§ 71.
PETER’S DRAUGHT OF FISHES.
We have hitherto examined only two accounts of the vocation of Peter and his companions; there is a third given by Luke ([v. 1–11]). I shall not dilate on the minor points of difference[14] between his narrative and that of the first two Evangelists; the essential distinction is, that in Luke the disciples do not, as in Matthew and Mark, unite themselves to Jesus on a simple invitation, but in consequence of a plentiful draught of fishes, to which Jesus has assisted Simon. If this feature be allowed to constitute Luke’s narrative a separate one from that of his predecessors, we have next to inquire into its intrinsic credibility, and then to ascertain its relation to that of Matthew and Mark.
Jesus, oppressed by the throng of people on the shore of the Galilean sea, enters into a ship, that he may address them with more ease at a little distance from land. Having brought his discourse to a close, he desires Simon, the owner of the boat, to launch out into the deep, and let down his nets for a draught. Simon, although little encouraged by the poor result of the last night’s fishing, declares himself willing, and is rewarded by so extraordinary a draught, that Peter and his partners, James and John (Andrew is not here mentioned), are struck with astonishment, the former even with awe, before Jesus, as a superior being. Jesus then says to Simon, Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men, and the issue is that the three fishermen forsake all, and follow him.
The rationalistic commentators take pains to show that what is above narrated might occur in a natural way. According to them, the astonishing consequence of letting down the net was the result of an accurate observation on the part of Jesus, assisted by a happy fortuity. Paulus[15] supposes that Jesus at first wished to launch out farther into the deep merely to escape from the crowd, and that it was not until after sailing to some distance, that, descrying a place where the fish were abundant, he desired Peter to let down the net. But he has fallen into a twofold contradiction of the evangelical narrative. In close connexion with the command to launch out into the deep, Jesus adds, Let down your nets for a draught (ἐπανάγαγε εἰς τὸ βάθος, καὶ χαλάσατε τὰ δίκτυα, κ.τ.λ.), as if this were one of his objects in changing the locality; and if he spoke thus when at a little distance only from the shore, his hope of a successful draught could not be the effect of his having observed a place abundant in fish on the main sea, which the vessel had not yet reached. Our rationalists must therefore take refuge in the opinion of the author of the Natural History of the Great Prophet of Nazareth, who says, Jesus conjectured on general grounds, that under existing circumstances (indicative probably of an approaching storm), fishing in the middle of the sea would succeed better than it had done in the night. But, proceeding from the natural point of view, how could Jesus be a better judge in this matter than the men who had spent half their life on the sea in the employment of fishing? Certainly if the fishermen observed nothing which could give them hope of a plentiful draught, neither in a natural manner could Jesus; and the agreement between his words and the result, must, adhering to the natural point of view, be put down wholly to the account of chance. But what senseless audacity, to promise at random a success, which, judging from the occurrences of the past night, was little likely to follow! It is said, however, that Jesus only desires Peter [[316]]to make another attempt, without giving any definite promise. But, we must rejoin, in the emphatic injunction, which Peter’s remark on the inauspicious aspect of circumstances for fishing does not induce him to revoke, there is a latent promise, and the words, Let down your nets, etc., in the present passage, can hardly have any other meaning than that plainly expressed in the similar scene, [John xxi. 6], Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. When, moreover, Peter retracts his objection in the words, Nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net, ἐπὶ δὲ τῷ ῥήματί σου χαλάσω τὸ δίκτυον, though ῥῆμα may be translated by command rather than by promise, in either case he implies a hope that what Jesus enjoins will not be without result. If Jesus had not intended to excite this hope, he must immediately have put an end to it, if he would not expose himself to disgrace in the event of failure; and on no account ought he to have accepted the attitude and expressions of Peter as his due, if he had only merited them by a piece of lucky advice given at a venture.
The drift of the narrative, then, obliges us to admit that the writer intended to signalize a miracle. This miracle may be viewed either as one of power, or of knowledge. If the former, we are to conceive that Jesus by his supernatural power, caused the fish to congregate in that part of the sea where he commanded Peter to cast in his net. Now that Jesus should be able, by the immediate action of his will, to influence men, in the nature of whose minds his spiritual energy might find a fulcrum, may to a certain extent be conceived, without any wide deviation from psychological laws; but that he could thus influence irrational beings, and those not isolated animals immediately present to him, but shoals of fish in the depths of the sea, it is impossible to imagine out of the domain of magic. Olshausen compares this operation of Jesus to that of the divine omnipotence in the annual migrations of fish and birds;[16] but the comparison is worse than lame,—it lacks all parallelism; for the latter is an effect of the divine agency, linked in the closest manner with all the other operations of God in external nature, with the change of seasons, etc.; while the former, even presupposing Jesus to be actually God, would be an isolated act, interrupting the chain of natural phenomena; a distinction that removes any semblance of parallelism between the two cases. Allowing the possibility of such a miracle (and from the supranaturalistic point of view, nothing is in itself impossible), did it subserve any apparent object, adequate to determine Jesus to so extravagant a use of his miraculous powers? Was it so important that Peter should be inspired by this incident with a superstitious fear, not accordant with the spirit of the New Testament? Was this the only preparation for engrafting the true faith? or did Jesus believe that it was only by such signs that he could win disciples? How little faith must he then have had in the force of mind and of truth! how much too meanly must he have estimated Peter, who, at a later period at least ([John vi. 68]), clung to his society, not on account of the miracles which he beheld Jesus perform, but for the sake of the words of eternal life which came from his lips!
Under the pressure of these difficulties, refuge may be sought in the other supposition as the more facile one; namely, that Jesus, by means of his superhuman knowledge, was merely aware that in a certain place there was then to be found a multitude of fishes, and that he communicated this information to Peter. If by this it be meant that Jesus, through the possession of an omniscience such as is commonly attributed to God, knew at all times, all the fish, in all seas, rivers and lakes; there is an end to his human consciousness. If, however, it be merely meant that when he crossed any water he became cognizant [[317]]of its various tribes of fish, with their relative position; even this would be quite enough to encumber the space in his mind that was due to more weighty thoughts. Lastly, if it be meant that he knew this, not constantly and necessarily, but as often as he wished; it is impossible to understand how, in a mind like that of Jesus, a desire for such knowledge should arise,—how he, whose vocation had reference to the depths of the human heart, should be tempted to occupy himself with the fish-frequented depths of the waters.
But before we pronounce on this narrative of Luke, we must consider it in relation to the cognate histories in the first two synoptical gospels. The chronological relation of the respective events is the first point. The supposition that the miraculous draught of fishes in Luke was prior to the vocation narrated by the two other Evangelists, is excluded by the consideration, that the firm attachment which that miracle awakened in the disciples, would render a new call superfluous; or by the still stronger objection, that if an invitation, accompanied by a miracle, had not sufficed to ally the men to Jesus, he could hardly flatter himself that a subsequent bare summons, unsupported by any miracle, would have a better issue. The contrary chronological position presents a better climax; but why a second invitation, if the first had succeeded? For to suppose that the brethren who followed him on the first summons, again left him until the second, is to cut the knot, instead of untying it. Still more complicated is the difficulty, when we take in addition the narrative of the fourth Evangelist: for what shall we think of the connexion between Jesus and his disciples, if it began in the manner described by John; if, after this, the disciples having from some unknown cause separated from their master, he again called them, as if nothing of the kind had before occurred, on the shore of the Galilean sea; and if, this invitation also producing no permanent adherence, he for the third time summoned them to follow him, fortifying this final experiment by a miracle? The entire drift of Luke’s narrative is such as to exclude, rather than to imply, any earlier and more intimate relation between Jesus and his ultimate disciples. For the indifferent mention of two ships on the shore, whose owners were gone out of them to wash their nets, Simon being unnamed until Jesus chooses to avail himself of his boat, seems, as Schleiermacher has convincingly shown,[17] to convey the idea that the two parties were entire strangers to each other, and that these incidents were preparatory to a relation yet to be formed, not indicative of one already existing: so that the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, previously recounted by Luke, either occurred, like many other cures of Jesus, without producing any intimate connexion, or has too early a date assigned to it by that Evangelist. The latter conjecture is supported by the fact that Matthew places the miracle later.
Thus, it fares with the narrative of Luke, when viewed in relation to that of Matthew and Mark, as it did with that of John, when placed in the same light; neither will bear the other to precede, or to follow it,—in short, they exclude each other.[18] Which then is the correct narrative? Schleiermacher prefers that of the Evangelist on whom he has commented, because it is more particular[19]; and Sieffert[20] has recently asserted with great emphasis, that no one has ever yet doubted the superiority of Luke’s narrative, as a faithful picture of the entire occurrence, the number of its special, dramatic, and intrinsically [[318]]authenticated details, advantageously distinguishing it from the account in the first (and second) gospel, which by its omission of the critical incident, the turning point in the narrative (the draught of fishes), is characterized as the recital of one who was not an eye-witness. I have already presented myself elsewhere[21] to this critic, as one hardy enough to express the doubt of which he denies the existence, and I here repeat the question: supposing one only of the two narratives to have been modified by oral tradition, which alternative is more in accordance with the nature of that means of transmission,—that the tangible fact of a draught of fishes should evaporate into a mere saying respecting fishers of men, or that this figurative expression should be condensed into a literal history? The answer to this question cannot be dubious; for when was it in the nature of the legend to spiritualize? to change the real, such as the story of a miracle, into the ideal, such as a mere verbal image? The stage of human culture to which the legend belongs, and the mental faculty in which it originates, demand that it should give a stable body to fleeting thought, that it should counteract the ambiguity and changeableness of words, by affixing them to the permanent and universally understood symbol of action.