And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and a honeycomb.
All Commentaries on Luke 24:42 Go To Luke 24
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
And they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. A proof of the frugality of the Apostles, for if they had had any better food they would have offered it to their Master. But as fishermen they fed on fish, just as Athæneus (De CÅ“nis Sapientum) tells us the frugal men of old were accustomed to do; and in point of fact up to the time of the deluge flesh was not known as an article of food. (See Genesis 9)
Symbolically, says Bede, "the broiled fish signifies the sufferings of Christ. For Hebrews , having condescended to lie in the waters of the human race, was willing to be taken by the hook of our death, and was as it were burnt up by anguish at the time of His passion. But the honeycomb was present to us at the resurrection; the honey in the wax being the divine nature in the human;" and again "He ate part of a broiled fish, signifying that having burnt by the fire of His own divinity our nature swimming in the sea of this life, and dried up the moisture which it had contracted from the waves, He made it divine food of sweet savour in the sight of God, which the honeycomb signifies. Or we may take the broiled fish to mean the active life drying up the moisture by the coals of labour, and the honeycomb is the sweet contemplation of the oracles of God." Theophylact. "By the command of the law the passover was eaten with bitter herbs, but after the resurrection the food is sweetened with a honeycomb." Gregory Nyssen.
Tropologically, says the Gloss: "Those who endure tribulation (assantur tribulalionibus) for the sake of God, will hereafter be satisfied with true sweetness."
Another reason why Christ ate the broiled fish is given by an anonymous writer in the Greek Catena: "The word of God as a new and unapproachable fire, by the hypostatic union, dried up the moisture in which human nature as a fish—because of its incontinency—was immersed, and set it free by mixture of His passion, fulfilling so sweetly this dispensation as to make ready sweet food for Himself; for the salvation of men is the food of God."
Hence Christ soon after He had eaten, breathed on the Apostles, and bestowed on them the gift of the Holy Ghost for the remission of sins. S. John 20:22.
