Note 307 — Chapter IX · MIRACLES OF JESUS.

But though these two cases of a miraculous supply of nourishment are thus analogous, there is this essential distinction, that in the Old Testament, in relation both to the manna and the quails, it is a miraculous procuring of food not previously existing which is spoken of, while in the New Testament it is a miraculous augmentation of provision already present, but inadequate; so that the chasm between the Mosaic narrative and the evangelical one is too great for the latter to have been derived immediately from the former. If we search for an intermediate step, a very natural one between Moses and the Messiah is afforded by the prophets. We read of Elijah, that through him and for his sake, the little store of meal and oil which he found in the possession of the widow of Zarephath was miraculously replenished, or rather was made to suffice throughout the duration of the famine (1 Kings xvii. 8–16). This species of miracle is developed still further, and with a greater resemblance to the evangelical narrative, in the history of Elisha (2 Kings iv. 42 ff.). As Jesus fed five thousand men in the wilderness with five loaves and two fishes, so this prophet, during a famine, fed a hundred men with twenty loaves, (which like those distributed by Jesus in John, are called barley loaves,) together with some ground corn (‏כַּרְמֶל‎, LXX. παλάθας); a disproportion between the quantity of provisions and the number of men, which his servant, like the disciples in the other instance, indicates in the question: What! should I set this before a hundred men? Elisha, like Jesus, is not diverted from his purpose, but commands the servant to give what he has to the people; and as in the New Testament narrative great stress is laid on the collection of the remaining fragments, so in the Old Testament it is specially noticed at the close of this story, that notwithstanding so many had eaten of the store, there was still an overplus.307 The only important difference here is, that on the side of the evangelical narrative, the number of the loaves is smaller, and that of the people greater; but who does not know that in general the legend does not easily imitate, without at the same time surpassing, and who does not see that in this particular instance it was entirely suited to the position of the Messiah, that his miraculous power, compared with that of Elisha, should be placed, as it regards the need of natural means, in the relation of five to twenty, but as it regards the supernatural performance, in that of five thousand to one hundred? Paulus indeed, in order to preclude the inference, that as the two narratives in the Old Testament are to be understood mythically, so also is the strikingly similar evangelical narrative, extends to the former the attempt at a natural explanation which he has pursued with the latter, making the widow’s cruse of oil to be replenished by the aid of the scholars of the prophets, and the twenty loaves suffice for one hundred men by means of a praiseworthy moderation;308 a mode of explanation which is more practicable here than with the New Testament narrative, in proportion as, by reason of the greater remoteness of these anecdotes, they present fewer critical (and, by reason of their merely mediate relation to Christianity, fewer dogmatical) motives for maintaining their historical veracity.