The people had lived in amicable relations with their heathen neighbors, and had intermarried with them ever since the days of the treaty of amity between Solomon and the King of Tyre.[6] The line of commerce between Damascus and the Mediterranean lay directly across this province. Mineral springs of real or fancied value near the southern coast of the Sea of Gennesaret made it the summer resort of the wealthy Romans of the entire land. Thus history and location, commerce and social relations, combined to make the inhabitants of Galilee indifferent to the rigid formalism of the Judeans, and comparatively free from their narrow race and religious prejudices. Indeed, the two assertions that John was ignorant and unlearned, and at the same time a narrow and bigoted Jew, contradict each other. Jewish bigotry and reverence for the traditional lore of the Jewish church always went together. The important facts in the history of John, so far as known, are few and soon told. John the Baptist was second cousin of Jesus, and John the Apostle was probably, as we have seen, his own cousin. The two Johns were, therefore, probably acquainted. At all events, when the Baptist began preaching the gospel of repentance for the remission of sins, the Apostle was among his disciples; and when the Baptist pointed out Jesus as the one whom God had indicated to him as the promised Messiah, John was among the first to leave the old teacher to follow the new one. This was, however, a temporary following only. We next meet him fishing with his father at the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus finds him and his brother, and calls them to become permanent followers of him. This summons, without hesitation or delay, they obey. From this time onward John is the constant companion of Jesus. With Peter and James he belongs to an inner circle of friends: the three are selected to be the sole witnesses of the resurrection of Jairus’s daughter; they alone go up into the Mount of Transfiguration, and witness his glory there; they alone accompany him to the Garden of Gethsemane, and are invited to be the sharers of his sorrow there; when the arrest takes place, and all the disciples forsake their Master and flee, John and Peter turn back and follow him to the scene of his trial, and the former, with a courage for which few critics give him credit, goes without concealment, as a disciple, openly, into the house of Caiaphas, follows the Master to the trial before Pilate, and when the sentence of crucifixion is pronounced, accompanies the procession to the place of execution, to remain by the cross till all is over. When the news of the resurrection is brought to the disciples, he and Peter are the first to reach the sepulchre. In the subsequent history of the Church, as recorded in the book of Acts, he does not take a prominent part. To him was committed the care of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and probably this sacred charge prevented him from quitting Palestine while she lived.[7]