boats

140:0.2As Je­sus started down the seashore call­ing the apos­tles, he first hailed An­drew and Pe­ter, who were fish­ing near the shore; next he sig­naled to James and John, who were in a boat near by, vis­it­ing with their fa­ther, Zeb­e­dee, and mend­ing their nets. Two by two he gath­ered up the other apos­tles, and when he had as­sem­bled all twelve, he jour­neyed with them to the high­lands north of Ca­per­naum, where he pro­ceeded to in­struct them in prepa­ra­tion for their for­mal or­di­na­tion.

157:1.2Now Pe­ter had spo­ken hastily. Ju­das car­ried their funds, and he was across the lake. Nei­ther he, his brother, nor Je­sus had brought along any money. And know­ing that the Phar­isees were look­ing for them, they could not well go to Beth­saida to ob­tain money. When Pe­ter told Je­sus about the col­lec­tor and that he had prom­ised him the money, Je­sus said: “If you have prom­ised, then should you pay. But where­with will you re­deem your prom­ise? Will you again be­come a fish­er­man that you may honor your word? Nev­er­the­less, Pe­ter, it is well in the cir­cum­stances that we pay the tax. Let us give these men no oc­ca­sion for of­fense at our at­ti­tude. We will wait here while you go with the boat and cast for the fish, and when you have sold them at yon­der mar­ket, pay the col­lec­tor for all three of us.”

157:1.3All of this had been over­heard by the se­cret mes­sen­ger of David who stood near by, and who then sig­naled to an as­so­ciate, fish­ing near the shore, to come in quickly. When Pe­ter made ready to go out in the boat for a catch, this mes­sen­ger and his fish­er­man friend pre­sented him with sev­eral large bas­kets of fish and as­sisted him in car­ry­ing them to the fish mer­chant near by, who pur­chased the catch, pay­ing suf­fi­cient, with what was added by the mes­sen­ger of David, to meet the tem­ple tax for the three. The col­lec­tor ac­cepted the tax, for­go­ing the penalty for tardy pay­ment be­cause they had been for some time ab­sent from Gal­i­lee.

192:1.1About six o’clock Fri­day morn­ing, April 21, the mor­ontia Mas­ter made his thir­teenth ap­pear­ance, the first in Gal­i­lee, to the ten apos­tles as their boat drew near the shore close to the usual land­ing place at Beth­saida.

192:1.3As they dropped an­chor and pre­pared to en­ter the small boat for go­ing ashore, the man on the beach called to them, “Lads, have you caught any­thing?” And when they an­swered, “No,” he spoke again. “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find fish.” While they did not know it was Je­sus who had di­rected them, with one ac­cord they cast in the net as they had been in­structed, and im­me­di­ately it was filled, so much so that they were hardly able to draw it up. Now, John Zeb­e­dee was quick of per­cep­tion, and when he saw the heavy-laden net, he per­ceived that it was the Mas­ter who had spo­ken to them. When this thought came into his mind, he leaned over and whis­pered to Pe­ter, “It is the Mas­ter.” Pe­ter was ever a man of thought­less ac­tion and im­petu­ous de­vo­tion; so when John whis­pered this in his ear, he quickly arose and cast him­self into the wa­ter that he might the sooner reach the Mas­ter’s side. His breth­ren came up close be­hind him, hav­ing come ashore in the small boat, haul­ing the net of fishes af­ter them.

80:8.5The Danu­bians be­came mother wor­shipers as the re­sult of the work of the mis­sion­ar­ies from Crete. These tribes later amal­ga­mated with groups of An­don­ite sailors who came by boats from the coast of Asia Mi­nor, and who were also mother wor­shipers. Much of cen­tral Eu­rope was thus early set­tled by these mixed types of the broad-headed white races which prac­ticed mother wor­ship and the re­li­gious rite of cre­mat­ing the dead, for it was the cus­tom of the mother cultists to burn their dead in stone huts.

138:4.1On the mor­row all nine of them went by boat over to Kheresa to ex­e­cute the for­mal call­ing of the next two apos­tles, James and Ju­das the twin sons of Al­pheus, the nom­i­nees of James and John Zeb­e­dee. The fish­er­man twins were ex­pect­ing Je­sus and his apos­tles and were there­fore await­ing them on the shore. James Zeb­e­dee pre­sented the Mas­ter to the Kheresa fish­er­men, and Je­sus, gaz­ing on them, nod­ded and said, “Fol­low me.”

138:4.4Af­ter a night of rest the en­tire party, now num­ber­ing eleven, went by boat over to Ta­ri­chea.

138:5.3The next day Je­sus left his twelve apos­tles quite alone; he wanted them to be­come ac­quainted and de­sired that they be alone to talk over what he had taught them. The Mas­ter re­turned for the evening meal, and dur­ing the af­ter-sup­per hours he talked to them about the min­istry of ser­a­phim, and some of the apos­tles com­pre­hended his teach­ing. They rested for a night and the next day de­parted by boat for Ca­per­naum.

147:7.1It was around noon on Mon­day, May 3, when Je­sus and the twelve came to Beth­saida by boat from Ta­ri­chea. They trav­eled by boat in or­der to es­cape those who jour­neyed with them. But by the next day the oth­ers, in­clud­ing the of­fi­cial spies from Je­ru­sa­lem, had again found Je­sus.

152:0.1The story of the cure of Amos, the Kheresa lu­natic, had al­ready reached Beth­saida and Ca­per­naum, so that a great crowd was wait­ing for Je­sus when his boat landed that Tues­day forenoon. Among this throng were the new ob­servers from the Je­ru­sa­lem San­hedrin who had come down to Ca­per­naum to find cause for the Mas­ter’s ap­pre­hen­sion and con­vic­tion. As Je­sus spoke with those who had as­sem­bled to greet him, Jairus, one of the rulers of the syn­a­gogue, made his way through the crowd and, falling down at his feet, took him by the hand and be­sought that he would has­ten away with him, say­ing: “Mas­ter, my lit­tle daugh­ter, an only child, lies in my home at the point of death. I pray that you will come and heal her.” When Je­sus heard the re­quest of this fa­ther, he said: “I will go with you.”

152:2.2But the peo­ple would not have it so. They saw the di­rec­tion taken by Je­sus’ boat, and hir­ing ev­ery craft avail­able, they started out in pur­suit. Those who could not ob­tain boats fared forth on foot to walk around the up­per end of the lake.

152:5.1Thurs­day morn­ing, be­fore day­light, they an­chored their boat off­shore near Zeb­e­dee’s house and sought sleep un­til about noon­time. An­drew was first up and, go­ing for a walk by the sea, found Je­sus, in com­pany with their chore boy, sit­ting on a stone by the wa­ter’s edge. Not­with­stand­ing that many of the mul­ti­tude and the young evan­ge­lists searched all night and much of the next day about the east­ern hills for Je­sus, shortly af­ter mid­night he and the Mark lad had started to walk around the lake and across the river, back to Beth­saida.

152:5.5Je­sus then an­nounced that he wished to with­draw for a few days of rest with his apos­tles be­fore they made ready to go up to Je­ru­sa­lem for the Pass­over, and he for­bade any of the dis­ci­ples or the mul­ti­tude to fol­low him. Ac­cord­ingly they went by boat to the re­gion of Gen­nesaret for two or three days of rest and sleep. Je­sus was prepar­ing for a great cri­sis of his life on earth, and he there­fore spent much time in com­mu­nion with the Fa­ther in heaven.

154:7.1And so it was on this Sun­day morn­ing, the twenty-sec­ond of May, in the year A.D. 29, that Je­sus, with his twelve apos­tles and the twelve evan­ge­lists, en­gaged in this hasty flight from the San­hedrin of­fi­cers who were on their way to Beth­saida with au­thor­ity from Herod An­tipas to ar­rest him and take him to Je­ru­sa­lem for trial on charges of blas­phemy and other vi­o­la­tions of the sa­cred laws of the Jews. It was al­most half past eight this beau­ti­ful morn­ing when this com­pany of twenty-five manned the oars and pulled for the east­ern shore of the Sea of Gal­i­lee.

154:7.2Fol­low­ing the Mas­ter’s boat was an­other and smaller craft, con­tain­ing six of David’s mes­sen­gers, who had in­struc­tions to main­tain con­tact with Je­sus and his as­so­ciates and to see that in­for­ma­tion of their where­abouts and safety was reg­u­larly trans­mit­ted to the home of Zeb­e­dee in Beth­saida, which had served as head­quar­ters for the work of the king­dom for some time. But Je­sus was never again to make his home at the house of Zeb­e­dee. From now on, through­out the re­main­der of his earth life, the Mas­ter truly “had not where to lay his head.” No more did he have even the sem­blance of a set­tled abode.

154:7.3They rowed over to near the vil­lage of Kheresa, put their boat in the cus­tody of friends, and be­gan the wan­der­ings of this event­ful last year of the Mas­ter’s life on earth. For a time they re­mained in the do­mains of Philip, go­ing from Kheresa up to Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi, thence mak­ing their way over to the coast of Phoeni­cia.

154:7.4The crowd lin­gered about the home of Zeb­e­dee watch­ing these two boats make their way over the lake to­ward the east­ern shore, and they were well started when the Je­ru­sa­lem of­fi­cers hur­ried up and be­gan their search for Je­sus. They re­fused to be­lieve he had es­caped them, and while Je­sus and his party were jour­ney­ing north­ward through Batanea, the Phar­isees and their as­sis­tants spent al­most a full week vainly search­ing for him in the neigh­bor­hood of Ca­per­naum.

154:7.5Je­sus’ fam­ily re­turned to their home in Ca­per­naum and spent al­most a week in talk­ing, de­bat­ing, and pray­ing. They were filled with con­fu­sion and con­ster­na­tion. They en­joyed no peace of mind un­til Thurs­day af­ter­noon, when Ruth re­turned from a visit to the Zeb­e­dee house, where she learned from David that her fa­ther-brother was safe and in good health and mak­ing his way to­ward the Phoeni­cian coast.

156:6.4Dur­ing a brief con­fer­ence with David they learned that many lead­ers were then gath­ered to­gether on the op­po­site side of the lake near Kheresa, and ac­cord­ingly, that very evening a boat took them across. For one day they rested qui­etly in the hills, go­ing on the next day to the park, near by, where the Mas­ter once fed the five thou­sand. Here they rested for three days and held daily con­fer­ences, which were at­tended by about fifty men and women, the rem­nants of the once nu­mer­ous com­pany of be­liev­ers res­i­dent in Ca­per­naum and its en­vi­rons.

157:1.5Je­sus, with An­drew and Pe­ter, waited by the seashore un­til nearly sun­down. Mes­sen­gers brought them word that Mary’s house was still un­der surveil­lance; there­fore, when it grew dark, the three wait­ing men en­tered their boat and slowly rowed away to­ward the east­ern shore of the Sea of Gal­i­lee.

80:3.6The blue men were hunters, fish­ers, and food gath­er­ers; they were ex­pert boat­builders. They made stone axes, cut down trees, erected log huts, partly be­low ground and roofed with hides. And there are peo­ples who still build sim­i­lar huts in Siberia. The south­ern Cro-Magnons gen­er­ally lived in caves and grot­toes.

79:1.4When cli­matic con­di­tions made hunt­ing un­prof­itable for the mi­grat­ing And­ites, they did not fol­low the evo­lu­tion­ary course of the older races by be­com­ing herders. Com­merce and ur­ban life made their ap­pear­ance. From Egypt through Mes­o­po­ta­mia and Tur­kes­tan to the rivers of China and In­dia, the more highly civ­i­lized tribes be­gan to as­sem­ble in cities de­voted to man­u­fac­ture and trade. Ado­nia be­came the cen­tral Asian com­mer­cial metropo­lis, be­ing lo­cated near the pres­ent city of Ashkhabad. Com­merce in stone, metal, wood, and pot­tery was ac­cel­er­ated on both land and wa­ter.

81:3.6With the ap­pear­ance of crude man­u­fac­ture and be­gin­ning in­dus­try, com­merce quickly be­came the most po­tent in­flu­ence in the spread of cul­tural civ­i­liza­tion. The open­ing up of the trade chan­nels by land and by sea greatly fa­cil­i­tated travel and the mix­ing of cul­tures as well as the blend­ing of civ­i­liza­tions. By 5000 B.C. the horse was in gen­eral use through­out civ­i­lized and semi­civ­i­lized lands. These later races not only had the do­mes­ti­cated horse but also var­i­ous sorts of wag­ons and char­i­ots. Ages be­fore, the wheel had been used, but now ve­hi­cles so equipped be­came uni­ver­sally em­ployed both in com­merce and war.

81:3.7The trav­el­ing trader and the rov­ing ex­plorer did more to ad­vance his­toric civ­i­liza­tion than all other in­flu­ences com­bined. Mil­i­tary con­quests, col­o­niza­tion, and mis­sion­ary en­ter­prises fos­tered by the later re­li­gions were also fac­tors in the spread of cul­ture; but these were all sec­ondary to the trad­ing re­la­tions, which were ever ac­cel­er­ated by the rapidly de­vel­op­ing arts and sci­ences of in­dus­try.

80:1.1Be­fore the last And­ites were driven out of the Eu­phrates val­ley, many of their breth­ren had en­tered Eu­rope as ad­ven­tur­ers, teach­ers, traders, and war­riors. Dur­ing the ear­lier days of the vi­o­let race the Med­i­ter­ra­nean trough was pro­tected by the Gibral­tar isth­mus and the Si­cil­ian land bridge. Some of man’s very early mar­itime com­merce was es­tab­lished on these in­land lakes, where blue men from the north and the Sa­ha­rans from the south met Nod­ites and Adamites from the east.

76:0.1When Adam elected to leave the first gar­den to the Nod­ites un­op­posed, he and his fol­low­ers could not go west, for the Eden­ites had no boats suit­able for such a ma­rine ad­ven­ture. They could not go north; the north­ern Nod­ites were al­ready on the march to­ward Eden. They feared to go south; the hills of that re­gion were in­fested with hos­tile tribes. The only way open was to the east, and so they jour­neyed east­ward to­ward the then pleas­ant re­gions be­tween the Tigris and Eu­phrates rivers. And many of those who were left be­hind later jour­neyed east­ward to join the Adamites in their new val­ley home.

• built improved b.

129:1.3Je­sus worked with Zeb­e­dee only a lit­tle more than one year, but dur­ing that time he cre­ated a new style of boat and es­tab­lished en­tirely new meth­ods of boat­mak­ing. By su­pe­rior tech­nique and greatly im­proved meth­ods of steam­ing the boards, Je­sus and Zeb­e­dee be­gan to build boats of a very su­pe­rior type, craft which were far more safe for sail­ing the lake than were the older types. For sev­eral years Zeb­e­dee had more work, turn­ing out these new-style boats, than his small es­tab­lish­ment could han­dle; in less than five years prac­ti­cally all the craft on the lake had been built in the shop of Zeb­e­dee at Ca­per­naum. Je­sus be­came well known to the Galilean fish­er­folk as the de­signer of the new boats.

• voyaged to Rome on b.

130:0.2From Je­ru­sa­lem they went to Cae­sarea by way of Joppa. At Cae­sarea they took a boat for Alexan­dria. From Alexan­dria they sailed for Lasea in Crete. From Crete they sailed for Carthage, touch­ing at Cyrene. At Carthage they took a boat for Naples, stop­ping at Malta, Syra­cuse, and Messina. From Naples they went to Ca­pua, whence they trav­eled by the Ap­pian Way to Rome.

• voyaged to Rome on b.

130:3.1It had been an event­ful visit at Cae­sarea, and when the boat was ready, Je­sus and his two friends de­parted at noon one day for Alexan­dria in Egypt.

• voyaged to Rome on b.

130:4.12Al­though Je­sus told all this to the lad in lan­guage best suited to his com­pre­hen­sion, at the end of the dis­cus­sion Ga­nid was heavy of eye and was soon lost in slum­ber. They rose early the next morn­ing to go aboard the boat bound for Lasea on the is­land of Crete. But be­fore they em­barked, the lad had still fur­ther ques­tions to ask about evil, to which Je­sus replied:

• voyaged to Rome on b.

133:2.1While tar­ry­ing at the ship land­ing, wait­ing for the boat to un­load cargo, the trav­el­ers ob­served a man mis­treat­ing his wife. As was his cus­tom, Je­sus in­ter­vened in be­half of the per­son sub­jected to at­tack. He stepped up be­hind the irate hus­band and, tap­ping him gen­tly on the shoul­der, said: “My friend, may I speak with you in pri­vate for a mo­ment?” The an­gry man was non­plused by such an ap­proach and, af­ter a mo­ment of em­bar­rass­ing hes­i­ta­tion, stam­mered out—“er—why—yes, what do you want with me?” When Je­sus had led him to one side, he said: “My friend, I per­ceive that some­thing ter­ri­ble must have hap­pened to you; I very much de­sire that you tell me what could hap­pen to such a strong man to lead him to at­tack his wife, the mother of his chil­dren, and that right out here be­fore all eyes. I am sure you must feel that you have some good rea­son for this as­sault. What did the woman do to de­serve such treat­ment from her hus­band? As I look upon you, I think I dis­cern in your face the love of jus­tice if not the de­sire to show mercy. I ven­ture to say that, if you found me out by the way­side, at­tacked by rob­bers, you would un­hesi­tat­ingly rush to my res­cue. I dare say you have done many such brave things in the course of your life. Now, my friend, tell me what is the mat­ter? Did the woman do some­thing wrong, or did you fool­ishly lose your head and thought­lessly as­sault her?” It was not so much what he said that touched this man’s heart as the kindly look and the sym­pa­thetic smile which Je­sus be­stowed upon him at the con­clu­sion of his re­marks. Said the man: “I per­ceive you are a priest of the Cyn­ics, and I am thank­ful you re­strained me. My wife has done no great wrong; she is a good woman, but she ir­ri­tates me by the man­ner in which she picks on me in pub­lic, and I lose my tem­per. I am sorry for my lack of self-con­trol, and I prom­ise to try to live up to my for­mer pledge to one of your broth­ers who taught me the bet­ter way many years ago. I prom­ise you.”

• voyaged to Rome on b.

133:2.3As they went on board the boat, they looked back upon the scene of the teary-eyed cou­ple stand­ing in silent em­brace. Hav­ing heard the lat­ter half of Je­sus’ mes­sage to the man, Gonod was all day oc­cu­pied with med­i­ta­tions thereon, and he re­solved to re­or­ga­nize his home when he re­turned to In­dia.

• voyaged to Rome on b.

133:2.5They spent sev­eral days at Nicopo­lis, the city which Au­gus­tus had founded some fifty years be­fore as the “city of vic­tory” in com­mem­o­ra­tion of the bat­tle of Ac­tium, this site be­ing the land whereon he camped with his army be­fore the bat­tle. They lodged in the home of one Jer­amy, a Greek pros­e­lyte of the Jew­ish faith, whom they had met on ship­board. The Apos­tle Paul spent all win­ter with the son of Jer­amy in the same house in the course of his third mis­sion­ary jour­ney. From Nicopo­lis they sailed on the same boat for Corinth, the cap­i­tal of the Ro­man prov­ince of Achaia.

• voyaged to Rome on b.

133:4.14Gonod had many in­ter­ests in Corinth, but fi­nally his busi­ness was fin­ished, and they pre­pared to sail for Athens. They trav­eled on a small boat which could be car­ried over­land on a land track from one of Corinth’s har­bors to the other, a dis­tance of ten miles.

• voyaged to Rome on b.

133:9.4At last the day came for the sep­a­ra­tion. They were all brave, es­pe­cially the lad, but it was a try­ing or­deal. They were tear­ful of eye but coura­geous of heart. In bid­ding his teacher farewell, Ga­nid said: “Farewell, Teacher, but not for­ever. When I come again to Da­mas­cus, I will look for you. I love you, for I think the Fa­ther in heaven must be some­thing like you; at least I know you are much like what you have told me about him. I will re­mem­ber your teach­ing, but most of all, I will never for­get you.” Said the fa­ther, “Farewell to a great teacher, one who has made us bet­ter and helped us to know God.” And Je­sus replied, “Peace be upon you, and may the bless­ing of the Fa­ther in heaven ever abide with you.” And Je­sus stood on the shore and watched as the small boat car­ried them out to their an­chored ship. Thus the Mas­ter left his friends from In­dia at Charax, never to see them again in this world; nor were they, in this world, ever to know that the man who later ap­peared as Je­sus of Naz­a­reth was this same friend they had just taken leave of—Joshua their teacher.

• taught from

137:6.4That af­ter­noon Je­sus and his apos­tles, with James and Jude, en­tered a boat and pulled down the shore a lit­tle way, where they an­chored while he talked to them about the com­ing king­dom. And they un­der­stood more than they had on Thurs­day night.

• taught from

140:8.1Je­sus well knew that his apos­tles were not fully as­sim­i­lat­ing his teach­ings. He de­cided to give some spe­cial in­struc­tion to Pe­ter, James, and John, hop­ing they would be able to clar­ify the ideas of their as­so­ciates. He saw that, while some fea­tures of the idea of a spir­i­tual king­dom were be­ing grasped by the twelve, they stead­fastly per­sisted in at­tach­ing these new spir­i­tual teach­ings di­rectly onto their old and en­trenched lit­eral con­cepts of the king­dom of heaven as a restora­tion of David’s throne and the re-es­tab­lish­ment of Is­rael as a tem­po­ral power on earth. Ac­cord­ingly, on Thurs­day af­ter­noon Je­sus went out from the shore in a boat with Pe­ter, James, and John to talk over the af­fairs of the king­dom. This was a four hours’ teach­ing con­fer­ence, em­brac­ing scores of ques­tions and an­swers, and may most prof­itably be put in this rec­ord by re­or­ga­niz­ing the sum­mary of this mo­men­tous af­ter­noon as it was given by Si­mon Pe­ter to his brother, An­drew, the fol­low­ing morn­ing:

• wept in a boat

141:0.2Just be­fore leav­ing, the apos­tles missed the Mas­ter, and An­drew went out to find him. Af­ter a brief search he found Je­sus sit­ting in a boat down the beach, and he was weep­ing. The twelve had of­ten seen their Mas­ter when he seemed to grieve, and they had be­held his brief sea­sons of se­ri­ous pre­oc­cu­pa­tion of mind, but none of them had ever seen him weep. An­drew was some­what star­tled to see the Mas­ter thus af­fected on the eve of their de­par­ture for Je­ru­sa­lem, and he ven­tured to ap­proach Je­sus and ask: “On this great day, Mas­ter, when we are to de­part for Je­ru­sa­lem to pro­claim the Fa­ther’s king­dom, why is it that you weep? Which of us has of­fended you?” And Je­sus, go­ing back with An­drew to join the twelve, an­swered him: “No one of you has grieved me. I am sad­dened only be­cause none of my fa­ther Joseph’s fam­ily have re­mem­bered to come over to bid us God­speed.” At this time Ruth was on a visit to her brother Joseph at Naz­a­reth. Other mem­bers of his fam­ily were kept away by pride, dis­ap­point­ment, mis­un­der­stand­ing, and petty re­sent­ment in­dulged as a re­sult of hurt feel­ings.

• met Ruth in a boat

145:0.3Late on Fri­day evening Je­sus’ baby sis­ter, Ruth, se­cretly paid him a visit. They spent al­most an hour to­gether in a boat an­chored a short dis­tance from the shore. No hu­man be­ing, save John Zeb­e­dee, ever knew of this visit, and he was ad­mon­ished to tell no man. Ruth was the only mem­ber of Je­sus’ fam­ily who con­sis­tently and un­wa­ver­ingly be­lieved in the di­vin­ity of his earth mis­sion from the times of her ear­li­est spir­i­tual con­scious­ness right on down through his event­ful min­istry, death, res­ur­rec­tion, and as­cen­sion; and she fi­nally passed on to the worlds be­yond never hav­ing doubted the super­nat­u­ral char­ac­ter of her fa­ther-brother’s mis­sion in the flesh. Baby Ruth was the chief com­fort of Je­sus, as re­gards his earth fam­ily, through­out the try­ing or­deal of his trial, re­jec­tion, and cru­ci­fix­ion.

• taught from

145:1.1On Fri­day morn­ing of this same week, when Je­sus was teach­ing by the sea­side, the peo­ple crowded him so near the wa­ter’s edge that he sig­naled to some fish­er­men oc­cu­py­ing a near-by boat to come to his res­cue. En­ter­ing the boat, he con­tin­ued to teach the as­sem­bled mul­ti­tude for more than two hours. This boat was named “Si­mon”; it was the for­mer fish­ing ves­sel of Si­mon Pe­ter and had been built by Je­sus’ own hands. On this par­tic­u­lar morn­ing the boat was be­ing used by David Zeb­e­dee and two as­so­ciates, who had just come in near shore from a fruit­less night of fish­ing on the lake. They were clean­ing and mend­ing their nets when Je­sus re­quested them to come to his as­sis­tance.

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151:1.1About this time Je­sus first be­gan to em­ploy the para­ble method of teach­ing the mul­ti­tudes that so fre­quently gath­ered about him. Since Je­sus had talked with the apos­tles and oth­ers long into the night, on this Sun­day morn­ing very few of the group were up for break­fast; so he went out by the sea­side and sat alone in the boat, the old fish­ing boat of An­drew and Pe­ter, which was al­ways kept at his dis­posal, and med­i­tated on the next move to be made in the work of ex­tend­ing the king­dom. But the Mas­ter was not to be alone for long. Very soon the peo­ple from Ca­per­naum and near-by vil­lages be­gan to ar­rive, and by ten o’clock that morn­ing al­most one thou­sand were as­sem­bled on shore near Je­sus’ boat and were clam­or­ing for at­ten­tion. Pe­ter was now up and, mak­ing his way to the boat, said to Je­sus, “Mas­ter, shall I talk to them?” But Je­sus an­swered, “No, Pe­ter, I will tell them a story.” And then Je­sus be­gan the recital of the para­ble of the sower, one of the first of a long se­ries of such para­bles which he taught the throngs that fol­lowed af­ter him. This boat had an el­e­vated seat on which he sat (for it was the cus­tom to sit when teach­ing) while he talked to the crowd as­sem­bled along the shore. Af­ter Pe­ter had spo­ken a few words, Je­sus said:

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151:4.1The next day Je­sus again taught the peo­ple from the boat, say­ing: “The king­dom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while he slept, his en­emy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and has­tened away. And so when the young blades sprang up and later were about to bring forth fruit, there ap­peared also the weeds. Then the ser­vants of this house­holder came and said to him: ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? Whence then come these weeds?’ And he replied to his ser­vants, ‘An en­emy has done this.’ The ser­vants then asked their mas­ter, ‘Would you have us go out and pluck up these weeds?’ But he an­swered them and said: ‘No, lest while you are gath­er­ing them up, you up­root the wheat also. Rather let them both grow to­gether un­til the time of the har­vest, when I will say to the reapers, Gather up first the weeds and bind them in bun­dles to burn and then gather up the wheat to be stored in my barn.’”

151:5.1The mul­ti­tude con­tin­ued to in­crease through­out the week. On Sab­bath Je­sus has­tened away to the hills, but when Sun­day morn­ing came, the crowds re­turned. Je­sus spoke to them in the early af­ter­noon af­ter the preach­ing of Pe­ter, and when he had fin­ished, he said to his apos­tles: “I am weary of the throngs; let us cross over to the other side that we may rest for a day.”

151:5.2On the way across the lake they en­coun­tered one of those vi­o­lent and sud­den wind­storms which are char­ac­ter­is­tic of the Sea of Gal­i­lee, es­pe­cially at this sea­son of the year. This body of wa­ter is al­most seven hun­dred feet be­low the level of the sea and is sur­rounded by high banks, es­pe­cially on the west. There are steep gorges lead­ing up from the lake into the hills, and as the heated air rises in a pocket over the lake dur­ing the day, there is a ten­dency af­ter sun­set for the cool­ing air of the gorges to rush down upon the lake. These gales come on quickly and some­times go away just as sud­denly.

151:5.3It was just such an evening gale that caught the boat car­ry­ing Je­sus over to the other side on this Sun­day evening. Three other boats con­tain­ing some of the younger evan­ge­lists were trail­ing af­ter. This tem­pest was se­vere, not­with­stand­ing that it was con­fined to this re­gion of the lake, there be­ing no ev­i­dence of a storm on the west­ern shore. The wind was so strong that the waves be­gan to wash over the boat. The high wind had torn the sail away be­fore the apos­tles could furl it, and they were now en­tirely de­pen­dent on their oars as they la­bo­ri­ously pulled for the shore, a lit­tle more than a mile and a half dis­tant.

151:5.4Mean­while Je­sus lay asleep in the stern of the boat un­der a small over­head shel­ter. The Mas­ter was weary when they left Beth­saida, and it was to se­cure rest that he had di­rected them to sail him across to the other side. These ex-fish­er­men were strong and ex­pe­ri­enced oars­men, but this was one of the worst gales they had ever en­coun­tered. Al­though the wind and the waves tossed their boat about as though it were a toy ship, Je­sus slum­bered on undis­turbed. Pe­ter was at the right-hand oar near the stern. When the boat be­gan to fill with wa­ter, he dropped his oar and, rush­ing over to Je­sus, shook him vig­or­ously in or­der to awaken him, and when he was aroused, Pe­ter said: “Mas­ter, don’t you know we are in a vi­o­lent storm? If you do not save us, we will all per­ish.”

151:5.5As Je­sus came out in the rain, he looked first at Pe­ter, and then peer­ing into the dark­ness at the strug­gling oars­men, he turned his glance back upon Si­mon Pe­ter, who, in his ag­i­ta­tion, had not yet re­turned to his oar, and said: “Why are all of you so filled with fear? Where is your faith? Peace, be quiet.” Je­sus had hardly ut­tered this re­buke to Pe­ter and the other apos­tles, he had hardly bid­den Pe­ter seek peace where­with to quiet his trou­bled soul, when the dis­turbed at­mo­sphere, hav­ing es­tab­lished its equi­lib­rium, set­tled down into a great calm. The an­gry waves al­most im­me­di­ately sub­sided, while the dark clouds, hav­ing spent them­selves in a short shower, van­ished, and the stars of heaven shone over­head. All this was purely co­in­ci­den­tal as far as we can judge; but the apos­tles, par­tic­u­larly Si­mon Pe­ter, never ceased to re­gard the episode as a na­ture mir­a­cle. It was es­pe­cially easy for the men of that day to be­lieve in na­ture mir­a­cles inas­much as they firmly be­lieved that all na­ture was a phe­nom­e­non di­rectly un­der the con­trol of spirit forces and super­nat­u­ral be­ings.

151:5.6Je­sus plainly ex­plained to the twelve that he had spo­ken to their trou­bled spir­its and had ad­dressed him­self to their fear-tossed minds, that he had not com­manded the el­e­ments to obey his word, but it was of no avail. The Mas­ter’s fol­low­ers al­ways per­sisted in plac­ing their own in­ter­pre­ta­tion on all such co­in­ci­den­tal oc­cur­rences. From this day on they in­sisted on re­gard­ing the Mas­ter as hav­ing ab­so­lute power over the nat­u­ral el­e­ments. Pe­ter never grew weary of recit­ing how “even the winds and the waves obey him.”

151:5.7It was late in the evening when Je­sus and his as­so­ciates reached the shore, and since it was a calm and beau­ti­ful night, they all rested in the boats, not go­ing ashore un­til shortly af­ter sun­rise the next morn­ing. When they were gath­ered to­gether, about forty in all, Je­sus said: “Let us go up into yon­der hills and tarry for a few days while we pon­der over the prob­lems of the Fa­ther’s king­dom.”

123:0.4Joseph and Mary fi­nally took leave of Alexan­dria on a boat be­long­ing to their friend Ezraeon, bound for Joppa, ar­riv­ing at that port late in Au­gust of the year 4 B.C. They went di­rectly to Beth­le­hem, where they spent the en­tire month of Septem­ber in coun­sel with their friends and rel­a­tives con­cern­ing whether they should re­main there or re­turn to Naz­a­reth.

138:7.5The apos­tles spent the re­main­der of the day per­fect­ing their or­ga­ni­za­tion and com­plet­ing ar­range­ments for boats and nets for em­bark­ing on the mor­row’s fish­ing as they had all de­cided to de­vote them­selves to fish­ing; most of them had been fish­er­men, even Je­sus was an ex­pe­ri­enced boat­man and fish­er­man. Many of the boats which they used the next few years had been built by Je­sus’ own hands. And they were good and trust­wor­thy boats.

152:4.1The apos­tles, with­out their Mas­ter—sent off by them­selves—en­tered the boat and in si­lence be­gan to row to­ward Beth­saida on the west­ern shore of the lake. None of the twelve was so crushed and down­cast as Si­mon Pe­ter. Hardly a word was spo­ken; they were all think­ing of the Mas­ter alone in the hills. Had he for­saken them? He had never be­fore sent them all away and re­fused to go with them. What could all this mean?

152:4.2Dark­ness de­scended upon them, for there had arisen a strong and con­trary wind which made prog­ress al­most im­pos­si­ble. As the hours of dark­ness and hard row­ing passed, Pe­ter grew weary and fell into a deep sleep of ex­haus­tion. An­drew and James put him to rest on the cush­ioned seat in the stern of the boat. While the other apos­tles toiled against the wind and the waves, Pe­ter dreamed a dream; he saw a vi­sion of Je­sus com­ing to them walk­ing on the sea. When the Mas­ter seemed to walk on by the boat, Pe­ter cried out, “Save us, Mas­ter, save us.” And those who were in the rear of the boat heard him say some of these words. As this ap­pari­tion of the night sea­son con­tin­ued in Pe­ter’s mind, he dreamed that he heard Je­sus say: “Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.” This was like the balm of Gilead to Pe­ter’s dis­turbed soul; it soothed his trou­bled spirit, so that (in his dream) he cried out to the Mas­ter: “Lord, if it re­ally is you, bid me come and walk with you on the wa­ter.” And when Pe­ter started to walk upon the wa­ter, the bois­ter­ous waves fright­ened him, and as he was about to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” And many of the twelve heard him ut­ter this cry. Then Pe­ter dreamed that Je­sus came to the res­cue and, stretch­ing forth his hand, took hold and lifted him up, say­ing: “O, you of lit­tle faith, where­fore did you doubt?”

152:4.3In con­nec­tion with the lat­ter part of his dream Pe­ter arose from the seat whereon he slept and ac­tu­ally stepped over­board and into the wa­ter. And he awak­ened from his dream as An­drew, James, and John reached down and pulled him out of the sea.

152:4.4To Pe­ter this ex­pe­ri­ence was al­ways real. He sin­cerely be­lieved that Je­sus came to them that night. He only par­tially con­vinced John Mark, which ex­plains why Mark left a por­tion of the story out of his nar­ra­tive. Luke, the physi­cian, who made care­ful search into these mat­ters, con­cluded that the episode was a vi­sion of Pe­ter’s and there­fore re­fused to give place to this story in the prepa­ra­tion of his nar­ra­tive.

80:9.9The Med­i­ter­ra­nean coast­lands did not, how­ever, be­come per­me­ated by the And­ites un­til the times of the great no­madic in­va­sions of 2500 B.C. Land traf­fic and trade were nearly sus­pended dur­ing these cen­turies when the no­mads in­vaded the east­ern Med­i­ter­ra­nean dis­tricts. This in­ter­fer­ence with land travel brought about the great ex­pan­sion of sea traf­fic and trade; Med­i­ter­ra­nean sea-borne com­merce was in full swing about forty-five hun­dred years ago. And this de­vel­op­ment of ma­rine traf­fic re­sulted in the sud­den ex­pan­sion of the de­scen­dants of the And­ites through­out the en­tire coastal ter­ri­tory of the Med­i­ter­ra­nean basin.

79:3.2Not long af­ter con­quer­ing In­dia, the Dra­vid­ian And­ites lost their racial and cul­tural con­tact with Mes­o­po­ta­mia, but the later open­ing up of the sea lanes and the car­a­van routes re-es­tab­lished these con­nec­tions; and at no time within the last ten thou­sand years has In­dia ever been en­tirely out of touch with Mes­o­po­ta­mia on the west and China to the east, al­though the moun­tain bar­ri­ers greatly fa­vored west­ern in­ter­course.