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MARK 1:18 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
Mark 1:17Mark 1:19
“And straightway they forsook their nets, and followed him.”
At once they left their nets and followed him — the immediacy of the response captures the unconditional character of discipleship. The leaving of the nets is not a minor inconvenience but the abandonment of the tools and livelihood that defined their identity. The nets are not stored or handed to someone else — they are simply left. The response is immediate and complete: no negotiation, no request for clarification, no phased transition. This does not mean the disciples understood everything they were getting into — the rest of Mark's Gospel shows how much they misunderstood — but the external response to the call is whole. The narrative model established here will be tested and complicated through every subsequent chapter.

Church Fathers on Mark 1:18

As the Evangelist John relates, Peter and Andrew were disciples of the Forerunner, but seeing that John had borne witness to Jesus, they joined themselves to him; afterwards, grieving that John had been cast into prison, they returned to their trade.

Theophylact · 11th century

Now fishers and unlettered men are sent to preach, that the faith of believers might be thought to lie in the power of God, not in eloquence or in learning. It goes on to say, 'and immediately they left their nets, and followed Him.'

Bede · 8th century · in Marc., 1, 6

Further, we are mystically carried away to heaven, like Elias, by this chariot, drawn by these fishers, as by four horses. On these four corner-stones the first Church is built; in these, as in the four Hebrew letters, we acknowledge the tetragrammation, the name of the Lord, we who are commanded, after their example, to 'hear' the voice of the Lord, and 'to forget' the 'people' of wickedness, and 'the house of our fathers' ' [Ps 45:10] conversation, which is folly before…

Pseudo-Jerome · 5th century
Read all 6 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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