Biblical commentary on the New Testament - The Christian ...

Matthew XV. 32-39. 539
137), and Scliultz (on the Lord's Supper, p. 311). De Wette also
and otliers see in this second account a repetition of the first fact
drawn from tradition. The chief ground for this supposition would
seem to lie in the circumstance that we cannot conceive how the
disciples, if they had once had experience of such a miracle, could
ever in similar circumstances have asked unbelievingly -uOev ijiuv iv
tprinia agroL rooovroi dare ^opracrat o;^Aov roaovrov^ ivhcnce have ive
in the desert so many loaves ? etc., (ver. 33.) But less weight is to be
attached to this remark when we find that on various occasions the
disciples forget things which it should have been impossible for them
to forget. For example, the plainest declarations as to Christ's suf-
ferings and death they seem never to have heard when the event
really took place. Assuming then that some considerable time
that mean-
elapsed between these two miraculous entertainments ;
while, they had frequently met with cases in which themselves
and those around them had suffered momentary want (take, e. g.,
the plucking of the ears of corn), but in which the Lord did
not choose thus to interpose his aid, we may perhaps conceive that
in the moment of feeling want, it did not occur, to the discij^les
that the Sa\-iour would be pleased a second time thus to manifest
his power. We are the more disposed to this explanation, as
there is otherwise not the slightest improbability of the repetition
under analogous circumstances, of the same fact, any more than that
healing processes were similarly repeated. To admit, on the other
hand, that the narrative in this case is not authentic', is to open the
w^ay for consequences affecting the authority of the Gospel which
a Christian mind could never admit, unless they rested on such
sure historical proofs, as are here utterly wanting. A new and fully
detailed histoiy of events which absolutely did not take place could
be given neither by an apostle of the Lord, nor by an assistant
whose gospel rested on apostolic authority. Still less could both
narrators subsequently (Matth. xvi. 9, 10 ; Mark viii. 19, 20), put
into the mouth of our Lord himself an allusion to an event which
Lad never happened.* If the narrative forced us to such assump-
tions as this, the authority of both gospels would be overthrown.
The supposition tliat a fully detailed narrative of ftict is a pure in-
* The passage here quoted is also of importance for our object in this respect, that
the remark of the disciples, o-t uotov^ ovk iAili3n/iei> (Matth. xvi. 7), shews that even
after the second miraculous feeding the disciples could not imagine that their being in the
company of the Son of man made it needless for them to take provisions for tlie body.
Jesus finds it necessary to rebuke them for this unbelief, and reminds them of lolh mirac-
ulous entertainments. One can hardly conceive a stronger proof that the second feeding
is authentic. Meanwhile superficial modern criticism knows how to set it quite easily
aside by the cheap assertion that it was only after the formation of the two fabulous reports
as to the feeding, that this whole conversation was—invented. At this rate any
fact one chooses may be struck out of the narrative.