Where was John before Patmos?

Quid est Veritas? · Aug 27, 2017

JohannineScholar said:
I disagree there. How many early references are there to the Evangelist's late natural death? Not that many. Can you think of any? How many early references are there to Peter's martyrdom. For the Apostle, we have two canonical Gospels (Matthew and Mark), Papias, the ecclesiastical calendars, Clement of Alexandria (who doesn't mention John's name when speaking of those apostles who escaped martyrdom), the anonymous third century author of De rebaptismate (often attributed to Cyprian), and Aphrahat of Nineveh (all these in Charles). What is there for the Evangelist's peaceful death (I don't doubt his peaceful death--just trying to put the question of relative evidence in perspective).

Certainly an interesting perspective. The problem is the abscence of mentions of John's Martyrdom in Eusebius and other Church historians, and a dearth of it in the Church Fathers. Martyrs are often mentioned, and John's martyrdom would certainly have been and developed an early cult if it was widely held. I realise to argue from silence isn't always the strongest argument, but I think it applicable here; more than looking for early references to his living to old age.

For the evidence pro-martyrdom: Papias in corrupted form from the 5th and 9th century; Aprhahat from the fourth; Clement is an argument from silence in an incomplete list and therefore fairly weak; ecclesiastical calenders listing James and John together aren't definite that John was also martyred thereby; and I couldn't find the last one's reference, de Rebaptizmate. The evidence is thus fragmentary and often dubious.

Based on the relative evidence then, I agree it is less clear cut than I would have thought, but on balance the scales are still decidedly tipped in favour of Church tradition, in my opinion.

JohannineScholar · Aug 27, 2017

mark kennedy · Aug 27, 2017

JohannineScholar said:
Eusebius identified the two Johns and so had to choose one tradition over the other. It is mentioned by Philip, another church historian. That Eusebius was innovating is seen in his following the suggestion of Dionysius that a different John wrote Revelation, contrary to the earlier writers. He is also strangely silent about Clement's claim that the ministry of the twelve ended at the time of Nero. So we know that he passed over material that didn't fit his reconstruction. Another example: he doesn't mention Gaius' rejection of John's Gospel, even though he discusses his rejection of Revelation.

Again though, I think it's problematic to appeal to the dearth of evidence when the apostle's martyrdom is actually far better attested than John's natural death. Is there in fact a single reference to John's natural death in the fathers before Eusebius?

If you can point to anywhere where John the Apostle should have been mentioned had he been martyred, I'd be interested. Most of the early writers were more interested in the Evangelist, and once the two became widely identified, the martyrdom tradition would have been superseded anyway.

How would you define the marks of an early cult of his death? Do we have this kind of evidence for Peter or Paul? What would you look for beyond it's commemoration in the martyrologies, which we do have?

We have two later writers citing Papias, though obviously under the mistaken belief that there was only one John. What's the alternative scenario? That they made it up? It seems problematic to me to simply dismiss them because they have added an interpretative layer. How else would you account for their statements? If the two Johns became widely identified, it would make sense that they spoke of the Evangelist as the John that was martyred. It doesn't make sense that they would have made up a quote from Papias, when it serves them no interest and when one of them tries harmonizing it with the alternative tradition by placing the martyrdom in Trajan's reign.

As is Eusebius.

Are you sure it can be described as "weak"? Clement provides a list of non-martyrs and begins with Matthew. I'm not saying it proves it beyond doubt, but it is very suggestive at the very least:

"Matthew, Philip, Thomas, Levi and many others” escaped public confession of Christ (Strom. 4.9)

Why isn't John's name there? John the Apostle was one of the foremost of the twelve apostles. Had he just been a minor figure, I could understand his not being mentioned specifically, and just being included under the 'others'. The list instead begins with Matthew, whereas John, as the more prominent figure, would have been the natural choice to commence the list with. Peter and James we know were martyred.

Clement also places the deaths of the twelve apostles before the end of Nero's reign, and a number of scholars have accused him of contradicting himself by placing the Evangelist's life later, but this only contradicts the assumption that the apostle and evangelist were one and the same.

They don't always spell it out, and this applies to Peter and Paul as well, but sometimes they do. The Syriac Martyrology of Edessa does, and associates it with Jerusalem, as do a few others.

Not sure what's dubious about it. It's certainly fragmentary, though there's far more evidence than for the natural death of the Evangelist.

This work is often attributed to Cyprian, but since there's no name attached, Charles simply refers to it as a North African work. The ANFs collection thinks it was written by an African bishop about the time of Cyprian and that it probably was Cyprian. Here's the reference:
ANF05. Fathers of the Third Century: Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix - Christian Classics Ethereal Library

Not if you place the evidence side by side. I know of only one text affirming the Evangelist's natural death in the period before Eusebius. Could you say the evidence for the Evangelist's natural death is stronger than that of the Apostle's martyrdom, which is attested by two Gospels, Papias, Clement (indirectly, but on two different occasions), Cyprian (or other writer) and others?

From my perspective, I would ask, which theory satisfies the most amount of evidence. The view that there were two Johns and that the Elder was the Evangelist takes care of all the evidence without any need to explain it away, to place unnatural interpretations on Jesus' prophecy, to dismiss Papias and the martyrologies, to make Clement contradict himself, etc. It only requires that these two Johns were later confused, and this kind of confusion was common and hardly exceptional.

John was the Pastor at Ephesus but later he was too old to serve in that capacity, and stayed on as an elder. The whole argument is easily dismissed.

Deadworm · Aug 27, 2017

mark kennedy said:
It takes only a little common sense, the Apostle John pastured the church at Ephesus until he was so old he had to be carried to church on a mat. Since he is no longer the pastor he was considered an elder. He was still an Apostle and still the writer of Revelations.

I wish you would bother to look up the references I provided. In Mark 10:38-39 Jesus prophecies the matyr daths of James and John, the sons of Zebedee. Are you accusing Jesus of being a false prophet?

38 “You don’t know what you are asking,”Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” 39 “We can,” they answered.
Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with..."

Jesus' prophecy is then confirmed by Papias (c. 60-130 AD): "Papias in the second book says that John the Theologian and James his brother were killed by the Jews (Philip of Side citing Papias)."

Quid est Veritas? · Aug 27, 2017

JohannineScholar said:
Eusebius identified the two Johns and so had to choose one tradition over the other. It is mentioned by Philip, another church historian. That Eusebius was innovating is seen in his following the suggestion of Dionysius that a different John wrote Revelation, contrary to the earlier writers. He is also strangely silent about Clement's claim that the ministry of the twelve ended at the time of Nero. So we know that he passed over material that didn't fit his reconstruction. Another example: he doesn't mention Gaius' rejection of John's Gospel, even though he discusses his rejection of Revelation.

This is only valid if the two Johns in fact are two separate Johns. It is thus a Petitio Principii to say that Eusebius had to favour one tradition over another in this regard, but that this was an error.
I am not too in favour of bringing Eusebius into disrepute, for that is cutting off the branch we are sitting on in regard to a lot of other Church history. Obviously some errors were made however, but it is difficult to determine what these were.

Again though, I think it's problematic to appeal to the dearth of evidence when the apostle's martyrdom is actually far better attested than John's natural death. Is there in fact a single reference to John's natural death in the fathers before Eusebius?

I don't see why we would expect a reference to his natural death. We are far more at rights to expect one of his martyrdom however.

If you can point to anywhere where John the Apostle should have been mentioned had he been martyred, I'd be interested. Most of the early writers were more interested in the Evangelist, and once the two became widely identified, the martyrdom tradition would have been superseded anyway.

I can't give you an exact place where it should be expected, as it is not there and no one is looking for it as such. I would think though that Clement or Tertullian would have mentioned it somewhere.

How would you define the marks of an early cult of his death? Do we have this kind of evidence for Peter or Paul? What would you look for beyond it's commemoration in the martyrologies, which we do have?

Epigraphic from catacombs, reports in Church Fathers, places hailed as specifically devoted to someone, later basilica built by Constantine, etc. We do have this for them, yes.

We have two later writers citing Papias, though obviously under the mistaken belief that there was only one John. What's the alternative scenario? That they made it up? It seems problematic to me to simply dismiss them because they have added an interpretative layer. How else would you account for their statements? If the two Johns became widely identified, it would make sense that they spoke of the Evangelist as the John that was martyred. It doesn't make sense that they would have made up a quote from Papias, when it serves them no interest and when one of them tries harmonizing it with the alternative tradition by placing the martyrdom in Trajan's reign.

I would agree except that it is in opposition to Church tradition. So either way, some form of explanation has to be offered here. Either they are in error, or the rest of the Church.

As is Eusebius.

Yes, but they are hardly equivalent.

Are you sure it can be described as "weak"? Clement provides a list of non-martyrs and begins with Matthew. I'm not saying it proves it beyond doubt, but it is very suggestive at the very least:

"Matthew, Philip, Thomas, Levi and many others” escaped public confession of Christ (Strom. 4.9)

Why isn't John's name there? John the Apostle was one of the foremost of the twelve apostles. Had he just been a minor figure, I could understand his not being mentioned specifically, and just being included under the 'others'. The list instead begins with Matthew, whereas John, as the more prominent figure, would have been the natural choice to commence the list with. Peter and James we know were martyred.

Clement also places the deaths of the twelve apostles before the end of Nero's reign, and a number of scholars have accused him of contradicting himself by placing the Evangelist's life later, but this only contradicts the assumption that the apostle and evangelist were one and the same.

Yes, I consider it weak evidence. There is no reason to expect John there by necessity, so his abscence really shows nothing. It is evidence in favour of the hypothesis though, I agree.

They don't always spell it out, and this applies to Peter and Paul as well, but sometimes they do. The Syriac Martyrology of Edessa does, and associates it with Jerusalem, as do a few others.

The Syriac Martyrology doesn't spell it out, at least not in the text quoted when I searched for references to John's martyrdom in ecclesiastical calenders. For it may just have been there because his brother was a martyr and they were concurrently celebrated. It just says the feast of John and James at Jerusalem, not explicitly that John was martyred, although it is a martyrology.

Not sure what's dubious about it. It's certainly fragmentary, though there's far more evidence than for the natural death of the Evangelist.

I disagree. The Church tradition disagrees and the Gospel has been ascribed to the Apostle since quite early, thus contradicting your evidence - which in fact contradicts itself in places as we noted earlier with Clement and Papias' fragment.

Not if you place the evidence side by side. I know of only one text affirming the Evangelist's natural death in the period before Eusebius. Could you say the evidence for the Evangelist's natural death is stronger than that of the Apostle's martyrdom, which is attested by two Gospels, Papias, Clement (indirectly, but on two different occasions), Cyprian (or other writer) and others?

From my perspective, I would ask, which theory satisfies the most amount of evidence. The view that there were two Johns and that the Elder was the Evangelist takes care of all the evidence without any need to explain it away, to place unnatural interpretations on Jesus' prophecy, to dismiss Papias and the martyrologies, to make Clement contradict himself, etc. It only requires that these two Johns were later confused, and this kind of confusion was common and hardly exceptional.

We are going to have to agree to disagree. I don't think the evidence is stronger as such, as I have explained. It is an interesting viewpoint though, and definitely has merit.

JohannineScholar · Aug 27, 2017

Quid est Veritas? said:
This is only valid if the two Johns in fact are two separate Johns. It is thus a Petitio Principii to say that Eusebius had to favour one tradition over another in this regard, but that this was an error.

Thanks for your interaction. I can't see that this is begging the question, as I'm simply stating that my view can accommodate Eusebius' silence. I'm not making any argument for my view based on the presumption of this premise, just stating that Eusebius' silence isn't a problem for it.

By, 'he identified the two Johns', I only meant that he identified the Apostle and Evangelist, irrespective of whether they were the same people or not. There might have been only one John and, for whatever reason, two different traditions of his death. Some people have argued this, saying that the martyrdom tradition grew out of mistaken exegesis.

Either way, I pointed out that Eusebius' silence is hardly surprising. Eusebius' silence is only an issue if one assumes that Eusebius would have interacted with both traditions, but I provided evidence from Eusebius' use of Clement that suggests he simply ignored the tradition that the twelve apostles were dead by the end of Nero's reign. That Eusebius chose one and ignored the others I don't think is remarkable, and I can't see that my pointing that out constitutes a logical fallacy. If you still disagree, I'd be interested in hearing your reasons, so that I can avoid it, or giving the appearance of committing this fallacy, in the future, but how else can one state that the objection is not a problem for one's position without stating that the position, if true, could accommodate the objection?

You would disagree, perhaps, that there were two such traditions, but there are certainly grounds for thinking that Papias and the Synoptic Gospels represent such a tradition, and scholarship is divided over it. The plain reading of Jesus' words, as even people who deny the martyrdom tradition have admitted, is of literal martyrdom. The argument that there couldn't have been such a tradition and that the sources can't mean literal martyrdom because had there been one, Eusebius would have drawn attention to it, seems to me to beg the question.

I don't see why we would expect a reference to his natural death. We are far more at rights to expect one of his martyrdom however.

Yes, and we have them. But how many notices would we expect? You seem to have expectations that there would be a lot, but this only works on the assumption that the two Johns were the same. Remove that assumption, and in fact very little was said about the John of the synoptics, just as very little was said concerning the James of the synoptics (it is James the Just who is overwhelmingly discussed). How many pre-Eusebian notices do we have concerning the martyrdom of Andrew or Thomas, or the other apostles? or of Timothy and Mark the Evangelist? I just think you're expecting more from the evidence than is reasonable.

I do take your point though, that we would expect a martyrdom to be taken more notice of than a natural death, though in the case of Clement's quotation, the situation is reversed: those who didn't suffer are highlighted. And John the Apostle's name isn't there.

I can't give you an exact place where it should be expected, as it is not there and no one is looking for it as such. I would think though that Clement or Tertullian would have mentioned it somewhere.

Yet what martyrs does he mention, beyond Peter and Paul at Rome? Does Tertullian mention the martyrdoms of any other apostle, or of James the Lord's brother? Why would you expect a mention of the Apostle John's martyrdom? And Clement does mention that the twelve apostles died before the end of Nero's reign.

Epigraphic from catacombs, reports in Church Fathers, places hailed as specifically devoted to someone, later basilica built by Constantine, etc. We do have this for them, yes.

Do we have these for James the son of Zebedee, or James the Just? I am not aware we do (with the exception of church fathers), so why would we have it for John's death. We do have the basilica on the mount of Olives which was associated with the commemoration of the death of John. So again, I think you might be asking for too much of the evidence. Even the death of James the Just is only mentioned by two church fathers, Clement and Hegesippus, and both accounts are otherwise lost and preserved only in Eusebius.

I would agree except that it is in opposition to Church tradition. So either way, some form of explanation has to be offered here. Either they are in error, or the rest of the Church.

The confusion of persons based on the confusion of names is very common. James the son of Alphaeus and James the Just are confused very early. Philip the Evangelist and Philip the Apostle are already conflated around AD 200. I'm not sure how later church later constitutes a solid objection. Whether earlier fathers--Irenaeus, Justin, Tertullian, Clement, Ignatius, Papias--identified the two, has been brought into question.

Yes, but they are hardly equivalent.

Two statements from the Synoptics which naturally refer to the martyrdom of John, I would think, would constitute stronger evidence.

The Syriac Martyrology doesn't spell it out, at least not in the text quoted when I searched for references to John's martyrdom in ecclesiastical calenders.

It speaks of the date in December as the day John received his crown, a recognized martyrdom motif (William Wright, “An Ancient Syrian Martyrology,” JSL 8 (1866) 423), and in any case, places his death (whether this is accepted as a martyrdom motif or not) in Jerusalem.

I disagree. The Church tradition disagrees and the Gospel has been ascribed to the Apostle since quite early, thus contradicting your evidence - which in fact contradicts itself in places as we noted earlier with Clement and Papias' fragment.

I'm not sure why you say that my evidence contradicts itself. Clement only contradicts himself on the assumption of one John, that is, your position brings Clement into contradiction with himself. Mine doesn't. As for Papias, my position is that he was quoted by someone who identified the two Johns (which Philip did). But my question still stands: what is the alternative? Is it easier to believe that Philip quoted Papias but wrongly and anachronistically identified this John with the Evangelist as well, or to believe that he somehow made up the quote? How does your view plausibly explain and account for this evidence?

I would disagree with your statement that church tradition has ascribed the Gospel to the apostle since 'quite early'. The first extant writer to identify the evangelist with the apostle is Origen. There are plausible reasons for thinking that Papias, Ignatius, Irenaeus and Clement all distinguished the two Johns.

mark kennedy · Aug 27, 2017

Deadworm said:
I wish you would bother to look up the references I provided. In Mark 10:38-39 Jesus prophecies the matyr daths of James and John, the sons of Zebedee. Are you accusing Jesus of being a false prophet?

38 “You don’t know what you are asking,”Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” 39 “We can,” they answered.
Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with..."

No I'm not because that's not what Jesus is saying, the text is ambiguise and your making it saying things never intended. He does prophecy the death of Peter in no uncertain terms, had he intended that in Mark he would have been clear.

Jesus' prophecy is then confirmed by Papias (c. 60-130 AD): "Papias in the second book says that John the Theologian and James his brother were killed by the Jews (Philip of Side citing Papias)."

Quote and cite your source.

JohannineScholar · Aug 27, 2017

mark kennedy said:
John was the Pastor at Ephesus but later he was too old to serve in that capacity, and stayed on as an elder. The whole argument is easily dismissed.

Are you being serious?

mark kennedy · Aug 27, 2017

JohannineScholar said:
Are you being serious?

Absolutely, your basing your argument on third hand hear say. I think the church knows it's own sacred writings. This wasn't even a question until the rise of post-modern higher criticism, falsely so called. I was hearing this concept that John the Elder was someone other then the Apostle in the 80s, it was baseless then and it hasn't gained any substance in the 30 years since.

JohannineScholar · Aug 27, 2017

Deadworm · Aug 27, 2017

LOL, Mark, I challenge you to find a single academic commentary on Mark that does NOT apply Mark 10:39 to martyrdom for the Zebedee brothers. And I just gave you the Papias reference confirming the death of John the son of Zebedee at the hands of the Jews--just like his brother James.

What you are overlooking is the common commonly committed by late second church fathers. They conflate different apostolic figures into one figure: e. g. Philip the apostle with Philip the evangelist, Mary Magdalene with Martha's sister, Mary, and the prostitute of Luke 7:36-50, and John the son of Zebedee with John the Elder and John the Seer.

Quid est Veritas? · Aug 28, 2017

JohannineScholar said:
Thanks for your interaction. I can't see that this is begging the question, as I'm simply stating that my view can accommodate Eusebius' silence. I'm not making any argument for my view based on the presumption of this premise, just stating that Eusebius' silence isn't a problem for it.

By, 'he identified the two Johns', I only meant that he identified the Apostle and Evangelist, irrespective of whether they were the same people or not. There might have been only one John and, for whatever reason, two different traditions of his death. Some people have argued this, saying that the martyrdom tradition grew out of mistaken exegesis.

Either way, I pointed out that Eusebius' silence is hardly surprising. Eusebius' silence is only an issue if one assumes that Eusebius would have interacted with both traditions, but I provided evidence from Eusebius' use of Clement that suggests he simply ignored the tradition that the twelve apostles were dead by the end of Nero's reign. That Eusebius chose one and ignored the others I don't think is remarkable, and I can't see that my pointing that out constitutes a logical fallacy. If you still disagree, I'd be interested in hearing your reasons, so that I can avoid it, or giving the appearance of committing this fallacy, in the future, but how else can one state that the objection is not a problem for one's position without stating that the position, if true, could accommodate the objection?

No, this seems a fair assessment.

You would disagree, perhaps, that there were two such traditions, but there are certainly grounds for thinking that Papias and the Synoptic Gospels represent such a tradition, and scholarship is divided over it. The plain reading of Jesus' words, as even people who deny the martyrdom tradition have admitted, is of literal martyrdom. The argument that there couldn't have been such a tradition and that the sources can't mean literal martyrdom because had there been one, Eusebius would have drawn attention to it, seems to me to beg the question.

There certainly seem to have been two traditions, driven no doubt by seeing Mark as referencing martyrdom. I don't think anyone would dismiss it solely on Eusebius though. Yet, that passage in Mark does not seem clear cut to me, as Mark Kennedy's juxtaposition of the Petrine martyrdom narrative shows. It can and has been interpreted differently. This may be bias, true, but the very fact that it can lend itself to that interpretation means it is far more ambigious than the explicit Petrine one in John, for example.

Yes, and we have them. But how many notices would we expect? You seem to have expectations that there would be a lot, but this only works on the assumption that the two Johns were the same. Remove that assumption, and in fact very little was said about the John of the synoptics, just as very little was said concerning the James of the synoptics (it is James the Just who is overwhelmingly discussed). How many pre-Eusebian notices do we have concerning the martyrdom of Andrew or Thomas, or the other apostles? or of Timothy and Mark the Evangelist? I just think you're expecting more from the evidence than is reasonable.

I don't know what amount of references was done for each individual figure's martyrdom. That would entail fairly extensive study. I do know that by the late Empire, when basilicas were built all over the place, these narratives were certainly in place. Papias' works were not lost at this time, so why is not more made of John's death then? Because the Church already settled on an alternative narrative? This seems to argue a minority position, which is hardly one of strength.

I do take your point though, that we would expect a martyrdom to be taken more notice of than a natural death, though in the case of Clement's quotation, the situation is reversed: those who didn't suffer are highlighted. And John the Apostle's name isn't there.

Which is evidence, yes. There is no reason that inherently John's name need be there, and this is an argument from silence, so fairly weak evidence. It is corroborating, but if this had been the only supporting evidence in isolation, then John's martyrdom could certainly have been dismissed.

Yet what martyrs does he mention, beyond Peter and Paul at Rome? Does Tertullian mention the martyrdoms of any other apostle, or of James the Lord's brother? Why would you expect a mention of the Apostle John's martyrdom? And Clement does mention that the twelve apostles died before the end of Nero's reign.

These were only examples of the type of people that I would expect more references from. Yet the references for it are obscure or late, corrupted fragments - since both are clearly paraphrasing.

Again I haven't done an extensive study, but a quick google search found many references to some other Apostles' martyrdoms in early Church Fathers. This isn't strong enough evidence against his martyrdom to dismiss it out of hand, but on balance with Church tradition and so forth, fairly adequate to my mind.

Anyway, James the Just's Martyrdom is mentioned in Josephus, so it is very well supported indeed.

Do we have these for James the son of Zebedee, or James the Just? I am not aware we do (with the exception of church fathers), so why would we have it for John's death. We do have the basilica on the mount of Olives which was associated with the commemoration of the death of John. So again, I think you might be asking for too much of the evidence. Even the death of James the Just is only mentioned by two church fathers, Clement and Hegesippus, and both accounts are otherwise lost and preserved only in Eusebius.

Again, James the Just's death is also in Josephus.
We do have basilicas to James the Greater built under Constantine and an association with Spain since the 4th century works of Priscillian of Avila, which goes some way to explaining the rise of the later Spanish Camino de Santiago. I think this is a false equivalence here.

The confusion of persons based on the confusion of names is very common. James the son of Alphaeus and James the Just are confused very early. Philip the Evangelist and Philip the Apostle are already conflated around AD 200. I'm not sure how later church later constitutes a solid objection. Whether earlier fathers--Irenaeus, Justin, Tertullian, Clement, Ignatius, Papias--identified the two, has been brought into question.

Agreed.

Two statements from the Synoptics which naturally refer to the martyrdom of John, I would think, would constitute stronger evidence.

What is the second synoptic support you are referencing here?

It speaks of the date in December as the day John received his crown, a recognized martyrdom motif (William Wright, “An Ancient Syrian Martyrology,” JSL 8 (1866) 423), and in any case, places his death (whether this is accepted as a martyrdom motif or not) in Jerusalem.

I would have to look for the original wording of the Syriac Martyrology. The ones I found do not mention an explicit crown of martyrdom for John.

I'm not sure why you say that my evidence contradicts itself. Clement only contradicts himself on the assumption of one John, that is, your position brings Clement into contradiction with himself. Mine doesn't. As for Papias, my position is that he was quoted by someone who identified the two Johns (which Philip did). But my question still stands: what is the alternative? Is it easier to believe that Philip quoted Papias but wrongly and anachronistically identified this John with the Evangelist as well, or to believe that he somehow made up the quote? How does your view plausibly explain and account for this evidence?

The contradiction lies in the Papias fragment of George Hamartopoulus that says that John was killed after writing his Gospel, and Clement that says his ministry ceased before Nero.

There are many plausible explanations for the incongruence of the quotes and tradition: Scribal error, confusion on the part of the writers, pious fraud, a legitimate alternate tradition, misquotation, etc. I am not willing to put my head on a block for any of these, especially seeing thay the Papias fragments are derived from an epitome and a very late source respectively. Thus I would lend more credence on the evidence from known sources, which as per Church tradition, oppose his martyrdom as such. Of course, I may be wrong, but you are talking of plausibility, and they are better attested sources.

I would disagree with your statement that church tradition has ascribed the Gospel to the apostle since 'quite early'. The first extant writer to identify the evangelist with the apostle is Origen. There are plausible reasons for thinking that Papias, Ignatius, Irenaeus and Clement all distinguished the two Johns.

Origen is quote early in my book, and certainly earlier than our extant writers paraphrasing Papias.
What are your reasons for thinking Papias, Ignatius, Irenaeus and Clement distinguished them? I shall look into this myself at some point, when I have time.

JohannineScholar · Aug 28, 2017

JohannineScholar · Aug 28, 2017

Quid est Veritas? · Aug 29, 2017

JohannineScholar said:
I wouldn't say it's solely on Eusebius. I would say it's because the conflation of the Evangelist with the Apostle has meant that one tradition needed to be marginalized. I personally find it difficult to believe that a tradition of John being killed by the Jews (Papias) or being killed in Jerusalem (the church calendars) would have arisen merely by mistaken exegesis.

Exactly. It isn't solely on Eusebius, but based on additional factors that we have discussed here, as well.
A tradition of John's martyrdom merely from mistaken exegesis is possible, but as we only have corrupted fragments of Papias, the alternative is not really better supported. This is only my opinion, of course, as you offered yours.

I think it's significant that the only people to see ambiguity are those (talking of scholars here) who affirm the Evangelist's peaceful death. Critical scholars don't see any ambiguity. Early church fathers didn't see any ambiguity until after Eusebius wrote his history, when the need to reconcile the text with the tradition of the Evangelist's peaceful death became necessary.

But is it really ambiguous? Jesus said they would drink his cup. Elsewhere it is clear that this cup was death. See, e.g., Matt 26:39 ("if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will.”). Baptism is another metaphor which especially signifies death, and again Jesus said they would be baptized with the baptism that he was going to undergo.

The metaphor of drinking the cup is widely used, and I am not aware that it ever refers to anything other than to death, and even if it were, the qualification here is that it is "my cup". Polycarp, for example, is recorded as saying: “I bless you that you have made me worthy of this day and hour, to receive a part among the number of the martyrs in the cup of Christ” (Mart. Pol. 14.2). Here the cup of Christ is martyrdom. Is it not therefore special pleading to think that it can refer to something else here, just because the attested sense is inconvenient? In fact, the qualification of the cup as "my cup" shows that the reference has to be to the cup Christ drank, which was death. I do not believe a non-literal interpretation of this verse would ever have entered anyone's mind, if not for the contradiction it poses to the tradition of the Evangelist's peaceful death, when he is identified with the Apostle. The prophecy was clearly fulfilled literally in James.

With Peter, the reference was ambiguous: someone will bind you and lead you where you do not wish. For this reason, the narrative explains that this was spoken about his death. With the prophecy of Jesus, however, metaphors of death were used, rendering such an explanation unnecessary.

I will have to address the rest later.

To dismiss something based on presumed bias of the writer, is the fallacy of Bulverism. I myself, don't think it a very definite reading.That doesn't mean I am correct of course, but I don't see why the imagery by necessity has to refer to martyrdom, instead of merely suffering and strife.

JohannineScholar said:
The only early evidence McDowell, in his recent dissertation/book, lists for Andrew's martyrdom is the Acts of Andrew (150-210), though this work seems to assume that Peter and John are already dead, since they appear to Andrew in a vision and tell him that he will die like Peter did, by crucifixion. I don't see any evidence in catacombs or basilicas or church fathers. How did he die? We don't know. Possibly it was martyrdom, but we know next to nothing. I'm wondering then, if John the Apostle wasn't the Evangelist, could we reasonably expect much?

What about Peter? The evidence largely consists (outside of canonical works) of the Acts of Peter and the Apocalypse of Peter, as well as the church calendars and Clement's statement that the twelve ended their ministry before the end of Nero's reign. It isn't particularly abundant. I doubt there is any martyrdom other than that of Peter, Paul and James the Just that is better attested than John's.

I disagree. There is a good narrative for Thomas that mentions Caspar (a corruption of Gondophares), a Indo-Greek king, and other first century narrative. Based on the fact that such historic minutiae are unlikely to have arisen in a story written later, most agree a legitimate first century martyrdom narrative (or narrative based on one), is here preserved.
Again, I would need to investigate the martyrdom references for other apostles more closely, for me to comment further.

Papias? Probably because Eusebius did a good job of convincing people that Papias traded in tall tales and couldn't be trusted? Yet I think this understates things. The martyrdom of John is represented in the church calendars, despite the later identification of the Apostle with the Evangelist who died peacefully in Ephesus. This suggests to me that the later identification displaced the earlier widespread (for the calendars were widespread) tradition.

I don't see why Eusebius need be painted such a villain. In the first century, books were valuable. He simply may not have had a copy.
I disagree that the "calenders were widespread". Upon what are you basing this comment?

I'm not sure your meaning here.

That even if someone was aware of both traditions on John, it seems as if the one that held sway was his living to old age, for whichever reason.

I disagree. As a foremost apostle, in fact as one of the three foremost apostle, he would have naturally been placed foremost in the list of those apostles who did not suffer martyrdom, had that been the case. Such an oversight is pretty inexplicable imo, had he escaped martyrdom.

You are free to disagree, but that remains conjecture. Nothing innate to the statement says John has to be there if not a martyr. It is not a list of the "only Apostles not to be martyred", after all.

Yet Clement does end the ministry of the twelve before the end of Nero's life, so I'm not seeing how that is not evidence for John's early martyrdom.

I suppose my question is, why do these type of people not saying anything about the martyrdoms of the other apostles? Why are only Peter, Paul and James the Just discussed? What about Andrew and James the son of Alphaeus? How did Bartholomew die? I know you claim that this is "false equivalence", but I do not see how. They simply did not discuss these things in the extant works. Not even the martyrdom of Mark the Evangelist is spoken of by the early writers, and in fact almost nothing is said concerning him outside of quotations by Papias. I just cannot see how an expectation that early writers would have spoken of the martyrdom of the Apostle John (if he were not the same as the Evangelist whom they did discuss) is justified. The martyrdom of John, despite the fact that the tradition of his peaceful death came to dominate, is still better attested than any other apostle other than Peter, Paul and James the Just. These were the most central figures of the early period up to the time of Nero.

There is also the perhaps parallel case of the two early traditions of Philip, which make him both to have died a natural death and to have died a martyr (no doubt because there were two Philips). There were two Johns, and there were two Philips, and with both we see traditions both of a natural death and of a martyrdom.

Again, I have not studied the various comparative traditions of the different Apostles to juxtapose one to the other. I also disagree that John's martyrdom is better attested, for its best evidence are two paraphrases of Papias in late works. Works of comparative age as the works where these paraphrases are found, on the martyrdom of the other Apostles, are legion. There are in fact pilgrim trails and churches to this effect well in place by that time.

I can't see that that is borne out by McDowell's detailed study (and he follows the tradition of John's natural death, though he seems to clearly be swayed at least a little by the martyrdom tradition, conceding that Jesus' prophecy is naturally understood of martyrdom).

Could you direct me where I might find McDowell's detailed study?

Josephus' description is so at variance with Hegesippus', I have to doubt that he said anything about James, not that it would matter either way. It would just mean that James had the fortune of having a prominent historian mention his death. There was an academic article written on this relatively recently by Richard Carrier.

Richard Carrier is not trustworthy. He misquotes, takes out of context and misdirects quite a lot, to defend his pet theories. When reading anything of his, you need to follow every reference and double check both its wording and context. You might as well do the study yourself.
On Josephus, he is especially dodgy, as he wants to cast as much doubt as possible on the Testamonium Flavium to support his pet Christ Myth theory. This is why no university would employ him, and he survives as an internet blogger and paid speaker.
No, Josephus' reference to James the Just is quite sound in the eyes of most first century historians. Those that doubt it are a fringe group.

I haven't been able to find any evidence of basilicas to James the Greater in Jerusalem, marking the site of his martyrdom. Is this what you mean?

No, the tradition of the translation of his body to Spain via scallop shell and such.

In fact, I can't find any association in Jerusalem with the site of the death of James the son of Alphaeus, who was also said to have died there, or with Stephen's.

John's death was associated with a church on the Mount of Olives, but we know virtually nothing about the churches that existed on the mount, and the evidence was largely erased when the Persians destroyed the city in the seventh century, when John the Apostle's house came to be identified with the Zion site, which had previously been associated with John Mark. James' burial place is variously said to be a Christian synagogue (i.e. the Zion church) and the Mount of Olives, so this isn't much clearer. It all seems a bit too precarious as evidence against John's martyrdom in the city.

It's difficult to reconstruct what was or was not there. Egeria's account is usually a good place to start. Stephen and James' relics are at the Hagia Zion church reportedly. It is not uncommon for Basilicas not to be named after the relics they hold in the old days, like Hagia Sophia. Again though, I would need to study this more in depth before I would be willing to use this as evidence for John's martyrdom.

Wright translates it: "The names of our Lords the confessors and victors, and their days on which they gained (their) crowns"
Under December:
"The first confessor at Jerusalem, Stephen the Apostle, the chief of the confessors. John and Jacob, the Apostles, at Jerusalem. In the city of Rome, Paul the Apostle, and Simon Cephas, the chief of the Apostles of our Lord. Hermes the exorcist became a confessor in the city of Bononia."

Thank you for the translation. It is certainly fairly good evidence if this is accurate.

I would not regard an anachronistic identification of John the Apostle with the Evangelist as a contradiction. This is very normal. I see it even among scholars who claim that the Essenes said such and such in such and such a work (quoting the Dead Sea Scrolls), as though the DSS claim Essene authorship, when they don't. I read a scholar a while back who relate what Papias said about "John Mark". No, Papias didn't say a thing about "John Mark"; he discussed "Mark", whom he may or may not have identified as John Mark. However, the scholar was still referring to what Papias said about Mark. It wasn't made up.

Fair enough.

Please help me understand your reference to Clement. My view is that Clement is speaking of two Johns. There is no contradiction therefore between his two statements. It's your view that brings Clement into contradiction with himself, so I am puzzled why you mentioned him again as evidence against my position? I would really like to know what I'm not seeing here.

To claim Papias says that John was martyred, but denying John's writing of the Gospel based on Clement saying they were dead before Nero, while the Papias fragments explicitly say John wrote it, is contradictory - seeing that the claim is of John the Evangelist having written likely early in the 2nd century.

I can't rule these out, but how likely are all of these compared to the notion that Philip simply anachronistically referred to Papias' John as the Evangelist? The theory that is best is surely the one that has least recourse to having to qualify the evidence. I don't have to make Clement contradict himself. I don't have to have recourse to a historian basically attributing to Papias something that he never said. Surely it's more likely, a priori, that Philip anachronistically defined Papias' John as the Evangelist than that he so misunderstood him that he wrongly attributed to him a martyrdom tradition? Pious fraud is a problem, as there is no apparent motive for such, and many of his quotations elsewhere have been verified. No proposal concerning scribal error has found any support, and has always remained the eccentric suggestion of a lone scholar.

I think there are significant contradictions and confusions no matter which theory you adopt. The traditional one at least has the support of 'historical' consensus in the late Empire and thereafter.

I wouldn't ask you to, but in terms of probability, denying that Papias said this is far more problematic than accepting that he did, as has been conceded even by scholars supportive of the tradition view of the Apostle's peaceful death and identification with the Evangelist.

Citation? I'd like to see these scholars' reasoning, if able.

I'm not aware of a single early tradition that refutes or rejects the martyrdom tradition. What you are speaking of is the tradition of the Evangelist's late peaceful death. This tradition only refutes the martyrdom tradition on the assumption that those sources maintaining this tradition identified the Evangelist with the Apostle. I accept the tradition of the Evangelist's peaceful death.

Yet the Latin version of his commentary has him attributing a martyr's death to John. He is the first to identify the two Johns, granted, but it is not so clear that he interpreted this conflated John through the lens of the tradition of John's peaceful death.

This is though an argument from silence, mostly. That is not a strong position. As I said, certainly possible, but far from definite.

I think I might have to come back to this. This would probably be an even longer discussion than the one we have already had! But Bauckham and others have discussed the evidence from Irenaeus. Clement I've already discussed: namely that he ended the Apostle's John's ministry before Nero's death but placed the Evangelist's after it. The simplest conclusion is that he didn't identify them. None of these writers explicitly identify the two. If Ignatius thought the Apostle resided at Ephesus, his silence concerning John when writing to that church (he mentions Paul) would be inexplicable, as the liberals are fond of pointing out. Papias is discussed by Bauckham I think, and a recent article discussed evidence from Theodore of Mopsuestia, who appears to have paraphrased Papias, and concludes from this that Papias must have identified the Evangelist with the Elder. The reasoning of the article is very involved though.

I'll look this up myself, when I have time and the inclination. I think this discussion is perhaps too long already for the limited medium of forum posts.

JohannineScholar · Aug 29, 2017

Quid est Veritas? · Aug 30, 2017

JohannineScholar said:
I don't dismiss it based on the bias of the writer. I reject it because Jesus was clearly speaking of the cup of his death and the baptism of his death, and because this is how those metaphors are used elsewhere in the Gospels by Jesus as well as in other writings. I merely point out that the alternative and unnatural interpretation only appeared after the identification of the Evangelist and Apostle.

Quite fair.

Okay, we'll have to disagree on this. Papias, the Synoptics and the early church calendars, (Ps.?)-Cyprian, Heracleon, Clement and Aphrahat would, in my opinion, be stronger than a tradition in the historical romance written by heretics called the Acts of Thomas (not that I don't accept the tradition of his martyrdom--it is just that the evidence is overwhelmingly late and writers of the type of Tertullian and Clement don't mention it. It is also contradicted by Clement's quote above).

The point here is that this work, even if late, preserves verifiable first century information - which such a work is unlikely to preserve if not based on a legitimate first century narrative. I don't see how it contradicts Clement at all, though.
We have some non-Christian corroboration here, therefore, even if only of ancilliary details.

I think this is different types of evidence we are attempting to juxtapose between John and Thomas, which is not really fair to either. The Thomas narrative is anyway clearly not just based on the Acts of Thomas either, as Church tradition also mostly affirmed it, but again I haven't done a proper investigation of early references to Thomas' martyrdom.

He was a historian, attempting to reconcile the evidence before him. He did so by disparaging Papias and portraying him as unreliable and lacking in intelligence.

Yes, but this may have merely been his honest opinion based on the information at hand. It need not have been a conspiratorial whitewash as such. It is difficult to reconstruct motive and impossible to determine a complete list of what sources he may or may not have had.

Yes, we'll have to disagree. I think you are applying too stringent a standard of proof on the evidence. All of history is 'conjecture', and this word is overused imo. It isn't philosophy; it is much more subjective. But I think the historian would recognize the difference between wild speculation about what is "possible" (a favorite word of Morris in his defense of the traditional Zebedean identification of the Evangelist) and what can be reasonably inferred, which is why this omission is often cited as strong evidence for the martyrdom. It isn't scientific proof, certainly. Here the omission of the name of the Apostle is noticeable and highly suggestive. It would be like writing of "the martyrs, James, Paul, Thomas, and others" while omitting mention of Peter.

No, I very much agree History isn't very definite. There is a quote attributed to Napoleon that "History is a series of lies agreed upon".
The omission of John is noticeable, I agree. It is therefore evidence in favour as I said, but it is not enough in light of the significant church tradition that runs counter to it, in my opinion. It is only fit as corroboration, as it were, and I am decidedly on the fence with those late Papias references. As I investigate this question further, I might change my mind, but that is how I currently see it.

All I would say is that to compare the date when an earlier work is quoted with writings of the period in which this work is quoted rather than the date of the quotation itself is highly unusual. There is nothing unusually late about this, and quotations are often centuries separated from the lost works quoted by them. Philip's quotation from Papias is in perfect harmony with the way ancients did quote earlier works, and this is why, despite the difficulties associated with it for the traditional view, hardly anyone doubts that Papias made such a statement. They simply didn't quote things according to the same standards we do, and anachronism was far more common.

The point here is that they aren't quotes. They are attributions at worst or paraphrases at best. We don't have any early texts that support their legitimacy as true Papias quotes. They also differ a bit from one another, thus requiring us to consider both corrupted and thus need to reconstruct what the actual fragment of Papias said.
A lot of ancient authors quote people directly, on occasion whole passages, which is how a lot of other authors were partially preserved. It is a bit specious to equate these paraphrases with other ancient quotations. It is a way that people attributed statements to others, true, so it is very possible, but far better quoting was also done, and misattribution and error are also common. I am just being cautious to accept something so at odds with Church tradition, based on two authors who I am not very familiar with, and that I do not know to necessarily be paragons of veracity. Do not worry though, I am planning to investigate this in future.

Yes, it's Sean McDowell, The Fate of the Apostles. The dissertation version can be had here: A HISTORICAL EVALUATION OF THE EVIDENCE FOR THE DEATH OF THE APOSTLES AS MARTYRS FOR THEIR FAITH

Thank you. I appreciate it.

This is obviously a different discussion, but Matthew V. Novenson at Edinburgh doubts that Josephus wrote of James' martyrdom, so this isn't just a fringe view.

Interesting. I am in general not very sympathetic to those who cast doubt on Josephus though, because they always seem to be cherry picking. They are always willing to affirm him on things like governors or minor events, but then when they find a minor inconsistency, they are quick to cry foul and dismiss whole passages. We know Josephus' Antiquities is a corrupted work, we know a redactor has been at work in places, but you cannot then arbitrarily affirm or deny what you wish. Some arguments based on internal structure of Josephus, like the insertion of the Paulina scandal, makes sense; others seem dubious, such as rejecting the uprising of the Egyptian, as our narrative for the period is largely based of Josephus. You essentially cut the branch you sit on, and such hyper-criticism I feel often uncalled for. I think one must be careful here.

Do you have a reference to this? I couldn't find it in Egeria.

No, Mea Culpa. I made an error here. I thought I had read Stephen's relics were there, but they only seem to have been translated to Holy Zion in 414, therefore after Egeria's pilgrimage.
What this shows is that even Biblical martyrs do not necessarily have early cults then, so it seems to be a hit and a miss whether one develops or not. No, I concede your point, my objection on these grounds is baseless.

Thanks for explaining. I don't think the two sources can explain each other in this way, but we'll have to agree to disagree. Clement contradicts himself on the traditional assumption that he identified the Apostle and Evangelist, which should give cause for caution, imo. I don't deny that Clement said that John the Evangelist wrote the Gospel, or that it was written in the late first century. I just don't believe the Evangelist was the Apostle, and Clement's mutually-exclusive chronological placement of the Apostle and Evangelist would suggest that he didn't either. That the writer thought that Papias' John was the Evangelist I don't doubt. I just dispute that this has to be anything other than an anachronism on the part of a later writer who did identify them.

Fair enough.

I'll see what I can do.

Thank you. It is an interesting question, so I'd like to look into it more.

I have to disagree with that. You said that early sources refute the martyrdom tradition. They don't, in the sense that they deny that John the Apostle was martyred unless you assume that they identified the Evangelist with the Apostle.
.

I wouldn't say refute, I just think they would have been more likely to mention it. Either way, this is very shaky ground to base evidence on. The equation of the Apostle and the Evangelist certainly complicate matters even further, for we first need to establish the validity thereof itself, and that allows us to construct fantastic contradictory schemes off the same base texts. It is a bit of a quagmire of suppositions. People don't even agree on which of these different constructs are more plausible, either.

JohannineScholar · Aug 30, 2017

JohannineScholar · Aug 30, 2017

Radagast · Sep 9, 2017

Deadworm said:
Our oldest source about John the son of Zebedee, Papias, says he and his brother James were both martyred by the Jews, presumably in Jerusalem.

Papias does not, in fact, say this. Early Church tradition is agreed that John was not martyred, but was exiled to Patmos (probably by Domitian).

Where was John before Patmos?

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