High Voltage Shareware

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ High Voltage Shareware / high1.zip / high1 / DIR46 / LOAVES.ZIP / LOAVES.TXT

Wrap

Text File | 1992-04-09 | 42KB | 683 lines

THE DIVISION OF THE LOAVES AND THE FISHES: PRACTICAL AND SPIRITUAL ASPECTS OF CHRIST'S FEEDING OF THE FIVE THOUSAND Copyright 1990, 1991 by Gerald A. Palo 6838 Bob O'Link Drive Dallas, Texas 75214 (214) 826-5027 Compuserve 73237,2006 Permission to copy and distribute free of charge to others is granted. Kindly include the above information when you do. I would be interested in corresponding with others on this and related subjects. For a typeset laser printed copy write, call, or send an electronic message. Gerald A. Palo Christmas, 1991 -------------------------------------------------------- THE DIVISION OF THE LOAVES AND THE FISHES ----------------------------------------- Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Isaiah 55:2 INTRODUCTION Christ's feeding of the five thousand has reality and meaning on many levels. This article considers a few of the material- practical aspects of the miracle as it unfolded two thousand years ago and some of its implications for the present and the future. In some respects this is the most important of all the miracles or signs of Christ described in the gospels. Except for the resurrec- tion itself it is the only miracle reported in all four(1). It stands in the center of the seven signs reported by John. It is the first major sign after the death of John the Baptist. It is unique in the large number of people who were its beneficiaries and witnesses and in the active role played in it by the disciples. It caused a major stir: the multitudes tried to make Jesus king; many of the disciples, when Christ explained the true nature of what had happened, resigned their discipleship; and thereafter his enemies plotted to kill him. On the other hand, it was in the aftermath of this sign, and the sign of walking on the sea, that the faith of the Twelve that Christ was the Son of God now became for them a matter of knowledge (John 6:68). PROBLEMS WITH MULTIPLICATION The gospels all agree on the numbers - five thousand fed, five loaves of bread, two fishes, and twelve baskets of fragments left over. It is often referred to as the "miracle of the multiplica- tion of loaves and fishes", yet nowhere do the gospels say that Jesus caused them to multiply in number or increase in physical size. The idea that Christ multiplied the loaves is persistent in biblical commentaries and in popular imagination. Aside from the materialistic interpreters who reject the miraculous element, virtually all the Bible commentaries state or imply that the loaves were multiplied(2). Jesus broke the bread, gave thanks, and gave it to the disciples who distributed the bread to the people. Multiplication would mean that as he broke and they distributed the bread it just kept on coming, his hands becoming a kind of cornuco- pia, producing hundreds of loaves and fish until at last all had been fed. Closer examination reveals practical difficulties with this interpretation. It was late afternoon or early evening. The people sat down on the grass. Given any room at all they would have been spread over the equivalent of at least a couple of football fields. Imagine serving even a light meal to so many people. If the loaves and fishes were multiplied to normal portions the quantity would have to be measured in tons. There were at least five thousand people. Matthew says that this count excluded the women and children (Matt. 14:21). As a tax collector he would have had an eye for such details. But even if the five thousand included the women and children, a meager eight ounces per person would amount to 2,500 pounds, not including the fish. One one-ounce fish per person would come to over three hundred pounds. It would have required a significant, time-consuming physical effort to distribute it. By the time it was over the last families waiting would probably have given up and left on their own, fussing children in tow. This was not a crisis situation. The people were hungry, not starving. There was food to be had in the surrounding villages (Mark 6:36). Even if they had missed a meal that evening it would not have been tragic from the point of view of physical nourishment. BREAD OR STONES? One might object that Christ could have handled a physical increase and distribution in a less cumbersome way. But there is another, more serious problem. To miraculously produce physical loaves of bread would have violated the very first resolve that Jesus made at the start of his ministry. For he had expressly rejected the devil's temptation to turn stones into bread--to win people to his cause by miraculously creating food for them. It would not have been bread of life but the stones of the adversary that he fed them(3). The persistence of the traditional interpreta- tion that the loaves were physically multiplied leads one to question it with caution and respect. Yet one is led at least to suspect that the lack of understanding with which this miracle was met two thousand years ago in Galilee has continued down to our own times. HOW MUCH BREAD WAS CONSUMED Here we will take the gospel at its word that Christ satisfied the hunger of a large number of people with just five loaves of bread and two small fishes. Five barley loaves sufficed for five thousand people, so the size of an average portion can be calculat- ed. There would be one loaf for a thousand people. Since the texts do not mention the size we may assume they were of more or less normal size, perhaps one to two pounds per loaf. A typical loaf of Palestinian "shepherd's bread" is round, about ten inches in diameter, and dense, about one to two inches thick. For the sake of calculation picture a modern yeast-raised loaf such as you purchase at the grocery store. Divide a two-pound loaf into forty slices. These would be about one-half to one-third the width of sandwich bread slices. Each slice would have to serve twenty-five people. Take a slice and make four equal cuts horizontally and four cuts vertically. The result is twenty-five squares about one half to two thirds of an inch on a side. Because of the shape and the compact nature of the barley loaves, an actual serving would have been even smaller, and the pieces would have varied in size and density, but on average we can use the following formula: 5 loaves x 40 slices per loaf x 25 pieces per slice ------------------------ 5,000 servings The average serving would therefore have been a morsel about the size of a piece of communion bread. PREPARATION FOR THE MEAL Christ did not simply start handing out bread to the multi- tude. Much physical, psychological, and spiritual preparation was necessary. It was late in the afternoon, approaching the end of a very long and chaotic day. John the Baptist had recently been executed and the people were in a state of anxious despair. They had turned to Jesus, who embraced them with healing words and miracles. In their spiritual hunger they thronged after him. One also suspects that some of them hungered for a revolutionary leader to lead an uprising to avenge the death of John. The disciples' souls were in disarray as well. Their apostolic comings and goings in Galilee had led them to a state of exhaustion. In these circum- stances Jesus commanded them to withdraw to the other side of the lake. Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while. For many there were coming and go- ing, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. And they went away in the boat to a desert place apart. (Mark 6:31). But the multitudes saw where their boat was headed and hurried on foot from the surrounding cities around the shoreline and arrived at the other side of the lake before them. Jesus felt compassion for them because "they were like sheep without a shep- herd" (Mark 6:34). Anxious, milling about, clamoring amongst each other to get close to Jesus, and by now growing tired and irritable with hunger (the presence of children is expressly noted), their souls were in no condition to properly receive even ordinary nourishment, much less the bread of life. "EVERYONE PLEASE SIT DOWN" And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. (John 6:10) The first thing Jesus did was to bring order and calm to the situation, outward as well as inward. He had them sit down in the grass, a practical measure but one that had an important psycho- logical working as well. It was a desert place, but it was early spring. All four evangelists mention the grass. John adds that there was "much grass", and Mark accents the picture by noting that it was green. In a few moments the people were resting in the cool, pleasant springtime Galilean meadow. Jesus had created out of milling chaos a mood of restful calm before the meal began. He did not have the people sit down where they were but had the disciples arrange them in orderly fashion. Mark gives important details. And he commanded them that all should sit down by companies upon the green grass. And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and by fifties. (Mark 6:39- 40). From a purely practical standpoint, it was necessary to order the people to determine how many there were (not several thousand, not four thousand, but five thousand) and to arrange the physical distribution so that all would be served in a timely manner. Jesus commanded that the people be seated in groups, symposia, of fifty. Mark's description of rank and file seating (fifty by one hundred equals five thousand) has a hint of military order to it. He was the evangelist to the Romans, who would have understood. He uses the word prasai, which is also the Greek word for rows of vegeta- bles in a garden. Luke's account uses the word klisias, 'compa- nies' or 'table-groups'. Perhaps the evangelist of shepherds was reminded of Psalm 23, "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies." (We will see shortly who the enemy was). Christ had transformed a throng of hungry individuals into a community sharing an evening meal together at a grassy table on the meadow. THE BREAKING AND BLESSING OF THE BREAD And he took the five loaves and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake the loaves; (Mark 6:41) In Christ's blessing we see the essential heart of the miracle. The sacramental flavor is apparent, a picture of the transubstantiation in the eucharist. John mentions at the outset that the passover was at hand (John 6:4), thus adding to the mood of a festive ritual meal. One might even say that this meal was a kind of precursor to the final meal of the Last Supper before Golgotha, in which the disciples once again received bread from their Master. Surely as he broke the bread before them in the upper room they must have remembered this first miraculous meal in Galilee. Now the people are seated and perhaps a little more attentive both to Christ's presence and to the presence of other people around them. Their souls open to a twofold process whereby they can be nourished to satisfaction by the bread of life. On the one hand, Christ in breaking, blessing and giving the bread, imbues it with his very life. He transforms it into a new kind of substance. On the other hand, the souls of those present are lifted up by his words and ready to receive the divine nourishment. One is reminded of the words, "We lift up our soul to Thee, O Christ."(4) We can begin to see why no more than a small morsel was sufficient to satisfy. This was to be a sacramental meal for satisfying both body and soul. Christ "multiplied" the loaves in their spiritual dimension. The physical arithmetic was division. Liberal interpreters have tried to explain away the miracu- lousness of this story by suggesting that feeding was "only" a symbolic sacramental ritual. But this does not explain how everyone not only ate but was satisfied and that they tried to make him king. Conservative and fundamentalist interpreters have objected to this symbolic wishing-away of a miracle. But by insisting that the miracle required loaves to be physically multiplied, they overlook that Christ worked his miracles not so much on physical substance as on the souls and bodies of human beings, whether one paralytic, ten lepers, or a throng of five thousand hungry people. It appears that both sides have part of the truth, but each in its own way is limited by materialistic prejudice. DISTRIBUTION OF THE BREAD THROUGH THE DISCIPLES Rudolf Steiner stressed that this miracle involved Christ's imparting of his spiritual force through the disciples' own capacity for compassion(5). The gospel accounts of their partici- pation throughout is a striking feature unique to this miracle and to that of the feeding of the four thousand(6). Shortly before this Jesus, having instructed the disciples in the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven, had sent them out two by two with explicit instructions to proclaim the Kingdom and to work miracles. They had come back with reports that they actually had been able to heal the sick and cast out demons. We may assume that they had participated along with Christ in the healings on that very day. It was they who raised the questions about feeding the people, who seem to have lost track of time in their hunger for Christ's healing words and miracles. Perhaps it was because the disciples themselves were famished and exhausted that they raised the question, hoping that Jesus would send them away so they could eat and get some rest. But Jesus gave the problem back to them: "They have no need to go away; give ye them to eat." (Matt. 14:16). They proposed and rejected various solutions, and it was they who found the youth with the barley loaves and fish. Finally, they were instrumental in distributing the food to the five thousand and the gathering of the leftover fragments. . . .he . . . gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples to the multitudes. (Matt. 14:19) Christ organized the work of distribution hierarchically. Practically, this was the only solution that would work with so many. Even with the small physical quantity of food there were still five thousand "communicants" to feed. Picture then Jesus breaking each loaf into two halves and giving them, ten halves in all, to two of the disciples. Philip and Andrew come to mind as they are the only two named in the narration (John). Then the two give a half loaf to each of the other ten. The ten break their half loaves into ten pieces, one for each company of fifty, and distribute once more down the hierarchy. Each of one hundred servers would now have the equivalent of one twentieth of a loaf for his fifty, or one or two slices by our speculative calculation. The whole procedure would have taken no more than a few minutes. THE TWO SMALL FISHES It was noted that distributing five thousand or more fish would have been impractical. But with only two fish, the problem is easily resolved. The word opsaria indicates a very small herring or sardine-like salted fish that was commonly used as a relish(7). One possibility is that it was made into a paste and spread over the tops of the loaves for an accent of taste and aroma. Perhaps it was Jesus himself who actually applied the fish to the tops of the loaves. Mark's words lend some corroboration to this reading. And he gave to the disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided he among them all. (Mark 6:41) DETERMINING THE INDIVIDUAL PORTIONS: FINAL BREAKING OF THE BREAD Each "table company" of fifty now had its piece of bread. The next question is how each individual received his share. It is difficult to imagine that the bread was cut up in advance into tiny individual wafer portions. This would have been difficult and time-consuming, and it would not have allowed for all to eat their fill, "as much as they would." (John 6:11). Some would require more and others less. This suggests that the piece of bread was given to one person with instructions to take what he needed and pass it to the next person until everyone in the group was fed. This hand-to-hand sharing would have had the effect of making it into more of a community meal, the small groups partaking of a common portion rather than each individual getting his own premeasured piece. It would have been a little like some modern forms of communion, where chunks of bread are given to the people sitting in the pews and each person breaks off a piece. We should imagine that throughout all these proceedings Christ is speaking to the people, telling them what is going to happen, what they should do, and what it really means. However it may have happened in detail, one can only try to imagine the experience of having been there. Whatever the physical act of consumption was, it must have been to each partaker an experience of heavenly nourishment and flavor, and an altogether new sensation of rejuvenating fullness and well being, with none of the heaviness that so often accompanies an everyday meal. THE TWELVE BASKETS FULL OF FRAGMENTS When the last person had finished, some number of people would have a piece left over that was bigger than the amount he ate. These were the fragments the disciples gathered up after- wards. At the Lord's command the disciples gathered them up, twelve baskets full. The impression left by this statement, repeated in all four gospels, may have contributed to the notion that the loaves were physically multiplied. This author certainly grew up thinking that they were bushel baskets, which would imply that the quantity of leftovers was greater than the original five loaves. A point that has been overlooked is that, had the loaves been multiplied to five thousand, there would likely have been far more than twelve bushel baskets of scraps. Another is that the baskets were not large but small(8). Kophinous were small wicker hand baskets carried by all pious Jews to carry and protect their kosher provisions. They were also used by beggars as receptacles for the proceeds of begging. The Romans made jokes about the Jew and his basket(9). Yet even though the baskets were small, that twelve were filled from the original five loaves still underscores the miracle of sufficiency that Christ had wrought. The disciples gathered in these small "begging baskets" the remainder of the gift bread of the Lord. In order not to be wasted the fragments would have to be consumed rather soon. The Twelve certainly had need of them. They had had an exhausting day and may not have eaten since morning, since their plans to provide for themselves during their retreat had probably been upset by the arrival of the multitudes. That night the retreat was canceled altogether and they were obliged to row back across the stormy lake. Aside from the deeper spiritual meaning of the number twelve, it is a sign of Christ's thoughtful- ness that each disciple's needs during their strenuous voyage was provided for. AFTERMATH Unfortunately, even having been fed by Christ, many of the people still did not understand the significance of what had happened. They had been drawn to him first because he fed their hungering souls, but after he satisfied their bodily hunger their attitude changed. John reports that they immediately wanted to make him king. The true content of the bread had eluded their consciousness. Far from not being enough, Philip's two hundred denarii (over six month's laborer's wages!) might have sufficed in a purely physical way. But here was a different kind of bread, not bought but received as a gift from God himself, as the great petition of the Lord's Prayer indicates the true bread should be. Yet even having been filled by this bread, they did not understand. Shortly thereafter Jesus took pains to explain (John 6:26-64). Verily, verily I say unto you, ye seek me, not because ye saw signs, but because ye ate of the loaves and were filled. Work not for the meat that perisheth, but for the meat which the son of man shall give to you: for him the Father, even God hath sealed. (John 6:26-28) His exhortation to understand what real nourishment consists of is striking in its directness, as an expanded translation reveals: It is the Spirit that gives life - He is the Life-giver; the flesh conveys no benefit whatever - there is no profit in it. The words (truths) that I have been speaking to you are spirit and life. But [still] some of you fail to believe and trust and have faith. (John 6:63-64 - The Amplified Bible). But his words "I am the Bread of Life" and his "hard words" about eating the flesh of the Son of Man caused many of his disciples to turn away from him. Only a few of the disciples, especially Peter, had an inkling of what Christ's words meant. Many others could not understand and abandoned him. THE RAGE OF THE ENEMY Some of those who turned away joined his enemies and sought to kill him. Christ had given the lie to Satan's deception that man must be a slave to the flesh, to the physical in bread, in order to live. It is not surprising that his enemies became so infuriated that they conspired to kill him after that. Their fury was the reflected rage and panic of the adversary who had been unmasked. It was at this time that the seeds of betrayal were planted in Judas's mind (John 6:71). The suppertime hunger of the five thousand HAD been a crisis situation after all. They had come to Jesus with hungry souls and he had fed them. Had he then sent them away to "the world" to take care of their bodily hunger, Satan, the lord of fallen matter, would always be able to remind them of it. He would have been able to say, "Go to Christ and take your fill of religion and fine sentiments, and even healing if you like, but when it is time to eat, you still have to buy from me." It was a trap into which the disciples would have fallen had they sent the people to buy bread, but Jesus would not allow it. His command, "You give them to eat!" was more than a test of their faith in his divine power. It was his delegation to mankind of the highest spiritual responsibility, essential to the success of his whole mission on earth. LEARNING TO DO THE MIRACLE TODAY With the sign of the loaves and fishes Christ demonstrated that the true nourishment of man comes not from physical bread, which taken alone needs to be produced and consumed in large quantities, but from "every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of the Father" (Matt. 4:4). The physical bread is only the bearer of the true divine nourishment and should be required in only the smallest quantities. But today, as then, our dependency on the physical dimension of food remains a heavy burden. The production, distribution, and consumption of food weigh heavily on the life of humanity. Even cleaning up afterwards is a burden: compare three billion sets of dirty dishes and tons of garbage three times a day to the small baskets of scraps collected by the disciples! In our political, economic and social life we are very much in bondage to food--in other words, to the adversary. For man the ability to satisfy hunger with a single bite of bread lies in the future, but Christ demonstrated that it can in fact be done, if only we would "understand the meaning of the loaves and the fishes." The meaning of the loaves fishes is no simple matter, yet if the interpretation presented here is correct, Christ expects of his followers not only that they shall understand the miracle but also that they shall one day learn how to do it themselves. The disciples, with Christ in their midst, were co-workers in doing it. Is it unthinkable that human beings today, with the risen Christ in their midst, should learn to do the same? It is recorded that the Swiss mystic, Nicholas von der Flae(10), lived for nineteen years on communion host alone. Before whole human communities can accom- plish the equivalent as a matter of daily life, much striving and learning will be necessary. Yet we should take Christ's expecta- tions of us seriously. How can we learn to do the miracle ourselves? There are many possible points of departure. One starting point would be to learn to understand the inner principle of giving in connection with food. In the gospels, every time Christ shares bread with others he breaks, blesses, and gives it. In literally dozens of scriptural examples, the mention of bread is invariably coupled with the act of giving. Before the five thousand, Christ himself broke, blessed, and gave, but the giving part he also delegated to his disciples. Bread bought with Philip's two hundred denarii would not have sufficed, but the five loaves given by the boy was all that was needed. THE ECONOMICS OF GIVING FOOD God always gives bread to his children. He requires payment no more than a parent would require payment for feeding his own children. The fruit of the trees in paradise was freely given to Adam and Eve, but bread is different in that its creation requires human effort as well as divine. As the spiritual world does its part in creating and giving nourishment, so human beings also must also learn to do the same for their part in it. Christ said that our Father gives us bread and not stones. He also said, "You give them to eat!" In the Lord's prayer the petition, "Thy will be done, as above in the heavens, so also on the earth" is followed immediately by "Give us this day our daily bread." The earthly part of the fulfillment of the Lord's prayer thus begins with the giving of food. We venture tentatively to generalize a law of the giving of food as follows: On earth, food nourishes to the extent that its production and distribution are acts of free giving and consciously grateful receiving. Our food has become corrupted and heavy to the extent that, anywhere in the chain of production and consumption, it has not been freely given or has been thoughtlessly and ungratefully received. To that extent it has become, gradually down through the ages, a physical burden on those who consume it as well as on those beings--human, elemental, animal and heavenly--who produced it and taken on a burdensome, stone-like quality. Over the course of time since man's expulsion from Paradise our heavenly food, which alone can nourish us, has become more and more bound to matter, the property of the adversary. The enormity of the problem of food and hunger in the world may thus be seen as a reflection of the degree to which man has diverged, in the course of history since the fall, from the true Fatherly principle of the giving of bread to his children. Yet despite its heaviness, our bread has not yet turned entirely into granite, nor have human souls. Physical bread is still able to be the bearer of human nourishment. No amount of "un-giving" or "un-receiving" can totally eliminate the gift element in bread, since the very natural forces of sun, earth, and rain that make the grain grow are continual gifts from God. And if even the original natural forces had become deadened, Christ imparted his living body and blood into those forces in his own supreme act of sacrificial giving on Golgotha, which "re-enlivens the dying earth existence". For our part too, all is not totally lost. As far as even the physical labor and commercial transactions are done with good cheer and lovingkindness, anywhere along the line from plough to table, giving is there to a large degree. So nourished we have the opportunity to develop further this process of spiritual nourishment. By deepening our understanding of the mystery of the giving of food we can learn to become co-workers in Christ's work of redeeming our earthly food from the power of the adversary. By increasing the element of giving in everything that we do in connection with it. With Christ we can gradually transform it back to its true nourishing lightness again. The true sacramental nourishment, which would require the least amount of labor for all, would be a meal in which from beginning to end, every element was a pure, free, loving gift, from God to nature to human, and from human to human, and received at each stage in loving gratitude. Such a stream of giving can only be directed and guided by Christ in the midst of all those involved. A human life community based on such giving of bread would be on the way to fulfilling the expectation of Christ that human beings should also work the miracle of the loaves and the fishes. CONCLUSION The philosopher David Hume and many thinkers after him rejected the biblical miracle stories on the ground that they violate the laws of nature. On the contrary, it is the illusions of our fallen senses and confused thinking that violate and distort our perception of nature. The miracles of Christ break through the distortion to reveal the true nature of things. Among the many illusions of the senses from which we need a revealing, liberating miracle, those surrounding the food that we eat are a source of the most oppressive hindrances to our spiritual striving in daily life. The miracle of the feeding of the five thousand holds out a promise and hope for the future of humanity. It bids man to look beyond the physical aspect of food to the real source of nourishment in it. Instead of striving only to increase food production and implement political and economic reforms, we are invited first to cultivate the conditions in and among ourselves that can bring the power of Christ as the living bread into our food. If every meal were such a meal as was taken on the green meadow in Galilee, at the very least mankind would have solved the problem of world hunger. As the spirit content of the bread increased, the physical amount needed would decrease. World economic conferences would then have to be held to look for ways to reduce food production instead of raising it, and bread lines, instead of forming at the doors of government bureaus, would form around the altar of the eucharist. TABLE GRACE With every bite of bread Think of the sun shining red. The sun orb warms the tiny seeds And makes them grow as loving deeds. With every bite of bread Thy brother's need bestead, Who lonely, only on hunger feeds. May we whom God gave blessing deeds Give bread and love for our brother's needs(11). --NOTES-- 1. Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:30-44, Luke 9:10-17, John 6:1-13. 2. One exception is William Barclay, who indicates, avoiding going into the details, that the small amount was sufficient in Christ's hands for all. The Gospel of Mark. Page 157. The Daily Bible Study Series, Revised Edition, 1975. Westminster Press, Philadelphia. (Originally published by St. Andrew's Press, Edinburgh). Rudolf Steiner, in his lectures on the Gospel of Mark, speaks of the "increase" of bread in the parallel stories of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath and Christ's feeding of the five thousand. The details of the nature of the increase and whether whether it was spiritual or physical in nature are not under discussion in this lecture. Rudolf Steiner, The Gospel of Mark. Basel, 1912. Lecture 3. 3. For a wonderful discussion of the temptations in the wilder- ness and the implications of turning stones into bread for our own time, see The Invisible Encounter, (1947. Charles Scribner and Sons) by Igor Sikorsky, the famous aircraft designer. See also chapters 1 and 2 of Emil Bock's The Three Years. Available from Floris Books. 4. These are the words spoken in The Act of Consecration of Man (Menschenweihehandlung), the communion service of the Christian Community (Christengemeinschaft), after the reading of the Gospel. They are spoken by the ministrant (server) and corre- spond to the words "Praise be to Thee, O Christ!" in other eucharistic services. 5. Rudolf Steiner, The Gospel of John And Its Relation to the Other Gospels. Kassel, 1912. Lecture 9. 6. Matthew 15:32-39, Mark 8:1-10. 7. Broadman Bible Commentary, Volume 9. Page 270. 1970. Broadman Press, Nashville Tennessee. Also Barclay, The Gospel of Mark, page 159. 8. There is some room for controversy over the size of the baskets. While the evangelists here speak of the small kophi- nous, Matthew's and Mark's accounts of the feeding of the four thousand use the word spyridas, which can mean a large basket. Mark's account even distinguishes between the two kinds of baskets: "When I brake the five loaves among five thousand, how many baskets (kophinous) full of fragments took ye up? .... And when the seven among four thousand, how many baskets (spyrion) took ye up?" (8:19-20). This passage is an important key to understanding the difference between the miracle of the five thousand and that of the four thousand. Despite the surface similarities, I believe that latter, while related to the former, is not merely a repeated occurrence, much less a an alternate account of it - as many higher critics contend. This requires separate treatment beyond the present essay. 9. Barclay, Page 158. 10. Nicholas von der Flae (Fluehe), 1417-1487. Known also as Brueder Klaus. A hermit, he was also active as teacher and moderator in the civil unrest that prevailed in the Swiss cantons at that time. Reports of his miraculous fast spread far and wide and were verified after official investigation by the bishop's office. He is regarded as a Swiss national hero and patron of the canton of Oberwalden. He was beatified in 1669 and canonized in 1947. Neue Deutsche Biographie. Volume 5. Page 336. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin. 1960. 11. Herbert Hahn, in Prayers and Graces. Collected by Michael Jones. Floris Books. Edinburgh. 1980.