John 6:55

He had said above, Whoso eats My flesh and drinks My blood, has eternal life: and now to show the great difference between bodily meat and drink, and the spiritual mystery of His body and blood, Ho adds, For My flesh its meat indeed, and My blood its drink indeed.

i.e. this is no enigma, or parable, but you must really eat the body of Christ; or He means to say that the true meat was He who saved the soul.

Or thus: Whereas men desire meat and drink to satisfy hunger and thirst, this effect is only really produced by that meat and drink, which makes the receivers of it immortal and incorruptible; i.e. the society of Saints, where is peace and unity, full and perfect. On which account our Lord has chosen for the types of His body and blood, things which become one out of many. Bread is a quantity of grains united into one mass, wine a quantity of grapes squeezed together. Then He explains what it is to eat His body and drink His blood: He that eats My flesh, and drinks My blood, dwells in Me, and I in him. So then to partake of that meat and that drink, is to dwell in Christ and Christ in you. He that dwells not in Christ, and in whom Christ dwells not, neither eats His flesh, nor drinks His blood: but rather eats and drinks the sacrament of it to his own damnation.

Or, having given a promise of eternal life to those that eat Him, He says this to confirm it: He that eats My flesh, and drinks My blood, dwells in Me, and I in him.

As for those, as indeed there are many, who either eat that flesh and drink that blood hypocritically, or, who having eaten, become apostates, do they dwell in Christ, and Christ in them? Nay, but there is a certain mode of eating that flesh, and drinking that blood, in the which he that eats and drinks, dwells in Christ, and Christ in him.

That is to say, such an one eats the body and drinks the blood of Christ not in the sacramental sense, but in reality.

And because I live, it is manifest that he will live also: As the living Father has sent Me, and I live by the Father, even so he that eats Me, even he shall live by Me. As if He said, As the Father lives, so do I live; adding, lest you should think Him unbegotten, By the Father, meaning that He has His source in the Father. He that eats Me, even he shall live by Me; the life here meant is not life simply, but the justified life: for even unbelievers live, who never eat of that flesh at all. Nor is it of the general resurrection He speaks, (for all will rise again,) but of the resurrection to glory, and reward.

He said not, As I eat the Father, and live by the Father, so he that eats Me, even he shall live by Me. For the Son does not grow better by partaking of the Father, as we do by partaking of the Son, i.e. of His one body and blood, which this eating and drinking signifies. So that His saying, I live by the Father, because He is from Him, must not be understood as detracting from His equality. Nor do the words, Even he that eats Me, the same shall live by Me, give us the equality that He has. He does not equalize, but only mediates between God and man. If, however, we understand the words, I live by the Father, in the sense of those below, My Father is greater than I, then it is as if He said, That I live by the Father, i.e. refer my life to Him, as my superior, my humiliation in my incarnation is the cause; but He who lives by Me, lives by Me by virtue of partaking of My flesh.

Of the truth then of the body and blood of Christ, no room for doubting remains: for, by the declaration of our Lord Himself, and by the teaching of our own faith, the flesh is really flesh, and the blood really blood. This then is our principle of life. While we are in the flesh, Christ dwells in us by His flesh. And we shall live by Him, according as He lives. If then we live naturally by partaking of Him according to the flesh, He also lives naturally by the indwelling of the Father according to the Spirit. His birth did not give Him an alien or different nature from the Father.

That we who cannot obtain eternal life of ourselves, might live by the eating that bread, He descended from heaven: This is the bread which comes down from heaven.

He calls Himself the bread, because He is the origin of His own body. And lest it should be thought that the virtue and nature of the Word had given way to the flesh, He calls the bread His flesh, that, inasmuch as the bread came down from heaven, it might be seen that His body was not of human conception, but a heavenly body. To say that the bread is His own, is to declare that the Word assumed His body Himself.

For we do not eat God simply, God being impalpable and incorporeal; nor again, the flesh of man simply, which would not profit us. But God having taken flesh into union with Himself; that flesh is quickening. Not that it has changed its own for the Divine nature; but, just as heated iron remains iron, with the action of the heat in it; so our Lord’s flesh is quickening, as being the flesh of the Word of God.

And to show the wide interval between the shadow and the light, the type and the reality, He adds, Not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eats of this bread shall live for ever.

The death here meant is death eternal. For even those who eat Christ are subject to natural death; but they live for ever, because Christ is everlasting life.

For if it was possible without harvest or fruit of the earth, or any such thing, to preserve the lives of the Israelites of old for forty years, much more will He be able to do this with that spiritual food, of which the manna is the type. He knew how precious a thing life was in men’s eyes, and therefore repeats His promise of life often; just as the Old Testament had done; only that it only offered length of life, He life without end. This promise was an abolition of that sentence of death, which sin had brought upon us. These things said He in the synagogue, as He taught in Capernaum; where many displays of His power took place. He taught in the synagogue and in the temple, with the view of attracting the multitude, and as a sign that He was not acting in opposition to the Father.

Mystically, Capernaum, which means beautiful town, stands for the world: the synagogue, for the Jewish people. The meaning is, that our Lord has, by the mystery of the incarnation, manifested Himself to tile world, and also taught the Jewish people His doctrines.

The blood of the Word has been also exhibited as milk. Milk being thus provided in parturition, is supplied to the infant; and the breasts, which till then looked straight towards the husband, now bend down towards the child, being taught to furnish the substance elaborated by nature in a way easily received for salutary nourishment. For the breasts are not like fountains full of milk, flowing in ready prepared; but, by effecting a change in the nutriment, form the milk in themselves, and discharge it. And the nutriment suitable and wholesome for the new-formed and new-born babe is elaborated by God, the nourisher and the Father of all that are generated and regenerated, as manna, the celestial food of angels, flowed down from heaven on the ancient Hebrews. Even now, in fact, nurses call the first-poured drink of milk by the same name as that food, manna. …

16. By such arguments, which might be expanded if we were discussing with one brought up in heathenism, and might be supported by proofs in still greater number, the inquirer whom Faustus has brought before us would certainly be led to believe, unless he preferred his sins to his salvation. As a believer, he would be taken to be cherished in the bosom of the Catholic Church, and would be taught in due course the conduct required of him. He would see many who do not practise the required duties; but this would not shake his faith, even though these people should belong to the same Church and partake of the same sacraments as himself. …

What was that which the same pope replied to the bishops of Numidia concerning this very cause, because he had received letters from both Councils, as well from the Council of Carthage as from the Council of Mileve, does he not speak most plainly concerning infants? For these are his words: “For what your Fraternity asserts that they preach, that infants can be endowed with the rewards of eternal life even without the grace of baptism, is excessively silly; for unless they shall eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, they shall not have life in themselves. …

2. Let us commence here, accordingly, with the notice presented by Matthew, [which runs thus]: “And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to His disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.” Both Mark and Luke also gave this section. It is true that Luke has made mention of the cup twice over: first before He gave the bread; and, secondly, after the bread has been given. But the fact is, that what is stated in that earlier connection has been introduced, according to this writer’s habit, by anticipation, while the words which he has inserted here in their proper order are left unrecorded in those previous verses, and the two passages when put together make up exactly what stands expressed by those other evangelists. …

4. Therefore, since Nicodemus was of that number, he came to the Lord, but came by night; and this perhaps pertains to the matter. Came to the Lord, and came by night; came to the Light, and came in the darkness. But what do they that are born again of water and of the Spirit hear from the apostle? “Ye were once darkness, but now light in the Lord; walk as children of light;” and again, “But we who are of the day, let us be sober.” Therefore they who are born again were of the night, and are of the day; were darkness, and are light. Now Jesus trusts Himself to them, and they come to Jesus, not by night, like Nicodemus; not in darkness do they seek the day. …

5. Therefore mark, my brethren, what answer this man who came to Jesus by night makes. Although he came to Jesus, yet because he came by night, he still speaks from the darkness of his own flesh. He understands not what he hears from the Lord, understands not what he hears from the Light, “which lighteth every man that cometh into this world.” Already hath the Lord said to him, “Except a man be born again, he shall not see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto Him, How can a man be born again when he is old?” The Spirit speaks to him, and he thinks of the flesh. He thinks of his own flesh, because as yet he thinks not of Christ’s flesh. …

12. “He that loveth his brother abideth ( manet ) in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.”, I beseech you by Christ: God is feeding us, we are about to refresh our bodies in the name of Christ; they both are in some good measure refreshed, and are to be refreshed: let the mind be fed. Not that I am going to speak for a long time, do I say this; for behold, the lesson is now coming to an end: but lest haply of weariness we should hear less attentively than we ought that which is most necessary. “He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is no scandal,” or “none occasion of stumbling, in him.” Who are they that take scandal or make scandal? They that are offended in Christ, and in the Church. They that are offended in Christ, are as if burnt by the sun, those in the Church as by the moon. …

8. “O magnify the Lord our God” ( ver. 5 ). Magnify Him truly, magnify Him well. Let us praise Him, let us magnify Him who hath wrought the very righteousness which we have; who wrought it in us, Himself. For who but He who justified us, wrought righteousness in us? For of Christ it is said, “who justifieth the ungodly.”…“And fall down before His footstool: for He is holy.” What are we to fall down before? His footstool. What is under the feet is called a footstool, in Greek ὑποπόδιον , in Latin Scabellum or Suppedaneum. But consider, brethren, what he commandeth us to fall down before. …

Now he has given us much instruction on the same point in these few words. First he states that the assumed nature derives its descent from the loins of David; secondly that He took not a body only, but also an immortal soul, and thirdly that He delivered body and soul to death, and, after taking them again, raised them as He would. His own words are “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” But we have learnt that the divine nature is immortal. What suffered was the passible, and the impassible remained impassible. For God the Word was made man not to render the impassible nature passible, but on the passible nature, by means of the Passion, to bestow the boon of impassibility. …

It is good and beneficial to communicate every day, and to partake of the holy body and blood of Christ. For He distinctly says, “He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life.” And who doubts that to share frequently in life, is the same thing as to have manifold life. I, indeed, communicate four times a week, on the Lord’s day, on Wednesday, on Friday, and on the Sabbath, and on the other days if there is a commemoration of any Saint. It is needless to point out that for anyone in times of persecution to be compelled to take the communion in his own hand without the presence of a priest or minister is not a serious offence, as long custom sanctions this practice from the facts themselves. All the solitaries in the desert, where there is no priest, take the communion themselves, keeping communion at home. …

18. Again the Lord Himself revealing this mystery of His birth, speaks thus: I am the living bread Who have descended from Heaven: if any one shall eat of My bread he shall live for ever : calling Himself the Bread since He is the origin of His own body. Further, that it may not be thought the Word left His own virtue and nature for the flesh, He says again that it is His bread; since He is the bread which descends from heaven, His body cannot be regarded as sprung from human conception, because it is shewn to be from heaven. And His language concerning His bread is an assertion that the Word took a body, for He adds, Unless ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have not life in you . …