Page:An analysis of religious belief (1877).djvu/244

 The inference from the evidence on the whole is that Jesus was in comfortable, though not opulent circumstances; and even had he been in want, he had friends enough whose devotion would never have allowed him to remain without a good lodging and sufficient food.

These friends he seems to have begun collecting round him as soon as he entered upon his career of preaching in Galilee. Among the earliest were four fishermed, Simon and his brother Andrew, James and his brother John. The first pair of brothers Jesus called away from their occupation, saying, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men" (Mk. i. 16-20; Mt. iv. 18-22). So say two Gospels, but a very different account appears in John. There we are told that two of the disciples of John the Baptist having heard Jesus, left their master to follow him. One of these two was Andrew, Simon's brother, and it was Andrew who went and informed Simon that he had discovered the Messiah. On seeing Simon, Jesus addresses him, "Thou art Simon the son of John; thou shalt be called Kephas" (Jo. i. 38-43). Not a word is said here of the calling of fishermen pursued by these brothers, nor of the remarkable promise to make them fishers of men. Moreover it is they who present themselves to Jesus; not he who summons them. The two accounts are mutually exclusive.

Luke has a third version, not absolutely irreconcilable with that of Mark and Matthew, though inconsistent in all its details. According to him, Jesus had once been speaking to the people from Simon's boat, which was lying on the lake of Gennesaret. The address concluded, he desired Simon to launch into the lake and let down the nets. Simon replied that they had toiled all night and caught nothing; yet he would obey. On casting out the net it was found to inclose so great a multitude of fishes that it broke. Simon called to his partners, James and John, to come to his assistance, and both vessels were not only filled with fish, but began to sink with the weight. Peter, ascribing this large haul to the presence of Jesus, begged him to depart from him, for he was a sinful man. Jesus told him, as in the other Gospels he tells him and his brother Andrew (who does not appear here), that he shall henceforth catch men. Hereupon all the three forsook all, and followed him; from