Nicodemus

About Nicodemus

John introduces Nicodemus as a Pharisee and a ruler of the Jews. He comes to Jesus at night and opens a conversation about Jesus' signs and teaching. Jesus speaks to him about being born from above; Nicodemus initially understands the phrase in physical terms and asks how an older person could be born again. The Gospel gives this exchange as a dialogue and theological teaching scene. It does not tell readers Nicodemus's age, birthplace, family, or later life.Nicodemus appears again when the authorities debate Jesus. He asks whether their law permits judging a person without first hearing him and learning what he has done. The others answer by challenging his Galilean background, not by accepting his appeal. The scene presents him as speaking for a fair hearing, but John does not call him a disciple here.After Jesus' death, John says that Nicodemus joins Joseph of Arimathea in preparing the body for burial. Nicodemus brings a large quantity of myrrh and aloes, and the two men wrap the body and place it in a nearby tomb. This is Nicodemus's final appearance in the Gospel. The story does not narrate his later conversion, baptism, death, or subsequent work. A modern scholarly reading therefore treats his place in John's narrative as ambiguous; Orthodox tradition later calls him a secret disciple.The Roman Martyrology lists August 3 as the finding at Jerusalem of the bodies of Stephen, Gamaliel, Nicodemus, and Abibo, according to a later account of a revelation to Lucian. The Orthodox Church in America preserves a related relic tradition on August 2 under the title Finding of the Relics of Saint Gamaliel. Its account says the remains of the four were later transferred to Constantinople. These calendars preserve Christian traditions about relics; they do not extend the life account in John or independently establish that the remains belonged to its Nicodemus.