Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believes on me has everlasting life.
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Alcuin of York
AD 804
Therefore I say, He that eats this bread, dies not: I am the living bread which came down from heaven.
But men must be quickened by my life: If any man eat of this bread, he shall live, not only now by faith and righteousness, but for ever.
Our Lord wishes to reveal what He is; Verily, verily, I say to you, He that believes in Me, has everlasting life. As if He said; He that believes in Me has Me: but what is it to have Me? It is to have eternal life: for the Word which was in the beginning with God is life eternal, and the life was the light of men. Life underwent death, that life might kill death.
And because they had taunted Him with the manna, He adds, Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. Your fathers they are, for you are like them; murmuring sons of murmuring fathers. For in nothing did that people offend God more, than by their murmurs against Him. And therefore are they dead, because what they saw they believed, what they did not see they believed not, nor understood.
This was the bread the manna typified, this was the bread the altar typified. Both the one and the other were sacraments, differing in symbol, alike in the thing signified. Hear the Apostle, They did all eat the same spiritual ...
Verily, verily, &c. Hath, by right and merit, or in certain hope, but not yet in fact. Christ goes back to verse29 , and again and again inculcates faith in Himself, because that is the beginning of all good: the root of salvation, and the necessary means for obtaining from Christ the Bread of Life, i.e, the Eucharist.
Eternal life: thus He impels those unwilling to faith by a firm hope of the reward. For what is better or sweeter than eternal life to those who fear death and corruption?
Faith therefore is the door and way unto life, and return from corruption unto incorruption. But herein no less is the economy a marvel to the learners: for when He perceived that they understood nothing at all, and saw that they did not suppose they ought to give any credence even to the words of the Prophets, He cuts off, as far as possible, their weakness unto faith by human arguments, by an oath to its truth. For setting before them which believe much to be envied prizes, with their longing desire for these as with traces. He all but constrains them against their will, and persuades them to come to what is proclaimed to them. For what would be more precious than eternal life, to them to whom death and the sufferings from decay are bitter? And this too will beseem a wise teacher, to re-instruct unto the better, by every way (I say) that invites unto life, them who have chosen to think foolishly. But He, being Eternal Life, promises to give Himself to them that believe: that is, that...
Thus Jesus Christ concludes the first part of his discourse: "Amen, amen, he that believeth in me, hath everlasting life "which shows that faith is a necessary predisposition to the heavenly bread.
The multitude being urgent for bodily food, and reminding Him of that which was given to their fathers, He tells them that the manna was only a type of that spiritual food which was now to be tasted in reality, I am that bread of life.
He calls Himself the bread of life, because He constitutes one life, both present, and to come.
The addition, In the wilderness, is not put in without meaning, but to remind them how short a time the manna lasted; only till the entrance into the land of promise. And because the bread which Christ gave seemed inferior to the manna, in that the latter had come down from heaven, while the former was of this world, He adds, Thisis the bread which comes down from heaven.
He then gives them a strong reason for believing that they were given for higher privileges than their fathers. Their fathers eat manna and were dead; whereas of this bread He says, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. The difference of the two is evident from the difference of their ends...
