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 one 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,’ with the murder of John the Baptist ; St.
Mark and St. Luke place the two events in juxtaposition, but without making
one to be motive of the other. From St. Mark, indeed, it might appear as
if the 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,” the multitude followed Him; not necessarily
proceeding ‘afoot,’ for pezh (Mark vi.
33) need not imply this, and here does not;’ but ‘by land,’ as distinguished
from Him and his company, who made the passage by sea. They lost so little
time on their journey, that although their way was much longer about than
his, who had only to cross the lake, they ‘outwent' 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 graciously receiving those who
had followed Him with such devotion, He ‘saw much people’ waiting for Him.
This their presence entirely defeated the very intention for which He had
sought that solitude; yet He none the less “received them, and stoke 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 multitudes 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 suggested 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.’
St. John, ever careful to ‘avert a misconstruction of his Lord’s words
(ii. 21; xxi. 22), above all, any which might seem to derogate from his
perfect system of love, does not fail to inform us, that He asked this,
not as needing any council, 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. If we admit this word, we must yet understand it in
its milder sense, as indeed our Version has done, which has given it, ‘to
prove him' (cf. Gen. xxii. 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 i. 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 (2 Kin. iv. 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, the question should be 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 xiv. 8), in proof of the tardiness
of his spiritual apprehension. 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 xiv.
9); as yet he knows not that the Lord whom he serves upon earth 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 that He should dismiss the assemblage.
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 (for them an impossible outlay) in making the necessary
provision, ‘He saith unto them, How many loaves have yet so 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. xi. 22; cf. Ps. lxxviii.
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, expressly 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 as theirs, in St John as still belonging to the lad himself.
With this slender stock of homeliest fare, for St. John informs us that
the loaves were ‘barley loaves’ (cf. 2 Kin. vii. 1; Judg. vii. 13;
Ezek. iv. 12), the Lord undertakes to satisfy all that multitude; (Chrysostom
quotes aptly here Ps. lxxviii. 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. ‘So the men
sat down, in number about five thousand.’ 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 in companies,
‘by hundreds and by fifties,’ and how these separate groups showed in their
symmetrical arrangement like so many garden-plots. It was a wise 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 among the groups, and to minister in orderly succession to the
necessities of all.
The taking of the bread in hand seems to have been a formal act which
went before the blessing or giving of thanks for it’ (Luke xxiv. 30;. I
Cor. xi. 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 The 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 Apostles, 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’ (Psal. cxlv.
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’ (Matt. vi. 33). They had
come taking no thought, for three days at least, of what they should eat
and 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 in which this wonderful bread was
formed.’ It is true wisdom to leave the description of the indescribable
undescribed, and with not so much as an attempt at the description.
They who bear record of these things appeal to the same faith, on the part
of their readers or hearers, 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. xi. 3).
An analogy has been found to this miracle, and, so to speak, a 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, with 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. 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 which finds place in the field is the unfolding of the seed according
to the law of its own being. Thus, if the Lord had 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. 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 up to this point
has unfolded itself, must be crushed and destroyed. A grain of wheat could
never by itself, and according to the laws of 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 product: one can conceive how the oak is enfolded
in the acorn, but not how it could be said to be wrapt 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, we must simply
behold in this multiplying of the bread an act of divine omnipotence 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 sub-stratum 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. 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, which should satisfy the hunger of men; the
unexhausted 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. 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.’
When all had eaten and were satisfied, the disciples gathered 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 (2 Kin. iv. 43, 44; Ruth ii. 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 alone mentions that it was so done with the fishes
as well. 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 (Prov. xi. 24; cf. 2 Kin. iv. 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 truth the prophet
that should come into the world,’ the prophet of whom Moses spake, like
to himself, whom God would raise up (Deut. XV111. 15; cf. John i. 21; Mal.
iii. 1); and how, ever eager for new things, they would fain, with or without
his consent, have made Him their king; for they recognized the kingly,
as well as the prophetic, character of their future Messiah (John i. 50);
and, as St. John’s word may perhaps imply (arpazein),
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. 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 vi. 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.’
But although there is a resemblance between that miracle and this, the
resemblance is more striking between this and another in the Old Testament,
already referred to,—that which Elisha wrought, when with twenty loaves
of barley he satisfied a hundred men (2 Kin. iv. 42-44). All the rudiments
of this miracle there appear; 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 the disciples are incredulous here, 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, may be found in the multiplying of the
widow’s cruse of oil and barrel of meal by Elijah (I Kin. xvii. 16), and
in the other miracle of the oil, which, according to the prophet’s word,
continued to flow so long as there were vessels to receive it (2 Kin. iv.
1-7).
