Floreffe Bible, detail
anonymous; Abbey of Floreffe, Namur, Belgium
colored ink on vellum
ca. 1155
47.5 x 33 cm.
credit: The British Library. Manuscript 17738, folio 4

THE ONE WHOM JESUS LOVED

When during the Last Supper Jesus announced to his disciples that one among them will betray him, John 13:23 records, “Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved.” On the third and last time Jesus appeared to the disciples after his crucifixion, “Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper….” (John 21:20)

The “disciple whom Jesus loved” has been identified variously as Philip, Judas Thomas, Judas Iscariot, and Lazarus, though traditionally as John the Evangelist.

There is a legendary tradition the Jesus revealed secrets to John to which none of the other disciples were privy. In a letter ascribed to Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150–215), he records two fragments of text he claims were excised from the Gospel of Mark in which Jesus teaches “the mystery of the kingdom of God” to “the youth whom [he] loved.”

This Last Supper illustration from the 12th-century Floreffe Bible has been the subject of numerous other paintings, particularly from the Late Middle Ages and Early Renaisssance, including ones by Fray Nicholás Borrás (1570), Andrea del Castagno (1447), Jacopo Bassano (ca. 1546), Daniele Crespi (1624–1625), Vallentin de Boulogue (1625–1626), Giotto di Bonone (1320–1325), Daccio di Buoninsega (1308–1311), Daniele Crespi (1624–1625), Albercht Dürer (woodcuts / 1510–1511), Taddeo Gaddi (ca. 1360), Lorenzo Ghiberti (“The Gates of Paradise” doors, Baptistry of the Florentine Duomo / 1403–1424), Domenico Ghirlando (1476), Jaume Hugutet (1470), Jaume Baço Jacomart (ca. 1450), Pietro Lorenzetti (ca. 1320), Monaco Lorenzo (1394–1395), Master of the Housebook (1475–1478), Pieter Pourbus (1548), Jaume Serra (1370–1400), Luca Signorelli (1502), Alonso Vázquez (1588–1603), and an anonymous ca. 1350 polychromed and gilded wood statue Jésus et Jean.

This moment in Jesus’ life found an echo in the experiences of such visionaries as Lutgarde of Tongres, Gertrude the Great, Catherine of Siena, and Margurite Marie Alacoque, each of whom reported that Jesus invited her to lean against his bosom and experience viscerally his Sacred Heart.

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