“When John had been handed over.” That is, handed over to Herod, tetrarch of Galilee, into Judea, of which Pontius Pilate was procurator in the name of Caesar Tiberius; for John was baptizing in the desert of Judea. I reply: the scribes and Pharisees had John seized and removed from Judea and handed over to Herod, as one who had reproached him injuriously for his marriage with Herodias. This is gathered from Matthew 17:12, where Christ says of the scribes, “They did to John whatever they wished”; and Christ himself, in his own time, would suffer from them as well. But since he was not yet hated by the scribes and not yet known to them, he dwelt freely in Galilee.
Yet he moved from Lower Galilee, where he had hitherto lived in Nazareth, to Upper Galilee, whose commercial center was Capharnaum, situated beside the Sea of Gennesaret or Tiberias—so called from the nearby city which this Herod greatly enlarged with buildings and wished to name Tiberias in honor of Caesar Tiberius. It is not a “sea” properly so called, but by a manner of speaking by which any collection of waters, even stagnant ones, is called a sea. St Luke calls it the “Lake of Gennesaret.” It is about thirty stadia long and twenty wide; the river Jordan cuts through and flows through its midst.
Why, then, did Christ choose this place first for his preaching? The Evangelist says (v. 14): “That it might be fulfilled”—the prophecy which foretold that the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, that is, Galilee, would be the first to be despoiled, as I explained there. To this was added the fact that Galilee abounded in towns and villages, the smallest of which Josephus reckons to have had more than fifteen thousand inhabitants; hence it was especially suitable for the proclamation of the Gospel. Capharnaum, moreover, where he fixed his dwelling, was situated at the extremity of Lower Galilee on the southern side, yet was close to the borders of Upper Galilee on the eastern side, and thus lay on the confines of both Galilees.
“From that time Jesus began to preach,” namely, when the forerunner had already fulfilled his ministry; when the morning star had already set, the sun appeared. “The kingdom of heaven has drawn near,” as I have already explained above.
“Walking beside the Sea of Galilee,” or the Sea of Tiberias—when the crowds pressed upon him, as St Luke says, to hear him, after he had taught them from the little boat of Simon (who had recently been named by Christ Cephas, that is, Peter), and after he had gladdened the fishermen by a new miraculous catch of fish, and the boats had already been drawn up onto the shore—he said to Andrew, the elder brother of Simon, and to James and John, the sons of Zebedee (Cleophas), who was the brother of Joseph: “Come after me,” that is, follow me; cleave to me as the one who will form your way of life—not now intermittently, as you have done until now, but firmly and without separation. “And I will make you fishers,” not of insignificant little fish, but “of men,” of princes and kings, so that you may catch them in the net of your preaching for eternal salvation. These henceforth will be your delights, your labors, your gains.
Moreover, this calling of the first four apostles, briefly described here by Matthew, is the same as that which Luke narrates more fully, according to Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius, Jansenius, and Francis Lucas. For it is not credible that they were called here a second time only to apostatize and then be called a third time by Luke—although Augustine, Lyra, Toletus, and Maldonatus altogether insist on this. The first calling of Peter and Andrew took place immediately after Christ’s baptism, when they were sent to him by John the Baptist after John had been imprisoned (John 1:37). Then they were called to familiar acquaintance; now they are called to stable and permanent discipleship.
Behold the first four stones and foundations of the Church of Christ: justice in Simon, for “to hear” signifies obedience—“it is just that a man obey God”; fortitude in Andrew, for ἀνδρεῖος (andreios) means “manly”; temperance in James, that is, the “supplanter”; prudence in John, that is, “the grace of God,” which continually implores the grace of God. Surrounded by these companions, strengthened by these virtues, Jesus…
“Went about all Galilee, teaching and preaching the Gospel of the new kingdom,” that is, of the Messianic kingdom, “in the synagogues of the Jews.” Synagogues were places where people gathered not for sacrifice—for this was permitted only in one place, namely, in the temple at Jerusalem—but for public prayer, for the explanation of the divine law, and for sacred preaching, especially on the Sabbaths. They were found in cities and in larger villages, often in great number; in Jerusalem more than 480 are reported.
Christ therefore preached not in secret or in corners, but openly and in places expressly designated for teaching.
CONTINUE
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