The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: S. John
Ver. 46 . — 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 the truth in Christ.” God is the invisible Master. God is the Teacher, not of eyes and ears, but of hearts and minds.
Save Him who is of God, viz. Myself, who am the Son of God, born of Him, and most intimate with Him, who continually see and behold Him as He is in His essence. And as man I was indeed formed by Him without man's agency, and always enjoy the beatific vision of Himself. As Cyril says, “ Being consubstantial with the Father, He will assuredly see Him from whom He is.” And as Euthymius says, “ Being of the same nature, substance and knowledge, He is in the bosom of the Father.”
Ver. 47. 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 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 ?
Ver. 48 . — I 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 plainly impossible.
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 manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the old corn of the land ; neither had the children of Israel manna any more ; but they did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.” For as God fails us not in things needful, so He gives not an abounding of superfluities .
And died : i.e., manna fed your fathers after the way of other food, and neither did, nor was able to protect them from death ; but My Bread will save from death.
That whosoever shall eat of it , by true faith and living charity, shall never die . That is, the manna had not the virtue of preserving life from corporeal death, much less the souls of your fathers from death, but this My Bread has the power of freeing from death not only the body, but the soul, and that for ever. For although it will not prevent the temporal death of the body, it will cause nevertheless the faithful man to rise up from that death, and to die no more for ever.
I am the living Bread ( bread is used by a hebraism for food), quickening those who eat Me in Myself who am Life, and communicating My life to them. Whilst the manna was in itself inanimate and dead, and therefore could not bestow life upon those who ate it. Who came down from heaven (by reason of a Divine supposition, says Suarez) ; “ Since they sought food from heaven,” says Chrysostom, “ therefore He frequently testifies that He came down from heaven.”
Ver. 52. — 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 (lib. 1, de Eucharist , c. 5). 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 Man , 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 (ver. 54). 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 (cap. 3), 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 (lib. 1, de Euch. c. 5).
In like manner the Council of Ephesus understand this passage (Epist. ad Nestor.), so do the Second Council of Nice (Act the Council of Cabillon (II. c. 46), and the Council of Sens (cap. 10), and the Council of Trent (Sess. 13, c. 2). Nor does S. Augustine dissent, as is plain to those who read him carefully, although many think the contrary. For from this very passage he, 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 for 600 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 ( Serm . 3 in 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.”