(2) We read in the Gospels that Our Lord fed many people with five loaves and two fishes. Speaking parabolically, we may say that the first loaf was--that we should know ourselves, what we have been everlastingly to God, and what we now are to Him. The second--that we should pity our fellow Christian who is blinded; his loss should grieve us as much as our own. The third--that we should know our Lord Jesus Christ's life, and follow it to the utmost of our capacity. The fourth--that we should know the judgments of God. All that may be said of the pains of hell is true.

St Dionysius saith, "To be separated from God is hell, and the sight of God's countenance is heaven." The fifth is--that we should know the Godhead which has flowed into the Father and filled Him with joy, and which has flowed into the Son and filled Him with wisdom, and the Two are essentially one. Therefore said Christ, "Where I am, there is My Father, and where My Father is, there am I" And They have flowed into the Holy Ghost and filled Him with good will. Therefore said Christ, "I and My Father have one Spirit," and the Holy Ghost has flowed into the soul.

(42) And Israel saw that if he did not send him with them, they should all perish by reason of the famine.

(6) So very mystically the five loaves are broken by the Saviour, and fill the crowd of the listeners. For great is the crowd that keep to the things of sense, as if they were the only things in existence. "Cast your eyes round, and see," says Plato, "that none of the uninitiated listen." Such are they who think that nothing else exists, but what they can hold tight with their hands; but do not admit as in the department of existence, actions and processes of generation, and the whole of the unseen. For such are those who keep by the five senses. But the knowledge of God is a thing inaccessible to the ears and like organs of this kind of people. Hence the Son is said to be the Father's face, being the revealer of the Father's character to the five senses by clothing Himself with flesh. "But if we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit." "For we walk by faith, not by sight," the noble apostle says. Within the veil, then, is concealed the sacerdotal service; and it keeps those engaged in it far from those without.