Matthew 14:15

But He is about to feed them also. And He doth not this of Himself, but waits to be entreated; on every occasion, as I have said, maintaining this rule, not to spring onward to His miracles, preventing them, but upon some call. And why did none of the multitude come near and speak for them? They reverenced Him exceedingly, and felt not even their hunger, through their longing to stay with Him. Neither indeed do His disciples, when they were come to Him, say, "Feed them;" for as yet they were rather in an imperfect state; but what? "And when it was evening," it is said, "His disciples came to Him, saying, This is a desert place, and the time is now passed; send the multitude away, that they may go and buy themselves victuals." For if even after the miracle they forgot what had been done, and after the baskets, supposed Him to be speaking of loaves, when He gave the name of "leaven" to the doctrine of the Pharisees; much less, when they had never yet had experience of such a miracle, would they have expected any such thing. And yet He had made a beginning by actually healing many sick; but nevertheless, not even from this did they expect the miracle of the loaves; so imperfect were they as yet. But mark thou, I pray, the Teacher's skill, how distinctly He summons them on towards believing. For He said not at once, "I feed them;" which indeed would not have been easily received; but what? "But Jesus," so it is written, "said unto them, They need not depart; give ye them to eat." He said not, "I give them," but, "Give ye them;" for as yet their regard to Him was as to a man. But they not even so are awakened, but still reason as with a man, saying, "We have but five loaves, and two fishes." Wherefore Mark also saith, "They understood not the saying, for their heart was hardened." They continuing therefore to crawl on the ground, then at length He brings in His own part, and saith, "Bring them hither to me." For although the place be desert, yet He that feeds the world is here; and although the time be now past, yet He that is not subject to time is discoursing with you. But John saith also, that they were "barley loaves," not mentioning it without object, but teaching us to trample under foot the pride of costly living. Such was the diet of the prophets also. "He took therefore the five loaves, and the two fishes, and commanded the multitude," it is said, "to sit down upon the grass, and looking up to Heaven, He blessed, and brake, and gave to His disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all eat and were filled, and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full. And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children." Wherefore did He look up to Heaven, and bless? It was to be believed of Him, both that He is of the Father, and that He is equal to Him. But the proofs of these things seemed to oppose one another. For while His equality was indicated by His doing all with authority, of His origin from the Father they could no otherwise be persuaded, than with His doing all with great lowliness, and with reference to Him, and invoking Him on His works. Wherefore we see that He neither did these actions only, nor those, that both might be confirmed; and now He works miracles with authority, now with prayer. Then again, that what He did might not seem an inconsistency, in the lesser things He looks up to Heaven, but in the greater doth all with authority; to teach thee in the lesser also, that not as receiving power from elsewhere, but as honoring Him that begat Him, so He acts. For example: when He forgave sins, and opened paradise, and brought in the thief, and most utterly set aside the old law, and raised innumerable dead, and bridled the sea, and reproved the unuttered thoughts of men, and created an eye;-which are achievements of God only and of none else;-we see Him in no instance praying: but when He provided for the loaves to multiply themselves, a far less thing th

But all these things are full of mysteries; the Lord does these things not in the morning, nor at noon, but in the evening, when the Sun of righteousness was set.

(De Cons. Ev. ii. 46.) It may perplex some how, if the Lord, according to the relation of John, asked Philip whence bread was to be found for them, that can be true which Matthew here relates, that the disciples first prayed the Lord to send the multitudes away, that they might buy food from the nearest towns. Suppose then that after these words the Lord looked upon the multitude and said what John relates, but Matthew and the others have omitted. And by such cases as this none ought to be perplexed, when one of the Evangelists relates what the rest have omitted.

By the evening the Lord's death is denoted; and after He, the true Sun, was set on the altar of the cross, He filled the hungry. Or by evening is denoted the last age of this world, in which the Son of God came and refreshed the multitudes of those that believed on Him.

When John is to describe this miracle, he first tells us that the passover is at hand; Matthew and Mark place it immediately after the execution of John. Hence we may gather, that he was beheaded when the paschal festival was near at hand, and that at the passover of the following year, the mystery of the Lord's passion was accomplished. When the disciples ask the Lord to send away the multitudes that they might buy food in the towns, it signifies the pride of the Jews towards the multitudes of the Gentiles, whom they judged rather fit to seek for themselves food in the assemblies of the Pharisees than to use the pasture of the Divine books.