The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: S. John
You will say that S. Augustine asserts (lib. 3, de Doct. Christ, c. 16), that there is in these words of Christ a trope or figure, by which we are commanded to have communion in His sufferings. I answer, S. Augustine calls this a figure because the flesh of Christ is not here commanded to be cut, cooked and eaten (as is done with the flesh of bulls and sheep), as the Capharnaites imagined, and therefore were offended ; but figuratively, i.e., sacramentally. For he thinks that it is here commanded that in the Eucharist, by means of the species of bread and wine, separated one from another, and as it were dead, we should represent the Passion and Death of Christ, which took place through the separation of the soul and blood of Christ from His body, and that we should both imitate this by mortification and shew it forth by holy living.
You will say secondly: Christ (ver. 27, 29, 63) treats concerning the spiritual eating of Him by faith, therefore also He here proceeds to speak of the same, and not of sacramental and corporal eating, otherwise He would not speak consistently and logically ( cohærenter ). I answer (1.) by denying the consequence. For Christ wished by degrees to raise the ignorant Jews, and first to set before them easy things, and afterwards things more difficult and mysterious. Wherefore from the multiplication of the loaves with which He had fed the multitude He rises to the manna, and from that to the spiritual food of faith : (ver. 27, 29, 35, 36, 40, 47). Then in this verse and afterwards (He proceeds) to the real eating of Himself in the Eucharist, which is the end, the goal and aim of that miracle of the multiplication of the loaves. In a similar manner He led on the Samaritan woman from the drinking of material water to spiritual water. And Christ Himself sufficiently hints at, and indeed explains this leading onward, when (ver. 29, 35) He said that bread was already possessed by those who believed, but here He says that His Eucharistic bread was not yet possessed, and that He was not then giving it, but that He would give it in the future. The bread, He says, which I will give is My flesh for the life of the world. But the reason of this change is that Christ (ver. 27, &c.) wished to forewarn and prepare His hearers for the most august mystery of the Eucharist. For in It faith and spiritual manducation are required in the highest degree, for without them the real and corporeal profits nothing, as S. Augustine says.
I reply (2.) by denying the antecedent. For Christ did not say that we were to eat Him by (per ) faith, but He required faith as a means for obtaining from Him the heavenly bread and food, which is nothing else than His flesh and blood in the Eucharist, as I have observed in verse 27, &c.
They object (3.) that Christ says (ver. 64), It is the Spirit which quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing . This I will explain in the proper place.
From what has been said it is clear that in the Eucharist the very flesh of Christ is truly and properly eaten, and His blood drank, and not bread, as the Calvinists suppose, which is only a type and figure of the flesh of Christ. For the figure of the Eucharist was rather the manna of the Jews, as being something celestial and sweet to the taste, than the common arid bread of Christians. And if the Eucharist is mere bread, and not the body of Christ, then Christ would have no ground for preferring the Eucharist to the manna, since the manna was sweeter and better than bread. And so the Capharnaites and His disciples understood Christ, namely, that He wished His Flesh to be truly and properly eaten, although they were ignorant of the manner of eating It sacramentally , under the species of bread and wine. And this they could not at this time have received, even though Christ had expounded it. And although they were so grievously offended, yet did not Christ correct them, when this their offence and apostasy He could and should ( debuisset ) have done by a single word, saying that He was speaking figuratively ( mystice ), namely, that to eat His Flesh was nothing else but to believe in Him as incarnate and suffering for the salvation of men. Since, therefore, it is certain that He did not do this, it is certain that He was speaking concerning the real and sacramental eating of His Flesh in the Eucharist. “ Consider,” says Theophylact, “ that the bread which is eaten by us in the Mysteries is not merely a certain figure of the Lord’s body, but is the very Flesh of the Lord. He said not, The Bread which I will give is a figure of My Flesh. For by the words secretly spoken (arcanis verbis) that bread is transformed through the mystic benediction and the accession of the Holy Spirit, into the Flesh of the Lord. And how is it that flesh does not appear to us, but bread ? It is that we may not shrink from eating it. For if indeed It had appeared to be flesh, we should have been disaffected towards communion. But now through the Lord’s condescension to an infirmity, the mystic Food appears to us such as that to which we are accustomed at other times.”
Ver. 52 . — And the bread which I will give is My Flesh for the life of the world (Vulg.). The Greek has, But the bread which I will give is My Flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. And so read the Syriac, S. Cyril, Theophylact and Theodoret. The Arabic reads Body instead of Flesh. The meaning is, “The bread, i.e., the food of the Eucharist, which I will give at the Last Supper, is My Flesh which I will give, will offer to God upon the cross, a price and a ransom, to redeem the world from death, so that I may indeed raise the world dead in sin to the life of grace and glory.” Or better, “The bread of the Eucharist, which I will give in the way of food for the life of the world, will be My Flesh which I will deliver to the death of the cross for the life of the world, but in such manner that upon the cross I will give It to restore to the world its lost life, but in the Eucharist I will give It for food, that the world being raised by My death to the life of grace, may be nourished, may grow, and be perfected by It.” He means, “ I will give My true Flesh upon the cross, as it were corn in a mill, to be ground, that from It might be produced the bread of the Eucharist, fruit-bearing and life-giving, feeding the faithful for the life of grace, and leading them to the life of glory.” S. Ignatius, when he was condemned to the lions, had regard to this when he heard them roaring, and said, “I am the corn of Christ ; by the teeth of the beasts I shall be ground, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ.”
From the expression, I will give , in the future tense, all the ancients, and the moderns generally, understand this passage of the Eucharist, and some add that Christ not only on the cross, but in the Eucharist also gives, i.e., offers His flesh to God for the life of the world. For Christ not only offers Himself to God upon the cross, as it were a bloody victim for the life of the world, but also daily offers Himself for the same in the Eucharist, as it were an unbloody victim. For the Eucharist, or the Mass, is the perpetual, but unbloody sacrifice. As Euthymius says, “He said not, the bread which I give, but, which I will give; for He was about to give It in the Last Supper, when He gave thanks, and brake the bread which He had taken, and gave it to His disciples, and said, Take ye, and eat , This is My body .” After an interval, “ I will give unto death. For He presignifies His crucifixion and voluntary passion.”
Hear also Theophylact, “ Although also He is said to be delivered up by the Father, yet He is also said to have given up Himself. And the one indeed was said that we might learn His accordance with the Father, the other that we might not be ignorant of the free volition of the Son.”
Ver. 53. — The Jews therefore . . . strove , Greek, ἐμάχοντο, 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 man , &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 Son, 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.”