The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
All Commentaries on John 6:52 Go To John 6
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
If any one shall eat, &c. For this Bread gives to the soul the life of grace, which endures even to the life of glory for all eternity. And It shall make the body to rise from death to live together with the soul gloriously for ever.
Calvin and the heretics contend that this Bread is not the Body of Christ in the Eucharist, but mystical food; for that we mystically eat the Body of Christ by faith when we believe in Him. Of Catholics the same opinion was held by Jansen on this passage, Cajetan, Gabriel, Ruardus Tapper, Nicolas Casanus and Hesselius, who are cited by Baronius (lib1 , de Eucharist, c5). Against these authors Didacus Castillus has written a whole book, Nicholas Sanders another, and Toletus, Maldonatus and Bellarmine refute them at length.
I say then that Christ from this place onward speaks expressly of the Eucharist. This is so certain that Maldonatus says, to deny it is rash, and almost heretical (erroneum).
It is proved (1.) because Christ here most clearly asserts it, constantly bidding us eat His Flesh and drink His Blood, in such sort that the doctrine of the Eucharist could not be more clearly expressed. For this is what He reiterates over and over again, you hear nothing else but My Flesh is meat indeed, and My Blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood. Unless ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Prayer of Manasseh , and drink His Blood. Surely it is incredible that Christ should wish to obscure a thing in itself so clear, and by Him so often repeated; I mean that we must believe in Him, by so many words and metaphors about eating His Flesh and Blood, especially when He foresaw that many, even of His disciples, would for this cause depart from Him.
(2.) Because He distinguishes both kinds in the Eucharist. For His Flesh He calls the food which we may eat: but His Blood that which we may drink. Unless ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, ye shall not have life in you (ver54). Therefore He speaks concerning the Eucharist, in which we truly and properly eat the Flesh of Christ and drink His Blood. Now in that spiritual eating of Christ which takes place by faith, drink cannot be distinguished from food, nor blood from flesh. Nor indeed ought we especially and severally to believe in the Flesh, and then again in the Blood of Christ, but it suffices to believe generally and fully in the whole Humanity of Christ.
(3.) Because nowhere in Scripture are the efficacy and fruit of the Eucharist, as well as the universal obligation of receiving It, clearly expressed and inculcated except here. And this precept, since it is so important, and so binding upon all the faithful, ought clearly to be expressed.
(4.) If S. John does not here treat of the Eucharist, then he nowhere does so. But who could believe such a thing of Christ"s Benjamin, who at the Last Supper, when Christ instituted the Eucharist, lay upon His breast, who, I say, could believe that he should have passed over, and involved in silence this most august monument and mystery of the love of Christ?
(5.) Because in a similar way (cap3), he narrates the institution of Baptism, and Christ"s conversation about it with Nicodemus. So here he relates the mystery of the Eucharist, and Christ"s disputation with the Jews concerning It. And these two Sacraments are necessary to the faithful, and are, as it were, the two bases and pillars of the Christian Church.
Lastly, this is the common opinion of the Fathers, both Greek and Latin, also of the commentators and Scholastic Doctors, viz. S. Cyril, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius, S. Thomas, Rupert, Lyra, Maldonatus, Toletus, on this passage, and others in various places, who are quoted at large by Toletus, Ribera, Maldonatus, Sanders and Castillus, commenting upon this chapter, and by Bellarmine (lib1 , de Euch. c5).
In like manner the Council of Ephesus understand this passage (Epist. ad Nestor.), so do the Second Council of Nice ( Acts 6), the Council of Cabillon (II c46), and the Council of Sens (cap10), and the Council of Trent (Sess13 , c2). Nor does S. Augustine dissent, as is plain to those who read him carefully, although many think the contrary. For from this very passage Hebrews , in common with several others of the ancients, maintained that the Eucharist ought to be given even to infants. And this was actually the practice in various places for600 years, until the Church laid down the contrary, namely that the Eucharist is not necessary for infants, and that it is not expedient to give it to them through fear of irreverence.
Here observe, that S. Augustine, besides the literal and genuine explanation of this passage, which is concerning the Eucharist, adds another which is symbolical and mystical. And he understands by this bread and food the society of the members and the body of Christ which is the Church: that to eat the flesh of Christ is the same thing as to be incorporated into the Church, to be aggregated and associated to it, and so to be brought in to Christ, and to drink and participate in His Spirit. S. Austin does this on account of the Donatists of his time in Africa, with whom he had a perpetual controversy. For they by schism rent the society and unity of the Church. It may be added the Eucharist is not only a symbol, but a cause of this union (societas) of the faithful in the Church. For as out of many grains of wheat ground together one loaf is made, and out of many clusters of grapes pressed together wine floweth, so of many faithful communicants is one society and Church. (2.) Because this union and society of the faithful is the end and fruit of the Eucharist, which without it profits not unto salvation. (3.) Because S. Augustine often just glances at and passes over the literal sense, as a thing easy and plain, and dwells upon the spiritual and mystical sense, as more obscure, subtle and sublime. Origen, SS. Gregory and Jerome, and other Fathers do the same. So S. Augustine is explained after his manner by his disciple S. Bernard (Serm3in Ps. xc.) "What is it to eat His Flesh and drink His Blood but to participate in His sufferings, and to imitate His conversation in the flesh? Wherefore also that spotless Sacrament of the Altar sets this forth, when we receive the Lord"s Body. As that form of bread appears to enter into us, so we know by that conversation which He had upon earth He enters into us to dwell in our hearts by faith."
You will say that S. Augustine asserts (lib3 , de Doct. Christ. c16), that there is in these words of Christ a trope or figure, by which we are commanded to have communion in His sufferings. I answer, S. Augustine calls this a figure because the flesh of Christ is not here commanded to be cut, cooked and eaten (as is done with the flesh of bulls and sheep), as the Capharnaites imagined, and therefore were offended; but figuratively, i.e, sacramentally. For he thinks that it is here commanded that in the Eucharist, by means of the species of bread and wine, separated one from another, and as it were dead, we should represent the Passion and Death of Christ, which took place through the separation of the soul and blood of Christ from His body, and that we should both imitate this by mortification and shew it forth by holy living.
You will say secondly: Christ .( John 6:27, John 6:29, John 6:63) treats concerning the spiritual eating of Him by faith, therefore also He here proceeds to speak of the same, and not of sacramental and corporal eating, otherwise He would not speak consistently and logically (cohrenter). I answer (1.) by denying the consequence. For Christ wished by degrees to raise the ignorant Jews, and first to set before them easy things, and afterwards things more difficult and mysterious. Wherefore from the multiplication of the loaves with which He had fed the multitude He rises to the manna, and from that to the spiritual food of faith: ( John 6:27, John 6:29, John 6:35, John 6:36, John 6:40, John 6:47). Then in this verse and afterwards (He proceeds) to the real eating of Himself in the Eucharist, which is the end, the goal and aim of that miracle of the multiplication of the loaves. In a similar manner He led on the Samaritan woman from the drinking of material water to spiritual water. And Christ Himself sufficiently hints at, and indeed explains this leading onward, when ( John 6:29, John 6:35) He said that bread was already possessed by those who believed, but here He says that His Eucharistic bread was not yet possessed, and that He was not then giving it, but that He would give it in the future. The bread, He says, which I will give is My flesh for the life of the world. But the reason of this change is that Christ ( John 6:27, &c.) wished to forewarn and prepare His hearers for the most august mystery of the Eucharist. For in It faith and spiritual manducation are required in the highest degree, for without them the real and corporeal profits nothing, as S. Augustine says.
I reply (2.) by denying the antecedent. For Christ did not say that we were to eat Him by (per) faith, but He required faith as a means for obtaining from Him the heavenly bread and food, which is nothing else than His flesh and blood in the Eucharist, as I have observed in verse27 , &c.
They object (3.) that Christ says ( John 6:64), It is the Spirit which quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing. This I will explain in the proper place.
From what has been said it is clear that in the Eucharist the very flesh of Christ is truly and properly eaten, and His blood drank, and not bread, as the Calvinists suppose, which is only a type and figure of the flesh of Christ. For the figure of the Eucharist was rather the manna of the Jews, as being something celestial and sweet to the taste, than the common arid bread of Christians. And if the Eucharist is mere bread, and not the body of Christ, then Christ would have no ground for preferring the Eucharist to the manna, since the manna was sweeter and better than bread. And so the Capharnaites and His disciples understood Christ, namely, that He wished His Flesh to be truly and properly eaten, although they were ignorant of the manner of eating It sacramentally, under the species of bread and wine. And this they could not at this time have received, even though Christ had expounded it. And although they were so grievously offended, yet did not Christ correct them, when this their offence, and apostasy He could and should (debuisset) have done by a single word, saying that He was speaking figuratively (mystic), namely, that to eat His Flesh was nothing else but to believe in Him as incarnate and suffering for the salvation of men. Since, therefore, it is certain that He did not do this, it is certain that He was speaking concerning the real and sacramental eating of His Flesh in the Eucharist. "Consider," says Theophylact, "that the bread which is eaten by us in the Mysteries is not merely a certain figure of the Lord"s body, but is the very Flesh of the Lord. He said not, The Bread which I will give is a figure of My Flesh. For by the words secretly spoken (arcanis verbis) that bread is transformed through the mystic benediction and the accession of the Holy Spirit, into the Flesh of the Lord. And how is it that flesh does not appear to us, but bread? It is that we may not shrink from eating it. For if indeed It had appeared to be flesh, we should have been disaffected towards communion. But now through the Lord"s condescension to an infirmity, the mystic Food appears to us such as that to which we are accustomed at other times."
