Saint John before the Latin Gate

Not Slytherin!!

Saint John before the Latin Gate

memorial

·           6 May

About the Feast

I really like the story behind this feast.   The Apostle John was a real troublemaker to the Roman Authority of the time.   He was the Bishop of Ephesus, and was quite outspoken apparently. 

In the year 95 John, now an old man, was bound and brought to Rome by the order of Emperor Domitian; the Senate condemned him to be taken to the Latin Gate where they attempted to poison him with a chalice of wine laced with a lethal brew.   John blessed the wine and the poison slithered out of the chalice in the form of a serpent.   Then they figured this was more expeditious and had him thrown in a cauldron of boiling oil.    John stepped out of the cauldron without injury.

Instead of wasting any more tortures on this man they exiled him to Patmos where he eventually received the visions from heaven and composed the book of Revelation.   We get most of the sketchy details of this incident from the writings of St. Polycarp of Smyrna, who was a disciple of John.   These Traditions and stories go back to the time of the Apostles.   There are some who like to change the story and say someone else, not John the apostle, was the dude who wrote Revelation.  To them I quote St. Vincent of Lérins: quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est