Paragraph:
V, 2-3
Translation:
(2) - - - Not far away from (Capernaum) are some stone steps where the Lord stood. (3) And in the same place by the sea is a grassy field with plenty of hay and many palm trees. By them are seven springs, each flowing strongly. And this is the field where the Lord fed the people with the five loaves and the two fishes <Matt. 14:14-21; Mark 6:34-44>. In fact the stone on which the Lord placed the bread has now been made into an altar. People who go there take away small pieces of the stone to bring them prosperity, and they are very effective. Past the walls of this church goes the public highway on which the Apostle Matthew <Matt. 9:9> had his place of custom.
(transl. Wilkinson)
Bibliografical ref.:
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Summary:
Description of the church altar made out of the rock of the Mensa Domini at the place of the Feeding of the five thousand at Seven Springs, presumably from a passage lost in the MS of Egeria's itinerary of AD 381-384, as recorded in a guidebook compiled 1137.
As noted by Wilkinson, p. 196n3, “The four steps still exist beside a chapel on the lake shore. Just inside the chapel is a higher outcrop of rock, much worn, but with a roughly rectangular base”. He then goes on to conclude that “it therefore seems likely that the occasion commemorated [in section 2] was when the Lord ‘stood’ by the shore after the resurrection, and prepared fish and bread for the disciples when they had been fishing (John 21.4, etc.)”, and explains that “the archaeological evidence [at Et Tabgha] suggests was a monastic site. Here, as at Mount Sinai, a number of biblical commemorations are clustered together in one small area, probably as a result of the monks’ own interpretation of the place where they lived”.