“And passing along by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew brother of Simon casting a net in the sea: for they were fishers. And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. And straightway they left the nets, and followed him. And going on a little farther, he saw James the _son_ of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the boat mending the nets. And straightway he called them: and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants, and went after him.”(141) This passage would offer an opening for criticism, if it were not for the light thrown on it by St John’s Gospel, by help of which an apparent difficulty is turned into a coincidence. If we did not possess the Gospel of St John, the story of the call of the Apostles would stand thus: It would appear that our Lord came down to the Sea of Galilee, and said to two fishermen—whom, for all we should know to the contrary, He had never seen before,—“Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.” These would seem startling words to hear from a stranger, but the brothers, without asking further, and without one consulting the other, at once left their work and followed our Lord. This would be unlikely, but not passing belief; men are mastered in a moment, by personal influence, now and then; but still the preponderance of probabilities is against the truth of the story. The Evangelist however goes on to relate that our Lord passes on along the Lake side, and within a few hundred yards comes upon another pair of brothers, also fishermen; he addresses them nearly in the same terms and they also leave their nets and follow Him. Now this repetition, the critic would say, savours in itself of the Eastern legend. But, what is far more than this, the combination of the two improbabilities produces an improbability of a far higher order.(142) The information gained from the Gospel of St John clears the difficulty away. We may learn from this, how a word or two of fresh information might, in like manner, clear away other discrepancies which are stumbling-blocks to learners now. There we find, that these fisher brethren were old disciples of our Lord. It is consistent with the Gospel to suppose that during the summer they had been at their work, nursing the memory of their Master all the time. They now hear that He has come preaching the Kingdom of God in their own land. They are waiting for Him and expecting His call. The two pair of brethren stood in the same relation to Him, consequently they were treated in the same way, and the result was naturally the same. This unhesitating compliance on the part of the brethren, which seems so strange, points to a previous acquaintance with our Lord; of this acquaintance St John’s Gospel speaks, and so St Mark strengthens St John just as St John does St Mark.