Note 289 — Chapter IX · MIRACLES OF JESUS.

This repetition of the same event creates many difficulties. The chief of these is suggested by the question: Is it conceivable that the disciples, after they had themselves witnessed how Jesus was able to feed a great multitude with a small quantity of provision, should nevertheless on a second occasion of the same kind, have totally forgotten the first, and have asked, Whence should we have so much bread in the wilderness as to feed so great a multitude? To render such an obliviousness on the part of the disciples probable, we are reminded that they had, in just as incomprehensible a manner, forgotten the declarations of Jesus concerning his approaching sufferings and death, when these events occurred;289 but it is equally a pending question, whether after such plain predictions from Jesus, his death could in fact have been so unexpected to the disciples. It has been supposed that a longer interval had elapsed between the two miracles, and that during this there had occurred a number of similar cases, in which Jesus did not think fit to afford miraculous assistance:290 but, on the one hand, these are pure fictions; on the other, it would remain just as inconceivable as ever, that the striking similarity of the circumstances preceding the second feeding of the multitude to those preceding the first, should not have reminded even one of the disciples of that former event Paulus therefore is right in maintaining, that had Jesus once already fed the multitude by a miracle, the disciples, on the second occasion, when he expressed his determination not to send the people away fasting, would confidently have called upon him for a repetition of the former miracle.