WE have no data for settling with any exactitude the time of the Apostle's birth. The general impression left on us by the Gospel-narrative is that he was younger than the brother whose name commonly precedes his, younger than his friend Peter, possibly also than his Master. ... He would be trained in all that constituted the ordinary education of Jewish boyhood. Though not taught in the schools of Jerusalem, and therefore, in later life, liable to the reproach of having no recognized position as a teacher, no rabbinical education, he would yet be taught to read the Law and observe its precepts, to feed on the writings of the prophets with the feeling that their accomplishment was not far off. For him too, as bound by the Law, there would be at the age of thirteen, the periodical pilgrimages to Jerusalem. . . .
The ordinary life of the fisherman of the Sea of Galilee was at last broken in upon by the news that a prophet had once more appeared. The voice of John the Baptist was heard in the wilderness of Judaea, and the publicans, peasants, soldiers, and fishermen of Galilee gathered round him. Among these were the two sons of Zebedaeus and their friends. . . . The words "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins" imply that those who heard them would enter into the blessedness of which they spoke. Assuming that the unnamed disciple of John i. 37-40 was the Evangelist himself, we are led to think of that meeting, of the lengthened interview that followed it, as the starting-point of the entire devotion of heart and soul which lasted through his whole life. Then Jesus loved him as he loved all earnest seekers after righteousness and truth. The words of that evening, though unrecorded, were mighty in their effect. The disciples . . . followed their new teacher to Galilee, were with him, as such, at the marriage feast of Cana, journeyed with him to Capernaum, and thence to Jerusalem, came back through Samaria. . . . They gave up the employment of their life and went to do a work like it, and yet unlike, in God's spiritual kingdom. — From Dr. William Smith's Dictionary of the Bible.
