JOHN, APOSTLE, ST.

The brothers James the Greater [see james (son of zebedee), st.] and John were sons of Zebedee (Mt 4.21). This evidence points to the possibility that their mother was Salome (cf. Mt 27.56 with Mk 15.40). Further speculation flows from this identification. A comparison of the last two passages (Mt 26.56 and Mk 15.40) with Jn 19.25 indicates that the mother of the brothers may have been the sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and that, therefore, the brothers may have been cousins of Jesus. Zebedee and his sons were fishermen, and in Lk 5.10 it is said that the brothers were partners of Simon Peter. The common order of the names, James and John, may indicate that John was the younger. Acts 4.13 characterizes John as uneducated. Such evidence, however weak, warns against crediting too much literary and theological creativity to John, the son of Zebedee.

If the unnamed disciple of Jn 1.35–40 was John, then he was once a disciple of John the Baptist and first met Jesus in the Jordan Valley. There is a reasonable possibility that the unnamed disciple of 1.35–40 should be identified with the Beloved Disciple of the Fourth Gospel. The step from that identification to the further identification of the Beloved Disciple with John, the Son of Zebedee, is at best speculative, and based upon later patristic and ecclesial traditions. John, James, Peter, and Andrew were the first four disciples called in Galilee (Mk 1.16–20), and these four names appear first in all lists of the twelve. John, along with Peter and James, was one of the three disciples most closely associated with Jesus, witnessing the raising of Jairus's daughter (Mk 5.37), the Transfiguration (Mk 9.2), and the agony in the garden (Mk 14.33). Too much should not be made of these associations, however. Mark has deliberately established an inner group among "the Twelve, " and he associated this group with important moments of revelation in the Gospel of Mark. John and James were ready to call down fire from heaven against the Samaritan towns that did not accept Jesus (Lk 9.54). This fiery disposition (see also Mk 9.38–39) may account for the name given to them by Jesus, Boanerges or "sons of thunder" (Mk 3.17). Their request for the highest rank in the kingdom (Mk 10.35–41) was met by Jesus with a demand for willingness to suffer martyrdom. If John is to be identified with the beloved disciple of the Fourth Gospel, further information concerning him is available from that source; see john, gospel according to st.

According to Lk 22.8, Peter and John were the two sent to prepare the Last Supper; this association of Peter and John is found also in Acts, e.g., 1.13. Peter and John encountered the lame beggar at the Temple and were subsequently arrested and released (Acts ch. 3–4) ; Peter and John went to Samaria to communicate the Holy Spirit (8.14–25) ; when Paul visited Jerusalem for the second time after his conversion, he found John along with Peter and James (the brother of the Lord) as the three principal figures in the Jerusalem church (Gal 2.9). A final Biblical reference to John is in Rv 1.9 if, as is customary (Justin, Dial. 81), the visionary John is identified with the son of Zebedee; this John was in adverse circumstances at Patmos, off the coast of Asia Minor. The identification of John, the Son of Zebedee with the John of the Apocalypse, however, is most unlikely.

For these later years of John's life we are dependent on inferences about the authorship of the Johannine writings and on patristic tradition. A very plausible report is that of Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. 2.22.5), a tradition he had from Polycarp of Smyrna who knew John: John lived at Ephesus in Asia Minor until the time of Trajan. The common opinion, drawn from Irenaeus and other 2d-century witnesses, is that on Patmos John wrote the Apocalypse (perhaps late in the reign of Domitian, 81–96) and at Ephesus, the Epistles and the Gospel (perhaps early in the reign of Trajan, 98–117). Modern literary criticism, however, would require at least the positing of several editings and the use of secretaries to preserve authorship by John and yet account for the diversities in style and thought of the five Johannine writings.

The more likely scenario is that an ex-disciple of John the Baptist was the foundational figure and inspiration of a so-called "Johannine Community." He is the "author" of the Fourth Gospel (see Jn 1.35–40; 21:24). Other "Johannine Communities" developed from the original group, and divisions among them eventually led to the writing of the Johannine Epistles. They were not written by the Beloved Disciple, who had died by this time (see Jn 21.20–23). But they continued the same theological tradition as they faced new difficulties, and as the originally unified community began to divide (see 1 Jn 2.19). Revelation comes from another figure, also called "John" (a common name), identified as "the presbyter" (see Rv 1.1, 4, 9; 21.2; 22.8).

An ancient cult of John at Ephesus is attested to by the ruins of an impressive basilica.

Contrary to Irenaeus, there is a tradition that John died an early death; it has no real value. Tertullian (Praescrip. Haer. 36) says that John was brought from Ephesus to Rome and cast into a cauldron of boiling oil before the Latin Gate, but was miraculously preserved. This tradition is seemingly not historical, and the feast (May 6) has been omitted from the general calendar. Among stories told of John may be made of his unwillingness to associate with the heretic Cerinthus in the public baths (Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 3.3.4), his raising a dead man to life (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 5.18.14), his reclaiming a robber for Christ (Clement of Alexandria, What Rich Man 42), and his repeating of the instruction: "Little children, love one another" (Jerome, On Gal. 6.10).

Of Docetic or Gnostic origins are several Acts of John (by Leucius, by Prochorus) and an Apocryphon of John; the former stresses the virginity of John. A legend of the assumption of John developed in Encratite circles.

Of the four Evangelistic figures based on Ez 1.10 and Rv 4.7, John is depicted as an eagle because of the theological heights of the Prologue. The late use of the chalice in Johannine iconography may reflect Mt 20.23 ("You will drink my cup"), combined with the legend that when John was given a poisoned cup, the poison came out in the form of a serpent. There is a custom in Europe of a "cup of charity" drunk in honor of John. The practice of celebrating John's feast (Dec. 27) immediately after that of Stephen is ancient, originating before the 5th century. Sometimes John and James were honored together; but in this feast, perhaps through confusion, the James who was honored was the brother of the Lord, and not the brother of John.

The data provided above lists all the possible appearances of John, the Son of Zebedee, in the New Testament, and the major subsequent reflection upon that data. Several family and apostolic links have been suggested in this listing. None of them are certain, and most are based upon a tendency to render more certain data that remains outside our scientific control. John, the Son of Zebedee, was certainly one of the first disciples of Jesus, the brother of James (see Mk 3.17). He was also one of "the Twelve, " a historical group of foundational disciples of Jesus whom Jesus gathered around himself during his public ministry. The long association of the name of John the Son of Zebedee with the Gospel of John, this link was first made late in the second century by Ireneus. He was anxious to save the Fourth Gospel from becoming the Gospel of the Gnostics. The earliest use of the Fourth Gospel is found in Gnostic writings. His apostolic ministry and his death in either Jerusalem or (more likely) Ephesus, remain in the realms of speculation. We only have the witness of later interested parties for such detail.

Bibliography: In addition to the bibliography provided in the entry under the Gospel according to St. John, see m.-e. boismard, Le Martyre de Jean l'Apôtre (Paris 1996). r. e. brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple (New York 1979). j. h. charlesworth, The Beloved Disciple. Whose Witness Validates the Gospel of John? (Valley Forge 1995). r. a. culpepper, John, the Son of Zebedee: The Life of a Legend (Columbia 1994). j. p. meier, "The Circle of the Twelve: Did It Exist During Jesus' Public Ministry?" Journal of Biblical Literature 116 (1997) 635–672.

[r. e. brown/

f. j. moloney]