Eusebius, writing in the fourth century, recorded in his Church History, a letter which he believed to have been written by Polycrates of Ephesus (c. 130s–196) in the second century. Polycrates believed that John was the one “who reclined upon the bosom of the Lord”, suggesting an identification with the beloved disciple.

Augustine of Hippo (354–430 AD), in his Tractates on the Gospel of John, also believed that John was the beloved disciple,

Saint Aelred of Rievaulx, in his work 12th century work De Spiritali Amicitia (“ On Spiritual Friendship”), referred to the relationship of Jesus and John the Apostle as a “marriage” and held it out as an example sanctioning friendships between clerics.

Francesco Calcagno, a friar of Venice was tried and executed in 1550 for claiming that “St. John was Christ’s catamite”.

In his 1593 trial for blasphemy English playwright Christopher Marlowe was accused of claiming that “St. John the Evangelist was bedfellow to Christ and leaned always in his bosom, that he used him as the sinners of Sodoma.”

English King James I responded in Parliament to criticisms of his relationship with his favourite, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, saying “I wish to speak in my own behalf and not to have it thought to be a defect, for Jesus Christ did the same, and therefore I cannot be blamed. Christ had his son John, and I have my George.”

Frederick the Great of Prussia 1749 poem Palladium includes the lines: “This good Jesus, how do you think He got John to sleep in his bed? Can’t you see he was his Ganymede?”