Labor not for the food which perishes, but for that food which endures unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for on him has God the Father set his seal.
All Commentaries on John 6:27 Go To John 6
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
Labour not, &c. Labour: Greek, ε̉ζγάςεσθε, i.e, strive with zeal and labour and sedulous care to get food, not that of the body which perisheth, but of the soul which perisheth not. Wherefore the Arabic translates, labour not on account of the food which perisheth, but on account of the food which endureth unto eternal life. As Euthymius says, "Labour with the whole mind, with all your care continually. He does not command to labour for the food of the soul only, but He admonished them to care for the food of the body by the way, but for that of the soul with their whole heart."
Christ rises and draws the multitude from that corporeal bread with which a little while before He had fed them in the desert, to the far better, and far more needful spiritual bread. As though He had said, "I have given you barley bread without any labour of yours, but work ye, and labour with all your might, that Ye may obtain spiritual bread, to nourish you, and bring you to everlasting life." In like manner, from the water of the well He led the Samaritan woman to spiritual water, that He might teach His faithful followers, and especially Priests and Religious, to do the same, so that in their colloquies they may lead the people from corporeal to spiritual things. Wherefore from this saying of Christ Cyril rightly says, "We must have no care for the flesh, but we must watch for things that are needful for eternity. For he who follows after bodily pleasures differs in no respect from the beasts, but he who cleaves to nature, and leads his life according to the spiritual law, and is wholly given up to those things which are given us by God, and prepare our way for the things above, such a one seems to me to know himself, nor to be ignorant that he is a reasonable being, made in the image of his Creator."
You will ask, what is that food enduring unto eternal life, which Christ bids us work for that we may gain it? The heretics called Massalians, or Euchites, i.e, Prayers, thought that it was prayer. As though Christ said, "Do not work with your hands, because work of the hands perisheth, but alway pray to God in your hearts because prayer is the food of the spirit, and remaineth for ever. These heretics said that we should not labour with our hands, but should pray always. See S. Chrysostom on this passage. But this is a heresy which S. Paul condemns ( 2 Thessalonians 3:10), saying, "If any one will not work, neither let him eat."
I say then that this food which abideth is faith, charity, grace, good works, even all things which lead us to life everlasting, and especially the Eucharist, as we shall see in verse54. So Maldonatus, Bellarmine, and others. For gradually does Christ ascend from minor and common things to those which are greater and of the highest importance, such as the Eucharist. As S. Augustine saith, "To believe in Him is to eat the food which endureth unto life eternal. Why do you make ready your teeth and organs of digestion? Believe, and thou hast eaten."
Secondly, more appositely, properly and precisely, this spiritual food is the Eucharist, as Christ fully explains ( John 5:4). For He first generally (in genere), in the way of a proposition, speaks of this food as heavenly, and enduring unto eternal life. By and by in verse35 , He particularizes, determining what this food Isaiah , and asserts that It is He Himself. I am the Bread of Life. At length, in the54th and following verses, He clearly unfolds the whole matter, and says that His Flesh and Blood in the Eucharist is this Bread and this Food. Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Prayer of Manasseh , and drink His Blood, ye have no life in you. And, My Flesh is meat indeed, and My Blood is drink indeed. For in the space of a year and a half, just before His death, He was about to constitute the Sacrament of the Eucharist, and in It to give us His own Flesh and Blood, as the spiritual meat and drink of the soul. But here in those intermediate verses He frequently exhorts to faith, because faith is a prime requisite in the Eucharist.
The meaning then Isaiah , Do the works of faith, believe in Me, give credit to My words, so shall ye seek, and shall indeed obtain the food of the Eucharist, which shall not only nourish your souls, but bring them to eternal life. For Christ distinguishes the work of faith from the food of the Eucharist, which was to be obtained by the work of faith; as the means is distinguished from the end to which it leads. Wherefore by and by, when the Jews ask about the work, that Isaiah , the way and the means by which they might gain this Bread, Christ answers (verse29), This it the work of God, that ye should believe in Him whom He hath sent. So Theophylact says, "He calls the food which abideth the mystical reception of the Flesh of the Lord." And Rupertus, "He that endureth unto life eternal, that Isaiah , He who is eaten in this mortal life, is profitable to this end, that He should give everlasting life to the world"
For Him hath God the Father sealed. God, Greek, ό Θεὸς, the Heavenly Father, who is the Most High God. Signed, (Vulg.), Greek, ε̉σφζάγισε, sealed. This signing, or sealing of Christ, is threefold, the first of which is the cause of the second, the second of the third. The first is of Christ"s Divinity, the second and third of His Humanity. In the first place then, Cyril thus expounds (lib3 , c29), "To be signed is put for to be anointed (for He who was anointed was signed), and denoted by the word signing, that He was formed as to His nature after the form of the Father, so to speak, that He might appear to say, "It is not difficult for Me to bestow upon you the enduring Food, by which ye may be brought to the unspeakable delights of eternal life." For the Son is the character of the Hypostasis of God the Father: and the character by which He has been signed by the Father is nothing else but the very form and substance of the Godhead." Thus Cyril: so too, S. Paul (Heb. i3), "Who being the splendour of His glory, and the character of His substance." Whence S. Gregory Nazianzen speaks thus of the glory of the Son (Orat42), "He is the Fountain of life and immortality; He is the expression," that Isaiah , the similitude, the seal, "of the Archetype: He is the immovable Seal," that which is not altered, or changed to any other form: "He is the Image in all respects like: He is the Term and Reason (Greek, όζος κάὶ λόγος) of the Father." These two last expressions Nicetas takes as similar in meaning, that the Son is the Word of God the Father, i.e, the definition, the demonstration. For as a definition demonstrates that which it defines, so does the Son demonstrate, and as it were define the Father. Thus Nicetas.
2. S. Hilary (lib8 , de Trin.) more correctly and appositely; The Father, he saith, hath sealed the Song of Solomon , not in the Divinity, by communicating to Him His own Godhead, but in the Humanity, since He hath united it to the Word, and hath communicated to it the Divinity of the Word. For a seal, he says, is wont to be impressed upon a different substance, which is called the impression. So the Humanity is sealed by the Divinity of the Son. So also Augustine: and from him Toletus saith, "Because the Song of Solomon , who is the image and character of the Father is united to the Humanity, therefore the Humanity is said to have the seal and character of the Father."
3. S. Chrysostom and many others say, The Father hath sealed the Song of Solomon , i.e, by the voice from heaven at His baptism, This is My Beloved Son. He showed and demonstrated by His miracles, as seals, that He was His very Son. And He confirmed Him as the promised Messiah, who was able to impart convenient Food to all who desired eternal life. It comes to the same meaning if you interpret sealed to mean gave authority, because we are wont by impressing a seal to give credit and authenticity to letters.
This sense is easy and plain, but the second meaning is more solid and sublime. This third meaning flows from the second, and completes and perfects it. For the Father by His own voice and miracles, which are as it were His seals, has testified to man that He has sealed the Humanity of Jesus with the Divinity of the Word, and has impressed upon it the form of His own Divinity, that Isaiah , has testified that this Man Jesus is true God, and the Son of God, so that He may give and gain for Him among men, authority to teach, to enact laws, and to found a new Church. Wherefore the Gloss says, He hath sealed, i.e, He hath set Him apart from others by His own sign."
