John the Apostle and Evangelist

John was the apostle whom Jesus loved most. He was the son of Zebedee and the brother of the apostle James, whom Herod beheaded after our Lord’s passion. Last of all the evangelists, he wrote a gospel at the request of the bishops of Asia, against Cerinthus and other heretics, and especially against the teaching of the Ebionites, then spreading, who claim that Christ did not exist before Mary. For this reason he was compelled to declare Christ’s divine birth. But there is said to be yet another reason for this work. When he had read Matthew, Mark and Luke, he approved the substance of their history and declared that what they said was true. But he saw that they had given the history of only one year, the one, that is, which follows the imprisonment of John the Baptist, and in which John was put to death. So, passing over this year, whose events they had already set out, John told the events of the earlier period, before John was shut up in prison, so that this might be plain to those who read the volumes of the four evangelists with care. This also removes the disagreement that seems to exist between John and the others. [a]

He also wrote one letter, which begins: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life.” It is highly regarded by all who care about the church or about learning. The other two, of which the first begins, “The elder to the chosen lady and her children,” and the other, “The elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth,” are said to be the work of John the presbyter. To his memory another tomb is shown at Ephesus to this day, though some think there are two memorials of this same John the evangelist. We will treat this matter in its turn when we come to Papias, his disciple.

Then in the fourteenth year, when Domitian had raised the second persecution after Nero, John was banished to the island of Patmos, and there he wrote the Apocalypse, on which Justin Martyr and Irenaeus later wrote commentaries. But after Domitian had been put to death, and his acts had been annulled by the senate because of his excessive cruelty, John returned to Ephesus under Pertinax. He remained there until the time of the emperor Trajan, founded and built churches throughout all Asia, and, worn out by old age, died in the sixty-eighth year after our Lord’s passion. He was buried near that same city.