In this open gallery the people of Rome could walk and read the Bible in a succession of pictures. Since these and similar pictures and statues and carvings were everywhere, men, women, and children read them as they would read books, and a popular painter was like a popular story-teller nowadays.
III
THE MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT OF FISHES
Another of the Bible scenes which Raphael painted was one which is told in the New Testament concerning the Lord Jesus and his Apostles. Some of these, as Peter and Andrew, James and John, were fishermen who lived near the lake of Gennesaret in Galilee, and had spent most of their lives in their boats. They had been much with their Master, and sometimes left their boats to go with him through the country, when he talked with them and healed the sick, and told the glad tidings, for that is what the word Gospel means. One day he had been using Simon Peter's boat as a sort of pulpit from which to speak to the people on the shore.
"Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, 'Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught,' And Simon answering said unto him, 'Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net.' And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake. And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink.
"When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus's knees, saying, 'Depart from me: for I am a sinful man, O Lord.' For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken; and so was also James and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon. And Jesus said unto Simon, 'Fear not: from henceforth thou shalt catch men.'"[2]
[2] Luke, chapter v., verses 4-10.
In the picture we see the two boats laden with fish, one containing Jesus with Peter and Andrew, and the other containing the partners hauling in the net. The lake stretches away in the distance until it seems to meet the sky in a line of light at the horizon. On the opposite shore are the people to whom Jesus was speaking before the fishermen launched out. Others on the bank are watching to get some of the fish which are not hauled in. There is a boat over there just pushing off. Fishhawks hover overhead, and on the nearer shore are herons.