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.
HIS EDUCATION.
There is reason to suppose, that in accordance with the established principles of parental duty among the Jews, he had learned the rudiments of the knowledge of the Mosaic law; for a
