“And he goeth up into a mountain, and calleth unto him whom he would: and they came unto him.”
Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him — the mountain setting is significant in Mark as in Matthew: mountains are places of divine appointment. Jesus goes up, which in the biblical tradition communicates drawing near to God (Exodus 19, 24; Elijah at Horeb). The calling is sovereign: he called those he wanted — the election of the twelve is Jesus' choice, not their application. And they came to him: the response to the sovereign call is immediate coming. The appointment of the twelve is the formal establishment of the kingdom community's founding leadership, mirroring the twelve tribes of Israel and establishing the reconstituted Israel around the Messiah.
Church Fathers on Mark 3:13
After having forbidden the evil spirits to preach Him, He chose holy men, to cast out the unclean spirits, and to preach the Gospel.
Luke, however, says that He went up to pray, for after the shewing forth of miracles He prays, teaching us that we should give thanks, when we obtain any thing good, and refer it to Divine grace.
Or spiritually, Christ is the mount, from which living waters flow, and milk is procured for the health of infants; whence the spiritual feast of fat things is made known, and whatsoever is believed to be most highly good is established by the grace of that Mountain.
Read all 16 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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