Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
All Commentaries on John 6:49 Go To John 6
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
Your fathers, &c, in the desert, "signifying," says S. Chrysostom, "that the manna did not long continue, nor come to the land of promise; for as soon as they reached it the manna ceased." But this Bread of Christ endureth for ever. Listen to the words of Josue (v12): "And the manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the old corn of the land; neither had the children of Israel manna any more; but they did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year." For as God fails us not in things needful, so He gives not an abounding of superfluities.
And died: i.e, manna fed your fathers after the way of other food, and neither did, nor was able to protect them from death; but My Bread will save from death.
That whosoever shall eat of it, by true faith and living charity, shall never die. That Isaiah , the manna had not the virtue of preserving life from corporeal death, much less the souls of your fathers from death, but this My Bread has the power of freeing from death not only the body, but the soul, and that for ever. For although it will not prevent the temporal death of the body, it will cause nevertheless the faithful man to rise up from that death, and to die no more for ever.
I am the living Bread (bread is used by a hebraism for food), quickening those who eat Me in Myself who am Life, and communicating My life to them. Whilst the manna was in itself inanimate and dead, and therefore could not bestow life upon those who ate it. Who came down from heaven (by reason of a Divine supposition, says Suarez); "Since they sought food from heaven," says Chrysostom, "therefore He frequently testifies that He came down from heaven."
