JOANNINE CHRISTOLOGY

The writings of the apostle John are his Gospel, the Book of Revelation, and three letters, all composed toward the end of the first century and therefore reflecting the Church's faith almost two generations after the Savior's Ascension.

The portrayal of Christ in St. John is consequently more developed than anything found elsewhere in the New Testament. It is also unique because it supplements what others had written about the Savior, and complements what Jesus himself had taught during his visible stay on earth. John wrote under the influence of more than half a century of divine guidance by the Spirit. of Christ in the infant Church, and he was the recipient of a special communication from Christ. which John embodied in the Apocalypse.

In a sense there are five Gospels; the four commonly called such, and a fifth narrating what the invisible Savior revealed to his beloved disciple (Rev. 1.1-3).

Even if the Gospel was not the last thing he wrote (which is likely), it was certainly colored by a lifetime of mystic communion with the Spirit. of Christ, Yet the immediate occasion for wafting it was the rise of two errors that were to vex the Church for centuries to come: by Gnostics and others (like the Ebionites), who denied that Christ. existed before he was born in the flesh, that he was only the natural son of Mary and Joseph; and by Docetists, who questioned if Jesus had a truly human nature.