Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. [Matt 14.19]
And he took the seven loaves and a few fishes, and did thankings, and brake them [Matt 15.36]
I've read what all the experts have said about the repeated narrative and it never made any sense to me. Yet I happened to have started to take an interest in the Pythagorean concept of the dia tessaron which is expressed as a ratio of 4:3. So I looked for the ratio in either account and found nothing.
But then I started to focus on the strange vagueness of the number of fish in the second account. It is very strange that the canonical gospels only have the word ὀλίγα - 'a few' - as the number of fish in the second mulitplication story. Let's remember that the Marcosians and many other sects were certainly interested in the mystical significance of numbers. Everything about the passage suggests that the number was seven. Not only are there 'seven' loaves and 'seven' baskets at the end, a number of commentators have connected the miracle to the 'seven' nations of the Gentiles and in the earliest artistic representations of the story we see 'seven' people present at the miracle.
Is it possible that the late second century editors of the canonical gospels deliberately obscured the 'seven fishes' reference? It is clear that the image of 'seven fishes' was very common in earliest Christian art. The Christian lamp depicted above shows a table laid with seven fish, presumably - as Eisler notes - from some apocryphal gospel. Eisler even argues there is a misunderstanding regarding the 'fragments' that fill up the seven baskets. He thinks it was the original seven fishes were multiplied and then 'filled' the seven baskets rather than the seven loaves.
The point however is that if the original number of fish in the second narrative was 'seven' then everything is proved because we end up with perfect expression of the diatessaron:
five loaves + two fish (first miracle)
seven loaves + seven fish (second miracle)
five loaves + seven loaves = 12
two fish + seven loaves = 9
12:9 = 4:3 = διὰ τεσσάρων
Every commentator whoever makes reference to the two narratives makes clear that the first miracle was representative of the original covenant with the Jews (hence the five fishes = Pentateuch) and the second coming of the gospel to the Gentiles (hence the seven fish = the seven nations). Yet if the number of fish were seven in the second narrative we would also see the 'seven seven' reference being related once again to the Jubilee as we see throughout the gospel (i.e. Peter being told to forgive 'seven times seven times,' Luke 4:19 especially as preserved in Stromata 1.145.3, the referencve to Daniel 9:24 - 27 in the little apocalypse etc.)
All we have to do now is to find one ancient witness who preserves that the original number was 'seven fishes' and the context of 'diatessaron' is finally confirmed. In other words, the two miracles represent the two gospels, the former 'according to the Jews' (cf. Irenaeus AH 3.1.2) and the second the more perfect revelation of the 'perfect' gospel made to the Gentiles as the embodiment of the Jubilee message of freedom.
The closest we get to this understanding is the early Islamic tradition, first intimated in the Quran that the Diatessaron known to Mohammed had the number of fish preserved as seven. Ibn Abbas is the first to explicitly connect the story with Matthew 15:34 - 36 but all later commentators and even Western scholars of Islam accept his assessment. We read:
(O `Isa, son of Maryam! Can your Lord send down to us a Ma'idah from heaven) The Ma'idah is the table that has food on it. Some scholars said that the disciples requested this table because they were poor and deprived. So they asked `Isa to supplicate to Allah to send a table of food down to them that they could eat from every day and thus be more able to perform the acts of worship. (`Isa said: "Have Taqwa of Allah, if you are indeed believers.'') `Isa answered them by saying, `Have Taqwa of Allah! And do not ask for this, for it may become a trial for you, but trust in Allah for your provisions, if you are truly believers. ' (They said: "We wish to eat thereof.'') we need to eat from it, (and to be stronger in faith,) when we witness it descending from heaven as sustenance for us, (and to know that you have indeed told us the truth,) of your Message and our faith in you increases and also our knowledge, (and that we ourselves be its witnesses.) testifying that it is a sign from Allah, as proof and evidence that you are a Prophet, and attesting to the truth of what you brought us, (`Isa, son of Maryam, said: "O Allah, our Lord! Send us from heaven a table spread (with food) that there may be for us -- for the first and the last of us -- a festival...'') As-Suddi commented that the Ayah means, "We will take that day on which the table was sent down as a day of celebration, that we and those who come after us would consider sacred.'' Sufyan Ath-Thawri said that it means, "A day of prayer. (and a sign from You. ) proving that You are able to do all things and to accept my supplication, so that they accept what I convey to them from You, (and provide us sustenance,) a delicious food from You that does not require any effort or hardship, ("For You are the Best of sustainers.'' Allah said: "I am going to send it down unto you, but if any of you after that disbelieves...'') by denying this sign and defying its implication, O `Isa, (then I will punish him with a torment such as I have not inflicted on anyone among the `Alamin.) among the people of your time. Allah said in similar Ayat, (And on the Day when the Hour will be established (it will be said to the angels): "Cause Fir'awn's people to enter the severest torment!'') ﴿40:46﴾, and, (Verily, the hypocrites will be in the lowest depths of the Fire. ) ﴿4:145﴾ Ibn Jarir said that `Abdullah bin `Amr said, "Those who will receive the severest torment on the Day of Resurrection are three: The hypocrites, those from the people of Al-Ma'idah who disbelieved in it, and the people of Fir`awn.'' Ibn Abi Hatim recorded that Ibn `Abbas said, "They said to `Isa, son of Maryam, `Supplicate to Allah to send down to us from heaven, a table spread with food.' He also said, `So the angels brought the table down containing seven fish and seven pieces of bread and placed it before them. So the last group of people ate as the first group did.'' Ibn Jarir recorded that Ishaq bin `Abdullah said that the table was sent down to `Isa son of Maryam having seven pieces of bread and seven fish, and they ate from it as much as they wished. But when some of them stole food from it, saying, "It might not come down tomorrow,'' the table ascended. These statements testify that the table was sent down to the Children of Israel during the time of `Isa, son of Maryam, as a result of Allah's accepting his supplication to Him. The apparent wording of this Ayah also states so,All I need to do now, is to search the Patristic writings for a reference to the same number and it is all as good as done. There are of course intimations in later Christian customs such as the 'Feast of the Seven Fishes' in Italy. I will go to the library today and see what I can dig up ...
UPDATE - Clement does seem to indicate the first feeding of the multitudes with a 'public' gospel or preparatory text in Strom 6.11:
And the Lord fed the multitude of those that reclined on the grass opposite to Tiberias with the two fishes and the five barley loaves, indicating the preparatory training of the Greeks and Jews previous to the divine grain, which is the food cultivated by the law. For barley is sooner ripe for the harvest than wheat; and the fishes signified the Hellenic philosophy that was produced and moved in the midst of the Gentile billow, given, as they were, for copious food to those lying on the ground, increasing no more, like the fragments of the loaves, but having partaken of the Lord’s blessing, and breathed into them the resurrection of Godhead through the power of the Word.This is the exact kind of language that we see Clement use for 'preparatory instruction' associated with the public gospel. Yet clearly there is something more and it is necessarily associated with the second multiplication narrative. We read this clearly insinuated in what immediately follows:
But if you are curious, understand one of the fishes to mean the curriculum of study, and the other the philosophy which supervenes. The συνάλογοι(?) point out the word of the Lord. “And the choir of mute fishes rushed to it,” says the Tragic Muse somewhere. “I must decrease,” said the prophet John, and the Word of the Lord alone, in which the Law terminates.
“Increase.” Understand now for me the mystery of the truth (τὸ μυστήριον τῆς ἀληθείας), granting pardon if I shrink from advancing further in the treatment of it, by announcing this alone “All things were made by Him, and without Him was not even one thing.” Certainly He is called “the chief corner stone; in whom the whole building, fitly joined together, groweth into an holy temple of God,” according to the divine apostle. I pass over in silence at present the parable which says in the Gospel: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who cast a net into the sea and out of the multitude of the fishes caught, makes a selection of the better ones ...
There can be no doubt that we have captured the general sense of the two narratives in Clement's Alexandrian Church. The first multiplication is that associated with the gospe under the Law (cf. Irenaeus AH 3.1.2). The second is the 'mystic' gospel of which Clement must not speak to uninitiated readers such as ourselves.
UPDATE 2 - it should be noted that the section of the Sixth Book of the Stromateis in which this material is found is nothing short of a proclamation that the gospel was developed from Pythagorean musical theory.
