Commentaria in Exodum
AND THE TASTE THEREOF LIKE TO FLOUR WITH HONEY.—Manna was therefore like grains of sugar, as to colour, as to taste, and as to figure. This savour was as it were innate and natural to the manna itself, and so it tasted, if he who ate desired no other food or savour: but if he desired anything else, presently it tasted like that in the manna. For manna, by God’s gift and a great miracle, presented to each all sweetness of taste, that which he wished: for this is what is said Wisdom 16:20:
“Thou didst feed thy people with the food of angels, and gavest them bread from heaven prepared without labour, having in it all that is delicious, and the sweetness of every taste. For thy sustenance (namely manna, with which thou didst sustain the Hebrews) shewed thy sweetness to thy children, and serving every man’s will, it was turned to what every man liked.” Whence also in chap. 19, verse 20, the Wise Man in Greek calls manna ambrosia, which is feigned by poets alone to be the most delicate food of the gods.
Some think that this was given only to pious and just men as a privilege, that manna tasted to them what they wished; that this did not befall the impious and unjust, but manna tasted to them only as bread with honey or oil, is proved from this, that otherwise they would not afterwards have murmured against manna, nor asked for flesh, leeks and melons, Num. chap. 11, verse 4, if they had tasted all these in the manna itself. So teach St. Augustine, book 2 Retractations, chap. 19, Abulensis, Lipomanus and others.
But because Scripture makes no distinction here of the pious and impious, but absolutely asserts that manna presented to each the savour he wished; and because the other benefits of God, such as the pillar, quails, water from the rock, etc., in the desert were common to the impious as to the pious; and because by this savour God wished to call away both the impious and the pious from the pots of Egypt: for this is what the Wise Man adds: “That thy children, O Lord, whom thou lovedst, might learn, that it is not the growth of fruits that nourisheth men, but thy word preserveth them that believe in thee”; hence it seems truer that manna tasted to all, the impious as well as the pious, what each wished it to taste. So teach the Hebrews, St. Chrysostom, Nazianzen and others, whom Lorinus cites and follows on Wisdom 16. The expression “was turned,” in Greek transtempered, that is, was changed.
Thou wilt say: Why then did the Hebrews loathe the manna? Num. 11. Lorinus answers that this loathing and murmuring arose not from the excessive sweetness of the manna, nor from weariness of one and the same food for forty years, but from this, that colour, odour, form, thinness and like other qualities always persisted the same in manna, the pleasant diversity of which qualities attracts the taste more: for so boys and other gluttons strive to fill with food not only the belly but also the nostrils, and eyes, and hands; and this is what they say murmuring: “Our soul now loatheth this very light food; our eyes behold nothing else but manna.” They asked therefore for the variety and solidity of other foods. Some add that manna changed not only the savour but also the substance to the wish of those who ate: so that if any wished to eat an egg, a hen, sugar, the manna would at once be turned according to the wish either into an egg, or into a hen, or into sugar, and this they think is signified by those words of Wisdom 16: “To what every man liked, it was turned,” as though in this manna were expressed a type of the transubstantiation of bread into the body of Christ in the Eucharist. So think Gregory of Valencia, Claudius de Sainctes, On the Eucharist, repetition 7, chap. 3; Thomas Bozius, book 13 On the Marks of the Church, last chapter, and Nicholas Villegagnon, book 3 Against Calvin, chap. 52.
But this opinion is new, and lacks solid foundation: for the words of Scripture speak not of a substantial, but of an accidental conversion of savour: for otherwise the Jews would not have murmured on account of manna, Num. chap. 11. And in this respect manna was a type of the Eucharist, not as to transubstantiation, but as to the force and efficacy of the remaining accidents: for the savour of manna shows how the accidents of bread and wine can remain and nourish without their substance: and so implicitly and consequently the other savour in manna was also a type of transubstantiation. For a different savour is wont to accompany and indicate a different substance.
Note: The Wise Man, as also David, Psalm 77:25, calls manna the bread of angels, not of those who eat it, but of those who produce it, producing manna from matter disposed for that purpose in the clouds. Whence they also call it “bread of heaven,” that is, of the clouds, because manna was formed in the clouds and rained from the clouds. Again manna is called “bread of angels,” that is, most delicate bread, so that if angels ate, they would feed on no other bread than manna: so the tongues of angels are called most beautifully and elegantly, 1 Cor. 13:1. For “of angels” the Hebrew is abbirim, that is, of the strong, or of the more robust, which is an epithet of angels, who in fortitude and virtue excel men. Secondly, “of the strong,” because by manna men became vigorous and strong, as the Eucharist strengthens our hearts unto eternal life, John 6.
AND LET IT BE KEPT UNTO GENERATIONS TO COME HEREAFTER,—this is the fifth precept, by which God commands manna to be kept, as a perpetual monument of divine nourishment. So manna rained at Arras, which is even yet preserved and shown there, as I myself saw. Hence their rhyme:
At Arras manna, at Rome sacred unction, at Jerusalem blood rained: these are three gifts of salvation.
The fifth miracle likewise is here, that God kept this manna incorrupt through so many ages
33. LAY IT UP BEFORE THE LORD,—before the tabernacle and ark, when they should be built; it is therefore a prolepsis: for in the Holy of holies manna was laid up in a golden urn, as the Apostle says, Hebr. 9:4.
34. AS THE LORD COMMANDED MOSES,—that is, me; it is an enallage of person: for Moses speaks of himself as of another in the third person.
AND AARON PUT IT IN THE TABERNACLE TO BE KEPT,—not in this first year after the going out of Egypt, but much later, when the tabernacle was made: this is therefore put here by anticipation, that all things which touch manna may be joined together. Or again Moses put the manna in the small tabernacle which the Hebrews had, before they built that great and elaborate one by God’s command: that they already had such a tabernacle will appear from chap. 33, verse 7. So Lyranus and others.
35. THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL ATE MANNA FORTY YEARS,—Here is signified the sixth precept, of gathering manna each day and year, and that continually for 40 years. Here also is the sixth daily miracle, that in spring as in autumn, in summer as in winter, each day for forty continuous years manna rained, until the Hebrews came into Chanaan, and there ate of the fruits. The angels therefore daily formed manna in the clouds, from matter naturally disposed for it, in the way that snow, hail, nay stones are generated in the clouds, and in the way that medicinal manna also is generated, which nevertheless differs and is far distant from this manna of ours: for ours was miraculous, as is plain from what has been said. Wherefore what Josephus says, that in his time manna still rained in the same region, is either fabulous, or must be understood of medicinal manna.
Whether the Hebrews in the desert ate other foods besides manna, I shall say on Deut. 1:6.
Note: Manna allegorically signified Christ in the Venerable Sacrament, as appears John chap. 6, verses 49 and 50; but manna most of all signified the thing contained and the effect of the Sacrament, as St. Chrysostom, Theophylact and Cyril copiously teach on the cited place of John. Whence the Apostle also, 1 Cor. 10, says: “All did eat the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink,” which Calvin also takes of the sacred supper, and says that manna was a type of the body of Christ, from which you may rightly gather that in the Venerable Sacrament there is truly the flesh of Christ, if manna was the symbol of a thing truly existing, and not a chimera: for otherwise both we and the Jews shall eat spiritual food, that is, typical and symbolic flesh, and we shall have no more truth signified than the Jews themselves, nay far less: for manna was more savoury than our bread, and far more clearly represented the body of Christ than dry bread. This consequence, as being clear, one of this new flock of Ministers lately conceded; but who does not see that this is repugnant to Scripture and to reason? For the new law is more excellent than the old law; therefore the new Sacraments excel the old; whence the Apostle says: “Now these things were done in a figure of us”; and the thing figured is nobler than its figure: as a body than its shadow, and a man than his image: therefore the Sacraments of the new law, and especially the Eucharist, as the thing figured, ought to be nobler than the Sacraments of the old law, and than manna itself, which was only a type and figure of our Eucharist. Again, in John 6, Christ most expressly prefers his body in the Eucharist to manna itself, verses 48 and 58: “This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead. He that eateth this bread (namely divine, consecrated and transubstantiated into the body of Christ) shall live for ever.” But that manna represents the body of Christ more clearly than bread, who does not see? for this can be shown in many ways.