2. Incidents recorded of him in the New Testament. — The ordinary life of the flsherman of the Sea of Galilee was at last broken in upon by the news that a prophet had once more appeared. The voice of John the Bap- tist was heard in the wilderness of Judrea, and the pub- licans, peasants, soldiers, and fishermen of (Jalilee gath- ered round him. Among these were the two sons of ZebediBus and their friends. With them perhaps was One whom as yet they knew not. They heard, it may be, of John's protests against the vices of their lown ruler ^against the hypocrisy of Pharisees ,and Scribes. But they heard also, it is clear, words which spoke to them of their own sins — of their own need of a deliverer. The words " Behold tlie Lamb of God that taketh away the sms" imply that those who heard them would enter
into the blessedness of which^ they spoke. Assimiing that the unnamed disciple of John i, 37-40 was the evangelist himself, we are led to think of that meeting, the lengthened interview that followed it as the starting-point of the entire devotion of heart and soul which lasted through his whole life. Then Jesus loved him as he loved all earnest seekers after righteousness and truth (comp. Mark x, 21). The words of that even- ing, though unrecorded, were mighty in their effect. The disciples (John apparently among them) followed their new teacher to Galilee (John i, 44), were with him, as such, at the marriage-feast of Cana (ii, 2), journeyed with him to Capernaum, and thence to Jerusalem (ii, 12, 22), came back through Samaria (iv, 8), and then, for some uncertain interval of time, returned to their former occupations. The uncertainty which hangs over the narratives of Matt, iv, 18 and Luke v, 1-11 (comp. the arguments for and against their relating to the same events in Lampe, Comment, ad Joann. i, 20), leaves us in doubt whether they received a special call to become "fishers of men" once onh' or twice. In either case they gave up the employment of their life and went to do a work like it, and yet unlike, in God's spiritual king- dom. From this time they take their place among the company of disciples. Only here and there are there traces of individual character, of special turning-points in their Uves. Soon they find themselves m the num- ber of the Twelve who are chosen, not as disciples only, but as their Lord's delegates — representatives — apostles. In all the lists of the Twelve those foiu- names of the sons of Jonah and Zebedajus stand foremost. . They come within the innermost circle of their Lord's friends, and are as the tK\tKTU)v tKXtKroTfpoi. The three, Pe- ter, James, and John, are with him when none else are, in the chamber of death (Mark v, 37), in the glory of the transfiguration (Matt, xvii, 1), when he forewarns them of the destruction of the Holy Citj^ (Mark xiii, 3, Andrew, in this instance, with thcrr^, in the agony of Gethsemanc. Peter is throughout the leader of that band ; to John belongs the yet more memorable distinc- tion of being the disciple whom Jesus loved. This love is returned with a more single, imdivided heart by him than by any other. If Peter is the (piXoxpitrrog, John is the (ftiXn](jov<; (Grotius, Prole(/om. in Joann."). Some striking facts indicate why this was so ; what the char- acter was which was thus worthy of the love of Jesus of Nazareth. They hardly sustain the popular notion, fostered by the received types of Christian art, of a na- ture gentle, yielding, feminine. The name Boanerges (Mark iii, 17) implies a vehemence, zeal, intensity, which gave to those who had it the might of Sons of Thunder. That spirit broke out once and again when they joined their mother in asking for the highest places in the kingdom of their IMaster, and declared that they were ready to face the dark terrors of the cup that he drank, and the baptism that he was baptized with (Matt. XX, 20-24; Mark x, 35-41) — when they rebuked one who cast out devils in their Lord's name because he was not one of their company (Luke ix, 49) — when they sought to call down fire from heaven upon a village of the Samaritans (Luke ix, 54). About this time Salome, as if her husband had died, takes her place among the women who followed Jesus in Galilee (Luke viii, 3), ministering to him of their substance, and went up with him in his last journey to Jerusalem (Luke xxiii, 55). Through her, we may well believe, John first came to know Man,' Magdalene, whose character he depicts with such a life-like touch, and that other IMary, to whom he was afterwards to stand in so close and special a rela- tion. The fulness of his narrative of what the other evangelists omit (John xi) leads to the conclusion that he was united also by some special ties of intimacy to the family of Bethany. It is not necessarj' to dwell at length on the familiar history of the Last Supper. What is characteristic is that he is there, as ever, the disciple whom Jesus loved; and, as the chosen and favored i friend, reclines at table with his head upon his Master's