For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
All Commentaries on John 6:55 Go To John 6
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
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 forthe 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 owndamnation.
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 inthem? 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.
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. Nordo 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 Meby virtue of partaking of My flesh.
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.
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.
