When we read that these five were barley-loaves, we learn that, no doubt from voluntary choice, the fare of the Lord and of His followers was the poorest. Indeed, barley-bread was, almost proverbially, the meanest. Hence, as the Mishnah puts it, while all other meat-offerings were of wheat, that brought by the woman accused of adultery was to be of barley, because (so R. Gamaliel puts it), as her deed is that of animals, so her offering is also of the food of animals.' [3229] The other minute trait in St. John's Gospel consists in the use of a peculiar word for fish' (psrion), opsarion,' which properly means what was eaten along with the bread, and specially refers to the small, and generally dried or pickled fish eaten with bread, like our sardines,' or the caviar' of Russia, the pickled herrings of Holland and Germany, or a peculiar kind of small dried fish, eaten with the bones, in the North of Scotland. Now just as any one who would name that fish as eaten with bread, would display such minute knowledge of the habits of the North-east of Scotland as only personal residence could give, so in regard to the use of this term, which, be it marked, is peculiar to the Fourth Gospel, Dr. Westcott suggests, that it may have been a familiar Galilean word,' and his conjecture is correct, for Ophsonin ({hebrew}) derived from the same Greek word (pson), of which that used by St. John is the diminutive, means a savoury dish,' while Aphyan ({hebrew}) or Aphits ({hebrew}), is the term for a kind of small fish, such as sardines. The importance of tracing accurate local knowledge in the Fourth Gospel warrants our pursuing the subject further. The Talmud, declares that of all kinds of meat, fish only becomes more savoury by salting, [3230] and names certain kinds, specially designated as small fishes,' [3231] which might be eaten without being cooked. Small fishes were recommended for health; [3232] and a kind of pickle or savoury was also made of them. Now the Lake of Galilee was particularly rich in these fishes, and we know that both the salting and pickling of them was a special industry among its fishermen. For this purpose a small kind of them were specially selected, which bear the name Terith ({hebrew}). [3233] Now the diminutive used by St. John (psrion) of which our Authorized Version no doubt gives the meaning fairly by rendering it small fishes,' refers, no doubt, to those small fishes (probably a kind of sardine) of which millions were caught in the Lake, and which, dried and salted, would form the most common savoury' with bread for the fisher-population along the shores.
If the Fourth Gospel in the use of this diminutive displays such special Lake-knowledge as evidences its Galilean origin, another touching trait connected with its use may here be mentioned. It has already been said that the term is used only by St. John, as if to mark the Lake of Galilee origin of the Fourth Gospel. But only once again does the expression occur in the Fourth Gospel. On that morning, when the Risen One manifested Himself by the Lake of Galilee to them who had all the night toiled in vain, He had Provided for them miraculously the meal, when on the fire of charcoal' they saw the well-remembered little fish' (the opsarion), and, as He bade them bring of the little fish' (the Opsaria) which they had miraculously caught, Peter drew to shore the net full, not of opsaria, but of great fishes' (chthon meglon). And yet it was not of those great fishes' that He gave them, but He took the bread and gave them, and the opsarion likewise.' [3234] Thus, in infinite humility, the meal at which the Risen Saviour sat down with His disciples was still of bread and small fishes' - even though He gave them, the draught of large fishes; and so at that last meal He recalled that first miraculous feeding by the Lake of Galilee. And this also is one of those undesigned, too often unobserved traits in the narrative, which yet carry almost irresistible evidence.