John 21:6Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Although the disciples were two hundred cubits away, Peter still did not wish to wait until the boat came, but hastened by swimming. Christ rose, and He lays aside the garments with which Adam had clothed himself. He was naked, and did not appear naked. Notice the difference: after the Resurrection Christ appeared naked, and Peter was naked. But the one possessed immortality, while the other was still mortal. John recognizes the Lord and says to Peter, “It is the Lord.” O wonder! They did not recognize Him by His voice, but they recognized Him by His works. It is said that Peter took a garment, “for he was naked.” The mortal body is ashamed. The immortal is not ashamed. Let us fall down before Him who clothed us with glory, before Him who clothed the universe with immortality. Let us entreat Him to clothe us with faith, with the hope of salvation, and with the glory of Christ. For to the Father belongs glory, with the Only-begotten Son and the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen. Everywhere we see Peter more zealous than the others and anticipating the others in dangers. Thus, when the Lord appeared to the disciples on the shore, the others were hastening to shore in the boat. But Peter could not wait until the boat came to shore.

Immediately obeying our Savior’s command, the divine disciples let down the net. This indicates to us that they did not seize for themselves the grace of the apostleship. Rather, by His command they went out to spiritual fishing. For He says, “Go, teach all nations” (Mt 28:19). They say that “at the word” of Christ they cast the net. They catch by nothing other than the words of our Savior and the evangelical teachings. Then within the nets that had been cast there was a certain great multitude of fish, so that the disciples could draw them in only with difficulty. Indeed, those caught and brought to faith are countless. This miracle is truly beyond and above the power of the holy apostles. It is the work of Christ, who by His own power gathers the multitude of those being saved into the Church on earth, as into an apostolic net.

In the first case, when the Lord passed by the fishermen whom He had not seen before, they too had caught nothing by night. They had labored earnestly, but in vain. He ordered them to cast the nets, saying neither “on the right” nor “on the left.” He said, “Launch out your nets for a catch” (Lk 5:4).

Thus, before the Resurrection, the nets are simply cast. After the Resurrection, they are cast on the right side. Further, in the first catch the boats were overloaded and the nets were breaking; see Lk 5:6.

Now, in the catch after the Resurrection, neither is the boat overloaded nor is the net torn. When they fished the first time, the number of fish caught was not mentioned. Now, when they fish after the Resurrection, the exact number of fish is given; compare Lk 5:6 and Jn 21:11.

Let us consider the first catch, so that we may come to the second. In the first case we have nets, the nets of the word, the nets of preaching. Nets, then. Let the Psalm say: “I would declare and speak of them, but they are more than can be numbered” (Ps 39:6).

What happens is clear as day. The Gospel is preached, and the number of Christians exceeds measure. If they all lived uprightly, the boat would not be overloaded. If they were not divided by heresies and schisms, the net would not have been torn.

The last catch pertains to the holy Church, which now exists as a small number of strugglers amid a multitude of wicked men. It will remain within a fixed and limited number, where there will be no place for a sinner.

They will be great fish; see Jn 21:11. All will become immortal, appointed for life without end. What can be greater than that which has no end?

The Evangelist wished that first catch of fish to remain in your memory. Otherwise, why did he add after everything: “And although there were so many, the net was not torn” (Jn 21:11)? It is as though he said, “Remember that first catch, when the net was torn.”

Such will be the Kingdom of Heaven. No heretic will bark there, and no schismatic will depart. All will be together, and all will have peace.

Yet that was a parable in word, not in deed. Here, however, through a deed, the Lord indicated how it will be at the end of the age. So too, in that other catch of fish, He indicated what the Church is like now.

What He did there at the beginning of His preaching, He did here after His Resurrection. There He showed that the catch of fish signifies the good and the evil, whom the Church now has. This catch signifies only the good, whom she will possess forever.

This will be after the resurrection of the dead has taken place at the end of this age. Finally, there Jesus did not stand on the shore, as He does here, when He called them to fish.

Instead, He entered one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little from the land. Sitting down, He taught the people from the boat. When He had finished teaching, He said to Simon: “Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a catch” (Lk 5:3-4).

There the fish that were caught lay in the boats, and the net was not drawn to land as it is here. These signs, and others if they can be found, there prefigure the Church in this age. Here they prefigure the Church at the end of the age.

That took place before, and this after the Lord’s Resurrection, because there Christ indicated us as called, and here as raised. There the nets were not cast only on the right side, which would have signified only the good.

Nor were they cast only on the left side, which would have signified only the evil. They were cast on different sides. “Let down,” He said, “your nets for a catch,” so that we might understand good and evil mingled together.

Here, however, He said: “Cast the net on the right side of the boat.” By this He indicated those who will stand at the right hand, that is, only the good.

There the net was torn, to indicate schisms. Here, since in that higher world of the saints there will no longer be any schisms, He allowed the Evangelist to say: “And with such fish, that is, with such great ones, the net was not torn.”

It is as though He indicated that the net had been torn then, and here established the good in opposition to that evil.

Blessed Augustine is referring to Roman finger-counting. The Romans counted units and tens on the fingers of the left hand, and hundreds on the fingers of the right hand. In the Latin text of the Gospel, the pronoun tanti can express both quantity, “so many,” and quality, “so great.”

When Blessed Augustine adds the explanation cum tanti essent, id est tam magni, he shows that both senses are joined in this pronoun. This is fitting, since the Evangelist had already said that the fish were large and that their number was one hundred fifty-three.

Find in the fifth chapter of the Gospel according to Luke the place where it is said: “and likewise James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon” (Lk 5:10), and so forth. Read the interpretation of that place. There you will also find the mystical explanation that applies to these words as well.

Who does not know that the right side represents the good, and the left the evil? Therefore that fishing, at which no definite command was given about which side to cast the net, signifies the present Church. It gathers together both the good and the evil, and does not distinguish those whom it draws in, because it does not know whom it may choose. But this fishing, accomplished after the Lord’s Resurrection, was carried out only on the right side. For only the Church of the elect belongs to the vision of the glory of the Lord’s glorification, and it will have nothing from the work of the left.

This took place in the morning because the Sun of righteousness Himself appeared to us in the flesh. The teaching that gathers and draws out the multitude of those being saved was favorable and successful. Ἐπιδέξιος means right, favorable, successful.

He did not mean bread, but what is added to bread at table, here fish. The disciples answered, “No.” Then the One standing on the shore advised them to cast their nets on the right side of the boat and promised success. The success was extraordinary. The seven could not draw in the nets because of the multitude of fish. Later they counted, for each brother except one, twenty-two large fish. This successful catch probably reminded John of their earlier miraculous catch. He surmised that the Lord Himself was on the shore and immediately told the others. As soon as Simon Peter heard this, he threw himself into the water to come to Jesus more quickly, or so that He might not depart from them. The others also arrived there immediately. On the shore it was no longer they who offered Him refreshment, or a meal, from their catch. He Himself did so, distributing bread and fish to them. If the catch foretold to the disciples the effect of their preaching, then the drawing of the catch to Jesus’ feet foreshadowed the end of their activity in this ministry. It also foretold what success they were to expect. The meal given by Jesus signified the reward from Him in His Kingdom, or the supper in the Kingdom of Heaven. Thus this supper recalled the Last Supper in Jerusalem before the Passion. Yet it also had another special relation to those events.

When the Evangelist John wrote his Gospel, he was about ninety years old. It was very possible that some Christians, recalling Jesus Christ’s words about His beloved disciple, thought that he really would not die. Therefore the Evangelist John explains with special care that the Lord’s words must be understood conditionally (21:22-23). Moreover, in the prediction to Peter of the destiny awaiting him as a preacher and confessor of Christ, the destiny of all Christ’s followers is also prefigured. It concerns their relation to the unbelieving world, among which the Gospel of the Kingdom of God will be preached. The time of this appearance cannot be precisely determined. In general, it belongs to the time when the apostles, at Jesus Christ’s command, returned from Jerusalem to Galilee. It was the third appearance among the appearances to many disciples: the first was 20:19, and the second 20:26. The purpose of this appearance was the restoration of the Apostle Peter, who had denied Christ three times, to his apostolic dignity. Therefore the Risen One appears not just anywhere, but precisely at the Sea of Galilee. He appears precisely during the apostles’ fishing and after the miraculous catch made at Christ’s word. All this had to remind Peter and his companions of the history of their call to follow Jesus, when it was promised that they would one day become fishers of men (Lk 5:1 and following). Just as the fishing figuratively indicated to the apostles their preaching labors, which would be successful with Christ’s help, so the meal Christ then prepared could point its participants to the enjoyment of the blessings of eternal life. This would be their reward for faithful and zealous service to the Gospel. It may also have been significant that the Lord prepared this meal by means of fire. This fire was to remind Peter of the fire in the high priest’s courtyard, around which he denied Christ.

They remembered how their nets were filled with a multitude of fish. John looked at the Man standing on the shore, recognized Jesus in Him, and immediately said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” Peter looks toward the shore and sees that it truly is He. Beside himself with joy, he seizes the first garment at hand, girds his naked body with it, and throws himself into the water to swim to shore as quickly as possible.

First of all, the Lord, as a merciful Father, cares for the disciples’ earthly needs, concealing beneath this care a higher spiritual lesson. The question whether they have food reminds the disciples of the Lord’s words: “Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things” (Mt 6:8, 32; Lk 12:30). Secondly, the command to cast the net after the unsuccessful night’s fishing could not fail to remind at least Peter of his calling: “Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men” (Lk 5:10). Yet John is the first to respond to the remembrance awakened by the Lord in the disciples’ souls.