Fishers of Men: What Jesus Meant, Where It Is in the Bible, and the Latin

He called four fishermen off a beach and told them the job was changing. The nets stayed. The catch did not.

Where is "fishers of men" in the Bible?

Matthew 4:18-20. Jesus is walking by the Sea of Galilee and sees two brothers, Simon Peter and Andrew, casting a net. "And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they straightway left their nets, and followed him." A few steps on he finds James and John mending nets in a boat with their father, and they leave the boat and the father both.

Mark 1:17 has the same line, "I will make you to become fishers of men," and Luke 5:1-11 tells the longer version. Peter has fished all night and caught nothing. Jesus tells him to put out into the deep and let down the nets one more time, and the catch is so big it starts tearing the nets and sinking two boats. Peter falls down and says depart from me, I am a sinful man. Jesus says, "Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men."

What does "fishers of men" mean?

It means the apostles' work was going to be bringing people to God, and Jesus described it in the only language they knew. Fishermen do not make fish. They go where the fish are, they work at night when it is hard, they come home empty most of the time, and they go back out. Jesus is not promising them an easy job. He is telling them the job they already know how to do is about to matter forever.

Notice what he says and does not say. He does not say become fishers of men. He says I will make you. The making is his. The following is theirs. And he says it to working men with wet hands, not to the scholars in Jerusalem. The Church was built by four guys who smelled like fish.

Why fishermen?

Partly because that is who was there. Galilee was a fishing economy and Capernaum, where Peter lived, was a fishing town. But the Church Fathers saw more in it. Fishermen are patient. They are used to failure. They work in teams, they fix their own gear, and they know the water can kill them. St. John Chrysostom said Christ chose fishermen so that no one could say the faith spread because of clever men. It spread because of ordinary ones.

And the fish never left the story. The early Christians drew a simple fish on walls and tombs as a password. The Greek word for fish, ICHTHYS, spells out the first letters of "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior." The fishermen became the symbol.

The Fisherman's Ring

Peter was the first one called, and every pope since wears his job title on his hand. The Fisherman's Ring, in Latin the Anulus Piscatoris, shows St. Peter in a boat casting his net. It has been part of the papacy since at least the 13th century and a new one is made for each pope. When a pope dies the ring is defaced so it can never be used again. Two thousand years later the Church is still run by a fisherman.

"Fishers of men" in Latin

That is the Vulgate line. Piscatores hominum, fishers of men, is the phrase that stuck. In the Greek it is halieis anthropon, and the word for men is the general word for human beings, which is the point: everybody is the catch.

The last catch

The story closes where it started. After the Resurrection, in John 21, Peter goes back to fishing. All night, nothing. A man on the shore at dawn tells them to cast on the right side of the boat and they haul in 153 fish without the net breaking. John says it first: it is the Lord. Peter jumps in the water with his clothes on. Then Jesus cooks them breakfast and tells Peter three times to feed his sheep. The fisherman becomes the shepherd. Same man, bigger job.

The hat

Fishers of Men is a camo trucker with the flared cross in blaze orange puff on the front and mesh on the back, in brown camo or olive. It is a hunting hat with a fishing name, which is about right. The verse is the whole brief: go where the people are, dress like you belong there, and let the cross do the talking. Limited fall run, made to order. $38.

"Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."Matthew 4:19

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