Part 1254

6:50. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven: that if any man eat of it, he may not die.

6:51. I am the living bread which came down from heaven.

6:52. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.

6:53. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat?

6:54. Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say unto you: except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.

Except you eat—and drink, etc.... To receive the body and blood of Christ, is a divine precept, insinuated in this text; which the faithful fulfil, though they receive but in one kind; because in one kind they receive both body and blood, which cannot be separated from each other. Hence, life eternal is here promised to the worthy receiving, though but in one kind. Ver. 52. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh for the life of the world. Ver. 58. He that eateth me, the same also shall live by me. Ver. 59. He that eateth this bread, shall liver for ever.

6:55. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day.

6:56. For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed.

6:57. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me: and I in him.

6:58. As the living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me.

6:59. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead. He that eateth this bread shall live for ever.

6:60. These things he said, teaching in the synagogue, in Capharnaum.

6:61. Many therefore of his disciples, hearing it, said: This saying is hard; and who can hear it?

6:62. But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at this, said to them: Doth this scandalize you?

6:63. If then you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?

If then you shall see, etc.... Christ by mentioning his ascension, by this instance of his power and divinity, would confirm the truth of what he had before asserted; and at the same time correct their gross apprehension of eating his flesh, and drinking his blood, in a vulgar and carnal manner, by letting them know he should take his whole body living with him to heaven; and consequently not suffer it to be as they supposed, divided, mangled, and consumed upon earth.

6:64. It is the spirit that quickeneth: the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

The flesh profiteth nothing.... Dead flesh separated from the spirit, in the gross manner they supposed they were to eat his flesh, would profit nothing. Neither doth man’s flesh, that is to say, man’s natural and carnal apprehension, (which refuses to be subject to the spirit, and words of Christ,) profit any thing. But it would be the height of blasphemy, to say the living flesh of Christ (which we receive in the blessed sacarament, with his spirit, that is, with his soul and divinity) profiteth nothing. For if Christ’s flesh had profitedus nothing, he would never have taken flesh for us, nor died in us nothing, he would never have taken flesh for us, nor died in the flesh for us. Are spirit and life.... By proposing to you a heavenly sacrament, in which you shall receive, in a wonderful manner, spirit, grace, and life, in its very fountain.

6:65. But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that did not believe and who he was that would betray him.

6:66. And he said: Therefore did I say to you that no man can come to me, unless it be given him by my Father.

6:67. After this, many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him.

6:68. Then Jesus said to the twelve: Will you also go away?

6:69. And Simon Peter answered him: Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.

6:70. And we have believed and have known that thou art the Christ, the Son of God.

6:71. Jesus answered them: Have not I chosen you twelve? And one of you is a devil.

6:72. Now he meant Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon: for this same was about to betray him, whereas he was one of the twelve.

John Chapter 7

Christ goes up to the feast of the tabernacles. He teaches in the temple.