. And therefore know you that he has received your repentance, go you forth and bear the rods and stones thither where you took them, for they be returned to their first nature. Thus received they the grace that they had lost, so that after they did great miracles in the name of our Lord Jesu Christ.
And then after this when the blessed apostle S. John had preached through all Asia, and sown the word of Christ, they that worshipped idols moved the people against S. John, and came and drove him into the temple of Diana for to constrain him to do sacrifice unto that idol. To whom S. John said: Sith you believe that your goddess Diana has so great power, call you upon her and require her by her power she subvert and overthrow the Church of Christ, and if she so do, I shall do sacrifice to her, and if she do it not, then let me pray unto my God Jesu Christ that he overthrow her temple, and if he so do then believe you in him. To this sentence the most part of the people consented, and so they p for I shall yield account for you to Jesu Christ, and truly I shall gladly die for you like as Jesu Christ died for us. Turn again my son, turn again, Jesu Christ has sent me to you. And when he heard him thus speak he abode with a heavy cheer and wept, repenting him bitterly, and fell down to the feet of the apostle, and for penance kissed his hand. And the apostle fasted and prayed to God for him, and gat for him remission of his sins and forgiveness, and he lived so virtuously after, that S. John ordained him to be a bishop.
Also it is read in the same history that S. John on a time entered into a bath for to wash him, and there he found Cerinthus an heretic, whom as soon as he saw he eschewed, and went out of it saying: Let us flee and go hence lest the bath fall upon us in which Cerinthus the enemy of truth washes him, and as soon as he was out the bath fell down.
Cassiodorus says that a man had given to S. John a partridge living, and he held it in his hand stroking and playing with it otherwhile for his recreation. And on a time a young man passed by with his fellowship and saw him play with his bird, which said to his fellows, laughing: See how the yonder old man plays with a bird like a child. Which S. John knew anon, by the Holy Ghost, what he had said, and called the young man to him and demanded him what he held in his hand, and he said a bow. What do you withal? said S. John. And the young man said: We shoot birds and beasts therewith, to whom the apostle demanded how and in what manner. Then the young man bent his bow and held it in his hand bent, and when the apostle said no more to him he unbent his bow again. Then said the apostle to him: Why have you unbent your bow? And he said: Because if it should be long bent it should be the weaker for to shoot with it. Then said the apostle, So son, it fares by mankind and by frailty in contemplation, if it should alway be bent it should be too weak, and therefor otherwhile it is expedient to have recreation. The eagle is the bird that flies highest, and most clearly beholds the sun, and yet by necessity of nature him behoves to descend low, right so when mankind withdraws him a little from contemplation, he after puts himself higher by a renewed strength, and he burns then more fervently in heavenly things.
S. John wrote his gospels after the other Evangelists, the year after the ascension of our Lord sixty-six, after this that the venerable Bede says. And when he was required and prayed of the bishops of the country of Ephesus to write them, S. John prayed also to them, that they should fast and pray in their dioceses three days for him to the end that he might truly write them. S. Jerome says of this glorious apostle S. John, that, when he was so old, so feeble and so unmighty that his disciples sustained and bare him in going to church, and as of times he rested, he said to his disciples: Fair children, love you together, and each of you love other. And then his disciples demanded why and wherefore he said to them so oft such words. He answered to them and said: Our Lord had so commanded, and whosomever accomplished well this commandment it should suffice him for to be saved. And finally after that he had founded many churches and had ordained bishops and priests in them, and confirmed them by his predication in the christian faith, the year sixty-eight after the resurrection of Jesu Christ, for he was thirty-one years old when our Lord was crucified, and lived after sixty-eight years, and thus was all his age ninety-nine years. Then came our Lord with his disciples to him and said: Come my friend to me, for it is time that you come, eat and be fed at my table with your brethren. Then S. John arose up and said to our Lord Jesu Christ. that he had desired it long time, and began to go. Then said our Lord to him: On Sunday next coming you shall come to me. That Sunday the people came all to the church, which was founded in his name and consecrate on that one side of Ephesus, and from midnight forth he ceased not to preach to the people that they should establish them and be stedfast in the christian faith and obeissant to the commandments of God. And after this he said the mass, and houseled and communed the people: and after that the mass was finished he bade and did do make a pit or a sepulture tofore the altar; and after that he had taken his leave and commended the people to God, he descended down into the pit or sepulture tofore the altar, and held up his hands to heaven and said: Sweet Lord Jesu Christ, I yield me unto your desire, and thank you that you have vouchsafed to call me to you, if it please you, receive me for to be with my brethren, with whom you have summoned me, open to me the gate of the life permanable, and lead me to the feast of your well and best dressed meats. You are Christ the son of the living God, which by the commandment of the father have saved the world, to you I render and yield grace and thankings, world without end, you know well that I have desired you with all my heart. After that he had made his prayer much amorously and piteously, anon came upon him great clearness and light, and so great brightness that none might see him, and when this light and brightness was gone and departed, there was nothing found in the pit or grave but manna, which came springing from under upward, like as sand in a fountain or springing well, where much people have been delivered of many diseases and sicknesses by the merits and prayers of this glorious saint. Some say and affirm that he died without pain of death, and that he was in that clearness borne into heaven body and soul, whereof God knows the certainty. And we, that be yet here beneath in this misery, ought to pray devoutly to him that he would impetre and get to us the grace of our Lord which is blessed in secula seculorum. Amen.
There was a king, a holy confessor and virgin, named S. Edward, which had a special devotion unto S. John Evangelist, and it happed that this holy king was at the hallowing of a church dedicate in the honour of God and of this holy apostle; and it was that S. John in likeness of a pilgrim came to this king and demanded his alms in the name of S. John, and the king not having his almoner by him, ne his chamberlain, of whom he might have somewhat to give him, took his ring which he bare on his finger and gave it to the pilgrim. After these many days, it happened two pilgrims of England for to be in the Holy Land, and S. John appeared to them and bade them to bear this ring to their king and to greet him well in his name, and to tell him that he gave it to S. John in likeness of a pilgrim, and that he should make him ready to depart out of this world, for he should not long abide here but come into everlasting bliss, and so vanished from them. And anon as he was gone they had great lust to sleep, and laid them down and slept, and this was in the Holy Land, and when they awoke they looked about them and knew not where they were. And they saw flocks of sheep and shepherds keeping them, to whom they went to know the way, and to demand where they were, and when they asked them they spake English and said that they were in England, in Kent on Barham Down. And then History they thanked God and S. John for their good speed, and came to this holy king S. Edward on Christmas day, and delivered to him the ring and did their errand, whereof the king was abashed, and thanked God and the holy saint that he had warning for to depart. And on the vigil of the Epiphany next after he died and departed holily out of this world, and is buried in the Abbey of Westminster by London where is yet to this day the same ring.
Isidore, in the book of the life and death of holy saints and fathers, says this: S. John the Evangelist transformed and turned rods of trees into fine gold, the stones and gravel of the sea into precious gems and ouches, the small broken pieces of gems he reformed into their first nature, he raised a widow from death, and brought again the soul a young man into his body, he drank venom without hurt or peril, and them that had been dead by the same he recovered into the state of life.
British (Received Pronunciation): Polycarp /ˈpɒlɪkɑːrp/; comites Christi /ˈkɒmɪtiːz ˈkrɪsti/
Exodus 33:18–23Psalm 92:1–4(5–10)11–141 John 1John 21:9–25 or John 1:1–18
Shed upon your Church, O Lord, the brightness of your light; that we, being illumined by the teaching of your apostle and evangelist John, may so walk in the light of your truth, that at length we may attain to the fullness of eternal life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.