John
c. 6–c. 100 · Ancient Israel
“He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.”
The lineage through John
Inspired(6)
who John shaped
via Paradise Lost
- The single scriptural seed of Milton's rebel-angel epic
- The War in Heaven — Michael against the great dragon, "that old serpent... which deceiveth the whole world" — exists only in Revelation 12, and Milton dramatizes it straight
- He even rewrites it: where John gives Michael the victory, Milton hands it to the Son in his chariot — a deliberate edit of the source
- Blake spent his life inside John's Apocalypse — he painted a celebrated watercolour series illustrating it (The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun)
- Then he seized its imagery whole for the prophetic poems — Milton, Jerusalem, the Four Zoas — building his mythology out of John's throne-beasts and last days
- Dante furnishes his Earthly Paradise straight from John's vision
- The pageant in Purgatorio 29 borrows Revelation point-for-point: the seven golden candlesticks, the twenty-four elders, the four living creatures
- It pays off in Paradiso too, where the descending New Jerusalem becomes the celestial rose — John's apocalypse is Dante's architecture for heaven itself
- John's vision of the New Jerusalem becomes a literal destination 1,600 years later — Bunyan's Celestial City
- Revelation 21's city of pure gold like clear glass, garnished with precious stones, with God wiping away every tear, is what Christian is walking toward the whole book
- The Shining Ones who greet the pilgrims at journey's end quote Revelation straight — the prophecy made into a place you can reach on foot
via Jane Eyre
- Brontë gives Jane Eyre the Bible's own last words
- The novel closes on St John Rivers quoting Revelation 22:20 — "Amen; even so, come, Lord Jesus!" — the final line of scripture as the final line of the book
- Its apocalyptic imagery also stalks the men around Jane: Brocklehurst, Rochester, and St John each take their measure from Revelation
via The Idiot
- Revelation is a live text inside The Idiot, quoted and argued over
- Dostoevsky hands Lebedev an extended exegesis of the Apocalypse — the "star Wormwood" of Revelation 8:11 read as Europe's railways and creeping materialism
- The book's apocalyptic architecture is built on John's vision, not merely flavored by it
Famous Quotes
“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.”
“Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.”
“And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.”
“And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and hell followed with him.”
About John
The 'beloved disciple,' traditionally credited with the fourth Gospel, three epistles, and the book of Revelation. His theological vision of Jesus as the divine Word (Logos) and his apocalyptic imagery have shaped Christian thought and Western art for two millennia.
John, Ranked
According to 
- 2 John~90JohnEasy·Quick·1 pagesInfluence—Popularity—BibleEpistleAncient Greek
- 3 John~90JohnEasy·Quick·1 pagesInfluence—Popularity—BibleEpistleAncient Greek
- Revelation~95JohnHard·Short·48 pagesInfluence—Popularity—BibleApocalypticAncient Greek
- 1 John~90JohnModerate·Quick·10 pagesInfluence—Popularity—BibleEpistleAncient Greek