The Two St. Johns of the New Testament

The aureole round the head of St. John is that he

was “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” This statement about him is made several times; and in different places both the Greek words for “loved” are employed — both the colder, which expresses esteem, and the more heartfelt, which denotes feeling more tender. As among the patriarchs Abraham was ’ the friend of God,” and among the kings David was “the man after God’s own heart,” and among the prophets Daniel was the “man greatb, beloved,” so among the followers of the Son of God, during his earthly ministry, St. John was the foremost friend.

We cannot help asking to what he owed this prominence.

Perhaps something was due to an extremely natural

cause: it would appear that St. John was, according to

the flesh, a cousin of Jesus. The way in which this is

, V-, made out is as follows: In describing the crucifixion St.

Matthew mentions three holy women as witnesses of the

tragic scene — Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of

James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee’s children; St. Mark also mentions three — Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the Less and Joses, and Salome. In St. John four names occur; the first place is given to the Virgin Mary; but the other three are Mary Magdalene, Mary the wife of Cleophas (whom we know from other passages as the father of James and Joses), and Christ’s mother’s sister. Thus, leaving the Virgin aside, we find two places in each of the three lists occupied by the same two women; but she who occupies the remaining place is called by St. Matthew the mother of Zebedee’s children, by St. Mark Salome, and by St. John the sister of the mother of Jesus. It is inferred that she who is designated in these three ways is the same person: her own name was Salome; she was the wife of Zebedee; and she was the sister of the mother of Jesus. If this inference be correct, of course it follows that she was the aunt of Jesus, and that her son John and Jesus were full cousins.

Such a relationship would not have necessarily made Jesus and John friends in the sense indicated by calling John the disciple whom Jesus loved. It might have had precisely the opposite effect. Mary’s own sons, the brothers of Jesus, were not, during his lifetime, believers; and there can be little doubt that their very familiarity with him was an obstacle to faith. They could not believe that one to whom they were so closely related was so much greater than themselves. They had seen him so long engaged in the little details of rural existence that it was an offence to their minds when, rising from their narrow lot, he made known his great aims and claims. Not till he appeared to one of them alive after his passion was their unbelief overcome. John might have been affected in the same way by his kinship with Jesus. But, when he escaped this temptation, the natural relationship may have become a bond even within the realm of grace. It was as his Saviour that John loved Jesus; but this may not have prevented him from feeling a peculiarly cordial interest in the affairs of Christ because he was his cousin; and while Christ loved John from the height of his divinity, this may not have prevented him from being drawn to him, and made familiar and confidential, by the operation of the tie of nature.

Cousinship has in multitudes of cases given rise to delightful and helpful associations. There is, indeed, a form of philosophy which scoffs at the obligations created by such relationships. The other day a prominent and educated Socialist asked in public why he should have more to do with his own brother, if he bored him, than with any other man, if he was a good fellow. But nature is not thus to be turned out of doors; human nature, also, is wiser; and Christianity, while not deifying natural relationships, as some religions have done, honors and hallows them. Never were all the beautiful and useful possibilities of cousinship so demonstrated as when Jesus admitted John to the position of the disciple whom he loved.

II.

Although the influence of a natural relationship may have entered into the Saviour’s predilection for this disciple, this circumstance could have had no weight at all unless there had been in St. John qualities to support the claim of kinship. But he was one formed by nature to be loved.

If his mother really was the sister of Mary, this points to hereditary advantages enjoyed by St. John. Without having any sympathy with such a doctrine as the Immaculate Conception, we cannot help believing that she who was chosen from among all the daughters of Eve to be the mother of the Perfect Man was, both in mind and body, a rare specimen of womanhood — pure, gentle and gracious. Although her estate was lowly, the blood of kings was in her veins, and in her mind and manners there worked the subtle influence of long descent. Now, what Mary was, it is natural to suppose her sister also was in her own degree; and she was able to impart hereditary advantages to her son.

Certainly there are some of the children ol men who appear to be formed of finer clay than their neighbors and cast in a gentler mould. Not infrequently their superiority is stamped even on the outward man, their faces carrying a certificate of excellence which predisposes all who see them in their favor. They are marked out for love; and, if they bear their honors meekly, and if the inward disposition corresponds with the outward promise, they do not as a rule miss the enviable destiny for which nature has intended them. The religious painters of all ages, with whom St. John has always been a favorite subject, have been unanimous in representing him as one of this type. Mrs. Jameson, in her “Sacred and Legendary Art,” says, “St. John, in Western art, is always young or in the prime of life, with little or no beard, with flowing or curling hair, generally of a pale brown or golden hue, to express the delicacy of his nature, and in his countenance an expression of dignity and candor.” How far in detail the actual St. John may have answered to this description it is of course impossible to say, but there can be but little doubt that the underlying idea is correct.

His must have been a fine and a gifted nature. He was especially strong in the region of the affections — profoundly loving and sympathetic; the heart of Jesus could not have gone out so cordially to him unless it had met with a corresponding return. Yet it is a mistake to think of John’s nature as a mere pulp of softness and toleration. There are clear indications, both in the incidents of his life and in his writings, that there burned in him great moral intensity, and that he was capable of strong moral indignation. To speak in the language of philosophy, he was not of the lethargic temperament, but of the melancholic. This is the temperament which beneath an outward demeanor somewhat resembling lethargy conceals the surest and swiftest insight; it keeps silence and broods, but its fire is only suppressed; it is the temperament which the ancients attributed to their greatest men — to a Sophocles and a Plato, to the philosopher, the poet, the genius.

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