The Church of the multiplication of the loaves – Tabgha and Magdala

Tabgha and Magdala

The pilgrims, continuing the tradition of the Christians who lived continuously in Capharnaum since the times of Christ, localized three Gospel memories in Tabgha: the multiplication of the loaves, the appearance of Christ risen to the Apostles and the Beatitudes.

Continuing towards Tiberias, after the plain of Ghinnosar, Magdala is reached, the place that gave its name to Mary Magdalene, the ardent disciple of the Lord.

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The Christian tradition

Not far away (from Capharnaum) the stone steps on which the Lord stood can be seen. There, near the sea, the land is covered with grass and hay is plentiful. There are a lot of palm trees ad nearby are seven springs which provide abundant water: in this lush land, the Lord fed a multitude with five loaves of bread and two fish.

The stone on which the Lord laid the bread has become an altar. The public thoroughfare, where Matthew had his tax collection post, passes near the walls of that church. The neighbouring mount is where the Lord went to say the Beatitudes”. This text, kept in a small medieval book on the Holy Places and attributed to the pilgrim Egeria (381-384 AD), is the best evidence of the Christian memories of Tabgha, the name of which is a deformation of the Greek Heptàpegon (seven springs).

The church of the multiplication of the loaves (brought back to the light in 1932 by the Benedictine E. Mader) is in the plain, amidst the springs, with its ancient mosaics of the Nilotic type and the famous rock under the altar in front of which a mosaic represents the bread and fish used by Jesus to feed the multitude.

The Sanctuary of the Beatitudes stands on the nearby mount: the older one, lower down, near the road (excavated in 1936 by Father B. Bagatti) and the new one (designed by the architect A. Barluzzi in 1938) on a higher hillock.

Biblical Texts – The first multiplication of the loaves

And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things. And when the day was now far spent, his disciples came unto him, and said, This is a desert place, and now the time is far passed: Send them away, that they may go into the country round about, and into the villages, and buy themselves bread: for they have nothing to eat.

He answered and said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they say unto him, Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread, and give them to eat? He saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? go and see. And when they knew, they say, Five, and two fishes.

And he commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass. And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and by fifties. And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided he among them all. And they did all eat, and were filled.

And they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments, and of the fishes. And they that did eat of the loaves were about five thousand men.
(Mark 6,34-44)