Then Jesus said unto them,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
All Commentaries on John 6:53 Go To John 6
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
The Jews therefore . . . strove, Greek, ε̉μαχόντο, i.e, fought, contended in words, quarrelled among themselves, some accusing Christ, others defending Him.
How: when the question enters in, how a thing is done, unbelief enters in at the same time, says S. Chrysostom. "For when it behoved them," says Cyril, "who by a miracle had perceived the Divine virtue of the Saviour, and the power of His miracles, readily to receive His words, and if any seemed too hard to seek for their solution, they did altogether the opposite. How can this Prayer of Manasseh , &c. S. Chrysostom says, "if thou inquirest this, why didst thou not say the same in the miracle of the loaves, as to how He so greatly increased them? For from that it ought to have caused this more easily to be believed. The expression how, therefore, is a Judaic word, and the question of unbelievers." Let the heretics hear this, who say, "How can so great a Christ be whole in so small a host?" Rather let them say, "How can an angel be wholly in a point?" "How is God everywhere?" "How is the soul whole in the whole body, and whole in all its parts?" And if they can neither understand, nor express these things, how can they understand the mystery of the Eucharist? Let them believe Almighty God giving assurance of the fact, although they do not understand the mode. God can do more than man can understand," says S. Augustine. "It behoves us therefore," says Theophylact, "when we hear, Unless ye eat the Flesh of the Song of Solomon , ye shall not have life, to maintain undoubting faith in the reception of the Divine Mysteries, and not to ask, By what means?" In like manner Cyril, "But let us depart far away from the sins of others, having firm faith in the Mysteries. In such sublime things let us never either think, or say, "how?" For this is a Judaic word, and a cause of extreme punishment." Therefore he wisely concludes, "When God works, let us not ask "how?" but let us ascribe to Him alone both the way and the knowledge of His own work."
