John was the brother of James the Greater. His father was Zebedee the fisherman and his mother Mary Salome, who was the sister, on her mother’s side, of the glorious Virgin. John was an evangelist, apostle, and prophet.
He was a prophet in the book of the Apocalypse, in which he describes the future state of the Church, but so obscurely that no one can be found who explains it with certainty according to the letter; rather, one conjectures.
He was an apostle, one of the Twelve appointed by Christ. In his three epistles he commends brotherly love more frequently than anyone else. As an evangelist he was fourth in the order of writing the Gospels and is signified by the eagle because of the loftiness of the matter of his Gospel.
[Running head: Chapter Six, Folio 192.]
Hence Christ called him and James “sons of thunder,” according to Mark. For, as Origen says, John thundered so loftily at the beginning of his Gospel that if he had thundered any higher the whole world could not have comprehended him.
Peter Damian says in a sermon: “This is the one whom our Savior made like an instrument for disclosing the essence of his divinity. Because he had for a time kept him suppressed by dispensation, he left him as his vicar.”
The name John is interpreted “in whom there is grace,” which fittingly agrees with him by a certain excellence. Christ’s grace of benevolence toward him was especially great.
Hence, when John speaks of himself in the Gospel, he says, “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” This does not mean, as Bede says, that Christ loved John alone to the exclusion of the others, but that by a privilege of love he loved the apostle John more familiarly than the rest.
According to Thomas on John near the end, Christ had this special grace of benevolence toward him because of three things found together in him.
First was the keenness of his intellect. Teachers usually love more those students whom they find more capable. Jerome says: “John was an untaught fisherman. Whence, I ask, came that voice, ‘In the beginning was the Word,’ and so forth? Learned Plato did not know this; eloquent Demosthenes was ignorant of it.”
Second was the purity of his chastity. “A virgin was chosen by the Lord,” sings the Church. At John’s wedding, Christ changed water into wine, and John left his bride untouched and followed Christ. The prerogative of chastity therefore made him worthy of greater love.
Third was the tenderness of his age. Young people are loved more familiarly by their parents, and John was called to discipleship at a younger age. This also signifies that those who devoutly give themselves to God from childhood live more familiarly with God.
From these things it seems possible to infer that, since John was loved more by Christ, he himself also loved Christ more than the others, for Wisdom says in Proverbs 8: “I love those who love me,” and as greatly as one is loved, so greatly does one love.
But the contrary seems to follow from Jesus’s words to Peter: “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” A sign of this seems to be that Christ entrusted the Church to him.
According to Thomas in the place cited, weighing their merits belongs to God alone. Hence Proverbs says: “The Lord is the weigher of spirits.” It therefore cannot safely be said that Peter loved Christ more, for then he would have possessed greater merit and reward; nor can it be said that John was simply better than Peter.
Christ did not assert but asked whether Peter loved more, showing from this a certain fittingness that one who presides ought to excel his subjects in love, but not an absolute necessity. Peter did not presume to assert this; he stated only that he loved.
Some therefore say that Christ loved Peter more insofar as he conferred upon him a keener intellect. But since charity surpasses the knowledge of God according to the Apostle, it would seem from this that Peter was greater in perfection, unless perhaps someone said that Peter was a greater lover with respect to the outward fervor of charity.
Others say, and better, that Peter loved Christ more in his members, and in this way he was also loved more by Christ in his members; hence Christ entrusted the care of the Church to him. John loved Christ more in himself and in this way was loved more by him; hence Christ entrusted to John the mother from whom he had taken the substance of his flesh.
Alternatively, Peter loved more in promptness and fervor, while John was loved more with respect to certain signs of familiarity that Christ showed him more than others because of his purity. Hence Christ revealed the betrayer to him alone, and John reclined upon his breast at the Last Supper as a sign that he was to draw the greatest profundity of the Word from the fountain of divine wisdom.
Or it can be explained according to mystery, because in these two men the twofold life, active and contemplative, is figured. The active life, signified by Peter, loves God more because it feels more greatly the distresses of the present life and desires more ardently to be liberated from them and to go to God. The contemplative life, figured by John, is loved more by God because God preserves it more: it does not fail when it migrates from here but is perfected.
§ I: John’s Teaching and Deeds
Bede says that John taught that heretics and schismatics must be avoided, saying in an epistle: “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine,” namely the doctrine that we preach, “do not receive him into the house or say ‘Hail’ to him.” John exhibited this in his deeds.
His most holy disciple and hearer Polycarp the bishop relates that once, when John entered the baths at Ephesus to wash and saw the heretic Cerinthus there, he immediately went out and departed without bathing, saying: “Let us flee from here, and let the baths themselves collapse [read: lest the baths themselves collapse], in which Cerinthus, the enemy of truth, bathes.” This appears in Cause 24, Question 1, Everyone Who.
When a living bird called a partridge was offered to blessed John, he stroked it with his hand and touched it repeatedly. A young man who saw him despised him and said to his companions: “See how that old man plays with a little bird like a child.”
John perceived this, called the young man, and ordered him to draw the bow that he held in his hand. When he had done so and John said nothing further, he relaxed the bow.
The Apostle asked him: “Why did you not keep it drawn for a long time, but relaxed it?”
He answered: “Because if it were kept drawn for a long time, it would afterward become weaker for shooting arrows.”
John replied: “So too the human mind would become less strong for contemplation if it always persisted in the rigor of contemplation and did not sometimes yield to recreation because of human frailty. Even the eagle, which rises higher than other birds and gazes upon the sun, descends to the lowest places when necessity compels it.”
Clement also relates, as appears in the Ecclesiastical History, that John converted to the faith at Ephesus a handsome and fierce young man. When departing to preach in other cities, he carefully entrusted him to the bishop of the place.
But the bishop, relying too much on the young man’s goodness, paid little attention to his conduct. Enticed by wicked company, the young man gave himself to crimes and returned to worse things. At length he left the city and became the leader of robbers in a certain forest.
After some time John returned to Ephesus and visited that bishop. He asked him for the deposit entrusted to him. The bishop did not understand, thinking of a deposit of money.
John said: “I mean the young man whom I so carefully commended to you.”
The bishop replied with tears: “Father, he is dead in soul, and in such-and-such a place he practices robbery with many others.”
John, grieving over the young man’s ruin, tore his garment, struck himself with his fists, and said: “A fine guardian of our brother’s soul I left behind!” He immediately ordered a horse to be prepared for him and asked to be shown the place where the young man lived.
He rode there. As he approached the place, he found fellow robbers, whose leader the young man was, coming before him. When John told them that he sought to speak with their lord, they led him to the young man. When the young man saw John from afar, overcome with the greatest shame and confusion, he began to withdraw in flight, running swiftly.
[Running head: Sixth Title.]
But John, forgetting his old age, spurred his horse with the spurs and pursued him, crying: “O son, why do you flee from your father, an old and unarmed man? Stop; wait for me. I shall render an account to God for you and shall procure pardon for you, if only you acknowledge your sin.”
Pierced by these words, the young man came to John, threw himself at his knees, and sought pardon with the bitterest tears.
He hid his hand because, having committed many murders, he possessed a consciousness of crime. John took that hand and kissed it, comforting him and giving him confidence of pardon if he truly repented.
The young man was therefore brought back to the city, did penance at John’s command, and became a holy man. O what an example for showing the danger and proneness of youthful liberty and wicked company, the harm of a superior’s negligence, and the greatness of divine mercy!
Moreover, John preached for a long time after the Lord’s death in Jerusalem and the surrounding regions. Paul says that fourteen years after his conversion he went to Jerusalem and visited Peter, John, and James the Less, and compared his Gospel with theirs. Some say that John remained there until Jerusalem was destroyed by Titus.
At length, at the Holy Spirit’s prompting, he went to Asia Minor, especially the city of Ephesus. Later Emperor Domitian brought him to Rome. After John was placed in a vat of boiling oil and emerged unharmed, he was banished to the island of Patmos.
When Domitian was killed by the Senate because of his crimes, everything he had done was abolished and annulled. John was consequently recalled from exile. As he returned to Ephesus, the entire multitude of the city came to meet him, praising God and giving thanks for so great a benefit, crying: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”
As John entered the city, several people met him carrying a disciple of his named Drusiana on a bier for burial. They asked him to raise her, because she had been a mother to orphans and widows and had greatly desired to see him.
John first prayed, then raised her and commanded her to go prepare food for him.
On the next day, while John was walking through the city, he saw a great crowd gathered before the philosopher Crato. Crato had foretold that on this day and hour he would teach contempt of the world. He had ordered two wealthy citizens of Ephesus whom he had drawn into his sect to buy precious stones with the price of their entire sold inheritance, break them before the people, and reduce them to dust. They did so.
Seeing this, John reproved the people concerning such a work. He said that it was not truly to despise the world but to seek the world’s glory, and that Christ their teacher had not taught them to forsake the world in this manner but to distribute those goods to the poor.
Crato then said: “If your teacher is God, as you preach, let him restore these stones, so that what I did for the glory of the world he may do to display his power.”
After praying, John accomplished this. Because of this wonder, Crato, his two disciples, and many others were converted to the faith.
Among them were two noble young men who distributed their rich inheritance to the poor, freed their servants and gave them gifts, and followed the Apostle in poverty.
One day after their conversion they saw their former servants passing through the city merrily in splendid clothing. Considering their own mean garments and austere food, and tempted by the devil with the spirit of sloth, they began to regret having assumed such a state.
When they returned home, John saw that they were sad and knew in spirit that they had fallen. He therefore said to them: “Forced services do not please God. I see that you regret despising the world. But lest you believe that you cannot regain what you left, go into the forest and bring wooden rods, and bring pebbles from the riverbank.”
They did this as quickly as possible. John changed the rods into gold and the pebbles into precious stones. Many goldsmiths judged all of them to be of the finest quality.
John then said to them: “See, you possess more than you left. Go and buy yourselves palaces, estates, servants, garments, whatever you desire, and other things. Flourish in this age so that you may wither in the next. Rejoice for an hour so that you may mourn forever.”
Gratian says in Cause 17, Question 4, § And It Should Be Noted, that by this example things offered to a church or religious house by those who enter may not be returned to those who gave them, nor may they be returned to religious who leave their religious life.
John did not return the very things they had left but miraculously procured what was, as it were, his own. He also did this according to the law of heaven rather than the law of the forum.
While John was inveighing against them in this way, a man with his friends and relatives brought a young man who had just died. They asked John to raise him just as he had raised Drusiana.
After a long prayer John did so, and commanded the raised young man to tell those two men who had turned aside from their holy purpose what he had seen concerning them in the other world.
He said to them: “O wretched men, what have you done? I saw your angels weeping over your destruction and the demons rejoicing. You have lost the eternal palaces built for you from gold, silver, and precious stones, full of light and abundant feasts, and you await the most bitter punishments prepared for you in hell.”
Pierced by the miracle they had seen and the raised man’s words, the two threw themselves at John’s feet and sought mercy.
John commanded them to do penance for thirty days and to take this as a sign that God had received them in mercy: the golden rods and precious stones would be restored to their former nature. They did so. Afterward they remained in their holy purpose and shone through miracles.
§ II: John’s Conflict with the Worshipers of Diana
Because John, traveling through Asia and teaching, caused the temples of the idols to be overthrown, a popular uprising arose against him.
To calm the people, John proposed this choice: if they could overthrow a church of Christ by invoking Diana, he would sacrifice to Diana with them; but if they could not and he caused Diana’s temple to fall by invoking Christ, they would believe in Christ.
When this pleased the greater part of the people, Diana’s priests were unable to accomplish anything. But when everyone had left Diana’s temple as John had arranged, at his invocation he caused Diana’s temple and statue to fall utterly. Many thousands of people were thereby converted to the faith.
Aristodemus, the pontiff of the temple, stirred up a sedition against John. John said to him: “What do you wish me to do to appease you, Aristodemus?”
He answered: “If you wish me to believe in your God, I shall give you poison to drink. If you suffer no injury from it, I shall believe in Christ.”
John replied: “Do what you have said.”
Aristodemus therefore administered the poison to drink. So that John might know its deadly power by experiment, Aristodemus asked the ruler of the city for two criminals sentenced to death and gave it to them to taste. They immediately fell dead to the ground.
[Running head: Chapter Seven, Folio 193.]
Seeing this, John took the cup joyfully and without any fear. Neither his color changed nor did he feel pain.
Aristodemus said: “Doubt still remains in me. But if you restore to life those who died from that poison, I shall believe completely.”
The Apostle gave him his cloak so that he might touch their bodies with it. When he had done so, they rose from the dead. Because of this, Aristodemus, the governor of the province, his entire household, and many others believed in Christ. They destroyed the idols and built a church in honor of blessed John, in which he preached for a long time.
When John was ninety years old and, according to Isidore, had completed the sixty-eighth year after the Lord’s Passion, the Lord Jesus appeared to him and summoned him to his banquet with his disciples, signifying that he was to come to the Lord on the following Sunday.
On Sunday, therefore, John entered the church from the first cockcrow, preached to the people, and exhorted them to remain in the faith. Then he entered a square pit that he had ordered to be made in the church. An immense light appeared so that no one could look upon it. After the light withdrew, the pit was found full of manna, and his body was not found.
§ III: Opinions Concerning John’s Body
There are several opinions concerning what happened to John’s body.
Some say that his tomb at Ephesus contains him alive as though sleeping and that he still lives there until Christ comes to judgment. As proof they claim that the earth there wells upward as though boiling, which they say is caused by his breath.
Augustine rejects this opinion, saying that it is less if John lives while sleeping than if he were dead and lived blessedly with Christ. Why, then, would Christ have given so long a sleep as a great gift to the disciple whom he loved above the rest while depriving him meanwhile of so great a good?
This should therefore not be believed. It should rather be believed that he died, according to the saying: “Who is the man who will live and not see death?” Afterward he rose again glorified in soul and body, and therefore his body is not found. This is the second opinion.
The third opinion, which Thomas also reports in his commentary on John and which Lord John Dominici, cardinal, followed, is that John was translated into the earthly paradise after he descended into the pit prepared for him while an immense light appeared over it so that he could be seen [read: so that he could not be seen].
He will come from paradise into this world in the time of Antichrist to preach against him with Enoch and Elijah and to suffer the death of martyrdom through Antichrist with them. Since the evangelical law is worthier than the law of nature or the Mosaic Law, it seems sufficiently probable that just as the law of nature will have Enoch and the Mosaic Law Elijah, so the evangelical law will have John as witnesses for Christ against Antichrist.
Thus the saying of Christ to John and his brother James will be completely fulfilled: “You shall drink my cup,” Matthew 20—that is, the cup of the Passion by departing through martyrdom.
But even if he did not die a violent death and instead died a natural one according to another opinion, it remains true that he drank the cup of the Passion, since he endured many persecutions and martyrdoms for Christ.
He is read to have been scourged with the others in the Acts of the Apostles. Because of his unconquerable constancy in the Gospel, Caesar Domitian brought him to Rome and had him cast into a vat of boiling oil before the Latin Gate. By divine grace he emerged unharmed, as alien to the pain of the flesh as to its corruption.
He was then banished into exile on the island of Patmos. Although deprived there of human company, he did not lack the consolation of angels, for there he received the revelation of the Apocalypse through an angel.
Christ’s statement that he wished John thus to remain until he came can therefore mean: “until I come to judgment,” if John lives in the earthly paradise.
But if he died, whether or not he has already risen in the body, it means: “Thus I wish him to remain”—without a violent death, unlike you, Peter, to whom Christ was speaking as he passed—“until I come for him,” whether for both his body and soul or for his soul alone.
A fourth opinion likewise holds that, after entering the tomb, John died and his body alone remained in the tomb. Yet it is not found, just as Scripture says of Moses’ body, because God so disposes it by a judgment hidden from us.
Or “until I come” may mean until I come in the kingdom of the Church extended throughout the world. Thus Bede explains the saying in Matthew: “There are some standing here,” such as John, “who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
This happened when the Church had spread everywhere throughout the world and Christ reigned everywhere through faith in human minds. For John survived the other apostles by many years, until the time of Trajan.