JOHN 17:12 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
“While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.”
While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled — Jesus' past protection of the disciples reflects his shepherding role (10:27-30), while the reference to "the one destined to be lost" (ho huios tēs apōleias, the son of perdition) names Judas. The citation of scripture (likely Psalm 41:9, "my own familiar friend... lifted his heel against me") demonstrates how even betrayal serves God's redemptive purposes, though without absolving Judas of moral responsibility.
Church Fathers on John 17:12
As the disciples were still sad in spite of all our Lord’s consolations, henceforth He addresses Himself to the Father to show the love which He had for them; I pray for them; He not only gives them what He has of His own, but entreats another for them, as a still further proof of His love.
When He adds, I pray not for the world, by the world He means those who live according to the lust of the world, and have not the lot to be chosen by grace out of the world, as those had for whom He prayed: But for them which you have given Me. It was because the Father had given Him them, that they did not belong to the world. Nor yet had the Father, in giving them to the Son, lost what He had given: For they are Yours.
Read all 13 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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