Accordingly, we find mention made in the Gospel, without positive occasion, of these Apostles by name. We did not need to know that it was Andrew who said “There is a lad here who hath five barley-loaves and two small fishes.”[89] The Synoptists[90] all relate the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, but Andrew is named by St John alone: Philip, another of this little company, is close by; he is addressed by our Lord, and Andrew interposes. We find Philip and Andrew together at a later time. [pg 158] When the Greeks who came up and worshipped at the feast wished to see Jesus they applied to Philip;[91] then we have
“Philip cometh and telleth Andrew: Andrew cometh, and Philip, and they tell Jesus.”
St John here seems almost to go out of his way to speak of Andrew.
Philip also, who scarcely appears in the Synoptical Gospels, is mentioned six times by St John; and he is found in company, now with Andrew, now with Nathanael, as if the ties of old companionship still held. The particulars we have of Philip are instructive. Our Lord, as we have seen, “found him,” which I take to mean, not that He merely lighted upon him, but that He sought him. He thought him, therefore, a suitable companion for His coming journey to Jerusalem for the Passover. A point of fitness may have been that he knew Greek: his Greek name would not by itself go far to prove this; but, taking it along with the fact that when the Greeks come up to worship in Jerusalem they address themselves to Philip, it seems likely that he knew their language. Our Lord at the Passover would meet many Israelites who talked Greek more readily than Aramaic, and a Greek-speaking follower would be of service [pg 159] to Him. Again when Philip says, “Lord, shew us the Father and it sufficeth us,”[92] our Lord replies, Have I been so long with you and you have not known me? The words “so long” are particularly applicable to Philip, as he had been called a year before the twelve were formed into a body, and may have remained in constant attendance on our Lord when the other disciples quitted Him after the return through Samaria.
With Nathanael also there is much interest connected. He, in the last chapter of St John's Gospel, is called Nathanael of Cana of Galilee, and is named among others who are Apostles. He is identified, on good grounds, with the Bartholomew of the Synoptical Gospels.[93] We mark in Nathanael an aptitude for discerning spiritual greatness; but, with all this, he held stoutly to old prejudices in which he had been born and bred; and when Philip comes to him with his tidings, he breaks out with: “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” There is no reason to suppose that Nazareth was held generally in bad estimation. Natives of Jerusalem would look down on all villages in Galilee without distinction, but Nathanael belonged not to Jerusalem but to Cana. Cana and Nazareth were a few miles apart, each being the chief town in its own district; and the local jealousy and tendency [pg 160] to mutual disparagement between neighbours, which is not unknown among ourselves, and was rife in those times, will account for Nathanael's words.[94]
It was of no ill augury for his holding fast the Faith when he had found it, that he clung to the old traditionary feeling of his native town. He was not blinded by it; he is ready to “go and see.” Here our Lord exercises His singular gift of introspection, “Behold,” says He, “an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile.”
“Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee. Nathanael answered him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art King of Israel.”[95]
Probably Nathanael recalled what had passed in his mind when he had been under the fig-tree. Perhaps some mystery of existence had then [pg 161] weighed upon his soul, and on coming to Christ he found “the thoughts of his heart revealed.”[96]
In our Lord's reply to Nathanael we find His first recorded utterance as a Preacher of the Word; here He first speaks of Himself as the Son of Man, and here we have the first hint of the Law, “To him who hath shall be given,” a law which has been several times before us and will be so again before long. Nathanael had something already; he was enough in earnest to drop his prejudices; a slight token had enabled him to see in our Lord “the Son of God, the King of Israel:” he is told that he shall see greater things than these. Jacob had dreamed of old[97] that there was a ladder between earth and heaven, by which God's angels went and came; such a ladder Christ was, and he, the Israelite in whom there was no guile, should see “the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”[98]
So far I have followed the Gospel of St John. The Synoptists afford corroborative matter to shew that the little company, which had met at Bethabara, continued to hang together.