By Water & Blood

From Cana to the full calling by the lake

But we must return to the point in question, which is to consider that just as while already being disciples of John they also worked at their own craft and attended to the discipleship, so also having spent a first day with Jesus, on the next they went away again and were busy at fishing, as the sequences of the other Gospels have it.

For after Jesus went out on the next day, the sequence immediately says that “On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there; and Jesus also was invited, and his disciples, to the wedding.”

And from both of the statements of the detailed narrative and the subject-matter one must know that he also took along other disciples who stayed with him—perhaps those around Nathanael and Philip and certain others. For those around Andrew withdrew; but those who had remained with him were themselves also invited to the wedding.

And after doing this first sign, going down to the regions of Capernaum he settled there. And then he begins to work other signs there, when he healed the one who had the withered hand,

but also Peter’s mother-in-law—Peter being from Bethsaida but having married from Capernaum, these places not being far apart in distance—he raised her from the fever, and when she was healed she served; so that this is according to this sequence.

And after these things, when he had returned again to Nazareth where he had been brought up, then he read the book of Isaiah the prophet, himself anticipating them and saying, “Doubtless you will say to me this parable: Physician, heal yourself; whatever signs we heard happened in Capernaum, do also here in your homeland.” And you see how the sequence of the truth is? “And he did not do,” it says, “any sign because of their unbelief.”

And from there, passing into Capernaum, he settled again. And coming to the regions of the sea, as Matthew says, he saw Simon Peter and Andrew his brother casting the nets, and again James and John the sons of Zebedee, and called them completely, and casting aside the nets thereafter they followed him.

And Luke also signals the precision of the matter—that they followed thereafter without turning back, no longer putting off the calling—saying that when he came upon the lake of Gennesaret, he saw Simon and Andrew mending the nets, and he went up into the boat that was Simon’s, he says, Peter’s and Andrew’s (and this signals that he was already known to them; therefore through familiarity they received him), and going up he sat;

when after the teaching he says to Peter, “Put out into the deep and let down the nets,” and they said, “Master” (for already, because of John’s witness, those who had earlier heard about him called him Master—that “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” and that they stayed with him the one day).

And for the second time they went out afterward for a catch, at the multitude of the fish themselves marveling, and Peter saying, “Go away from me, for I am a sinful man, Lord”—for perhaps he also regretted having been called earlier and turning back to the fish and the whole work of fishing.

But he said, “Do not fear,” encouraging him, that he was not rejected but can still hold to the calling, because, he says, from now on you will be catching human beings; when they also nodded to the partners in the other boat to come for taking the same catch.

For they were partners, as he says, with Simon; just as I also indicated above from this subject-matter—of the two who followed him, having heard from John, of whom one of the two was Andrew, as we said, considering most finely that the other again is perhaps one of the sons of Zebedee, because of being fellow-worker and partner and associate.

And thereafter, after all these things, the four left the boats and simply everything, as he says, and leaving them on the land followed him, as Luke’s testimony has it.

So that from everything it is shown that no crookedness or contradiction is found in the holy Gospels or among the evangelists, but all things are clear.

But there are intervals of times; for from here and beyond, when those around Peter and John had thereafter been gathered and were following, he came teaching in all Galilee and in Judea, and thereafter, as the preaching was being broadened, he accomplished the rest of the divine signs. So that from everything the sequence is as follows: