VII. PETER WAS A MARRIED MAN

Akin to this is my next instance [In this argument I am indebted to Nelson (Festivals and Fasts, p. 229), who advances it, however, for a different end, to prove the humility, not the veracity, of St. Matthew.] of consistency without design.

Matth. 10:2.—“Now the names of the twelve Apostles are these: the first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James, the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the publican; James, the son of Alpheus, and Lebbeus, whose surname was Thaddeus; Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.”

This order, as far as regards Thomas and Matthew, is inverted in St. Mark and St. Luke. “Philip and Bartholomew, and Matthew and Thomas, ” is the succession of the names in those two Evangelists (Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15); and by neither of them is the odious, but distinctive, appellation of “the publican” added. This difference, however, in St. Matthew’s catalogue, from that given by St. Mark and St. Luke, is precisely such as might be expected from a modest man when telling his own tale: he places his own name after that of a colleague who had no claims to precedence, but rather the contrary, and, fearful that its obscurity might render it insufficient merely to announce it, and, at the same time, perhaps, not unwilling to inflict upon himself an act of self-humiliation, he annexes to it his former calling, which was notorious at least, however it might be unpopular. I should not be disposed to lay great stress upon this example of undesigned consistency were it a solitary instance, but when taken in conjunction with so many others, it may be allowed a place; for though the order of names and the annexed epithet might be accidental, yet it must be admitted that they would be accounted for at least as well by the veracity of the narrative.