Saint John, Apostle and Evangelist – First Reading

Commentary on 1 John 1:1-4

Today, on this feast of St John, Apostle and Evangelist, we begin reading from the First Letter of John and will continue to do so until early January. Today’s reading of the first four verses forms an introduction to the letter.

Already at this early stage in the Church, there were those who could not accept that the Son of God could have taken on a genuinely human body.  In a mistaken zeal for the spiritual, they condemned everything material as evil, and they held that the humanity of Jesus could only be a mirage, an appearance.  To be fully united with God meant to withdraw as much as possible from everything material.

The people who held such views were known as Gnostics and, because they are such a concern of the author of this Letter, we might list some of their main ideas:

• The human body, which is matter, is evil.  It is to be contrasted with God, who is totally spirit and therefore good.
• Salvation is escape from the body, achieved not by faith in Christ, but by special knowledge. The Greek word for knowledge is gnosis, and hence the derivation of their name.
• The Gnostics denied Christ’s true humanity in two ways. First, some said that Christ only seemed to have a human body, a view called Docetism (from the Greek dokeo, meaning ‘to seem’); and second, others said that the divine Christ joined the man Jesus at Baptism and left him before he died—a view called Cerinthianism, after its most prominent spokesman, Cerinthus.  It is this second version that we meet in 1 John 1:1; 2:22; 4:2-3.
• Since the body was considered evil, it was to be treated harshly.  This ascetic form of Gnosticism is the background to part of the letter to the Colossians (2:21-23).
• Paradoxically, this dualism also led to licentious behaviour.  The reasoning was that, since matter—and not the breaking of God’s law (1 Jn 3:4)—was considered evil, breaking his law was of no moral consequence.

The Gnosticism addressed in the New Testament was an earlier form of the heresy, not the intricately developed system of the 2nd and 3rd centuries.  Mention of Gnosticism can be found in John’s letters, Colossians 1 and 2, Timothy, Titus and 2 Peter, perhaps even in 1 Corinthians.

The writings of John are a total rejection of this position.  The Word not only became a human being; John, in his Prologue, says provocatively that the Word was “made flesh”.  He fully entered into our material condition, blessed it and sanctified it.

And in today’s reading too he emphasises contact with a real, bodily Jesus.  Although the Word existed “from the beginning”, what we have heard, we have seen with our own eyes and we have touched with our hands. And, of course, similarly after the Resurrection, Jesus invites the sceptical Thomas to touch and feel him:

Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. (John 20:27)

And it is this physical, truly human, touchable Jesus that the Church proclaims.  Over the ages, there has always been in the Church the tendency to withdraw from the material.  In particular, there have been many concerns about the human body and its sexual functions. And even today, as Christians, we may feel awkward or embarrassed to speak about these things, especially in a religious context.

Everything that God made is good.  And as one medieval mystic liked to say, every created thing is a Word of God.  To those who can see, every created thing, living or inanimate, speaks of God and the Creator.  Few poets have expressed this as well as the English Jesuit, Gerard Manley Hopkins:

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things…The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

This has all been affirmed by the Incarnation, by the infinite Son of God sharing our bodily human nature and all its functions. This Word is life in the sense of being the source of all real living, not just existing.

In John’s Gospel (10:10) we read:

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

This sharing of life is an idea most central to John’s spirituality. Unity among all Christians results from the common life shared by Christ between each Christian and God. It is that fellowship (a lovely word) expressing a close union of the believer with Christ (we think of the vine and the fruit-bearing branches), as well as communion with the Father and with all fellow-Christians.

Today’s passage presents a striking parallel to the prologue of John’s Gospel (1:1-18) but, whereas in the Gospel passage the emphasis is more on Jesus as the pre-existent Word, here it is on the Apostles’ witness to the ‘fleshiness’ and the ‘touchability’ of the Jesus they knew.  In the best sense of the words, Jesus was a ‘real man’.

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Saint John, Apostle and Evangelist – Gospel

Commentary on John 20:2-8

From the Gospel, we know that John was the brother of James and the son of Zebedee.  He and his brother were among the first to be called (together with Peter and Andrew) by Jesus. 

Today’s Gospel reading describes the scene where Peter and the ‘beloved disciple’ rush to the tomb of Jesus after being told by Mary Magdalene that his body is no longer there.  Although the disciple “whom Jesus loved” got there first, he deferred to Peter, who went in first and saw the burial cloths.  One of the cloths—the piece that was wrapped around the face—was rolled up in a separate place.  When the ‘beloved disciple’ went in:

…he saw and believed.

In other words, he understood the significance of the cloth and he knew that his Lord had risen.

Later, the Risen Jesus will say to Thomas:

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe. (John 20:29)

Here the disciple did not see the physical Jesus.  Nevertheless, on the basis of what he did see, he believed.

The question is: what exactly did he see?  What he saw was that the cloth which had covered Jesus’ head was not with the rest of the burial cloths, but rolled up in a separate place.  Why should that trigger his conviction that the Lord had risen? 

The book of Exodus (chap 34) describes how Moses, after coming down from the mountain and conversing with God, was so radiant with light that people were afraid to approach him.  And so, he put a veil to cover his face:

…but whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would take the veil off until he came out, and when he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, the Israelites would see the face of Moses, that the skin of his face was shining, and Moses would put the veil on his face again until he went in to speak with him.
(Exod 34:34-35)

Now some believe that the word ‘veil’ used in John is a Greek translation of the word in Hebrew used about Moses.  In other words, the veil covering the face of the dead Jesus is now no longer needed because he has gone face to face with his Father.  This veil was the humanity of Jesus which enabled us to look at our God.  Jesus now has a new human body—his Church.  And that was what led to the ‘beloved disciple’s’ conviction that his Master had risen to new life.

For some commentators, the ‘beloved disciple’ is not actually John, but represents any person who has totally committed himself or herself to the following of Jesus, anyone who deeply believes and anyone who is passionately fond of Jesus.  At times, as in today’s Gospel, the faith of the disciple “whom Jesus loved” is shown as surpassing that of Peter.  While the disciples we know of had fled after the arrest of Christ, it is the ‘beloved disciple’ who stands with the Mother of Jesus at the foot of the cross.

Nevertheless, John as the author of the fourth Gospel and the three letters attributed to his name, reveals a depth of faith and insight into the meaning of Christ’s life, death and resurrection that borders on the mystical and clearly reveals a faith of extraordinary depth.  It is a faith and insight we can pray to have for ourselves.

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Saint John, Apostle and Evangelist

John was one of two sons of Zebedee, and tradition gives their mother’s name as Salome. From the Gospel, we learn that John, with his father and brother, were fishermen in the Sea of Galilee. He, along with his brother James and of course Peter, belonged to the inner circle of disciples around Jesus. As one would expect, there is no record of the year or place of his birth. John, with Peter and his brother, were privileged witnesses of certain events in the Gospel story.

They were with Jesus when he restored the daughter of Jairus to life (Mark 5:37; Luke 8:51), at the Transfiguration (Matt 17:1; Mark 9:2; Luke 9:28) and also during his Agony in the Garden (Matt 26:37; Mark 14:33). It was John who went with Peter into the city to make the preparation for the final Passover meal (the Last Supper, Luke 22:8). It is possible that John was the other disciple who “who was known to the high priest” and went with Peter as Jesus was brought into the high priest’s house (John 18:15). But this phrase may also refer to the ‘Beloved Disciple’.

John and his brother were called Boanerges or ‘Sons of Thunder’ (Mark 3:17) by Jesus because of their fiery temperament, revealed when they suggested Jesus should call down fire from heaven on some Samaritans who would not provide hospitality to Jesus and his disciples as they were passing through the territory (Luke 9:54).

John and James also aroused the ire of their fellow apostles by asking Jesus privately to grant them the privilege to sit on Jesus’ right and left in his Kingdom—in other words, having the places of greatest honour. And, when asked would they be able to go through an experience similar to that Jesus was about to face in his Passion, they boldly said they could. Jesus told them they were right, but it would only happen after they had fully absorbed the way and thinking of Jesus. For instance, they had to understand when he told them that true greatness was not in having places of honour, but rather in outdoing everyone in loving service to others.

The name John is traditionally linked with New Testament writing. Three different authors with the name John have been identified. First, there is the author of the Gospel according to John and the First Letter of John, commonly referred to as John the Evangelist and also identified with John the Apostle. The authorship of books in ancient times was quite loose, and the name attached to a book may not indicate that that person actually wrote it, although he may have inspired it in some way. However, the same person does seem to have authored these two books.

Second, both the Second and Third Letter of John have the same author, who calls himself the Presbyter or Elder and is sometimes identified with a person known as John the Presbyter.

And, third, the author of the Book of Revelation or the Apocalypse (the Greek word for ‘revelation’) calls himself John, but the book’s whole way of thinking, style and content make it very unlikely he was the one who wrote the Gospel. He says that, because of his Christian faith, he had been exiled to the island of Patmos, but he does not claim to be John the Apostle, although some early writers so identified him.

The Gospel according to John clearly emphasises the divine nature of Jesus, as both Light and Life and the Word of God incarnated into the human family. This Gospel also puts love (Greek, agape) as the vital bond between Father and Son, and between Christ and his disciples, and also the bond between disciples. Traditionally, John the Apostle wrote his Gospel towards the end of his life, at the end of the first century.

Another tradition identifies John the Apostle with the ‘Beloved Disciple’ in the Gospel of John, however, this is questionable. The Beloved Disciple seems rather to represent the perfect or model disciple, one who has none of the defects and faults of the Twelve, all who reveal clear weaknesses, including John.

After the Resurrection, John was prominent in the early Church. Not only would he have been among the early witnesses of the Risen Lord, but also would have been involved in the early preaching. Chapter 3 of the Acts of the Apostles speaks of Peter and John going into the Temple to pray at 9 o’clock in the morning. At the Temple gate they saw a man, “lame from birth” who was brought there every day. When he begged money from the two Apostles, they both fixed their gaze on the man and asked him to look at them. Then Peter said to him:

I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.
(Acts 3:6)

Then Peter pulled the man to his feet. He went into the Temple with them, walking and jumping about, and praising God. As the crowds gathered in wonder, this gave Peter the opportunity to preach to them about Jesus Christ. While they were still addressing the crowd, the Temple guard and some Sadducees came and arrested the two Apostles and put them in jail for the night. The following day, they were brought before the Sanhedrin and again, Peter took the opportunity to speak about Christ and why they believed in him. Eventually, divided among themselves, their judges sent them away with a warning never to speak about Jesus again.

The last appearance of John the Apostle in the New Testament is in chapter 8 of Acts. When the Apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had “accepted the word of God”, Peter and John were sent to evangelise them. The people there had “only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus”, but the Spirit had not yet come down on them. The two Apostles then laid their hands on the people and they received the Spirit.

Now after Peter and John had testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they returned to Jerusalem, proclaiming the good news to many villages of the Samaritans. (Acts 8:25)

It is not certain how long John, with the other Apostles, would have stayed in Jerusalem. However, 12 years later, during the persecution of Herod Agrippa I, they would have scattered to other parts of the Empire. John may have gone to Asia Minor. It seems there was already a Christian community in Ephesus before Paul first went there, and John has always been linked with that city. He would probably have returned to Jerusalem for the Council held in 51 AD.

In his letter to the Galatians, Paul refers to John, together with Peter and James, as “the acknowledged pillars”, in other words, the most prominent figures in the Jerusalem community (see Gal 2:9).

There is a long-standing tradition that John the Apostle settled in Ephesus. Various legends are told of him there by people like Clement of Alexandria. It was said he feared that the baths at which the heretic Cerinthus was bathing would collapse because he was in them. It was also said that he repeated his exhortation to his followers to love one another to the point of tedium. He emphasised it because “it is the word of the Lord and, if you keep it, that is enough”. His message is similar to St. Augustine’s later saying: “Love and do what you like.”

An old tradition holds that John was banished by the Roman authorities to the Greek island of Patmos. According to Tertullian, John was banished after being plunged into boiling oil in Rome and suffering nothing from it. It is said that the entire coliseum was converted to Christianity upon witnessing this miracle.

The vestments for John’s feast are white, indicating he is not regarded as a martyr. Artistic representations of John reflect other legends. He is shown holding a cup with a viper in it, calling to mind a challenge from the high priest of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus to drink a poisoned cup. In his role as evangelist, his emblem is an eagle.

John is the patron of theologians, writers, and all who work at the production of books. The dedication of the church of St John before the Latin Gate on 6 May commemorates his escape from being put into a cauldron of boiling oil under the Emperor Domitian.

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