On Illustrious Men

9. John, the apostle and evangelist

3, 1969–2045, “Das Markus-Evangelium. Literarische und theologische Einleitung mit Forschungsbericht,” P. Pokorný — Vielhauer, Geschichte, 329–55 IX. JOHN, THE APOSTLE AND EVANGELIST ohn, the apostle whom Jesus loved most,1 the son of Zebedee, and brother of the apostle James, whom Herod, after our Lord’s passion, beheaded,2 most recently of all, at the request of the bishops of Asia, wrote a Gospel3 against Cerinthus and other heretics,4 and especially against the then-arising doctrine of the Ebionites, who assert that Christ did not exist prior to Mary.5 On this account he was compelled to maintain His divine birth. 2. But there is said to be yet another reason for this work, in that, when he had read the volumes of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, he approved, indeed, the substance of the history and declared that the things they said were true, but that they had given the history of only one year, the one, that is, which follows the imprisonment of John and in which he was put to death.6 3. So, skipping this year, the events of which had been set forth by these, he related the events of the earlier period before John was shut up in prison, so that it might be manifest to those who should diligently read the volumes of the four Evangelists.7 This also takes away the diafwniva, the discrepancy,8 which seems to exist between John and the others. 4. He wrote also one Epistle which begins as follows: “What was from the beginning, what we have heard and seen with our eyes, what we have explored and (what) our hands have touched concerning the word of life,”9 which is esteemed by all who are men of the church or of learning. 5. The other two, of which the first is, “The elder to the lady who is elect and to her children,”10 and the other, “The elder to Gaius, the beloved whom I truly love,”11 are said to be the work ON ILLUSTRIOUS MEN 19 of John the presbyter in whose memory another sepulchre is shown at Ephesus to the present day,12 though some think that the two memorials belong to this same John the evangelist. We shall treat of this matter in due course when we come to Papias, his disciple.13 6. In the fourteenth year, then, after Nero, Domitian having raised a second persecution,14 he was banished to the island of Patmos, and wrote there the Apocalypse,15 on which Justin Martyr16 and Irenaeus17 wrote commentaries. 7. But after Domitian had been put to death, and his decrees , on account of his excessive cruelty, had been annulled by the senate,18 John returned to Ephesus under Nerva,19 and, continuing there until the time of the emperor Trajan, founded and built churches throughout all of Asia, and, worn out by old age, died in the sixty-eighth year after our Lord’s passion and was buried in the same city.20 notes 1. Based on Jn 13.23, and 21.20 (“reposed on Christ’s breast”), quoted in Eus., h.e. 5.24.3. and 7.25.12. 2. Acts 12.2; Eus., h.e. 2.1.5 and 3.5.2. 3. h.e. 6.14.7. 4. On Cerinthus: Q 1, 128, 289; LThK 53 , 1402–3, J. Frickel; EECh 1, 158–59, A. F. J. Klijn, citing Epistula Apostolorum 1 [12], 7 [18]; Irenaeus, Adv. haer. 1.26.1 and 3.3.4; Eus., h.e. 3.28.6; Hippolytus, Philos. 7.33.1–2; Ps.-Tertullian, Adv. omn. haer. 3; Epiphanius, Pan. 28.5.1; B. G. Wright III, “Cerinthus apud Hippolytus: An Inquiry into the Traditions about Cerinthus’s Provenance,” SecCent 4, 2 (1984): 103–15. NTA (1991), 397, corrects Q 1, 128, for the entry “A Gospel of Cerinthus” as follows: “the Gospel used by Cerinthus, and also by Carpocrates, was in fact identical with that of the Ebionites, and apparently only a truncated Gospel of Matthew.” On Cerinthus as author of John’s Apocalypse, cf. Eus., h.e. 7.25.10, quoting Dionysius. 5. h.e. 3.27.1. On Ebionites see Epiphanius, Pan. 30, and G. A. Koch, “A Critical Investigation of Epiphanius’s Knowledge of the Ebionites. A Translation and Critical Discussion of Panarion 30” (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Pennsylvania , 1976), xxv–xlix. On Gospel of Ebionites, see NTA (1991), 166–71, P. Vielhauer and G...