“And he said unto them, How is it that ye do not understand?”
He said to them, do you still not understand? — the question is the chapter's diagnostic conclusion: after two feedings, the storm stilling, the exorcisms, the healings, the private explanations — do you still not understand? The question does not receive an answer in the text. Mark leaves the silence as the answer. The disciples do not understand. The chapter will immediately follow with a healing that happens in two stages (verses 22–26) — a narrative picture of gradual sight that mirrors the disciples' gradual comprehension.
Church Fathers on Mark 8:21
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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