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Montanism

Montanism, known by its adherents as the New Prophecy, was an early Christian movement of the late 2nd century, later referred to by the name of its founder, Montanus. Montanism held views about the basic tenets of Christian theology similar to those of the wider Christian Church, but it was labelled a heresy for its belief in new prophetic figures. The prophetic movement called for a reliance on the spontaneity of the Holy Spirit and a more conservative personal ethic.

Montanism originated in Phrygia, a province of Anatolia, and flourished throughout the region, leading to the movement being referred to elsewhere as Cataphrygian (meaning it was "from Phrygia") or simply as Phrygian. They were sometimes also called Pepuzians after the town of Pepuza, which they regarded as the new Jerusalem. Sometimes the Pepuzians were distinguished from other Montanists for despising those not living in the new Jerusalem. The Montanist movement spread rapidly to other regions in the Roman Empire before Christianity was generally tolerated or became legal following the Edict of Serdica in 311. It persisted in some isolated places into the 6th century.

The Montanists did not want to separate themselves from the wider Christian Church, and the Christian theologian Tertullian even recorded an event where a bishop almost declared Montanism as orthodox, however changing his mind later. Some contemporary Christian theologians have drawn parallels between Montanism and modern-day Protestant movements, such as the Charismatic movement, as well as Pentecostalism (including Oneness Pentecostals).

History
Scholars debate as to when Montanus first began his prophetic activity, having chosen dates varying from c. AD 135 to as late as AD 177. Montanus was a recent convert when he first began prophesying, supposedly during the proconsulate of Gratus in a village in Mysia named Ardabau; no proconsul and village so named have been identified, however. Some accounts claim that before his conversion to Christianity, Montanus was a priest of Apollo or Cybele. He believed he was a prophet of God and that the Paraclete spoke through him.

Montanus proclaimed the towns of Pepuza and Tymion in west-central Phrygia as the site of the New Jerusalem, making the larger—Pepuza—his headquarters. Phrygia as a source for this new movement was not arbitrary. Hellenization was slow to take root in Phrygia, unlike many of the surrounding eastern regions of the Roman Empire. This sense of difference, while simultaneously having easy access to the rest of the Mediterranean Christian world, encouraged the foundation of this separate sect of Christianity.

Montanus had two female colleagues, Prisca (sometimes called Priscilla, the diminutive form of her name) and Maximilla, who likewise claimed the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Their popularity even exceeded Montanus' own. "The Three" spoke in ecstatic visions and urged their followers to fast and to pray, so that they might share these revelations. Their followers claimed they received the prophetic gift from the prophets Quadratus and Ammia of Philadelphia, figures believed to have been part of a line of prophetic succession stretching all the way back to Agabus (1st century AD) and to the daughters of Philip the Evangelist. In time, the New Prophecy spread from Montanus's native Phrygia across the Christian world, to Africa and to Gaul.

The response to the New Prophecy split the Christian communities, and the proto-orthodox clergy mostly fought to suppress it. Opponents believed that evil spirits possessed the Phrygian prophets, and both Maximilla and Priscilla were the targets of failed exorcisms. The churches of Asia Minor pronounced the prophecies profane, and excommunicated New Prophecy adherents. Around 177, Apollinarius, Bishop of Hierapolis, presided over a synod which condemned the New Prophecy. The leaders of the churches of Lyons and Vienne in Gaul responded to the New Prophecy in 177. Their decision was communicated to the churches in Asia and Pope Eleuterus, but it is not known what this consisted of, only that it was "prudent and most orthodox". It is likely they called for moderation in dealing with the movement.

There was real doubt at Rome, and its bishop (either Eleuterus or Victor I) even wrote letters in support of Montanism, although he was later persuaded by Praxeas to recall them. In 193, an anonymous writer found the church at Ancyra in Galatia torn in two, and opposed the "false prophecy" there.

Eventually, Montanist teachings came to be regarded as heresy by the orthodox Great Church for a number of reasons. The clash of basic beliefs between the movement's proponents and the greater Christian world was likely enough for such conflict to occur. Additionally, in the opinion of anti-Montanists, the movement's penchant for dramatic public displays by its adherents brought unwanted attention to the still fledgling religion. Thus, fears concerning the appearance of Montanist practices to their non-Christian rulers fueled anti-Montanist sentiment. The imperial government carried out sporadic executions of Christians under the reign of Marcus Aurelius, circa AD 161–180, which coincides with the spread of Montanism.

There is no clear evidence as to what happened to Montanus. One of the most widespread stories at the time, as stated by an anonymous associate of Apolinarius, is that he hanged himself, as did Maximilla, although he does not exclude the possibility of them dying some other way.

There was never a uniform excommunication of New Prophecy adherents, and in many places they maintained their standing within the orthodox community. This was the case at Carthage. While not without tension, the church there avoided schism over the issue. There were women prophesying at Carthage, and prophecy was considered a genuine charism. It was the responsibility of the council of elders to test all prophecy and to determine genuine revelation. Tertullian, undoubtedly the best-known defender of the New Prophecy, believed that the claims of Montanus were genuine beginning c. 207. He believed in the validity of the New Prophecy and admired the movement's discipline and ascetic standards. Debates continue as to whether Tertullian decisively left the orthodox Church and joined a separate Montanist sect or remained an early proto-orthodox Christian.

Although what became the orthodox Christian Church prevailed against Montanism within a few generations, inscriptions in the Tembris valley of northern Phrygia, dated between 249 and 279, openly proclaim allegiance to the New Prophecy. Speros Vryonis considers these inscriptions remarkable in that they are the only set of inscriptions which openly reveal the religious affiliations of the deceased before the period of toleration, when Christians dared not to do so. In the 3rd century, a new prophetess appeared in Pepuza, Quintilla. Her followers, the Quintillians, were regarded as an important Montanist sect into the 5th century.

A letter of Jerome to Marcella, written in 385, refutes the claims of Montanists that had been troubling her. A group of "Tertullianists" may have continued at Carthage. The anonymous author of Praedestinatus records that a preacher came to Rome in 388 where he made many converts and obtained the use of a church for his congregation on the grounds that the martyrs to whom it was dedicated had been Montanists. He was obliged to flee after the victory of Theodosius I.

In his own time, Augustine (354–430) records that the Tertullianist group had dwindled to almost nothing and, finally, was reconciled to the church and handed over its basilica. It is not certain whether these Tertullianists were in all respects "Montanist" or not. In 530 Emperor Justinian expelled Montanist clergy from Constantinople. In 550, on the orders Justinian, John of Ephesus led an expedition to Pepuza to destroy the Montanist shrine there, which was based on the tombs of Montanus, Priscilla and Maximilla.

A Montanist sect in Galatia, the Tascodrugites, is attested around 600 by Timothy of Constantinople and in the 9th century by Theodore the Studite. A sect called "Montanist" existed in the 8th century; the Emperor Leo III ordered the conversion and baptism of its members. These Montanists refused, locked themselves in their houses of worship, set the buildings on fire and perished.

Beliefs
Because much of what is known about Montanism comes from anti-Montanist sources, it is difficult to know what they actually believed and how those beliefs differed from the Christian mainstream of the time. The New Prophecy was also a diverse movement, and what Montanists believed varied by location and time. Montanism was particularly influenced by Johannine literature, especially the Gospel of John and the Apocalypse of John (also known as the Book of Revelation).

In John's Gospel, Jesus promised to send the Paraclete or Holy Spirit, from which Montanists believed their prophets derived inspiration. In the Apocalypse, John was taken by an angel to the top of a mountain where he sees the New Jerusalem descend to earth. Montanus identified this mountain as being located in Phrygia near Pepuza. Followers of the New Prophecy called themselves spiritales ("spiritual people") in contrast to their opponents whom they termed psychici ("carnal, natural people").

Ecstatic prophecy
As the name "New Prophecy" implied, Montanism was a movement focused around prophecy, specifically the prophecies of the movement's founders which were believed to contain the Holy Spirit's revelation for the present age. Prophecy itself was not controversial within 2nd-century Christian communities. However, the New Prophecy, as described by Eusebius of Caesarea, departed from Church tradition: "And he [Montanus] became beside himself, and being suddenly in a sort of frenzy and ecstasy, he raved, and began to babble and utter strange things, prophesying in a manner contrary to the constant custom of the Church handed down by tradition from the beginning." According to opponents, the Montanist prophets did not speak as messengers of God, but believed they became fully possessed by God and spoke as God. A prophetic utterance by Montanus described this possessed state: "Lo, the man is as a lyre, and I fly over him as a pick. The man sleepeth, while I watch." Thus, the Phrygians were seen as false prophets because they acted irrationally and were not in control of their senses.

A criticism of Montanism was that its followers claimed their revelation received directly from the Holy Spirit could supersede the authority of Jesus or Paul the Apostle or anyone else. In some of his prophecies, Montanus apparently, and somewhat like the oracles of the Greco-Roman world, spoke in the first person as God: "I am the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit."

Many early Christians understood this to be Montanus claiming himself to be God. However, scholars agree that these words of Montanus exemplify the general practice of religious prophets to speak as the passive mouthpieces of the divine, and to claim divine inspiration (similar to modern prophets stating "Thus saith the Lord"). That practice occurred in Christian as well as in pagan circles with some degree of frequency.

Other beliefs
Other beliefs and practices (or alleged beliefs and practices) of Montanism are as follows:
 * In On the Resurrection of the Flesh, Tertullian wrote that the Holy Spirit through the New Prophecy cleared up the ambiguities of scripture. The new prophecies did not contain new doctrinal content, but mandated strict ethical standards. To the mainstream Christian Church, Montanists appeared to believe that the new prophecies superseded and fulfilled the doctrines proclaimed by the Apostles.
 * The Montanists were alleged to have believed in the power of apostles and prophets to forgive sins. Adherents also believed that martyrs and confessors also possessed this power. The mainstream Church believed that God forgave sins through bishops and presbyters (and those martyrs recognized by legitimate ecclesiastical authority).
 * Montanists recognized women as bishops and presbyters.
 * Women and girls were forbidden to wear ornaments, and virgins were required to wear veils.
 * There was a divide between Trinitarian Montanists and Monarchian Montanists, both beliefs existing inside Montanism.
 * An emphasis on ethical rigorism and asceticism. These included prohibitions against remarriage following divorce or the death of a spouse. They also emphasized keeping fasts strictly and added new fasts.
 * Montanus provided salaries for those who preached his doctrine, which orthodox writers claimed was promoting gluttony.
 * Some of the Montanists were also "Quartodeciman" ("fourteeners"), preferring to celebrate Easter on the Hebrew calendar date of 14 Nisan, regardless of what day of the week it landed on. Mainstream Christians held that Easter should be commemorated on the Sunday following 14 Nisan. However, uniformity in this matter had not yet been fully achieved when the Montanist movement began; Polycarp, for example, was a quartodeciman, and St. Irenaeus convinced Victor, then Bishop of Rome, to refrain from making the issue of the date of Easter a divisive one. Later, the Catholic Church established a fixed way of calculating Easter according to the Julian (and later the Gregorian) calendar.
 * Montanists believed in premillennialism.
 * That the Lapsi cannot be restored back into fellowship.
 * Ecstatic form of worship.
 * Limited distinction between the laity and the clergy.
 * Discouragement of infant baptism

Geographical differences
It appears that North African Montanism and the form of Montanism in Anatolia had many differences, the Montanists in North Africa believed that the New Testament was the supreme rule of Christian life and theology, bishops were successors of the apostles and held much similar theology as the Great Church, while Montanus himself had different views.

title: Montanism


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Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor

Otto III (June/July 980 – 23 January 1002) was the Holy Roman Emperor from 996 until his death in 1002. A member of the Ottonian dynasty, Otto III was the only son of the Emperor Otto II and his wife Theophanu.

Otto III was crowned as King of Germany in 983 at the age of three, shortly after his father's death in Southern Italy while campaigning against the Byzantine Empire and the Emirate of Sicily. Though the nominal ruler of Germany, Otto III's minor status ensured his various regents held power over the Empire. His cousin Henry II, Duke of Bavaria, initially claimed regency over the young king and attempted to seize the throne for himself in 984. When his rebellion failed to gain the support of Germany's aristocracy, Henry II was forced to abandon his claims to the throne and to allow Otto III's mother Theophanu to serve as regent until her death in 991. Otto III was then still a child, so his grandmother, Adelaide of Italy, served as regent until 994.

In 996, Otto III marched to Italy to claim the titles of King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor, which had been left unclaimed since the death of Otto II in 983. Otto III also sought to reestablish Imperial control over the city of Rome, which had revolted under the leadership of Crescentius II, and through it the papacy. Crowned as emperor, Otto III put down the Roman rebellion and installed his cousin as Pope Gregory V, the first Pope of German descent. After the Emperor had pardoned him and left the city, Crescentius II again rebelled, deposing Gregory V and installing John XVI as Pope. Otto III returned to the city in 998, reinstalled Gregory V, and executed both Crescentius II and John XVI. When Gregory V died in 999, Otto III installed Sylvester II as the new pope. Otto III's actions throughout his life further strengthened imperial control over the Catholic Church.

From the beginning of his reign, Otto III faced opposition from the Slavs along the eastern frontier. Following the death of his father in 983, the Slavs rebelled against imperial control, forcing the Empire to abandon its territories east of the Elbe river. Otto III fought to regain the Empire's lost territories throughout his reign with only limited success. While in the east, Otto III strengthened the Empire's relations with Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary. Through his affairs in Eastern Europe in 1000, he was able to extend the influence of Christianity by supporting mission work in Poland and through the crowning of Stephen I as the first Christian king of Hungary.

Returning to Rome in 1001, Otto faced a rebellion by the Roman aristocracy, which forced him to flee the city. While marching to reclaim the city in 1002, Otto suffered a sudden fever and died in Castle Paterno in Faleria at the age of 21. With no clear heir to succeed him, his early death threw the Empire into political crisis.

Otto was a charismatic figure associated with several legends and notable figures of his time. Opinions on Otto III and his reign vary considerably. Recognized in his own day as a brilliant, energetic, pious leader, Otto was portrayed by nineteenth century historians as a whimsical, overidealistic dreamer who failed in his duty towards Germany. Modern historians generally see him in a positive light, but several facets of the emperor remain enigmatic and debates on the true intentions behind his Imperial Renovation (renovatio imperii Romanorum) program continue.

Early life
Otto III was born in June or July 980 somewhere between Aachen and Nijmegen, in modern-day North Rhine-Westphalia. The only son of Emperor Otto II and Empress Theophanu, Otto III was the youngest of the couple's four children. Immediately prior to Otto III's birth, his father had completed military campaigns in France against King Lothar.

On 14 July 982, Otto II's army suffered a crushing defeat against the Muslim Emirate of Sicily at the Battle of Stilo. Otto II had been campaigning in Southern Italy with hopes of annexing the whole of Italy into the Holy Roman Empire. Otto II himself escaped the battle unharmed but many important imperial officials were among the battle's casualties. Following the defeat and at the insistence of the Empire's nobles, Otto II called an assembly of the Imperial Diet in Verona at Pentecost, 983, where he proposed to the assembly to have the three-year-old Otto III elected as king of Germany and Italy, becoming Otto II's undoubted heir apparent. This was the first time a German ruler had been elected on Italian soil. After the assembly was concluded, Otto III traveled across the Alps in order to be crowned at Aachen, the traditional location of the coronation of the German kings. Otto II stayed behind to address military action against the Muslims. While still in central Italy, however, Otto II suddenly died on 7 December 983, and was buried in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

Otto III was crowned as king on Christmas Day 983, three weeks after his father's death, by Willigis, the Archbishop of Mainz, and by John X, the Archbishop of Ravenna. News of Otto II's death first reached Germany shortly after his son's coronation. The unresolved problems in southern Italy and the Slavic uprising on the Empire's eastern border made the Empire's political situation extremely unstable. With a minor on the throne, the Empire was thrown into confusion and Otto III's mother Theophanu assumed the role of regent for her young son.

Regency of Henry II

Otto III's cousin Henry II had been deposed as Duke of Bavaria by Otto II in 976 following his failed rebellion and imprisoned within the Bishopric of Utrecht. Following Otto II's death, Henry was released from prison. As Otto III's nearest male Ottonian relative, Henry II claimed the regency over his infant cousin. Archbishop of Cologne Warin granted Henry II the regency without substantial opposition. Only Otto III's mother Theophanu objected, along with his grandmother, the Dowager Empress Adelaide of Italy, and his aunt, Abbess Matilda of Quedlinburg. Adelaide and Matilda, however, were both in Italy and unable to press their objections.

As regent, Henry II took actions aimed less at guardianship of his infant cousin and more at claiming the throne for himself. According to Gerbert of Aurillac, Henry II adopted a Byzantine-style joint-kingship. Towards the end of 984, Henry II sought to form alliances between himself and other important figures in the Ottonian world, chief among them his cousin King Lothar of France. In exchange for Lothar's agreement to make Henry II king of Germany, Henry II agreed to relinquish Lotharingia to Lothar. The two agreed to join their armies on 1 February 985, in order to take the city of Breisach, but at the last minute, Henry's resolve weakened. Nevertheless, Lothair continued to campaign into German lands and succeeded in overrunning the Verdun by March 985.

Henry II took the young Otto III and traveled to Saxony. There, Henry II invited all the great nobles of the kingdom to celebrate Palm Sunday at Magdeburg for 985. He then campaigned openly for his claim to the German throne, with limited success. Among those who supported his claims were Duke Mieszko I of Poland and Duke Boleslaus II of Bohemia. Henry II was also supported by Archbishop Egbert of Trier, Archbishop Gisilher of Magdeburg, and Bishop Dietrich I of Metz.

Those who opposed Henry II's claims fled to Quedlinburg in Saxony to conspire against him. When he became aware of this conspiracy, he moved his army towards Quedlinburg in hopes of crushing his opposition. Henry II sent Folcmar, the Bishop of Utrecht, ahead of him in order to attempt a peace negotiation between him and the conspirators. The negotiations failed when the conspirators refused to swear allegiance to anyone other than Otto III, with Bernard I, Duke of Saxony, maintaining allegiance to the child king. In response to his failure to gain control over Saxony, Henry II promised to hold future peace negotiations and then headed for the Duchy of Bavaria. With his long-standing familial ties in the region, many bishops and counts recognized him as the rightful heir to the throne. Henry III, Duke of Bavaria, who had been installed as Duke by Otto II, refused to recognize Henry II and remained loyal to Otto III.

With his successes and failures in Saxony and Bavaria, Henry II's claims depended on gaining support in the Duchy of Franconia, which was a direct possession of the German kings. The Franconian nobles, led by Archbishop Willigis of Mainz (the Primate of Germany) and Conrad I, Duke of Swabia, refused to abandon Otto III. Fearing outright civil war, Henry II relinquished Otto III to the joint-regency of his mother and grandmother on 29 June 985. In return for his submission, Henry II was restored as the Duke of Bavaria, replacing Henry III who became the new Duke of Carinthia.

Regency of Theophanu
The regency of Theophanu, from 984 until her death in 991, was largely spared internal revolt. She struggled throughout to reinstate the Diocese of Merseburg, which her husband Otto II had absorbed into the Archdiocese of Magdeburg in 981. Theophanu also retained Otto II's court chaplains, in particular Count Bernward of Hildesheim and Archbishop Willigis, who, as the Archbishop of Mainz, was ex officio the secular Archchancellor of Germany. Though Theophanu was regent, Willigis was given considerable leeway in administering the kingdom. One of the Empress's greatest achievements was her success in maintaining German supremacy over Bohemia, as Boleslaus II, Duke of Bohemia, was forced to accept the authority of Otto III.

In 986 the five-year-old Otto III celebrated Easter at Quedlinburg. The four major dukes of Germany (Henry II of Bavaria, Conrad I of Swabia, Henry III of Carinthia, and Bernard I of Saxony) also paid tribute to the child king. Imitating similar ceremonies carried out under Otto I in 936 and Otto II in 961, the dukes served Otto III as his ceremonial steward, chamberlain, cupbearer, and marshal, respectively. This service symbolized the loyalty of the dukes to Otto III and their willingness to serve him. Most significant was the submission of Henry II, who demonstrated his loyalty to his cousin despite his failed rebellion two years earlier. The next year, from the age of six onward, Otto III would receive education and training from Bernward of Hildesheim and Gerbert d'Aurillac.

During the regency of Theophanu, the Great Gandersheim Conflict broke out, concerning control of Gandersheim Abbey and its estates. Both the Archbishop of Mainz and the Bishop of Hildesheim claimed authority over the abbey, including the authority to anoint the abbey's nuns. The conflict began in 989 when Otto III's older sister Sophia became a nun in the abbey. Sophia refused to accept the authority of the Bishop of Hildesheim, instead recognizing only that of the Archbishop of Mainz. The conflict escalated until it was brought before the royal court of Otto III and Theophanu. The royal intervention eased the tensions between the parties by providing that both bishops would anoint Sophia, while anointing the remaining nuns of the abbey would be left to the Bishop of Hildesheim alone.

In 989 Theophanu and Otto III made a royal expedition to Italy to visit the grave of Otto II in Rome. After crossing the Alps and reaching Pavia in northern Italy, the Empress had her longtime confidant John Philagathos appointed as Archbishop of Piacenza. After a year in Italy, the royal court returned to Germany, where Theophanu died in Nijmegen on 15 June 991, at the age of 31. She was buried in the Church of St. Pantaleon in Cologne.

Because Otto III was still a child (only eleven when his mother died), his grandmother, the Dowager Empress Adelaide of Italy, became regent, together with Archbishop Willigis of Mainz, until he became old enough to rule on his own in 994.

Independent reign
As Otto III grew in age, the authority of his grandmother gradually waned until 994 when Otto III reached the age of 14. At an assembly of the Imperial Diet held in Solingen in September 994, Otto III was granted the ability to fully govern the kingdom without the need of a regent. With this, Adelaide retired to a nunnery she had founded at Selz in Alsace. Although she never became a nun, she spent the rest of her days there in the service of the Church and in acts of charity. As Otto III was still unmarried, from 995 until 997 his older sister Sophia accompanied him and acted as his consort.

One of Otto III's first actions as an independent ruler was to appoint Heribert of Cologne as his chancellor over Italy, a position he would hold until Otto's death in 1002. Otto III followed in his grandfather Otto I's footsteps in the beginning of his reign, by appointing a new pope, Gregory V, and leaving Rome. Gregory V was expelled and Otto III returned to Rome in 998 where he stayed permanently until his death. In the summer of 995, Otto sent the Archbishop of Piacenza, John Philagathos, to Constantinople as his representative to arrange a marriage between himself and a Byzantine princess following the example of his father, Otto II, who solidified his claim to the throne by marrying the Byzantine Theophanu. For a while the discussions were about Zoe Porphyrogenita.

War against the Slavs

The Lutici federation of West Slavic Polabian tribes had remained quiet during the early years of Otto III's reign, even during Henry II's failed rebellion. In 983, following Otto II's defeat at the battle of Stilo, the Slavs revolted against Imperial control, forcing the Empire to abandon its territories east of the Elbe River in the Northern March and the Billung March. With the process of Christianization halted, the Slavs left the Empire in peace, and with Henry II's rebellion put down, Theophanu launched multiple campaigns to re-conquer the lost eastern territories, beginning in 985. Even though he was only six at the time, Otto III personally participated in these campaigns. During the expedition of 986 against the Slavs, Otto III received the homage of Duke Mieszko I of Poland, who provided the Imperial army with military assistance and gave Otto III a camel. Although the Lutici were subdued for a time in 987, they continued to occupy the young king's attention.

In September 991, when Otto III was eleven, Slavonic raiders captured the city of Brandenburg. In 992 this invasion, as well as an incursion of Viking raiders, forced Otto III to lead his army against the invaders, and he suffered a crushing defeat in this campaign. The next year, Germany suffered an outbreak of famine and pestilence. In 994 and 995, Otto III led fruitless campaigns against the northern Slavs and the Vikings, but he did successfully re-conquer Brandenburg in 993, and in 995 he subdued the Obotrite Slavs.

In the fall of 995, after Otto III reached his majority, he again took to the field against the Lutici, this time aided by the Polish Duke Bolesław I the Brave. Then in 997 he had to deal with a new Lutician attack on Arneburg on the Elbe, which they managed to retake for a short while.

Roman instability
Prior to his sudden death in December 983, Otto II had installed Pietro Canepanova as pope. Calling himself Pope John XIV, Canepanova was a non-Roman from Lombardy who had served as Otto II's chancellor in Italy. After Otto II's death, John XIV intervened in the dispute between Henry II of Bavaria and Theophanu over the regency, issuing an edict ordering Henry to turn Otto over to his mother.

During that turmoil, the Roman aristocracy saw an opportunity to remove the non-Roman John XIV and install a pope from among themselves. The Antipope Boniface VII, who had spent nine years in exile in the Byzantine Empire, joined forces with Byzantine nobles in southern Italy and marched on Rome in April 984 in order to claim the papal throne for himself. With the aid of the sons of Crescentius the Elder — Crescentius II and John Crescentius — Boniface VII was able to imprison John XIV in the Tomb of Hadrian. Four months later, on 20 August 984, John XIV died in his prison, either starved or poisoned, probably on the orders of Boniface.

With Otto's regency seated in Germany, Crescentius II took the title of Patricius Romanorum (Patrician of the Romans) and became the effective ruler of Rome, although he did not act entirely independently of central authority, presenting himself as a lieutenant of the king. When Boniface VII died in 985, Pope John XV was chosen to succeed him. Although the details of the election are unknown, it is likely that Crescentius II played a key role in the process. For a number of years, Crescentius II exercised authority over the city, severely limiting the autonomy of the pope in the process. When the Empress Theophanu was in Rome between 989 and 991, Crescentius II nominally subordinated himself to her, though he maintained his position as ruler of the city.

First expedition into Italy

After taking the crown in 994, Otto III faced first a Slavic rebellion, which he put down, and then an attempt by Crescentius II to seize power in Italy.

When Otto III turned his attention to Italy, he not only intended to be crowned Emperor but also to come to the aid of Pope John XV, who had been forced to flee Rome. Otto set out for Italy from Ratisbon in March 996. In Verona, he became the patron of Otto Orseolo, the son of Venetian Doge Pietro II Orseolo. He then pledged to support Otto Orseolo as the next Doge of Venice, leading to a period of good relations between the Holy Roman Empire and the Republic of Venice after years of conflict under Otto II.

Reaching Pavia for Easter, 996, Otto III was declared King of Italy and crowned with the Iron Crown of the Lombards. The king failed, however, to reach Rome before Pope John XV died of fever. While Otto III was in Pavia, Crescentius II, fearing the king's march on Rome, reconciled with Otto III and agreed to accept his nominee as pope.

While in Ravenna, Otto III nominated his cousin and court chaplain Bruno, who was then only twenty-three years old, and sent him to Rome with Archbishop Willigis to secure the city. In early May 996, Bruno was consecrated as Gregory V, the first pope of German nationality. Despite submitting to Otto III, Crescentius shut himself in his family's stronghold, the Tomb of Hadrian, out of fear of retribution.

The new supreme pontiff crowned Otto III as emperor on 21 May 996, in Rome at St. Peter's Basilica. The Emperor and Pope then held a synod at St. Peter's on 25 May to serve as the Empire's highest judicial court. The Roman nobles who had rebelled against Pope John XV were summoned before the synod to give an account of their actions. A number of the rebels, including Crescentius II, were banished for their crimes. Pope Gregory V, however, wished to inaugurate his papal reign with acts of mercy and pleaded for clemency from the Emperor, who issued pardons to those he convicted. In particular, while Crescentius II was pardoned by Otto III, he was deprived of his title of Patricius but was permitted to live out his life in retirement at Rome.

Following the synod, Otto III appointed Gerbert of Aurillac, the Archbishop of Reims, to be his tutor. Counseled by Gerbert and Bishop Adalbert of Prague, Otto III set out to reorganize the Empire. Influenced by the ruin of ancient Rome and perhaps by his Byzantine mother, Otto III dreamed of restoring the glory and power of the Roman Empire, with himself at the head of a theocratic state. He also introduced some Byzantine court customs. To shore up his power in Italy, Otto III sought the support of existing Italian religious communities. For instance, he granted royal immunity to the Abbey of San Salvatore, a rich monastery along the shores of the Lago di Bientina in Tuscany.

Through the election of Gregory V, Otto III exercised greater control over the Church than his grandfather Otto I had decades earlier. The Emperor quickly demonstrated his intention to withdraw Imperial support for the privileges of the Holy See laid out by Otto I. Under the Diploma Ottonianum issued by Otto I, the Emperor could only veto papal candidates. Otto III, however, had nominated and successfully installed his own candidate. The Emperor also refused to acknowledge the Donation of Constantine, which Otto III declared a forgery. Under a decree supposedly issued by Roman Emperor Constantine the Great, the Pope was granted secular authority over western Europe. These actions resulted in increased tensions between the Roman nobility and the Church, who had traditionally reserved the right to name the pope from among their own members.

After his coronation, Otto III returned to Germany in December 996, staying along the Lower Rhine (especially in Aachen) until April 997. His specific activities during this time are not known. In summer 997, Otto III campaigned against the Elbe Slavs in order to secure Saxony's eastern border.

Second expedition into Italy

When Otto III left Italy for Germany, the situation in Rome remained uncertain. In September 996, a few months after receiving a pardon from Otto III, Crescentius II met with the Archbishop of Piacenza, John Philagathos, a former adviser to the late Empress Theophanu, to devise a plan to depose the newly installed Pope Gregory V. In 997, with the active support of Byzantine Emperor Basil II, Crescentius II led a revolt against Gregory V, deposed him, and installed John Philagathos as Pope John XVI, an antipope, in April 997. Gregory fled to Pavia in northern Italy, held a synod, and excommunicated John. The new bishop of Piacenza, Siegfried, came north to meet Otto at Eschwege in July. Otto detached the city from the county of Piacenza and granted it to the bishop in perpetuity.

Putting down the Slavic forces in eastern Saxony, Otto III began his second expedition into Italy in December 997. Accompanied by his sister Sophia into Italy, Otto III named his aunt Matilda, Abbess of Quedlinburg, as his regent in Germany, becoming the first non-duke or bishop to serve in that capacity. Otto III peacefully retook Rome in February 998 when the Roman aristocracy agreed to a peace settlement. With Otto III in control of the city, Gregory V was reinstated as pope. John XVI fled, but the Emperor's troops pursued and captured him, cut off his nose and ears, cut out his tongue, broke his fingers, blinded him, and then brought him before Otto III and Gregory V for judgement. At the intercession of Saint Nilus the Younger, one of his countrymen, Otto III spared John XVI's life and sent him to a monastery in Germany, where he would die in 1001.

Crescentius II retreated again to the Tomb of Hadrian, the traditional stronghold of the Crescentii, and was then besieged by Otto III's imperial army. Towards the end of April, the stronghold was breached, and Crescentius II was taken prisoner and executed by decapitation. His body was put on public display at Monte Mario.

Reign from Rome
Otto III made Rome the administrative capital of his Empire and revived elaborate Roman customs and Byzantine court ceremonies. During his time in Italy, the Emperor and the Pope attempted to reform the Church, and confiscated church property was returned to the respective religious institutions. Additionally, after the death of the Bishop of Halberstadt in November 996, who had been one of the masterminds behind the abolition of the bishopric of Merseburg, Otto III and Pope Gregory V began the process of reviving the Diocese. Otto I had established the Diocese in 968 following his victory over the Hungarians in order to Christianize the Polabian Slavs but it had been effectively destroyed in 983 with the Great Slav Rising following the death of Otto II that year.

Otto III arranged for his imperial palace to be built on the Palatine Hill and planned to restore the ancient Roman Senate to its position of prominence. He revived the city's ancient governmental system, including appointing a City Patrician, a City Prefect, and a body of judges whom he commanded to recognize only Roman law. In order to strengthen his title to the Roman Empire and to announce his position as the protector of Christendom, Otto III took for himself the titles "the Servant of Jesus Christ," "the Servant of the Apostles", "Consul of the Senate and People of Rome," and "Emperor of the World".

Between 998 and 1000, Otto III made several pilgrimages. In 999, he made a pilgrimage from Gargano to Benevento, where he met with the hermit monk Romuald and the Abbot Nilus the Younger (at that time a highly venerated religious figure) in order to atone for executing Crescentius II after promising his safety. During this particular pilgrimage, his cousin Pope Gregory V died in Rome after a brief illness. Upon learning of Gregory V's death, Otto III installed his long-time tutor Gerbert of Aurillac as Pope Sylvester II. The use of this papal name was not without cause: it recalled the first pope of this name, who had allegedly created the "Christian Empire" together with Emperor Constantine the Great. This was part of Otto III's campaign to further link himself with both the Roman Empire and the Church.

Like his grandfather before him, Otto III strongly aspired to be the successor of Charlemagne. In 1000, he visited Charlemagne's tomb in Aachen, removing relics from it and transporting them to Rome. Otto III also carried back parts of the body of Bishop Adalbert of Prague, which he placed in the church of San Bartolomeo all'Isola he had built on the Tiber Island in Rome. Otto III also added the skin of Saint Bartholomew to the relics housed there.

Polish relations

Around 960, the Polish Piast dynasty under Mieszko I had extended the Duchy of Poland beyond the Oder River in an effort to conquer the Polabian Slavs, who lived along the Elbe River. This brought the Polans into Germany's sphere of influence and into conflict with Otto I's Kingdom of Germany, who also desired to conquer the Polabian Slavs. Otto I sent his trusted lieutenant, the Saxon Margrave Gero, to address the Polan threat, while Otto I traveled to Italy to be crowned as emperor. Gero defeated Mieszko I in 963 and forced him to recognize Otto I as his overlord. In return for submitting tribute to the newly crowned Emperor, Otto I granted Mieszko I the title of amicus imperatoris ("Friend of the Emperor") and acknowledged his position as dux Poloniae ("Duke of Poland"). Mieszko I is thus recognized as the founder of the independent Polish state and the first ruler of Poland, and his son, Boleslaus I, was the first to be crowned King of Poland.

Mieszko I remained a powerful ally of Otto I for the remainder of his life. Although he was a pagan, in 965 he married the Christian Dobrawa, daughter of Boleslaus I, Duke of Bohemia. He then converted to Christianity in 966, bringing Poland closer to the Christian states of Bohemia and the Empire. Dobrawa died in 977, and Mieszko I then strengthened his alliance with the Empire by marrying Oda, the daughter of the Saxon Margrave Dietrich of Haldensleben in 978, and by marrying his son Bolesłaus I of Poland to a daughter of Margrave Rikdag of Meissen.

Following the death of Otto I in 973, Mieszko I sided with Henry II, Duke of Bavaria, against Otto II during Henry's failed revolt in 977. After the revolt was put down, Mieszko I swore loyalty to Otto II. When Otto II died suddenly in 983 and was succeeded by the three-year old Otto III, Mieszko I again supported Henry II in his bid for the German throne. When Henry's revolt failed, Mieszko I swore loyalty to Otto III.

Mieszko I's son Bolesław I succeeded him as Duke in 992, and Poland continued its alliance with the Empire. Polish forces joined the Empire's campaigns to put down the Great Slav Rising, led by the Polabian Lutici tribes during the 980s and 990s.

Bohemian relations
Germany and the Duchy of Bohemia came into significant contact with one another in 929, when German King Henry I had invaded the Duchy to force Duke Wenceslaus I to pay regular tribute to Germany. When Wenceslaus I was assassinated in 935, his brother Boleslaus I succeeded him as Duke and refused to continue paying the annual tribute to Germany. This action caused Henry I's son and successor Otto I to launch an invasion of Bohemia. Following the initial invasion, the conflict deteriorated into a series of border raids that lasted until 950 when Otto I and Boleslaus I signed a peace treaty. Boleslaus I agreed to resume paying tribute and to recognize Otto I as his overlord. The Duchy was then incorporated into the Holy Roman Empire as a constituent state.

Bohemia would be a major factor in the many battles along the Empire's eastern border. Boleslaus I helped Otto I crush an uprising of Slavs along the Lower Elbe in 953, and they joined forces again to defeat the Hungarians at the battle of Lechfeld in 955. In 973 Otto I established the bishopric of Prague, subordinated to the archbishopric of Mainz, in order to Christianize the Czech territory. To strengthen the Bohemian-Polish alliance, Boleslaus I's daughter Dobrawa was married to the pagan Mieszko I of Poland in 965. The marriage helped bring Christianity to Poland. He died in 972 and was succeeded as Duke by his oldest son Boleslaus II.

After initially siding with Henry II against Otto II during Henry's failed revolt in 977, Boleslaus II swore loyalty to Otto II. When Otto II died suddenly in 983 and was succeeded by the three-year old Otto III, Boleslaus II again supported Henry II in his bid for the German throne. As in 977, Henry's bid failed, and Boleslaus II swore loyalty to Otto III.

Hungarian relations
Otto I's defeat of the Hungarians at Lechfeld in 955 ended the decades-long Hungarian invasions of Europe. The Hungarian Grand Prince Fajsz was deposed following the defeat and was succeeded by Taksony, who adopted the policy of isolation from the West. He was succeeded by his son Géza in 972, who sent envoys to Otto I in 973. Géza was baptised in 972, and Christianity spread among the Hungarians during his reign.

Géza expanded his rule over the territories west of the Danube and the Garam, but significant parts of the Carpathian Basin still remained under the rule of local tribal leaders. In 997, Géza died and was succeeded by Stephen (originally called Vajk). Stephen was baptized by Bishop Adalbert of Prague and married Gisela, daughter of Henry II, Duke of Bavaria, sister of Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor, as well as a distant niece of Otto III. Stephen had to face the rebellion of his relative, Koppány, who claimed Géza's inheritance based on the Hungarian tradition of agnatic seniority. Stephen defeated Koppány using some Western tactics and a small number of Swabian knights.

When Otto III traveled to Poland in 1000, he brought with him a crown from Pope Sylvester II. With Otto III's approval, Stephen was crowned as the first Christian king of Hungary on Christmas Day, 1000.

Congress of Gniezno

In 996, Duke Bolesław I of Poland sent the longtime Bishop of Prague, Adalbert, to Christianize the Old Prussians. He was martyred by the Prussians for his efforts in 997. Bolesław I, who had bought Adalbert's body from the Old Prussians for its weight in gold, had Adalbert laid to rest in the cathedral at Gniezno, which eventually became the ecclesiastical center of Poland. Otto III and Bolesław I worked together to canonize Adalbert, making him the first Slavic bishop to become a saint. In December 999, Otto III left Italy to make a pilgrimage from Rome to Gniezno in Poland to pray at the grave of Adalbert.

Otto III's pilgrimage allowed the Emperor to extend the influence of Christianity in Eastern Europe and to strengthen relations with Poland and Hungary by naming them federati ("allies"). On the pilgrimage to Gniezno, the Emperor was received by Bolesław I at the Polish border on the Bobr River near Małomice. Between 7 and 15 March 1000, Otto III invested Bolesław I with the titles frater et cooperator Imperii ("Brother and Partner of the Empire") and populi Romani amicus et socius ("Friend and ally of Rome"). Otto III gave Bolesław a replica of his Holy Lance (part of the Imperial Regalia) and Bolesław presented the Emperor with a relic, an arm of Saint Adalbert in exchange.

On the same foreign visit, Otto III raised Gniezno to the rank of an archbishopric and installed Radzim Gaudenty, a brother of Saint Adalbert, as its first archbishop. Otto III also established three new subordinate dioceses under the Archbishop of Gniezno: the Bishopric of Kraków (assigned to Bishop Poppo), the Bishopric of Wrocław (assigned to Bishop Jan), and the Bishopric of Kołobrzeg in Pomerania (assigned to Bishop Reinbern).

Bolesław I subsequently accompanied Otto III on his way back to Germany. Both proceeded to the grave of Charlemagne at Aachen Cathedral, where. Both arranged the betrothal of Bolesław's son Mieszko II Lambert with the Emperor's niece Richeza of Lotharingia.

Return to Rome

The Emperor spent the remainder of 1000 in Italy without any notable activities. In 1001, the people of the Italian city of Tibur revolted against Imperial authority. Otto III besieged the city and put down the revolt with ease, sparing its inhabitants. This action angered the people of Rome, who viewed Tibur as a rival and wanted the city destroyed. In a change of policy towards the papacy, Otto III bestowed the governance of the city upon Pope Sylvester II as part of the Papal States but under the overlordship of the Holy Roman Empire. Previously, Otto III had revoked the Pope's rights as secular ruler by denying the Donation of Constantine and by amending the Diploma Ottonianum.

In the weeks after Otto's actions at Tibur, the Roman people rebelled against their Emperor, led by Count Gregory I of Tusculum. The rebellious citizens besieged the Emperor in his palace on the Palatine Hill and drove him from the city. Accompanied by Bishop Bernward of Hildesheim and the German chronicler Thangmar, he returned to the city to conduct peace negotiations with the rebellious Romans. Though both sides agreed to a peaceful settlement, with the Romans respecting Otto's rule over the city, feelings of mistrust remained. The Emperor's advisors urged him to wait outside the city until military reinforcements could arrive to ensure his safety.

Emperor Otto, accompanied by Pope Sylvester II, traveled to Ravenna to do penance in the monastery of Sant'Apollinare in Classe and to summon his army. While in Ravenna, he received ambassadors from Duke Bolesław I of Poland and approved the plans of King Stephen of Hungary to establish the Archdiocese of Esztergom in order to convert Hungary to Christianity. The Emperor also strengthened relations with the Venetian Doge, Pietro II Orseolo. Since 996, Otto had been godfather to Pietro II's son, Otto Orseolo, and in 1001 he arranged for Pietro II's daughter to be baptized.

Death
After summoning his army in late 1001, Otto headed south to Rome to ensure his rule over the city. During the travel south, however, he suffered a sudden and severe fever. He died in a castle near Civita Castellana on 24 January 1002. He was 21 years old and had reigned as an independent ruler for just under six years, having nominally reigned for nearly nineteen. The Byzantine princess Zoe, second daughter of the Emperor Constantine VIII, had just disembarked in Apulia on her way to marry him. Otto III's death has been attributed to various causes. Medieval sources speak of malaria, which he had caught in the unhealthy marshes that surrounded Ravenna. Following his death, the Roman people suggested that Stefania, the widow of Crescentius II, had made Otto fall in love with her and then poisoned him.

The Emperor's body was carried back to Germany by his soldiers, as his route was lined with Italians who hurled abuses at his remains. He was buried in Aachen Cathedral alongside the body of Charlemagne.

Succession crisis
Otto III, having never married, died without issue, leaving the Empire without a clear successor. As the funeral procession moved through the Duchy of Bavaria in February 1002, Otto III's cousin duke Henry IV of Bavaria (son of Henry the Quarrelsome, representing the Bavarian-Liudolfing line) asked the bishops and nobles to elect him as the new king of Germany. With the exception of the Bishop of Augsburg and Willigis (Archbishop and Elector of Mainz), Henry II received no support for his claims. To emphasise Henry's claim to the throne the Bishop of Augsburg even buried Otto's intestines in the Cathedral of Augsburg in order to show that Henry cared for the well-being of Otto's body. At Otto III's funeral on Easter 1002, in Aachen, the German nobles repeated their opposition to Henry II. Several rival candidates for the throne – Count Ezzo of Lotharingia, Margrave Eckard I of Meissen, and Duke Herman II of Swabia (a Conradine) — strongly contested the succession of Henry II. On 6 or 7 June 1002 in Mainz, the duke of Bavaria was elected King of the Romans as Henry II by his Bavarian, Frankish and upper Lotharingian supporters, and anointed and crowned king by Willigis. In the meantime, Ekkehard had already been killed in a feud unconnected to the succession dispute. Henry then launched an indecisive campaign against Herman of Swabia, but was recognised by the Thuringians, Saxons and lower Lotharingians in subsequent months, either by homage or renewed election. On 1 October 1002 in Bruchsal, Herman finally submitted to Henry II, and the war of succession was over.

Without an Emperor on the throne, Italy began to break away from German control. On 15 February 1002, the Lombard Margrave of Ivrea Arduin, an opponent of the Ottonian dynasty, was elected King of Italy in Pavia.

Character
Otto's mental gifts were considerable, and were carefully cultivated by Bernward, later bishop of Hildesheim, and Gerbert of Aurillac, archbishop of Reims. He spoke three languages and was so learned that contemporaries called him mirabilia mundi or "the wonder of the world" (later, Frederick II would often be referred to as stupor mundi, also translated into English as "the wonder of the world." The two emperors are often compared on account of their intellectual power, ambitions and connection to the Italian culture). Enamoured as he was of Greek and Roman culture, a speech was attributed to him in Thangmar's Vita Bernwardi saying he preferred Romans to his German subjects though the speech's authenticity is disputed.

Accounts of his reign
Between 1012 and 1018 Thietmar of Merseburg wrote a Chronicon, or Chronicle, of eight books dealing with the period between 908 and 1018. For the earlier part he used Widukind's Res gestae Saxonicae, the Annales Quedlinburgenses and other sources; the latter part is the result of personal knowledge. The chronicle is nevertheless an excellent authority for the history of Saxony during the reigns of the emperors Otto III and Henry II. No kind of information is excluded, but the fullest details refer to the bishopric of Merseburg and to the wars against the Wends and the Poles.

Family
Otto III was a member of the Ottonian dynasty of kings and emperors who ruled the Holy Roman Empire (previously Germany) from 919 to 1024. In relation to the other members of his dynasty, Otto III was the great-grandson of Henry the Fowler, grandson of Otto I, son of Otto II, and a second-cousin to Henry II.

Otto III never married and never fathered any children due to his early death. At the time of his death, the Byzantine princess Zoë Porphyrogenita, second daughter of Emperor Constantine VIII, was traveling to Italy to marry him.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor


text:
Yankee

The term Yankee and its contracted form Yank have several interrelated meanings, all referring to people from the United States. Their various meanings depend on the context, and may refer to New Englanders, the Northeastern United States, the Northern United States, or to people from the US in general.

Outside the United States, Yank is used informally to refer to a person or thing from the USA. It has been especially popular in the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand where it may be used variously, either with an uncomplimentary overtone, endearingly, or cordially. In the Southern United States, Yankee is a derisive term which refers to all Northerners, and during the American Civil War it was applied by Confederates to soldiers of the Union army in general. Elsewhere in the United States, it largely refers to people from the Northeastern states, but especially those with New England cultural ties, such as descendants of colonial New England settlers, wherever they live. Its sense is sometimes more cultural than geographical, emphasizing the Calvinist Puritan Christian beliefs and traditions of the Congregationalists who brought their culture when they settled outside New England. The speech dialect of Eastern New England English is called "Yankee" or "Yankee dialect".

New Netherland origin
Most linguists look to Dutch language sources, noting the extensive interaction between the Dutch colonists in New Netherland (parts of New York, New Jersey, and Delaware) and the English colonists in New England (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut). The exact application, however, is uncertain; some scholars suggest that it was a term used in derision of the Dutch colonists, others that it was derisive of the English colonists.

Michael Quinion and Patrick Hanks argue that the term comes from the Dutch Janneke, a diminutive form of the given name Jan which would be Anglicized by New Englanders as "Yankee" due to the Dutch pronunciation of J being the same as the English Y. Quinion and Hanks posit that it was "used as a nickname for a Dutch-speaking American in colonial times" and could have grown to include non-Dutch colonists, as well. The Oxford English Dictionary calls this theory "perhaps the most plausible".

Alternatively, the Dutch given names Jan and Kees  have long been common, and the two are sometimes combined into a single name (Jan Kees). Its Anglicized spelling Yankee could, in this way, have been used to mock Dutch colonists. The chosen name Jan Kees may have been partly inspired by a dialectal rendition of Jan Kaas ("John Cheese"), the generic nickname that Southern Dutch used for Dutch people living in the North.

The Online Etymology Dictionary gives its origin as around 1683, attributing it to English colonists insultingly referring to Dutch colonists. English privateer William Dampier relates his dealings in 1681 with Dutch privateer Captain Yanky or Yanke. Linguist Jan de Vries notes that there was mention of a pirate named Dutch Yanky in the 17th century. The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves (1760) contains the passage, "Haul forward thy chair again, take thy berth, and proceed with thy story in a direct course, without yawing like a Dutch yanky." According to this theory, Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam started using the term against the English colonists of neighboring Connecticut.

New England use
British General James Wolfe made the earliest recorded use of the word "Yankee" in 1758 when he referred to the New England soldiers under his command. "I can afford you two companies of Yankees, and the more, because they are better for ranging and scouting than either work or vigilance". Later British use of the word was in a derogatory manner, as seen in a cartoon published in 1775 ridiculing "Yankee" soldiers. New Englanders themselves employed the word in a neutral sense; the "Pennamite–Yankee War", for example, was a series of clashes in 1769 over land titles in Pennsylvania between settlers from Connecticut Colony and "Pennamite" settlers from Pennsylvania.

The meaning of Yankee has varied over time. In the 18th century, it referred to residents of New England descended from the original English settlers of the region. Mark Twain used the word in this sense the following century in his 1889 novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. As early as the 1770s, British people applied the term to any person from the United States. In the 19th century, Americans in the southern United States employed the word in reference to Americans from the northern United States, though not to recent immigrants from Europe. Thus, a visitor to Richmond, Virginia, commented in 1818, "The enterprising people are mostly strangers; Scots, Irish, and especially New England men, or Yankees, as they are called".

Historically, it has also been used to distinguish American-born Protestants from later immigrants, such as Catholics of Irish descent.

Rejected etymologies
Many etymologies have been suggested for the word Yankee, but modern linguists generally reject theories that suggest it originated in any Indigenous languages. This includes a theory put forth by a British officer in 1789, who said that it was derived from the Cherokee word eankke meaning "coward"—despite the fact that no such word existed in the Cherokee language. Another theory surmised that the word was borrowed from the Wyandot pronunciation of the French l'anglais, meaning "the Englishman" or "the English language", which was sounded as Y'an-gee.

American musicologist Oscar Sonneck debunked a romanticized false etymology in his 1909 work Report on "The Star-Spangled Banner", "Hail Columbia", "America", "Yankee Doodle". He cited a popular theory that claimed the word came from a tribe who called themselves Yankoos, said to mean "invincible". The story claimed that New Englanders had defeated this tribe after a bloody battle, and the remaining Yankoo Indians transferred their name to the victors—who were "agreeable to the Indian custom". Sonneck notes that multiple American writers since 1775 had repeated this story as if it were fact, despite what he perceived to be holes in it. It had never been the tradition of any Indian tribe to transfer their name to other peoples, according to Sonneck, nor had any settlers ever adopted an Indian name to describe themselves. Sonneck concludes by pointing out that there was never a tribe called the Yankoos.

Yankee settlement in the United States
The original Yankees diffused widely across the northern United States, leaving their imprints in New York, the Upper Midwest, many taking advantage of water routes by the Great Lakes, and places as far away as Seattle, San Francisco, and Honolulu.

Yankees settled other states in various ways: some joined highly organized colonization companies, others purchased groups of land together; some joined volunteer land settlement groups, and self-reliant individual families also migrated. Yankees typically lived in villages consisting of clusters of separate farms. Often they were merchants, bankers, teachers, or professionals.

Village life fostered local democracy, best exemplified by the open town meeting form of government that still exists today in New England. Village life also stimulated mutual oversight of moral behavior and emphasized civic virtue. The Yankees built international trade routes stretching to China by 1800 from the New England seaports of Boston, Salem, Providence, Newport, and New London, among others. Much of the profit from trading was reinvested in the textile and machine tools industries.

Yankeeism is the general character of the Union. Yankee manners are as migratory as Yankee men. The latter are found everywhere and the former prevail wherever the latter are found. Although the genuine Yankee belongs to New England, the term "Yankee" is now as appropriate to the natives of the Union at large.

Yankee politics
After 1800, Yankees spearheaded most American reform movements, including those for the abolition of slavery, temperance in use of alcohol, increase in women's political rights, and improvement in women's education. Emma Willard and Mary Lyon pioneered in the higher education of women, while Yankees comprised most of the reformers who went South during Reconstruction in the late 1860s to educate the Freedmen.

Historian John Buenker has examined the worldview of the Yankee settlers in the Midwest: "Because they arrived first and had a strong sense of community and mission, Yankees were able to transplant New England institutions, values, and mores, altered only by the conditions of frontier life. They established a public culture that emphasized the work ethic, the sanctity of private property, individual responsibility, faith in residential and social mobility, practicality, piety, public order and decorum, reverence for public education, activists, honest, and frugal government, town meeting democracy, and he believed that there was a public interest that transcends particular and stock ambitions. Regarding themselves as the elect and just in a world rife with sin and corruption, they felt a strong moral obligation to define and enforce standards of community and personal behavior….  This pietistic worldview was substantially shared by British, Scandinavian, Swiss, English-Canadian and Dutch Reformed immigrants, as well as by German Protestants and many of the Forty-Eighters." Yankees dominated New England, much of upstate New York, and much of the upper Midwest, and were the strongest supporters of the new Republican party in the 1860s. This was especially true for the Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and Methodists among them. A study of 65 predominantly Yankee counties showed that they voted only 40 percent for the Whigs in 1848 and 1852, but became 61–65 percent Republican in presidential elections of 1856 through 1864.

Ivy League universities remained bastions of old Yankee culture until well after World War II, particularly Harvard and Yale.

Yankee stereotypes
President Calvin Coolidge exemplified the modern Yankee stereotype. Coolidge moved from rural Vermont to urban Massachusetts and was educated at elite Amherst College. Yet his flint-faced, unprepossessing ways and terse rural speech proved politically attractive. "That Yankee twang will be worth a hundred thousand votes", explained one Republican leader. Coolidge's laconic ways and dry humor were characteristic of stereotypical rural "Yankee humor" at the turn of the 20th century.

Yankee ingenuity was a worldwide stereotype of inventiveness, technical solutions to practical problems, "know-how," self-reliance, and individual enterprise. The stereotype first appeared in the 19th century. As Mitchell Wilson notes, "Yankee ingenuity and Yankee git-up-and-go did not exist in colonial days." The great majority of Yankees gravitated toward the burgeoning cities of the northeast, while wealthy New Englanders also sent ambassadors to frontier communities where they became influential bankers and newspaper printers. They introduced the term "Universal Yankee Nation" to proselytize their hopes for national and global influence.

Religion
New England Yankees originally followed the Puritan tradition, as expressed in Congregational and Baptist churches. Beginning in the late colonial period, many became Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists, or, later, Unitarians. Strait-laced 17th-century moralism as derided by novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne faded in the 18th century. The First Great Awakening under Jonathan Edwards and others in the mid-18th century, and the Second Great Awakening in the early 19th century under Charles Grandison Finney and others emphasized personal piety, revivals, and devotion to civic duty.

Yankee Doodle
A pervasive influence on the use of the term throughout the years has been the song "Yankee Doodle" which was popular during the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783). The song originated among the British troops during the French and Indian or Seven Years' War, creating a stereotype of the Yankee simpleton who stuck a feather in his cap and thought that he was stylish, but it was rapidly re-appropriated by American patriots after the battles of Lexington and Concord. Today, "Yankee Doodle" is the official state song of Connecticut.

Canadian usage
An early use of the term outside the United States was in the creation of Sam Slick the "Yankee Clockmaker" in a newspaper column in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1835. The character was a plain-speaking American who becomes an example for Nova Scotians to follow in his industry and practicality; his uncouth manners and vanity were qualities that his creator detested. The character was developed by Thomas Chandler Haliburton, and it grew between 1836 and 1844 in a series of publications.

Damn Yankee
The damned Yankee usage dates from 1812. Confederates popularized it as a derogatory term for their Northern enemies during and after the American Civil War (1861–1865). Rhode Island Governor Bruce Sundlun had been a pilot in World War II, and he named his B-17F bomber Damn Yankee because a crewman from North Carolina nicknamed him with that epithet.

In the United States
The term Yankee can have many different meanings within the United States that are contextually and geographically dependent. Traditionally, Yankee was most often used to refer to a New Englander descended from the settlers of the region, thus often suggesting Puritanism and thrifty values. By the mid-20th century, some speakers applied the word to any American inhabiting the area north of the Mason–Dixon Line, though usually with a specific focus still on New England. New England Yankee might be used to differentiate. However, within New England itself, the term still refers more specifically to old-stock New Englanders of English descent. For example:

"Certainly the Irish have for years complained of Yankee discrimination against them."

"There were no civil rights groups then. Even the Federal Government was controlled by bigoted Yankees and Irish who banded together against the Italian immigrant."

"The one anomaly of this era was the election of Yankee Republican Leverett Saltonstall as governor in 1938, and even then Saltonstall jokingly attributed his high vote totals in Irish districts to his 'South Boston face'."

In the Southern United States, the term is used in derisive reference to any Northerner, especially one who has migrated to the South and maintains derisive attitudes towards Southerners and the Southern way of life. Alabama lawyer and author Daniel Robinson Hundley describes the Yankee as such in Social Relations in Our Southern States: "Yankee with all these is looked upon usually as a term of reproach—signifying a shrewd, sharp, chaffering, oily-tongued, soft-sawdering, inquisitive, money-making, money-saving, and money-worshipping individual, who hails from Down East, and who is presumed to have no where else on the Globe a permanent local habitation, however ubiquitous he may be in his travels and pursuits." Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas pointed out as late as 1966, "The very word 'Yankee' still wakens in Southern minds historical memories of defeat and humiliation, of the burning of Atlanta and Sherman's March to the Sea, or of an ancestral farmhouse burned by Quantrill's Raiders". Ambrose Bierce defines the term in The Devil's Dictionary as: "In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States the word is unknown. (See DAMNYANK.)"

E. B. White humorously draws his own distinctions:

Major League Baseball's New York Yankees acquired the name from journalists after the team moved from Baltimore in 1903, though they were officially known as the Highlanders until 1913. The regional Yankees–Red Sox rivalry can make the utterance of the term "Yankee" unwelcome to some fans in New England, especially to the most dedicated Red Sox fans living in the northeastern United States.

The term Swamp Yankee is sometimes used in rural Rhode Island, Connecticut, and southeastern Massachusetts to refer to Protestant farmers of moderate means and their descendants, although it is often regarded as a derogatory term. Scholars note that the famous Yankee "twang" survives mainly in the hill towns of interior New England, though it is disappearing even there.

Mark Twain's 1889 novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court popularized the word as a nickname for residents of Connecticut, and Connecticut Air National Guard unit 103d Airlift Wing is nicknamed "The Flying Yankees."

In other countries
The shortened form Yank is used as a derogatory, pejorative, playful, or colloquial term for Americans in Britain, Australia, Canada, South Africa, Ireland, and New Zealand. The full Yankee may be considered mildly derogatory, depending on the country. The Spanish variation yanqui is used in Latin American Spanish, often derogatorily. Venezuelan Spanish has the word pitiyanqui derived around 1940 from petty yankee or petit yanqui, a derogatory term for those who profess an exaggerated and often ridiculous admiration for anything from the United States.

In the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia, the term seppo, shortened from traditional rhyming slang yank ==> septic tank, is sometimes used as a pejorative reference to Americans.

In Finland, the word jenkki is sometimes used to refer to any American citizen, and Jenkkilä refers to the United States itself. It is not considered offensive or anti-American, but rather a colloquial expression. In Sweden, the word jänkare is a derivative of Yankee that is used to refer to both American citizens and classic American cars from the 1950s that are popular in rural Sweden.

Japan
In the late 19th century, the Japanese were called "the Yankees of the East" in praise of their industriousness and drive to modernization. In Japan, the term yankī (ヤンキー) has been used since the late 1970s to refer to a type of delinquent youth associated with motorcycle gangs and frequently sporting dyed blond hair.

South Korea
Around the American occupation of Korea and the Korean War periods, Korean black markets that sold smuggled American goods from military bases were called "yankee markets". The term "yankee" is now generally viewed as an anti-American slur in South Korea, and is often used in the exclamation "Yankee go home!" .

title: Yankee


text:
John the Apostle

John the Apostle (Ἰωάννης; Ioannes c. 6 AD – c. 100 AD; Ge'ez: ዮሐንስ;), also known as Saint John the Beloved and, in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Saint John the Theologian, was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus according to the New Testament. Generally listed as the youngest apostle, he was the son of Zebedee and Salome. His brother James was another of the Twelve Apostles. The Church Fathers identify him as John the Evangelist, John of Patmos, John the Elder, and the Beloved Disciple, and testify that he outlived the remaining apostles and was the only one to die of natural causes, although modern scholars are divided on the veracity of these claims.

John the Apostle is traditionally held to be the author of the Gospel of John, and many Christian denominations believe that he authored several other books of the New Testament (the three Johannine epistles and the Book of Revelation, together with the Gospel of John, are called the Johannine works), depending on whether he is distinguished from, or identified with, John the Evangelist, John the Elder, and John of Patmos.

Although the authorship of the Johannine works has traditionally been attributed to John the Apostle, only a minority of contemporary scholars believe he wrote the gospel, and most conclude that he wrote none of them. Regardless of whether or not John the Apostle wrote any of the Johannine works, most scholars agree that all three epistles were written by the same author and that the epistles did not have the same author as the Book of Revelation, although there is widespread disagreement among scholars as to whether the author of the epistles was different from that of the gospel.

References to John in the New Testament
John the Apostle was the son of Zebedee and the younger brother of James the Great. According to church tradition, their mother was Salome. Also according to some traditions, Salome was the sister of Mary, Jesus' mother, making Salome Jesus' aunt, and her sons John the Apostle and James were Jesus' cousins.

John the Apostle is traditionally believed to be one of two disciples (the other being Andrew) recounted in, who upon hearing the Baptist point out Jesus as the "Lamb of God", followed Jesus and spent the day with him, thus becoming the first two disciples called by Jesus. On this basis some traditions believe that John was first a disciple of John the Baptist, even though he is not named in this episode.

According to the Synoptic Gospels (Matt 4:18–22; Mark 1:16–20; Luke 5:1–11), Zebedee and his sons fished in the Sea of Galilee. Jesus then called Peter, Andrew and the two sons of Zebedee to follow him. James and John are listed among the Twelve Apostles. Jesus referred to the pair as "Boanerges" (translated "sons of thunder"). A Gospel story relates how the brothers wanted to call down heavenly fire on an unhospitable Samaritan town, but Jesus rebuked them. John was also the disciple who reported to Jesus that they had 'forbidden' a non-disciple from casting out demons in Jesus' name, prompting Jesus to state that 'he who is not against us is on our side'.

John is traditionally believed to have lived on for more than fifty years after the martyrdom of his brother James, who became the first Apostle to die a martyr's death in AD 44.

Position among the apostles

John is always mentioned in the group of the first four apostles in the Gospels and in the Book of Acts, listed either second, third or fourth.

John, along with his brother James and Peter, formed an informal triumvirate among the Twelve Apostles in the Gospels. Jesus allowed them to be the only apostles present at three particular occasions during his public ministry, the Raising of Jairus' daughter, Transfiguration of Jesus and Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Jesus sent only Peter and John into the city to make the preparation for the final Passover meal (the Last Supper).

Many traditions identify the "disciple whom Jesus loved" in the Gospel of John as the Apostle John, but this identification is debated. At the meal itself, the "disciple whom Jesus loved" sat next to Jesus. It was customary to recline on couches at meals, and this disciple leaned on Jesus. Tradition identifies this disciple as John.

After the arrest of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, only Peter and the "other disciple" (according to tradition, John) followed him into the palace of the high-priest. The "beloved disciple" alone, among the Apostles, remained near Jesus at the foot of the cross on Calvary alongside myrrhbearers and numerous other women. Following the instruction of Jesus from the Cross, the beloved disciple took Mary, the mother of Jesus, into his care as the last legacy of Jesus. Peter and John were also the only two apostles who ran to the empty tomb after Mary Magdalene bore witness to the resurrection of Jesus.

After Jesus' Ascension and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, John, together with Peter, took a prominent part in the founding and guidance of the church. He was with Peter at the healing of the lame man at Solomon's Porch in the Temple and he was also thrown into prison with Peter. Later, only Peter and John went to visit the newly converted believers in Samaria.

While he remained in Judea and the surrounding area, the other disciples returned to Jerusalem for the Apostolic Council (c. 48–50 AD). Paul, in opposing his enemies in Galatia, explicitly recalled that John, along with Peter and James the Just, were collectively recognized as the three Pillars of the Church. He also referred to the recognition that his Apostolic preaching of a gospel free from Jewish Law was received from these three, the most prominent men of the messianic community at Jerusalem.

The disciple whom Jesus loved

The phrase "the disciple whom Jesus loved as a brother" (ὁ μαθητὴς ὃν ἠγάπα ὁ Ἰησοῦς, ), or in John 20:2; "whom Jesus loved as a friend" (ὃν ἐφίλει ὁ Ἰησοῦς, ), is used six times in the Gospel of John, but in no other New Testament accounts of Jesus. claims that the Gospel of John is based on the written testimony of this disciple.

The disciple whom Jesus loved is specifically referred to six times in the Gospel of John:

 * It is this disciple who, while reclining beside Jesus at the Last Supper, asks Jesus, after being requested by Peter to do so, who it is that will betray him.
 * Later at the crucifixion, Jesus tells his mother, "Woman, here is your son", and to the Beloved Disciple he says, "Here is your mother."
 * When Mary Magdalene discovers the empty tomb, she runs to tell the Beloved Disciple and Peter. The two men rush to the empty tomb and the Beloved Disciple is the first to reach the empty tomb. However, Peter is the first to enter.
 * In John 21, the last chapter of the Gospel of John, the Beloved Disciple is one of seven fishermen involved in the miraculous catch of 153 fish.
 * Also in the book's final chapter, after Jesus hints to Peter how Peter will die, Peter sees the Beloved Disciple following them and asks, "What about him?" Jesus answers, "If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!"
 * Again in the Gospel's last chapter, it states that the very book itself is based on the written testimony of the disciple whom Jesus loved.

None of the other Gospels includes anyone in the parallel scenes that could be directly understood as the Beloved Disciple. For example, in, Peter alone runs to the tomb. Mark, Matthew and Luke do not mention any one of the twelve disciples having witnessed the crucifixion.

There are also two references to an unnamed "other disciple" in and, which may be to the same person based on the wording in John 20:2.

New Testament author

Church tradition has held that John is the author of the Gospel of John and four other books of the New Testament – the three Epistles of John and the Book of Revelation. In the Gospel, authorship is internally credited to the "disciple whom Jesus loved" (ὁ μαθητὴς ὃν ἠγάπα ὁ Ἰησοῦς, o mathētēs on ēgapa o Iēsous) in. claims that the Gospel of John is based on the written testimony of the "Beloved Disciple". The authorship of some Johannine literature has been debated since about the year 200.

In his 4th century Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius says that the First Epistle of John and the Gospel of John are widely agreed upon as his. However, Eusebius mentions that the consensus is that the second and third epistles of John are not his but were written by some other John. Eusebius also goes to some length to establish with the reader that there is no general consensus regarding the revelation of John. The revelation of John could only be what is now called the Book of Revelation. The Gospel according to John differs considerably from the Synoptic Gospels, which were likely written decades earlier. The bishops of Asia Minor supposedly requested him to write his gospel to deal with the heresy of the Ebionites, who asserted that Christ did not exist before Mary. John probably knew of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but these gospels spoke of Jesus primarily in the year following the imprisonment and death of John the Baptist. Around 600, however, Sophronius of Jerusalem noted that "two epistles bearing his name ... are considered by some to be the work of a certain John the Elder" and, while stating that Revelation was written by John of Patmos, it was "later translated by Justin Martyr and Irenaeus," presumably in an attempt to reconcile tradition with the obvious differences in Greek style.

Until the 19th century, the authorship of the Gospel of John had been attributed to the Apostle John. However, most modern critical scholars have their doubts. Some scholars place the Gospel of John somewhere between AD 65 and 85; John Robinson proposes an initial edition by 50–55 and then a final edition by 65 due to narrative similarities with Paul. Other scholars are of the opinion that the Gospel of John was composed in two or three stages. Most contemporary scholars consider that the Gospel was not written until the latter third of the first century AD, and with the earliest possible date of AD 75–80: "...a date of AD 75–80 as the earliest possible date of composition for this Gospel." Other scholars think that an even later date, perhaps even the last decade of the first century AD right up to the start of the 2nd century (i.e. 90 – 100), is applicable.

Nonetheless, today many theological scholars continue to accept the traditional authorship. Colin G. Kruse states that since John the Evangelist has been named consistently in the writings of early Church Fathers, "it is hard to pass by this conclusion, despite widespread reluctance to accept it by many, but by no means all, modern scholars."

Modern, mainstream Bible scholars generally assert that the Gospel of John has been written by an anonymous author.

Regarding whether the author of the Gospel of John was an eyewitness, according to Paul N. Anderson, the gospel "contains more direct claims to eyewitness origins than any of the other Gospel traditions." F. F. Bruce argues that 19:35 contains an "emphatic and explicit claim to eyewitness authority." The gospel nowhere claims to have been written by direct witnesses to the reported events.

Mainstream Bible scholars assert that all four gospels from the New Testament are fundamentally anonymous and most of mainstream scholars agree that these gospels have not been written by eyewitnesses. As The New Oxford Annotated Bible (2018) has put it, "Scholars generally agree that the Gospels were written forty to sixty years after the death of Jesus."

Book of Revelation
According to the Book of Revelation, its author was on the island of Patmos "for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus", when he was honoured with the vision contained in Revelation.

The author of the Book of Revelation identifies himself as "Ἰωάννης" ("John" in standard English translation). The early 2nd-century writer Justin Martyr was the first to equate the author of Revelation with John the Apostle. However, most biblical scholars now contend that these were separate individuals since the text was written around 100 AD, after the death of John the Apostle, although many historians have defended the identification of the Author of the Gospel of John with that of the Book of Revelation based on the similarity of the two texts.

John the Presbyter, an obscure figure in the early church, has also been identified with the seer of the Book of Revelation by such authors as Eusebius in his Church History (Book III, 39) and Jerome.

John is considered to have been exiled to Patmos, during the persecutions under Emperor Domitian. Revelation 1:9 says that the author wrote the book on Patmos: "I, John, both your brother and companion in tribulation, ... was on the island that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ." Adela Yarbro Collins, a biblical scholar at Yale Divinity School, writes: "Early tradition says that John was banished to Patmos by the Roman authorities. This tradition is credible because banishment was a common punishment used during the Imperial period for a number of offenses. Among such offenses were the practices of magic and astrology. Prophecy was viewed by the Romans as belonging to the same category, whether Pagan, Jewish, or Christian. Prophecy with political implications, like that expressed by John in the book of Revelation, would have been perceived as a threat to Roman political power and order. Three of the islands in the Sporades were places where political offenders were banished. (Pliny Natural History 4.69–70; Tacitus Annals 4.30)"

Some modern critical scholars have raised the possibility that John the Apostle, John the Evangelist, and John of Patmos were three separate individuals. These scholars assert that John of Patmos wrote Revelation but neither the Gospel of John nor the Epistles of John. The author of Revelation identifies himself as "John" several times, but the author of the Gospel of John never identifies himself directly. Some Catholic scholars state that "vocabulary, grammar, and style make it doubtful that the book could have been put into its present form by the same person(s) responsible for the fourth gospel."

Extrabiblical traditions

There is no information in the Bible concerning the duration of John's activity in Judea. According to tradition, John and the other Apostles remained some 12 years in this first field of labour. The persecution of Christians under Herod Agrippa I (r. 41–44 AD) led to the scattering of the Apostles through the Roman Empire's provinces.

A messianic community existed at Ephesus before Paul's first labors there (cf. "the brethren"), in addition to Priscilla and Aquila. The original community was under the leadership of Apollos (1 Corinthians 1:12). They were disciples of John the Baptist and were converted by Aquila and Priscilla. According to tradition, after the Assumption of Mary, John went to Ephesus. Irenaeus writes of "the church of Ephesus, founded by Paul, with John continuing with them until the times of Trajan." From Ephesus he wrote the three epistles attributed to him. John was banished by the Roman authorities to the Greek island of Patmos, where, according to tradition, he wrote the Book of Revelation. According to Tertullian (in The Prescription of Heretics) John was banished (presumably to Patmos) after being plunged into boiling oil in Rome and suffering nothing from it. It is said that all in the audience of Colosseum were converted to Christianity upon witnessing this miracle. This event would have occurred in the late 1st century, during the reign of the Emperor Domitian, who was known for his persecution of Christians.

When John was aged, he trained Polycarp who later became Bishop of Smyrna. This was important because Polycarp was able to carry John's message to future generations. Polycarp taught Irenaeus, passing on to him stories about John. Similarly, Ignatius of Antioch was a student of John. In Against Heresies, Irenaeus relates how Polycarp told a story of "John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe at Ephesus, and perceiving Cerinthus within, rushed out of the bath-house without bathing, exclaiming, 'Let us fly, lest even the bath-house fall down, because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within.'"

It is traditionally believed that John was the youngest of the apostles and survived all of them. He is said to have lived to old age, dying of natural causes at Ephesus sometime after AD 98, during the reign of Trajan, thus becoming the only apostle who did not die as a martyr.

An alternative account of John's death, ascribed by later Christian writers to the early second-century bishop Papias of Hierapolis, claims that he was slain by the Jews. Most Johannine scholars doubt the reliability of its ascription to Papias, but a minority, including B.W. Bacon, Martin Hengel and Henry Barclay Swete, maintain that these references to Papias are credible. Zahn argues that this reference is actually to John the Baptist.

John's tomb is thought to be located in the former Basilica of St. John at Selçuk, a small town in the vicinity of Ephesus. The opening of his tomb during Constantine the Great's reign yielded no bones, giving rise to the belief that his body was assumed into heaven. Another fact that continues to advance the belief of St. John's assumption into Heaven is the fact that St. John belongs among a few saints who left no bodily relics.

John is also associated with the pseudepigraphal apocryphal text of the Acts of John, which is traditionally viewed as written by John himself or his disciple, Leucius Charinus. It was widely circulated by the second century CE but deemed heretical at the Second Council of Nicaea (787 CE). Varying fragments survived in Greek and Latin within monastic libraries. It contains strong docetic themes, but is not considered in modern scholarship to be Gnostic.

Liturgical commemoration
The feast day of Saint John in the Roman Catholic Church, which calls him "Saint John, Apostle and Evangelist", and in the Anglican Communion and Lutheran Calendars, which call him "Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist", is on 27 December. In the Tridentine calendar he was commemorated also on each of the following days up to and including 3 January, the Octave of the 27 December feast. This Octave was abolished by Pope Pius XII in 1955. The liturgical color is White. John, Apostle and Evangelist is remembered in the Church of England with a Festival on 27 December. In Roman Catholic tradition he considered patron of Turkey, Asia Minor and Turkish people.

Until 1960, another feast day which appeared in the General Roman Calendar is that of "Saint John Before the Latin Gate" on 6 May, celebrating a tradition recounted by Jerome that St John was brought to Rome during the reign of the Emperor Domitian, and was thrown in a vat of boiling oil, from which he was miraculously preserved unharmed. A church (San Giovanni a Porta Latina) dedicated to him was built near the Latin gate of Rome, the traditional site of this event.

The Eastern Orthodox Church and those Eastern Catholic Churches which follow the Byzantine Rite commemorate the "Repose of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian" on 26 September. On 8 May they celebrate the "Feast of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian", on which date Christians used to draw forth from his grave fine ashes which were believed to be effective for healing the sick. John is also commemorated on 30 June as a member of the twelve apostles. There is also a commemoration of the synaxis of the Apostle John at Diaconissa on 15 February.

Islamic view
The Quran also speaks of Jesus's disciples but does not mention their names, instead referring to them as "supporters for [the cause of] Allah". The Sunnah did not mention their names either. However, some Muslim scholars mentioned their names, likely relying on the resources of Christians, who are considered "People of the Book" in Islamic tradition. Muslim exegesis more or less agrees with the New Testament list and says that the disciples included Peter, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, Andrew, James, Jude, John and Simon the Zealot. Notably, narrations of People of the Book (Christians and Jews) are not to be believed or disbelieved by Muslims as long as there is nothing that supports or denies them in Quran or Sunnah.

Druze view
Druze tradition honors several "mentors" and "prophets", and John the Apostle is honored as a prophet. In the Druze tradition and doctrine, Matthew the Apostle is respected for his contributions to spiritual knowledge and guidance. Druze doctrine teaches that Christianity is to be "esteemed and praised", as the Gospel writers are regarded as "carriers of wisdom".

Latter-day Saint view
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) teaches that, "John is mentioned frequently in latter-day revelation (1 Ne. 14:18–27; 3 Ne. 28:6; Ether 4:16; D&C 7; 27:12; 61:14; 77; 88:141). For Latter-day Saints these passages confirm the biblical record of John and also provide insight into his greatness and the importance of the work the Lord has given him to do on the earth in New Testament times and in the last days. The latter-day scriptures clarify that John did not die but was allowed to remain on the earth as a ministering servant until the time of the Lord's Second Coming (John 21:20–23; 3 Ne. 28:6–7; D&C 7)". It also teaches that in 1829, along with the resurrected Peter and the resurrected James, John visited Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery and restored the priesthood authority with Apostolic succession to earth, though a few ex-Latter-Day Saints claim controversially that previous editions of Latter-day scripture contradict this claim of Priesthood authority and Apostolic succession. John, along with the Three Nephites, will live to see the Second Coming of Christ as translated beings.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints teaches that John the Apostle is the same person as John the Evangelist, John of Patmos, and the Beloved Disciple.

In art

As he was traditionally identified with the beloved apostle, the evangelist, and the author of the Revelation and several Epistles, John played an extremely prominent role in art from the early Christian period onward. He is traditionally depicted in one of two distinct ways: either as an aged man with a white or gray beard, or alternatively as a beardless youth. The first way of depicting him was more common in Byzantine art, where it was possibly influenced by antique depictions of Socrates; the second was more common in the art of Medieval Western Europe, and can be dated back as far as 4th century Rome.

Legends from the Acts of John, an apocryphal text attributed to John, contributed much to Medieval iconography; it is the source of the idea that John became an apostle at a young age. One of John's familiar attributes is the chalice, often with a serpent emerging from it. This symbol is interpreted as a reference to a legend from the Acts of John, in which John was challenged to drink a cup of poison to demonstrate the power of his faith (the poison being symbolized by the serpent). Other common attributes include a book or scroll, in reference to the writings traditionally attributed to him, and an eagle, which is argued to symbolize the high-soaring, inspirational quality of these writings.

In Medieval and through to Renaissance works of painting, sculpture and literature, Saint John is often presented in an androgynous or feminized manner. Historians have related such portrayals to the circumstances of the believers for whom they were intended. For instance, John's feminine features are argued to have helped to make him more relatable to women. Likewise, Sarah McNamer argues that because of his status as an androgynous saint, John could function as an "image of a third or mixed gender" and "a crucial figure with whom to identify" for male believers who sought to cultivate an attitude of affective piety, a highly emotional style of devotion that, in late-medieval culture, was thought to be poorly compatible with masculinity. After the Middle Ages, feminizing portrayals of Saint John continued to be made; a case in point is an etching by Jacques Bellange, shown to the right, described by art critic Richard Dorment as depicting "a softly androgynous creature with a corona of frizzy hair, small breasts like a teenage girl, and the round belly of a mature woman."

In the realm of popular media, this latter phenomenon was brought to notice in Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code (2003), where one of the book's characters suggests that the feminine-looking person to Jesus' right in Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper is actually Mary Magdalene rather than St. John.

title: John the Apostle