The authentic history of the life of this apostle must also necessarily
be very brief; most of the prominent incidents which concern him,
having already been abundantly described in the preceding lives.
But there are particulars which have not been so fully entered into,
some of which concern this apostle exclusively, while in others he is
mentioned only in conjunction with his brother and friends; and these
may all, with great propriety, be more fully given in this life, since
his eminence, his writings, and long protracted labors, make him a
proper subject for a minute disquisition.
Being the son of Zebedee and Salome, as has already been mentioned in
the life of his brother, he shared in the low fortunes and laborious
life of a fisherman, on the lake of Gennesaret. This occupation indeed,
did not necessarily imply the very lowest rank in society, as is
evident from the fact that the Jews held no useful occupation to be
beneath the dignity of a respectable person, or even a learned man.
Still the nature of their business was such, as to render it improbable
that they had adopted it with any other view than that of maintaining
themselves by it, or of enlarging their property, though perhaps not of
earning a support which they had no other means whatever of procuring.
It has been said, that doubtless, there were many other inhabitants of
the shores of the lake, who occasionally occupied themselves in fishing,
and yet were by no means obliged to employ themselves constantly in
that avocation. But the brief statement of circumstances in the gospels
is enough to show that such an equipage of boats and nets, and such
steady employment all night, were not indicative of anything else than
a regular devotion of time to it, in the way of business. Yet that
Zebedee was not a man in very low circumstances, as to property, is
quite manifest from Mark’s statement, that when they were called,
they left their father in the vessel, along with the “servants,” or
workmen,――which implies that they carried on their fishing operations,
on so extended a scale, as to have a number of men in their service,
and probably had a vessel of considerable size, since it needed such a
plurality of hands to manage it, and use the apparatus of the business
to advantage; a circumstance in which their condition seems to have
been somewhat superior to that of Peter and Andrew, of whom no such
particulars are specified,――all accounts representing them as alone,
in a small vessel, which they were able to manage of themselves.
The possession of some family estate is also implied, in numerous
incidental allusions in the gospels; as in the fact that their mother
Salome was one of those women who followed Jesus and “ministered to him
of their substance” or possessions. She is also specified among those
women who brought precious spices for embalming the body of Jesus. John
is also mentioned in his own gospel, as having a house of his own, in
which he generously supported the mother of Jesus, as if he himself had
been her son, throughout the remainder of her life; an act of friendly
and pious kindness to which he would not have been competent, without
the possession of some property in addition to the house.