After these things Jesus went over the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias.
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Alcuin of York
AD 804
This sea has different names, from the different places with which it is connected; the sea of Galilee, from the province; the sea of Tiberias, from the city of that name. It is called a sea, though it is not salt water, that name being applied to all large pieces of water, in Hebrew. This sea our Lord often passes over, in going to preach to the people bordering on it.
viz. His giving sight to the blind, and other like miracles. And it should be understood, that all, whom He healed in body, He renewed likewise in soul.
He asks him this question, not for His own information, but in order to show His yet unformed disciple his dullness of mind, which he could not perceive of himself.
Wherein he shows his dullness: for, had he perfect ideas of his Creator, he would not be thus doubting His power.
Sit down, i.e. lie down, as the ancient custom w as, which they could do, as there was much grass in the place.
Their faith being as yet weak, they only call our Lord a Prophet not knowing that He was God. But the miracle had produced considerable effect upon them, as it made them call our Lord that Prophet, singling Him out from the rest. They call Him a Prophet, because some of the Prophets had worked miracles; and properly, inasmuch as our Lord calls Himself aProphet; It cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.
Mystically, the sea signifies this tumultuous world. In the fullness of time, when Christ had entered the sea of our mortality by His birth, trodden it by His death, passed over it by His resurrection, then followed Him crowds of believers, both from the Jews and Gentiles.
His leaving the multitude below, and ascending the heights with His disciples, signifies, that lesser precepts are to be given to beginners, higher to the more matured. His refreshing the people shortly before the Passover signifies our refreshment by the bread of the divine word; and the body and blood, i.e. our spiritual Passover, by which we pass over from vice to virtue. And the Lord’s eyes are spiritual gifts, which he mercifully bestows on His Elect. He turns His eyes upon them, i.e. has compassionate respect to them.
Baskets are used for servile work. The baskets here are the Apostles and their followers, who, though despised in this present life, are within filled with the riches of spiritual sacraments. The Apostles too are represented as baskets, because, that through them, the doctrine of the Trinity was to be preached in the four parts of the world. His not making new loaves, but multiplying what there were, means that He did not reject the Old Testament, but only developed and explained it.
