The calling of the twelve apostles (Notes)

Saint Mark - Chapter 3

The calling of the twelve apostles. J-J Tissot

[13] Et ascendens in montem vocavit ad se quos voluit ipse : et venerunt ad eum.
And going up into a mountain, he called unto him whom he would himself: and they came to him.

[14] Et fecit ut essent duodecim cum illo : et ut mitteret eos praedicare.
And he made that twelve should be with him, and that he might send them to preach.

[15] Et dedit illis potestatem curandi infirmitates et ejiciendi daemonia.
And he gave them power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils.

[16] Et imposuit Simoni nomen Petrus :
And to Simon he gave the name Peter:

And Simon He surnamed Peter. Several Greek codices prefix to these words, πρῶτον Σίμων, first Peter. The rest omit them. The same thing is sufficiently gathered from the fact that Peter is here first named by Christ, and his name changed, so that he who was first called Simon, is afterwards called in Syriac Cephas, in Greek and Latin Petrus, that is, a rock, because he was to be made by Christ the rock and foundation of the Church.

[17] et Jacobum Zebedaei, et Joannem fratrem Jacobi, et imposuit eis nomina Boanerges, quod est, Filii tonitrui :
And James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and he named them Boanerges, which is, The sons of thunder:

And James the son of Zebedee (James is named first because he was the elder), and John the brother of James. And he called them Boanerges, which is, Sons of thunder. He saith not name, but names, because they were two. They were thunderers, thundering forth, as it were, Christ’s Gospel and doctrines.

Boanerges: so the Arabic, Egyptian, and Persian. The Ethiopic has Baanerges. This name is a corruption, for in Hebrew, or rather in Syriac, it would be Banerges or Bonerges, as it is found in certain MSS., as Franc. Lucas attests in his Notation. For the Syrians, like the Bavarians and the Westphalians, pronounce the vowel a like o, and e like a. For Semuel they say Samuel, and for bene, or sons, bane. It may be that Banerges has been changed into Boanerges by persons ignorantly supposing that boa signifies the sound of thunder.

Banerges, as Jansen observes, is a compound word, consisting of בַּנֵי, bane, sons, and רֶגֶשׁ, regesch, a roaring, i.e., of thunder. Thus Jupiter is called by the Greeks ὑψιβρεμέτης, loftily roaring, i.e., thundering on high. The Syriac version has in this place bane, reges, sons of thunder, instead of the Hebrew expression, bene raam. For Christ here spake in the Syriac of that age. There is here, then, a metathesis or transposition of the letters r and e, banerges, instead of bane reges. A similar transposition is common in many languages, as Angelus Caninius shows (Hellen. p. 64). Thus, for καρδία the Greek poets say κραδίη, κρατερός for καρτερός; for ιεῦρον the Latins say nervus; for ἅρπαξ, rapax; for μορφή, forma. Punic has gerac for ἄκρα, i.e., arx, a citadel. Etruscan has bigr, virgo, a virgin; darag, gradus, a step; elmara, mulier, a woman; cabbirim, cherubim, &c.

The meaning, then, is as follows: Christ called James and John by a new name, Banerges, Sons of thunder, because He charged them above the rest of the Apostles with the glorious preaching of His Gospel, that by the holiness of their lives and their miracles they might be like thunderbolts, and might, by the power of their voices, shake as with claps of thunder unbelievers and barbarians, and bring them to repentance and a holy life. This appears in the history of S. James. Because of his liberty and zeal in preaching, he was the first among the Apostles to incur the wrath of Herod and the Jews, by whom he was beheaded (Acts 12). The same converted the Spaniards, and by their means the inhabitants of the East and West Indies, to the faith of Christ. John preached for a very long period, and very efficaciously. He was the last of the Apostles to depart this life, which he did after he had subdued Asia and other provinces to Christ by his preaching. Hence, also, his Gospel begins with divine thunder, as it were an eagle of God crying with a voice of thunder, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (S. Epiphanius, Hæres. 73). Wherefore, when he was writing his Gospel, there were lightnings and thunderings from heaven, like as it lightned from Mount Sinai when God gave the law to Moses. So Baronius shows from Metaphrastes (A.D. 99 in fine).

See what I have said on Ezek. 1:14, on the words, “They went like a flash of lightning,” where I have given a threefold meaning to the expression, Sons of thunder. Thus Pericles, as an orator, seemed, says Quintilian, not so much to speak as to thunder and lighten. Wherefore he was called by the poets the Olympian, that is, the heavenly.

[18] et Andraeam, et Philippum, et Bartholomaeum, et Matthaeum, et Thomam, et Jacobum Alphaei, et Thaddaeum, et Simonem Cananaeum,
And Andrew and Philip, and Bartholomew and Matthew, and Thomas and James of Alpheus, and Thaddeus, and Simon the Cananean:

[19] et Judas Iscariotem, qui et tradidit illum.
And Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam