John 6:10Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

He shows its difference from the prophetic miracles. Before the loaves appeared, He was already working the miracle, so that you might know that what does not exist is subject to Him as though it existed.

As Paul says, He "calls the things that do not exist as though they did" (Rom 4:17). As though the table were already ready and wholly prepared, He commands the people to recline at once.

By this He already stirs the disciples' minds. Having received benefit from the question put to them, they obeyed at once. They were not troubled and did not say, "What does this mean?"

They did not ask, "How do You command them to recline, when there is still nothing before us?" Thus those who at first had so little faith that they said, "Where shall we buy bread?" believed even before they saw the miracle.

They now willingly arranged the people.

But what cannot be obtained by human money, My power will obtain. It summons all things into being and creates out of what is not.

Did not Elijah the prophet make the widow’s vessel an unfailing bearer of oil, and turn the water jar into an inexhaustible source of food?

And shall He who gives power even to him not be able to multiply nothing, and to make all that exists a fountain of ineffable generosity? Shall He not make it the beginning and root of unexpected grace?

It seems not unlikely to understand Christ as speaking something of this kind with force. But the Evangelist also considers it necessary to indicate that “there was much grass in the place.”

He designates the place as suitable for the men to recline. Notice that although the crowd being fed was mixed, and women and children were plainly present, he counted only the men.

In this, I think, he followed the customs of the Law. God commanded the ruler Moses: “Take a census of all the congregation of the sons of Israel, by their families, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of names, head by head, every male from twenty years old and upward” (Num 1:2-3).

The prophet fulfills the command and makes a long list of names. Yet he is found not to have entered women or little children in the list, but only men of mature age.

This is because, in the book of God, honor is granted only to what is manly and youthful, not to what is childish in the understanding of good things.

Thus he both honored the ordinance of the Law through this, and again presented a certain spiritual contemplation. If we consider the whole sense of the passage, can we not rightly say the following?

Christ justly turns away from and leaves the proud and arrogant Jewish people. But with great joy He receives those who come to Him and fills them with heavenly food.

He supplies the spiritual bread that nourishes the human heart. He feeds them not with difficulty, but gladly and easily, with great delight and forethought.

The reclining of the men on the grass indicates this to us. Therefore each of those counted worthy of such grace may fittingly say what is spoken in the Psalms.

“The Lord shepherds me, and I shall lack nothing. In a green place, there He has made me dwell” (Ps 23:1-2).

Indeed, the mind of the saints is fed in much joy and delight by the gifts of the Spirit, according to what is said in the Song of Songs: “Eat and drink, and be drunk, O friends” (Song 5:1).

Therefore, though many reclined and, as we have already said, they were mixed, he mentioned only the men. He judged it useful for contemplation to pass over the women and children in silence.

As though by an enigma, he teaches us that those who are manly, plainly in relation to the good, are most fit and suited to receive food from the Savior.

It is not for those accustomed to spend a bad life in an effeminate manner. Nor is it for those who are infants in thought, so that they cannot understand anything necessary for knowledge.

And what were those fragments, if not what the people could not take in? Thus we understand them as certain questions more hidden to comprehension, which many cannot receive.

What remains, then, except that the things more hidden to comprehension, which many cannot receive, should be entrusted to those capable of teaching others also, as the apostles were?

To buy even a piece of bread for such a mass of people would require at least two hundred denarii. Even if they had such a sum in their common treasury, there was now neither time nor possibility to make the necessary purchases.

Andrew mentioned that one boy there had five barley loaves and two fish. Yet, obviously, such a supply was so small that it was hardly worth speaking of. "Make them sit down," Christ calmly answered (Mt 14:13-21; Mk 6:30-44; Lk 9:10-17; Jn 6:1-15).

Κοφινος, a basket, equals a quarter of a vedro by our measure. Twelve baskets make three vedros, or two chetveriks. Therefore the Russian translation should have put twelve baskets, or small wicker-baskets, not twelve boxes.

When Jews had to pass through pagan or Samaritan villages, they stocked up on bread and carried it in baskets. See Mt 16:7; Mt 8:14; Deut 26:2, 4.

They did this chiefly out of fear of being defiled by unclean food. Juvenal says, "Here for the Jews is a grove with a sacred spring and their beggar's basket" (Sat. 3.15).

Thus all the baskets of the twelve disciples were filled with the remains of the miraculous meal.

"Then the men, when they had seen the sign that Jesus did, said, 'This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.'" "The miraculous multiplication of the five loaves showed the almighty power of the divine Author of nature," says St Hilary.

The witnesses of the deed, the five thousand people, recognized a miracle in what had happened before their eyes. They said that the one who performed this miracle was none other than the expected messenger of God, the Messiah.

The people spoke this way about Jesus on other occasions also. See Mt 16:13; Mt 21:11; Lk 7:16.

The Neologists, Paulus and others, do not wish to recognize a miracle in this event. They say that the people were satisfied not only with the five loaves, but that they had their own food with them.

But this means speaking of a historical event otherwise than the eyewitnesses speak of it, and amusing oneself with fables. The eyewitnesses said to Jesus, "Send them away, for they have nothing to eat" (Mk 6:36; Lk 9:12).

The apostles look for food for the people and find only five loaves and two fish with one boy (Mk 6:38). The questioning of Philip was made precisely to guard such a great event from doubts.

Finally, the Evangelists say directly that all five thousand were satisfied by those five loaves offered to them. And all five thousand said the same in their judgment of the event.

"Therefore, when Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, He departed again to the mountain alone."

The miracle so struck the people and so convinced them that Jesus was the Messiah that they wanted at once to proclaim Him king. If He was the Messiah, then, according to their mistaken belief, He was an earthly king, the restorer of the mighty kingdom of Israel's kings.

They wanted to use violence, if necessary. But the kingdom of Jesus Christ is not a worldly kingdom (Jn 18:36). He came to earth to fulfill the will of the heavenly Father, not to seek earthly glory for Himself.

Therefore He hid Himself from the people on a solitary mountain, where He had previously been with the disciples (v. 3). He withdrew in order to devote Himself to prayer in solitude (Mt 14:23; Mk 6:46).

The miracle on the lake and the discourse on the heavenly bread follow in Jn 6:16-71.