Feast of Saint John the Evangelist

December 27 is the feast day of Saint John, son of Zebedee and Salome, brother of James the Greater.  Salome may have been a cousin of Mary (Jesus' mother).  The two sons of Zebedee may then have been Jesus' first cousins, as well as ultimately his apostles.  John, the "disciple who Jesus loved" was the only apostle to die a natural death.  Not that life was easy for him.  At one point, he was accused by Roman authorities of subverting the religion of the Roman Empire.  His punishment was to be cast in a vat of boiling oil.  Legend has it he remained in the cauldron for an extended period of time, emerging unscathed and invigorated.

In Edinburgh, on Princes Street, is Saint John the Evangelist, a Scottish Episcopal Church.  It was completed in 1818.  One of it's early residents, in the burial sense, is Anne Rutherford, Sir Walter Scott's mother.  She is buried in the Dormitory, along with painter and cousin Henry Raeburn, who painted Walter in 1822.