A Catholic explanation of John 6

[BrianH]

QUOTE=MrS;1901221]Jesus did not clarify… this was not a parable that required further explanation.

Wrong.

These things He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum
60 Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, "This is a hard saying; who can understand it?"

The disciples are saying THEY do not understand it. How can you say it did not require further explaining?

 

[runandsew]

Wrong.

The disciples are saying THEY do not understand it. How can you say it did not require further explaining?

Do any of the early church fathers back up your interpretation of John 6?

 

[BrianH]

Jesus goes on to explain something different? As far as I know he says:

Jn 6:63: It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

 

[BrianH]

Do any of the early church fathers back up your interpretation of John 6?

Well outside of a possible interpolation from Ignatius, that no one can seem to tell me when it was found or dated from, I would say the matter is silent for 130 years. A very long time.
Suffice to say, any contrary views would have been interpolated or such. It reminds me a little of the Paulicians, supposedly Gnostic sect that disagreed with the Catholic church, until we unearthed a document in the late 1800’s that clearly showed they were not Gnostic at all. Winners write the history!

 

[Nicene]

Wrong.

The disciples are saying THEY do not understand it. How can you say it did not require further explaining?

Easily, because it didn’t and he didn’t:

60: Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?”
61: But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at it, said to them, “Do you take offense at this?
62: Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending where he was before?
63: It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
64: But there are some of you that do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who those were that did not believe, and who it was that would betray him.
65: And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
66: After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him.
67: Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?”
68: Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life;
69: and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
70: Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?”
71: He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was to betray him.

Do you have a different bible which adds beyond verse 71 that we are unaware of? As far as I can see he explains nothing else. In fact in v62 he challenges them further when he says, “Then what if…”

Peace and God Bless
Nicene

 

[Nicene]

It clarifies, yes.

 

[VociMike]

Well outside of a possible interpolation from Ignatius, that no one can seem to tell me when it was found or dated from, I would say the matter is silent for 130 years. A very long time.
Suffice to say, any contrary views would have been interpolated or such. It reminds me a little of the Paulicians, supposedly Gnostic sect that disagreed with the Catholic church, until we unearthed a document in the late 1800’s that clearly showed they were not Gnostic at all. Winners write the history!

So in the space of a few generations, an abominable heresy entered into the entire Church. The same Church that fought so many other heresies, absorbed this one without a peep. No councils, no writings, no upheaval, nothing.

You are correct, however, that this is the only possible argument for the symbolic-only view.

 

[BrianH]

QUOTE=Nicene;1901261]Easily, because it didn’t and he didn’t:

60: Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?”
Akouo…you translate “listen”
Akouo, my Bible translates “understand”

1) to be endowed with the faculty of hearing, not deaf

1. to hear

b) to attend to, consider what is or has been said

c) to understand, perceive the sense of what is said

1. to hear something

a) to perceive by the ear what is announced in one’s presence

b) to get by hearing learn

c) a thing comes to one’s ears, to find out, learn

d) to give ear to a teaching or a teacher

e) to comprehend, to understand

 

[BrianH]

So in the space of a few generations, an abominable heresy entered into the entire Church.

120 years, thats a little more than a few

The same Church that fought so many other heresies, absorbed this one without a peep. No councils, no writings, no upheaval, nothing.

 

[BrianH]

NICENE
isn’t why they are leaving is it? He is challenging them further, if they don’t believe the first, will they believe even if they see him ascend before their eyes? Notice it is a question.

That isn’t what upset them? Really?

“Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that He says, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”

So…they were upset about it earlier…yes or no?

 

[runandsew]

When examining later Christian tradition, yes.

 

[ALLFORHIM]

Hi,

I need some clarification Im sure you guys can give me.

1. Catholics believe that everytime they take the Eucharist the HS dwells in them–is that correct?
2. Do you believe that every time you sin the HS leaves you?
3. If you believe #2 then repenting and doing #1 then brings the HS back–am I right or am I way off?
4. Do you need to receive the eucharist to have the HS in you? That may repeat question 1 in a different way

Thanks for now

 

[runandsew]

Cyril of Jerusalem

The bread and the wine of the Eucharist before the holy invocation of the adorable Trinity were simple bread and wine, but the invocation having been made, the bread becomes the body of Christ and the wine the blood of Christ (Catechetical Lectures 19:7 [A.D. 350]).

Do not, therefore, regard the bread and wine as simply that, for they are, according to the Master’s declaration, the body and blood of Christ. Even though the senses suggest to you the other, let faith make you firm. Do not judge in this matter by taste, but be fully assured by faith, not doubting that you have been deemed worthy of the body and blood of Christ. . . [Since you are] fully convinced that the apparent bread is not bread, even though it is sensible to the taste, but the body of Christ, and that the apparent wine is not wine, even though the taste would have it so. . . partake of that bread as something spiritual, and put a cheerful face on your soul (ibid„ 22:6,9).

Theodore

When [Christ] gave the bread he did not say, “This is the symbol of my body” but, “This is my body.” In the same way when he gave the cup of his blood he did not say. “This is the symbol of my blood,” but, “This is my blood,” for he wanted us to look upon the [Eucharistic elements] after their reception of grace and the coming of the Holy Spirit not according to their nature, but receive them as they are, the body and blood of our Lord. We ought . . . not regard [the elements] merely as bread and cup) but as the body and blood of the Lord, into which they were transformed by the descent of the Holy Spirit (Catechetical Homilies 5:1 [A.D. 405]).

Ambrose of Milan

Perhaps you may be saying, “I see something else; how can you assure me that I am receiving the body of Christ?” It but remains for us to prove it. And how many are the examples we might use! . . . Christ is in that sacrament, because it is the body of Christ (The Mysteries 9:50, 58 [A.D. 390]).
**
Augustine**

I promised you [new Christians], who have now been baptized, a sermon in which I would explain the sacrament of the Lord’s table, which you now look upon and of which you last night were made participants. You ought to know that you have received what you are going to receive, and what you ought to receive daily. That bread which you see on the altar having been sanctified by the word of God is the body of Christ, That chalice, or rather, what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ (Sermons 227 [A.D. 411]).

What you see is the bread and the chalice, that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the body of Christ and the chalice is the blood of Christ. This has been said very briefly, which may perhaps be sufficient for faith, yet faith does not desire instruction (ibid. 272

 

[Nicene]

Akouo…you translate “listen”
Akouo, my Bible translates “understand”

You said:

The disciples are saying THEY do not understand it. How can you say it did not require further explaining?

You infer that Jesus needed to clarify further and that he did so somewhere. So I will post it again, show us the verses beyond v71 where he does so:

60: Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?”
61: But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at it, said to them, “Do you take offense at this?
62: Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending where he was before?
63: It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
64: But there are some of you that do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who those were that did not believe, and who it was that would betray him.
65: And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
66: After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him.
67: Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?”
68: Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life;
69: and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
70: Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?”
71: He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was to betray him.

I await the verses included in the protestant bible that the catholic bible leaves out where Jesus clarifies further and says: “Wait guys, let me explain, what I really meant was…symbolic”

Peace and God Bless
Nicene

 

[BrianH]

Runandsew. I have granted the 150 AD. I have not granted the Ignatius, although ONE person contending this 70 years later would not surprise me. Scripture clearly records how the church at Corinth had already messed it up only 20 years later!

 

[RNRobert]

This is from a Catholic Answers tract about the Real Presence as written about by the ECF (The full tract can be found here):

Justin Martyr

“We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration * and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus” (*First Apology **66 [A.D. 151]).

Irenaeus

“If the Lord were from other than the Father, how could he rightly take bread, which is of the same creation as our own, and confess it to be his body and affirm that the mixture in the cup is his blood?” (*Against Heresies *4:33–32 [A.D. 189]).

“He has declared the cup, a part of creation, to be his own blood, from which he causes our blood to flow; and the bread, a part of creation, he has established as his own body, from which he gives increase unto our bodies. When, therefore, the mixed cup [wine and water] and the baked bread receives the Word of God and becomes the Eucharist, the body of Christ, and from these the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they say that the flesh is not capable of receiving the gift of God, which is eternal life—flesh which is nourished by the body and blood of the Lord, and is in fact a member of him?” (ibid., 5:2).

Clement of Alexandria

“’Eat my flesh,’ [Jesus] says, ‘and drink my blood.’ The Lord supplies us with these intimate nutrients, he delivers over his flesh and pours out his blood, and nothing is lacking for the growth of his children” (*The Instructor of Children *1:6:43:3 [A.D. 191]).

Tertullian

“[T]here is not a soul that can at all procure salvation, except it believe whilst it is in the flesh, so true is it that the flesh is the very condition on which salvation hinges. And since the soul is, in consequence of its salvation, chosen to the service of God, it is the flesh which actually renders it capable of such service. The flesh, indeed, is washed [in baptism], in order that the soul may be cleansed . . . the flesh is shadowed with the imposition of hands [in confirmation], that the soul also may be illuminated by the Spirit; the flesh feeds [in the Eucharist] on the body and blood of Christ, that the soul likewise may be filled with God” (*The Resurrection of the Dead *8 [A.D. 210]).

Hippolytus

“‘And she [Wisdom] has furnished her table’ [Prov. 9:2] . . . refers to his [Christ’s] honored and undefiled body and blood, which day by day are administered and offered sacrificially at the spiritual divine table, as a memorial of that first and ever-memorable table of the spiritual divine supper *” (Fragment from *Commentary on Proverbs **[A.D. 217]).

Origen

“Formerly there was baptism in an obscure way . . . now, however, in full view, there is regeneration in water and in the Holy Spirit. Formerly, in an obscure way, there was manna for food; now, however, in full view, there is the true food, the flesh of the Word of God, as he himself says: ‘My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink’ [John 6:55]” (*Homilies on Numbers *7:2 [A.D. 248]).

Cyprian of Carthage

“He [Paul] threatens, moreover, the stubborn and forward, and denounces them, saying, ‘Whosoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily, is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord’ [1 Cor. 11:27]. All these warnings being scorned and contemned—[lapsed Christians will often take Communion] before their sin is expiated, before confession has been made of their crime, before their conscience has been purged by sacrifice and by the hand of the priest, before the offense of an angry and threatening Lord has been appeased, [and so] violence is done to his body and blood; and they sin now against their Lord more with their hand and mouth than when they denied their Lord” (*The Lapsed *15–16 [A.D. 251]).

Council of Nicaea I

“It has come to the knowledge of the holy and great synod that, in some districts and cities, the deacons administer the Eucharist to the presbyters *, whereas neither canon nor custom permits that they who have no right to offer [the Eucharistic sacrifice] should give the Body of Christ to them that do offer [it]” (Canon 18 [A.D. 325]).

continued…

 

[runandsew]

Hi,

I need some clarification Im sure you guys can give me.

1. Catholics believe that everytime they take the Eucharist the HS dwells in them–is that correct?
2. Do you believe that every time you sin the HS leaves you?
3. If you believe #2 then repenting and doing #1 then brings the HS back–am I right or am I way off?
4. Do you need to receive the eucharist to have the HS in you? That may repeat question 1 in a different way

Thanks for now

The Holy Spirit dwells inside of us from the moment that we are baptized.
No the Holy Spirit does not leave us in sin, but we seperate ourselves from God.
We need to recieve the Eucharist to recieve the Graces which this sacrament (name removed by moderator)arts in us.

But I am not positive on all this, I could be wrong, and probably I am.

 

[RNRobert]

Aphraahat the Persian Sage

“After having spoken thus [at the Last Supper], the Lord rose up from the place where he had made the Passover and had given his body as food and his blood as drink, and he went with his disciples to the place where he was to be arrested. But he ate of his own body and drank of his own blood, while he was pondering on the dead. With his own hands the Lord presented his own body to be eaten, and before he was crucified he gave his blood as drink” (Treatises 12:6 [A.D. 340]).

Cyril of Jerusalem

“The bread and the wine of the Eucharist before the holy invocation of the adorable Trinity were simple bread and wine, but the invocation having been made, the bread becomes the body of Christ and the wine the blood of Christ” (*Catechetical Lectures *19:7 [A.D. 350]).

“Do not, therefore, regard the bread and wine as simply that; for they are, according to the Master’s declaration, the body and blood of Christ. Even though the senses suggest to you the other, let faith make you firm. Do not judge in this matter by taste, but be fully assured by the faith, not doubting that you have been deemed worthy of the body and blood of Christ. . . . [Since you are] fully convinced that the apparent bread is not bread, even though it is sensible to the taste, but the body of Christ, and that the apparent wine is not wine, even though the taste would have it so, . . . partake of that bread as something spiritual, and put a cheerful face on your soul” (ibid., 22:6, 9).

Ambrose of Milan

“Perhaps you may be saying, ‘I see something else; how can you assure me that I am receiving the body of Christ?’ It but remains for us to prove it. And how many are the examples we might use! . . . Christ is in that sacrament, because it is the body of Christ” (*The Mysteries *9:50, 58 [A.D. 390]).

Theodore of Mopsuestia

“When [Christ] gave the bread he did not say, ‘This is the symbol of my body,’ but, ‘This is my body.’ In the same way, when he gave the cup of his blood he did not say, ‘This is the symbol of my blood,’ but, ‘This is my blood’; for he wanted us to look upon the [Eucharistic elements] after their reception of grace and the coming of the Holy Spirit not according to their nature, but receive them as they are, the body and blood of our Lord. We ought . . . not regard [the elements] merely as bread and cup, but as the body and blood of the Lord, into which they were transformed by the descent of the Holy Spirit” (*Catechetical Homilies *5:1 [A.D. 405]).

Augustine

“Christ was carried in his own hands when, referring to his own body, he said, ‘This is my body’ [Matt. 26:26]. For he carried that body in his hands” (*Explanations of the Psalms *33:1:10 [A.D. 405]).

“I promised you [new Christians], who have now been baptized, a sermon in which I would explain the sacrament of the Lord’s Table. . . . That bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. That chalice, or rather, what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ” (*Sermons *227 [A.D. 411]).

…

“What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the body of Christ and the chalice is the blood of Christ. This has been said very briefly, which may perhaps be sufficient for faith; yet faith does not desire instruction” (ibid., 272).

Council of Ephesus

“We will necessarily add this also. Proclaiming the death, according to the flesh, of the only-begotten Son of God, that is Jesus Christ, confessing his resurrection from the dead, and his ascension into heaven, we offer the unbloody sacrifice in the churches, and so go on to the mystical thanksgivings, and are sanctified, having received his holy flesh and the precious blood of Christ the Savior of us all. And not as common flesh do we receive it; God forbid: nor as of a man sanctified and associated with the Word according to the unity of worth, or as having a divine indwelling, but as truly the life-giving and very flesh of the Word himself. For he is the life according to his nature as God, and when he became united to his flesh, he made it also to be life-giving” (Session 1, *Letter of Cyril to Nestorius *[A.D. 431]).

It appears that Ignatius was not the only ECF who believed in the Real Presence (unless of course, these writing are nothing but forgeries as well).

 

[BrianH]

You said:

You infer that Jesus needed to clarify further and that he did so somewhere. So I will post it again, show us the verses beyond v71 where he does so:

60: Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, “This is a hard saying; who can UNDERSTAND it?”

 

[Mannyfit75]

St. Clement was the third successor of Peter as Bishop of Rome; otherwise known as the third Pope.

“Since then these things are manifest to us, and we have looked into the depths of the divine knowledge, we ought to do in order all things which the Master commanded us to perform at appointed times. He commanded us to celebrate sacrifices and services, and that it should not be thoughtlessly or disorderly, but at fixed times and hours. He has Himself fixed by His supreme will the places and persons whom He desires for these celebrations, in order that all things may be done piously according to His good pleasure, and be acceptable to His will. So then those who offer their oblations at the appointed seasons are acceptable and blessed, but they follow the laws of the Master and do not sin. For to the high priest his proper ministrations are allotted, and to the priests the proper place has been appointed, and on Levites their proper services have been imposed. The layman is bound by the ordinances for the laity.”

Source: St. Clement, bishop of Rome, 80 A.D., to the Corinthians

“Our sin will not be small if we eject from the episcopate those who blamelessly and holily have offered its Sacrifices.”

THE DIDACHE
The Didache or “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles” is a manuscript which was used by 2nd century bishops and priests for the instruction of catechumens. Many early Christian writers have referenced it making this document relatively easy to date.

“Let no one eat and drink of your Eucharist but those baptized in the name of the Lord; to this, too the saying of the Lord is applicable: ‘Do not give to dogs what is sacred’”.

-Ch. 9:5

“On the Lord’s own day, assemble in common to break bread and offer thanks; but first confess your sins, so that your sacrifice may be pure. However, no one quarreling with his brother may join your meeting until they are reconciled; your sacrifice must not be defiled. For here we have the saying of the Lord: ‘In every place and time offer me a pure sacrifice; for I am a mighty King, says the Lord; and my name spreads terror among the nations.’” 65-80 AD