The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: S. John
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 ever present with him who eateth, continually breathes into him His own life. Hear S. Ambrose (Serm. 18 in Ps. cxviii.), “ How shall he die whose food is Life ? ” And presently, describing its wonderful effects, “ Draw nigh unto Him, and be filled, for He is Bread. Draw nigh unto Him, and drink, for He is a Fountain. Draw nigh unto Him, and be enlightened, for He is Light. Draw nigh unto Him, and be free, for where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Draw nigh unto Him, and be absolved; for He is remission of sins.” And S. Bernard (Serm. de Cana Dom.) says, “Two things that Sacrament worketh in you : it diminishes the sense (of sin) in the least matters, and in graver sins it wholly takes away consent.” And again he says, “ If any of you feel neither so frequently nor so severely the motions of anger, envy, lust, and such like passions, give thanks to the Body and Blood of the Lord, forasmuch as the virtue of the Sacrament worketh in you.” And S. Chrysostom on Ps. xxii. 5 (Vulg.), saith upon the words, “Thou hast prepared a table before me, against them that trouble me,” “Let those who have trouble of the flesh come to the table of the Mighty One, and tribulation shall be turned into consolation.” Lastly, S. Cyril says, “ The body of Christ quickens, and by our participation of it restores us to incorruption. For it is the body of none other than of the Life itself. It retains the virtue of the Word Incarnate, and is full of the power of Him by whom all things live and have their being.”
Ver. 60. — 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 done so many miracles, and where He had the best right to be heard. Because the things which Christ spake concerning eating His flesh, and His being about to raise us up from death unto life eternal, seemed paradoxical and incredible to the Jews, He wished to proclaim them from that place, where by His many miracles He had gained faith and authority for Himself and His doctrine.”
Ver. 61. — 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 hear it?’” What Jesus said concerning His Flesh, and especially the command to eat It (ver. 54), except ye eat, &c., seems too difficult to be believed, and too horrible to be done. For what butcher will slay Christ? Who can bear to eat human flesh, or drink human blood ? These are the feasts of cannibals, such as the heathen who did not understand the mystery of the Flesh of Christ in the Eucharist in after times reproached Christians with, and so were imitators of those Capharnaites, as Tertullian and other Fathers testify.
This saying was not hard in itself, but hard to the stupid Jews, who imagined that the Flesh of Christ was to be cut by a butcher, and mangled by the teeth like the flesh of an ox. But they greatly erred, for Christ neither said this, nor meant it. But He wished us to eat His Flesh sacramentally, i.e., hidden in the Sacrament under the species of bread and wine, a thing which is not dreadful, but which we who daily offer and communicate find by experience to be most easy and sweet. The Jews ought therefore humbly to have asked Christ to unfold to them the manner of doing this. If they would have done this, they would have heard it, and might have received it, and not thought the saying hard. As Cyril says, “ They thought that they were called to the savage manners of wild beasts, and were urged to eat raw human flesh, and drink blood, things too horrible to hear of. Such were their thoughts as to how the flesh of this man would bestow eternal life, and bring them to immortality.”
Ver. 62.—Jesus knowing in Himself Greek, ἐν ἑαυτῷ, 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 scandalize you? As though He said, “ I do so many and wonderful things because I am sent by the Father for this purpose, as I have proved to you by My miracles ; ye ought not therefore to be scandalized and offended at My words and deeds, but ye ought rather to ask God who sent Me for light and grace, that ye may be able to receive them.”
Ver. 63. — 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 was before, as regards His Divinity, says Euthymius. For He ascended into heaven, as regards His humanity. What will ye say , must be understood, as Euthymius observes. “ Will ye be still scandalized? I trust not. Certainly I know ye will not rightly be so. For by My ascension into heaven by My own power ye will be able to know that I came down from heaven, and that I return whither I was before, and therefore that I am not only true and a prophet, but that I am also God, and the Son of God, to whom all things are possible, yea easy, and therefore that I am able to give My Flesh for food, and by It to raise the dead. From the miracle of His ascension into heaven Christ rightly proves His Divinity and omnipotence, and from them the mystery of the Eucharist.” For to the Deity nothing is impossible, nothing strange, nothing paradoxical. Yea, it is becoming to Deity to do things strange (nova) and paradoxical, which are above nature and human reason. As S. Cyril says, “By another wonderful thing He urges them to faith,” and that appositely. For the ascension of Christ into heaven signified that He came down from heaven (for He went back from whence He came), and therefore that He was the Living Bread which came down from heaven, which was what He here wished to persuade the Capharnaites.
Maldonatus explains otherwise, thus, “ When ye shall hear that I have ascended into heaven, what will ye say ? Surely ye will be still more scandalized ; ye will still less believe Me ; ye will say that I am a sorcerer, who by the aid of the devils have pretended to fly into heaven.”
Ver. 64. — 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, say they, the flesh profiteth nothing. But if this be true, then in vain was the Word made Flesh, then in vain did the Flesh of Christ suffer and was crucified, and died. God forbid. And who does not see that the Flesh of Christ is more profitable than the mere bread of Calvin, even though it were seasoned with sugar and honey out of Calvin's throat ? For in his bread there is no spirit, except the spirit of error and Satanic madness.
First then SS. Cyril and Austin learnedly expound these words, thus : they are as if Christ said, “ My Flesh alone profits not to preserve him who eats It unto life eternal, because it is not My mere Flesh which confers life and resurrection, but it is the Spirit, i.e., My Divinity united to the Flesh which quickens first the soul, and then the body at the Resurrection. And thus My Flesh profiteth very exceedingly, forasmuch as being united to the
Spirit of the Word, it derives from It its quickening power.” By a similar form of speech we are wont to say, The eye doth not see, the ear doth not hear, nor the body feel, but it is the spirit, i.e., the soul, which sees through the eye, and hears through the ear. Consequently, the words, i.e., the reality and the mystery of My Flesh to be eaten in the Eucharist, which I speak unto you are spirit and life. That is, My Deity, which is a pure Spirit, is a living and quickening Spirit. For It will give you life in the
Eucharist, not My bare Flesh. So S. Augustine says, “ This Flesh alone profiteth not, but let the Spirit be joined to the Flesh, and It profiteth greatly. For if the Flesh profiteth nothing, the Word would not have become Flesh.” The same (lib. 10, de Civit. Dei) says, “The Flesh of itself cleanseth not, but through the Word by which it hath been assumed.” And S. Cyril, “ If the Flesh be understood alone, it is by no means able to quicken, forasmuch as it needs a Quickener, but because it is conjoined with the life-giving Word, the whole is made life-giving. For the Word of God being joined to the corruptible nature does not lose Its virtue, but the Flesh itself is lifted up to the power of the higher nature. Therefore, although the nature of flesh as flesh cannot quicken ; still it doth this because it hath received the whole operation of the Word.”
For Christ is here making answer to the Capharnaites murmuring as to how Christ’s Flesh being eaten could give eternal life. But He gave this answer because they had murmured still more concerning the eating the flesh of Christ, and the method of doing so, which they thought of as something carnal and barbarous, as is seen by verses 52 and 60, and 61. For it seems something savage and inhuman to tear like wolves, and devour the human flesh of Christ. Hence secondly,