Acts of John
These factors can make it difficult to reconstruct the earliest forms of stories about the apostle John, and scholars continue to debate as to which episodes originally belonged together.
Most current scholars agree that even the most recent versions of the Acts of John include episodes that trace to multiple different dates and origins.
Lycomedes recounts a vision he received from the God of John, telling him that a man from Miletus was coming to heal his wife, Cleopatra, who had died seven days before from illness.
Upon arrival, Lycomedes curses his situation and, despite John's pleas to have faith that his wife will be brought back to life by the power of his god, dies of grief.
[2] In another scene, during a festival celebrating the birthday of the Greek goddess Artemis, the people of Ephesus attempt to kill John because he wears black, rather than white, to her temple.
John rebukes them, threatening to have his god kill them if they are unable to convince their goddess to make him die on the spot with her divine power.
John then changes his mind, using the power of God instead to break the altar of Artemis in many pieces, damage the offerings and idols within the temple, and collapse half of the structure itself on top of its priest, killing him.
The next morning, the narrator and two of his traveling companions, Verus and Andronicus, awake to find the bugs gathered in the doorway, waiting to return to their home in John's mattress.
Fortunatus, unwilling to accept Christ, flees from the tomb and eventually dies due to blood poisoning brought about by the snake from the initial bite.
[5] In Section B, which many scholars consider to come from a different source than the other episodes, [citation needed] John recounts earlier experiences he had with Jesus before and during the cross event.
Part of this account includes a circular dance initiated by Jesus, who says, "Before I am delivered to them, let us sing a hymn to the Father and so go to meet what lies before us".
At another time he took me and James and Peter to the mountain, where he used to pray, and we beheld such a light on him that it is not possible for a man who uses mortal speech to describe what it was like…Now I, because he loved me, went to him quietly as though he should not see, and stood looking upon his back.
[9] Section C recounts John's presumed death by natural causes after directing his companions to dig a trench in which he lies down and buries himself alive before he "[gives] up his spirit rejoicing".
[citation needed] Some version of the Acts of John containing at least portions of Section B and the Lycomedes episode was rejected as heretical by the Second Council of Nicaea in AD 787.
The composer Gustav Holst wrote The Hymn of Jesus, a work for choir and orchestra and first performed in 1920, with lyrics based on his own personal translation of the Acts of John.
