Thomas Aquinas Commentary John 6:47-52

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth hath eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which cometh down out of heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down out of heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: yea and the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove one with another, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" — John 6:47-52 (ASV)

1. After our Lord quieted the grumbling of the Jews, He now clears up the doubt they had because of His saying, I am the living bread, which came down from Heaven. He intends to show here that this is true. This is how He reasons: the bread that gives life to the world descended from heaven; but I am the bread that gives life to the world; therefore, I am the bread that descended from heaven.

   He does three things concerning this.

   1. He presents the minor premise of his reasoning, that is, I am the bread of life.
   2. He gives the major premise, that is, that the bread that descended from heaven ought to give life, at your fathers ate manna in the desert, and they are dead.
   3. We have the conclusion, at I am the living bread, which came down from heaven.

   As to the first point, He does two things.

   1. He states his point.
   2. He expresses it as practically proved, at I am the bread of life.

2. His intention is to show that He is the bread of life. Bread is life-giving to the extent that it is taken. Now one who believes in Christ takes Him within himself, according to the verse, Christ dwells in our hearts through faith (Ephesians 3:17). Therefore, if he who believes in Christ has life, it is clear that he is brought to life by eating this bread. Thus, this bread is the bread of life. And this is what He says: amen, amen, I say to you: he who believes in me, with a faith made living by love, which perfects not only the intellect but the affections as well (for we do not tend to the things we believe in unless we love them), has eternal life.

   Now Christ is within us in two ways: in our intellect through faith, to the extent that it is faith, and in our affections through love, which animates our faith: he who abides in love, abides in God, and God in him (1 John 4:16). So he who believes in Christ in such a way that he tends to Him, possesses Christ in his affections and in his intellect. And if we add that Christ is eternal life, as stated in that we may be in his true Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life (1 John 5:20), and in him was life (John 1:4), we can infer that whoever believes in Christ has eternal life. He has it, I say, in its cause and in hope, and he will have it in reality at a future time.

3. Having stated His position, He expresses it as, I am the bread of life, which gives life, as clearly follows from the above. We read of this bread: the bread of Asher will be rich, he will furnish choice morsels, of eternal life, to kings (Genesis 49:20).

4. Then when He says, your fathers ate manna in the desert, and they are dead, He gives the major premise, namely, that the bread that descended from heaven ought to have the effect of giving life.

   1. He explains this.
   2. He draws his point, at this is the bread, which comes down from heaven.

5. He explains His meaning through a contrasting situation. It was said above that Moses gave the Jews bread from heaven, in the sense of from the air. But bread that does not come from the true heaven cannot give adequate life. Therefore, it is the property of the heavenly bread to give life. So, the bread given by Moses, in which you take pride, does not give life. And He proves this when He says, your fathers ate manna in the desert, and they are dead.

   In this statement He first reproaches them for their faults, when He says, your fathers, whose sons you are, not only according to the flesh but also by imitating their actions, because you are grumblers just as they grumbled in their tents (Psalms 105:25). This was why He said to them: fill up, then, the measure of your fathers (Matthew 23:32). As Augustine says, this people is said to have offended God in no matter more than by grumbling against Him.

   Second, He mentions for how short a time this was done, saying, in the desert: for they were not given manna for a long period, and they had it only while in the desert, not when they entered the promised land (Joshua 5:12). But the other bread preserves and nourishes one forever.

   Third, He states an inadequacy in that bread, that is, it did not preserve life indefinitely; so He says, and they are dead. For we read that all who grumbled, except Joshua and Caleb, died in the desert (Joshua 5). This was the reason for the second circumcision, as we see here, because all who had left Egypt died in the desert.

6. One might wonder what kind of death our Lord is speaking of here. If He is speaking of physical death, there would be no difference between the bread the Jews had in the desert and our bread, which came down from heaven, because even Christians who share this latter bread die physically. But if He is speaking of spiritual death, it is clear that both then among the Jews and now among Christians, some die spiritually and others do not. For Moses and many others who were pleasing to God did not die, while others did. Also, those who eat this bread unworthily die spiritually: he who eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgment upon himself (1 Corinthians 11:29).

   We may answer this by saying that the food of the Jews has some features in common with our spiritual food. They are alike in the fact that each signifies the same thing, for both signify Christ. Thus they are called the same food: all ate the same spiritual food (1 Corinthians 10:3). He calls them the same because each is a symbol of the spiritual food. But they are different because one was only a symbol, while this bread contains the reality of which it is the symbol, that is, Christ Himself.

   Thus, we should say that each of these foods can be taken in two ways. First, as a sign only, that is, so that each is taken as food only and without understanding what is symbolized; taken in this way, they do not take away either physical or spiritual death. Second, they may be taken in both ways: the visible food is taken in such a way that the spiritual food is understood and spiritually tasted, so that it may satisfy spiritually. In this way, those who ate the manna spiritually did not die spiritually. But those who eat the Eucharist spiritually both live spiritually now without sin and will live physically forever. Thus, our food is greater than their food, because it contains in itself the reality of which it is the symbol.

7. Having presented the argument, He draws the conclusion: this is the bread, which comes down from heaven. He says, this, the Gloss says, to indicate Himself. But our Lord does not intend this meaning, as it would be redundant, since He immediately adds, I am the living bread, which came down from heaven.

   So we should say that our Lord wants to say that the bread which can do this, that is, give life, comes from heaven; but I am that bread; thus, I am that bread that comes down from heaven. Now the reason that bread which comes down from heaven gives a life which never ends is that all food nourishes according to the properties of its nature; but heavenly things are incorruptible. Consequently, since this food is heavenly, it is incorruptible, and as long as it lasts, it gives life. So, he who eats it will not die. For example, if there were some physical food that never corrupted, then in nourishing, it would always be life-giving. This bread was signified by the tree of life in the midst of Paradise, which somehow gave life without end: he must not be allowed to stretch out his hand and take from the tree of life and eat, and live forever (Genesis 3:22). So if the effect of this bread is that anyone who eats it will not die, and I am such a bread, therefore the conclusion follows.

8. I am the living bread, which came down from heaven. He does two things concerning this passage.

   1. He speaks of Himself in general.
   2. He speaks in particular, at and the bread that I will give is my flesh.

   In regard to the first, He does two things:

   1. He mentions His origin.
   2. He mentions His power, at if any man eat of this bread, he will live forever.

9. He said, I am the living bread; consequently, I can give life. Material bread does not give life forever, because it does not have life in itself; but it gives life by being changed and converted into nourishment by the power of a living organism. Which came down from heaven: it was explained before how the Word came down. This refutes those heresies that taught that Christ was a mere man, because according to them, He would not have come down from heaven.

10. He has the power to give eternal life; thus He says, if any man eat of this bread, that is, spiritually, he will live, not only in the present through faith and righteousness, but forever. All who live and believe in me will never die (John 11:26).

11. He then speaks of His body when He says, and the bread that I will give is my flesh. For He had said that He was the living bread; and so that we do not think that He is this bread only insofar as He is the Word or in His soul alone, He shows that even His flesh is life-giving, for it is an instrument of His divinity. Thus, since an instrument acts by virtue of the agent, then just as the divinity of Christ is life-giving, so too His flesh gives life—as Damascene says—because of the Word to which it is united. Thus Christ healed the sick by His touch. So what He said above, I am the living bread, pertained to the power of the Word; but what He is saying here pertains to the sharing in His body, that is, to the sacrament of the Eucharist.

12. We can consider four things about this sacrament: its species, the authority of the one who instituted it, the truth of this sacrament, and its usefulness.

    As to the species of this sacrament: this is the bread; come, and eat my bread (Proverbs 9:5). The reason for this is that this is the sacrament of the body of Christ; but the body of Christ is the Church, which is formed from many believers creating a single body: we are one body (Romans 12:5). And so because bread is formed from many grains, it is a fitting species for this sacrament. Hence He says, and the bread that I will give is my flesh.

13. The author of this sacrament is Christ, for although the priest confers it, it is Christ Himself who gives power to this sacrament, because the priest consecrates in the person of Christ. Thus in the other sacraments the priest uses his own words or those of the Church, but in this sacrament he uses the words of Christ. Because just as Christ gave His body to death by His own will, so it is by His own power that He gives Himself as food: Jesus took bread, he blessed it and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying: take and eat it, this is my body (Matthew 26:26). Thus He says, that I will give; and He says, will give, because this sacrament had not yet been instituted.

14. The truth of this sacrament is indicated when He says, is my flesh. He does not say, "this signifies my flesh," but it is my flesh, for in reality, what is received is truly the body of Christ: who will give us his flesh so that we may be satisfied? (Job 31:31).

    Since the whole Christ is contained in this sacrament, why did He just say, is my flesh?

    To answer this, we should note that the whole Christ is truly contained in this mystical sacrament. His body is there by virtue of the conversion, while His soul and divinity are present by natural concomitance. For if we were to suppose what is impossible—that the divinity of Christ could be separated from His body—then His divinity would not be present in this sacrament. Similarly, if someone had consecrated during the three days Christ was dead, His soul would not have been present there; His body would have been present, however, just as it was on the cross or in the tomb. Thus, it is preferable to say flesh, since this sacrament is the commemoration of our Lord’s passion—according to as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord (1 Corinthians 11:26)—and the passion of Christ depended on His weakness—according to he was crucified through weakness (2 Corinthians 13:4). He says, is my flesh, to suggest the weakness through which He died, for flesh signifies weakness.

15. The usefulness of this sacrament is great and universal.

    It is indeed great, because it produces spiritual life within us now and will later produce eternal life, as was said before. As is clear from what has been said, since this is the sacrament of our Lord’s passion, it contains in itself the Christ who suffered. Thus, whatever is an effect of our Lord’s passion is also an effect of this sacrament. For this sacrament is nothing other than the application of our Lord’s passion to us. For it was not fitting for Christ to be always with us in His physical presence, and so He wanted to compensate for this absence through this sacrament. Hence, it is clear that the destruction of death, which Christ accomplished by His death, and the restoration of life, which He accomplished by His resurrection, are effects of this sacrament.

16. The usefulness of this sacrament is universal because the life it gives is not only the life of one person, but, in and of itself, the life of the entire world; and for this the death of Christ is fully sufficient. He is the offering for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the entire world (1 John 2:2).

    We should note that this sacrament is different from the others, for the other sacraments have individual effects. For example, in baptism, only the one being baptized receives grace. But in the immolation of this sacrament, the effect is universal, because it affects not only the priest but also those for whom he prays, as well as the entire Church, both the living and the dead. The reason for this is that it contains the universal cause of all the sacraments, Christ. Nevertheless, when a layperson receives this sacrament, the act of receiving does not, by its own power, benefit others. However, through the intention of the person acting and receiving, its benefits can be communicated to all those to whom he directs his intention.

    It is clear from this that laypersons are mistaken when they receive the Eucharist on behalf of those in purgatory.