Holy Apostle and Evangelist John

The TheologianFeast May 8

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The fisherman of Galilee whom the Lord loved, who reclined on his breast at the Mystical Supper and stood beneath his Cross, and who afterwards wrote the Fourth Gospel, the three catholic epistles, and the Apocalypse, the only apostle to die in peace, having lived to a very great age at Ephesus.

Born: 1st century (Bethsaida of Galilee)
Reposed: c. AD 100 (Ephesus)
See: Ephesus
Feast: May 8 · September 26

John was the son of Zebedee, a fisherman of Bethsaida, and of Salome, who according to tradition was a daughter of Joseph the Betrothed and therefore a kinswoman of the Lord. He and his elder brother James were partners with Simon Peter in the fishing trade on the Sea of Galilee, and were called by the Lord from their nets on the same day Peter was called.

From the first he was reckoned among the Lord's closest disciples. With Peter and James he alone was admitted to the raising of Jairus's daughter, to the Transfiguration on Tabor, and to the agony in Gethsemane. He calls himself in his own Gospel only 'the disciple whom Jesus loved,' and that disciple reclined on the Lord's breast at the Mystical Supper.

He was the only one of the Twelve who did not flee on the night the Lord was taken. He followed to the courtyard of the high priest, and stood at the foot of the Cross, and there received from the dying Lord the charge of his Mother: 'Behold thy mother.' He took her into his own house, and cared for her until her Dormition.

He was among the first at the empty tomb on the morning of the Resurrection, saw the linen clothes lying, and believed. After Pentecost he laboured with Peter at Jerusalem and was reckoned one of the pillars of the Church there.

Holy Holy Apostle and Evangelist John, pray to God for us.

Tradition relates that after the Dormition of the Theotokos he settled at Ephesus, the great Christian metropolis of Asia, and was the spiritual father of all the churches of Asia Minor. Exiled by the emperor Domitian to the island of Patmos, he received there the visions that became the Book of Revelation. Returning to Ephesus under Nerva, he wrote in his very old age the Fourth Gospel, that the Church might know in his words who the Word had been from before the world. He wrote also the three catholic epistles, the last of them perhaps the briefest writing in the New Testament.

He lived to a very great age, the tradition says past a hundred, and was the only one of the Twelve to die in peace. The Fathers add that he laid himself down in a grave he had himself prepared at Ephesus, and when his disciples opened it the next day his body was no longer there. The Church keeps the memory of his Dormition on the twenty-sixth of September and a feast of him with the rest of the Twelve on the thirtieth of June; on the eighth of May, the tradition relates, a fragrant dust rose from his grave and brought healing to all who took it, and that miracle is kept as its own feast.

In his own words

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:1, King James Version
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.
John 1:14, King James Version
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life.
1 John 1:1, King James Version
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God.
1 John 4:7, King James Version
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
1 John 4:8, King James Version

Holy Apostle and Evangelist John

In his own words

His disciples and successors

Books in print