Sermon XLV. [XCV. Ben.] On the words of the Gospel, Mark viii. 5, etc., where the miracle of the seven loaves is re- lated. 1. In expounding to you the Holy Scriptures, I as it were break bread for you. Do ye in hunger receive it, and break3135 forth with a fulness of phrase from the heart; and ye who are rich in your banquet, be not meagre in good works and deeds. What I deal out to you is not mine own. What ye eat, I eat; what ye live upon, I live upon. We have in heaven a common store-house; for from thence comes the Word of God. 2. The “seven loaves”3136 signify the seven-fold operation of the Holy Spirit; the “four thousand men,” the Church established on the four Gospels; “the seven baskets of fragments,” the perfection of the Church. For by this number very constantly is perfection figured. For whence is that which is said, “seven times in a day will I praise thee”?3137 Does a man sin who does not praise the Lord so often? What then is “seven times will I praise,” but “I will never cease from praise”? For he who says “seven times,” signifies all time. Whence in this world there are continual revolutions of seven days. What then is “seven times in a day will I praise Thee,” but what is said in another place, “His praise shall always be in my mouth”?3138 With reference to this perfection, John writes to seven Churches. The Apocalypse is a book of St. John the Evangelist; and he writes “to seven Churches.”3139 Be ye hungered;3140 own ye these baskets. For those fragments were not lost; but seeing that ye too belong to the Church, they have surely profited you. In that I explain this to you, I minister to Christ; and when ye hear peaceably, ye “sit down.”3141 I in my body sit, but in my heart I am standing, and ministering to you in anxiety; lest peradventure, not the food, but the vessel offend any of you. Ye know the feast of God, ye have often heard it, that it is for the heart, not for the belly. 3. Of a truth four thousand men were filled by seven loaves; what is more wonderful than this! Yet even this were not enough, had not seven baskets also been filled with the fragments that remained. O great mysteries! they were works, and the works spake. If thou understand these doings, they are words. And ye too belong to the four thousand, because ye live under the fourfold Gospel. To this number the children and women did not belong. 3135 Saginam laudis eructuate. 3136 Mark viii. 6. 3137 Ps. cxix. 164. 3138 Ps. xxxiv. 1. 3139 Rev. i. 4. 3140 Voraces, Edd. ant.; veraces, B from 1Ms. 2da manu. 3141 Mark viii. 6. On the words of the Gospel, Mark viii. 5, etc., where the miracle of the seven loaves is related. 847 On the words of the Gospel, Mark viii. 5, etc., where the miracle of the…