St Mary’s Netherbury 1980

 

Mr and Mrs Dycer - Symes commissioned  this figure carved in Bath stone of Saint John the Evangelist  for the south isle of  St Marys’ church Netherbury, Dorset.

St John is always shown as the youngest disciple and therefore always without a beard. He was Jesus’ cousin brother of James the Great, his mother was Salome, Marys’ sister and Zebedee was his father. At the crucifixion Jesus asked him to look after his mother. John was the writer who concentrated his  gospel on the theological foundations of Jesus claim to be the Messiah. Later we have him in old age writing the revelations from Patmos then a Roman prison. The Romans used Patmos as a place for exiles and it also had a stone quarry for punishment by hard labour,  He was sent there from Miletus by the Roman governor for preaching the Christian faith  in AD95, and stayed there for two years. I have shown him as a young man even though he would not have written the gospels until much later. His expression is intense and searching which seems to represent his personality as we read him. In this church he looks down on the assembled congregation with this questioning gaze. He stands on the eagle that is representing the heights to which he rose in his writing and visions.