11-3. The First Miraculous Draught of Fishes

3. The First Miraculous Draught of Fishes

Luk 5:1-11

There have been in all times those who have deemed themselves bound to distinguish the incident here narrated from that recorded in St. Matthew (iv. 18) and St. Mark (i. 16-20). Augustine,^[1] for example, finds the differences so considerable, that he can only suppose the event told by St. Luke to have first happened; our Lord then predicting to Peter that hereafter he should catch men, but not at that time summoning him to enter on the work; who therefore with his fellows continued for a season in their usual employments; until on a somewhat later occasion, that of which the two earlier Evangelists have preserved a record, they heard the word of command, “Follow Me,” which they then at once obeyed, and attached themselves for ever to their heavenly Lord.

Now certainly the existence of some difficulties, yet such as hardly deserve that name, in the bringing to a perfect agreement of the two accounts, every one will readily admit. But surely the taking refuge at once and whenever these occur, in the assumption that events almost similar to one another, with only slight and immaterial variations, happened to the same people two or three times over, is a very questionable way of escape from embarrassments of this kind; will hardly satisfy one who honestly asks himself whether he would be content in any other case with such a method of bringing together the records, in slight matters apparently conflicting, of any other events. In the extreme unlikelihood that events should thus repeat themselves a far more real difficulty is created, than any which it is sought to evade. If we only consider the various aspects, various yet all true, in which the same incident will present itself from different points of view to different witnesses, keep in mind how very few points in a complex circumstance any narrative whatever can seize, least of all a written one, which in its very nature is limited; and it will cause little wonder that two or three relators have in part seized diversely the culminating points of a story, have brought out different moments of an event. Rather we shall be grateful to that providence of God, which thus often sets us not merely in the position of one bystander, but of many; which allows us to regard the acts of Christ, every side of which is significant, from many sides; to hear of his discourses not merely so much as one disciple took in and carried away, but also that which sunk especially deep into the heart and memory of another. A work exclusively devoted to the miracles of our Lord has only directly to do with the narrative of St. Luke, for in that only the miracle appears. What followed upon the miracle, the effectual calling of four Apostles, appears in the two parallel narratives as well—St. Luke’s narrative excellently completing theirs, and explaining to us why the Lord, when He bade these future heralds of his grace to follow Him, should have clothed the promise which went with the command in that especial shape, “I will make you fishers of men.” These words would any how have had their propriety, addressed to fishers whom He found casting their nets, and unconsciously prophesying of their future work;^[2] yet they win a peculiar fitness, after He has just shown them what successful fishers of the mute creatures of the sea He could make them, if only they would be obedient to his word. Linking, as was so often his custom, the higher to the lower, and setting forth that higher in the forms of the lower, He thereupon bids them to exchange the humility of their earthly for the dignity of a heavenly calling; which yet He contemplates as a fishing still, though not any more of fish, but of men, whom at his bidding, and under his auspices, they should embrace not less abundantly in the meshes of their spiritual net. But when we compare John 1:40-42, would it not appear as though three of these four, Andrew and Peter certainly, and most likely John himself (ver. 35), had been already called? No doubt they had then, on the banks of Jordan, been brought into a transient fellowship with their future Lord; but, after that momentary contact, had returned to their ordinary occupations, and only at this later period attached themselves finally and fully to Him, following Him whithersoever He went.^[3] “This miracle most likely it was, as indeed seems intimated at ver. 8, which stirred the very depths of their hearts, giving them such new insights into the glory of Christ’s person, as prepared them to yield themselves without reserve to his service. Certainly everything here bears evidence that not now for the first time He and they have met. So far from their betraying no previous familiarity, or even acquaintance, with the Lord, as some have affirmed, Peter, in calling him “Master,” and saying, “Nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net,” implies that he had already received impressions of his power, and of the authority which went with his words. Moreover, the two callings, a first and on this a second, are quite in the manner of that divine Teacher, who would hasten nothing, who was content to leave spiritual processes to advance as do the natural; who could bide his time, and did not expect the full corn in the ear the day after He had sown the seed in the ground. On that former occasion He cast the seed of his word in the hearts of Andrew and Peter; which having done, He left it to germinate, till now returning He found it ready to bear the ripe fruits of faith. Not that we need therefore presume such gradual processes in all. But as some statues are cast in a mould and at an instant, others only little by little hewn and shaped and polished, as their material, metal or stone, demands the one process or the other, so are there, to use a memorable expression of Donne’s, “fusile Apostles” like St. Paul, whom one and the same word from heaven, as a lightning flash, at once melts and moulds; and others who by a more patient process, here a little and there a little, are shaped and polished into that perfect image, which the Lord, the great master-sculptor, will have them to assume.

“And it came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon Him to hear the word of God, He stood by the lake of Gennesaret, and saw two ships standing by the lake: but the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their nets.^[4] And He entered into one of the ships, which was Simon’s, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. And He sat down, and taught the people out of the ship. Now when He had left speaking, He said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets^[5] for a draught.” This He says, designing Himself, the meanwhile, to take the fisherman in his net. For He, who by the foolish things of the world would confound the wise, and by the weak things. of the world would confound the strong,^[6] who meant to draw emperors to Himself by fishermen, and not fishermen by emperors, lest his Church should even seem to stand in the wisdom and power of men rather than of God—He saw in these simple fishermen of the Galilaean lake the fittest instruments for his work.^[7] See Augustine, Semi, ccclxxxi. “And Simon answering said unto Him, Master, we have toiled all the night,^[8] and have taken nothing;” but, with the beginnings of no weak faith already working within him, he adds, “nevertheless, at thy word I will let down the net”—for these must not be regarded as words of one despairing of the issue; who, himself expecting nothing, would yet, to satisfy the Master, and to prove to Him the fruitlessness of further efforts, comply with his desire.^[9] They are spoken rather in the spirit of the Psalmist: “Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain” (Psa 127:1); as one who would say, “We have accomplished nothing during all the night, and had quite lost hope of accomplishing anything; but now, when Thou biddest, we are sure our labour will not any longer be in vain.” And his act of faith is abundantly rewarded; “And when they had this done, they enclosed a great multitude of fishes,” so many indeed, that “their net brake,^[10] and they beckoned to their partners in the other ship, that they should come and help them.”

It was not merely that Christ by his omniscience knew that now there were fishes in that spot. We may not thus extenuate the miracle. Rather we should contemplate Him as the Lord of nature, able, by the secret yet mighty magic of his will, to guide and draw the unconscious creatures, and make them minister to the higher interests of his kingdom. He appears here as the ideal man, the second Adam, in whom are fulfilled the words of the Psalmist: “Thou madest Him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet,.....the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea” (Psa 8:6; Psa 8:8). Of all this dominion bestowed on man at the first, there is perhaps no part which has so entirely escaped him as that over the fishes in the sea; but He who “was with the wild beasts” in the wilderness (Mark 1:13), who gave to his disciples power to “take up serpents” (Mark 16:18), declared here that the fishes of the sea no less than the beasts of the earth were obedient to his will. Yet since the power by which He drew them to that spot is the same that at all times guides their periodic migrations, which, marvellous as it is, we yet cannot call miraculous, there is plainly something that differences this miracle and that other of like kind (John 21:6), to which we may add that of the stater in the fish’s mouth (Mat 17:27), from Christ’s other miracles,—in that these three are not comings in of a new and hitherto unwonted power into the region of nature; but they are coincidences, divinely brought about, between words of Christ and facts in that world of nature. An immense haul of fishes, or a piece of money in the mouth of one, are themselves no miracles;^[11] but the miracle lies in the falling in of these with a word of Christ’s, which has pledged itself to this coincidence beforehand. The natural is lifted up into the miraculous by the manner in which it is timed, and; we must also add, by the ends which it is made to serve.^[12]

“And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they, began to sink.”^[13] It was a moment of fear, though not chiefly, or at all, upon this account; but rather because Peter and his fellows now through this sign became aware of something in the Lord which they had not perceived before, which filled them with astonishment and awe. And Peter, who while drawing the multitude of fishes into his net, has himself fallen into the net of Christ,^[14] while taking a prey, has himself also been taken a prey, the same man that he ever afterward appears, as impetuous, yielding as freely to the impulse of the moment, with the beginnings of the same quick spiritual insight out of which he was the first to recognize under his human disguise the eternal Son of God, and to confess to Him as such (Mat 16:16), could no longer, in the deep feeling of his own unholiness, endure a Holy One so near, but “fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, 0 Lord. For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken.” At moments like these all that is merely conventional is swept away, and the deep heart utters itself, and the deepest things that are there come forth to the light. And the deepest thing in man’s heart under the law is this sense of God’s holiness as something bringing death and destruction to the unholy creature. “Let not God speak with us, lest we die;” this was the voice of the people to Moses, as “they removed and stood afar off” (Exo 20:18-19). “We shall surely die, because we have seen God” (Jdg 13:22; cf. Jdg 6:22-23; Dan 10:17; Isa 6:5). Below this is the utterly profane state, in which there is no contrast, no contradiction felt between the holy and the unholy, between God and the sinner. Above it is the state of grace; in which all the contradiction is felt, God is still a consuming fire, but not any more for the sinner, only for the sin. It is still felt, felt more strongly than ever, how deep a gulf separates between sinful man and a holy God; but felt at the same time that this gulf has been bridged over, that the two can meet, that in One who shares with both they have already met. For his presence, though indeed the presence of God, is yet of God with his glory veiled; whose nearness thus even sinful men may endure, and in that nearness may little by little be prepared for the glorious consummation, the open vision of the face of God; for this, which would be death to the mere sinner, will be highest blessedness to him who had been trained for it by beholding. for a while the mitigated splendours of the Incarnate Word, and in this beholding has been more and more changed into the same image, as by the Spirit of the Lord (2Co 3:18).

It would indeed have fared ill with Peter, had Christ taken him at his word, and departed from him, as He departed from others who made the same request (Mat 8:34; Mat 9:1), but made it, as it needs not to say, in quite a different spirit. and temper from Peter’s. He re-assures him first with that comfortable “Fear not” which He so often had, and still so often has, to speak to the trembling and sin-convinced hearts of his servants (John 6:20; Mat 28:5; Mat 28:10; Luk 24:8; Rev 1:17). And that Peter may have the less need to fear, He announces to him the mission and the task which He has for him in store: “From henceforth thou shalt catch men.” We can regard these words no otherwise than as the inauguration of Peter and his fellows to the work of their Apostleship. Such an inauguration is seldom wanting to them who are called to any signal work in the kingdom of God; an inauguration not formal, nor always in its outward accidents the same; on the contrary, in these displaying an infinite richness and variety, such as reigns alike in the works of nature and of grace. But it always is the same in this, that God manifests Himself to his future prophet or Apostle, or other messenger, as He had never done before, and in the light of this manifestation the man recognizes his own weakness and guilt and corruption, as he had never done before, exclaims, “I am slow of speech and of a slow tongue” (Exo 4:10), or “I cannot speak, for I am a child” (Jer 1:6), or “lama man of unclean lips” (Isa 6:5), or as here, “I am a sinful man;”falls on his face, sets his mouth in the dust, takes the shoes from off his feet; and then out of the depth of this humiliation rises up another man, a fit instrument for the work of God, such as he would have never been, if his earthly had not thus paled before God’s heavenly; if the garish sun of this world had not thus set in him, that the pure stars of the heavenly world might appear. The true parallels to this passage, contemplated as such an inauguration as this, are Exo 4:10-17; Isaiah vi.; Jer 1:4-10; Ezek. i. -iii.; Jdg 6:11-23; Acts 9:3-9; Dan. x. The Lord clothes his promise in the language of that art which was familiar to Peter; the fisherman is to catch men, as David, the shepherd, taken from among the sheep-folds, was to feed them^[15] (Psa 78:71-72). There is here a double magnifying of Peter’s future occupation as compared with its past; it is men and not poor fishes which henceforth he shall take; and he shall take them for life, and not, as he had taken. his meaner prey, only for death; for no less is involved in the word of the original!^[16] The word thus turns of itself the edge of Julian’s malignant sneer,^[17] who observed that “the Galilaean” did indeed most aptly term his Apostles “fishers;” for as the fisherman draws out his prey from the waters where they were free and happy, to an element in which they cannot breathe, but must presently expire, even so did these.^[18] But the word selected, and we must presume that it found its equivalent in the Aramaic, does with a singular felicity exclude and anticipate such a turn. Peter shall take men, and take them for life, not for death. Those that were wandering, restless and at random, through the deep unquiet waters of the world, full of whirlpools and fears, the smaller of them falling a prey to the greater,^[19] and all with the weary sense as of a vast prison, lie shall gather and embrace within the safe folds and recesses of the same Gospel net;^[20] which if they break not through, nor leap over, they shall at length be drawn up to shore, out of the dark gloomy waters into the bright clear light of day, and shall there and then be collected into vessels for eternal life (Mat 13:48).

It is not for nothing that the promise here clothes itself in language drawn from the occupation of the fisher, rather, for instance, than in that borrowed from the nearly allied pursuits of the hunter. The fisher more often takes his prey alive; he draws it to him, does not drive it from him;^[21] and not merely to himself, but draws all which he has taken to one another; even as the Church brings together the divided hearts, the fathers to the children, gathers into one fellowship the scattered tribes of men. Again, the work of the fisher is one of art and skill, not of force and violence;^[22] so that Tertullian^[23] finds in this miracle a commencing fulfilment of Jer 16:16, “Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them; “though indeed it may very well be a question whether in those words there lies not rather a threat than a promise. It is, however, quite in the spirit of the new covenant to take a threatening of the old, and fulfil it, yet so to transform in the fulfilling, that it shall be no longer what it was, but wholly changed for the better. Thus, to fall into the hands of the Lord, would have been in the old time a woe, but it may now be the chiefest blessing; and in this manner Tertullian’s application of the words may be justified. There is now a captivity which is blessed, blessed because it is deliverance from a freedom which is full of woe,—a “being made free from sin and becoming servants to God,” that so we may have our “fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life” (Rom 6:22). But the promise here might be brought with more unquestionable propriety into relation with Eze 47:9-10, and the prophecy, there of the fishers that should stand on Engedi, and of the great multitude of fish with which the healed waters should abound.^[24] And as the ministers of Christ are fishers, so the faithful are aptly likened to fish. This comparison, so great a favourite in the early Church, probably did not derive its first impulse from these words of our Lord; but rather from the fact that through the waters of baptism men are first quickened,^[25] and can only live as they abide in that quickening element into which they were then brought. The two images cannot stand together, excluding as they mutually do one another; for in one the blessedness is to remain in the waters, as in the vivifying element, in the other to be drawn forth from them into the purer and clearer air. In one Christ is the Fish,^[26] Augustine (De Civ. Dei, xviii. 23), giving the well-known Greek anagram of ΙΧΘΥΣ, adds: In quo nomine mystice intelligitur Christus, eo quod in hujus mortalitatis ahysso, velut in aquarum profunditate vivus, hoc est, sine peccato esse potuerit. In the chasing away of the evil spirit by the fish’s gall (Tob 8:2-3), a type was often found in the early Church, of the manner in which, when Christ is near, the works of the devil are destroyed. Thus Prosper of Aquitaine: Christus.... piscis in suâ passione decoctus, cujus ex interioribus remediis quotidie illuminamur et pascimur. in the other the chief Fisherman. As Himself this great Fisher of men He is addressed in that grand Orphic hymn attributed to the Alexandrian Clement, in words which may thus be translated:

“Fisher of mortal men, All that the saved are, Ever the holy fish From the wild ocean Of the world’s sea of sin By thy sweet life Thou enticest away.”

“And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed Him.” But what was that “all” which “they forsook,” one might be tempted to ask, that they should afterwards make so much of it, saying, “Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed Thee: what shall we have therefore” (Mat 19:27)? Whatever it was, it was their all, and therefore, though it might have been but a few poor boats and nets, it was much; for a man may be holden by love to a miserable hovel with bands as fast as bind another to a sumptuous palace; seeing it is the worldly affection which holds him, and not the world; and the essence of forsaking lies not in the more or less which is renounced, but in the spirit in which the renunciation is carried out. These Apostles might have left little, when they left their possessions, but they left, and had a right to feel that they had left much, when they left their desires.^[27] A word or two here in conclusion may find place generally upon the symbolic acts of our Lord, whereof, according to his own distinct assurance, we here have one. The desire of the human mind to set forth the truth which it deeply feels in acts rather than by words, or it may be by blended act and word, has a very deep root in our nature, which always strives after the concrete; and it manifests itself not merely in the institution of fixed symbolic acts, as the anointing of kings, the breaking of a cake at the old Roman marriages, the giving and receiving of a ring at our own; but more strikingly yet, in acts that are the free products at the moment of some creative mind, which has more to utter than it can find words to be the bearers of, or would utter it in a more expressive and emphatic manner than these permit. This manner of teaching, however frequent in Scripture (1Ki 2:30-31; 1Ki 22:11; Acts 13:51), yet belongs not to it alone, nor is it even peculiar to the East, although there it is most entirely at home; but everywhere, as men have felt strongly and deeply, and would fain make others feel so, they have had recourse to such a language as this, which has so many advantages for bringing home its truth through the eyes to the mind. When Hannibal, for instance, as he was advancing into Italy, set some of his captives to fight with one another,^[28] placing before them freedom and presents and rich armour for the victor, and at least escape from present extreme misery for the slain; who does not feel that he realized to his army the blessings which not victory alone, but even the other alternative of death, would give them, in affording release from the intolerable evils of their present state, as words could never have done? Not otherwise Diogenes expressed his contempt for. humanity by his noonday lantern more effectually than by all his scornful words he could ever have expressed it. As the Cynic philosopher, so too the Hebrew prophets, though in quite another temper, would oftentimes weave their own persons into such parabolic acts, would use themselves as a part of their own symbol; and this they would do, because nothing short of this would satisfy the earnestness with which the truth of God, whereof they desired to make others partakers, possessed their own souls (Eze 12:1-12; Acts 21:11). And thus, too, not this only, but many actions of our Lord’s were such an embodied teaching,^[29] the incorporation of a doctrine in an act, having a deeper significance than lay upon the surface, and being only entirely intelligible when we recognize in them a significance such as this (Mat 21:18-19; John 21:19). The deeds of Him who is the Word are themselves also words for us.^[30]

Footnotes

[1] De Cons. Evang. ii. 17: Unde datur locus intelligere eos ex capturâ piscium ex more remeâsse, ut postea fieret quod Matthaeus et Marcus narrant...,. Tune enim non subductis ad terrain navibus tanquam curâ, redeundi, sed ita eum secuti sunt, tanquam vocantem ac jubentem ut eum sequerentur. Mr. Greswell in the same way (see his Dissert, vol. ii. Diss. 9) earnestly pleads for the keeping asunder of the two narrations. Yet any one who wishes to see how capable they are, by the expenditure of a little pains, of being exactly reconciled, has only to refer to Spanheim’s Dub. Evang. vol. iii. p. 337. With him agree Lightfoot (Harmony), Grotius, and Hammond, who see in all these records only one and the same event.

[2] Auct. Oper. Imperf. in Matth. Horn. vi.: Futurae dignitatis gratiam artificii sui opere prophetantes. Augustine (Serm. Inedd., Serin, lviii.): Petrus piscator non posuit retia, sed mutavit.

[3] It is often said that the other was, Vocatio ad notitiam et familiaritatem, or, ad fidem; this, ad apostolatum. See the remarks of Scultetus, Crit. Sac. vol. vi. p. 1956.

[4] It is not unprofitably remarked by a mystic writer of the Middle Ages, that this their washing and repairing (Mat 4:21) of their nets, after they had used them, ought ever to be imitated by all “fishers of men” after they have cast in their nets for a draught; meaning by this that they should seek carefully to purify and cleanse themselves from aught which in that very act they may have gathered of sin, impurities of vanity, of self-elation, or of any other kind; and that this they must do, if they would use their nets effectually for a future draught.

[5] Here more generally δίκτυον, from the old δικεῖν (which appears again in δίστος, a quoit), to throw; but at Mat 4:18; Mark 1:16, it is specialized as the ἀμφίβληστρον (=ἀμφιβολή), the casting net, as its derivation from ἀμφιβάλλω plainly shows; in Latin, funda or jaculum. Its circular bell-like shape adapted it to the office of a mosquito net, to which Herodotus (ii. 95) tells us the Egyptian fishermen turned it; but see Blakesley, Herodotus (in loc).

[6] Compare with this the call of the prophet Amos: “I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son, but I was a herdman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit; and the Lord took me as I followed the flock, and the Lord said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel” (7:14, 15. cf. 1Ki 19:19).

[7] See Augustine, Semi, ccclxxxi.

[8] See Lampe (Comm. in Joh. vol. iii. p. 727) for passages in proof of this, which indeed is familiar to us all. Add this from Pliny (H. N. ix. 23): Vagantur gregatim fere cujusque generis squamosi. Capiuntur ante solis ortum; turn maxime piscium fallitur visus. Noctibus, quies: et illustribus aeque, quam die, cernunt. Aiunt et si teratur gurges, interesse captures: itaque plures secundo tractu capi, quam primo.

[9] Maldonatus: Non desperatione felicioris jactûs hoc dicit Petrus, aut quod Christo vel non credat, vel obedire nolit: sed potius ut majorem in Christo fidem declaret; quod cum totâ nocte laborantes. nihil prehendisset, tamen ejus confidens verbis, iterum retia laxaret.

[10] On the nets breaking now, and not breaking, as it is expressly said they did not, on occasion of the second miraculous draught of fishes (John 21:11), and the mystical meaning which has been found in this, I would refer the reader to what there will be said.

[11] Thus Yarrell (Hist, of British Fishes, vol. i. p. 125): “At Brighton in June 1808, the shoal of mackerel was so great, that one of the boats had the meshes of her nets so completely occupied by them that it was impossible to drag them in. The fish and nets therefore in the end sunk together.”

[12] See page 13.

[13] βυθίζεσθαι. The word occurs once besides in the N. T., and then in a tropical sense (1Ti 6:9).

[14] The author of a striking sermon, numbered ccv. in’ the Benedictine Appendix to St. Augustine: Dum insidiatur Petrus gregibus aequoris, ipse in retia incidit Salvatoris. Fit de praedone praeda, de piscatore piscatio, de piratâ captivitas.—”Admire, “exclaims Chrysostom,” the dispensation of the Lord, how He draws each by the art which is most familiar and natural to. him—as the Magians by a star, so the fishermen by fish”—a thought which Donne in a sermon on this text enlarges thus: “The Holy Ghost speaks in such forms and such phrases as may most work upon them to whom He speaks. Of David, that was a shepherd before, God says, He took him to feed his people. To those Magi of the East, who were given to the study of the stars, God gave a star to be their guide to Christ at Bethlehem. To those who followed Him to Capernaum for meat, Christ took occasion by that to preach to them of the spiritual food of their souls. To the Samaritan woman whom He found at the well, He preached of the water of life. To these men in our text, accustomed to a joy and gladness when they took great or great store of fish, He presents his comforts agreeably to their taste, they should be fishers still. Christ makes heaven all things to. all men, that He might gain all.”

[15] Origen finds in St. Paul’s handicraft a like prophecy of his future vocation. The tent-maker shall become the maker of everlasting tabernacles (In Num. Horn, xvii.): Unde mihi videtur non fortuito contigisse ut Petrus quidem et Andreas et filii Zebedaei, arte piscatores invenirentur, Paulus vero arte faber tabernaculorum. Et quia illi vocati ab arte capiendorum piscium, mutantur et fiunt piscatores hominum, dicente Domino; Venite post me, et faciam vos piscatores hominum: non dubium quin et Paulus, quia et ipse per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum vocatus apostolus est, simili artis suae transformatione mutatus sit: ut sicut illi ex piscatoribus piscium, piscatores hominum facti sunt, ita et iste a faciendis tabernaculis terrenis, ad coelestia tabernacula construenda tralatus sit. Construit enim coelestia tabernacula docens unumquemque viam salutis, et beatorum in coelestibus mansionum iter ostendens.

[16] Ζωγρεύειν, from ζωός and ἀγρεύω), to take alive (Num 31:15; Deu 20:16; Jos 2:13, LXX); and ζωγρεία, the prey which is saved alive (Num 21:35; Deu 2:24). Cf. Homer, Il. ζ, ver. 46, where one pleading for his life exclaims,
Ζώγρει Ἀτρεὸς υἱὲ, σὺ δ̓ ἄξια δέξαι ἄποινα. It appears as if the old Italic version took ζωγρέω in its other derivation (from ζωή and ἀγείρω), for we find the passage quoted by St. Ambrose and other early Fathers, Eris vivificans homines; but in the Vulgate, Homines eris capiens. See Suicer, Thes. s. v. ζωγρέω.

[17] His words, quoted by Theophanes (Hom, v.), are these: Ζωὴ μὲν τοῖς ἐνύδροις τὸ ὕδωρ, θάνατος δὲ ὁ ἀήρ· εἰ δὴ τοῦτό ἐστιν ἀληθές, οἱ μαθηταὶ ἄρα τοῦ Ἰησοῦ τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ἀγρεύοντες διὰ τοῦ κηρύγματος, τῆ ἀπωλεία καὶ τῶ θανάτω, ὡς τοὺς ἰχθύας, παραδιδόασι. See Suicer, Thes. s. v. ἁλιεύς. It was probably, as Origen supposes (Con. Cels. i. 62), from a confused remembrance of this passage that Celsus contemptuously styled the apostles “publicans and sailors” (ναύτας). But this inexactness is only of a piece with his ignorance even of the number of the Apostles; which was singular enough in one who undertook a formal refutation of Christianity.

[18] There is indeed an aspect in which the death of the fish, which follows on its being drawn out of the waters, has its analogy in the higher spiritual world. The man, drawn forth by these Gospel nets from the worldly sinful element in which before he lived and moved, does die to sin, die to the world; but only that out of this death he may rise to a higher life in Christ. This is brought out with much beauty by Origen (Horn. xvi. in Jerem.): Ἐκεῖνοι οἱ ἰχθύες οἱ ἄλογοι ἀνελθόντες ἐν ταῖς σαγήναις ἀποθνήσκουσι θάνατον, οὐχὶ διαδεχομένης ζωῆς τὸν θάνατον· ὁ δὲ συλληφθεὶς ὑπὸ τῶν ἁλιέων Ἰησοῦ, καὶ ἀνελθὼν ἀπὸ τῆς θαλάσσης, καὶ αὐτὸς μὲν ἀποθνήσκει, ἀποθνήσκει δὲ τῷ κόσμῳ, ἀποθνήσκει τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ, καὶ μετὰ τὸ ἀποθανεῖν τῷ κόσμῳ καὶ τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ, ζωοποιεῖται ὑπὸ τοῦ λόγου τοῦ Θεοῦ, καὶ ἀναλαμβάνει ἄλλην ζωήν.

[19] Augustine (Enarr. in Psa 64:6): Mare enim in figurâ, dicitur seculum hoc, falsitate amarum, procellis turbulentum: ubi homines cupiditatibus perversis et pravis facti sunt velut pisces invicem se devorantes. Ambrose: Et bene apostolica instrumenta piscandi retia sunt; qua3 non captos perimunt, sed reservant, et de profundo ad lumen extrahunt, et fluctuantes de infernis ad superna perduount.

[20] Augustine (Serm. Inedd. Serm. lix.): Nam sicut rete quos continet vagari non patitur, ita et fides errare, quos colligit, non permittit: et sicut ibi captos sinu quodam perducit ad navim, ita et hic congregates gremio quodam deducit ad requiem. Yet this title of “fishers” itself also fails in part, and does not set out the whole character of the Christian ministry; indeed only two moments of it with any strength, the first and the last,—the bringing in to the Church, as the enclosing within the net, and the bringing safely to the final kingdom, as the landing of the net with its contents upon the shore (Mat 13:48). All which is between it leaves unexpressed, and yields therefore in fitness and completeness, as in frequency of use, to the image borrowed from the work of the shepherd; as a consequence of which it has given us no such names as “pastor” and “flock” to enrich our Christian language. That of “shepherd” expresses exactly all which the term “fisher” leaves untouched, the habitual daily care for the members of Christ, his peculium in every sense, after they are brought into the fellowship of his Church, This title of “fisher” sets forth the work more of the ingathering of souls, the missionary activity; that of shepherd more the tending and nourishing of souls that have thus been ingathered. This, therefore, fitly comes the first: it was said to Peter, “Thou shalt catch men,” before it was said to him, “Feed my sheep;” and each time a different commission, or at least a different side of the commission, is expressed; he shall be both evangelist and pastor.

[21] Spanheim (Dub. Evang. vol. iii. p. 350): Non venatores Dominus vocatos voluit, sed piscatores, non homines abigentes a se praedam, sed colligentes: and many other likenesses between the fisher and the minister of Christ he brings out. Yet the image still remains, even in the N. T., open to an opposite use; thus in the ἐξελκόμενος καὶ δελεαζόμενος of Jas 1:14 are allusions to the fish drawn from its safe hiding places, and enticed by the tempting bait (δέλεαρ) to its destruction: cf. Hab 1:14-17; Eze 29:4-5.

[22] So Ovid (Halieut.): “Noster in arte labor positus cf. 2Co 12:16 : ὑπάρχων πανοῦργος, δόλῳ ὑμᾶς ἔλαβον. And Augustine (De Util. Jejun. ix.) brings out the difference between the fisher and the hunter: Quare Apostoli neminem coegerunt, neminem impulerunt? Quiapiscator est, retia mittit in mare, quod incurrerit, trahit. Venator autem sylvas cingit, sentes excutit; terroribus undique multiplicatis cogit in retia. Ne hac eat, ne illic eat: inde occurre, inde caede, inde terre; non exeat, non effugiat. Thus hunting is most often an image used in malam partem: the oppressions of the ungodly are often described under images borrowed from thence (Psa 10:9; Psa 35:7). Nimrod is “a mighty hunter before the Lord” (Gen 10:9), where to think of any other hunting but a tyrannous driving of men before him is idle. Augustine has given the right meaning of the words (De Civ. Dei, xvi. 4): Quid significatur hoc nomine quod est venator, nisi animalium terrigenarum deceptor, oppressor, extinctor? Luther, in one of his Letters, speaks of a hunting party at which he was present: “Much it pitied me to think of the mystery and emblems which lieth beneath it. For what does this symbol signify, but that the Devil, through his godless huntsmen and dogs, the bishops and theologians to wit, doth privily chase and snatch the innocent poor little beasts? Ah, the simple and credulous souls came thereby far too plain before my eyes.” Yet it is characteristic that the hunting, in which is the greatest coming out of power, should of men be regarded as the noblest occupation; and thus we find it even in Plato, who (De Legg. vii. p. 823 e. cf. Plutarch, De Sol. Anim. 9) approves of it, while fishing he would willingly forbid as an ἀργὸς θήρα and ἔρως οὐ σφόδρα ἐλευθέριος (Becker, Charicles, vol. i. p. 437).

[23] Adv. Marc. iv. 9: De tot generibus operum quid utique ad piscaturam respexit ut ab ilia in Apostolos sumeret Simonem et filios Zebedaei? Non enim simplex factum videri potest, de quo argu mentum processurum erat, dicens Petro trepidanti de copiosâ indagine piscium: Ne time, abhinc enim homines eris capiens. Hoc enim dicto, intellectum illis suggerebat adimpletae prophetiae; se eura esse qui per Hieremiam pronuntiarat, Ecce ego mittam piscatores multos, et piscabuntur illos. Denique relictis naviculis sequuti sunt eum; ipsum intelligentes, qui cosperat facere quod edixerat. Cf. Cyril of Alexandria, in Cramer, Catena, who makes the same application of that verse from Jeremiah.

[24] Theodoret gives rightly the meaning of the passage: Λέγει ἰχθύων πλῆρες τοῦτο γενήσεσθαι τὸ ὕδωρ· καὶ ἁλιέας ἕξειν πολλούς· πολλοὶ γὰρ οἱ διὰ τῶν ὑδάτων τούτων εἰς σωτηρίαν θηρώμενοι, πολλοὶ δὲ καὶ οἱ τὴν ἄγραν ταύτην θηρεύειν πεπιστευμένοι.

[25] Tertullian (De Baft, i.): Sed nos pisciculi secundum ἰχθὺν nostrum Jesum Christum in aquâ nascimur; nec aliter quam in aqua permanendo salvi sumus. And Chrysostom on these words, “I will make you fishers of men,” exclaims, “Truly, a new method of fishing! for the fishers draw out the fishes from the waters, and kill those that they have taken. But we fling into the waters, and those that are taken are made alive.”

[26] Augustine (De Civ. Dei, xviii. 23), giving the well-known Greek anagram of ΙΧΘΥΣ, adds: In quo nomine mystice intelligitur Christus, eo quod in hujus mortalitatis ahysso, velut in aquarum profunditate vivus, hoc est, sine peccato esse potuerit. In the chasing away of the evil spirit by the fish’s gall (Tob 8:2-3), a type was often found in the early Church, of the manner in which, when Christ is near, the works of the devil are destroyed. Thus Prosper of Aquitaine: Christus.... piscis in suâ passione decoctus, cujus ex interioribus remediis quotidie illuminamur et pascimur.

[27] Augustine (Enarr. iii. in Ps. 53:17): Multum dimisit, fratres mei, multum dimisit, qui non solum dimisit quidquid habebat, sed etiam quidquid habere cupiebat. Quis enim pauper non turgescit in spem saeculi hujus? quis non quotidie cupit augere quod liabet? Ista cupiditas praecisa est. Prorsus totum mundum dimisit Petrus, et totum mundum Petrus accipiebat. And Gregory the Great, following in the same line (Horn. v. in Evang.): Multum ergo. Petrus et Andreas dimisit, quando uterque etiam desideria habendi dereliquit. Multum dimisit, qui cum re possessâ etiam concupiscentiis renuntiavit. A sequentibus ergo tanta dimissa sunt quanta a non sequentibus concupisci potuerunt. Cf. Clemens of Alexandria, Quis Dives Salvus? 20, vol. ii, p. 946, Potter’s ed.

[28] Polybius, ii. 62.

[29] Lampe: In umbra praemonstrabatur quam Iaeto successu in omni labore, quern in nomine Dei suscepturi essent, piscaturam praecipue mysticam inter gentes instituentes, gavisuri sint. Grotius, who is much readier to admit mystical meanings in Scripture than in general he is given credit for, be this for his praise or the contrary, finds real prophecy in many of the subordinate details here: Libenter igitur hîc veteres sequor, qui praecedentis historiae hoc putant esse τὸ ἀλληγορούμενον, Apostolos non suâpte industriâ, sed Christi imperio ac virtute expansis Evangelii retibus tantam facturos capturam, ut opus habituri sint subsidiariâ, multorum εὐαγγελιστῶν opera; atque ita impletum iri non unam navem, Judaeorum scilicet, sed et alteram gentium, sed quarum navium futura sit arcta atque indivulsa societas.Cyril of Alexandria (see Cramer, Catena, in. loc.) had anticipated this; Augustine, Serm. cxxxvii. 2; and Theophylact (in loc.); this last tracing further in the night during which they had “taken nothing,” the time of the law, during which there was no kingdom of God, with all men pressing into it; nor until Christ was come, and had Himself given the word.

[30] Augustine (In Ev. Joh. tract, xxiv.): Nam quia ipse Christus Verbum est, etiam. factum Verbi verbum nobis est. Ep. cii. qu. 6: Nam sicut humana consuetudo verbis, ita divina potentia etiam factis loquitur.