Johannes de evangelist 1601 - 1636

François van den Hoeye made this engraving of Saint John the Evangelist in Amsterdam in the first half of the 17th century. The image is a study in how institutional authority is constructed. We see the Evangelist not in a moment of divine inspiration, but as a man labouring at his desk, pen in hand. The books, quill, and inkwell signal John’s authority as a writer. He is associated with the word. We can see this image as part of a wider phenomenon in the Dutch Republic at this time, where the institutions of the church were being challenged. One effect of the Protestant Reformation was to shift religious authority from the priest in the pulpit to the individual reading scripture. By depicting John at his desk, this print suggests that religious authority is something worked at, a product of study and the intellectual labor of interpretation. We as historians can look to the archives of the Dutch publishing industry to understand the social forces behind this shift in the politics of imagery.