Gospel of John Nicodemus Born Again

Pharisee, biblical effigy appearing in the Gospel of John

Saint Nicodemus
Nicodemus helping to accept downwards Jesus' body from the cross (The Deposition, past Michelangelo)
Defender of Christ
Born	Galilee
Died	Judea
Venerated in	The Cosmic Church Eastern Orthodox Church Oriental Orthodox Church Anglican Church Lutheran Church
Canonized	Pre-Congregation
Feast	2 Baronial (Eastern Orthodox Church & Byzantine-rite Catholic Churches) iii August (Roman-rite Catholic Church) Third Sunday of Pascha (Eastern Orthodox Church & Byzantine-rite Catholic Churches) 31 August (Roman-rite Cosmic Church)
Attributes	Pharisee
Patronage	Marvel

Nicodemus (; Greek: Νικόδημος , translit. Nikódēmos ) was a Pharisee and a fellow member of the Sanhedrin mentioned in three places in the Gospel of John:

• He first visits Jesus one dark to discuss Jesus' teachings (John iii:1–21).
• The second time Nicodemus is mentioned, he reminds his colleagues in the Sanhedrin that the law requires that a person be heard before being judged (John 7:50–51).
• Finally, Nicodemus appears after the Crucifixion of Jesus to provide the customary embalming spices, and assists Joseph of Arimathea in preparing the torso of Jesus for burial (John xix:39–42).

An apocryphal work nether his name—the Gospel of Nicodemus—was produced in the mid-4th century, and is mostly a reworking of the before Acts of Pilate, which recounts the Harrowing of Hell.

Although at that place is no clear source of information about Nicodemus outside the Gospel of John, Ochser and Kohler (in an article in The Jewish Encyclopedia) and some historians^[ane] have speculated that he could exist identical to Nicodemus ben Gurion, mentioned in the Talmud equally a wealthy and popular holy man reputed to have had miraculous powers. Others point out that the biblical Nicodemus is likely an older man at the fourth dimension of his conversation with Jesus, while Nicodemus ben Gurion was on the scene xl years later, at the time of the Jewish War.^[2]

In John's Gospel [edit]

As is the case with Lazarus, Nicodemus does not belong to the tradition of the Synoptic Gospels, and is simply mentioned by John,^[three] who devotes more than half of Chapter iii of his gospel and a few verses of Chapter 7 to Nicodemus, and lastly mentions him in Chapter 19.

The first time Nicodemus is mentioned, he is identified as a Pharisee who comes to see Jesus at dark. According to the scripture, Jesus went to Jerusalem for the Passover feast. While in Jerusalem he chased the moneychangers from the temple and overturned their tables. His disciples remembered then the words of Psalm 69: "Zeal for your firm will consume me." After these events "many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing" (John 2:23–25). When Nicodemus visits Jesus he makes reference to these events: "Rabbi, nosotros know that y'all are a teacher who has come up from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were non with him."(John iii:2).

Jesus replies: "Unless i is born again he cannot run into the kingdom of God." Then follows a conversation with Nicodemus well-nigh the pregnant of being "built-in once again" or "born from in a higher place" (Greek: ἄνωθεν): Nicodemus explores the notion of being literally born again from 1's mother'due south womb, only most theologians recognise that Nicodemus knew Jesus was not speaking of literal rebirth. Theologian Charles Ellicott wrote that "after the method of Rabbinic dialogue, [Nicodemus] presses the incommunicable meaning of the words in order to exclude it, and to depict forth the true meaning. 'You cannot mean that a man is to enter the 2nd time into his mother'south womb, and be born. What is it, then, that you do mean?'"^[iv] In this instance, Nicodemus chooses the literal (rather than the figurative) meaning of anōthen and assumes that that meaning exhausts the significance of the word.

Jesus expresses surprise, perhaps ironically, that "a teacher of Israel" does not empathise the concept of spiritual rebirth:

John 3:10–11

—Fine art m a principal of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we practise know, and show that nosotros have seen; and ye receive non our witness., KJV

In Chapter vii, Nicodemus advises his colleagues amidst "the chief priests and the Pharisees", to hear and investigate before making a judgment apropos Jesus. Their mocking response argues that no prophet comes from Galilee. Nonetheless, it is probable that he wielded a certain influence in the Sanhedrin.^[3]

Finally, when Jesus is buried, Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes—about 100 Roman pounds (33 kg)—despite embalming being generally against Jewish custom (with the exceptions of Jacob and Joseph).^{[John 19:39]} Nicodemus must have been a human being of means; in his book Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Calendar week, Pope Benedict XVI observes that, "The quantity of the balm is boggling and exceeds all normal proportions. This is a royal burying."^[5]

Veneration and liturgical celebration [edit]

Nicodemus is venerated as a saint in the diverse Eastern Churches and in the Catholic Church. The Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine-rite Catholic churches commemorate Nicodemus on the Dominicus of the Myrrhbearers, celebrated on the Third Sunday of Pascha (i.e., the 2nd Sunday subsequently Easter) as well as 2 August, the date when tradition holds that his relics were found, along with those of Stephen the Protomartyr, Gamaliel, and Abibas (Gamaliel's second son). The traditional Roman-rite Cosmic liturgical agenda lists the same feast of the finding of their relics on the following day, 3 August.^{[ citation needed ]}

In the electric current Roman Martyrology of the Catholic Church, Nicodemus is commemorated along with Saint Joseph of Arimathea on 31 August. The Franciscan Order erected a church under the patronage of Saints Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea in Ramla.

Legacy [edit]

In art [edit]

Nicodemus figures prominently in medieval depictions of the Deposition in which he and Joseph of Arimathea are shown removing the expressionless Christ from the cross, oftentimes with the aid of a ladder.^{[ citation needed ]}

Like Joseph, Nicodemus became the object of diverse pious legends during the Middle Ages, particularly in connection with monumental crosses. He was reputed to have carved both the Holy Confront of Lucca and the Batlló Crucifix, receiving angelic assistance with the face in particular and thus rendering the works instances of acheiropoieta.^[six]

Both of these sculptures appointment from at least a millennium after Nicodemus' life, but the ascriptions attest to the gimmicky interest in Nicodemus as a graphic symbol in medieval Europe.^{[ citation needed ]}

In verse [edit]

In Henry Vaughan's "The Dark," mentioning Nicodemus is significant to elaborate the poem'due south delineation of the nighttime's relationship with God.

In music [edit]

In the Lutheran prescribed readings of the 18th century, the gospel text of the coming together of Jesus and Nicodemus at night was assigned to Trinity Lord's day. Johann Sebastian Bach equanimous several cantatas for the occasion, of which O heilges Geist- und Wasserbad, BWV 165 , composed in 1715, stays close to the gospel based on a libretto by the court poet in Weimar, Salomo Franck.

Ernst Pepping composed in 1937 an Evangelienmotette (motet on gospel text) Jesus und Nikodemus .

In pop music, Nicodemus' proper noun was figuratively used in Henry Clay Work'due south 1864 American Civil War-era slice "Wake Nicodemus",^[seven] which at that fourth dimension was popular in minstrel shows. In 1978 Tim Curry covered the song on his debut album Read My Lips. The song "Help Yourself" past The Devil Makes Iii contains a very informal retelling of the relationship between Nicodemus and Jesus.^{[ citation needed ]}

Second verse of the song "Assist yourself" performed by The Devil Makes Three (band) is defended to Nicodemus.

In literature [edit]

Persuaded: The Story of Nicodemus past author David Harder is a historical fictional account on the life of Nicodemus. Harder used events and timetables for his novel found within the pages of the Passion Translation version of the Bible and brought biblical characters to life in a realistic story with the goal of keeping his book historically and scripturally accurate.

During the Protestant vs. Catholic struggle [edit]

During the struggle between Protestants and Catholics in Europe, from the 16th century to the 18th, a person belonging to a Church different from the locally dominant i ofttimes risked astringent punishment – in many cases a literal life danger. At that fourth dimension, there developed the utilize of "Nicodemite", usually a term of disparagement referring to a person who is suspected of public misrepresentation of their actual religious beliefs by exhibiting false appearance and concealing true beliefs.^{[8] [9]} The term was manifestly introduced by John Calvin in his 1544 Excuse à messieurs les Nicodemites.^[10] To Calvin, who opposed all veneration of saints, the fact of Nicodemus condign a Cosmic saint in no way exonerated his "duplicity". The term was originally applied mainly to crypto-protestants – hidden Protestants in a Catholic environment – later used more broadly.^{[ citation needed ]}

U.s.a. [edit]

The give-and-take with Jesus is the source of several common expressions of contemporary American Christianity, specifically, the descriptive phrase "born once again" used to describe salvation or baptism by some groups, and John 3:16, a normally quoted verse used to describe God's programme of salvation.

Daniel Shush notes that, "To blacks after the Civil War, he was a model of rebirth as they sought to cast off their old identity equally slaves".^[5] Rosamond Rodman asserts that freed slaves who moved to Nicodemus, Kansas, after the Civil War named their town subsequently him.^[5] Yet, the National Park Service indicates that it was more likely based on an 1864 song, "Wake Nicodemus" by Henry Dirt Work, used to promote settlement in the area.^[11]

On 16 August 1967, Martin Luther Male monarch Jr. invoked Nicodemus as a metaphor concerning the demand for the United States to be "built-in again" in order to finer address social and economical inequality. The spoken communication was called "Where Do We Go From Here?," and delivered at the 11th Annual SCLC Convention in Atlanta, Georgia.^[12]

Gallery [edit]

• Nicodemus in fine art

• 

  Jesus and Nicodemus past Crijn Hendricksz, 1616–1645

• 

  Cima da Conegliano, Nicodemus with Christ'south torso, Apostle John on the right and Mary to left.

• 

  Tanner – Nicodemus coming to Christ Two

See as well [edit]

• Saint Nicodemus, patron saint archive

Notes [edit]

1. ^ Meet, for instance, David Flusser, Jesus (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2001), 148; idem, "Gamaliel and Nicodemus", JerusalemPerspective.com; Zeev Safrai, "Nakdimon b. Guryon: A Galilean Aristocrat in Jerusalem" in The Beginnings of Christianity (ed. Jack Pastor and Menachem Mor; Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2005), 297–314.
2. ^ Carson, D. A. (1991). The Gospel co-ordinate to John. Leicester: InterVarsity. p. 186; Richard Bauckham, "Nicodemus and the Gurion Family", Periodical of Theological Studies 47.1 (1996):1–37.
3. ^ ^{a b} Driscoll, James F. "Nicodemus." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 11. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 13 December 2014.
4. ^ Watkins, H. Westward., Ellicott'south Commentary for English Readers on John 3, accessed ten February 2016
5. ^ ^{a b c} Shush, Daniel. Nicodemus, The Mystery Homo of Holy Week, Religious News Service, 27 March 2013.
6. ^ Schiller, Gertrud, Iconography of Christian Fine art. Volume 2. The Passion of Jesus Christ. Janet Seligman (tr.), Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Club, 1972: 144–45, 472–73.
7. ^ "Henry Clay Work Biography". notablebiographies.com.
8. ^ Overell 2004, pp. 117–18.
9. ^ Livingstone 2000
10. ^ Eire 1979.
11. ^ "Nicodemus National Historic Site", National Park Service.
12. ^ King Jr., Martin Luther (16 August 1967). ""Where Do We Go From Here?," Address Delivered at the Eleventh Almanac SCLC Convention". The Martin Luther Rex, Jr. Research and Education Constitute, Stanford University . Retrieved 30 November 2018.

References [edit]

• Cornel Heinsdorff: Christus, Nikodemus und die Samaritanerin bei Juvencus. Mit einem Anhang zur lateinischen Evangelienvorlage (= Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte, Bd.67), Berlin/New York 2003.

External links [edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Nicodemus.

• Jewish Encyclopedia: Nicodemus
• "St. Nicodemus", Butler's Lives of the Saints

winterwujjok.blogspot.com

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicodemus

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