Acts of John

Contents

Reading pages: 0–31 · 32–65 · 66–96 · 101–114

1. 0The title of the work.
2. 1Domitian moves to expel the Jews from Rome, and some Jews petition him, denouncing the Christians as a new and lawless nation.
3. 2The petition accuses the Christians of proclaiming that the crucified Jesus rose from the dead.
4. 3Domitian decrees death for confessing Christians, and the fame of John's teaching reaches him.
5. 4Domitian sends soldiers to Ephesus, who find John at his door and take him to Rome.
6. 6On the journey to Rome John refuses food until the Lord's day, when he eats a single date.
7. 7John is brought to Domitian and kisses his breast rather than his mouth, citing Proverbs.
8. 8Before Domitian John proclaims the coming of Christ, the eternal king and judge.
9. 9John drinks poison unharmed before Domitian; a second recension has a magician prepare it.
10. 10John raises the dead man, and Domitian banishes him to an island instead of executing him.
11. 11In the second recension John raises a man who died from the poison.
12. 12In the second recension the emperor exiles John; in the main text John dismisses the released prisoner.
13. 13John raises a servant girl of Domitian, who then sends him to an island for a set time.
14. 14John is exiled to Patmos, sees the Revelation, and returns to Ephesus under Nerva and Trajan.
15. 18John returns from Patmos to Miletus, and on the road to Ephesus a voice from heaven promises that he will glorify the Lord there.
16. 19Lycomedes, a general of Ephesus, meets John and begs him to heal his paralysed wife Cleopatra, as a vision had told him.
17. 20Lycomedes laments his wife and dies of grief, and John prays for both to be raised.
18. 22Before the gathered city John prays that the two dead may be raised so that many may believe.
19. 23John raises Cleopatra in the name of the one whom all powers fear.
20. 24At John's word Cleopatra raises her husband Lycomedes.
21. 25Lycomedes and Cleopatra persuade John and his companions to stay with them.
22. 26Lycomedes has a painter secretly make a portrait of John.
23. 27John discovers that Lycomedes honours his portrait with garlands, lamps and altars.
24. 28John sees in a mirror that the portrait resembles his body, but not his true self.
25. 29John urges Lycomedes to paint his soul with the colours of the virtues instead of a portrait of the body.
26. 30John has the old women of Ephesus gathered, finds most of them sick, and is told by Jesus to heal them in the theatre.
27. 31The city gathers in the theatre, and the general Andronicus challenges John to act without magic.
28. 32In the theatre John begins his sermon to the Ephesians on the care of the soul, wealth and poverty.
29. 35John's sermon warns the vain, adulterers, the miserly, the wrathful and the drunken of their end.
30. 36John ends his sermon with warnings of judgment and heals all the sick; he then proposes to visit the temple of Artemis.
31. 38At the festival of Artemis John enters the temple in black and is seized by the crowd.
32. 39In the temple John challenges the Ephesians to pray to Artemis for his death.
33. 40The crowd begs John not to destroy them, and he prepares to pray.
34. 41John prays in the temple that the demon of the place be put to flight.
35. 42At John's prayer the altar and half the temple of Artemis collapse, and the Ephesians confess John's God.
36. 43John gives glory to Jesus, and the Ephesians ask to be received.
37. 45John promises to remain in Ephesus until the new believers are established.
38. 46A kinsman of the priest killed in the temple's fall turns to the Lord, and at John's word he raises the priest himself.
39. 48On the road John sees a young man kill his father, who had rebuked him for pursuing another man's wife.
40. 49John stops the fleeing parricide, who confesses that he meant to kill the woman, her husband and himself.
41. 50The young man promises to give up the woman if his father is raised, and John begins to pray.
42. 51John prays for the father to be restored to life.
43. 52The father is raised, and John leads him into the city as a believer.
44. 53The young man mutilates himself and throws the severed parts at the adulteress.
45. 54John rebukes the young man's self-mutilation and accepts his repentance; the Smyrnaeans invite John; and John answers a priest who scorned him for watching a partridge.
46. 57The priest confesses that God dwells in John; later John announces his return to Ephesus and comforts the brothers.
47. 59John leaves for Ephesus with a large company of believers.
48. 60At an inn John orders the bedbugs to leave his bed for the night.
49. 61In the morning the bugs are found waiting at the door and return when John allows them; John draws a lesson about obedience.
50. 62The believers at Ephesus welcome John back.
51. 63A man falls in love with Drusiana, who has renounced relations even with her husband; his friends warn him off.
52. 64Drusiana, grieved at being the occasion of the man's sin, prays to die and dies.
53. 65John comforts Andronicus at Drusiana's death.
54. 66After Drusiana's burial John prepares to address the brothers.
55. 67John teaches that faith, like every voyage, harvest and contest, is judged only at its end.
56. 69John describes the soul that remains faithful to the end, unlike those that fall away.
57. 70The man bribes Andronicus's steward to open Drusiana's tomb so that he can violate her body.
58. 71A serpent kills the steward and pins the young man down beside the tomb.
59. 72On the third day John and the brothers go to Drusiana's tomb to break bread.
60. 73At the tomb a radiant young man appears and ascends, and John finds Callimachus pinned by the serpent and the steward Fortunatus dead.
61. 74Andronicus explains the plot, and at John's prayer Callimachus is raised.
62. 76Callimachus tells how the radiant young man stopped him and asks to become a believer; John praises Jesus for his mercy.
63. 78John welcomes Callimachus as a convert.
64. 79At Andronicus's request John prays to the one God and calls Drusiana back to life.
65. 80Drusiana rises from the grave.
66. 81Drusiana asks that Fortunatus be raised too; Callimachus objects, and John teaches that evil is not to be repaid with evil.
67. 82Drusiana prays to Christ for Fortunatus to be raised.
68. 83Fortunatus is raised but, hating the believers, flees from the tomb.
69. 84John denounces Fortunatus's unrepentant soul and the devil behind it.
70. 85John breaks bread in the tomb with a prayer of thanksgiving to Jesus Christ.
71. 86After the eucharist John foretells Fortunatus's death, which is found to have happened.
72. 87The brothers are perplexed that the Lord appeared to Drusiana in the form of John and of a young man.
73. 88John tells how the Lord appeared to him in changing forms, felt now soft and now hard, and shone on the mountain.
74. 91John tells of a mysterious companion seen speaking with the Lord on the mountain and at Gennesaret.
75. 93John tells that the Lord's body was sometimes solid and sometimes immaterial and left no footprints, and that before his arrest he led the disciples in a hymn and ring dance.
76. 95The hymn continues with paradoxical sayings of the Lord answered by Amen.
77. 96The hymn ends; at the crucifixion the Lord appears to John in a cave on the Mount of Olives and shows him the cross of light.
78. 101The Lord teaches John that he did not suffer what the crowd supposed; John urges the brothers to worship him as God present with them in every trial.
79. 106On his last Lord's day John reminds the brothers of all the Lord has given them and urges them not to grieve him.
80. 107John exhorts the brothers, prays, breaks bread with them, has a grave dug outside the city, and begins his last prayer.
81. 113In his last prayer John thanks the Lord for keeping him from marriage and asks to be received into his rest.
82. 114John ends his prayer, lies down in the grave, and dies in peace.