“And when the seven among four thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? And they said, Seven.”
And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up? They answered, seven — the second memory test: seven basketfuls for four thousand. Again, they remember the number correctly. The two data points (five loaves/five thousand/twelve baskets; seven loaves/four thousand/seven baskets) establish the pattern conclusively: Jesus produces abundance from scarcity, consistently and at scale. The disciples have participated in both miracles and can recite the statistics but have not connected the pattern to a conclusion about who Jesus is.
Church Fathers on Mark 8:20
After that our Lord had worked the miracle of the loaves, He immediately retires into another spot, lest on account of the miracle, the multitudes should take Him to make Him a king.
Now in Matthew we read that He entered into the parts of Magdala [ed. note: Magedam]. But we cannot doubt that it is the same place under another name; for several manuscripts even of St. Mark have only Magdala.
The Pharisees, then, seek a sign from heaven, that He, Who had for the second time fed many thousands of men with a few loaves of bread, should now, after the example of Moses, refresh the whole nation in the last time with manna sent down from heaven, and dispersed amongst them all.
Read all 15 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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