It needed that the waters should be stirred, before any power went forth
for their cure. This motion of the pool was the perturbation of the
Jewish people at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then powers
were stirring for their healing, and he who " went doion" he who hum-
bly believed in his Incarnation, in his descent as a man amongst us, who
was not offended at his lowly estate, he was healed of whatsoever disease
he had.* Such are the most important uses in this kind that have been
made of this history.
* Enarr. 1â„¢* in Ps. Ixx. 15: Merito lex per Moysen data est, gratia et Veritas per
Jesum Christum facta est. Moyses quinque libros scripsit ; sed in quinque porticibus
piscinam eingcntibus languidi jacebant, sed curari non poterant . . . Illis enim quinque
porticibus, in figura quinque librorum, prodebantur potius quiim sanabantur asgroti . . .
Venit Dominus, turbata est aqua, et crucifixus est, descendat ut sanetur segrotus. Quid
est, descendat ? Humiliet se. Ergo quicumque aniatis litteram sine gratia, in porti-
cibus remanebitis, aegri eritis; jacentes, non convalescentes: de liltera enim prae-
sumitis. Cf. Enarr. in Ps. Ixxxiii. 7: Qui non sanabatur Lege, id est porticibus,
sanatur gratia, per passionis fidem Domini nostri Jesu Christi. Cf. Serm. 125: Ad
hoc data est Lex, quae proderet aegrotos, non quae tolleret. Ideo ergo aegroti illi qui in
domibus suis secretins aegrotare possent, si iliac quinque porticus non essent, prode-
bantur oculis omnium in illis porticibus, sed h porticibus non sanabantur . . . Inten-
dite ergo. Erant illae porticus legem significantes, portantes aegrotos, non £3anantes
prodentes, non curantes. Cf. In Ev. Joh., Tract. 17.
XVI.
THE MIRACULOUS FEEDING OF FIVE THOUSAND.
Matt. xiv. 15—21 ; Mark vi.35— 44 ; Luke ix. 12—17 ; John vi. 5—14.
In St. Matthew the Lord's retiring to the desert placewhere this miracle
was performed, connects itself directly with the murder of John the
Baptist, (ver. 13.) He, therefore, retired, his hour not being yet come.
St. Mark and St. Luke put also this history in connection with the ac-
count of the Baptist's death, though they do not give that as the motive
of the Lord's withdrawal. St. Mark, indeed, mentions another reason
which in part moved him to this, namely, that the disciples, the apostles
especially, who were just returned from their mission, might have time
at once for bodily and spiritual refection and refreshment, might not be
always in a crowd, always ministering to others, never to themselves.
(vi. 31.) But thither, into the wilderness, the multitude followed him,
proceeding, not necessarily ^^ afoot" (Mark vi, 33,) but "by land," as
contradistinguished from him who went by sea : and this with such ex-
pedition, that although their way was much further than his, they " out-
went " him, anticipated his coming, so that when he " went forth,"* not,
that is, from the ship, but from his solitude, and for the purpose of gra-
ciously receiving those who thus came, he found a great multitude
waiting for him. Though this their presence was, in fact, an entire
defeating of the very purpose for which he had withdrawn himself
thither, yet not the less " he received them, and spake unto them of the
kingdom of God, and healed them that had need of healing " (Luke ix.
11.) St. John's apparently casual notice of the fact that the Passover
was at hand, (vi. 4,) is not so much with the intention of giving a point
in ,the chronology of the Lord's ministry, as to explain whence these
* 'E^EXeuK, (Matthew, Mark,) = Se^ajxevoi airovs, (Luke.)
214 THE MIRACULOUS FEEDING
great multitudes came, that streamed to Jesus : they were journeying
towards Jerusalem to keep the feast.
There is this difference in the manner in which the miracle is intro-
duced by the three Evangelists, and by St. John, that they make the
first question concerning the manner of providing for the needs of the
assembled crowds to come from the disciples, in the shape of a proposal
that the Lord, now that the day was beginning to decline, should dismiss
them, thus giving them opportunity to purchase provisions in the neigh-
boring villages ; while in St. John it is the Lord himself who first sug-
gests the difficulty, saying to Philip, '• Whence shall we buy bread that
these may eat V (vi. 5.) This difference, however, is capable of an
easy explanation. It may well have been that our Lord spake thus
unto Philip at a somewhat earlier period in the afternoon ; and then left
the difficulty and perplexity to work in the minds of the apostles, prepar-
ing them in this way for the coming wonder which he was about to
work ; bringing them, as was so often his manner, to see that there was
no help in the common course of things, — and when they had acknow-
ledged this, then, and not before, stepping in with his higher aid.*
The Lord put this question to Philip, not as needing any counsel,
not as being himself in any real embarrassment, 'â– ''for he himself knew
what he would do,'' but "tempting him," as Wiclif's translation has it,
— which word if we admit, we must yet understand in its milder sense,
as indeed our later translators have done, who have given it, " to prove
him."'f (Gen. xxii. 1.) It was to prove him, what manner of trust he
had in him whom he had himself already acknowledged the Messiah, —
" him of whom Moses in the Law and the prophets did write," (John i.
45,) — and whether, remembering the great things which Moses had
done, when he gave the people bread from heaven in the wilderness, and
the notable miracle which Elisha, though on a smaller scale than that
which now was needed, had performed, (2 Kin. iv. 43, 44,) he could so
lift up his thoughts as to believe that he whom he had i-ecognized as the
Christ, greater therefore than Moses or the prophets, would be sufficient
to the present need. Cyril sees a reason why Philip, rather than any
other apostle, should have been selected to have this question put to him,
namely that he had the greatest need of the teaching contained in it ;
and refers to his later words, " Lord, show us the Father," (John xiv.
* For the reconciliation of any apparent contradiction, see Augustine, Be Cons.
Evang., 1. 2, c. 46.
t Uetpa^wv airnv. Cf. AuGUSTiNE, De Sertn. Dom. in Mon., 1. 2, c. 9 : Illud factum
est, ut ipse sibi notus fieret qui tentabatur, suamque desperationem condeninaret, saturatis
turbis de pane Domini, qui eas non habere quod ederent existimaverat.
OF FIVE THOUSAND. 215
8,) in proof of the tardiness of his spiritual apprehension.*"' But whether
this was so or not, Philip does not on the present occasion abide the proof.
Long as he has been with Jesus, he has not yet seen the Father in the
Son, (John xiv. 9,) he does not yet know that his Loi'd is even the same
who openeth his hand and fiUeth all things living with plenteousness,
who feedeth and nourisheth all creatures, who has fed and nourished
them from the creation of the world, and who therefore can feed these
few thousands that are now waiting on his bounty. He has no thought
of any other supplies save such as natural means could procure, and at
once names a sum, " two hundred pence," as but barely sufficient, which
yet he would probably imply was a sum much larger than any which
they had in their common purse at the moment. f
Having drawn this confession of inability to meet the present need
from the lips of Philip, he left it to work ; — till, somewhat later in the
day, " when it was evening, his disciples came to him " with the proposal,
the only one which suggested itself to them, that he should dismiss the
crowds, and let them seek for the refreshment which they required in
the neighboring hamlets and villages. But the Lord will now bring
them yet nearer to the end which he has in view, and replies, " They
need not depart ; give ye them to eat :" and when they repeat with one
mouth what Philip had before affirmed, asking if they shall spend two
hundred pence, (for them an impossible thing,) on the food required,
(Mark vi. 37,) he bids them go and see what supplies they have actually
at command. With their question we may compare Num. xi. 22,
" Shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them to suffice them ?" for
in either question there is a mitigated infidelity, a doubt whether the
hand of the Lord can really reach to supply the present need, though
his word, here indeed only impliedly, has undertaken it. In the interval
between their going and their return to him, they purchase, or rather
secure for purchase, the little stock that is in possession of a single lad
among the multitude ; and thus is explained that in the three first Evan-
gelists, the disciples speak of the five loaves and two fishes:j: as theirs,
* Cramer's Catena (in loc.)
t The specifying of this sum as inadequate to the present need is peculiar to St.
Mark and St. John : another of the many evidences against the view that would make
St. Mark's Gospel nothing but an epitome now of St. Matthew's, now of St. Luke's.
It is clear he had resources quite independent of theirs.
X Instead of iy6u£s. St. John has uxpapia, both here and xxi. 9. This word, the
diminutive of o^/ov (from ct^co, to prepare by fire,) properly means any Tzpoatpiyiov or
pulmentum, any thing, as flesh, salt, olives, butter, &c., which should be eaten as a
relish with bread. But by degrees, as Plutarch {Symp., 1. 4, c. 4,) remarks, the terms
o!//oi/ and u^apiov came in men's language to be restricted with a narrower use to fish
216 THE MIRACULOUS FEEDING
that is, standing at their command, in St. John as rather belonging to
the lad himself.*
With this slender stock of homeliest fare,f the Lord undertakes to
satisfy all that multitude, (Chrysostom quotes aptly here Ps. Lxxviii. 26 :
"Shall God prepare a table in the wilderness ?") and bids his disciples
to make tlicm all recline on the " gree?i grass," at that season of the
year a delightful resting-place,:}: and which both by St. Mark and St.
John is noted to have abounded in the place. St. Mark adds another
graphic touch, how they sat down in companies, which consisted some
of fifty, some of a hundred, and how these separate companies showed
in their symmetrical arrangement like so many garden plots. § In this
subordinate circumstance we behold his wisdom, who is the lord and
lover of order. Thus, all disorder, all noise and confusion were
avoided ; there was no danger that the weaker, the women and the chil-
dren, should be passed over, while the stronger and ruder unduly put
themselves forward ; thus the apostles were able to pass easily up and
down among the multitude, and to minister in orderly succession to the
necessities of every part.
The taking of the bread in hand would seem to have been a formal act
going before the blessing or giving of thanks for it.|| This eucharistic
alone, generally salt fish, that being the favorite or most usual accompaniment of bread.
(See Stjicer's Thes., s. v. dipdpioi', The Diet, of Gr. and Rom. Antt., s. v. Opsonium,
and Becker's Charikles, v. 1, p. 436.)
* Grotius : Apud alios Evangelistas dicuntur habere id quod in promptu erat, ut
emi posset.
t The loaves are " barley loaves," the food even then, for the most part, of beasts
and not of men (vile hordeum ; cf. 2 Kin. vii. 1.) Thus in the Talmud one says,
" There is a fine crop of barley," and another answers, " Tell this to the horses and
asses." It was one of the indignities to which a Roman soldier who had quitted his
ranks was submitted, that he was fed on barley instead of wheaten bread. (Liv., 1. 27,
c. 13 ; SuETON., August., 24. See Wetstein on John vi. 9.)
J ... prostrati gramine molli,
Prxsertira cum tempestas ariidet, et aiini
Tempora conspergunt viridantes floribus Iierbas.
§ Upaaiai, ffpa(nai=areolatim. The TToatTta'i are the square garden plots, in which
herbs are grown. Theophylact: Ilpao-Jai yap Xtyoi/rai to iv rots Kfjirois 6id(pupa KSjXfiaTa,
iv ols ipvTtiovrai Sta
opa ttoXXolkis Xd^^ava. Some derive it from nipas, these patches being
commonly on the edges of the vineyard or garden ; others from irpdcrav, porrum, the
onion being largely grown in them. Our English " in ranks," does not reproduce the
picture to the eye, giving rather the notion of continuous lines. Wiclif s was better,
"by parties." Perhaps "in groups," would be as near as we could get to it in
English.
II In Matthew and Mark, ev\6yno-e, — in Luke, tiJAdy/jo-cv avrois, sc. tovs dprovs, — in
OF FIVE THOUSAND. 217
act Jesus accomplished as the head of the household, and according to
that beautiful saying of the Talmud, " He that enjoys aught without
thanksgiving, is as though he robbed God." The words themselves are
not given ; they were probably those of the ordinary grace before meat
in use in Israel. Having blessed the food, he delivered it to tlie apos-
tles, who in their turn distributed to the different tables, if such they
might be called, — the marvellous multiplication taking place, as many
say, first in the hands of the Saviour himself, next in those of the apos-
tles, and lastly in the hands of the eaters ; yet at all events so that " they
did all eat and were filled.^'* Of that multitude we may fitly say, that
in them the promise of the Saviour, " Seek ye first the kingdom of God,
and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you,"
found a practical fulfilment. They had come taking no thought, for
three days at least, of what they should eat or what they sould drink,
only anxious to hear the word of life, only seeking the kingdom of Hea-
ven ; and now the meaner things, according to the word of the promise,
were added unto them.
Here too, even more than in the case of the water changed into
wine, when we seek to realize to ourselves the manner of the miracle, it
evermore eludes our grasp. We seek in vain to follow it with our ima-
ginations. For, indeed, how is it possible to realize to ourselves, to
bring within forms of understanding, any act of creation, any becoming?
how is it possible in our thoughts to bridge over the gulf between not-
being and being, which yet is bridged over in every creative act ? And
this being impossible, there is no force in the objection which one has
made against the historical truth of this narrative, namely, that " there
is no attempt by closer description to make clear in its details the man-
ner and process in which this wonderful bread was formed." But this
is the wisdom of the sacred narrator, to leave the description of the in-
describable unattempted.f His appeal is to the same faith which believes
John, KoX sii^aptarfiaas, and this is the word v/hich on the occasion of the second mira-
cle of the same kind both Matthew (xv. 36,) and Mark (viii. 6,) use. There can be
no doubt that the terms are synonymous: in further proof, compare Matt. xxvi. 27,
with the parallels, 1 Cor. x. 16; xi. 24. See Grotius on Matt. xxvi. 26. The view
of Origen, that our Lord wrought the wonder m> XoyM kuI t^ tv\oyia, that this moment
of taking the loaves into his hand and blessing, was the wonder-crisis, is sustained by
the fact that all four Evangelists bring out this circumstance of the blessing, and most
of all by St. Luke's words, ciXoyriacy av roi s .
* Xuprd^o^ai was applied originally, as its derivation from xup"? shows, to the
foddering of cattle. The use of it as applied to men belongs chiefly to the later comic
writers, — see the examples adduced by Athenaeus, {Deipnos., 1. 3, § 56,) where one is
justifying himself for using -^^^opraadrivai. as ^^KopiaOrjvai.
t Thus Hilary {De Trin., 3, § 6) : Fallunt momenta visum, dum plenam frag-
15
218 THE MIRACULOUS FEEDING
'' that the wsrlds were formed hy the Word of God, so that things which
are seen, were not made of things which do appear.'"' (Heb. xi. 3.)
An analogy has been found to this miracle, and as it were a help to
the understanding of it, in that which God does yearly in the corn-field,
where a simple grain of corn cast into the earth multiplies ilself, and in
the end unfolds in numerous ears ; — and out of this thought many beau-
tiful remarks have been made ; — as tliis, that while God's every-day
miracles had grown cheap in men's sight by continual repetition, he
had therefore reserved something, not more wonderful, but more out of
use, to awaken men's minds to a new admiration ; — or, that as in the
case of the water made wine, he did but compress into a single moment
all those processes which in ordinary circumstances he, the same Lord of
nature, caused more slowly to follow one upon another.* But true as
in its measure is this last observation, yet it cannot be left out of sight
that the analogy does not reach through and through. For that other
work in the field is the unfolding of the seed according to the law of its
own being : thus, had the Lord taken a few grains of corn and cast
them into the ground, and in a moment after, a large harvest had sprung
up, this might have been termed such a divinely-hastened process.f
mentis manum sequeris, alteram sine damno portionis suae contueris . . . Non sensus
non visus profectum tam inconspicabilis operationis assequitur. Est, quod non erat ;
videtur quod non intelligitur ; solilm superest ut Deus omnia posse credatur. Cf.
Ambrose, Exp. in Luc, 1. 6, c. 85.
* Augustine {Serm. 130, 1): Grande miraculum: sed non multilm mirabimur
factum, si adtendamus facientem. lUe multiplicavit in manibus frangentium quinque
panes, qui in terra germinantia multiplicat semina, ut grana pauca mittantur, et horrea
repleantur. Sed quia illud omni anno facit, nemo miratur. Adrairationem loUit non
facti vilitas sed assiduitas. And again {In Ev. Joh., Tract. 24): Quia enim ....
miracula ejus, quibiis totum mundum regit, universamque creaturam a.dministrat assi-
duitate viluerunl, ita ut pane nemo dignetur attendere opera Dei mira et stupenda in
quolibet seminis grano ; secundum ipsam suam misericordiam servavit sibi quffidam
quae faceret opportuno tempore praeter usitatum cursum ordinemque natura, ut non
majora sed insolita videndo stuperent, quibus quotidiana viluerant . . . Illud mirantur
homines, non quia ma jus est, sed quia raram est. Quis enim et nunc pascit universum
mundum, nisi ille qui de paucis granis segetes creat ? Fecit ergo quomodo Deus.
Unde enim multiplicat de paucis granis segetes, inde in manibus suis multiplicavit
quinque panes. Potestas enim erat in manibus Christi. Fanes autem illi quinque
quasi semina erant, non quidem terraj mandata, sed ab eo qui terram fecit, multipli-
cata. And again, Serm. 126, c. 3: Quotidiana miracula Dei non facilitate sed assi-
duitate viluerant. . . . Mirati sunt homines, Dominuin Deum nostrum Jesum Christum
de quinque panibus saginasse tot millia, et non mirantur per pauca grana impleri sege-
tibus terras . . . Quia tibi ista viluerant, venit ipse ad facienda insolita, ut et in ipsis
solitis agnosceres Artificem tuum. Cf. Serm. 247.
t In the apocryphal Evangelium S. Thoma such a miracle is ascribed to the child
OF FIVE THOUSAND. 219
But with bread it is different, since before that is made there must be
new interpositions of man's art, and those of such a nature as that by
them the very life, which hitherto unfolded itself, must be crushed and
destroyed. A grain of wheat could never by itself, and according to
the laws of its natural development, issue in a loaf of bread. And,
moreover, the Lord does not start from the simple germ, from the lifeful
rudiments, in which all the seeds of a future life might be supposed to be
wrapped up, and by him rapidly developed, but with the latest artificial
result : one can conceive how the oak is unfolded in the acorn, but not
how it could be said to be wrapped up in the piece of timber hewn and
shaped from itself. This analogy then even as such is not satisfying :
and, foregoing any helps of this kind,* we must simply behold in this
multiplying of the bread an act of divine omnipotencef on his part who
was the Word of God, — not indeed now, as at the first, of absolute cre-
ation out of nothing, since there was a substratum to work on in the
original loaves and fishes, but an act of creative accretion ; the bread
did grow under his hands, so that from that little stock all the multitude
were abundantly supplied : " they did all eat and were filled."
Thus He, all whose works were " signs," and had a tongue by
which they spoke to the world, did in this miracle proclaim himself the
true bread of the world, that should assuage the hunger of men, the
Jesus, not indeed as regards the swiftness, but the largeness of the return. He goes
out at sowing time with Joseph into the field, and sows there a single grain of wheat ;
from this he has the return of a hundred cars, which he distributes to the poor of the
place. (Thilo's Cod. Apocryphus, p. 302.)
* The attempt to find in the natural world analogies, nearer or more remote, for
the miracles, may spring from two, and those very opposite, sources. It may be that
men are endeavoring herein to realize to themselves, so far as this is allowed them, the
course of the miracle, and by the help of workings not wholly dissimilar, to bring it
vividly before the eye of their mind, — delighted in thus finding traces of one and the
same God in the lower world and the higher, and in marking how the natural and
supernatural are concentric circles, though one wider than and containing the other
as when in animal magnetism analogies have been found to the healing power which
streamed forth from Christ, and this even by some who have kept this obscure and
perilous power of our lower nature altogether distinct from that pure element of light
and life, which went forth and was diffiased from him. Or these analogies may be
sought out and snatched at in a very different spirit, in the hope of escaping from the
miraculous in the miracle altogether ; because in them there seems an approximation
to such an escape ; as when some have eagerly snatched at these same facts of animal
magnetism, not as lower and remote analogies, but as identical, or well-nigh identical
facts, with the miraculous healings of our Lord.
t Augustine {In Ev. Joh., Tract. 9) : Omnipotentia Domini quasi fons panis erat ;
and again {Enarr. 2* in Ps. ex. 10) : Fontes panis erant in manibus Domini.
220 THE MIRACULOUS FEEDING
inexhausted and inexhaustible source of all life, in whom there should
be enough and to spare for all the spiritual needs of all hungerintr souls
in all ages.* For, in Augustine's language, once already quoted, " He
was the Word of God ; and all the acts of the Word are themselves
words for us ; they are not as pictures, merely to look at and admire,
but as letters which we must seek to read and understand. "f
When all had eaten and were satisfied, the Lord bade the disciples
to gather up the fragments which remained of the loaves, that nothing
mi"-ht be lost : the existence of these was itself a witness that there
was enough and more than enough for all. (2 Kin. iv. 4-3, 44 ; Ruth ii.
14.) St. Mark makes mention that it was so done also with the fishes.
For thus with the Lord of nature, as with nature herself^ the most pro-
dio-al bounty goes hand in hand with the nicest and truest economy, and
he who had but now shown himself God, again submits himself to the
laws and proprieties of his earthly condition, so that as in the miracle
itself his power, in this command his humility, shines eminently forth.
At this bidding they collected fragments, which immensely exceeded in
bulk and quantity the amount of provision with which they began.
They filled twelve baskets with these. An apt symbol this of that love
which exhausts not itself by loving, but after all its outgoings upon
others, abides itself far richer than it would have done but for these, of
the multiplying which there ever is in a true dispensing. (Compare
2 Kin. iv. 1 — 7, and Prov. xi. 24 : " There is that scattereth, and yet
increaseth.")
St. John, — who is ever careful to note whatsoever hastened and drew
on the final catastrophe, whatsoever actively stirred up the malignity of
Christ's enemies, whereto nothing more contributed than the expression
of the people's favor, — he alone tells us of the effect which this miracle
had upon the assembled multitude, how they recognized Jesus as the
expected prophet, as him of whom Moses had foretold, the prophet like
unto himself (Deut. xviii. 15,) whom God would raise up for them ; and
that, ever eager for new things, they would fain have set him at their
head, the king and liberator of the nation. It was not merely the
power which he here displayed that moved them so greatly, but it was