24-16. The Miraculous Feeding of Five Thousand

16. The Miraculous Feeding of Five Thousand Mat 14:15-21; Mark 6:35-44; Luk 9:12-17; John 6:5-14 This miracle, with the walking on the sea, which may be regarded as its appendix, is the only one which St. John has in common with the other Evangelists, and this he has in common with them all. It will follow that it is the only miracle of which a fourfold record exists. It will be my endeavour to keep all the narratives in view, as they mutually complete one another. St. Matthew connects the Lord’s retirement to the desert place, on the other side of the lake,^[1] with the murder of John the Baptist; St. Mark and St. Luke place the two events in juxtaposition, but do not make one the motive of the other. From St. Mark, indeed, it might seem as if the Lord’s immediate motive was another, namely, that the Apostles, who were just returned from their mission, might have time at once for bodily and spiritual refreshment, might not be always in a crowd, always ministering “to others, never to themselves. But thither, “into a desert place belonging to the city called Bethsaida”^[2] (John 12:21; Mat 11:21; John 1:45). the multitude followed Him, not necessarily proceeding “afoot,” for the πεζῇ of St: Mark. (vi. 33) need not imply this, and here does not;^[3] but “by land,” as distinguished from Him, who went by sea. This journey they made with such expedition, that’ although their way was much longer about than’ his, who had only to cross the lake, they “outwent” Him, prevented his coming, so that when He “went forth” not, that is, from the ship, but from his solitude, and for the purpose of graciously receiving those who thus had sought Him but, He “saw much people” waiting for Him. This their presence entirely defeated the very intention for which He had sought that solitude; yet He riot the less “received them, And spake unto them of the kingdom of God, and healed them that had need of healing.” St. John’s apparently casual notice of the fact that the passover was at hand, is not so much to fix a point in the chronology of the Lord’s ministry, as’ to explain from whence these great multitudes, that streamed to Jesus, came; they were on their road to Jerusalem, there to keep the feast. The way is prepared for the miracle in a somewhat different manner by the three earlier Evangelists, and by St. John. According to them, “When it was evening his disciples came to Him, saying, This is a desert place, and the time is now past; send the multitude away, that they may go into the villages, and buy themselves meat.” The first suggestion comes here from the disciples; while in St. John it is the Lord Himself who, in his question to Philip, “Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat?” (vi. 5) first contemplates the difficulty. This difference, however, is capable of an easy explanation. Our Lord may have put this question to Philip at a somewhat earlier period of the afternoon; then left the difficulty which He had moved to work in the minds of the Apostles; 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 acknowledged this, then, and not before, stepping in with his higher aid.^[4]

St. John, who is ever careful to avert a misconstruction from the words of his Lord (2:21; 21:22), above all, any which might seem to derogate from his perfect wisdom or love, does not fail to inform us, that He asked this, not as needing any counsel, not as being Himself in any real embarrassment, “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 Version has done, which has given it, “to prove him”^[5] (cf. Gen 22:1). It was “to prove him,” and what measure of faith he had in that Master, whom he had himself already acknowledged the Messiah, “Him of whom Moses in the Law and the prophets did write” (John 1:45). It should now be seen whether Philip, calling to mind the great things which Moses had done, who 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 (2Ki 4:43-44), could so lift up his thoughts as to believe that He whom he had recognized as the Christ, greater therefore than Moses or the prophets, would be equal to the present need. Cyril sees a reason why to Philip, rather than to any other Apostle, this question should have been put, namely that his need of the teaching contained in it was the greatest; and refers to his later words, “Lord, show us the Father” (John 14:8), in proof of the tardiness of his spiritual apprehension.^[6] But whatever the motive which led to the singling of him out for proof, he does not abide that proof. Long as he has been with Jesus, he has not yet seen the Father in the Son (John 14:9); as yet he knows not that the Lord whom he serves is even the same who “openeth his hand and filleth all things living with plenteousness,” who feeds and nourishes all creatures, who has fed and nourished them from the creation of the world, and who therefore can feed these few thousands that are this day more particularly dependent on his bounty. He can conceive of no other supplies save such as natural means could procure, and at once comes to the point: “Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little.” The sum he names, he would of course imply, was much larger than the common purse could yield.

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, the disciples came with their proposal. But the Lord will now bring them yet nearer to the end at which He aims, 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^[7] (for them an impossible outlay) in making the necessary provision, “He saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? go and see.” With their question we may compare that of Moses: “Shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them, to suffice them ?” (Num 11:22. cf. Psa 78:19-20), for there is the same mitigated infidelity in both; the same doubt whether the power of the Lord is equal to that which his word, openly or implicitly, has undertaken. In the interval between their going and their return to Him, they purchase, or rather secure for purchase, the little stock which a single lad among the multitude has to sell; so we may explain that in the earlier Evangelists they speak of the five loaves and two fishes^[8] as theirs, in St. John as still belonging to the lad himself.^[9] With this slender stock of homeliest fare, for St. John informs us that the loaves were “barley loaves” (cf. 2Ki 7:1; Jdg 7:13; Eze 4:12), the Lord undertakes to satisfy all that multitude (Chrysostom quotes aptly here Psa 78:19 : “Shall God prepare a table in the wilderness?”); “for He commanded them to make all sit down by companies on the green grass” at that early spring season a delightful resting-place.^[10] The mention of this “green grass” or “much grass,” is another point of contact between St. Mark and St. John. The former adds another graphic touch, how they sat down in companies, “by hundreds and by fifties” and how these separate groups showed in their symmetrical arrangement like so many garden-plots.^[11] It was a prudent precaution. The vast assemblage was thus subdivided and broken up into manageable portions; there was less danger of tumult and confusion, or that the weaker, the women and the children, should be past over, while the stronger and ruder unduly put themselves forward; the Apostles were able to pass easily up and down along the ranks, and to minister in orderly succession to the necessities of all. The taking of the bread in hand would seem to have been a formal act which went before the blessing or giving of thanks for it^[12] (Luk 24:30; 1Co 11:23). This eucharistic 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. “Having blessed, He “brake and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude;”—the marvellous multiplication taking place, as many affirm, first in the Saviour’s own hands, next in those of the Aposties, and lastly in the hands of the eaters. This may have been so; at all events it was in such a manner that “they did all eat and were filled”^[13] (Psal. 145:16). There was now fulfilled for that multitude the pledge and the promise of the Saviour, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. “They had come taking no thought, for three days at least, of what they should eat or what they should drink, only desirous to hear the word of life, only seeking the kingdom of heaven; and now the lower things, according to the word of the promise, were added unto them.

Here too, even more remarkably than with the water changed into wine, when we endeavour to realize to ourselves the manner of the miracle, it evermore eludes our grasp. We seek in vain to follow it with our imaginations. For, indeed, how is it possible’ to realize to ourselves, to bring within forms of our conception, 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 manner and process in which this wonderful bread was formed. “It is true wisdom, to leave the description of the indescribable unattempted.^[14] They who bear record of these things appeal to the same faith which believes “that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen, were not made of things which do appear” (Heb 11:3). An analogy has been found to this miracle, a certain help to its understanding, in that which year by year is accomplished in the field, where a single grain of corn multiplies itself, and in the end unfolds in numerous ears;—and, having this analogy in view, many beautiful remarks have been made; as this, that while God’s everyday miracles had grown cheap in men’s sight by continual repetition, He had therefore reserved something, not more wonderful, but less frequent, to arouse men’s minds to a new admiration. Others have urged that here, 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, causes more slowly to succeed one another.^[15] But, true as in its measure is this last observation, it must, not be forgotten 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, if a moment after, a large harvest had sprung up, to this the name of such a “divinely-hastened process” might have been fitly applied.^[16] But with bread it is otherwise, 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 wrapt up, and by Him rapidly developed, but with the latest artificial result: one can conceive how the oak is enfolded 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, renouncing all helps of this kind,^[17] we must simply behold in this multiplying of the bread an act of divine omnipotence^[18] on his part who was the Word of God,—not indeed now, as at the first, of absolute creation out of nothing, since there was a substratum to work on in the original loaves and fishes, but an act of creative accretion; a quantitative, as the water turned into wine was a qualitative, miracle, the bread growing 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 satisfy the hunger of men, the inexhausted and inexhaustible source of all life, in whom there should be enough and to spare for all the spiritual needs of all hungering souls in all ages.^[19] 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.”^[20] When all had eaten and were satisfied, the disciples gather up the fragments which remained over of the loaves, that nothing might be lost; only St. John mentions that it is at Christ’s bidding they do this; the existence of these itself witnessing that there was enough for all and to spare (2Ki 4:43-44; Ruth 2:14). For thus, as Olshausen remarks, with the Lord of nature, as with nature herself, the most prodigal bounty goes hand in hand with the nicest and exactest 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. “And they took up of the fragments that remained, twelve baskets full”—for each Apostle his basket. St. Mark mentions that it was so done in like manner with the fishes. This which remained over must have immensely exceeded in bulk and quantity the original stock; so that we have here a visible symbol 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; of the increasing which may go along with a scattering (Pro 11:24; cf. 2Ki 4:1-7).

St. John,—always careful to note whatever actively stirred up the malignity of Christ’s enemies,—to which nothing more contributed than the expression of the people’s favour, all which thus drew on the final catastrophe,—alone tells us of the effect which this miracle had upon the multitude; how “they that had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth the prophet that should come into the world,” the prophet of whom Moses spake, like to himself, whom God would raise up (Deu 18:15); and, ever eager for new things, they would fain, with or without his consent, have made Him their king; and, as St. John’s word may perhaps imply (ἁρπάζειν), being on their way to Jerusalem, would have borne Him with them thither, to install Him there in the royal seat of David. It was not merely the power which He here displayed that moved them so mightily, but the fact that a miracle exactly of this character was looked for from the Messiah. He was to repeat, so to say, the miracles of Moses. As Moses, the first redeemer, had given bread of wonder to the people in the wilderness, even so should the later Redeemer do the same.^[21] Thus too, when the first enthusiasm which this work had stirred was spent, the Jews compare it with that which Moses had done, not any longer to find here a proof that as great or a greater prophet was among them, but invidiously 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 Messias 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 written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat” (John 6:30-31); “while the bread which Thou hast given,” for this much they would imply, “is but this common bread, of earth, with which Thou hast once nourished a few thousands.”^[22] But although there is a resemblance between that miracle and this, the resemblance is more striking between this and another in the O. T., already referred to,—that which Elisha wrought, when with the twenty loaves of barley he satisfied a hundred men (2Ki 4:42-44). All the rudiments of this miracle there appear; ^[23] 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 disciples are incredulous, so there the servitor asks, “Should I set this before a hundred men?” As here twelve baskets of fragments remain, so there “they did eat, and left thereof, “Yet were they only the weaker rudiments of this miracle; a circumstance which the difference between the servants and the Lord sufficiently explains. The prophets having grace only in measure, so in measure they wrought their miracles; but the Son, working with infinite power, and with power not lent Him, but his own, did all with much superabundance. Analogies to this miracle, but of a remoter kind, are to be found in the multiplying of the widow’s cruse of oil and barrel of meal by Elijah (1Ki 17:16), 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 receive it (2Ki 4:1-7).^[24]

Footnotes

[1] Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, p. 371: “The eastern shores of the lake have been so slightly visited and described, that any comparison Of their features with the history must necessarily be precarious. Yet one general characteristic of that shore, as compared with the western side, has been indicated, which was probably the case in ancient times, though in a less degree than at present, namely, its desert character. Partly this arises from its nearer exposure to the Bedouin tribes; partly from its less abundance of springs and streams. There is no recess in the eastern hills, no towns along its banks corresponding to those in the Plain of Gennesareth. Thus the wilder region became a natural refuge from the active life of the western shores. It was ’when He saw great multitudes about Him’ that ’He gave commandment to depart unto the other side; and again He said, ’Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest awhile; for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.’”

[2] Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, p. 374: “’Bethsaida’ is the eastern city of that name, which, from the importance of the new city Julias, built there by Philip the Tetrarch [see Josephus, B. J. iii. 9, 1; Antiq. xviii. 2, 1; and cf. Pliny, H. N. v. 15], would give its name to the surrounding” desert tract. The ’desert place’ was’ either one of the green tablelands visible from the hills on the western side, or more probably part of the rich plain at the mouth of the Jordan. In the parts of this plain not cultivated by the hand of man would be found the ’much green grass,’ still fresh in the spring of the year when this event occurred, before it had faded away in the summer sun,—the tall grass, which, broken down by the feet of the thousands there gathered together, would make as it were ’couches’ (κλισίας) for them to recline upon. “This Bethsaida must be carefully distinguished from “Bethsaida; of Galilee”

[3] Herodotus, vii. 110; Plato, Menex. 239 e.

[4] For the reconciliation of any apparent contradiction, see Augustine, De Cons. Evang. ii. 46.

[5] Πειράζων αὐτόν. Cf. Augustine (De Serm. Dom. in Mon. ii. 9): Illud factum est, ut ipse sibi notus fieret qui tentabatur, suamque desperationem condemnaret, saturatis turbis de pane Domini, qui eas non habere quod ederent existimaverat.

[6] Cramer, Catena. (in loc).

[7] The specifying of this sum as inadequate to the present need is peculiar to St. Mark and St. John: another proof that St. Mark’s Gospel is something else than an epitome now of St. Matthew’s, now of St. Luke’s. It is clear he had resources quite independent of theirs.

[8] Instead of ἰχθύες, St. John has ὀψάρια, both here and 21:9. This word, the diminutive of ὄψον (from ἕψω, to prepare by fire), properly means any προσϕάγιον or pulmentum, anything, as flesh, salt, olives, butter, &c. which should be eaten as a relish with bread. But by degrees, as Plutarch (Symp. iv. 4) remarks, ὄψον and ὀψάριον came in men’s language to be restricted with a narrower use to fish alone, generally salt fish, that being the favourite or most usual accompaniment of bread (see Suicer, Thes. s. v. ὀψάριον, the Diet, of Or. and Mom. Antt. s. v. Opsonium, and Becker, Charikles, vol. i. p. 436).

[9] Grotius: Apud alios Evangelistas dicuntur habere id quod in. promptu erat, ut emi posset.

[10] .....prostrati gramine molli,
Praesertim cum tempestas arridet, et anni
Tempora conspergunt viridantes floribus herbas.

[11] Πρασιαί‚ πρασιαί = areolatim, as in square garden-plots. Theophylact: Πρασιαὶ γὰρ λέγονται τὰ ἐν τοῖς κήποις διάϕορα κόμματα‚ ἐν οἷς ϕυτεύονται διάϕορα πολλάκις λάχανα. Some derive it from πέρας, these patches being commonly on the edges of the vineyard or gar. den; others from πράσον, 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 “by parties” was better. Perhaps “in groups” would be as near as we could get to it in English.

[12] In Matthew and Mark, εὐλόγησε,—in Luke, εὐλόγησεν αὐτούς, sc. τοὺς ἄρτους,—in John, καὶ εὐχαριστήσας which word on occasion of the second multiplying of the bread both Matthew (xv. 36) and Mark (viii. 6) use. The terms are synonymous: cf. Mat 26:27, with the parallels, 1Co 10:16; 1Co 11:24; and see Grotius on Mat 26:26. Origen’s view that our Lord wrought the wonder τῷ λόγῳ καὶ τῇ εὐλογίᾳ, 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 the circumstance of the blessing, and most of all by St. Luke’s words, εὐλόγησεν αὐτούς: cf. John 6:23.

[13] Χορτάζεσθαι, properly, to fodder cattle, was transferred by writers of the later Comedy to the feeding of men; see examples in Athenaeus (Deipnos. in. 56), where one justifies himself for using χορτασθῆναι as—κορεσθῆναι (cf. Sturz, Be Dial. Maced. pp. 200-202).

[14] Thus Hilary (De Trin. iii. § 6): Fallunt momenta visum, dum plenam fragmentis 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; solum superest ut Deus omnia posse credatur. Cf. Ambrose, Exp. in Luc. vi. 85.

[15] Augustine (Serm. cxxx. 1): Grande miraculum: sed non multum mirabimur factum, si adtendamus facientem. Ilia multiplicavit in manibus frangentium quinque panes, qui in terra gerniinautia multiplicat semina. ut grana pauca mittantur, et horrea repleantur. Sed quia illud omni anno facit, nemo miratur. Admirationem tollit non facti vilitas sed assiduitas. And again (In Ev. Joh. tract, xxiv.): Quia enim.... miracula ejus, quibus totum mundum regit, universamque creaturam administrat assiduitate viluerunt, ita ut pene nemo dignetur attendere opera Dei mira et stupenda in quolibet seminis grano; secundum ipsam suam miserieordiam servavit sibi quaedam quas faceret opportuno tempore praetor usitatum cursum ordinemque naturae, ut non majora sed insolita videndo stuperent, quibus quotidiana viluerant.... Illud mirantur homines, non quia majus est, sed quia rarum 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. Panes autem illi quinque quasi semina erant, non quidem terrae mandata, sed ab eo qui terrain fecit, multiplicata. And again, 8erm. cxxvi. 3: Quotidiana miracula Dei non facilitate sed assiduitate viluerant.....Mirati sunt homines, Dominum Deum nostrum Jesum Christum de quinque panibus saginasse tot millia, et non mirantur per pauca grana impleri segetibus terras.... Quia tibi ista viluerant, venit ipse ad facienda insolita, ut et in ipsis solitis agnosceres Artificem tuum. Cf. Serm. ccxlvii.

[16] In the apocryphal Evangelium S. Thomae such a miracle is ascribed to the child Jesus; the miraculous, however, not consisting in 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 cors, which He distributes to the poor (Thilo, Cod. Apocryphus, p. 302).

[17] 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 endeavouring 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 diffused from Him. But these analogies may be sought out and welcomed in a very different spirit, in the hope, by the aid of these, of escaping from the miraculous in the miracle altogether; as when some have eagerly snatched at these same facts of animal magnetism, not as lower and remote analogies, but as identical, or wellnigh identical, facts with the miraculous healings of our Lord.

[18] Augustine (In Ev. Joh. tract, ix.): Omnipotentia Domini quasi fons panis erat; and again (Enarr. ii. in Ps. Exodus 10): Fontes panis erant in manibus Domini.

[19] Thus Prudentius: Tu cibus panisque noster, tu perennis suavitas; Nescit esurire in aevum qui tuam sumit dapem, Nee lacunam ventris implet, sed fovet vitalia.

[20] Verbum Dei est Christus, qui non solum sonis sed etiam factis loquitur hominibus; cf. In Ev. Joh. tract, xxiv.: Interrogemus ipsa miracula quid nobis loquantur de Christo; habent enim, si intelligantur, linguam suam.

[21] Schoettgen (Hor. Heb. in loc, from the Midrasch Coheleth): Quemadmodum Goël primus, sic quoque erit postremus. Goël primus descendere fecit Man, q. d. Exo 16:4, Et pluere faciam vobis panem de coelo. Sic quoque Goël postremus descendere facit Man, q. d. Psa 72:16, Erit multitudo frumenti super terrain.

[22] Tertullian (Adv. Mare. iv. 21): Non uno die, sed annis quadraginta, nec de inferioribus materiis panis et piscis, sed de mannâ coelesti, nec quinque circiter sed sexcenta millia hominum protelavit.

[23] Tertullian notes this prefiguration of the miracles of Christ in those of his servants, against the Gnostics, who would fain have cut loose the New T. from the Old, and found not merely distinction, but direct opposition, between them (Adv. Marc. iv. 21): Invenies totum hunc ordinem Christi circa ilium Dei hominem, qui oblatos sibi viginti hordeaceos panes cum populo distribui jussisset, et minister ejus proinde comparatâ multitudine et pabuli mediocritate, respondisset, Quid ergo hoc dem in conspectu centum hominum? Da, inquit, et manducabant,.... O Christum et in novis veterem! Haec itaque quae viderat, Petrus, et cum pristinis comparat, et nontantum retro facta, sed et in futurum jam tune prophetantia recognoverat, interroganti Domino, quisnam illis videretur, cum pro omnibus responderet, Tu es Christus, non ’potest non eum sensisse Christum, nisi quem noverat in scripturis, quem jam recensebat in factis.

[24] I have promised, p. 81, a specimen or two of the rationalist explanations of the miracles. It were thrice to slay the slain to enter at the present time 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 assumes that, though many of the multitude had nothing to eat, there were others who had some stock and store by them; which was the more probable on the present occasion, as we know that the Jews, when travelling to any distance, used to carry their provisions with them,—and of this multitude many were thus coming from far to the passover at Jerusalem. These stores they had hitherto withheld from the common needs; but now, put to shame by the free liberality of Jesus, they brought forth and distributed, He having first led the way, and freely imparted the little stock at his own 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 exalted an ordinary event into a miracle, but that this is what they actually intended to relate. It is, for example, 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 Paulus replies that they indeed affirm nothing of the kind; that St. John, so far from asserting this (ver. 13), is rather accounting for the fact that there should be any residue whatsoever, explaining why the Lord should have had need (ver. 12) to bid gather up a remnant at all, 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 which ver. 13 affirms, which verse he thus explains: “For they got together (συνήγαγον οὖν) and had filled ἐγέμισαν, an aor. 1 for plusq. perf.) twelve baskets with fragments (i. e. with bread broken and prepared for eating) of the five loaves, which were more than enough (ἃ ἐπερίσσευσε) for the eaters; “—so that St. John is speaking, not of remnants after the meal, but of bread broken before the meal. That this should be called presently after a σημεῖον (ver. 14) does but mean a sign of his humanity and wisdom, by which He made a little to go so far. But this may suffice.