We see that St John attributed this great concourse of people to its being the time of the Passover. Now the road from Damascus to Jerusalem went past the north end of the Lake, and it has been supposed that the great caravan of Syrian Jews was passing on its way to the feast, and that to this the “great company” belonged. St Matthew, St Mark and St Luke, however, all imply that the multitude came from the neighbouring cities, and St John says that they “_followed_ Him (_i.e._ from the villages of Gennesaret) because they beheld the Signs;” and St Mark tells us that the people “saw them going and many knew them.” The crowd therefore could not have been strangers from Damascus. St John, however, would not have here mentioned the Passover, if there had not been some connexion between it and the presence of the crowd. The connexion, I believe to have been this. He means to account for the crowd by saying, “It was feast time, no work was being done, and large bodies of men were therefore at leisure to follow.” Some think that the Evangelist may have seen in this miraculous meal a substitute for the Paschal feast, which our Lord and his followers can hardly have kept according to due form. In this miracle, I am particularly concerned.(214) In speaking of it in an earlier Chapter I observed that our Lord’s rule of abstaining from using His miraculous power to provide for the physical wants of His followers or Himself, holds in this case, inasmuch as our Lord’s party had enough for themselves; this proceeds on the supposition that the loaves and fishes belonged to the Apostles, although if they had had the money, and bought what would just have sufficed for themselves, the law would have held good. It may be asked, “Had the Apostles the loaves with them or did they buy them of the lad?” As a matter of explanation, I think it more consistent with the narrative of the other Evangelists to suppose that the lad mentioned by Andrew(215) was carrying provisions belonging to the party, than that he had brought them for sale and that the disciples bought them.