There is, at least in our view, no doubt that thoughts of the Passover and of the Holy Supper, of their commingling and mystic meaning, were present to the Saviour, and that it is in this light the miraculous feeding of the multitude must be considered, if we are in any measure to understand it. Meantime the Saviour was moving among them - beginning to teach them many things,' [3219] and healing them that had need of healing.' [3220] Yet, as He so moved and thought of it all, from the first, He Himself knew what He was about to do.' [3221] And now the sun had passed its meridian, and the shadows fell longer on the surging crowd. Full of the thoughts of the great Supper, which was symbolically to link the Passover of the past with that of the future, and its Sacramental continuation to all time, He turned to Philip with this question: Whence are we to buy bread, that these may eat?' It was to try him,' and show how he would view and meet what, alike spiritually and temporally, has so often been the great problem. Perhaps there was something in Philip which made it specially desirable, that the question should be put to him. [3222] At any rate, the answer of Philip showed that there had been a need be' for it. This - two hundred denarii (between six and seven pounds) worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one may take a little,' is the course realism, not of unbelief, but of an absence of faith which, entirely ignoring any higher possibility, has not even its hope left in a Thou knowest, Lord.'
But there is evidence, also, that the question of Christ worked deeper thinking and higher good. As we understand it, Philip told it to Andrew, and they to the others. While Jesus taught and healed, they must have spoken together of this strange question of the Master. They knew Him sufficiently to judge, that it implied some purpose on His part. Did He intend to provide for all that multitude? They counted them roughly - going along the edge and through the crowd - and reckoned them by thousands, besides women and children. They thought of all the means for feeding such a multitude. How much had they of their own? As we judge by combining the various statements, there was a lad there who carried the scant, humble provisions of the party - perhaps a fisher-lad brought for the purpose from the boat. [3223] It would take quite what Philip had reckoned - about two hundred denarii - if the Master meant them to go and buy victuals for all that multitude. Probably the common stock - at any rate as computed by Judas, who carried the bag - did not contain that amount. In any case, the right and the wise thing was to dismiss the multitude, that they might go into the towns and villages and buy for themselves victuals, and find lodgment. For already the bright spring-day was declining, and what was called the first evening' had set in. [3224] For the Jews reckoned two evenings, although it is not easy to determine the exact hour when each began and ended. But, in general, the first evening may be said to have begun when the sun declined, and it was probably reckoned as lasting to about the ninth hour, or three o'clock of the afternoon. [3225] Then began the period known as between the evenings,' which would be longer or shorter according to the season of the year, and which terminated with the second evening' - the time from when the first star appeared to that when the third star was visible. [3226] With the night began the reckoning of the following day.
It was the first evening' when the disciples, whose anxiety must have been growing with the progress of time, asked the Lord to dismiss the people. But it was as they had thought. He would have them give the people to eat! Were they, then, to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of loaves? No - they were not to buy, but to give of their own store! How many loaves had they! Let them go and see. [3227] And when Andrew went to see what store the fisher-lad carried for them, he brought back the tidings, He hath five barley loaves and two small fishes,' to which he added, half in disbelief, half in faith's rising expectancy of impossible possibility: But what are they among so many?' [3228] It is to the fourth Evangelist alone that we owe the record of this remark, which we instinctively feel gives to the whole the touch of truth and life. It is to him also that we owe other two minute traits of deepest interest, and of far greater importance than at first sight appears.