Patristic A.D. 430
“(Tr. xiii. c. 12) As if He said, She is not My spouse. But dost thou therefore not rejoice in the marriage? Yea, I rejoice, he saith, because I am the friend of the Bridegroom.”
Catena Aurea: Gospel of John, as excerpted in the Catena Aurea on John 3:27-30
PD · J. H. Newman (Oxford, 1845) ↗