truths of divine words; that the whole net is sufficient to fish the sinful and to draw them out of the marine depths of the sins of this world and finally to prepare the ‘fishes,’ (that is) the saintly people, for God’s purposes.
In the example of saint Peter and of other apostles we see that they are fishermen of a (spiritual) fishing established by Jesus and that he has given them such a net of faith in his words when he said,
I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them … and the world has hated them.[269]
Therefore he sent them the Holy Spirit who made them speak the words of God; through them the apostles have established faith to be preached in the whole world for full salvation. Thus the fishermen of spiritual fishing, having the nets made by the Holy Spirit, were sent by our Lord Jesus to go into the whole world and preach the gospel to the whole human creation in order that those who believe might be baptized and saved; and those who refuse to believe or to be filled by his reality will be condemned.[270] For faith apart from works is dead,[271] useless, and devilish; real faith is alive, useful, and Christian. Jesus has sent his disciples into the whole world with this faith and this message that they might teach good and useful works to every man through the reading of Christ’s truth. It is as Saint Paul confesses about himself and other apostles:
Christ Jesus (who is) in you, him we proclaim to you, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.[272]
Therefore the apostles taught unrelentingly all people to believe through the truth of the gospel. And because they taught in this way (that every man should be perfect in Christ Jesus), therefore, as Jesus said to them,
I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide.[273]
Let us see (whether and) where their fishing with the net of faith has been successful, bearing fruit of eternal life. Through their teaching they have established a perfect community of faith and life; this people has remained an example to all future faithful Christians, so that all believers can look back to these first Christians and discover in them the evident fruit of apostolic labor, as well as a useful and abiding certainty for their own times. Reason will show that here the apostles’ work bore fruit in accordance with the purposes of Christ… The future generations can safely emulate their work and expect eternal life.[274]
It is therefore necessary to see where these people were confirmed in their faith and how they were established. In the Acts of the Apostles and other recorded writings we can find that there were believing people in the apostolic days and that their preaching went into the whole world so that there was no nation
