By Water & Blood

Chapter 12: An interpretation of the evangelical expression

But do you take up the gospel Scripture and observe the whole teaching of our Saviour: how he was discoursing not about the flesh which he had assumed, but about the mystical body and blood. For when he had fed the multitudes with the five loaves and had furnished a great wonder to those who saw it, most of the Jews, belittling what had happened, said to him, “What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee?” Then they compared the manna in the wilderness, saying, “Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”

To this the Saviour answered, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.” Then he adds, “I am the bread of life,” and again, “I am the bread which came down from heaven,” and again, “And the bread that I will give is my body.” And again he adds, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.

Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.” While he was going through these and similar things in a more mystical manner, some of his disciples said, “This is an hard saying; who can hear it?” To them the Saviour answered, saying, “Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I have spoken unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” By these words he was training them to hear spiritually the things said about his flesh and blood. “For do not think,” he says, “that I mean the flesh which I wear, as though it must be eaten; nor suppose that I command you to drink the perceptible and bodily blood. But know well that ‘the words that I have spoken unto you, they are spirit, and they are life’”—so that the words and discourses themselves are the flesh and the blood. He who partakes of them continually, as though nourished with heavenly bread, will share in the heavenly life.

“Let not this, then,” he says, “offend you, which I have said about eating my flesh and drinking my blood; nor let the superficial hearing of what I have said about flesh and blood trouble you. For these things ‘profit nothing’ when heard in a perceptible sense; but it is the spirit that gives life to those who are able to hear spiritually.” But the new expositor of the gospel lessons, understanding none of these things—hear how he writes, saying in these very syllables (Nr. 105):

“Touching the human body and showing it to those who saw, he said, ‘Doth this offend you? What and if ye see the Son of man going up where he was before? The spirit giveth life; the flesh profiteth nothing.’”

To him one might say: And where did you get, noble sir, this addition of things not found in the gospel Scripture? For that the Saviour touched the human body and showed it to those who saw, and said, “Doth this offend you?”—this you fashion out of yourself, and you dare to make the addition on your own. Having taken this audacity from himself, he thinks to establish from it that the flesh of the Saviour will be left deserted of the activity of the Word, saying (Nr. 104): “If, then, he confesses that the flesh profits him nothing, how is it possible that what is from the earth and profits nothing should be with the Word in the ages to come, as though it were of benefit to him?” So ignorantly and unskilfully, then, did he set about misinterpreting the gospel saying. And he made perverse explanations of the apostolic words likewise.