It is possible that Jesus had an autistic friend. Nicodemus, who we meet in the Gospel of John 3:1-21, might have been neurodivergent, according to a handbook on autism published by the Anglican Diocese of Oxford in England.
In the Gospel of John, we encounter Nicodemus as a Jewish leader. A specialist in laws for the Jewish community, he would have had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the religious texts, according to the handbook, titled Welcoming and Including Autistic People in our Churches and Communities.
He approaches Jesus in the quiet and dark, away from the deafening crowd. He misunderstands the metaphor, and Jesus explains it to him. Later, Nicodemus grabs a rulebook to try and save Jesus, and, at the tomb, there’s Nicodemus staggering up the hill with an extraordinary amount of herbs and spices. Normally, people would bring a small quantity.
“All of this reads as entirely normal autistic behaviour, and there he is at the tomb, as autistic as ever, and very much part of Jesus’s life,” the handbook notes.
In the popular series The Chosen, the Apostle Matthew is portrayed as likely being on the autistic spectrum.
Download a PDF of the handbook at https://t.ly/lNboI
Published in the March 2026 issue of The Southern Cross Magazine
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