Church Fathers Commentary John 6:60-71

"Many therefore of his disciples, when the heard [this], said, This is a hard saying; who can hear it? But Jesus knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at this, said unto them, Doth this cause you to stumble? [What] then if ye should behold the Son of man ascending where he was before? It is the spirit that giveth life; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, are are life. But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who it was that should betray him. And he said, For this cause have I said unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it be given unto him of the Father. Upon this many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Jesus said therefore unto the twelve, Would ye also go away? Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we have believed and know that thou art the Holy One of God. Jesus answered them, Did not I choose you the twelve, and one of you is a devil? Now he spake of Judas [the son] of Simon Iscariot, for he it was that should betray him, [being] one of the twelve." — John 6:60-71 (ASV)

St. Augustine of Hippo: Such was our Lord’s discourse. The people did not realize that it had a deep meaning or that it was accompanied by grace. Instead, interpreting it in their own way and taking His words in a merely human sense, they understood Him as if He were speaking of cutting up the flesh of the Word into pieces for distribution to those who believed in Him. Therefore, many—not of His enemies, but of His own disciples—said when they heard this, This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?

St. John Chrysostom: This means it was difficult to accept and too much for their weakness. They thought He spoke of Himself too highly, more loftily than He had a right to, and so they said, Who can listen to it? which was, in effect, answering for themselves that they could not.

St. Augustine of Hippo: And if His disciples thought that saying was hard, what would His enemies think? Yet it was necessary to declare something that would be unintelligible to many. God’s mysteries should draw people's attention, not their hostility.

Theophylact of Ohrid: However, when you hear of His disciples murmuring, do not understand this to mean His true disciples. Rather, it refers to some who, based on their appearance and behavior, only seemed to be receiving His instruction. For among the crowds were some who were called disciples simply because they spent some time with His actual disciples.

St. Augustine of Hippo: They spoke, however, in a way that they thought He could not hear. But He, who knew what was in them, heard it within Himself. When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples were grumbling about this, He said to them, “Does this offend you?”

Alcuin of York: That is, because I said you must eat My flesh and drink My blood.

St. John Chrysostom: However, the revelation of these hidden thoughts was a mark of His divinity. This explains the meaning of what follows: What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where He was before? You should supply the implied question: “What will you say then?” He said the same to Nathanael: “Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these.”

He is not adding one difficulty to another, but is trying to convince them by the number and greatness of His teachings. If He had merely said that He came down from heaven without adding anything further, He would have offended His hearers even more. But by saying that His flesh is the life of the world, that He was sent by the living Father and lives because of the Father, and finally by adding that He came down from heaven, He removed all doubt.

He does not intend to scandalize His disciples, but rather to remove their offense. As long as they thought He was the son of Joseph, they could not accept His doctrines. But if they once believed that He had come down from heaven and would ascend there again, they would be much more willing and able to accept them.

St. Augustine of Hippo: Alternatively, these words are an answer to their mistake. They supposed that He was going to distribute His body in pieces, but He now tells them that He will ascend to heaven whole and entire: What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where He was before? You will see then that He does not distribute His body in the way you imagine.

Furthermore, Christ became the Son of Man from the Virgin Mary here on earth and took flesh upon Himself. He says, What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where He was before? to let us know that Christ, God and man, is one person, not two. He is the object of one faith, not a quaternity, but a Trinity. He was the Son of Man in heaven just as He was the Son of God on earth—the Son of God on earth by the assumption of the flesh, and the Son of Man in heaven by the unity of His person.

Theophylact of Ohrid: From this, do not suppose that the body of Christ came down from heaven, as the heretics Marcion and Apollinarius claim. Understand only that the Son of God and the Son of Man are one and the same.

St. John Chrysostom: He tries to remove their difficulties in another way, saying, It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. This is to say, “You ought to understand My words in a spiritual sense; he who understands them carnally profits nothing.” To interpret something carnally is to take a statement in its bare, literal meaning and allow for no other. But we should not judge mysteries in this way; we must instead examine them with the inward eye—that is, understand them spiritually.

It was a carnal way of thinking to doubt how our Lord could give His flesh to eat. What then? Is it not real flesh? Yes, truly. Therefore, in saying that the flesh profits nothing, He is not speaking of His own flesh, but of the carnal way His words are heard.

St. Augustine of Hippo: Or consider it this way: the flesh profits nothing. They had understood “flesh” to mean a carcass to be cut up and sold in the butcher shop, not a body animated by the spirit. But join the spirit to the flesh, and it profits a great deal. For if the flesh did not profit, the Word would not have become flesh and dwelt among us. The Spirit has accomplished much for our salvation by means of the flesh.

For the flesh does not cleanse by itself, but through the Word who assumed it. This Word, being the principle of life in all things, took on a soul and body, and now cleanses the souls and bodies of those who believe. It is the Spirit, then, that gives life; the flesh profits nothing—that is, the flesh as they understood it. He seems to say, “I do not give My body to be eaten in that sense.” One ought not to think of the flesh carnally. The words that I speak to you are spirit and life.

St. John Chrysostom: That is, they are spiritual, have nothing carnal in them, and do not produce effects of a merely natural kind, for they are not under the dominion of the law of necessity or the natural order established on earth.

St. Augustine of Hippo: Therefore, if you understand them spiritually, they are life and spirit to you. If you understand them carnally, they are still life and spirit, but not for you. Our Lord declares that in eating His body and drinking His blood, we dwell in Him and He in us. But what has the power to bring this about, except love? The love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

St. John Chrysostom: Having spoken of His words being taken carnally, He adds, But there are some of you who do not believe. He says “some,” not including His true disciples in that number. This insight reveals His divine nature.

St. Augustine of Hippo: He does not say, “There are some among you who do not understand,” but instead gives the reason why they do not understand. As the Prophet said, Unless you believe, you will not understand. For how can one who opposes Him be given life? An adversary, though he may not turn his face away, still closes his mind to the ray of light that should penetrate it. But let people believe and open their eyes, and they will be enlightened.

St. John Chrysostom: To let you know that the people murmured and were offended before these words were spoken, not after, the Evangelist adds, For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray Him.

Theophylact of Ohrid: The Evangelist wishes to show us that He knew all things before the foundation of the world, which is a proof of His divinity.

St. Augustine of Hippo: And after distinguishing those who believed from those who did not, our Lord gives the reason for the unbelief of the latter. He said, This is why I told you that no one can come to Me unless it is granted him by the Father.

St. John Chrysostom: It is as if He said, “Human unbelief does not disturb or astonish Me; I know to whom the Father has granted to come to Me.” He mentions the Father, first, to show that He was not seeking His own glory, and second, to show that God was His Father, not Joseph.

St. Augustine of Hippo: So then, our faith is given to us, and it is no small gift. Therefore, rejoice if you believe, but do not be proud, for what do you have that you did not receive? No one can doubt that this grace is given to some and not to others without contradicting the plainest declarations of Scripture.

As for the question of why it is not given to all, this cannot trouble the believer, who knows that because of the sin of one man, all are justly liable to condemnation. No blame could be attached to God even if no one were pardoned; it is only by His great mercy that so many are saved. And why He pardons one rather than another rests with Him, whose judgments are unsearchable and whose ways are beyond finding out.

St. John Chrysostom: He does not say they “withdrew,” but that they “went back,” meaning they turned away from being good hearers and from the belief they once had.

St. Augustine of Hippo: Being cut off from the body, their life was gone. They were no longer part of the body; they were now counted among the unbelieving. Not a few, but many, went back—following Satan, not Christ. As the Apostle says of some women, For some have already turned aside to follow Satan. Our Lord says to Peter, Get behind Me. He does not tell Peter to go after Satan.

St. John Chrysostom: But it may be asked, what reason was there for speaking words to them that did not build them up, but might have even injured them? It was, in fact, very useful and necessary. The reason is that they had just been urgently asking for physical food, reminding Him of the manna given to their fathers. So He reminds them here of spiritual food to show that all those earlier miracles were types. Therefore, they should not have been offended, but should have questioned Him further. The offense was due to their own foolishness, not to the difficulty of the truths our Lord declared.

St. Augustine of Hippo: And perhaps this happened for our comfort. For it sometimes happens that a person speaks the truth, but what he says is not understood, and those who hear are offended and leave. Then the person is sorry he spoke the truth, saying to himself, “I should not have said that.” And yet, our Lord was in the same situation. He spoke the truth, and lost many. But He was not disturbed by it, because He knew from the beginning who would believe. When this happens to us, we are disturbed. Let us, then, find comfort in our Lord’s example, and at the same time, use caution in our speech.

The Venerable Bede: Our Lord knew well the intentions of the other disciples who remained—whether they would stay or go. Yet He asked them the question in order to test their faith and hold it up as an example for imitation: Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also want to go away?”

St. John Chrysostom: This was the right way to keep them. If He had praised them, they would naturally, as people do, have thought they were doing Christ a favor by not leaving Him. By showing, as He did, that He did not need their company, He made them cling more closely to Him. He does not say, “Go away,” as this would have been to cast them off. Instead, He asks if they wished to go away, thus preventing them from staying with Him out of a feeling of shame or obligation. For to stay out of obligation would be the same as leaving. Peter, who loved his brothers, replied for the whole group: Lord, to whom shall we go?

St. Augustine of Hippo: It is as if he said, “You are casting us away from You; if we leave You, give us another to whom we can go.”

St. John Chrysostom: This is a speech of the greatest love, proving that Christ was more precious to them than father or mother. And so that it would not seem he said this merely because he thought there was no one else for guidance, he adds, You have the words of eternal life. This showed that he remembered his Master’s words, I will raise him up, and, has eternal life. The Jews had said, “Is not this the son of Joseph?” How differently Peter speaks: We have believed and have come to know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

St. Augustine of Hippo: For we believed in order to know. If we had wished first to know and then to believe, we would never have been able to believe at all. This we believe and know: that You are the Christ, the Son of God. This means that You are eternal life, and that in Your flesh and blood, You give what You Yourself are.

St. John Chrysostom: However, after Peter said, “We believe,” our Lord excepted Judas from the number of those who believed. Jesus answered them, Have I not chosen you, the twelve? And yet one of you is a devil. This means, “Do not suppose that because you have followed Me, I will not rebuke the wicked among you.” It is worth asking why the disciples say nothing here, whereas later they ask in fear, “Lord, is it I?” But Peter had not yet been told, Get behind Me, Satan, and therefore did not yet have this kind of fear.

However, our Lord does not say here, “One of you will betray Me,” but rather, one of you is a devil. Because of this, they did not understand what He meant and thought He was only rebuking a case of general wickedness. Regarding the subject of election, the Gentiles foolishly blame Christ. His election does not impose any necessity upon a person regarding the future, but leaves it in the power of their own will to be saved or to perish.

The Venerable Bede: Alternatively, we must say that He elected the eleven for one purpose and the twelfth for another. The eleven were chosen to fill the role of Apostles and to persevere in it to the end; the twelfth was chosen for the service of betraying Him, which became the means of saving the human race.

St. Augustine of Hippo: He was elected to be an involuntary and unknowing instrument for producing the greatest good. For just as the wicked turn the good works of God to an evil use, so, conversely, God turns the evil works of human beings to good. What can be worse than what Judas did? Yet our Lord made good use of his wickedness, allowing Himself to be betrayed so that He might redeem us. In the phrase, Have I not chosen you, the twelve?, twelve seems to be a sacred number, used for those who were to spread the doctrine of the Trinity to the four corners of the world. Nor was the power of that number diminished by one perishing, since another was substituted in his place.

St. Gregory the Great: One of you is a devil: the body is here named after its head.

St. John Chrysostom: Mark the wisdom of Christ: by not exposing him, He prevents him from becoming shameless and argumentative; yet by not allowing him to think he is concealed, He does not embolden him.