The Four Gospels/Characters

Jesus Christ
""Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.""


 * A God Am I: "Before Abraham was, I Am." (Double points for invoking the name of God revealed to Moses in the Old Testament.) Quite possibly Justified, if Jesus was, as He claimed, the Son of God himself.
 * Angel Unaware / God Was My Co-Pilot: Appeared to His disciples after His death, but they did not recognize Him at first.
 * Back From the Dead: "But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him."
 * Badass Beard
 * Badass Pacifist: See The Determinator below.
 * Berserk Button: Don't treat His father's house like a marketplace. EVER.
 * Beware the Nice Ones: Sure, He will die for your sins, but if you ever happen to push His Berserk Button, may God help you...actually, He wouldn't.
 * Bullying a Dragon: Frequently target of this.
 * Capital Letters Are Magic: Christians (and many translations of the Bible) often capitalize pronouns referring to Jesus out of reverence for Him.
 * Cassandra Truth
 * Celibate Hero: Some people think that Jesus was married, but that his wife was not mentioned in the Bible (there are also a lot of speculations about why this is). Other people see this idea as heresy.
 * Child Prodigy: Jesus teaching when He was only twelve. Everyone was astonished at his understanding and answers.
 * Cloudcuckoolander: When asked if an adulterer should be stoned, Jesus wrote or drew something in the dirt with his finger instead of answering, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
 * Obfuscating Stupidity: A lot of the time, these moments do help him make his point.
 * Compelling Voice: He can stop storms with His voice.
 * Crucified Hero Shot: The Trope Codifier.
 * Cruel and Unusual Death: Crucifixion was actually a standard public execution method in ancient Rome, but it was most definitely cruel. Certain aspects of his death were made to be crueler than usual, like the Crown of Thorns.
 * Deadpan Snarker: If you happened to be Pharisees or Sadducee.
 * More along the lines of a Gentleman Snarker.
 * Deal with the Devil: Averted, though not for lack of trying on Satan's part. (It helped that Jesus had Incorruptible Pure Pureness.)
 * Descend From a Higher Plane of Existence
 * Determinator: The man once faced down an angry mob that wanted to throw him over a cliff, silenced them with a look, and walked right through without a scratch. Heck, even death itself couldn't stop him.
 * Dying Moment of Awesome: In the midst of, He refused to take anesthetic, managed to make arrangements for someone to look after His Mother, reassured a penitent thief that he would go to heaven, and forgave His executioners.
 * Forgiveness Requires Death: With the twist that Jesus wasn't guilty, He was dying to get forgiveness for everyone else.
 * Fountain of Expies: This Wiki gives us the Crystal Dragon Jesus and Messianic Archetype tropes; if the authors have encountered Christianity, they can be assumed to be expys. Some of the most well-known, though, include Luke Skywalker and his father, Aslan, Superman, and Nagisa Kaworu. In Real Life, many individuals have claimed to be His reincarnation.
 * Friend to All Children
 * Friend to All Living Things
 * God in Human Form: He claimed to be, leading to accusations of blasphemy from the Pharisees.
 * Healing Hands: He healed a lot of people, usually by laying hands on them.
 * Heroic Sacrifice / Someone Has to Die: Jesus had to die and suffer punishment for mankind's sins, in order to make it possible for people to be saved and not have to suffer punishment for their own sins.
 * Humble Hero: Shows this in many ways.
 * Incorruptible Pure Pureness
 * It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: Oh, yes...
 * Jesus Was Way Cool: Many people see Him as this, despite the fact that if he wasn't the messiah then he was quite frankly, a madman with a God complex.
 * Journey to Find Oneself: Jesus' 40 days and nights in the desert, sort of.
 * Kung Fu Jesus: Despite forcibly kicking shady merchants out of the temple on more than one occasion, this is mostly averted. In fact, the people turned against Him becasue He wasn't this; they expected their Messiah to lead a revolt against Rome.
 * Law of Chromatic Superiority: In many Bibles, His words are written in red. Also, He is often portrayed wearing purple robes, purple being a color long associated with royalty in the West.
 * Light Is Good: He could also be considered Good Is Not Nice.
 * Lineage Comes From the Father: Subverted. Jesus is both the legal and biological heir of David; Legally through Joseph, but it turns out that the geneology in Luke is actually Mary's, tracing her back to David. In addition, there are a few women so well-respected that Matthew felt the need to mention them; Tamar, Bath-sheba, Rahab, and Ruth.
 * Man in White: Usually depicted this way. In the gospels themselves his robes become pure white in the Transfiguration sequence.
 * The Messiah: Trope Namer.
 * Messianic Archetype: The Trope Maker.
 * My Rule Fu Is Stronger Than Yours: Often took the Rules Lawyer Pharisees down a notch or two.
 * Never Accepted in His Hometown: The Trope Namer and the page quote-provider. Yeah, he wasn't exactly popular in Nazareth.
 * OOC Is Serious Business: When the guy known for using his powers for good turns and curses a fig tree in a fit of anger, causing it to wither and die, you know something serious is about to go down. Sure enough, Jesus a few days later.
 * The Paragon
 * Scars Are Forever: He still had the scars from His crucifixion after He rose from the dead, probably because the Apostles would not believe unless they felt them.
 * Screw the Money, I Have Rules: His ethics in a nutshell.
 * Self-Restraint: He went along with being sentenced to death.
 * Take a Third Option:
 * One of His specialties. Notable Example: saving the adulteress from stoning by basically telling those who wanted to kill her, "Hey you guys, it's not like you're so pure either".
 * There's also the time where the Pharisees asked if it was legal to pay taxes to Rome, hoping they could get Jesus arrested for his answer; Jesus outsmarted them with a simple answer of "if it belongs to Rome, give it to them".
 * Take That: It's hard to read His words and not think He's talking about someone today, but He was more talking about the people of his time, their hypocrisy and blindness to injustice. But, since He's omnipotent, He very well could be talking about people today, so this can be Doubly Subverted.
 * Thanatos Gambit: He comes Back From the Dead.
 * Turn the Other Cheek: Trope Namer
 * The Determinator: The man could. Not. Be. Stopped. Not by Legionnaires, not by crowds, not by endless humiliations and sufferings, not by death itself and all of the sins of ALL EXISTENCE.
 * The Hero: Of the New Testament. Specifically, a Guile Hero who pwned people with smarts rather than violence.
 * Team Dad: For His Apostles
 * The Medic: He healed a lot of people.
 * The Power of Love: One of Jesus's most remembered teachings is to love God and to love thy neighbor. Jesus emphasizes love as the most powerful thing in the universe. (Faith and Hope being the two runners-up)
 * The Un-Reveal: To settle a dispute, Jesus wrote something in the ground that apparently blew them away and made everyone stop fighting. This is the only recorded instance of Jesus ever writing anything. But none of the books ever tell us what he wrote, maybe because we couldn't understand it?.
 * The incident in question is recorded in John 8, when the people brought the woman who was caught in adultery in yet another attempt to trap Jesus by his own words. Commentators have suggested that what Jesus wrote on the ground was the accusers' own sins, as a way of calling them out for hypocrisy.
 * Verbal Tic: In the book of John, "I tell you the truth," or "Truly, truly I say to you."
 * The Vicarious Atoner
 * Wham! Line: "Tonight, one of you will betray me".

Joseph of Nazareth

 * Chuck Cunningham Syndrome / Disappeared Dad: Theological scholars speculate Joseph's lack of appearance post-Nativity may be due to Joseph dying at some point.
 * Joseph shows up in that episode when Jesus was 12 and He was in the Temple showing off his knowledge to the rabbis. Mary and Joseph were both mentioned here. After this, not much is known. Most sources say Jesus was an adult when Joseph died.
 * My Girl Is Not a Slut: Averted. After finding out that Mary was pregnant, he decided to (quietly) divorce her rather than make a big deal about it and have her be humiliated. That was really decent of him, considering the time and place he was in, he probably saved Mary's life (though he did come back for her).
 * Nice Guy

The Virgin Mary
""Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb!""


 * Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Became Queen of the world according to some Christian traditions.
 * Beauty Equals Goodness
 * Breakout Character - In Catholicism.
 * Celibate Heroine:
 * Played straight at the time of Jesus' birth - there's a reason she got her title. Possibly averted afterward, depending on whether you translate references to Jesus' "brothers and sisters" as literal or metaphorical.
 * The Chick: The most feminine figure in Christianity.
 * The Chosen One: Chosen by God out of many different young women to be the mother of Jesus
 * It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: Has to watch her son be humiliated and killed, and cannot do anything about it.
 * The High Queen: To those who believe that she became Queen of Heaven and Queen of the World at the end of her earthly existence
 * Humble Heroine: Despite the praise Catholics heap on her, Mary herself always took care to direct attention to Jesus, rather than herself.
 * Incorruptible Pure Pureness: The Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception states that she had to be perfect from the very beginning in order to be a suitable mother for Jesus, and so she was spared from Original Sin.
 * The Ingenue
 * Jewish Mother: Well, literally. Subverted, however, in that she isn't really a Control Freak.
 * Miko: Extrabiblical tradition has it that she was the equivalent of this (played straight) from an early age
 * One Steve Limit: Averted; there are at least two other women named Mary in the New Testament alone.
 * Something About a Rose: Roses are a flower associated with her, notably the most iconic prayer about her is the rosary (meaning "rose garden")
 * Team Mom
 * Virgin Power
 * World's Most Beautiful Woman
 * Yamato Nadeshiko

John the Baptist
"And there was a cry from the wilderness..."


 * Hermit Guru
 * Off with His Head: What happened to him in the end.

The Apostles/disciples
Peter, Andrew, James the brother of John, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the Lesser, Thaddeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas the Betrayer. Matthias was later brought into the group as Judas' replacement. Peter, John, and Judas have their own sections below.


 * Badass Nickname: James and John, the "Sons of Thunder".
 * Calling the Hero Out: Jesus did this to the disciples after they rebuked people for bringing their children to see Jesus.
 * Flat Earth Atheist: Thomas has this reputation if the phrase "Doubting Thomas" is anything to go by, but it's fairly unjustified: all the apostles had trouble accepting Jesus' resurrection without physical proof; Thomas was just singled out because he arrived late. In addition, Jesus readily offered said proof and they immediately believed upon seeing it.
 * Literal Minded: The Apostles were often clueless about the things Jesus taught. They thought that Jesus was coming to restore the monarchy that David started . It wasn't until after Jesus sent the Holy Spirit that the Apostles understood everything.
 * One Steve Limit: Averted with two Jameses, the two Judases, and also with a second John (the first being John the Baptist). Played straight with Simons, as Jesus named one "Peter" - but even then, yet another Simon was involved in the crucifixion.
 * Real Men Love Jesus: Since many of the apostles worked in blue-collar occupations such as fishing and carpentry, it's fair to assume they were manly men-- and loved Jesus, of course.
 * The Sixth Ranger: Matthias

Simon Peter/Cephas
""And I name you Peter, for you are the rock from which I will build My church"."


 * Badass Beard
 * Badass Nickname: Jesus gave him the name "Peter", which is from the Greek word for stone, "petros" ("cephas" is another Greek word meaning the same thing). How cool must that have been to have Jesus call you "Rock"? (Though, to be fair, Jesus was also quick to point out when he wasn't living up to the name.)
 * Character Development: Post-Pentecost, Peter becomes the new leader of Jesus's movement and gains maturity from it.
 * Cruel and Unusual Death: He was crucified. Upside down.
 * Glamour Failure: He sees through Simon Magus' scams.
 * Hot-Blooded:
 * During two accounts of Jesus's arrest scene, Peter cuts off a soldier's ear with his sword (and one of these accounts makes it clear that, yes, Jesus healed it). This is just one of the many times Peter opens his mouth and inserts his foot.
 * Also, the time when Jesus tells Peter that anything he asks by faith will be granted. The first thing Peter asks for? That Jesus doesn't have to die. Jesus immediately rebukes it, repeating that his death is preordained.
 * The Lancer: Jesus left Peter in charge of the movement he started.
 * Living Lie Detector: One incident in Acts has a guy named Ananias attempting to commit fraud, but Peter sees right through the con. Ananias dies on the spot. A few hours later, Ananias's wife, Sapphira, tried to do the same and suffered the same fate.
 * One Steve Limit: Enforced. Since there was another Simon among the twelve, Jesus gave him the Peter nickname instead.
 * Red Oni, Blue Oni: Initially, Peter was the hot blooded foil to Jesus's calm demeanor, but post-Pentecost, he got better and became Paul's foil.

John the Apostle
""He who does not know love does not know God because God is love"."


 * And That Little Boy Was Me: The ending of John's Gospel reveals that the unnamed "disciple whom Jesus loved" was the Narrator All Along.
 * Hot-Blooded: He and James often fought over who would have a better position in Heaven, to the point where their mother had to ask Jesus in order to have them stop fighting.
 * Heterosexual Life Partners: With Jesus, if you think that "the disciple whom he loved" was him. That phrase is talking about platonic love not homosexual love
 * I Am Not John the Divine
 * One Steve Limit: Averted with John the Apostle and John the Baptist.

Judas Iscariot
""Have you come to betray the son of man with a kiss?""

""He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.""
 * Driven to Suicide: After learning that Jesus was going to be executed.
 * Et Tu, Brute?
 * Face Heel Turn: His betrayal, obviously.
 * Heel Realization
 * Greed Interesting note, the thirty pieces of silver Judas was paid is the same amount Jewish law requires you to pay someone if you murder their slave.
 * Ho Yay: With Jesus. See above; as far as canon goes ... well. Their kiss is listed as a Trope Codifier on Kiss of Death.
 * Les Collaborateurs: A more common villainous example.
 * The Mole
 * Meaningful Name: Judas is the Greek form of Judah, the brother who got the idea to sell Joseph into slavery.
 * My God, What Have I Done?
 * Obvious Judas: Well, obviously.
 * One Steve Limit: Averted. He's actually one of two apostle Judases, the other who ends up going by Thaddeus.
 * Only in It For the Money: Possibly. He stole from the poor (see below) and betrayed Jesus for money.
 * Stealing From the Till: This is noted of in John 12:6 when he is among those to complain when Mary Magdalene anointed Jesus:


 * Trope Namer: To call someone a Judas is to say he is a traitor.

Mary Magdalene

 * Alliterative Name
 * Canon Discontinuity: She had a whole gospel to herself in the Gnostic texts, but it's not considered canon by any modern religions.
 * Demonic Possession: Supposedly had seven demons trapped within her, until Jesus healed her.
 * Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Traditionally she has been depicted as a harlot, but this comes from tradition and not from scripture.
 * One Steve Limit: Another aversion; she shares a name with Jesus' mom.
 * The Chick

Herod the Great

 * Ambition Is Evil
 * Nice Job Breaking It, Herod: The Trope Namer and Trope Maker.
 * Offing the Offspring: History records that he had three of his own sons executed for showing a bit too much ambition.
 * One Steve Limit: Averted by his son and successor, Herod Antipas.
 * Treacherous Advisor: His sister, Salome.
 * Would Hurt a Child: According to Matthew, he ordered the murder of all the male children in Bethlehem in order to kill the Messiah. (It didn't work.)

Simon of Cyrene

 * Got Volunteered: During the crucifixion.

Pontius Pilate

 * Blood on These Hands: He washed it off.
 * Heel Face Turn: Some stories say he converted to Christianity.

The Pharisees
""Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.""


 * Calling the Hero Out: They were not really heroes, they only claimed to be, but the Pharisees made the temple into a den of thieves and Jesus rebuked them for this.
 * Completely Missing the Point: See quote. They followed the ceremonies of the law to a T, but they completely over looked the more important spirit of the law.
 * God Never Said That: God gave a number of general rules, but by Jesus' time these had been analyzed and quantified into strict rules by the Pharisees. When the Pharisees tried to call Jesus on his "rulebreaking", He often explained that they had over analyzed the letter of the law and missed the spirit completely. For example, the Pharisees said He violated the Sabbath's ban on work by healing someone; He explained that while the Sabbath is a day of rest it's never against God's law to help a person or show mercy on them (See Matthew 12).
 * Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: "If you had known what these words mean, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent."
 * Greed: They turned the temple into a bank.
 * Holier Than Thou / Pride
 * Hypocrite: Their religion was more to make then look good in front of men then out of any real love for God. For example, they got mad at the disciples for eating with unwashed hands, but they themselves plotted murder and stole from people.
 * Irony:
 * They had a reputation as being very religious. They also were some of Jesus's worst enemies.
 * Insane Troll Logic: They accused Jesus of being Demonically Possessed because He healed people and cast out demons.
 * Knight Templar
 * Lawful Stupid
 * Loophole Abuse: Sort of, they had to make up a new rule to do it. They had a tradition that if something was declared "Corban" or "devoted to God" it was not to be used for secular use, and they would use that as a excuse not to use whatever it was to help their parents.
 * Malicious Slander
 * Morton's Fork: One of their preferred strategies for trying to entrap Jesus: Should we execute this woman for adultery (defying the law of Rome), or not (defying the law of Moses)? (Jesus Took a Third Option.)
 * Obstructive Bureaucrat: Jesus called them out not only for being holier-than-thou, but for putting unnecessary restrictions on the average folk.
 * Rules Lawyer: And really didn't like it that Jesus' Rule Fu Was Stronger.
 * Screw the Rules, I Have Money
 * Screw the Rules, I Make Them

Zechariah, father of John the baptist

 * The Speechless: He was unable to speak for a time because he did not believe the angel Gabriel when he said that he would have a son.