Who was the beloved disciple?

I - PART

Who was Cleophas' Companion?

II PART : The beloved disciple in the Gospel of John

"Gospel of John": this name comes from the attribution of the fourth gospel to the author of the Apocalypse who presented himself three times in the first person: "I, John" and twice in the third person. In two of the three epistles to have been attributed to him however, he presented himself as "the Elder". 'John' and 'the Elder' can be connected thanks to Papias' account of "John the Elder": « I considered what Andrew and Peter said, what Philip, what Thomas, what James, what John,92 what Matthew or any one else among the disciples of our Lord, what also Aristion and the elder John, disciples of the Lord had said, not so much that I have their books to read, as that their living voice is heard until the present day in the authors themselves. » (quoted by Jérôme (Illustrious Men ).
		Papyrus 90, II century, John 19:7

There has been some confusion between John Son of Zebedee, later considered as author of the fourth gospel by Irenee, and John the Elder. But it is in all likelihood the latter (?).

How do we place the Beloved Disciple with regard to John the Elder?

“And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe. ” Jn 19:35.
«This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true» Jn 21:24

According to these verses, the Beloved Disciple was an eye-witness. He saw and he gave his account. He even wrote it down.
He cannot have been alone, as there was also the person who completed his account by certifying, amongst other things, the validity of the account. This person wrote in the first person, just as the author of the Apocalypse:

«And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.»Jn 21:25

From this, let's make the assumption that John the Elder gathered this account from the Beloved Disciple, particularly regarding the spear injury. He would then have re-written the account and completed it.

This leaves the question: who was the Beloved Disciple?
What name can we place on this person?

Nathaniel and Jacob's Dream

A mysterious character from the fourth gospel goes by the name of Nathaniel. He was there at the same time as the Beloved Disciple when Jesus appeared by the lake. along with Peter, James, John, Thomas and Nathaniel, there were two other unknown disciples. The Beloved Disciple, to whom Peter turned after having confessed his love for Jesus three times, could have been Nathaniel.
Nathaniel of Cana was the only one to have received praise from Jesus right from the outset.
“Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile.”Jn 1:47
Jesus praised him for his pure intentions, as if he were exempted from any fault. The mysterious Nathaniel - whose name means "gift of God" - does not appear in any of the Synoptics, unless his name appears in abbreviated form as an ancestor of Jesus, where a certain Nathan was said to be the heir of David. Indeed, the first son of Bethsabee died before he was a week old and only received the symbolic name "given", or "given to God". The name "gift of God" was the name of a prophet who denounced the fault of his father.
For John the Evangelist, Nathaniel was also a code name. By saying to Nathaniel that he "saw him under a fig tree", Jesus revealed his intimate knowledge of him. All over the Mediterranean region, a fig tree is a symbol of love (and not primarily of sin).

“Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee.”

Jn 1:48

Three days after this meeting, there was a wedding in Cana, Galilee, where Nathaniel came from.

Does not that mean that he was the husband? Cana meant enthusiasm, passion and jealousy - another code name serving to hide this character for whom everything went so well.
Can we see the Beloved Disciple in this young husband?

He disappeared, only to re-appear during the meal when he received the confidence of Jesus. He was at Mary's side during the crucifixion - the man that Jesus chose as his spiritual son, granting the mother to the man and the man to the mother. And in this gospel, the cross became the place for the mystical marriage of Christ and the Church.

The tomb and Jacob's dream

The Beloved Disciple ran to the tomb, where he saw the linen cloths. When he entered the tomb behind Peter, he saw the shroud that had been wrapped around Jesus' head:
“ And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in One Place by itself.” Jn 20:7

The evangelist did not give a description of the tomb, but rather an allegory, evoking the dream of Jacob in Bethel:

And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night,
because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place,
and put them for his pillows,
and lay down in that place to sleep.
And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth,
and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.
And, behold, the LORD stood above it.»
Gn 28:11-13

We should remember that it is precisely before Nathaniel that Jesus alluded to this dream:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man. !» Jn 1:51.

The unique place was to be found at the meeting point between heaven and the earth, in the Son of Man himself, around which the Angels from Jacob's rise and fall. The dream of the Patriarch then had to be re-read as a prophesy of the resurrection.

But if Nathaniel, who was otherwise completely unknown, was just a codename for the Beloved Disciple, who was he really?
An allegorical figure?
An imaginary figure, or a real one?
He was the only one to witness that the side of the crucified Jesus had been pierced by a spear - a detail trusted by the author.
The evangelist inferred that he was known to the High Priest. Was he present during the trial of Jesus, or did he only arrive later on?

The Beloved Disciple could only be one among Nathaniel and the husband in Cana, the companion of Cleophas on the evening of the Resurrection, Jacob the Just, James the Brother of the Lord present alongside Mary during the Passion. Luke's silence on the matter was borne out of necessity. But what about John the Elder?

The important thing - still and always at the heart of the debate - comes through in Peter's question to Jesus: "And him?"
It is no longer James that wants to remain anonymous, but rather the context does not want to reveal him, because the force of his personality would have drowned out everyone else (cf the Gospel of Thomas). Anonymous, his personality may have appeared less threatening

It remains to dissociate James' account from what has to be attributed to a re-write by John the Elder, whose character was no less than that of his witness.

Sylvie Chabert d'Hyères
© Copyrighted January 2006