How did the second multiplication of the loaves flow from the first?
Christ repeats the miracle of the loaves to demonstrate his compassion—and to test the disciples’ readiness to expect new favours in light of past ones.
Christ repeats the miracle of the loaves to show the constancy of his compassion—and to test the disciples’ readiness to expect new favours in light of past ones.
Editor’s Notes
In this piece, Fr. Coleridge tells us…
How Christ feeds a second multitude, repeating the former miracle with slight yet telling differences.
That this repetition teaches about both divine Providence and human weakness.
Why even the disciples failed to draw confidence from a past miracle, despite its recent memory.
He shows us that one miracle is meant not to satisfy but to stir up faith for the next.
He also shows us the care with which we should approach the Gospel text, as discussed in the previous part (which also has further details about the importance and context of this incident in Christ's life).
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.
The feeding of the four thousand was a second, separate miracle
How did the second multiplication of the loaves flow from the first?
The seven loaves
‘And Jesus said to them, How many loaves have you? And they said, Seven, and a few little fishes. And He commanded the multitude to sit down upon the ground.’
There is no mention now of the green grass, though the spot appears to have been nearly, if not actually, the same with the scene of the former miracle. For the season had now advanced towards the beginning of our summer, as it seems, and the heat of the sun’s rays would have dried up the herbage.
‘And taking the seven loaves and the fishes and giving thanks, He brake, and gave to His disciples, and the disciples gave and set them before the people. And they had a few little fishes, and He blessed them, and commanded them to be set before the multitude. And they did all eat, and were filled.
‘And they took up of that which was left of the fragments seven baskets full. And they that had eaten were about four thousand men, beside women and children. And He sent them away.’
The circumstances of the miracle are almost identical with those of the former miracle.
There is the same orderly arrangement of the people, the same solemn act of thanksgiving, and then of breaking the bread, the same use of the disciples as the ministers to the people of the multiplied food, and the same abundant and copious remainder after the four thousand men, beside women and children, had taken their fill. There is nothing here about the people consulting together to take our Lord by force and make Him a King.
But our Lord is evidently anxious to send them away speedily, and He Himself leaves at once the scene of the miracle with His disciples, and sails to the other side of the lake to a part which the two Evangelists call by a different name. St. Matthew speaks of it as the coasts of Magedan, and St. Mark as the parts of Dalmanutha. It must be supposed that the part of the country must have been called indifferently by one name or by the other.
Comparison with the former miracle
A few remarks may be added by way of comparison of this miracle with the other which it so much resembles. Like as the two are, there is yet an individuality about each of them.
The first great feeding of the multitudes may be considered as having been wrought especially with a view to the doctrine which it was intended to introduce. Like the miracle at Cana, also a miracle of great sacramental import, it was worked under circumstances of comparatively small necessity.
The people were not far from their homes, there were villages in the neighbourhood to which they might have gone to furnish themselves with food, and they had only been the greater part of a single day with our Lord. The circumstances were planned by our Lord with a view to the doctrine which was to follow. It was not very difficult for the audience, or a considerable part of them, to find their way to the synagogue of Capharnaum. The impression produced was probably greater, as it was the first occasion of any such wonder.
The second miracle of feeding is rather more the miracle of the Providential care of God than of the doctrine of the Blessed Sacrament.
The people abandon themselves to our Lord. They forget their own wants. Our Lord shows the most tender care and forethought for them. The Apostles do not come to Him, as on the former occasion, to ask Him to send the people away. He calls them to Him and speaks of the needs of the multitude, of their faithfulness in remaining with Him so long, of their having come from far, of the danger of their fainting by the way.
He shows the tenderest knowledge and consideration of all their wants and possible sufferings, and He supplies them all out of the abundance of His compassion.
Trial of faith
Again, the repetition of the miracle seems not to have been without a deliberate design on the part of our Lord with regard to His own disciples. He seems to have made the second occasion a kind of trial of their confidence in Him. It seems as if He expected them to suggest that what He had done before He should do again.
The marvel of the feeding of the faithful on the Body and Blood of our Lord was to be in the Church a daily marvel, repeated all over the world. It seems as if the miracle which was to resemble it in so many particulars was meant by our Lord to have some kind of resemblance to it in this respect, by being twice repeated within a very short number of weeks, and that He wished His disciples to look on the power which He had already once exercised as not likely to be left unexercised on other occasions.
It seems almost strange to us that the people who witnessed the first miracle of the loaves, were almost led by it to hope for a renewal of the daily showers of manna, and yet that the disciples on this second occasion of the presence of a great and famished multitude did not anticipate the renewal of the miracle in their favour. But so it is, in our petty appreciations of the goodness and power of God. He means one great favour to be the spur to the prayer and confidence which may win from Him a succession of others, as great, or greater, but we think it rather a reason that we should not expect favours, that we have had them granted before.
Illustration of the Gospel narratives
This second miracle of the multiplication of the loaves is valuable to us incidentally in the explanation and intelligence of the several Gospel narratives. It is quite certain that, if this miracle of the feeding of the four thousand had been mentioned by one Evangelist only, and the other of the feeding of the five thousand by another Evangelist only, there would have been a large number of critics on the New Testament who would have maintained as an undoubted and evident truth that they were but different versions of one and the same event.
They would have treated with scorn any defenders of the perfect literal accuracy of the Sacred Text, who might have argued from the difference in the numbers of the people fed, of the loaves, and of the basketsful of fragments, besides other points, that the miracle was in truth wrought twice over. As it happens, the fact that these two miracles are both of them related by two Evangelists as having occurred at different times, shows us, beyond the possibility of cavil, that all these criticisms are founded on a false estimate of the accuracy of the Sacred Texts.
No one who claims to be a Christian and Catholic student ventures to deny that there were two miracles of the loaves. But unfortunately the principles of criticism on the text of the Gospels on which such false conclusions are based, are still applied on other occasions to difficulties in the Harmony of the Evangelists by no means different in character from this.
The Feeding of the Four Thousand
The feeding of the four thousand was a second, separate miracle
How did the second multiplication of the loaves flow from the first?
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Sadly, 2 years ago in December, The old, retired, Irish priest celebrating @ my parish, St Typical's, told us in the pews how the feeding of the multitude was a story of sharing. Yes he went on to say how the boy shared his lunch and that inspired the multitude to share what they had too! The priest ignored the miracle altogether!