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The Disciple whom Jesus Loved

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2024

Roland Potter O.P.
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Many of the simplest phrases in St John's gospel have an arresting character and may powerfully urge us to turn them over and over in mind. ‘The disciple whom Jesus loved’ (Jn 21. 20) is one such which calls for further thought, and which may well help us to pray. This disciple is first explicitly referred to at the last supper

‘Now one of the disciples, he whom Jesus loved, was reclining at Jesus’ breast. Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him and said to him, who is it of whom he speaks? He then, leaning back upon the breast of Jesus, said to him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, It is he for whom I shall dip the morsel and give it to him’. (Jn 13. 23-26).

Type
Research Article
Information
Life of the Spirit , Volume 16 , Issue 186 , January 1962 , pp. 293 - 297
Copyright
Copyright © 1962 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 Hon ephilei ho Jesous, instead of the usual egapa. Note however that the Syriac Version makes no difference, nor indeed does Delitzsch's Hebrew rendering. It Is not easy to see how any underlying Aramaic would distinguish the words.

2 That he who was innocence itself should love intensely, and love some more than others while loving all men, are all truths which need to be thought about and prayed and preached - the more so when the word ‘love’ is too often debased in popular parlance, and unthinking egalitarianism creeps into domains where it has no place.

3 J. N. Sanders, Who was this disciple whom Jesus loved? in Studies in the fourth gospel, Mowbrays, 1957, pp. 72-82.

4 cf. Jn 1. 8, 15, 20; 3. 27-30. Jn 1. 19-28; 32-34. Jn 3. 22-26; 4. 3.

5 cf. Abbot Chapman, in J.T.S. 1929, p. 16.

6 Habet enim hoc verus amor ut amatos ad amantis dilectionem trahat. Super Ev. Joan. par. 1934.

7 mitis, atque festivus Christi jesu tibi aspectus appareat, (from the Ordo commendationisanimae.)

8 St Thomas, Summa Theologiae 3a. 8.3