Mt 4:12. But when Jesus heard that John had been handed over, he went into Galilee.
Mt 4:13. And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum by the sea, in the borders of Zebulun and Naphtali.
This statement of Matthew has given rise to various conjectures and objections because of its deviation from the fourth Gospel and because of the circumstance that John was not thrown into prison immediately after the baptism of Jesus. The difficulty resolves itself fairly well and through a simple procedure if we hold strictly to what Matthew wishes to communicate and guard ourselves against bringing foreign elements into his report. The evangelist makes two things known to us in the above two verses: the beginning and the scene or center of the messianic activity. 1) It began after the imprisonment of the Baptist. 2) It proceeded from Capernaum, which is to be regarded as the hearth and center of the evangelical preaching. He thus limits the public life of Jesus to his Galilean activity and to the time when John had withdrawn from public life. The fourth evangelist does neither of these things, which is a difference and deviation but contains no contradiction. According to Matthew, Jesus opened his properly messianic activity only with that Galilean activity which proceeded from Capernaum, because it was so foretold—there the sun of salvation had to rise—and he did not begin it before the imprisonment of the Baptist, because his preaching and that of John, independent alongside each other, would have had the appearance of a schism. If the messianic activity of Jesus began immediately after the baptism, why did John not become his disciple? How can he exclude himself from the kingdom of God to which he points and which is now being preached? So one might ask. The answer of our evangelist is: the evangelical preaching had not yet begun; everything previous still bore the character of preparation. In Capernaum the light of messianic salvation arose and began to shine over all the world. Matthew here, as everywhere, goes back to the ultimate and deepest reasons when he shows why precisely this happened. That Jesus went to Galilee and, abandoning Nazareth, chose Capernaum had its ground in divine predetermination. He does not thereby exclude other reasons, but takes no account of them because they were of subordinate nature to him and did not remove the concerns which, based on such events, might arise against the messianic claims of Jesus Christ. One such reason, for example, was concern for Jesus' safety. As soon as John was imprisoned, Jesus had everything to fear from the Pharisees in Judea. Their courage had grown and their disposition toward him was even more embittered than toward John. There was therefore no remaining for him there. Galilee seemed more suitable, but there again it could not be Nazareth, since it was perhaps only an hour from Sepphoris-Diocaesarea, the residence of Herod Antipas—not a good neighborhood for a prophet. He had therefore to seek another city and chose Capernaum by the sea, because in fact none was more suitable. It lay on the west side of the Jordan, thus in the properly holy land, by the lake which facilitated all traffic, and although still in the territory of Herod, so near the border that he could easily escape any possible plots. Yet all that, as Matthew conceived the circumstances, are coincidences which fundamentally do not clarify the matter. Rather, it had to happen thus:
Mt 4:14. That the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, when he says:
Mt 4:15. "Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, along the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles,
Mt 4:16. The people who sit in darkness have seen a great light, and to those who sit in the region and shadow of death, light has risen."
The sense of this prophetic passage is simple. The light, i.e., the sun, the Messiah, will rise in Zebulun and Naphtali insofar as it lies by the sea, in the territory beyond the Jordan (Perea), and in Galilee of the Gentiles—thus among the people who live in the greatest ignorance, who sit in the shadow and realm of spiritual death. Since the evangelist is only concerned with demonstrating the divine predetermination regarding the scene and local beginning of the messianic activity, and the above prophetic words express this beyond all doubt clearly and definitively, we are spared further consideration of their meaning in the prophetic context itself. Galilee was despised at all times, but most of all precisely when this prophecy was fulfilled. Its fulfillment confirms the whole life of Jesus: here his preaching began, from this people he took his disciples, it was the witness of his greatest miracles, his most comforting and most loving teachings. The sun of salvation rose in the most despised part of despised Galilee as a whole, for "God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the strong. And the base things of the world and the despised has God chosen, and the things that are nothing, that he might bring to nothing the things that are, so that no flesh should glory before God" (1 Cor. 1:27-29).
Mt 4:17. And then Jesus began to preach and to say: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."
With the particle "and," Matthew continues the historical report interrupted at v. 13. "He came and dwelt in Capernaum," and then began, i.e., simultaneously with his coming and dwelling, his evangelical work. The content of his first preaching is completely identical with that of John, for a double reason. First, to connect with John himself and to bear witness for him, as he had done for Jesus. Even the Messiah knows no other, perhaps easier, way to participation in the kingdom of God, in messianic salvation, than repentance and conversion. Second, in order not to violently excite minds right from the start. What would not have been to be feared if Jesus Christ had preached directly: "I am the Messiah"? Even the best-disposed Jews conceived the messianic kingdom as something entirely external. They had to be won for Jesus above all through his miracles and other works and filled with trust in him; only then could he make them acquainted with the actual character of his calling on earth. First they should see his miracles, then believe in his word.
Mt 4:18. But as he walked one day by the Galilean Sea, he saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting the net into the sea, for they were fishermen.
Mt 4:19. And he said to them: "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."
The evangelist connects to the preceding with "but" in order to emphasize that Jesus in the above-named region not only preached and taught but also called his disciples. From there he chose his apostles, that they might become light for all the world. But those who should give light to others must first themselves be enlightened; how perfectly, therefore, the word was fulfilled: "Those who sat in the realm and shadow of death saw, took into themselves, a great light." We must read these two verses closely together: Jesus saw them casting their nets and spoke to them. He took occasion from observing them in their occupation, watching them for a time, to invite them kindly and most condescendingly to participate in his occupation: "Leave that; I will make you fishers of men, as I am." The figurative expression is as descriptive as it is intelligible. First, every teacher is a fisher, or as another equivalent image expresses it, a hunter; then he becomes a shepherd; he pastures the gathered ones on eternally green meadows and leads them to streams of refreshment (Ps. 23:1-3).
The men called here were, as we see from the fourth Gospel and as our [Gospel] itself indicates, already acquainted with Jesus and had been his disciples for a long time, but only in the manner that they had previously been disciples of the Baptist—namely, that they were around him from time to time, heard him and accompanied him when he called them to do so, but at home lived for their business and trade, already from the high esteem for manual labor deeply impressed upon the Jews. Until now they had only heard Jesus and accompanied him, but had not themselves accomplished anything; from now on they were to be active with him for the kingdom of God, to become what he is in their eyes: a fisher of men. With these words he indicates to his previous disciples the new vocation of the apostolate. Their solemn installation occurred later. "Follow me" also means, in the broader and figurative sense, "become my disciples, confess yourselves to me as my pupils," but Peter and Andrew, since they were already disciples of Jesus, could only take the invitation in the literal sense. Moreover, the contrast that lay in the words "I will make you fishers of men" to what they were presently doing allowed no other interpretation than the literal one: "Leave the fishing and go with me on the catching of men." They did not yet fully understand his words then. They thought Jesus had something special in mind for the moment to which he was inviting their participation. Whether they would return to their business and how their future would outwardly take shape was not expressed in his words. If they already held Jesus to be the Messiah at that time, their expectations might indeed not be small.
The holy Fathers have often interpreted the figurative expression "fishers of men" symbolically at the same time: the people are the fish, the state of sin is the bitter sea, baptism is the sweet spring water to which they are transferred for a new holy life. This is beautifully and touchingly expressed in an ancient Greek hymn attributed to Clement of Alexandria: "Savior Jesus, fisher of men who are saved from the sea of sin, holy fish from the hostile wave, luring through sweet life." Therefore, already on the oldest Christian monuments the fish is found as a symbol of the baptized, and Tertullian calls them outright "little fish." The trade of fishermen belonged then, as now, among the lowliest; they themselves were throughout only simple, uneducated people. The Fathers also place great weight on this, for, they say, this happened so that one might see that the world was converted through God's power, not through human words. Not orators convinced fishermen, but fishermen [convinced] the orators and the mighty of the earth.
Mt 4:20. But they immediately left the nets and followed him.
Jesus was already known in this place. The leaving of the nets by his disciples could therefore not be striking. Since Jesus does not reject them, does not say that they misunderstood him and he meant his call only spiritually, but on the contrary immediately calls another pair of brothers with the same words, he himself shows clearly enough that he really wanted everything taken literally. Peter and Andrew handed over net and ship to their helpers or whoever else of theirs was there; they let them go in peace, as one believed Jesus needed them only for some particular mission.
Mt 4:21. And going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending the nets, and he called them.
Mt 4:22. But they immediately left the boat and their father and followed him.
The calling of this pair of disciples occurred, as can hardly be doubted, with the same words and immediately thereafter.
Mt 4:23. And Jesus went through all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every weakness among the people.
From Capernaum, Jesus, accompanied by these disciples, begins his missionary journeys. They are essentially limited to Galilee, to which the promise primarily applied. Traveling rabbis who taught in the various synagogues were no new phenomenon, but it was new and unusual that Jesus preached the gospel among the people, a John in the midst of the crowd. We must distinguish well between both expressions, "teaching" and "preaching": the first occurred in the synagogue and connected to the ordinary instruction; the second took place outside the synagogue and bore a prophetic character—in this he appeared with the claims of an extraordinary mission. The Greek word κηρύσσειν (to proclaim, announce) is more than "to preach" (praedicare), in that it primarily means to be a herald, messenger. The Gospel is a heavenly message; whoever proclaims it appears as a divine messenger. Every herald proclaims his message in an unusual, solemn manner, surrounded by the testimonies of his mission, and these were for Jesus his miracles; therefore Matthew closely connects the latter with the former: Jesus went through Galilee proclaiming and healing every disease and weakness. In these few words the evangelist provisionally summarizes the whole activity of Jesus. The details and particulars of this follow afterward, where he shows what Jesus taught in the synagogues, how he preached and proclaimed the gospel, in what manner he healed the sick.
CONTINUE
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