St. John, the son of Zebedee, and the brother of St. James the Great, was called to be an Apostle by our Lord in the first year of His public ministry. He became the "beloved disciple" and the only one of the Twelve who did not forsake the Savior in the hour of His Passion. He stood faithfully at the cross when the Savior made him the guardian of His Mother. His later life was passed chiefly in Jerusalem and at Ephesus. He founded many churches in Asia Minor.
He wrote the fourth Gospel and three Epistles. The Book of Revelation is also attributed to him. Tradition relates that after he was brought to Rome, he was by order of Emperor Domitian cast into a cauldron of boiling oil but came forth unhurt and was banished to the island of Patmos for a year. He lived to an extreme old age, surviving all his fellow apostles, and died at Ephesus about the year 100, where a stately church was erected over his tomb. It was afterwards converted into a Mohammedan mosque.
St. John is called the Apostle of Charity, a virtue he had learned from his Divine Master, and which he constantly demonstrated by word and example.
Christian art usually represents St. John with an eagle, symbolizing the heights to which he rises in the first chapter of his Gospel. St John is often depicted holding a chalice, which is sometimes interpreted with reference to the Last Supper. It is also connected to the legend that St. John was handed a cup of poisoned wine, from which, at his blessing, the poison rose in the shape of a serpent.