It is true that the function of "tending the flock of God" (_cf._ 1st Pet. v. 2) committed to Peter in xxi. 15-19 is a more special one than the apostolate conferred on all in xx. 21-23; but the Epilogue has previously (xxi. 1-14) given to Peter a special and commanding part in the apostolate (extension of the gospel to the world). No one will question that in such a writer as the Fourth evangelist (and if anything still more the writer of the Epilogue) narratives of miracle are intended to have a symbolical sense. Nor will it be denied that the miraculous draft of fishes, which in Luke v. 1-11 attends the original vocation of "Simon,"[33] is here applied to the work the twelve are to accomplish in the now opening future as "fishers of men." The particularization of the number of the fishes, and the statement that the peril of the rending of the net (_cf._ Luke v. 6) was happily avoided, are, of course, also intended to convey a symbolical sense, which Jerome makes still easier to grasp by informing us that 153 was taken by naturalists of the time to be the full number of all species of fish. John xxi. 1-14 is therefore a primitive story of the appearance of Jesus after his resurrection "to Peter and them that were with him," in Galilee (not in Jerusalem as in John i.-xx. and Luke), having a relation to Luke v. 1-11, and probably also to Matt. xiv. 28-33 (_cf._ John xxi. 7). It is also nearly akin to the fragment at the end of the _Gospel of Peter_. It symbolizes the work of the apostolic mission under the figure of the fishing of men (_cf._ Mark i. 17; Matt. xiii. 47-50), and gives to Peter the leading part. In fact Peter not only comes to the Lord in advance of all the rest, and alone maintains with him something like the intimate relations of the past, but performs after his private interview with Jesus the gigantic feat of bringing unaided to land the entire miraculous catch. The great and various multitude, which all working in common had enclosed in the net, but had not been able to lift into the boat, Peter, at Jesus' word, brought safely home. The writer who so employs the already conventionalized symbols of ecclesiastical imagery, surely had no mean idea of the apostleship of Peter. In at least as high degree as the author of Acts he conceives of Peter as commissioned in a special sense to be the great director and leader of all missionary activity, to Gentiles as well as Jews (Acts xv. 7), and to have been the saviour of the unity of the church in the hour of its threatened disruption. When in addition he is invested by Jesus with the insignia and office of chief under-shepherd of the flock of God, the stain of his threefold denial wiped out by a threefold opportunity to prove his special love by special service, and the ignominy of his previous failure to "follow" (xiii. 36-38) atoned for by the promise that in old age he shall have opportunity to follow Jesus in martyrdom (xxi.