Note 24 — Chapter VII · DISCOURSES OF JESUS IN THE FOURTH GOSPEL.

In chap. vi., Jesus represents himself, or rather his Father, v. 27 ff., as the giver of the spiritual manna. This is analogous to the Jewish idea above quoted, that the second Goël, like the first, would provide manna;24 and to the invitation of Wisdom in the Proverbs, ix. 5, Come, eat of my bread: ἔλθετε, φάγετε τῶν εμῶν ἄρτων. But the succeeding declaration, that he is himself the bread of life that cometh down from heaven, ἄρτος ὁ ζῶν ὁ ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καταβὰς (v. 33 and 35) appears to find its true analogy only in the idea of Philo, that the divine word, λόγος θεῖος, is that which nourishes the soul, τὸ τρέφον τὴν ψυχήν.25 From v. 51, the difficulty becomes still greater. Jesus proceeds to represent his flesh as the bread from heaven, which he will give for the life of the world, and to eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and to drink his blood, he pronounces to be the only means of attaining eternal life. The similarity of these expressions to the words which the synoptists and Paul attribute to Jesus, at the institution of the Lord’s Supper, led the older commentators generally to understand this passage as having reference to the Sacramental supper, ultimately to be appointed by Jesus.26 The chief objection to this interpretation is, that before the institution of the supper, such an allusion would be totally unintelligible. Still the discourse might have some sense, however erroneous, for the hearers, as indeed it had, according to the narrator’s statement; and the impossibility of being understood is not, in the fourth gospel, so shunned by Jesus, that that circumstance alone would suffice to render this interpretation improbable. It is certainly supported by the analogy between the expressions in the discourse, and the words associated with the institution of the supper, and this analogy has wrung from one of our recent critics the admission, that even if Jesus himself, in uttering the above expressions, did not refer to the supper, the Evangelist, in choosing and conveying this discourse of Jesus might have had that institution in his mind, and might have supposed that Jesus here gave a premonition of its import.27 In that case, however, he could scarcely have abstained from modifying the language of Jesus; so that, if the choice of the expression eat the flesh, etc., can only be adequately explained on the supposition of a reference to the Lord’s Supper, we owe it, without doubt, to the Evangelist alone. Having once said, apparently in accordance with Alexandrian ideas, that Jesus had described himself as the bread of life, how could he fail to be reminded of the bread, which in the Christian community was partaken of as the body of Christ, together with a beverage, as his blood? He would the more gladly seize the opportunity of making Jesus institute the supper prophetically, as it were; because, as we shall hereafter see, he knew nothing definite of its historical institution by Jesus.28