Of this miracle accounts are given by the four Evangelists (Matt. 14:13-33; Mark 6:32-52; Luke 9:10-17); and it is the only miracle recorded by them all. There are some differences in their records; for details see notes below. In the main the three Synoptics agree, while the differences between them and the Fourth Gospel are more considerable. According to the Synoptics Jesus and his disciples crossed the Sea of Galilee to the east side; the people, going round by land, outran them, and apparently were waiting for them on the shore (Mark); Christ therefore abandoned his original design of rest, and devoted the day to instruction (Mark) and healing (Matthew and Luke). When evening was come the disciples asked him to send the people away to the villages to get necessary food; Jesus replied, Give ye them to eat; the disciples answered that they had nothing but five loaves and two small fishes to give; and from these Jesus fed them. According to John, Jesus crossed over the sea with his disciples, went up into the hills, and there sat with them; while sitting there he saw the people coming round by land, proposed to feed them, asked Philip where they should get the bread, and apparently going down to the plain to feed the people, took the five loaves and two small fishes and distributed them among the people. All agree, however, as to the main facts: the feeding of five thousand on five loaves and two small fishes, and the gathering of twelve baskets of fragments, are narrated by all four Evangelists; the subsequent departure of Christ into the mountain for solitude and prayer, the embarkation of the disciples by boat, and his walking to them upon the sea are recounted by all but Luke; Matthew alone gives the account of Peter’s attempt to walk upon the water to meet Jesus. Harmonists have endeavored to combine these accounts in one consistent narrative; this is the work, however, rather of imagination than of criticism; any such harmony is necessarily hypothetical. The attempts have succeeded in so far as to show that the accounts are capable of combination. It may be added that the variations are just such as we might expect in narratives coming from independent eye-witnesses, and not such as we might expect in different fictitious accounts, or in different versions of a myth, derived from the same tradition. The miracle took place immediately on the return of the twelve after executing the commissions given to them in Matthew, ch. 10; the immediate object of Christ in retiring to the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee was to secure quiet for a personal conference with the twelve respecting their work (Mark 6:30). For further statement of the chronology of the event, and the most probable harmony of the four accounts, see Matt. 14:13-27, note. A topographical difficulty is presented by an apparent but not real inconsistency between Luke 9:10 and Mark 6:45. According to Luke, Christ took the twelve with him into a desert place belonging to