CHAPTER 6 VER. 1. _After this_, &c. Tiberias is here named, because the desert in which Christ fed the five thousand was near to Tiberias. _After this_, not immediately, but almost a year afterwards. For the healing of the paralytic, and the dispute of Jesus with the Jews consequent upon it, which J... [ Continue Reading ]
_He saith unto Philip_, &c. Observe, this was the order of what was done. Christ beholding from the mountain the crowd which followed Him, came down to them and received them kindly, taught them, and healed their sick until the eventide. The evening being at hand, His disciples asked Christ to dismi... [ Continue Reading ]
_When He had given thanks_ to God the Father, looking up to heaven, He implored the help of God to multiply the loaves. Then He blessed them (as the other Evangelists relate), and the Syriac has here, _He distributed to those who had sat down_, miraculously multiplying the loaves during their distri... [ Continue Reading ]
_The next day_, &c., _across the sea_, understand _, in_ _respect of the disciples_, who had sailed to the other side of the lake. The meaning is, The day after that on which Christ had fed the five thousand, the multitude who had been thus fed continuing in that place across the sea, when they knew... [ Continue Reading ]
_But there came_, &c. We can see from this verse that the place where Christ multiplied the loaves was near Tiberias, and therefore that those who sailed from thence to Bethsaida and Capharnaum must have sailed past Tiberias. The meaning is, the report of the miracle being spread abroad, many both f... [ Continue Reading ]
_Jesus answered_, &c. Through modesty He did not answer their question directly, lest He should be forced to say that He had come walking upon the sea. He gave a reply therefore, which had more direct concern for His questioners, namely, that they were seeking food for their bodies rather than for t... [ Continue Reading ]
_Labour not_, &c. _Labour_ : Greek, _ε̉ζγάςεσθε_, _i.e._, strive with zeal and labour and sedulous care to get food, not that of the body which perisheth, but of the soul which perisheth not. Wherefore the Arabic translates, _labour not on account of the food which perisheth, but on account of the f... [ Continue Reading ]
_They said_, &c. Cyril thinks that the Jews asked this from arrogance, as being angry with Christ because He would have reproved them as being careless about their souls. As though they said, "Thou reprovest us for seeking after earthly bread and despising the Food of the soul. Tell us then what new... [ Continue Reading ]
_Jesus answered_, &c. Believe, _i.e._, in Myself, Who by so many arguments and miracles have proved that I am the Messiah sent by God. For the sake of modesty He speaks in the third person. As though He said, "That work by which ye will obtain Food from God to nourish the soul unto everlasting life,... [ Continue Reading ]
_They said_, &c. _, i.e._, those of the crowd who were bolder than the rest, who knew and thought less of Jesus. For they had seen the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves the day before, whereby Christ had fed five thousand men, but upon this they set small value, and ask for one still great... [ Continue Reading ]
_Our fathers_... _as it is written_ (Psalms 78:24). As though they said, "Moses fed our fathers in the desert, even more than six hundred thousand men, with heavenly and most sweet food, ever the manna, and that daily for forty years, which was a greater thing than Thy multiplication of the loaves y... [ Continue Reading ]
_Jesus said therefore_, &c. Christ here refutes the cavilling of the Jews, and shows that He is greater than Moses, and gives better bread than Moses gave in giving manna. He opposes therefore, and prefers His own bread, _i.e.,_ Himself in His Body in the Eucharist, as He Himself unfolds (Vers. 35,... [ Continue Reading ]
_For the Bread of God_, &c. Christ proves that not the manna, but His own Bread, _i.e._, He Himself, is true Bread, _i.e._, truly heavenly and Divine, by two arguments. 1. Because He alone really came down from heaven. 2. Because He alone gives true life to the world, _i.e._, the blessed and eternal... [ Continue Reading ]
_They said therefore_, &c. "Without labour, in pleasant ease let us eat joyfully this Bread, that It may prolong our life, like the tree of life in Paradise, that we may reach the years of Methuselah." For the carnal Jews did not yet understand that the Bread of Christ was spiritual, and thought onl... [ Continue Reading ]
_Jesus saith_... _not thirst for ever._ Syrian and Arabic, _for eternity._ Here Christ to the Jews who asked for bread to feed them unto life eternal, opens It out, and offers It, and declares that It is Himself. For He by His grace and Spirit, which He breathes into the faithful, so nourishes them... [ Continue Reading ]
_But I said_, &c. _Said_, elsewhere, even if it had been nowhere recorded by S. John. So S. Chrysostom and others. Again _said_, _i.e._, sufficiently, and more than sufficiently, I have shown and proved to you, _because ye have seen, i.e._, have known, _i.e._, by the many signs and miracles which I... [ Continue Reading ]
_Every thing,_ &c. There is an anticipation, thus, "Ye will object against Me, 'If Thou knewest that we would not believe Thy preaching, why dost thou preach to us?' I reply, 'Because there are some of you who will believe in Me, namely those whom the Father hath chosen, and hath given Me to be My d... [ Continue Reading ]
_For I came down_, &c Christ gives the reason why He will not cast out him whom the Father hath given Him, viz., because He Himself came in flesh, and into the world, for this end alone, that He might do the Father's will, which is, that those whom the Father wills to give to Him, and to save, Chris... [ Continue Reading ]
_But this is His will_, &c. _Everything_, i.e., _all altogether, of every nation, rank, age_, or _sex_, as 1 have said, verse 37. I will not lose (_perdam_), i.e., _I will not suffer to perish._ He explains what He had said, _I will not cast out._ This He expounds and completes by adding, _but will... [ Continue Reading ]
_And this is the will,_ &c. _He that seeth_, Greek, _θεωζω̃ν_, _i.e._, who considers and contemplates the Son, seeing Him with the eyes not of the body, but of the mind, _i.e._, believing in Him, and obeying Him. Lactantius (_lib._ 7, _c._ 9) observes out of Trismegistus that the word _θεωζω̃ν_, esp... [ Continue Reading ]
_Jesus therefore answered_, &c... _among themselves_ (Vulg. _in invicem_). It is intimated that some were for Him, and others against Him: and through some attacking Him, and others defending Him, they murmured among themselves. _Murmur not_ : for I give you no occasion of murmuring; I tell you the... [ Continue Reading ]
_No man can come to Me_, &c. Observe, (1.) Christ might, as S. Chrysostom observes, have answered and said, "It is not wonderful that you, 0 ye Jews, neither understand nor believe the things which I say, namely, that _I am the Bread of Life who came down from heaven_ : it is because ye are hard and... [ Continue Reading ]
_It is written,_ &c. He quotes Isaiah 54:13, "All thy children shall be taught of the Lord." Jeremiah (Jer 31:33) has a similar prophecy, and Joel (Joe 2:28). Because what Christ said seemed strange to the Jews, _No one can come to Me, except My Father draw him_, Christ confirms it out of Isaiah and... [ Continue Reading ]
_Not that any one,_ &c. "Lest the dense and ignorant Jews should imagine," says Euthymius, "that any one could hear or see the Father in a sensible manner, He saith _not that any one_, &c." We must understand, "But let a man hear God unseen, speaking in the soul, illuminating it, and persuading to t... [ Continue Reading ]
_Verily, verily_, &c. _Hath_, by right and merit, or in certain hope, but not yet in fact. Christ goes back to verse 29, 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 L... [ Continue Reading ]
. _am the Bread of life_, nourishing those who eat Me unto life eternal. As though He said, "I give eternal life to those by whom I am eaten with true and living faith." He often repeats and confirms the same, that He might not seem to have spoken rashly, because to the Jews this thing seemed plainl... [ Continue Reading ]
VER. 49, 50. _Your fathers_, &c, _in the desert_, "signifying," says S. Chrysostom, "that the manna did not long continue, nor come to the land of promise; for as soon as they reached it the manna ceased." But this Bread of Christ endureth for ever. Listen to the words of Josue (v. 12): "And the man... [ Continue Reading ]
_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... [ Continue Reading ]
_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 the... [ Continue Reading ]
_He that cometh_ &c. _Eateth, i.e._, says Ruperti, worthily, with due preparation and purification, with a previous act of contrition and sacramental confession, if a man have any mortal sin upon his conscience. For if, after examination, a man be not conscious of any mortal sin, even though he may... [ Continue Reading ]
_For My Flesh,_ &c., _truly, i.e._, not parabolically nor figuratively, as Euthymius says from S. Chrysostom, but really and properly, according to the plain meaning of the words. Hence S. Chrysostom (_Hom._ 61. _ad. Pop_.) teaches that we in the Eucharist are united and commingled with the Flesh of... [ Continue Reading ]
_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... [ Continue Reading ]
VER. 59. _This is the bread_, &c. He intimates the same thing which I have said at the end of the foregoing verse. For Christ came down from heaven not as man, but as God. Wherefore he who eateth Him in the Eucharist shall live for ever, because in truth he eateth God and the Godhead, which being ev... [ Continue Reading ]
_This spake He,_ &c. Christ taught these things, not in secret, not in a corner, but publicly in the synagogue in the presence of the Scribes, the Priests, and the whole people who had flocked together. For the synagogue was a sort of church. _In Capharnaum_, "where," says S. Chrysostom, "He had do... [ Continue Reading ]
_Many therefore went back. Hard,_ i.e., _austere, rigid, oppressive, unmerciful_. The Arabic has _difficult_. Euthymius, _can scarcely be admitted. And who can hear it._ "Who can," we do not say, 'do such a thing, but even bear to bear it?" What Jesus said concerning His Flesh, and especially the co... [ Continue Reading ]
_Jesus knowing in Himself,_ Greek, _ε̉ν έαυτω̃_, Syriac, _in His soul, i.e._, through His omniscience, without any one to tell, or reveal it. "For this was a proof of His Divinity, that He revealed secrets," says Chrysostom. _That His disciples murmured at this, He saith unto them, Doth this scandal... [ Continue Reading ]
_If therefore ye shall see_, &c. "He is speaking," says Euthymius, "concerning His future assumption into heaven." For some of them, such as the Apostles, beheld this. And others, who did not believe, although they saw it not, might have heard, and certainly learnt from those who did see. _Where He... [ Continue Reading ]
_It is the spirit which quickeneth_ : _the flesh_, Arabic _, the body_, &c. The Calvinists bring forward against us these words of Christ to show that in the Eucharist there is not the Flesh of Christ really and corporeally, but only spiritually and figuratively by representation and faith, because,... [ Continue Reading ]
_But there are some_, &c. The reason why some of you do not receive, but oppose, My words concerning the Eucharist, is not because My saying is _hard_, as ye say, but because ye are faithless, and will not believe My many miracles and signs. For here there is need of humble faith, which ought by low... [ Continue Reading ]
_And said,_ &c. _, except it be given him,_ &c, i.e., _except My Father draw him_, as He said in verse 44. Graciously does Christ not attribute the unbelief of the Jews to their fault, but excuses them on the ground _that it was not given them of the-Father:_ at the same time He consoles Himself, as... [ Continue Reading ]
_From this time_, say Euthymius and others: otherwise the Syriac, _on account of this discourse:_ Arabic, _because of this, left Jesus_, &c. These disciples were not the Apostles, for Christ excepts them in the following verse. Neither were they the seventy-two disciples. For those had not yet been... [ Continue Reading ]
_Jesus said therefore_, &c. For when the others were scandalized and went away from Christ "the Twelve remained," says S. Augustine, "for not even did Judas go away:" partly for shame's sake, not to be the only Apostle to go away, and be called an apostate; partly that he might be fed by Christ with... [ Continue Reading ]
_Simon Peter therefore answered_, &c. _Peter_, as greater in rank (_ordine major_), says S. Cyril, firmer in faith, more loving to Jesus, more fervent in spirit, answered in the name of the rest of the Apostles, thinking that this was the mind and feeling of all. For that which he himself thought of... [ Continue Reading ]
_And we believe_, &c. The Greek has the article to both _Christ_ and _Son_ : _ό Χζιστὸς_, _the_ Christ promised by God, and expected for so many ages: _ό υίὸς_, _i.e._, _the Son of God_ by nature and substance, not adopted by grace. "Diligently consider this," says Cyril, "that everywhere, especia... [ Continue Reading ]
_Jesus answered_, Thou, 0 Peter, answerest in the name of all the Apostles, as if all believed in Me, and were My faithful friends. But know that thou art deceived, for one of them is a devil, unbelieving, and faithless to Me, who also will betray Me. _Have chosen Twelve_, as to the Apostleship acco... [ Continue Reading ]
_But he spake_, &c. Christ forewarns the Apostles, so that when they should afterwards behold the treachery of Judas, they might know that He had foreseen and foretold it, and therefore that it was not against His will, but by the permission of His certain counsel that this was done to bring about H... [ Continue Reading ]