So what if Jesus said He's the bread of life?! Jesus said He's the door too!

[Bithynian]

There is a rather common argument that there is a eucharistic motif in John’s shift from the verb φάγειν phagein to τρώγειν trogein, usually explained that trogein is a more visceral word meaning ‘to chew’ or ‘to gnaw’.

It’s very difficult to sustain that argument for a few reasons;

(1) The verbal idea of ‘to eat’ in Greek required different verbs depending on tense: phagein in the aorist (i.e. past) tense, and εσθίειν esthiein or trogein in the present. This is conceptually similar to how we use ‘go’ and ‘went’ in English as the present and past tense of the same verbal idea.

(2) While trogein was occasionally distinguished from esthiein in Classical (that is, 4th century BC) Greek, by the time of Christ both verbs were synonyms and there was little distinction.

(3) None of the Patristric commentaries on John make any particular observation on phagein vis-a-vis trogein. For example, St Chrysostom focusses on 6:55 and the description of ‘true’ (αληθης alethes) food and drink to underscore that Jesus is not speaking of a figurative eating and drinking, but a ‘true’ eating and drinking. Haydock, writing much later, likewise passes over trogein even though he was quite sensitive to the eucharistic narrative.

 

[pnewton]

One more minor point, from the history of the first generation Church, is that they were actually accused of cannibalism based on their belief they were consuming the literal body and blood of Jesus. It is not as strong as Jesus’ own words, but it does point to the problem that the interpretation of the Eucharist as strictly symbolic is a later development.

 

[OddBird]

Absolutely. Thank you for pointing this out, @Bithynian.

The very same verb (trôgein) is used in Mt 24,38, in a verse where Jesus describes the days before the flood and which has no eucharistic undertones : “in those days, people ate and drank and got married…”

John uses it in another occasion (13,18) but, although eucharistic allusions are plainly read into it, he’s quoting a preexisting text, a psalm from the Septuagint.

 

[Bithynian]

he’s quoting a preexisting text, a psalm from the Septuagint.

On that occasion, the LXX interestingly has esthien and John quotes Christ as using the verb trogein. Even then, the argument that trogein is visceral (and hence explicitly eucharistic) in nature is still quite questionable largely because there are numerous other instances in the same discourse where John and Christ could have used trogein in another tense or mood instead of phagein.

(52) The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat (φάγειν phagein) ?” (53) So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat (φάγητε phagete) the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. (54) Those who eat (τρώγων trogon) my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day … (58) This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate (ἕφαγον ephagon), and they died. But the one who eats (τρώγων trogon) this bread will live forever."

If John and Christ wished to emphasise the ‘viscerality’ of trogein, they could have used the aorist subjunctive τράγητε tragete in v 53 instead of φάγητε phagete. Likewise, the aorist indicative ἕτραγον etragon could have been instead of ἕφαγον ephagon in v 58.

In addition, there were more visceral words for πίνειν pinein ‘to drink’, such as ἐκπίνειν ekpinein and ῥοφεῖν rhophein (both mean ‘to quaff’ or ‘to gulp down’ a drink). They too could have used instead of pinein in vv 53 and 54 to pair with trogein.

But John and Christ didn’t avail themselves of such choices. The only discernible pattern in their use of trogein is that they treat it as a synonym for esthiein, the present tense of phagein, in the very plain, non-visceral sense of eating.

With all that in mind, I still think it’s a wonderfully meditative and poetic exegesis, a slight hint or insinuation of the Eucharist in the overall discourse. But I wouldn’t treat it as a smoking gun in apologetics!

 

[Cathoholic]

What do you think Jesus means @Bithynian
when He commands us to “eat” His flesh here?

 

[Bithynian]

To literally eat his actual flesh. To further clarify, I agree with the Church’s teaching that Jesus refers to a literal eating of his body. My disagreement lies in one particular argument used apologetically, namely that Jesus’ use of trogein refers to a ‘gnawing’ or ‘chewing’ of his body. For a number of reasons, as I mentioned above, it’s not an especially sound argument for defending the Church’s understanding of the Eucharist, and I think Catholics are likely to find other avenues more effective when engaging with Protestants.

 

[Cathoholic]

Bithynian . . .

I think Catholics are likely to find other avenues more effective when engaging with Protestants.

Our local Catholic men’s Bible study has a study over sixty pages long on The Bread of Life discourse.

We discuss perhaps 50 or 60 arguments.

To say there are better arguments is fine.

To limit yourself to whatever someone else might think are “the most effective” would eliminate 90% of the arguments.

Just because you or I or some other Catholic thinks other arguments are better, does not mean they should not be presented.

You come to the (correct) conclusion that Jesus is referring to literal consumption of Him (“To literally eat his actual flesh.”)

Your argument seems like a difference without a distinction.

The Fathers did not need to unpack Greek words and rarely did so.

You evidently think this was because this was not a convincing argument.

I think it is because it was so obvious,
it was assumed and there was no need to unpack or splice Greek words.

But I am glad you conclude the roots phago and trogo concern “To literally eat his actual flesh.”

Me too.

 

[Edmundus1581]

That’s, I think, Zwingli’s classic argument against Real Presence.

I’ve heard it before also, attributed to a prominent lay woman in the English Reformation, but she may have got it from Zwingli.

If it is Zwingli then it’s another case I’ve observed where very smart, well educated people make dumb mistakes and then adhere to them and persuade others. They seem to come up with a “knock down” argument which sounds plausible and then they refuse to think further. I think it’s called “pertinacity in error”.

The widespread misuse of “in Christ there is no gentile or Jew, servant our free, woman or man” as a scriptural demand for women’s ordination, which has persuaded most of Protestantism, is another case of this phenomonen.

 

[Bithynian]

I’m confused about your post. My initial post about trogein and phagein was not in response to your post above mine, and the argument about which I have doubts was not the argument that you presented in any of your posts. You seem to be conflating two different arguments.

The Fathers did not need to unpack Greek words and rarely did so.

This is very plainly untrue. Systematic examination of words and their meanings is a venerable tradition of Scriptural exegesis. Every Ecumenical Council, every Patristic treatise, every theological controversy involves philology. Nicaea II includes a lengthy examination on the valencies of the noun προσκυνησις proskunesis, Augustine’s De Trinitate has very many sections devoted to the meaning of the adjective maior, and the Filioque dispute has involved countless tomes dissecting the verbs procedere and προσερχεσθαι proserchesthai.

To limit yourself to whatever someone else might think are “the most effective” would eliminate 90% of the arguments.

The issue I have with the argument in question (which, again, is not represented in your post) is that it makes the Catholic who uses it in an apologetic setting - this being an apologetics topic - appear rather silly and does a disservice to defending the Church’s teaching. Any Protestant with a modicum of nous and a moderate comprehension of Greek can access a commentary and a dictionary and understand that the argument being made is very doubtful.

 

[Cathoholic]

Bithynian . . .

Any Protestant with a modicum of nous and a moderate comprehension of Greek can access a commentary and a dictionary and understand that the argument being made is very doubtful.

I disagree. Tim Staples was a Protestant with a “modicum of nous and a moderate comprehension of Greek” and used that argument.

Dr. Scott Hahn the same. Steve Wood too.

. . . . can access a commentary and a dictionary and understand that the argument being made is very doubtful.

I have no idea what you think is so “doubtful”
when you come to the same exact conclusion of literally eating the flesh of Jesus.

.

Bithynian . . .

every Patristic treatise, every theological controversy involves philology.

I disagree. I have read patristics and that just is not true.

Yes words are parsed sometime.
I have never denied that (homoousios and homoiousios are the obvious ones that come to mind) but trogo and phago seem obvious to me.

Bithynian . . .

This is very plainly untrue. Systematic examination of words . . .

What do you mean by “plainly”?
“Untrue” in an absolute sense or relative?
Which “system”?
An “examination” in the fullest sense? By whom?

This is a rhetorical example of you matter-of-factly assuming these words.

You never felt the need to unpack them to me as you were communicating with me.

Most of the time communication is like that.

 

[OddBird]

I disagree. I have read patristics and that just is not true.

@Bithynian is right, though.

Just look at, as a random example, St. John Chrysostom’s homilies on John (the homilies on the Bread of life discourse are homilies 45-47).

There are long developments on what is meant by “bread”, of whether and when the term “bread of life” refers to Christ’s Godhead or to his Flesh, on what “resurrection” and “eternal life” mean, on how “the Father dwells in me” fits with all that, on the way in which the “hard” of “this is a hard saying” is to be understood.

On what it means to “eat”, or the particular significance of trôgein ? Not one word.

 

[Bithynian]

the particular significance of trôgein. Not one word.

Not a word either in Augustine’s or Cyril of Alexandria’s commentaries on John. Likewise, Aquinas’ Catena Aurea includes nothing to suggest that Hilary of Poitiers, Bede or Theophylact thought trogein was exegetically significant.

Not to mention that the Vetus Latina and Jerome’s Vulgate translates both phagein and trogein using the same verb manducare, the ordinary verb for ‘to eat’. Likewise, the Peshitta uses ܐܟܠ 'akal - again, the typical verb for eating - for both Greek terms.

 

[Cathoholic]

Bithynian . . .

Not a word either in Augustine’s or Cyril of Alexandria’s commentaries on John. Likewise, Aquinas’ Catena Aurea includes nothing to suggest that Hilary of Poitiers, Bede or Theophylact thought trogein was exegetically significant.

Yes but WHY should it, if it was matter of factly assumed?

 

[Cathoholic]

Bithynian . . .

every Patristic treatise, every theological controversy involves philology.

Cathoholic . . .

I disagree. I have read patristics and that just is not true.

OddBird . . .

@Bithynian is right, though.

Well that is wrong.

Some Patristic texts are small indeed.

If you want, I can probably find one very quickly right on my computer source.

Would you like me to produce ONE? (Because that’s all I need to show, that NOT
“every Patristic treatise”
involves philology.

It just doesn’t. You are both wrong.

 

[Cathoholic]

Oddbird . . .

On what it means to “eat”, or the particular significance of trôgein ? Not one word.

Why should it?

It was not in contention. At least within Christianity at the time.

If you concur with Bithynian (and me too, I just think phago and trogo points explicitly to more though) if you think phago and trogo denote LITERAL eating of Jesus’ flesh,
WHY would St. John omit THAT??

I’ll tell you why. Because it was not a contentious issue amongst Christianity at least.

 

[OddBird]

Because it was not a contentious issue amongst Christianity at least.

I don’t think I’ve ever said the contrary.

What I mean, and what @Bithynian means, is that the distinction between phagein and trôgein is not used as an argument in favour of the Real Presence by the Fathers, who are quick to point out when the language of Scripture indicates something particularly important.

They don’t pick it up because, at their time, there wasn’t really a distinction between the two verbs. When we do pick it up, we surinvest trôgein with a meaning it had more or less lost in Koinè Greek.

NOT
“ every Patristic treatise”
involves philology.

It just doesn’t. You are both wrong.

You’re moving the goalposts here. The point was not whether or not every single minute patristic writing involves philology. The point was that the Fathers, when they study Scripture, “unpack Greek words”, as you put it, all the time - and that if there had been something worth pointing out here, they would have pointed it out.

Just to be clear, there is no doubt to me that the Bread of life discourse implies a literal, not symbolic, understanding of what it means to eat Jesus’ flesh.

I just think there are much better arguments for it that the trôgein argument.

 

[Cathoholic]

OddBird . . .

The point was that the Fathers, when they study Scripture, “unpack Greek words”, as you put it, all the time - and that if there had been something worth pointing out here, they would have pointed it out.

And my point was there are words that they don’t unpack when there are no reasons to.

Since consumption of the literal flesh of Jesus was not a point of contention (at least among Christians) in the early Church there would be no point defending this position.

That does not eliminate it’s usefulness today.

Especially when even Bithynian admits, whatever it means, it denotes LITERAL consuming of Jesus’s flesh.

Bithynian said “Any Protestant with a modicum of nous and a moderate comprehension of Greek can access a commentary and a dictionary and understand that the argument being made is very doubtful.”

.

Bithynian . . .

“Any Protestant with a modicum of nous and a moderate comprehension of Greek can access a commentary and a dictionary and understand that the argument being made is very doubtful.”

And that is untrue too.

I know as I got that argument from ex-Protestants (Hahn, Staples, Wood and others) who HAVE used that argument and they undeniably have a reasonable working knowledge of the Greek.

Hahn graduated first in his class in Seminary.

Regarding “every” . . . .

It was @Bithynian who used the phrase “every” and I know that is not true. So does Bithynian I bet.

Here it is again . . .

Bithynian . . .

every Patristic treatise, every theological controversy involves philology.

So if it was anyone who moved goalposts it was you and Bithynian. Not me.

We all know I can pull up Patristic treatise after treatise without individual word analysis and post it here completely.

As long as Bithynian admits phago and trogo point to actual literal consuming of Jesus’ flesh, the argument moves from a Greek pedantic, to a common sense derivation.

I stand by everything I said here.

 

[EugeneCharles]

Jesus said He is the Bread of Life, I think He’s really saying that He was the Bread since He didn’t say that it was a symbol. I think that was true, He’s the Door of Life because He died so we can live with the eternal life.

 

[Cathoholic]

OddBird . . .

They don’t pick it up because, at their time, there wasn’t really a distinction between the two verbs.

I’m OK with that.

Hahn says to munch, chew.

Others say “to masticate”.

But we don’t need a distinction between phago and trogo for both to point to literal eating of Jesus’ flesh. We just need to know they point to literal eating of Jesus’ flesh.

As a matter of fact, my post (here it is again) just assumes no distinction of significance . . . .

The Holy Spirit and St. John had Jesus using the Greek works “phago” and/or “trogo” EIGHT times!

 

[OddBird]

I’ll reiterate : I’m not attacking the Real Presence. I’m leaving my church and my job for the Real Presence. I don’t think the Bread of life discourse can be interpreted as pointing to anything less than the Real Presence – Jesus’ literal Body and Blood given to us in the Eucharist.

Hahn graduated first in his class in Seminary.

If we’re going to play this game, and with all the respect and admiration I have for Hahn, I graduated from Seminary too (no idea how I compared with my comrades, we don’t have that kind of thing here), and went on to be recruited to actually teach New Testament at university level, which I did during four years. I do have a “reasonable working knowledge” of Greek, although probably none of us here on the forum master Greek in a way which would rival @Bithynian’s (yes, he’s that proficient and knowledgeable).

Bithynian said “Any Protestant with a modicum of nous and a moderate comprehension of Greek can access a commentary and a dictionary and understand that the argument being made is very doubtful.”

And that is untrue too.

It’s not. It’s exactly what I was taught, and then taught myself, in a Protestant theology faculty at a public university. It is difficult to make a good case for a particular significance of trôgein from Koinè Greek, and if we’re going to explain why John 6 makes such a convincing case for the Real Presence, particularly in an apologetical context, it’s better we look elsewhere. (No shortage of compelling arguments in that text, btw. Just not that one.)

But we don’t need a distinction between phago and trogo for both to point to literal eating of Jesus’ flesh.

As a matter of fact, my post just assumes no distinction of significance . . . .

What are you arguing about then ?

@Bithynian said exactly the same towards the beginning of this conversation.

I concurred.

@Bithynian added an interesting comment about how John substitutes trôgein for the LXX’s phagein in 13:18, concluding that

John and Christ didn’t avail themselves of such choices. The only discernible pattern in their use of trogein is that they treat it as a synonym for esthiein , the present tense of phagein , in the very plain, non-visceral sense of eating.

Then you jumped in…

If your point is a matter of apologetics, then I’ll say it again, yes, a lot of Greek-wise Protestants around me would smile at trôgein being used as, as @Bithynian put it, “a smoking gun”.

I feel this conversation is really going nowhere, so I’ll bow out.