36 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



peaceable spirits, as indeed most anglers are : these men our 

 blessed Saviour, who is observed to love to plant grace in good 

 natures, though indeed nothing be too hard for him, yet these 

 men he chose to call from their irreprovable employment of fish- 

 ing, and gave them grace to be his disciples, and to follow him 

 and do wonders ; I say four of twelve. 



And it is observable, that it was our Saviour's will, that these 

 our four fishermen should have a priority of nomination in the 

 catalogue of his twelve apostles. Mat. x., 2, Acts i., 13, as 

 namely, first St. Peter,* St. Andrew, St. James, and St. John, and 

 then the rest in their order. 



And it is yet more observable, that when our blessed Saviour 

 went up into the mount, when he left the rest of his disciples 

 and chose only three to bear him company at his Transfigura- 

 tion, that those three were all fishermen. And it is to be be- 

 lieved, that all the other apostles, af\er they betook themselves to 

 follow Christ, betook themselves to be fishermen too ; for it is 

 certain, that the greater number of them were found together 

 fishing by Jesus after his resurrection, as it is recorded in the 

 21st chapter of St. John's Gospel. f 



* Peter is the only one of the twelve who is known to have angled, 

 which was when he caught the fish with the tribute money in its mouth. 

 Matt. XV ii., 27. In the poems, published with the Iter Boreale, by R, 

 Wild, D.D., Lond., 1G71, there is this polemical epigram upon those who 

 claim authority from St. Peter. 



" Peter a tisher was and he caught men, 



And they have nets and in them catch men too ; 

 Yet I'll not swear they are alike, for those 



He caught he sav'd, these catch and them undo." 



Am. Ed. 



t St. Jerome on Ezech. xlvii., 10, says that Oppian marks the num- 

 ber of kinds of fish to be a hundred and fifty-three. Rittershusius, in 

 his edition of Oppian (pp. 372-6), makes the same number from Oppian. 

 If you subtract the Crustacea from Pliny's Aqualilia, you have the same 

 number very nearly, i. e., one hundred and forty-four. So that if we take 

 the number of Oppian, who was the most correct as a naturalist, to be that 

 known to the ancients, it corresponds with tb.? " one hundred and fifty and 

 three" of the miraculous draught ; which has led some to think it a para- 

 ble of the success of the preaching of the Gospel, begun by the fishermen 

 Apostles, reaching tlie whole race of man. — Am. Ed. 



