*

Tertullian finds in this miracle a commencing fulfilment of Jer. xvi. 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 it in the fulfilling that it shall be no longer what it was, a curse, but a blessing. 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 his application of the words may at any rate be justified. There is now a captivity which is blessed, blessed because it is deliverance from a freedom which is full of woe,

eat: inde occurre, inde cæde, 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. (Ps. x. 9; xxxv. 7.) Nimrod is "a mighty hunter before the Lord,” (Gen. x. 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, l. 16, c, 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., p. 823,) approves of it, while fishing he would willingly forbid as an άpyòs θήρα and ἔρως οὐ σφόδρα ἐλευθέριος. (BECKER's Charicles, v. 1, p. 437).

* Adv. Marc., 1. 4, c. 9: De tot generibus operum quid utique ad piscaturam respexit, ut ab illâ in Apostolos sumeret Simonem et filios Zebedæi? Non enim simplex factum videri potest, de quo argumentum processurum erat, dicens Petro trepidanti de copiosâ indagine piscium: Ne time, abhinc enim homines eris capiens. Hoc enim dicto, intellectum illis suggerebat adimpletæ prophetiæ; se eum esse qui per Hierimiam pronuntiarat, Ecce ego mittam piscatores multos, et piscabuntur illos. Denique relictis naviculis sequuti sunt eum ; ipsum intelligentes, qui cœperat facere quod edixerat. Cf. Cyril of Alexandria, in CRAMER'S Catena, who makes the same application of that verse from Jeremiah.

-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. vi. 20.) But the present passage might be brought with a more unquestionable propriety into relation with Ezek. xLvii. 9, 10, and the prophecy there of the fishers that should stand on Engedi, and the great multitude of fish that should be in the healed

waters.

And as the ministers of Christ are fishers, so the faithful

are aptly likened to fish. The comparison, which was 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 it was the waters of baptism through which men were brought into life*, and that only by abiding in that element into which they were introduced they continued to draw a true life so that the two images cannot stand at the same time, 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†, in the other the chief Fisherman,-addressed therefore in that grand Orphic hymn attributed to the Alexandrian Clement, in words which may thus be translated,

* Tertullian (De Bapt., c. 1): Sed nos pisciculi secundùm xùv nostrum Jesum Christum in aquâ nascimur; nec aliter quàm in aquâ 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."

† Augustine, (De Civ. Dei, l. 18, c. 23,) giving the well-known Greek anagram of 'Ixerz, adds: In quo nomine mysticè intelligitur Christus, eò quod in hujus mortalitatis abysso, 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. viii. 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.

Fisher of mortal men,

All that the saved are,

Ever the holy fish,
From the fierce oceán

Of the world's sea of sin

By thy sweet life those enticest away.

And bringing their ships to shore, "they forsook all, and followed him." But what was that "all" which "they forsook" ask some, that they should afterwards seem to make so much of it, saying, "Behold we have forsaken all, and followed thee what shall we have therefore?" (Matt. xix. 27.) It was their all, and therefore, though it might have been but a few poor boats and nets, it was much. And the forsaking consists not in the more or less that is forsaken, but in the spirit in which it is left. A man may be holden by love to a miserable hovel with as fast bands as to a sumptuous palace; for it is the worldly affection which holds him, and not the world: just as we gather from the warnings scattered through the ascetic books of the middle ages how they who had renounced, it may be, great possessions in the world, would now, if they did not earnestly watch against it, come to cling to their hood, their breviary, the scanty furniture of their bare cell, with the same feelings of property as they once exercised in ampler matters, so witnessing that they had no more succeeded in curing themselves of worldly affections, than a man would succeed in curing himself of covetousness by putting out the eye which in times past had been often the inlet of desire. These apostles might have left little, when they left their possessions, but they left much, when they left their desires*.

* Augustine (Enarr. 3a in Ps. ciii. 17): Multum dimisit, fratres mei, multum dimisit, qui non solùm dimisit quidquid habebat, sed etiam quidquid habere cupiebat. Quis enim pauper non turgescit in spem sæculi hujus? quis non quotidie cupit augere quod habet? Ista cupiditas præcisa est. Prorsus totum mundum dimisit Petrus, et totum mundum Petrus accipiebat. And Gregory the Great following in the same line (Hom. 5 in Evang.): Multum ergo Petrus et Andreas dimisit, quando uterque etiam

desideria

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, or the casting earth into a grave; but more strikingly yet, in acts that are the free and momentary products 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 manner than these permit. This manner of teaching, however frequent in Scripture, (1 Kin. ii. 30, 31; xxii. 11; Acts xiii. 51,) yet belongs not to Scripture only, nor is it even peculiar to the East, although there it is most frequent, and most entirely at home; but every where, as men have felt strongly and deeply, and desired to make others feel so, they have had recourse to such a language as this, which has many advantages for bringing home its truth. When Hannibal, for instance, as he was advancing into Italy, set some of his captives to fight*, 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? or that Diogenes expressed his contempt for humanity by his noonday lantern more effectually than by all his scornful words he could ever have expressed

desideria habendi dereliquit. Multum dimisit, qui cum re possessâ etiam concupiscentiis renuntiavit. A sequentibus ergo tanta dimissa sunt, quanta à non sequentibus concupisci potuerunt. Cf. Clemens of Alexandria, Quis Dives Salvus? c. 20, v. 2, p. 946, Potter's ed.

POLYBIUS, Hist., 1. 2, c. 62.

it? As the Cynic, so too the Hebrew prophets, though in quite another temper, would oftentimes weave their own persons into such parabolic acts, would use themselves as part of their own symbol, and that 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. (Ezek. xii. 1-12; Acts xxi. 11.) And thus, too, not this only, but many actions of our Lord's were such an embodied teaching, 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. (Matt. xxi. 18, 19; John xxi. 19.) Christ being the Word, his deeds who is the Word, are themselves also words for ust.

*

Lampe: In umbrâ præmonstrabatur quàm læto successu in omni labore, quem in nomine Dei suscepturi essent, piscaturam præcipuè mysticam inter gentes instituentes, gavisuri sint. Grotius, who is much more forward to admit mystical meanings in the Scripture than in general he is given credit for, whether that is for his praise or the contrary, finds real prophecy in many of the subordinate details of this miracle: Libenter igitur hîc veteres sequor, qui præcedentis historiæ hoc putant esse тò ¿λλnyopoúμενον, Apostolos non suapte industriâ sed Christi imperio ac virtute expansis Evangelii retibus tantam facturos capturam, ut opus habituri sint subsidiariâ multorum evayyeλiotŵv operâ; atque ita impletum iri non unam navem, Judæorum scilicet, sed et alteram gentium, sed quarum navium futura sit arcta atque indivulsa societas. Cyril of Alexandria, (see CRAMER'S Catena, in loc.) had anticipated this; and compare also Theophylact, (in loc.,) who besides the above, finds one more significant circumstance; the night during which they had taken nothing was the time of the law; but there was then no success, nor a kingdom of God with all men pressing into it, till Christ was come, and he had given the word.

+ Augustine (In Ev. Joh., Tract. 24): Nam quia ipse Christus Verbum est, etiam factum Verbi verbum nobis est. Ep. 102, qu. 6: Nam sicut humana consuetudo verbis, ita divina potentia etiam factis loquitur.