* Thus Prudentius : —
Tu cibns pauisqae noster, tu perenuis suavilas ;
Nescit esurire in X'vum qui tuam sumit dapem,
Ncc lacnnain ventris implet, sed Tovet vitalia.
t Verbum Dei est Christus, qui iion solum sonis sed ctiam factis loquitur homini-
bus. And In Ev. Joh., Tract. 24 : Interrogemus ipsa miracula quid nobis loquantur
(le Christo ; hebent enim, si intelligalitur, linguam suam.
OF FIVE THOUSAND. 221
because a miracle of this very kind was one looked for from the Mes-
siah. He was to repeat, so to say, the miracles of Moses. As he, the
first redeemer, had given bread of wonder to the people in the wilder-
ness, even so should the later Redeemer do the same.* Thus too, when
the first enthusiasm which this miracle had caused was over, the Jews
compare it with that which Moses had done, not apy longer to find here
a proof that one with like or greater powers, was among them, but in-
vidiously to depress the present by comparison with the past miracle ;
and by the inferiority which they found in this, to prove that Jesus was
not that Messiah who had a right to rebuke and command them. " What
sign showest thou, that we may see and believe thee ? What dost thou
work ? Our fathers did eat manna in the desert, as it is wxitten. He
gave them bread froin heaven to eat," (John vi. 30, 81 ;) while thine,
they would say, is but this common bread of earth, with which thou
hast once nourished a few thousands. f
But although there is a resemblance between that miracle and this,
yet the resemblance is more striking between this and another in the
Old Testament, — that which Elisha wrought, when with the twenty
loaves of barley he satisfied a hundred men. (2 Kin. iv. 42 — 44.) All
the rudiments of this miracle there appear â– ,f the two substances, one
artificial, one natural, from which the many persons are fed, as here
bread and fish, so there bread and fresh ears of corn. As here the dis-
ciples are incredulous, so there the servitor asks, "Should I set this be-
fore a hundred men ?" as here twelve baskets df fragments remain, so
there " they did eat and left thereof." Yet were they only the weaker
* Schoettgen (ffor. J/e6., ill loc, from the Midrasch Coheleth) : QuemadmodLim
•Goel primus, sic quoque erit postremus. Goel primus descendere fecit Man, q. d. Ex-
od. xvi. 4, Et pluere faciam vobis panem de coelo. Sic quoque Goel postremus descen-
xlere facit Man, q. d. Ps. Ixxii. 16, Erit multitude frumenti super terram.
t TertuUian (Adv. Marc, 1. 4, c. 21) : Non uno die, sed annis quadraginta, nee
de inferioribus materiis panis et piscis, sed de manna ccelesti, nee quinque circiter sed
sexcenta millia hominum protelavit.
X Tertullian notes this prefiguration of the miracles of Christ in those of his ser-
vants, against the Gnostics, who would fain have cut loose the New Testament from
the Old, and found not merely distinction but direct opposition between the two {Adv.
Marc, 1. 4, c. 21) : Invenies totum hunc ordinem Christi circa ilium Deihominem, qui
oblatos sibi viginti hordeaceos panes cCim populo distribui jussisset, et minister ejus
proinde comparata multitudine et pabuli mediocritate, respondisset. Quid ergo hoc dem
in conspectu centum hominum ? Da, inquit, et manducabant . . . O Christum et in
novis veterem ! Hsc itaque quae viderat, Petrus, et cum pristinis comparat, et non tan-
tum retro facta, sed et in futurum jam tunc prophetantia recognoverat, interroganti
Domino, quisnam illis videretur, ciim pro omnibus responderet, Tu es Christus, non po-
test, non eum sensisse Christum, nisi quern noverat in scripturis, quern jam recensebat
ixi factie.
222 MIRACULOUS FEEDING OF FIVE THOUSAND.
rudiments of this miracle, and this for reasons which more than once
have been noted. Chrysostom bids us observe this difference be-
tween the servant and tlie Lord; how the prophets having grace only
in measure, so in measure they wrought their miracles ; but the Son,
working with infinite power, and that not lent him but his own, did all
with much superabundance.* Analogies to this miracle, but of a re-
moter kind, are to be found in the multiplying of the widow's cruse o^
oil and her barrel of meal by Elijah, (1 Kin. xvii. 16,) and in that
other miracle of the oil, which, according to the prophet's word,
continued to flow so long as there were vessels to contain it. (2 Kin. iv.
l-7.)t
* Tertullian (Adv. Marc, 1. 4, c. 35) : Cum aliter utique Dominus per semetipsum
operetnr, sive per Filium ; aliter per Frophetas famulos suos, masime docunienta
virtutis et potestatis ; quae ut clariora et validiora, qu.'i propria, distare k vicariis
fas est.
f I have promised at page 69 an example or two of the rationalist explanations of
the miracles. It were to slay the slain to enter now-a-days on a serious refutation of
them ; new forms of opposition to the truth have risen up, but this has gone by ; yet as
curiosities of interpretation, they may deserve a passing notice. This then is the
scheme of Paulus for a natural explanation of the present miracle. He supposes that,
however many there were of the multitude who had nothing to eat, there were others
who had stock and store by them ; which was the more probable on the present occa-
sion, as we know that the Jews, when travelling to any distance, were accustomed to
carry their iirovisions with them, — and of this multitude many were thus coming from
far to the passover at Jerusalem. These stores, although hitherto they had withheld
fi-om the common needs, yet now, put to shame by the free liberality of Jesus, they
brought forth and distributed, when he had shown them the example, and had himself
first done this with the small stock, at his command. Many difficulties certainly seem
to stand in the way of this, — that is, of the Evangelists having actually meant to relate
this ; for Paulus does not say that they made a mistake, and turned an ordinary even;
into a miracle, but that this is what they actually intended to record. It is, for exam-
ple, plainly a difficulty that, even supposing the people to have followed " the example
of laudable moderation" which Jesus showed them, there should have remained twelve
baskets of fragments from his five loaves. But to this he replies that they indeed affirm
nothing of the kind. St. John, for instance, (vi. 13,) is not asserting this, but is ac-
counting for the fact that there should be any residue at all, explaining why the Lord
should have had need (ver. 12) to bid gatl>er up a remnant, from the circumstance that
the apostles had set before the people so large a supply that there was more than
enough for all ; — and it is exactly, he says, this whidi ver. 13 affirms, which verse he
thus explains: "-For they got together (awfiYayov ow) and had filled {iyijiiaav, an aor.
I. forplusq. perf.) twelve baskets with fragments (t. c.with bread broken and prepared
for eating) of the five loaves, which were more than enough (5 tTrtpiaatvae) to the
eaters ;" — so that John is speaking, not of remnants after the meal, but of bread broken
before the meal. That this should be called presently after a an^ciov (ver. 14), does
but mean a sign of his humanity aiid wisdom, by which he made a little to go so fay-
But this may suffice.
XVII.
THE WALKING ON THE SEA.
Matt. xiv. 22—33 ; Mark vi. 45—52 ; Luke vi. 14—21.
The three Evangelists who narrate this miracle agree in placing it in
immediate sequence to the feeding of the five thousand, and on the eve-
ning of the same day. The two first relate, that when all was over
and the multitude were fed, the Lord " straightway constrained his disci-
ples to get into a ship,'' a phrase in itself not very easily accounted for,
and finding probably its best explanation in the fact which St. John
alone relates, that the multitude desired to take Jesus and make him a
king. (vi. 15.) It is likely that the disciples had notice of this purpose
of the multitude, — indeed, they could scarcely have avoided knowing
it ; and this was exactly to their mind, so that they were most unwilling
to be parted from their Master in this hour, as they deemed it, of his
approaching exaltation. St. Jerome gives the reason more generally,
that they were reluctant to be separated even for a season from their be-
loved Lord.* While he was dismissing the assemblage, they were to
return, according to St. Mark, to Bethsaida, which does not contradict
St. John, when he says they ''went over the sea towards Capernaum ;''
since this Bethsaida, not the same which St. Luke has made mention of
but just before, and which for distinction was called Bethsaida Julias,
but that of which we have already mention, (John i. 44,) the city of
Philip and Andrew and Peter, lay on the other side of the lake, and
in the same direction as, and in the neighborhood of, Capernaum. St.
Matthew, and St. Mark with him, would seem to make two evenings to
this day, — one which had already commenced ere the preparations for
the feeding of the multitude had begun, (ver. 15 ;) the other, now
* So ChrySOStom : To " /ji/ayKa^tc" Si elnev, Ttlv iroXXi;!' irpoaeSpiav SeiKvii tmv jiaQrjTwv.
224 THE WALKING ON THE SEA.
when the disciples had entered into the ship and begun their voyage.
(ver. 23.) And this was an ordinary way of speaking among the Jews,
the first evening being very much our afternoon, (compare Luke ix. 12,
where the "evening" of Mattliew and Mark is described as the day be-
ginning to decline ;) the second evening* being the twilight, or from six
o'clock to twilight ; on which the absolute darkness followed. It was
the first evening, or afternoon, when the preparations for feeding the five
thousand commenced ; the second, when the disciples had taken ship.
But in the absence of their Lord they were not able to make any
effectual progress : " the wind was contrary," and the sea was rough :
their sails, of cour^, could profit them nothing. It was now " the
fourth watch of the night" near morning therefore, and yet with all their
efforts and the toil of the entire night, they had not accomplished more
than "five and twenty or thirty furlongs" scarcely, that is, more than
half of their way, the lake being forty or forty-five furlongs in breadth.
Probably they were ever finding themselves more unable to proceed, the
danger probably was ever heightening-r-when suddenly they see their
Lord " walking on the sea"] and already close to their bark.
* 'Otpia ScvTcpa.
t Many have supposed that there is a scoff against this miracle intended by Lucian
(Ver. Hist., 1. 2, c. 4,) in his account of the cork-footed race, ('^cXXdn-occf,) whom in
his voyage he past M rov TTc\dyovs Stadeovra;. I confess it seems to me a question whether
so expert a scoffer, if he had meant this, would not have done it better ; while at the
same time the hint which he gives, 1. 1, c. 2, that there is something under these ab-
surd and extravagant travellers' tales which he has strung together, that they contain
every one allusions to the fables and portents of poels and historians and philosophers,
makes it not altogether improbable ; and in the Fhilopseudes, where there seem to me far
more evident allusions to the miracles of the Gospel, — as for instance, a miraculously-
healed man taking up his bed, (c. 11,) the expulsion of the evil spirit from a demoniac,
(c. 16,) reminding one singularly of that recorded Mark ix. 14 — 29; this also of walk-
ing on the water recurs (c. 13,) among the incredible things proposed for the wise man's
belief. Not otherwise the Golden City of the Blest, with its diamond walls, its floors
of ivory, and its trees bearing fruit every month, {Ver. Hist., 1. 2, c. 11 — 13,) may very
well be written in rivalship and in ridicule of the description of the New Jerusalem,
Rev. xxi. ; as the story of the great multitude of men who are comfortably housed for
some years in the belly of a whale (76., 1. 1, c. 30 — 42,) may be intended in the same
way to be an outdoing of the story of Jonah and his three days' abode in a like place,
which we know from more allusions than one was an especial object of the flouts of
the heathen. See Augustine, Ep. 102, qu. 6; and Josephus {Antt.,\. 9, c. 10, §2,)
who aimed to make his words acceptable to the cultivated Roman world, gets over it
with a Xoyoj — as some say. On the point of view under which Lucian contemplated
Christianity there is an essay by Krebs, De Malitioso Luciani Consilio, i^c, in his
Opusc. Acad., p. 308 ; and the subject is discussed in Tzschirner's Fall des Heiden-
thums, p. 320.
THE WALKING ON THE SEA. 225
After they had left him, and when he had likewise " sent the multitudes
away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray, and when even was come,
he was there alone." But from thence, with the watchful eye of love,
" he sato them toiling in rowing," (cf. Exod. iii. 7 ; Ps. Ivi. 8,) and now,
so soon as they had made proof that without him they could do nothing,
he was with them once more. For it had been his purpose in all this,
as Chrysostom well brings out, to discipline and lead them up to ever
higher things than they had learned before. In the first storm he was
present in the ship with them ; and thus they must have felt all along,
that if it came to the worst they might rouse him, and the very conscious-
ness of his presence must have given them the 'sense of comparative
security. But he will not have them to be clinging only to the sense of
his bodily presence, — as ivy, needing always an outward support, — but
as hardy forest trees which can brave a blast ; — and this time he puts
them forth into the danger alone, even as some loving mother-bird
thrusts her fledglings from the nest, that they may find their own wings
and learn to use them. And by the issue he will awaken in them a
confidence in his ever-ready help ; for as his walking over the sea must
have been altogether unimagined by them, they may have easily de-
spaired of that help reaching them, and yet it does not fail them. When
he has tried them to the uttermost, " in the fourth watch of the night,"
he appears beside them, thus teaching them for all their after life, in all
coming storms of temptation, that he is near them ; that however he
may not be seen always by their bodily eyes, however they may seem
cut off from his assistance, yet is he indeed a very present help in the
needful time of trouble.
Nor can we, I think, fail to recognize the symbolic character which
this whole transaction wears. As that bark was upon those stormy
seas, such is oftentimes the Church. It seems as though it had not its
Lord with it, such little way does it make; so baffled is it and tor-
mented by the opposing storms of the world. But his eye is on it still ;
he is in the mountain apart praying ; ever living, an ascended Saviour,
to make intercession for his people. And when at length the time of
urgent need has arrived, he is suddenly with it, and that in marvellous
ways past finding out, — and then all that before was laborious is easy,
and the toiling rowers are anon at the haven where they would be.*
* Thus Bede : Labor discipulorum in remigando et contrarius eis ventus labores
sanctae Ecclesiae varies designat, quae inter undas seculi adversantis et immundorum
flatus spirituum ad quietem patriae ccElestis, quasi ad fidani litoris stationem, pervenire
conatur. Ubi bene dicitur, quia navis erat in medio mari et ipse solus in terra : quia
nonnunquam Ecclesia tantis Gentiiium pressuris non solCim afflicta, sed et fedata est,
226 THE W A J.KING ON THE SEA.
The disciples were terrified at the first apparition of the Lord, ^^for
they supposed it had been a spirit :"* even as often he is mistaken still,
when he comes to his people in some unaccustomed form, by some un-
wonted way, in the shape of some aflliction, in the way of some cross ;
they too cry out for fear, though indeed he comes charged with blessing.
They mistake him for some terrible phantom, till his well-known voice,
his " Fear not, it is /," reassures them, and they know with whom they
have to do.f And yet, if indeed it was he, and if he was indeed com-
ing to the help of his own, that which perplexed them the most, being
seemingly a contradiction of any such purpose, was, that when he came
nigh to the bark, "he would have passed them by.'' (Mark vi. 48.) It
perplexed them for a moment ; it has perplexed others lastingly : for it
has been said by those who are seeking to discover inner inconsisten-
cies in the Gospels, Why wish to pass them by and to escape them,
when he was coming for this very purpose, that he might reassure them
and aid them ? and when he was no sooner discovered, or at least de-
tained by their cries, than he ascended into the ship where they were ?
There can be no doubt tiiat this, even as every other dealing of God
with his people, is difficult to be understood of them, to whom the
standing point of faith is altogether strange. This apparent passing by',
on the Lord's part, of his disciples, was that by which their prayer was
to be called out, that he would 7iot pass them by, that he would not for-
sake them.:}: Exactly in the same way, walking with his two disciples
to Emmaus, after his Resurrection, " he made as though he would have
gone further," thus drawing out from them the entreaty that he would
abide. And at the root of what a multitude of God's other dealinss
ut, si fieri posset, Redemptor ipsius earn prorsus deseruisse ad tempus videretur . . .
Videt [tameii] Dominus laborantes in mari, quamvis ipse positus in terra. ; quia esti ad
horam differre videatur auxilium tribulatis impendere, nihilominus eos, ne in tribulation-
ibus deficiant, suae respectu pietatis corroborat, et aliquando etiam manifesto adjutorio,
victis adversitatibus, quasi calcatis sedalisque fluctuum voluminibus, liberal. Cf. Au-
gustine, Serm. 75. So, too, Anselm {Horn. 3) : Nam quia insurgunt fluctus, potest
ista navicula turbari, sed quia Christus orat, non potest mergi.
* ^aiiTaa/xa =: (pacr^ia vVKTcpiv6v. (Job XX. 8.)
t Calvin: Pii . . . audito ejus nomine, quod illis est certum et divini amoris et
suae salutis pignus, quasi h. morte in vitam excitati animos colligunt, et quasi serenum
coelum hilares conspiciunt, quieti in terril resident, et omnium malorum victores ejus
praesidium onmibus periculis opi)onunt.
X Augustine (J)e Cons. Evans., 1. 2, c. 47) : Quomodo ergo eos volebat praBterire,
quos paventes ita confirmat, nisi quia ilia voluntas preetereundi ad elicicndum ilium
clamorem valebat, cui subveniri oportebat ? Com. a Lapide : Volebat prseterire eos,
quasi eos non curans, nee ad eos pertinens, sed ali6 pergens, ut in cis metum et clamo-
rem excitaret.
THE WALKING ON THE SEA. 227
does something of the same kind lie : so that this is not an insulated cir-
cumstance, but one which finds its analogies every where in the Scrip-
ture, and in the Christian life. What part does Christ sustain here dif-
ferent from that which in the parable of the unjust judge, (Luke xviii.
2,) or the churlish friend, (Luke xi. 5,) he makes God to sustain ? or
different from that which he himself sustained when he came not to the
help of the sisters of Bethany when their need seemed the highest '?
And are not all such cries of the faithful in the Psalms as this, " Lord,
why hidest thou thy face ?" confessions that he does so deal with his
servants^ that by delaying and seeming to pass by, he calls out their
faith, and their prayers that he would come to them soon and abide with
them always ?
But now, being as it were detained by that cry, he at once scatters
and rebukes their fears : " 5e of good cheer, it is I ; he not afraid."
Whereupon follows that characteristic rejoinder of Peter, which, with
its consequences, St. Matthew alone records : " Lord, if it he thou,
hid me come unto thee on the water. ^'' That "jf" must not be inter-
preted as implying any doubts upon his part whether it was the Lord or
not : a Thomas, indeed, may have desired to have him with him in the
ship, ere he would fully believe that it was no phantom, but the Lord
himself; but the fault of a Peter would not be in this line. Rather do
the words mean : " Since it is thou, command me to come unto thee."
He feels rightly that Christ's command must go before his coming.
And, doubtless, there was in the utterance of this desire the promptness
of love, which made him desire to be where his Lord was. (Cf. John
xxi. 7.) It may be, too, that he would fain compensate for that excla-
mation of terror in which he had joined with the rest, by an heroic act
of courage and affiance. Yet, at the same time, was there, as the issue
proved, something mingling with all this, which made the whole inci-
dent a rehearsal of his greater presumption and greater fall, which
should hereafter come to pass. In that " Bid me," the fault lay. He
would go before the other disciples; he would signalize himself by a
mightier testimony of faith than any of the others will dare to render.
It is but again, "Although all shall be offended, yet will not I."
We should not fail to observe, and with reverence to admire, the
wisdom and love of the Lord's answer. Another, having enough of
spiritual insight to detect the fault which lurked in Peter's proposal,
might yet by a coarser treatment have marred all, and lost for one in
Peter's condition the lesson which it so much imported him to receive ;
had he, for instance, bid him to remain where he was, at once checking
the outbreaks of his fervent spirit, which, when purified from all of
earthly which clung to them, were to carry him so far in the work of
228 THE WALKING ON THE SEA.
his Lord, and quite losin
failure he should win. But with more gracious and discriminating wis-
dom the great Master of souls; who yet, knowing what the event must
prove, pledges not himself for the issue of his coming. Peter had said,
" Bid vie" but lie does not reply, " 1 bid thee." Peter had said to
"come to thee," but he does not reply, "Come to me," — only " Come;"
that is, "Come, if thou wilt; make tlie experiment, if thou desirest."
In that " Come," an assurance is indeed involved that Peter should
not be wholly swallowed up by the waves, but no pledge for the suc-
cessful issue of the feat; which yet, according to his faithfulness, would
have been involved, had his words been the entire echo of his disciple's.
This successful issue depended upon Peter himself, — whether he should
keep the beginning of his confidence firm unto the end. And the Lord,
who knew what was in him, knew that he would not ; — that this was
not the pure courage of faith ; — that what of carnal overboldness there
was in it would infallibly be exchanged, when the stress of the trial
came, for fear and unbelief.
And so it proved. Peter for a while did walk — so long as he looked
to his Lord and to him only, he also was able to walk upon the un-
steady surface of the sea ; to tread upon the waters which for him also
were not waves. But when he took counsel of flesh and blood, when he
saw something else besides Jesus, when, because " he saw the wind
boisterous, he was afraid," then he began to sink, — not, that is, his feet
only to be wetted, but he began to be submerged ; and he who thought to
make a show openly of his greater courage before all the other disciples,
must now in the presence of them all confess his terror, and reveal the
weakness, as he had thought to display the strength, of his failh. In this
his peril his swimmer's art (John xxi. 7) profits him nothing; for there
is no mingling of nature and grace in this way. He who has entered
the wonder- world of grace must not suppose that he may fall out of it at
any moment that he will, and betake himself to liis old resources of na-
ture ; he has foregone these, and must carry out what he has begun, or
fail at his peril.
But Peter has to do with one who will not let him greatly fall ; his
experience shall be that of the Psalmist : " When I said. My foot slip-
peth, thy mercy, O Lord, held me up." His " Lord, save me," is an-
swered at once. " Immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught
him." And then how gracious the rebuke ! " Thou little believing,"
not, "Thou unbelieving;" and " Wherefore didst thou doubt?" not,
" Wherefore didst thou come ?" not checking, as he then would have
done, the future impulses of his servant's boldness, but rather encour-
aging them, showing him how he could do all things through Christ
THE WALKING ON THE SEA. 229
StrenjTthening him, and that his fault lay, not in having undertaken too
mucli, but in having too little believed the strength that would uphold