St. John the Evangelist

“What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we looked upon and touched with our hands concerns the Word of life— for the life was made visible; we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was made visible to us— what we have seen and heard we proclaim now to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; for our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.  We are writing this so that our joy may be complete” (I John 1-4).

Just as the Fourth Gospel begins with a beautiful, poetic, meditation and statement of purpose, so too the First Letter of St. John also begins poetically.  (Some scholars believe that this statement was actually the first draft of the opening verses of the Gospel.)  The Gospel states as its purpose to bring the reader to faith in Jesus as God made human.  The First Letter’s purpose is not quite so lofty.  Put very simply, the evangelist simply wants to proclaim his own faith in the hopes that it will continue to gather others into the fold.

There is more than a little confusion about the identity of the evangelist.  There are a number of “Johns” who appear in the Gospels.  Some of them have been conflated into one character.  That character stands beneath the cross with the Blessed Mother, is the son of Zebedee, and the author of the fourth Gospel, three New Testament letters, and the Book of Revelation.  Scripture scholars have advanced the theory that it is highly unlikely that one man fills all of these roles.  Rather, they point to an unnamed disciple who appears no fewer than six times in the Gospel and is referred to as “the other disciple,” or “the disciple whom Jesus loved.”   

Whether St. John the Evangelist was one of The Twelve or simply one of the seventy-two, we are indebted to him for the very clear statement that Jesus is God incarnate.  The synoptic Gospels refer to Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of Man (an apocalyptic figure), the one about whom Moses and the prophets wrote, the one who is to come, and the Son of God.  Scholars refer to these titles as “low Christology.”  It is St. John the Evangelist who makes the unequivocal statement that Jesus is God in the flesh.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). 

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator