CHAPTER IV.

ST. JOHN UNDER THE TRAINING

OF THE GREAT MASTER HIMSELF, FROM THE BEGINNING OF HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY TO ITS CLOSE.

FIRST MEETING WITH JESUS.- -RETURNS TO GALILEE WITH JESUS.-CALL TO THE DISCIPLESHIP.-KANA EL-JELIL. HIS FAITH STRENGTHENED.-CAPERNAUM. WITH HIS MASTER, JOINS CARAVAN TO JERUSALEM.-ROUTE.TRANS-JORDANIC COUNTRY.-SACRED REMINISCENCES.-JERUSALEM AND THE TEMPLE. NICODEMUS.-ST. JOHN PROBABLY PRESENT AT THE INTERVIEW. RURAL PARTS OF JUDEA.-ST. JOHN ENGAGES IN HIS FIRST PUBLIC WORK.-UNWRITTEN HISTORY.-CENTRAL PALESTINE.-JESUS AMONG THE RESULT.-IMPRESSION ON ST. JOHN.-NAZA

SAMARITANS.-WONDERFUL

RETH.

MIRACLES.-ST. JOHN FORSAKES ALL FOR CHRIST.-HIS FIRST CIRCUIT IN GALILEE WITH JESUS.-CALL OF ST. MATTHEW.-DAUGHTER OF JAIRUS AND THE WIDOW'S SON RAISED FROM THE DEAD.-ST. JOHN'S TRAINING AND PREPARATION FOR HIS WORK.-AGAIN AT JERUSALEM.-APOSTLES APPOINTED.-THEIR NAMES.-THEIR GIFTS.-SERMON ON THE MOUNT, AN INAUGURATIVE DISCOURSE.-ANOTHER CIRCUIT IN GALILEE.- -CHRIST BEGINS TO TEACH BY PARABLES.—THE TWELVE SENT FORTH BY TWO AND TWO.WHO WAS ST. JOHN'S ASSOCIATE?-JESUS WALKS ON THE SEA.-DAYS OF DARKNESS DRAWING NEAR.-LAST YEAR OF ST. JOHN WITH CHRIST.-VISIT ΤΟ THE GENTILE WORLD.-JESUS FORETELLS HIS OWN DEATH.-THE TRANSFIGURATION.-ITS DESIGN.-ITS EFFECT ON ST. JOHN.-FAULTS OF THE APOSTLE. JEALOUSY AND BIGOTRY.-ANGER.-RESURRECTION OF

LAZARUS. PEREA.-PARABLES AT THIS TIME.-AMBITION OF ST. JOHN.END OF PUPILAGE DRAWING NEAR.-LAST PUBLIC DISCOURSES AND PARABLES OF JESUS.IMPRESSIONS ON ST. JOHN.-ST. JOHN SENT WITH ST. PETER TO PREPARE THE FEAST OF PASSOVER.

WE have met the evangelist with his first teacher, that remarkable man, John the Baptist. He was with him in the Trans-Jordanic country (Perea, as it was called in the Greek nomenclature of its Roman conquerors) where John was baptizing. How long he had been his disciple, it does not appear. We find him in his company shortly after Jesus had been made known to the Baptist, as the promised Messiah, by the appointed sign, "Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, the same is He." After His baptism, "Jesus was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness," and it

1 John i. 33.

1

was probably on His return from the scene of temptation, that John the Baptist stood and two of his disciples; and looking upon Jesus as He walked, he said, "Behold the Lamb of God!"

young

to

Here in this secluded region, away from those stirring centres of life, Jerusalem and the Sea of Galilee, where David when an exile from his capital, under the rebellion of Absalom, mourned in bitterness of spirit as he felt all God's waves and billows go over him, Jesus, the Son of God, was first pointed out by His forerunner to that disciple, who was to win the appellation, and be known in the ages come, as "the disciple whom Jesus loved." Could we fix upon the site of Bethabara, we might know that we were not far from the exact spot. But it has pleased Him who knows the infirmity of our nature, -our tendency to rest in a veneration for sacred places, instead of a true spirit of reverence and devotion,-to substitute pilgrimages for a self-denying walk and prayerful life,-that neither tradition nor human monuments should preserve any certain evidence of the exact locality many of the most interesting scenes and events recorded in the New Testament. To such travellers as Wilson, Olin, Durbin, Stanley, Thomson, and Porter, and such explorers and geographers as Niebuhr, Raumer, Robinson, and Lynch, we are indebted for information which enables us to test traditions, and to separate those which have a foundation in probable truth from those which are the inventions of superstition or of ignorance. Through them we obtain knowledge which is far more favourable to devotion and piety than that veneration for places which a little investigation, or a small measure of common sense, will be sure to explode.

of

It is with such enlightened guides as these, that it is proposed to trace the steps of the beloved disciple as he follows Jesus during the years of His public ministry, receiving instruction and gifts and graces, qualifying him for the Apostolate, and while prosecuting his own ministry in his native land.

Familiar as the gospel history is, showing the connection of St. John with our Lord, the freest use must be made of it in any account that would present truly the life and character of the disciple; for it was under the instruction and ministry of the Saviour, that he received his preparation for the high office and special work to which he was called. Nor can we appreciate the ministry of Christ aright until we learn to view it, not so much in its direct influence on the world at large, as designed to instruct and train the apostles for their work.

John returned to Galilee with Jesus almost immediately after his first introduction to Him. The journey seems to have been commenced on the very next day, and the company to have consisted of Jesus,

1 Ps. xlii.

John, Andrew, Peter, Philip, and Nathanael. By what route they reached Bethsaida, or the Sea of Galilee, from the desert region about the Jordan, it would be difficult now to determine. The green slopes, cultivated valleys, and populous towns and cities of Galilee, must have presented a striking contrast to the jagged cliffs of the Jordan, and the knolls and rocks, thrown together in wild confusion, as they rise irregularly and recede to the highlands on the west, and to the mountain heights on the east beyond Jordan. Going up from Beth-shean, or Scythopolis, as they approached Tabor, they would enter on that arm of the great plain of Esdraelon 1 which sweeps round the base of the mount, and extends far to the north, forming a broad tract of tableland, bordering upon the deep Jordan-valley and the basin of the Lake of Tiberias. If they ascended Tabor, there was presented to the eye a landscape, extensive and beautiful, one of the finest in Palestine, or perhaps in the world. Directly beneath, lies spread out the great plain, which extending far to the north, even now contains several villages, but at that time swarmed with a busy population. The view embraces also the western part of the great plain of Esdraclon, as far as to Carmel. On the right of Nazareth a portion of the Mediterranean is seen in the north-west, as well as slight glimpses in other parts. In the north and north-east are Safed 2 and its mountains, overtopped by snowy peaks beyond. At the distance of about three hours' travel is seen in the great plain a low ridge with two points, called by the Latin monks the Mount of Beatitudes. On the right the whole outline of the basin of the Lake of Tiberias can be traced; but only a small spot of the lake itself is visible in the north-east. Beyond the lake the eye takes in the high tablelands of Gaulonitis; and farther down beyond the Jordan, the higher mountains of the ancient Bashan and Gilead. On the south, the view is bounded by the mountains of Gilboa, forming the northern side of the valley of Jezreel.3

After his call, when he left his father and the servants in the boat, mending their nets (his call to the discipleship, in distinction from his appointment as one of the twelve apostles), John appears to have been an almost constant attendant of our Lord. He saw the greater number

1 The Greek form of the Hebrew word Jezreel. The city of Jezreel was situated near the eastern extremity of the plain, on a spur of Mount Gilboa. In the O. T. the plain is called the Valley of Jezreel.

2 It is situated on a bold spur of the Galilean Anti-Lebanon. It was one of the holy cities of the north (Tiberias was the other), associated with the last efforts of Judaism, where, according to rabbinical belief, Messiah would establish His throne. It has been supposed to be the city on a hill, wóλis èπávw ŏpovs keiμevn, Matt. v. 14.

3 Rob. Bib. Res., ii., p. 354.

Matt. iv. 21; Mark i. 19.

of His miracles, and heard the most of His discourses and parables. He gives an account of eight miracles, among the most interesting and important performed by Christ, which are not mentioned by the other evangelists. It may not be easy to suggest a reason why such important miracles as the healing of the impotent man at Bethesda and the raising of Lazarus, are not found in the synoptists, as the three earliest evangelists are sometimes called; in regard, however, to the miracles at the marriage in Cana, and the healing of the young man lying sick at Capernaum, it may be said that these were performed before Matthew, the first of the evangelists, and the only apostle, save John, in their number, was called to the discipleship. John was, no doubt, present at the performance of the miracle in Cana of Galilee. If it was three days after the commencement of the journey from the Jordan when this miracle was performed, and if our Lord went by the Sea of Tiberias, and took the disciples already called with Him, He must have prosecuted His journey, made as it doubtless was on foot, diligently. Cana, by way of the point He left the Jordan, was at a distance, of fifty or sixty miles; by the Sea of Tiberias the distance must have been still greater. It would require two days for Jesus to reach that Sea. From an incidental remark made by Josephus, it would appear that Cana was a night's march distant from Tiberias. By modern travellers, it (i.e., Kâna el-Jelil) is said to be seventeen miles distant from Capernaum and Tiberias, eight miles north of Nazareth. This Tiberias (for there was another town of this name to the north-east, on the opposite shore of the lake), was on the western shore. This shore and the little plain of Gennesaret 5 were the most thickly peopled district of Palestine. It was filled with towns

1 Of the thirty-three commonly enumerated, as for example in Trench's work on the Miracles, he has but eight. In these thirty-three, however, are not included several events of the most highly miraculous character,-such as the incarnation itself, the transfiguration, the voice from heaven in presence of the Greeks, the falling backward to the ground of the Roman soldiers in Gethsemane, when Jesus said, "I am He," etc.

2 "There want not indeed some and especially the middle writers of the Church, who will have our apostle to have been married, and that it was his marriage which our Lord was at in Cana of Galilee, invited thither on account of his consanguinity and alliance; but that being convinced by the miracle of the water turned into wine, he immediately relinquished his conjugal relation, and became one of our Lord's disciples. But this, as Barrow himself confesses, is trifling, and the issue of fabulous invention, a thing wholly unknown to the fathers and best writers of the Church, and which, not only has no just authority to support it, but arguments enough to beat it down" (Cave's Lives, i., p., 270).

3 John ii. 1.

4 Life, 16, 17.

5 el-Ghuweir. It was probably as the Saviour surveyed this plain from the Sea, that the parable of the sower was spoken.

and villages. It was, as has been said, to the Roman Palestine, what the manufacturing districts are to England. Nowhere, except in the metropolis itself, could be found a more busy scene of life. With the Hebrew dwellers by this inland sea, there were mingled the Gentile races of Lebanon and of Arabia, with here and there Greeks and Romans scattered among them. Here might be seen the heathen tax-gatherers, or publicans, sitting by the lake side, at the receipt of custom. Here were the women that were sinners, corrupted by Gentile manners, or who had come from neighbouring Gentile cities. Here the Roman centurion quartered with his soldiers, to be ncar the palaces of the Herodian princes, or to repress the turbulence of the wild Galilean peasantry. Here were the hardy boatmen, preparing their vessels or their nets to launch out for a draught.

Passing through this busy scene, Jesus went with the disciples, the five who had then been called, to Cana. It was the home of one of them, the guileless Nathanael,' whom Philip had brought to Jesus while He was at the Jordan. The situation of this town is described as fine, on the southern declivity of a hill, overlooking the plain elButtauf. It appears once to have been a village of considerable size, of well-built houses. There is not, it is now said, a habitable house in the village. There are traces about it of high antiquity, in the cisterns and fragments of water-jars found there. It is probable that it was never a place of any considerable importance. The miracle of Christ caused its name to be known, and has preserved it from oblivion. In former times, the house in which the marriage feast was celebrated, and the water-pots themselves were exhibited to travellers at this place; but now the monks show them at another place (Kefr Kenna) three miles north-east of Nazareth.?

There can be no doubt that the faith of John and of his companions was greatly strengthened on this occasion. We are expressly told that His disciples, as well as Jesus Himself, were invited to the wedding. They then, probably for the first time, saw the manifestation, or bursting forth of His glory, and partook of the astonishment of the company, as the water with which the servants filled the jars became wine. "And His disciples believed on Him." They had before believed on the testimony of their first master, John the Baptist; but now they could have said to Him, as the believing Samaritans afterwards said

In the lists of the apostles (Matt x. 3; Mark iii. 18; Luke vi. 14; Acts i. 13) he is called Bartholomew, never Nathanael. St. John gives him his real name (chap. xxi. 2). Bartholomew means, son of Tolmai; and he was thus designated in the lists of the apostles probably to distinguish him from some other Nathanael, for whom it was desirable he should not be mistaken.

2 Rob. Bib. Res., ii., p. 346; Kitto's Bib. Cyc. 3 John ii. 11.