But how doth he who said, ‘whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose,’ now call himself His ‘friend? It is not to exalt himself, nor boastingly, that he saith this, but from desire to show that he too most forwards this, (i.e. the exaltation of Christ,) and that these things come to pass not against his will or to his grief, but that he desires and is eager for them, and that it was with a special view to them that all his actions had been performed; and this he has very wisely shown by the term ‘friend.’
~St John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Saint John
