A Pharisee and member of the Jewish Sanhedrin who came to Jesus by night and later helped prepare his body for burial, according to the Gospel of John.

Saint Nicodemus appears three times in the Gospel of John: first when he visits Jesus at night to ask about being born again, then when he cautiously defends Jesus’s right to a fair hearing before the Sanhedrin, and finally when he brings a large quantity of myrrh and aloes to help Joseph of Arimathea prepare Jesus’s body for burial. As a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council, he held real religious and social standing in Jerusalem, standing he risked by associating publicly with Jesus. Christian tradition has long remembered him as a figure who moved gradually from cautious curiosity to open, costly devotion.

Quick Facts

• Died: I century (Judea, Israel)
• Role: Pharisee; member of the Sanhedrin
• Venerated as: Disciple of Christ
• Scriptural basis: Gospel of John, chapters 3, 7, and 19

Who Was Saint Nicodemus?

Nicodemus is a figure attested directly in the New Testament rather than one known only through later ecclesiastical tradition. The Gospel of John presents him as a respected Jewish leader who first approaches Jesus under cover of night, likely to avoid the notice of his fellow Pharisees, and receives in that encounter one of the Gospel’s most important teachings on being born of water and the Spirit. His later appearances show him growing bolder, defending Jesus procedurally before the Sanhedrin and finally acting openly, and at some personal risk, to see that Jesus received a proper burial.

Historical Setting

The Sanhedrin functioned as the central Jewish religious and judicial council in first-century Jerusalem, and its members, including the Pharisees among them, generally held significant social and religious authority. A member of that body showing sympathy toward Jesus, whom the council’s leadership viewed with growing hostility, risked his reputation and standing within his own community, which likely explains the caution marking Nicodemus’s earliest recorded approach to Jesus.

Why the Church Remembers Saint Nicodemus

The Church remembers Nicodemus for a journey of faith that unfolds visibly across the Gospel of John, from a hesitant nighttime visitor to a man willing to publicly assist in burying a condemned criminal, an act of considerable social risk in his position. His arc offers one of Scripture’s clearest pictures of faith deepening gradually rather than arriving all at once.

Canonization and Feast Day

As a figure known to us through the Gospel of John itself, Nicodemus’s standing among the saints derives from Scripture and ancient Christian tradition rather than from any formal canonization process, which neither existed at the time nor was ever later applied to a New Testament figure of his kind.

What Catholics Can Learn Today

Nicodemus’s gradual movement from private curiosity to public commitment offers reassurance to believers whose own faith has grown slowly, through questions and hesitation, rather than in a single decisive moment. His example suggests that even a cautious first step toward Christ, taken at night and in secret, can eventually lead to open and costly discipleship.

A Prayer to Saint Nicodemus

Saint Nicodemus, who came to Jesus first by night and later served him openly in his burial, accompany those whose faith is still forming in doubt and hesitation, and lead them, as you were led, toward courage. Amen.

Sources

• Gospel of John
• New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia