Eighth Sunday of Matthew

Paraskeve was born in Rome of Christian parents, and from her youth was instructed in the Faith of Christ. Tradition holds that she was named for the day of her birth—Paraskeve, the Friday of Preparation—and that she wore her name as a calling, preparing herself and others for the coming of the Lord. With great fervor she strove to fulfill all the commandments of God, and when her parents died she distributed the whole of her inheritance to the poor, was tonsured a nun, and gave herself wholly to the preaching of Christ. She did this openly, hiding from no one, in a season when the Roman authority was conducting a bloody persecution against the Church.

Denounced for preaching a forbidden faith, she was brought to trial before the Emperor Antoninus. His flatteries could not move her, and so she was given over to torture: a red-hot helmet was placed upon her head, and she was cast, by other accounts, into a cauldron of boiling oil and pitch. The Lord preserved her unharmed, and, freed, she left Rome and continued from city to city, converting pagans to the true Faith. Brought again before princes and judges, she was tortured for her Lord and worked great miracles, recovering swiftly from her wounds by the power of God. When one prince ascribed her healing to magic and to his own gods, she answered him plainly: “O Prince, it is not your gods who have healed me, but my Christ, the true God.” At the last a certain Prince Tarasius beheaded her with the sword, and thus she gloriously ended her fruitful life. Her relics were later translated to Constantinople.

The Church has long loved Paraskeve as a healer, and especially as a protector of the eyes and of sight—so that her memory falls fittingly on the Sunday whose Gospel opens with the words, “He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick.” What Christ does in the wilderness for the great multitude, He continues to do through His saints: the martyr who was herself healed again and again under torture becomes, after her repose, a fountain of healing for others. Her apolytikion gathers the whole of her life into a play on her name: “Appropriate to your calling, O Champion Paraskevi, you worshipped with the readiness your name bears… wherefore, you pour forth healing and intercede for our souls.”

These three were among the small number left alive after the burning of some twenty thousand Christians in the church at Nicomedia in the year 303, in the fierce persecution under the Emperor Maximian. Surviving that slaughter, they did not flee the field but withdrew to hidden places in and around the city, from which they did not cease to preach Christ to the pagans. Hermolaus, a priest, is remembered above all as the spiritual father of the Great Martyr Panteleimon (commemorated the following day, July 27): the young pagan Pantoleon passed daily by the house where Hermolaus was concealed, until the elder drew him in, catechized him, and baptized him.

When Panteleimon was arrested and tried, Hermolaus, Hermippus, and Hermocrates were seized as well. Given, as always, the choice to deny Christ and to offer sacrifice to the idols, they refused without wavering, confessing the Lord Jesus and standing ready to die for Him. At their confession an earthquake shook the city, and the idols and their temple collapsed and were shattered. Enduring their torments bravely, the three hieromartyrs were beheaded about the year 305. They belong to that company of witnesses whose faith, like the multitude in the day’s Gospel, followed Christ into the wilderness of persecution and would not turn back for hunger or fear.

Moses, a Hungarian by birth, came into the service of the holy Passion-Bearer Prince Boris together with his brothers—among them Saint Ephraim of Novy Torg. When Boris was murdered on the river Alta in 1015, Moses escaped and hid in Kiev; but in 1018, when the Polish king Bolesław took the city, Moses was carried off a captive to Poland. There a wealthy and beautiful widow, captivated by him, sought by every means to draw him into marriage and into her bed, offering him freedom, riches, and honor. For his refusal he suffered greatly, showing, as his life records, the patience of Job through years of affliction and, in his guarding of chastity, a steadfastness greater than Joseph’s before the wife of Potiphar. Tonsured a monk while yet in captivity, he was beaten and cast out.

Freed at last, Moses made his way to the Kiev Caves, where under the guidance of Saint Anthony he struggled as a hesychast for some ten years more, reposing in peace in the year 1043. His relics rest incorrupt in the Near Caves. He is venerated as a helper against the passions of the flesh, a monk whose whole life preached, without a word, the freedom of the sons of God of which this Sunday’s Epistle speaks—no longer a slave, but a son and heir.

Jacob Netsvetov was born in 1802 on Atka Island in the Aleutians, the son of a Russian father from Tobolsk and an Aleut mother. Educated at the seminary in Irkutsk in Siberia, he became the first native Alaskan to be ordained to the Orthodox priesthood. Returning to his own people, he labored first on Atka and then, for the latter part of his ministry, in the vast and punishing delta country of the Kuskokwim and Yukon rivers, where he became the evangelizer of the Yup’ik and the Athabascan peoples, baptizing more than thirteen hundred souls and translating the Scriptures and services into the Aleut tongue.

He bore the hardships of that mission—cold, hunger, exhausting travel by kayak and on foot, the loss of his home and church to fire—with the endurance of an apostle, feeding the peoples of a literal wilderness with the bread of the Word. He reposed at Sitka on July 26, 1864, and was glorified by the Orthodox Church in America in 1994 with the title “Enlightener of the Peoples of Alaska.” On a Sunday whose Gospel shows Christ feeding a multitude in a deserted place, the memory of this missionary priest who carried that same nourishing Word into one of the emptiest corners of the earth needs little commentary.

The Antiochian Liturgic Day for July 26 also commemorates the holy Martyr Prisca. She is honored in the Church as a young Roman woman who suffered torture and death for her confession of Christ; her principal commemoration falls on January 18, and the synaxaria of several traditions remember her again on this day. Beyond her Roman origin and her martyric witness, reliable biographical detail is sparse, and it is better to say so plainly than to embellish. Her name joins that of Paraskeve to give this summer Sunday two Roman virgin-martyrs who, like the crowd in the Gospel, hungered for Christ above all else.

• “Although the place be desert, yet He that feeds the world is here; and although the time be now past, yet He that is not subject to time is discoursing with you.”—St. John Chrysostom
• “He said not, ‘I give them,’ but, ‘Give ye them’; for as yet their regard to Him was as to a man.”—St. John Chrysostom
• “In this miracle Jesus was teaching them humility, temperance, charity, to be of like mind toward one another and to share all things in common.”—St. John Chrysostom
• “He requires not faith here; for by coming to Him, and by leaving their cities, and by abiding with Him even when hunger was pressing, they display their own faith.”—St. John Chrysostom
• “We must spend in hospitality even the little that we have… As that little was multiplied, so too will your little be multiplied.”—Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid
• “He multiplies both the loaves and the fish to show that He is the Creator of earth and sea, and the Giver of what we eat every day.”—Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid
• “There were twelve baskets so that Judas too might carry one and thus, remembering the miracle, not rush headlong into betrayal.”—Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid
• “Because he was unknown, therefore, he came feeding, eating and feeding, so that through those things that are seen, he who was unseen might appear.”—Eusebius of Emesa
• “So that we might learn that when we are in charge of the table, we ought to bring the loaves to God with hands upraised and bring down the blessing from above, He became for us the beginning and pattern and way.”—St. Cyril of Alexandria

”And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick.”

St. John Chrysostom (+407)

Great as their assiduity was, yet nevertheless His doings exceeded what any diligence could earn. Wherefore He sets forth also His motive for so healing them—His mercy, His intense mercy—and He heals all. And He requires not faith here; for both by coming to Him, and by leaving their cities, and by diligently seeking Him, and by abiding with Him even when hunger was pressing, they display their own faith. But He is about to feed them also. And He does not this of Himself, but waits to be entreated, on every occasion maintaining this rule, not to spring onward to His miracles, but upon some call.

Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid (+1107)

The multitude show their faith by running to Jesus even as He is departing, for which they receive healing as the reward of faith. Their following on foot and without any provisions are also signs of faith.

”When it was evening, His disciples came to Him, saying, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is already late. Send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food.’”

St. Cyril of Alexandria (+444)

Let us examine carefully what this sending away of the crowds is all about. Some of those who followed Christ were afflicted by evil spirits and begged to be delivered from them; others were afflicted with various sicknesses from which they sought relief. Therefore, because the disciples knew that Jesus had only to consider what those who were suffering longed for and it would be accomplished, they wished to send them away—not so much because they thought Jesus’ time too valuable, but because they had a love for the crowds and, as though already having an understanding of pastoral care, they began to care for the people.

St. John Chrysostom (+407)

Note carefully the Teacher’s skill; observe with what discretion He draws them toward believing. For He did not simply say, “I will feed them”—the deeper significance of that would not have been easily understood. So what does He say? “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” He did not say, “I give them,” but “you give them.” For at this point their regard for Him was essentially as to a man.

Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid (+1107)

The disciples are compassionate and concerned about the multitude, not wanting them to go without food. What, then, does the Savior do? “Give ye them to eat,” He says—not in ignorance of the extreme poverty of the apostles, far from it, but so that when they had said, “We do not have,” He might appear to proceed to work a miracle out of necessity and not from vainglory.

”But Jesus said to them, ‘They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.’”

St. John Chrysostom (+407)

He said not, “I give them,” but, “Give ye them”; for as yet their regard to Him was as to a man. But they not even so are awakened, but still reason as with a man.

”And they said to Him, ‘We have here only five loaves and two fish.’”

St. John Chrysostom (+407)

Wherefore Mark also says, “They understood not the saying, for their heart was hardened.”

Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid (+1107)

“Bring the loaves here to Me. Though it be evening, I Who created the hours am here. Though it be a deserted place, it is I Who giveth food to all flesh.” We learn from this that we must spend in hospitality even the little that we have, just as the apostles gave to the crowds the little that they had. As that little was multiplied, so too will your little be multiplied.

”He said, ‘Bring them here to Me.’”

St. John Chrysostom (+407)

They continuing therefore to crawl on the ground, then at length He brings in His own part, and says, “Bring them hither to Me.” For although the place be desert, yet He that feeds the world is here; and although the time be now past, yet He that is not subject to time is discoursing with you. But John says also that they were barley loaves, not mentioning it without object, but teaching us to trample under foot the pride of costly living. Such was the diet of the prophets also.

”Then He commanded the multitudes to sit down on the grass. And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples; and the disciples gave to the multitudes.”

St. John Chrysostom (+407)

In this miracle Jesus was teaching them humility, temperance, charity, to be of like mind toward one another and to share all things in common. He did so in His choice of location, by providing nothing more than loaves and fishes, by setting the same food before all and having them share it in common, and by affording no one more than another. And wherefore did He look up to Heaven and bless? It was to be believed of Him both that He is of the Father and that He is equal to Him. In the lesser things He looks up to Heaven, but in the greater does all with authority, to teach you that not as receiving power from elsewhere, but as honoring Him that begot Him, so He acts.

Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid (+1107)

He bids the multitude to recline on the grass, teaching frugality, so that you also, O reader, may not take your ease on expensive beds and couches. He looks up to heaven and blesses the loaves, as if both to confirm that He is not opposed to God but that He came from the Father and from heaven, and also to teach us to give thanks when we begin a meal and only then to eat.

”So they all ate and were filled, and they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments that remained.”

St. Cyril of Alexandria (+444)

That by every means the Lord might be known to be God by nature, He multiplies what is little, and He looks up to heaven as though asking for the blessing from above. Now He does this out of the divine economy, for our sakes. For He Himself is the one who fills all things, the true blessing from above and from the Father. But so that we might learn that when we are in charge of the table and are preparing to break the loaves, we ought to bring them to God with hands upraised and bring down upon them the blessing from above, He became for us the beginning and pattern and way. It is possible to see these new miracles concurring with more ancient ones: the manna once remained in the wilderness for those of Israel; now again in the desert He has provided ungrudgingly for those in want of food, a good symbol for measuring use according to need.

Eusebius of Emesa (+360)

The miracle of the bread revealed the one through whom the soil, when planted with seed, multiplies. What was done invisibly, once brought to light, proclaimed who it is that always works invisibly. In the world He was not idle or inactive but was always at work, feeding everyone and taking nothing for Himself. Because He was unknown, therefore, He came feeding, eating and feeding, so that through those things that are seen, He who was unseen might appear.

St. John Chrysostom (+407)

And not even here does He hold back on the miracle, but it continues as the loaves become fragments. For this providential purpose Jesus permitted the crowds to get hungry, in order that no one might suppose what took place to be an illusion. For this purpose also He caused just twelve baskets to remain over, that Judas too might bear one. And another thing too we learn: the self-restraint of the disciples, how little they accounted of food; for being twelve, they had five loaves only and two fishes, and not even that little did they hold fast, but gave it up when asked. Whereby we should be taught that, though we have but little, this too we ought to give up to them that are in need.

”Now those who had eaten were about five thousand men, besides women and children.”

St. John Chrysostom (+407)

It is a proof of the faith of these multitudes that they endured hunger, waiting for the Lord even till evening. The Lord, purposing to feed them, waits to be asked, as always not stepping forward first to do miracles, but when called upon. For this cause also He leads them out into the desert, that the miracle might be clear of all suspicion, and that none might suppose that anything was brought from a village near by. There were five thousand men beside women and children—which was a very great commendation of the people, that both women and men attended Him.

Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid (+1107)

He gives the loaves to the disciples so that they might always retain the miracle in their memory. There was food left over lest you think that He performed the miracle only in appearance; and there were twelve baskets so that Judas too might carry one, and thus, remembering the miracle, not rush headlong into betrayal. He multiplies both the loaves and the fish to show that He is the Creator of earth and sea, and the Giver of what we eat every day. He performed the miracle in a deserted place lest anyone think that He bought the loaves from a neighboring town.

”Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, while He sent the multitudes away.”

Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid (+1107)

By using the word “constrained,” Matthew suggests how inseparable the disciples were from Jesus, for they wanted to be with Him at all times. He sends the multitudes away, not wishing to draw them after Him lest He appear to vaunt in His powers.

Source: Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, Homily XLIX

Chrysostom’s forty-ninth homily on Matthew is the fullest patristic treatment of the feeding and supplies the argument behind the excerpts above. He dwells on why the Lord withdraws to the wilderness and waits until evening—so that the miracle should be “clear of all suspicion”—and on why He looks up to heaven for this sign though He raised the dead by His own authority: to confess, in the lesser act, His unity with and honor of the Father. He turns the disciples’ five loaves into a lesson on almsgiving: they gave up even the little they had, and were not impoverished but enriched.

Source: The Explanation of the Holy Gospel According to St. Matthew, chapter 14

Theophylact, distilling Chrysostom, gives the preacher the compact Orthodox reading of the passage, and adds the allegory the pulpit loves: the five thousand “are those who are sick in their five senses, and who are healed by the five loaves”; the two fish are the words of the fishermen-apostles; the twelve baskets are what the Twelve gathered of the fragments the multitude could not receive—”whatever we are unable to eat, that is, to understand, the apostles carried and held.” His literal notes are equally useful: the deserted place rules out any suspicion that the bread was bought, and even Judas carrying a basket becomes an unheeded call to repentance.

Source: Commentary on the Gospel of Luke / Catena fragments on the Feeding

Cyril reads the miracle against the manna in the wilderness: the same divine power that fed Israel now feeds the crowd, “as though bringing it down from heaven.” He draws from the Lord’s upraised eyes a rule for the Christian table—that we bring our loaves to God “with hands upraised” and call down the blessing from above—and from the leftover fragments a rule for the Christian appetite: to measure “use according to need,” refusing the acquisitiveness that hoards beyond necessity.

Matthew frames the whole miracle with a single verb: Christ “was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick.” The healing and the feeding are not displays of power but overflowings of mercy. Chrysostom is careful to say that the Lord “requires not faith here”—unlike other miracles where He asks, “Do you believe?”—because the crowd’s faith is already shown in their feet: they left their cities and followed Him into the desert and would not go home for hunger. Divine compassion meets human longing halfway and then exceeds it. For the preacher this is the pastoral heart of the day: the Lord notices the simplest bodily need of the people—that they might faint on the way home—and does something about it. Mercy that stops at feeling is not yet the mercy of Christ; His compassion moves His hands.

When the disciples propose the obvious solution—send the crowds away to buy their own food—the Lord refuses it and lays the burden on them: “You give them something to eat.” Their answer is an inventory of inadequacy: five loaves and two fish. This is the hinge of the passage and, the Fathers insist, the hinge of the Christian life. Christ does not create bread from nothing; He takes the disciples’ pathetically small offering, blesses it, and makes it more than enough. Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh presses the point toward our own tables: “He did not say, ‘Keep as much as you need for yourselves and give the rest’… He said: ‘Take all you have, and give it all.’” Theophylact draws the rule for hospitality: “We must spend even the little that we have… As that little was multiplied, so too will your little be multiplied.” The miracle is a permanent commentary on stewardship—the Lord multiplies what is placed in His hands, and only what is placed in His hands.

The sequence of verbs in verse 19—He took, He looked up to heaven, He blessed, He broke, He gave—is the sequence of the Divine Liturgy, and the Church has never been able to hear this Gospel without hearing the Eucharist in it. The feeding in the wilderness recalls the manna and anticipates the true Bread from heaven that the Lord will name the very next day: “I am the bread of life… the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world” (John 6:35, 51). Cyril of Alexandria sees the Lord making Himself “the beginning and pattern and way” of the blessed table. The bread is given not directly to the crowd but through the disciples, and through them, the Fathers say, to the whole ministry of the Church that distributes the Bread of life at every altar. The desert becomes a sanctuary; the grass, a place of reclining at the Lord’s table.

The Lord deliberately chooses a deserted place and a late hour—the very conditions that make the miracle impossible by human reckoning, and therefore unmistakable as the work of God. Chrysostom notes the choice was made so the miracle would be “clear of all suspicion.” Out of that emptiness comes not merely sufficiency but overflow: all are filled, and twelve baskets of fragments remain, one, the Fathers love to note, for each apostle. The abundance that exceeds the need is a sign of the Kingdom, where God’s provision is never merely adequate. And the wilderness itself is instructive: it is precisely where the people have nothing that they receive everything, an enacted beatitude—”blessed are the poor in spirit”—and a word of hope to every congregation that feels it has too little to offer.

”Thou didst shatter death by Thy Cross, Thou didst open Paradise to the thief; Thou didst turn the myrrh-bearing women’s lamentation into joy, and didst command Thine Apostles to preach that Thou art risen, O Christ God, granting the world the Great Mercy.”

The apolytikion of the week’s tone opens the troparia of the Liturgy with the victory of the Cross and empty tomb—the same divine authority that, in the day’s Gospel, feeds a multitude from five loaves.

”Appropriate to your calling, O Champion Paraskevi, you worshipped with the readiness your name bears. For an abode you obtained faith, which is your namesake. Wherefore, you pour forth healing and intercede for our souls.”

The hymn plays on the martyr’s name (Paraskeve, “preparation”) and names her gift: she “pours forth healing”—a fitting echo, on this Sunday, of the Christ who “healed their sick.”

”O undisputed intercessor of Christians, the mediatrix unrejected by the Creator, turn not away from the voice of our petitions, though we be sinners. Come to us with aid in time, who cry unto thee in faith.”

The ordinary Sunday kontakion of the season closes the troparia block by placing the Church’s petitions in the hands of the Theotokos, through whom the Bread of life was given to the world.