Chapter L.-Of the Occasion on Which He Fed the Multitudes
with the Seven Loaves, and of the Question as to the Harmony Between Matthew
and Mark in Their Accounts of that Miracle.
104. Matthew proceeds with his narrative in the following terms: "And
when Jesus had departed from thence, He came nigh unto the sea of Galilee;
and went up into a mountain, and sat down there. And great multitudes came
unto Him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and
many others, and cast them down at Jesus' feet, and He healed them; insomuch
that the multitudes wondered, when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed
to be whole, the lame to walk, and the blind to see: and they glorified
the God of Israel. Then Jesus called His disciples unto Him, and said,
I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue with me now three
days, and have nothing to eat," and so on, down to the words, "And they
that did eat were four thousand men, besides women and children."416 This
other miracle of the seven loaves and the few little fishes is recorded
also by Mark, and that too in almost the same order; the exception being
that he inserts before it a narrative given by no other,-namely, that relating
to the deaf man whose ears the Lord opened, when He spat and said, "Effeta,"
that is, Be opened.417
105. In the case of this miracle of the seven loaves, it is certainly
not a superfluous task to call attention to the fact that these two evangelists,
Matthew and Mark, have thus introduced it into their narrative. For if
one of them had recorded this miracle, who at the same time had taken no
notice of the instance of the five loaves, he would have been judged to
stand opposed to the rest. For in such circumstances, who would not have
supposed that there was only the one miracle wrought in actual fact, and
that an incomplete and unveracious version of it had been given by the
writer referred to, or by the others, or by all of them together; so [that
we must have imagined] either that the one evangelist, by a mistake on
his own part, had been led to mention seven loaves instead of five; or
that the other two, whether as having both presented an incorrect statement,
or as having been misled through a slip of memory, had put the number five
for the number seven. In like manner, it might have been supposed that
there was a contradiction between the twelve baskets418 and the seven baskets,419
and again, between the five thousand and the four thousand, expressing
the numbers of those who were fed. But now, since those evangelists who
have given us the account of the miracle of the seven loaves have also
not failed to mention the other miracle of the five loaves, no difficulty
can be felt by any one, and all can see that both works were really wrought.
This, accordingly, we have instanced, in order that, if in any other passage
we come upon some similar deed of the Lord's, which, as told by one evangelist,
seems so utterly contrary to the version of it given by another that no
method of solving the difficulty can possibly be found, we may understand
the explanation to be simply this, that both incidents really took place,
and that they were recorded separately by the two several writers. This
is precisely what we have already recommended to attention in the matter
of the seating of the multitudes by hundreds and by fifties. For were it
not for the circumstance that both these numbers are found noted by the
one historian, we might have supposed that the different writers had made
contradictory statements.420
_____________________
416 Matt. xv. 29-38.
417 Mark vii. 31-viii. 9.
418 Cophinis.
419 Sportis.
420 See above, chap. xlvi.