Today, the 27th of December the Roman and Anglican churches mark out as a feast for John the disciple of Jesus, sometimes called the Apostle, sometimes the Evangelist, sometimes the Beloved. The Orthodox celebrate his life in September.
I cannot think of him without thinking of John the Revelator…
As with all the apostles very little is really known about John. Maybe he was originally with Jesus as another disciple of John the Baptist. Maybe he was a relative of Jesus. He is joined with James the Greater as his brother, and together as the “sons of Thunder.” By tradition he is the only one of the apostles who dies from natural causes. I’m not sure why, but I especially like that little factoid. Well factoid of tradition…
John is also the putative author of a gospel, the book of Revelations (hence “revelator,”) and three letters. I think few mainstream contemporary scholars consider the person who was Jesus’ disciple the author of either the gospel or Revelations. The dates that make sense for those two books would make it impossible for the historic John to have written either. As for the letters, as early as Eusebius it is not believed he wrote any but the first epistle given his name. That does leave one that maybe he wrote, emphasis on maybe.
The mystical quality of several sorts that associates with the gospel and those ravings from Patmos suggests they could be “gnostic” in origin, or possibly, probably a response to the gnostics. This makes the Johannine literature especially interesting. The gospel is wildly different than the others, the least likely to have any historical memory of the actual Jesus. It has two other notable features. One is an anti-Jewish thread that Christians struggle to make not anti-Semitic. The other thread offering a rather wondrous mystical element. While that other big book; well, as I said ravings. But they do capture the imagination. Including that haunting song as a very good example…
He is the patron of love, loyalty, friendships, authors, booksellers, burn-victims, poison-victims, art-dealers, editors, publishers, scribes, examinations, scholars, and theologians. All of which makes me like him a lot.
As I said John is very much associated with the mystical threads within the Christian tradition. And he gives his name to most successful of the independent sacramental gnostic churches, the Apostolic Johannite Church, whose doctrines I don’t particularly endorse, although among whose members are several I consider friends.
For me this offers a pause to recall those mystical threads, which I find compelling.
And so, gratitude for the Beloved John, and from a Zen perspective, incense, and bows…
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