In this way He would teach them to believe. For the capacity to learn rightly belongs to those who have already believed.
The prophet Isaiah says this also: "If you do not believe, neither shall you understand" (Is 7:9). Therefore faith had first to be rooted in them.
Only then was it fitting to approach the understanding of what they did not know. Inquiry must not come before faith.
For this reason, I think, the Lord rightly omitted speaking to them about how He would give His Flesh to eat. He calls them to receive faith before inquiry.
Therefore, when He broke the bread for those who had already believed, He gave it and said, "Take, eat, this is My Body."
Likewise, when He had passed the cup to all, He said, "Drink of it, all of you, for this is My Blood of the covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins" (Mt 26:26-28).
Do you see from this that He does not explain the mode of the mystery to those who do not yet understand and refuse to believe without inquiry?
But to those who have already believed, He clearly reveals it. Therefore let those who have not yet accepted faith in Christ through lack of understanding hear this:
"Unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you have no eternal life in yourselves." Those who have not received Jesus through the mystical blessing, the Eucharist, remain wholly without share in the holy and blessed life, and are strangers to it.
This is because He is Life by nature, since He was begotten of the living Father. Likewise, His holy Body is life-giving, being ineffably united with the Word who gives life to all.
Therefore it is considered His Body, and together with it the Word is understood as one. After the Incarnation He is indivisible, except that the Word from God the Father is acknowledged as one thing, and the temple from the Virgin as another.
Consequently they are not identical by nature, for the body is not consubstantial with the Word from God. Yet they are one through the ineffable union and concurrence.
If the Savior's Flesh was life-giving because it was united with Life by nature, then when we taste it, we have life in ourselves. We are united with Him, just as that Flesh is united with the Word who dwelt in it.
For this reason, in the resurrection of the dead, the Savior is shown to act not by word alone, nor only by divine commands. He also joined His holy Flesh to them as a kind of fellow-worker.
He did this to show that it has power to give life, and that it had already become one with Him. For it was truly His own Body, and not the body of anyone else.
Thus, when He raised the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, He said, "Child, arise!" and took her by the hand, as it is written (Lk 8:54).
As God, He gives life by His almighty command. He also gives life through the touch of His holy Flesh. In both ways He manifests one kindred efficacy and power.
Again, when He entered the city called Nain, and a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother, He touched the bier and said, "Young man, I say to you, arise" (Lk 7:12, 14).
He does not bring the dead to life by word alone. To show His Body to be life-giving, as we have already said, He touches the dead.
Through His Body also He instills life into those already subject to corruption. If by the mere touch of His holy Flesh what was subject to corruption is brought to life, how much more abundantly shall we gain the life-giving blessing when we taste it?
For it will surely transform those who partake of it into its own quality, that is, into immortality. Do not be amazed at this, and do not say within yourself in Jewish fashion, "How?"
Instead, consider that water is cold by nature. But when it is poured into a kettle and brought near the fire, it seems to forget its own nature and passes into the property of the stronger fire.
In the same way, although by the nature of the flesh we are corruptible, yet by being joined to Life we leave behind our weakness. We are transformed into His property, that is, into life.
Indeed, it was necessary not only for the soul to be re-created through the Holy Spirit in newness of life (Rom 6:4; 7:6).
It was also necessary for this coarse and earthly body to be sanctified and called to immortality through the same communion, one akin to itself, with the Body of Christ (1 Cor 15:53-54).
But let the dull of understanding not think that we have invented some kind of novel mystery. In the ancient Scriptures, that is, in the writings of Moses, he will see this form of mystery already prefigured.
He will see that it possesses the power of truth, because even in simple types it was nevertheless accomplished. Tell me, what restrained the destroyer of all, death?
What helped their ancestors not to perish with the Egyptians, when all-conquering death was armed against the firstborn? Must it not be clear to all?
Because they obeyed the divine law, they sacrificed the lamb and ate its flesh. They anointed the doorposts with its blood, and death was compelled to pass them by as sanctified.
This destroyer of all, that is, the death of the flesh, armed itself against the whole human nature because of the transgression committed in the first-formed Adam, when we first heard, "You are earth, and to earth you shall return" (Gen 3:19).
But since Christ was to overthrow so dreadful a tyrant, appearing as Life among us through His holy Flesh, this mystery was prefigured for the ancients.
They ate the flesh of the lamb and were sanctified by its blood. They were saved, since the one appointed by God's will for the destruction of the Egyptian firstborn passed them by as partakers of the lamb.
Why then, O Jew, when you are already being called to the truth by means of the types, are you angered when Christ says, "Unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you have no life in yourselves"?
On the contrary, you should have gone with greater boldness to receive the mysteries. You were prepared beforehand for this from the books of Moses and guided to certain faith by the ancient figures.
THEOSIS