This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eats of this bread shall live forever.
Read Chapter 6
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
As the living Father, &c. . . . hath sent Me, in the Flesh into the world, through the Incarnation, for the salvation of men. The living Father, who is Himself Divine Life, uncreated Substance, and therefore in begetting Me hath communicated to Me the same Substance, that I might communicate the same to the Humanity, which He sent Me to assume, that I might communicate similar spiritual, holy, blessed and eternal life to the faithful who eat of Me.
And I live because of (propter) the Father, i.e, through the Father, of the Father. For the Father in begetting Me communicates to Me His own Divinity, which is the essence of life. For God hath begotten God, the Living One hath begotten the Living One. "The Son therefore," saith Cyril, "is as Light of Light, and as Life of Life. And as the Father gives light through the Son to the things which need light, and through Him does wisely, so through the Son as through His life which proceeds from Him, He quickens those things which have need of...
Great (saith He) ought to be the effects of great things, and the gifts of the Grace from above, should appear God-befitting and worthy of the Divine Munificence. For if thou have wholly received in faith that the Bread came, down from heaven, let it produce continous life in them that long after it, and have the unceasing Operation of immortality. For this will be a clear proof of its being the Bread from heaven, that is from God: since we say that it befits the Eternal to give what is eternal, and not the enjoyment of temporary food, which is barely able to last for just the least moment. For one will no longer wisely suppose that that was the bread from God and from above, which our forefathers eating, were overcome by death, and repelled not the evil of corruption, and no wonder; for that was not the Bread which availeth to render immortal. Hence neither will it be rightly conceived and said by any to be from heaven. For it was a work befitting that which came down thence, to rende...
As the living Father hath sent me, his only, his true Son, to become man; and I live by the Father, proceeding always from him; so he that eateth me, first by faith only, by believing in me; and secondly, he that eateth my body and blood, truly made meat and drink, though after a spiritual manner, (not in that visible, bloody manner as the Capharnaites fancied to themselves) shall live by me, and live for ever, happy in the kingdom of my glory. (Witham)
Continually does He handle the same point, so as to imprint it on the understanding of the hearers, (for the teaching on these points was a kind of final teaching,) and to confirm the doctrine of the Resurrection and of eternal life. Wherefore He mentions the Resurrection since He promises eternal life, showing that that life is not now, but after the Resurrection. And whence, says some one, are these things clear? From the Scriptures; to them He everywhere referrs the Jews, bidding them learn these things from them. And by saying, Which gives life to the world, He incites them to jealousy, that from very vexation that others should enjoy the gift, they may not stay without. And continually He reminds them of the manna, showing the difference, (between it and His bread,) and guiding them to the faith; for if He was able to support their life for forty years without harvest, or grain, or other things in course; much more now will He be able to do so, as having come for greater ends....
