Nicodemus

|titles = Defender of Jesus |venerated_in = |feast_day =Various (see ): 3rdSunday of Pascha, 2August, 3August, 31August |canonized_date = Pre-Congregation |attributes = Pharisee |patronage = |Undertakers and pallbearers}} }}

Nicodemus (; ; ; ) is a New Testament figure venerated as a saint in a number of Christian traditions. He is depicted as a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin who is drawn to hear Jesus's teachings. As is the case with Lazarus, Nicodemus is not mentioned in the synoptic Gospels, and is mentioned only by John, who devotes more than half of Chapter 3 of his gospel and a few verses of Chapter 7 to Nicodemus, and lastly mentions him in Chapter 19.

Nicodemus is considered by both Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church traditions to have secretly been a disciple of Jesus on the basis of the narrative in John 19; there is no explicit mention of his discipleship in the Gospel of John. Owing to his insistence on a hearing for Jesus according to Jewish law, Nicodemus is sometimes referred to as "defender of Jesus".

Although there is no clear source of information about Nicodemus outside the Gospel of John, Ochser and Kohler, writing in ''The Jewish Encyclopedia'' in 1905, identify him with Nicodemus ben Gurion, mentioned in the Talmud as a wealthy and popular holy man reputed to have had miraculous powers. Some 21st-century historians make the same connection. Other scholars reject this identification, arguing that the biblical Nicodemus is likely an older man at the time of his conversation with Jesus, while Nicodemus ben Gurion was on the scene forty years later, at the time of the First Jewish-Roman War.

An apocryphal work under his namethe Gospel of Nicodemuswas produced in the mid-4th century, and is mostly a reworking of the earlier Acts of Pilate, which recounts the Harrowing of Hell. Provided by Wikipedia