In the Gospels of St Matthew and St Mark, which we suppose to be both based on a primitive document, the story is told without the slightest idea of obviating objection or mistrust. The writers never appear to contemplate readers to whom the fact that Simon and the rest had, before this, been associated with our Lord should be unknown. They took it for granted that this was too notorious to call for mention. But we have another Evangelist, St Luke, a more practised writer, whose design was to present his account in a coherent form. He did not possess the Gospel of St John and possibly did not know the particulars of the earlier call of Simon and Andrew and John. It may well have been that he was himself somewhat startled at the abruptness of our Lord’s call to the Apostles, and at their unhesitating compliance with it, as related in the primitive document, and felt that it required to be accounted for: consequently, having the account of the miraculous draught of fishes among the materials he speaks of—an account not contained in the Gospels of St Matthew and St Mark—he finds in this Sign an explanation of the prompt adherence of the pairs of brethren, and he combines the two events. We should gather from him that the Apostles were struck by the miraculous draught of fishes, and that the Lord thereupon invited them to follow and become “fishers of men,” but I think it most likely that the call took place as St Matthew and St Mark relate. The circumstantial minuteness of the details in these two Gospels, and the naturalness of the picture—two brothers are engaged in casting, and the other pair in mending their nets—convinces me that this relation comes originally from one who saw for himself. This draught of fishes may have taken place some days after the call of the brethren. For we need not suppose, that, before the Twelve were chosen, those who were called abandoned the craft by which they lived, although they probably resorted to their Master day by day. The early miracles were mostly wrought in the sight of the multitude; they seem meant to show that the Kingdom of God was come; but this miracle of the draught of fishes was performed when few but disciples were by. It was a miracle of instruction, it lent great impressiveness to great lessons; it emphasized in a way never to be forgotten the call to become “fishers of men,” and it gave good augury of success. The thought of this draught must have come back to Peter at many a juncture in his life, a notable one being the morrow of the Feast of Pentecost, when “there were added unto them in that day about 3000 souls.”(143)