Salome (wife of Zebedee)

• Salome (wife of Zebedee)

140:7.3For two days they worked, teach­ing by day and hold­ing pri­vate con­fer­ences late into the night. On the third day Je­sus vis­ited with Zeb­e­dee and Sa­lome while he sent his apos­tles off to “go fish­ing, seek care­free change, or per­chance visit your fam­i­lies.” On Thurs­day they re­turned for three more days of teach­ing.

• Salome (wife of Zebedee)

154:2.4This was the week that Na­than­iel and James Zeb­e­dee suf­fered from more than a slight ill­ness. For three days and nights they were acutely af­flicted with a painful di­ges­tive dis­tur­bance. On the third night Je­sus sent Sa­lome, James’s mother, to her rest, while he min­is­tered to his suf­fer­ing apos­tles. Of course Je­sus could have in­stantly healed these two men, but that is not the method of ei­ther the Son or the Fa­ther in deal­ing with these com­mon­place dif­fi­cul­ties and af­flic­tions of the chil­dren of men on the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds of time and space. Never once, through­out all of his event­ful life in the flesh, did Je­sus en­gage in any sort of super­nat­u­ral min­is­tra­tion to any mem­ber of his earth fam­ily or in be­half of any one of his im­me­di­ate fol­low­ers.

139:3.8He was mod­est and un­dra­matic, a daily server, an un­pre­ten­tious worker, seek­ing no spe­cial re­ward when he once grasped some­thing of the real mean­ing of the king­dom. And even in the story about the mother of James and John, who asked that her sons be granted places on the right hand and the left hand of Je­sus, it should be re­mem­bered that it was the mother who made this re­quest. And when they sig­ni­fied that they were ready to as­sume such re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, it should be rec­og­nized that they were cog­nizant of the dan­gers ac­com­pa­ny­ing the Mas­ter’s sup­posed re­volt against the Ro­man power, and that they were also will­ing to pay the price. When Je­sus asked if they were ready to drink the cup, they replied that they were. And as con­cerns James, it was lit­er­ally true—he did drink the cup with the Mas­ter, see­ing that he was the first of the apos­tles to ex­pe­ri­ence mar­tyr­dom, be­ing early put to death with the sword by Herod Agrippa. James was thus the first of the twelve to sac­ri­fice his life upon the new bat­tle line of the king­dom. Herod Agrippa feared James above all the other apos­tles. He was in­deed of­ten quiet and silent, but he was brave and de­ter­mined when his con­vic­tions were aroused and chal­lenged.

171:0.4It was on this Sun­day af­ter­noon that Sa­lome the mother of James and John Zeb­e­dee came to Je­sus with her two apos­tle sons and, in the man­ner of ap­proach­ing an Ori­en­tal po­ten­tate, sought to have Je­sus prom­ise in ad­vance to grant what­ever re­quest she might make. But the Mas­ter would not prom­ise; in­stead, he asked her, “What do you want me to do for you?” Then an­swered Sa­lome: “Mas­ter, now that you are go­ing up to Je­ru­sa­lem to es­tab­lish the king­dom, I would ask you in ad­vance to prom­ise me that these my sons shall have honor with you, the one to sit on your right hand and the other to sit on your left hand in your king­dom.”

171:0.5When Je­sus heard Sa­lome’s re­quest, he said: “Woman, you know not what you ask.” And then, look­ing straight into the eyes of the two honor-seek­ing apos­tles, he said: “Be­cause I have long known and loved you; be­cause I have even lived in your mother’s house; be­cause An­drew has as­signed you to be with me at all times; there­fore do you per­mit your mother to come to me se­cretly, mak­ing this un­seemly re­quest. But let me ask you: Are you able to drink the cup I am about to drink?” And with­out a mo­ment for thought, James and John an­swered, “Yes, Mas­ter, we are able.” Said Je­sus: “I am sad­dened that you know not why we go up to Je­ru­sa­lem; I am grieved that you un­der­stand not the na­ture of my king­dom; I am dis­ap­pointed that you bring your mother to make this re­quest of me; but I know you love me in your hearts; there­fore I de­clare that you shall in­deed drink of my cup of bit­ter­ness and share in my hu­mil­i­a­tion, but to sit on my right hand and on my left hand is not mine to give. Such hon­ors are re­served for those who have been des­ig­nated by my Fa­ther.”

171:0.6By this time some­one had car­ried word of this con­fer­ence to Pe­ter and the other apos­tles, and they were highly in­dig­nant that James and John would seek to be pre­ferred be­fore them, and that they would se­cretly go with their mother to make such a re­quest. When they fell to ar­gu­ing among them­selves, Je­sus called them all to­gether and said: “You well un­der­stand how the rulers of the gen­tiles lord it over their sub­jects, and how those who are great ex­er­cise au­thor­ity. But it shall not be so in the king­dom of heaven. Whoso­ever would be great among you, let him first be­come your ser­vant. He who would be first in the king­dom, let him be­come your min­is­ter. I de­clare to you that the Son of Man came not to be min­is­tered to but to min­is­ter; and I now go up to Je­ru­sa­lem to lay down my life in the do­ing of the Fa­ther’s will and in the ser­vice of my breth­ren.” When the apos­tles heard these words, they with­drew by them­selves to pray. That evening, in re­sponse to the labors of Pe­ter, James and John made suit­able apolo­gies to the ten and were re­stored to the good graces of their breth­ren.

171:0.7In ask­ing for places on the right hand and on the left hand of Je­sus at Je­ru­sa­lem, the sons of Zeb­e­dee lit­tle re­al­ized that in less than one month their beloved teacher would be hang­ing on a Ro­man cross with a dy­ing thief on one side and an­other trans­gres­sor on the other side. And their mother, who was pres­ent at the cru­ci­fix­ion, well re­mem­bered the fool­ish re­quest she had made of Je­sus at Pella re­gard­ing the hon­ors she so un­wisely sought for her apos­tle sons.

190:3.1The fifth mor­ontia man­i­fes­ta­tion of Je­sus to the rec­og­ni­tion of mor­tal eyes oc­curred in the pres­ence of some twenty-five women be­liev­ers as­sem­bled at the home of Joseph of Ari­mathea, at about fif­teen min­utes past four o’clock on this same Sun­day af­ter­noon. Mary Mag­da­lene had re­turned to Joseph’s house just a few min­utes be­fore this ap­pear­ance. James, Je­sus’ brother, had re­quested that noth­ing be said to the apos­tles con­cern­ing the Mas­ter’s ap­pear­ance at Beth­any. He had not asked Mary to re­frain from re­port­ing the oc­cur­rence to her sis­ter be­liev­ers. Ac­cord­ingly, af­ter Mary had pledged all the women to se­crecy, she pro­ceeded to re­late what had so re­cently hap­pened while she was with Je­sus’ fam­ily at Beth­any. And she was in the very midst of this thrilling recital when a sud­den and solemn hush fell over them; they be­held in their very midst the fully vis­i­ble form of the risen Je­sus. He greeted them, say­ing: “Peace be upon you. In the fel­low­ship of the king­dom there shall be nei­ther Jew nor gen­tile, rich nor poor, free nor bond, man nor woman. You also are called to pub­lish the good news of the lib­erty of man­kind through the gospel of son­ship with God in the king­dom of heaven. Go to all the world pro­claim­ing this gospel and con­firm­ing be­liev­ers in the faith thereof. And while you do this, for­get not to min­is­ter to the sick and strengthen those who are faint­hearted and fear-rid­den. And I will be with you al­ways, even to the ends of the earth.” And when he had thus spo­ken, he van­ished from their sight, while the women fell on their faces and wor­shiped in si­lence.

187:3.2Stand­ing near the cross at one time or an­other dur­ing the cru­ci­fix­ion were Mary, Ruth, Jude, John, Sa­lome (John’s mother), and a group of earnest women be­liev­ers in­clud­ing Mary the wife of Clopas and sis­ter of Je­sus’ mother, Mary Mag­da­lene, and Re­becca, one­time of Sep­pho­ris. These and other friends of Je­sus held their peace while they wit­nessed his great pa­tience and for­ti­tude and gazed upon his in­tense suf­fer­ings.

171:1.5David was pres­ent in Je­ru­sa­lem dur­ing the tragic last week, tak­ing his mother back with him to Beth­saida af­ter the cru­ci­fix­ion. While await­ing Je­sus and the apos­tles, David stopped with Laz­a­rus at Beth­any and be­came tremen­dously ag­i­tated by the man­ner in which the Phar­isees had be­gun to per­se­cute and ha­rass him since his res­ur­rec­tion. An­drew had di­rected David to dis­con­tinue the mes­sen­ger ser­vice; and this was con­strued by all as an in­di­ca­tion of the early es­tab­lish­ment of the king­dom at Je­ru­sa­lem. David found him­self with­out a job, and he had about de­cided to be­come the self-ap­pointed de­fender of Laz­a­rus when pres­ently the ob­ject of his in­dig­nant so­lic­i­tude fled in haste to Phil­a­del­phia. Ac­cord­ingly, some­time af­ter the res­ur­rec­tion and also af­ter the death of his mother, David be­took him­self to Phil­a­del­phia, hav­ing first as­sisted Martha and Mary in dis­pos­ing of their real es­tate; and there, in as­so­ci­a­tion with Ab­ner and Laz­a­rus, he spent the re­main­der of his life, be­com­ing the fi­nan­cial over­seer of all those large in­ter­ests of the king­dom which had their cen­ter at Phil­a­del­phia dur­ing the life­time of Ab­ner.

189:4.2At the home of Nicode­mus there were gath­ered to­gether, with David Zeb­e­dee and Joseph of Ari­mathea, some twelve or fif­teen of the more promi­nent of the Je­ru­sa­lem dis­ci­ples of Je­sus. At the home of Joseph of Ari­mathea there were some fif­teen or twenty of the lead­ing women be­liev­ers. Only these women abode in Joseph’s house, and they had kept close within dur­ing the hours of the Sab­bath day and the evening af­ter the Sab­bath, so that they were ig­no­rant of the mil­i­tary guard on watch at the tomb; nei­ther did they know that a sec­ond stone had been rolled in front of the tomb, and that both of these stones had been placed un­der the seal of Pi­late.

189:4.3A lit­tle be­fore three o’clock this Sun­day morn­ing, when the first signs of day be­gan to ap­pear in the east, five of the women started out for the tomb of Je­sus. They had pre­pared an abun­dance of spe­cial em­balm­ing lo­tions, and they car­ried many linen ban­dages with them. It was their pur­pose more thor­oughly to give the body of Je­sus its death anoint­ing and more care­fully to wrap it up with the new ban­dages.

189:4.4The women who went on this mis­sion of anoint­ing Je­sus’ body were: Mary Mag­da­lene, Mary the mother of the Al­pheus twins, Sa­lome the mother of the Zeb­e­dee broth­ers, Joanna the wife of Chuza, and Su­sanna the daugh­ter of Ezra of Alexan­dria.

189:4.5It was about half past three o’clock when the five women, laden with their oint­ments, ar­rived be­fore the empty tomb. As they passed out of the Da­mas­cus gate, they en­coun­tered a num­ber of sol­diers flee­ing into the city more or less panic-stricken, and this caused them to pause for a few min­utes; but when noth­ing more de­vel­oped, they re­sumed their jour­ney.

189:4.6They were greatly sur­prised to see the stone rolled away from the en­trance to the tomb, inas­much as they had said among them­selves on the way out, “Who will help us roll away the stone?” They set down their bur­dens and be­gan to look upon one an­other in fear and with great amaze­ment. While they stood there, atrem­ble with fear, Mary Mag­da­lene ven­tured around the smaller stone and dared to en­ter the open sepul­chre. This tomb of Joseph was in his gar­den on the hill­side on the east­ern side of the road, and it also faced to­ward the east. By this hour there was just enough of the dawn of a new day to en­able Mary to look back to the place where the Mas­ter’s body had lain and to dis­cern that it was gone. In the re­cess of stone where they had laid Je­sus, Mary saw only the folded nap­kin where his head had rested and the ban­dages where­with he had been wrapped ly­ing in­tact and as they had rested on the stone be­fore the ce­les­tial hosts re­moved the body. The cov­er­ing sheet lay at the foot of the burial niche.

189:4.7Af­ter Mary had tar­ried in the door­way of the tomb for a few mo­ments (she did not see dis­tinctly when she first en­tered the tomb), she saw that Je­sus’ body was gone and in its place only these grave cloths, and she ut­tered a cry of alarm and an­guish. All the women were ex­ceed­ingly ner­vous; they had been on edge ever since meet­ing the pan­icky sol­diers at the city gate, and when Mary ut­tered this scream of an­guish, they were ter­ror-stricken and fled in great haste. And they did not stop un­til they had run all the way to the Da­mas­cus gate. By this time Joanna was con­science-stricken that they had de­serted Mary; she ral­lied her com­pan­ions, and they started back for the tomb.

189:4.8As they drew near the sepul­chre, the fright­ened Mag­da­lene, who was even more ter­ror­ized when she failed to find her sis­ters wait­ing when she came out of the tomb, now rushed up to them, ex­cit­edly ex­claim­ing: “He is not there—they have taken him away!” And she led them back to the tomb, and they all en­tered and saw that it was empty.

189:4.9All five of the women then sat down on the stone near the en­trance and talked over the sit­u­a­tion. It had not yet oc­curred to them that Je­sus had been res­ur­rected. They had been by them­selves over the Sab­bath, and they con­jec­tured that the body had been moved to an­other rest­ing place. But when they pon­dered such a so­lu­tion of their dilemma, they were at a loss to ac­count for the or­derly ar­range­ment of the grave cloths; how could the body have been re­moved since the very ban­dages in which it was wrapped were left in po­si­tion and ap­par­ently in­tact on the burial shelf?

189:4.10As these women sat there in the early hours of the dawn of this new day, they looked to one side and ob­served a silent and mo­tion­less stranger. For a mo­ment they were again fright­ened, but Mary Mag­da­lene, rush­ing to­ward him and ad­dress­ing him as if she thought he might be the care­taker of the gar­den, said, “Where have you taken the Mas­ter? Where have they laid him? Tell us that we may go and get him.” When the stranger did not an­swer Mary, she be­gan to weep. Then spoke Je­sus to them, say­ing, “Whom do you seek?” Mary said: “We seek for Je­sus who was laid to rest in Joseph’s tomb, but he is gone. Do you know where they have taken him?” Then said Je­sus: “Did not this Je­sus tell you, even in Gal­i­lee, that he would die, but that he would rise again?” These words star­tled the women, but the Mas­ter was so changed that they did not yet rec­og­nize him with his back turned to the dim light. And as they pon­dered his words, he ad­dressed the Mag­da­lene with a fa­mil­iar voice, say­ing, “Mary.” And when she heard that word of well-known sym­pa­thy and af­fec­tion­ate greet­ing, she knew it was the voice of the Mas­ter, and she rushed to kneel at his feet while she ex­claimed, “My Lord, and my Mas­ter!” And all of the other women rec­og­nized that it was the Mas­ter who stood be­fore them in glo­ri­fied form, and they quickly knelt be­fore him.

189:4.11These hu­man eyes were en­abled to see the mor­ontia form of Je­sus be­cause of the spe­cial min­istry of the trans­form­ers and the mid­way­ers in as­so­ci­a­tion with cer­tain of the mor­ontia per­son­al­i­ties then ac­com­pa­ny­ing Je­sus.

189:4.12As Mary sought to em­brace his feet, Je­sus said: “Touch me not, Mary, for I am not as you knew me in the flesh. In this form will I tarry with you for a sea­son be­fore I as­cend to the Fa­ther. But go, all of you, now and tell my apos­tles—and Pe­ter—that I have risen, and that you have talked with me.”

189:4.13Af­ter these women had re­cov­ered from the shock of their amaze­ment, they has­tened back to the city and to the home of Eli­jah Mark, where they re­lated to the ten apos­tles all that had hap­pened to them; but the apos­tles were not in­clined to be­lieve them. They thought at first that the women had seen a vi­sion, but when Mary Mag­da­lene re­peated the words which Je­sus had spo­ken to them, and when Pe­ter heard his name, he rushed out of the up­per cham­ber, fol­lowed closely by John, in great haste to reach the tomb and see these things for him­self.

189:4.14The women re­peated the story of talk­ing with Je­sus to the other apos­tles, but they would not be­lieve; and they would not go to find out for them­selves as had Pe­ter and John.

129:1.5Zeb­e­dee’s wife, Sa­lome, was a rel­a­tive of An­nas, one­time high priest at Je­ru­sa­lem and still the most in­flu­en­tial of the Sad­ducean group, hav­ing been de­posed only eight years pre­vi­ously. Sa­lome be­came a great ad­mirer of Je­sus. She loved him as she loved her own sons, James, John, and David, while her four daugh­ters looked upon Je­sus as their el­der brother. Je­sus of­ten went out fish­ing with James, John, and David, and they learned that he was an ex­pe­ri­enced fish­er­man as well as an ex­pert boat­builder.

129:2.7Je­sus had car­ried with him to Je­ru­sa­lem a let­ter from Sa­lome, Zeb­e­dee’s wife, in­tro­duc­ing him to the for­mer high priest, An­nas, as “one, the same as my own son.” An­nas spent much time with him, per­son­ally tak­ing him to visit the many academies of the Je­ru­sa­lem re­li­gious teach­ers. While Je­sus thor­oughly in­spected these schools and care­fully ob­served their meth­ods of teach­ing, he never so much as asked a sin­gle ques­tion in pub­lic. Al­though An­nas looked upon Je­sus as a great man, he was puz­zled as to how to ad­vise him. He rec­og­nized the fool­ish­ness of sug­gest­ing that he en­ter any of the schools of Je­ru­sa­lem as a stu­dent, and yet he well knew Je­sus would never be ac­corded the sta­tus of a reg­u­lar teacher inas­much as he had never been trained in these schools.

142:0.2The first day in Je­ru­sa­lem Je­sus called upon his friend of for­mer years, An­nas, the one­time high priest and rel­a­tive of Sa­lome, Zeb­e­dee’s wife. An­nas had been hear­ing about Je­sus and his teach­ings, and when Je­sus called at the high priest’s home, he was re­ceived with much re­serve. When Je­sus per­ceived An­nas’s cold­ness, he took im­me­di­ate leave, say­ing as he de­parted: “Fear is man’s chief en­slaver and pride his great weak­ness; will you be­tray your­self into bond­age to both of these de­stroy­ers of joy and lib­erty?” But An­nas made no re­ply. The Mas­ter did not again see An­nas un­til the time when he sat with his son-in-law in judg­ment on the Son of Man.

184:0.3Je­sus spent about three hours at the palace of An­nas on Mount Oli­vet, not far from the gar­den of Geth­sem­ane, where they ar­rested him. John Zeb­e­dee was free and safe in the palace of An­nas not only be­cause of the word of the Ro­man cap­tain, but also be­cause he and his brother James were well known to the older ser­vants, hav­ing many times been guests at the palace as the for­mer high priest was a dis­tant rel­a­tive of their mother, Sa­lome.

163:7.3The women’s corps also pre­pared to go out, two and two, with the sev­enty to la­bor in the larger cities of Perea. This orig­i­nal group of twelve women had re­cently trained a larger corps of fifty women in the work of home vis­i­ta­tion and in the art of min­is­ter­ing to the sick and the af­flicted. Per­petua, Si­mon Pe­ter’s wife, be­came a mem­ber of this new di­vi­sion of the women’s corps and was in­trusted with the lead­er­ship of the en­larged women’s work un­der Ab­ner. Af­ter Pen­te­cost she re­mained with her il­lus­tri­ous hus­band, ac­com­pa­ny­ing him on all of his mis­sion­ary tours; and on the day Pe­ter was cru­ci­fied in Rome, she was fed to the wild beasts in the arena. This new women’s corps also had as mem­bers the wives of Philip and Mat­thew and the mother of James and John.