That He was accustomed, as we have said, often to use concealed and unclear speech, He Himself will teach when He says in the book of Psalms: "I will open My mouth in parables" (Ps 77:2).
The blessed prophet Isaiah will no less confirm our explanation and show that it is not groundless, crying out: "Behold, a righteous King shall reign, and rulers shall rule with judgment. He shall be a man hiding His words" (Is 32:1-2).
For the righteous King, it says, has reigned over us. He says, "I have been set as king by Him over Zion, His holy mountain, proclaiming the decree of the Lord" (Ps 2:6-7).
By rulers who live according to judgment, that is, according to righteousness, he means the holy disciples. They approached Christ the Savior when He often spoke in hidden ways and said, "Tell us the parable" (Mt 15:15).
When He once heard, "Why do You speak to the people in parables?" He clearly indicated the reason, saying, "Because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand" (Mt 13:10, 13). Without doubt, they were not worthy of this, since the righteous Judge had determined such a sentence for them.
Therefore, after the Savior had used many turns of speech, and saw that His hearers still understood nothing, He now speaks more clearly: "I am the bread of life." He almost attacks their boundless lack of understanding, speaking thus.
O you who surpass all others only in ignorance! When God says that He will give you bread from heaven, and deems you worthy of such a promise, you confine divine bounty to nourishment by manna. You are not ashamed to extend heavenly grace only to that limit.
You do not know that receiving such a thing from God is little even for you, and that giving it is little even for God Himself. Therefore do not believe, He says, that this was the heavenly bread. For "I am the bread of life," foretold to you of old as in a promise, and indicated as in a type.
Now I have come in fulfillment of the promise given to you. "I am the bread of life," not bodily bread, which merely stops the suffering of hunger and preserves the flesh from the destruction that comes from hunger. I transform the whole living being into eternal life, and reveal man, created for everlasting being, as higher than death.
By this He covertly points to life and grace through the Holy Flesh. Through it the property of the Only-begotten, that is, life, enters into us.
One must know this, for I think it right to grasp carefully everything that serves for profit. During the full number of forty years, the typological manna was given by God to the Israelites, so long as Moses was still with them.
When he reached the common end of life, Jesus was appointed leader and guide of the Jewish ranks. He led them through the Jordan, as it is written (Josh 3:1 and following). He circumcised them with stone knives and brought them into the promised land.
There at last he gave them the possibility of being nourished with bread, when the all-wise God had already stopped the gift of manna.
Since the type had to be changed into the truth, when Moses was removed, the types of service under the law ceased. When the true Christ appeared to us, Jesus, for He saved "His people from their sins" (Mt 1:21), then we crossed the Jordan.
Then we received circumcision in the spirit through the teaching of the twelve stones, that is, the holy disciples. Of them it is written in the prophets that "holy stones roll upon the earth" (Zech 9:16).
These holy stones went around and traversed the whole universe. Through them we too were circumcised with a circumcision not made by hands, in the spirit, plainly through the Spirit.
Therefore, when we have been called by Christ into the Kingdom of Heaven, this, I think, and nothing else, is signified by someone's entrance into the promised land. Then our manna is no longer typological, for we are no longer nourished by the writings of Moses.
Rather, we have the heavenly bread, that is, Christ. He nourishes us unto eternal life through the gift of the Holy Spirit and the communion of His Flesh. That Flesh places within us participation in God and destroys the deadness arising from the original curse.
"He who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst."
There is something hidden also in these words, which must be explained. Christ the Savior was accustomed never to deprive the saints of glory, but rather to crown them with wondrous honor.
Yet when some of the most ignorant, not knowing what superiority He had over them, ascribed higher glory to them, then He very profitably persuaded them to have a more correct understanding of Him. He compelled them to consider Who the Only-begotten is and by what incomparable excellence He is distinguished.
But He does not frame this discourse very plainly. It is somewhat veiled and without ornament. By the contemplation of the deeds themselves, or by comparison, He compels them to acknowledge His superiority.
Thus, for example, He once conversed with the Samaritan woman and promised to give living water. The woman, understanding nothing of His words, said, "Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well?" (Jn 4:12).
Since the Savior wished to convince her that He was greater than Jacob and far more worthy of faith, He turned His speech to the difference between the waters. He said, "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him, it will become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life" (Jn 4:13-14).
Through this He doubtless persuades us to understand precisely this: the giver of what is higher must necessarily possess superiority over the one with whom comparison is made in any respect.
He uses a similar manner of explanation and teaching now. The Jews dared, as it were, to despise Him and exalt themselves over Him. In every respect they preferred Moses the lawgiver, and often affirmed that one ought to follow his ordinances, not the teachings of Christ.
They considered the gift of manna and the flowing of water from the rock the surest proof of his superiority over all, and even over our Savior Christ Himself. Therefore He necessarily passes at last to His customary method.
He does not say more plainly that He is greater than Moses, because of the unrestrained insolence of His hearers and their very great inclination to anger. Rather, He turns again to the wondrous deed itself, and by comparison with the greater He reveals the small.
"He who comes to Me," He says, "shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst." Let it be so, He says. I Myself will agree with you that the manna was given by Moses. But those who ate hungered again.
I will say also that water was given to you from the rock by Moses. But those who drank thirsted again. The gift of the things mentioned brought only a very brief use of them. But he who comes to Me "shall never hunger," and he who believes in Me "shall never thirst."
What, then, does Christ promise? Nothing corruptible, but the blessing that consists in receiving the Holy Flesh and Blood. This raises man to complete incorruption, so that he no longer has need of anything that removes death from the flesh. I mean, plainly, food and drink.
Water here seems again to be called sanctification through the Spirit, or the divine and Holy Spirit Himself, Who is often so named in the divine Scriptures.
Therefore the holy Body of Christ gives life to those in whom it will be, and strengthens them for immortality, by being joined to our bodies. For it is understood to be the body of no one else, but of Life itself by nature.
It has in itself the whole power of the Word united with it. It is, as it were, endowed with His property, or rather filled with His activity, through which all things are given life and preserved in being.
If this is so, then those who have been baptized and have tasted divine grace should finally know what they are doing. When they lazily and rarely go to church, and for long periods keep away from the blessing of Christ, they are inventing a harmful piety.
This consists in an unwillingness to participate in mystical communion with Christ. By this very thing they remove themselves from eternal life and refuse to be given life.
Their refusal of the Eucharist becomes a snare and stumbling block, though it seemed to them the fruit of reverence. On the contrary, they must exert all the power and zeal within them to be swift toward purification from sin.
They must strive above all to acquire the most worthy conduct. In this way they may go with great vigilance to the reception of life.
But Satan uses many means for deception. He tries not to allow them to have sound and proper thoughts. Defiling them with vices, he makes them tremble even before the grace itself through which they ought to become sober.
As though sobered from wine and drunkenness, they should be freed from the pleasure that draws them toward evil (Joel 1:5), and should see and understand what is profitable.
Therefore, having broken his bonds and cast off the yoke laid on us by his tyranny, let us serve the Lord with fear, as it is written (Ps 2:3, 11). Through self-control, let us already prove higher than fleshly pleasures.
Let us approach divine and heavenly grace. Let us ascend to the holy reception of Christ. In precisely this way we shall overcome the devil's deception. Having become partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet 1:4), we shall ascend to life and incorruption.
THEOSIS