Charles Ellicott Commentary John 13:22

"The disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake." — John 13:22 (ASV)

Then the disciples looked one on another.—Compare to Matthew 26:22 and following, and the parallel in Mark 14:19 and Luke 22:23. Saint Matthew and Saint Mark both state that they expressed their doubt in words, and Saint Luke’s narrative implies this questioning, but as addressed to one another, not to our Lord (And they began to inquire among themselves).

Saint John remembers the look of astonishment, and the way in which each tried to read the countenance of his brother as they all heard the words, which asserted that there was a traitor in their midst.

He was nearest to our Lord, and knew what others may not have known: how Peter beckoned to him, and how he put the question to our Lord.

This is the moment that has been caught in Leonardo da Vinci’s famous masterpiece in the refectory of the Dominican Fathers at Milan. The painting itself has almost passed away, but perhaps no work of art is so widely known.

The three Apostles mentioned in the text are all on the right of our Lord. John is nearest to Him, and leaning towards Peter, who stretches behind Judas to speak to “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Judas, clutching the bag and upsetting the salt, declaring in every feature of that wondrous face—which cost Da Vinci a whole year’s study in the lowest quarter of the city—that he is the traitor, is on the right hand of John, and between him and Peter.

This verse can have no better comment than a study of this great picture, accompanied by the chapter in Lanzi’s Storia Pittorica or Mrs. Jameson’s Sacred and Legendary Art, would provide. Englishmen have a noble copy of it in their own National Gallery. (See the Sacred and Legendary Art, Ed. 3, 1857, vol. i., p. 209.)