(Hom. lxii. 1) Our Lord after His twofold promise of assistance to the Apostles in their future labours, remembers that the traitor is cut off from both, and is troubled at the thought: When Jesus had thus said, He was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray Me.
(Hom. lxxii. 1) As He did not mention Him by name, all began to fear: Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom He spake; not conscious of any evil in themselves, and yet trusting to Christ's words, more than to their own thoughts.
While all were trembling, and not excepting even Peter, their head, John, as the beloved disciple, lay upon Jesus' breast. He then lying on Jesus' breast saith unto Him, Lord, who is it?
(Hom. lxxii. 1) If thou want to know the cause of this familiarity, it is love: Whom Jesus loved. Others were loved, but he was loved more than any.
(Hom. lxxii. 1) Whom Jesus loved. This John says to show his own innocence, and also why it was that Peter beckoned to him, inasmuch as he was not Peter's superior: Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it should be of whom he spake. Peter had been just reproved, and therefore, checking the customary vehemence of his love, he did not speak himself now, but made John speak for him. He always appears in Scripture as zealous, and an intimate friend of John's.
"When Jesus had thus said, He was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray Me."
Again He bringeth fear on all by not mentioning the traitor by name. "But they are in doubt"; although conscious to themselves of nothing evil; but they deemed the declaration of Christ more to be believed than their own thoughts. Wherefore they "looked one on another." By laying the whole upon one, Jesus would have cut short their fear, but by adding, "one of you," He troubled all. What then? The rest looked upon one another; but the ever fervent Peter "beckoneth" to John. Since he had been before rebuked, and when Christ desired to wash him would have hindered Him, and since he is everywhere found moved indeed by love, yet blamed; being on this account afraid, he neither kept quiet, nor did he speak, but wished to gain information by means of John. But it is a question worth asking, why when all were distressed, and trembling, when their leader was afraid, John like one at ease leans on Jesus' bosom, and not only leans, but even lies on His breast? Nor is this the only thing worthy of enquiry, but that also which follows. What is that? What he saith of himself, "Whom Jesus loved." Why did no one else say this of himself? Yet the others were loved too. But he more than any. And if no other hath said this about him, but he about himself, it is nothing wonderful. Paul too does the same when occasion calls, saying thus, "I knew a man fourteen years ago"; yet in fact he has gone through other no trifling praises of himself.
(Tr. lxi. 4) This is John, whose Gospel this is, as he afterwards declares. It is the custom of the sacred writers, when they come to any thing relating to themselves, to speak of themselves, as if they were speaking of another. For if the thing itself is related correctly, what does truth lose by the omission of boasting on the writer's part?
(Tr. lxi. 6) For by bosom what else is signified but secret? Here is the hollow of the breast, the secret chamber of wisdom.
"Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom, one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved." What he meant by saying "in His bosom," he tells us a little further on, where he says, "on the breast of Jesus." It was that very John whose Gospel is before us, as he afterwards expressly declares. For it was a custom with those who have supplied us with the sacred writings, that when any of them was relating the divine history, and came to something affecting himself, he spoke as if it were about another; and gave himself a place in the line of his narrative becoming one who was the recorder of public events, and not as one who made himself the subject of his preaching. Saint Matthew acted also in this way, when, in coming in the course of his narrative to himself, he says, "He saw a publican named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom, and saith unto him, Follow me." He does not say, He saw me, and said to me. So also acted the blessed Moses, writing all the history about himself as if it concerned another, and saying, "The Lord said unto Moses." And so, when the blessed evangelist also says here, not, I was leaning on Jesus' bosom, but, "There was leaning one of the disciples," let us recognize a custom of our author's, rather than fall into any wonder on the subject.
But what mean the words, "whom Jesus loved"? As if He did not love the others, of whom this same John has said above, "He loved them to the end;" and as the Lord Himself, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." And who could enumerate all the testimonies of the sacred pages, in which the Lord Jesus is exhibited as the lover, not only of this one, or of those who were then around Him, but of such also as were to be His members in the distant future, and of His universal Church? But there is some truth, doubtless, underlying these words, and having reference to the bosom on which the narrator was leaning. For what else can be indicated by the bosom but some hidden truth?
That he lay in the bosom, and upon the breast, was not only an evidence of present love, but also a sign of the future, (non occ.). viz. of those new and mysterious doctrines which he was afterwards commissioned to reveal to the world.
[AD 253] Origen of Alexandria on John 13:23