The feeding of the four thousand was a second, separate miracle
The second multiplication of loaves, given even to Gentiles, shows Our Lord was not afraid to deal with those whom corrupt religious authorities held to be "unclean."
The second multiplication of loaves, given even to Gentiles, shows Our Lord was not afraid to deal with those whom corrupt religious authorities held to be "unclean."
Editor's Notes
On the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, the Church reads St Mark’s account of the feeding of the four thousand.
It takes place after healing the Syrophoenician woman’s daughter and the deaf-mute man in Decapolis; before Our Lord’s return to Galilee and the confrontation with the Pharisees over ritual purity.
Although some might assume that it is simply a retelling of the feeding of the five thousand, it is in fact the second multiplication of loaves. Nor can this be doubted: both St Matthew and St Mark recount it as the second such miracle.
If this were not so, many would assume that it must be otherwise. As Coleridge mentions at the end of the chapter, this incident is a standing warning against those who have “a false estimate of the accuracy of the Sacred Texts,” and who approach them without the docility necessary for Christians.
The two miracles of this kind are also a double rebuke to those who try to make “the real miracle” a mere sharing of food amongst the crowd.
In this piece, Fr. Coleridge tells us…
How Christ repeats the miraculous multiplication of loaves in order to manifest his compassionate providence for those who come to him.
That this second feeding reveals his mercy toward Gentiles, whom the Gospels show were clearly present – and his desire to train the Apostles in trust.
Why the crowd’s need draws forth Our Lord’s generosity without request or complaint.
The Feeding of the Four Thousand
The Training of the Apostles, Part IV, Chapter VII
St. Matt. xv. 29—39; St. Mark viii. 1–10.
Story of the Gospels, § 78
Burns and Oates, London, 1885
Read on the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost.
Scene of the miracle
The miracle which has just been spoken of was probably wrought by our Lord as He passed through the region of Decapolis on His way to the scene of that of which we are now to speak.
It is not the custom of St. Mark, who is the only Evangelist who relates the miracle of the Ephpheta, to dwell with great care on the spots of the incidents of which he speaks. He mentions here the presence of a multitude, from which the subject of the miraculous cure was withdrawn by our Lord before the cure itself was wrought. Although we find that a multitude was present at the great miracle of the second multiplication of the loaves, this is not enough to make it certain that it was on the same spot that these two miracles took place, and it does not seem likely that our Lord would act so differently in the case of this single person, and in the case of all the rest of the subjects of His miracles at this time.
We suppose therefore that He passed on from the place where He had cured the deaf and dumb person, just mentioned, until He came to the spot on which the second miraculous feeding was to be wrought, which seems to have been in the same part as the scene of the former miracle of the same kind. St. Matthew speaks of it as ‘the’ mountain, as if it was a well-known place, perhaps the scene of some other of the great incidents in our Lord’s Life, whether before or after the Resurrection. This Evangelist begins his account by a summary mention of this journey of our Lord from the parts of Tyre and Sidon, where He had delivered the daughter of the Syrophoenician woman from the devil in answer to her importunate prayer and wonderful faith.
Character of the crowds
‘And when Jesus had passed away from thence, He came nigh to the sea of Galilee, and going up into a mountain, or the mountain, He sat there,’ (that is, He remained there for a short time.)
‘And there came to Him great multitudes, having with them the dumb, the blind, the lame, the maimed, and many others, and they cast them down at His feet, and He healed them. So that the multitudes marvelled, seeing the dumb speak, the lame walk, the blind see, and they glorified the God of Israel.’
It is quite possible that this multitude may have been from very different parts of the country from those which had furnished the crowds who had been present near the same spot on the former occasion of the multiplication of the loaves. In that case they seem to have come in great part from the other side of the lake, or the parts in which our Lord was well known, though He had been absent from them for some months, or at least for many weeks.
It had now become so habitual with Him to retire from the ordinary scenes of His preaching and working of miracles, on account of the persecution which so continually haunted His footsteps, that whenever it was known that He had appeared near these familiar spots, the people would naturally gather in crowds to avail themselves of the benefits of His presence. Thus, in the account of the former miracle we have it distinctly mentioned that the people came over the lake to Him in boats, while others made a circuit by land to reach the spot where He was.
Partly Gentiles
On this occasion the crowds gathered together may probably have come from the towns of Decapolis itself, and others in the neighbourhood. Their minds may have been prepared for our Lord’s beneficence by the narrative of the man out of whom He had cast the legion of devils. If this is the case, they would have been a simple, ignorant population, composed in some large proportion of Gentiles, living in the midst of Jews, on the very outskirts of the Holy Land.
This is made more probable by the fact that there is no mention in the account of this miracle of any teaching of our Lord, but only of His miraculous cures. And at the end of the account we are told by St. Matthew that they glorified the God of Israel, as if they were not all of the chosen people themselves.
If this be so, we may see a kind of family character about the miracles of this period. They begin with the importunate mother, the Syrophoenician woman, whom our Lord at first will not listen to, because she is not of the house of Israel. She is the first to break down the wall of partition, as it were, of which we have mention in the Epistles of St. Paul.
We cannot tell how many of the persons healed on the present occasion were simply Gentiles, but we know that the population of that part was largely mixed, and therefore it is probable that there were many such among the objects of our Lord’s mercy. It would probably have been mentioned by the Evangelists if the persons cured, of whom special mention is made, the deaf and dumb man, of whose cure we lately spoke, and the blind man healed at Bethsaida, of whom we shall speak presently, had been Gentiles.
But perhaps the comparative difficulty, at least the comparative labour, of our Lord in working these cures may have had some connection with the deficient faith or ignorance of the populations among whom His course now for a time lay. It is certain that we do not find all these circumstances mentioned in other parts of the Gospel history.
Our Lord’s words
‘And Jesus called together His disciples, when there was a great multitude and had nothing to eat. Calling His disciples together, He saith to them, I have compassion on the multitude, for behold they have now been with Me three days and have not what to eat. And if I shall send them away fasting to their homes, they will faint by the way, for some of them came from afar off.’
It may very well have been in the mind of our Lord to repeat the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves at a short interval, for the sake of the great doctrine with which, as we have seen, it was connected, and thus His prudence in regulating the gradual disclosure of His great purposes and mysteries to His disciples and others may have come to the aid, so to say, of the intense tenderness of His compassionate Heart.
It is certain that the miracle in this case, as in the other, was unsolicited, mainly for the reason that no one but Himself could have thought of such an excess of love, providing not only for the needs of the soul, and the diseases and the infirmities of the body, but also for possible sufferings of hunger, which might last for a short time, but which could not be very serious.
Dulness of the disciples
The greatest gifts of the free bounty of God are constantly those which are most unexpected and unasked for, for this very reason, that men cannot rise to the intelligence of the extreme mercifulness and compassion of their Creator and Father, as if the whole of the creation and government of the world were not a simple act of munificence on His part, proceeding from no necessity to Him, and carried on at no gain whatever to Him.
Even the disciples do not seem to have risen to the height of the comprehension of what He had it in His mind to do, although we do not read on this occasion, as on the former occasion, that they came of themselves to suggest to our Lord to send the multitudes away. They only say, after He has spoken to them of His own intention, that it will be difficult to feed them all in the wilderness, difficult, that is, in any ordinary manner, though not difficult to the immense mercy and power of God of which they had had so much experience in the series of His miracles.
‘And His disciples answered Him, Whence can any one fill them here with bread in the desert? Whence, then, should we have so many loaves in the desert as to fill so great a multitude?’ There is nothing about going into the villages round about, and buying bread for so many hundred pence. We may suppose, therefore, that they had not quite forgotten the former miracle, though they had not the confidence to answer Him plainly, ‘Lord, give them to eat.’
In the next part we will see what this miracle teaches us about the Gospels themselves.
The Feeding of the Four Thousand
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