And he said: Therefore did I say to you that no man can come to me, unless it be given him by my Father.
εκ τουτου πολλοι απηλθον των μαθητων αυτου εις τα οπισω και ουκετι μετ αυτου περιεπατουν
12 Church Fathers comment on this verse
Not without reason did the Evangelist say not simply, “they departed,” but “they went back.” By this he showed that, having separated from Christ, they interrupted their progress in virtue and lost the faith they had previously possessed.
“Many of His disciples went back.” That is, separating themselves from Him, they did not go on to what was better, but returned backward, that is, to unbelief.
For truly, whoever separates himself from Christ goes backward. But whoever, like Paul, cleaves to the Lord (1 Cor 6:17), always presses forward (Phil 3:13).
By the parable of the tower, the Lord teaches us that once we have resolved to follow Him, we should preserve that very intention.
We must not merely lay the “foundation,” that is, begin to follow, and then fail to follow to the end, like those who lack sufficient preparation and zeal.
Such were those of whom the Evangelist John says, “Many of His disciples went back from Him.” See Lk 14:28-29.
What is wise always seems somewhat harsh to the foolish. What they think will be very useful for them often proves even harmful.
For those who suffer in their bodily sight, sunlight is unpleasant, while staying in unlit places is pleasant. So too strict teachings, overshadowed by lofty and difficult thoughts, become hateful and offensive to unhealthy minds, even when they are very useful.
By contrast, worthless things become dear and very pleasant to them, even if nothing useful is present in them at all.
Do we not find confirmation of the truth of what we have said in these words of the Gospel? Christ sets forth a divine and great mystery.
Through many kinds of reasoning He opens the door to its reception. He is already, as it were, drawing back the veil of the temple and revealing the innermost part of the tabernacle.
Yet they cast aside with hatred such a wise and heavenly teaching. They turn again toward brutish ignorance and “went back,” as the Evangelist says, and no longer wished “to walk” with Him.
This truly is a falling backward. Therefore through the prophet Jeremiah He again says to ungrateful and contentious Jerusalem, the nurse of the disobedient: “You have turned away from Me, says the Lord, and you shall go backward” (Jer 15:6).
For a falling backward truly follows upon turning away from good things, and God is the all-good One.
Therefore the wretched men “went back” and fell backward. They no longer followed the Savior, but turned as though to other paths and were carried away into their habitual passions.
Let us look again, however, whether a type of this also is found in the books of Moses. When the Jews had traveled a long road and overcome the wild wilderness, they were already near the promised land.
Then, by divine command, Joshua and certain others with him were sent to inspect it. After inspecting all of it, they returned.
Some of them began to report something unpleasant in the assembly. They said that the land which they had inspected had savage inhabitants, and that they had seen giants there.
They constantly added whatever could frighten their hearers (Num 13:33-34). But Joshua after them sought to crown that land with many praises.
He persuaded them with these words: “The land which we examined is very good. If the Lord chooses us, He will bring us into it” (Num 14:7-8).
But the ancestors of the Jews judged that Joshua should be stoned. Having decided that almighty God could do nothing, they “sat down and wept,” as it is written (Num 11:4).
For this they provoked the righteous wrath of the Master of all. Because they were so disobedient and insolent, they were deprived of the promise.
For He says, “As I swore in My wrath, they shall not enter My rest” (Ps 94:11). What happened afterward?
God commands them to return and go back again. He says to Moses: “In the morning, set out and turn your way toward the Red Sea” (Num 14:25).
Since they did not wish to enter the land to which they had been called, they are sent on the reverse journey and forced to go again along the same road.
They did not wish to follow Joshua’s words. Hearing of the goodness of the land, they did not deem Joshua’s counsel worthy of their assent.
What those men then suffered, these men now experienced. They were taught the way to eternal life and called to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. In response, they answered with insolence.
Therefore they rightly “went back,” and by their stubbornness rejected to their own harm the following of the Author of salvation.
They followed Satan, not Christ. Indeed, the Lord Jesus once called Peter Satan, most likely because Peter wanted to go before his Lord and advise Him not to accept death, though He had come to die so that we might not die forever.
And He said, “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not mindful of the things of God, but of the things of men” (cf. Mt 16:23).
He did not make Peter go after Satan, though He called him Satan. Rather, He caused him to follow after Himself, so that by following the Lord he might cease to be Satan.
But those went away in the same way as certain women of whom the Apostle said, “For some have already turned aside after Satan” (1 Tim 5:15).
They did not go farther with Him. See how, appearing to be cut off from the Body, they lost life, since perhaps they were never in the Body. They must be numbered among unbelievers, though they were called disciples.
Not a few went back, but many. Perhaps this happened for our consolation. Sometimes a man speaks the truth, yet what he says is not understood. Those who hear are troubled and leave.
Then the man regrets that he spoke the truth. He says to himself, “I ought not to have spoken so. I should not have said this.”
This happened with the Lord. He spoke about the bread of life and lost many, remaining with few. But this did not trouble Him, because from the beginning He knew both those who would believe and those who would not believe.
We are the ones who fall into confusion when something like this happens to us. Let us find consolation in the Lord, and yet let us speak words with discernment.
“From this” means from this time. “They went” means that those who had previously murmured separated from Him. “Back” means to their former life, to which they again returned.
Despite this explanation, many of the disciples of Jesus left Him after this discourse. Evidently they were among those whom the Lord did not regard as brought to Him by the Father.
But those given to Him by the Father, according to the prayer in Lk 6:12, remained with Him. The Lord, testing them, asked whether they too wished to leave Him.
“Where shall we go,” said Peter, “if we leave You? No, we shall not depart from You. You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know with certainty that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
The Lord then spoke with the intention of turning their attention to themselves: “Yet even among you there is a devil.”
Speaking of His approaching suffering, the Lord also saw who would be the cause of His death.
Whether the betrayer already concealed his murderous design against God, or whether the Lord saw only its seed in Judas’s soul, in any case this remark was a warning to him.
He could have made use of it to change his disposition, just as a thief, seeing the danger of being discovered, throws away what he has stolen.
It is also noteworthy that the first still-hidden exposure of the betrayer coincides with the falling away of many other disciples from the Lord on account of this discourse.
The Evangelist’s remark in verse 64, that Jesus knew from the beginning who would betray Him, was not made because he intended to set forth also those words of Jesus addressed specifically to the twelve apostles in verse 67. As is clear from verse 70, Jesus Christ spoke those words in order to act upon Judas Iscariot, His hypocritical disciple.
The discourse on the bread of life was finished. Jesus left the synagogue, and there a division occurred in the crowd that had previously followed Him everywhere. Many of His disciples went back from Him and walked with Him no more.
These disciples finally understood that Jesus was not at all the Messiah whom the Jews expected. According to the spirit of His teaching, He could not be the king-deliverer who would overthrow the Roman yoke hated by the Jews and subject the whole world to them.
Having understood this, they left Jesus and did not return to Him.
Until then, countless crowds of people had followed Jesus. Many constantly went after Him and constantly listened to His teaching, and for this reason they were called His disciples.
But the vast majority of those who followed Him were struck only by the miracles He performed. They did not have true faith in Him.
Such followers are unreliable and unstable. They need ever new miracles to sustain their enthusiastic mood.
For example, after the miraculous feeding of the crowd of many thousands, many witnesses of that miracle dared to ask Jesus, “What sign have You done, that we may believe You, that You too are sent from God?”
The instability and unreliability of such people was expressed with special force in the last days of Jesus’ earthly life.
Amazed by the new and extraordinary miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus, who had died and was already decaying, the Jews joyfully greeted Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
Four days later they cried out to Pilate, “Crucify! Crucify Him!”
No, such people would not have believed in Jesus as the true Messiah even if He had explained to them, in language they could understand, the meaning of the Mystery He established: the receiving of His Body and Blood.
This is why Jesus did not continue explaining the teaching on the bread of life to them, nor did He hold them back when they began to depart from Him.
Jesus did not need a multitude of disciples for the spread of His teaching throughout the whole world. He needed the unshakable faith of the few who were ready to lay down even their life for Him.
After losing even one of His twelve chosen disciples, Jesus said in His farewell discourse to the eleven, “Be of good cheer: I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33).
“From that time”: more precisely, “from this” (ek toutou), that is, because of this discourse, whose content ran counter to the Jews’ sensual notions of the Messiah, and also from this time.
“They went back from Him,” and so forth. That is, they fell away from faith in Him, seeing that they had been deceived in their sensual expectations.
This is the end of such sensual faith, or half-faith. It is founded on miracles alone, grows into a greed for miracles, and dies out when its fleshly aspirations are not satisfied.
“Someone might rightly ask here in perplexity: was it timely to speak these words, when they did not serve edification and brought no benefit, but even harmed those already instructed?
For it is said that from this many of His disciples went back from Him, and so forth. It would have been possible to teach this only to the disciples, with whom, as Matthew noted, Christ spoke privately.
What shall we answer to this? That in the present case these words were very useful and necessary.
Since the Jews urgently asked Him for food, but bodily food, and since they remembered the food sent down to their fathers and considered the manna something great, He mentions spiritual food.
He wished to show that all that was a figure and shadow, while this food is the very truth of things (Heb 10:1).
Moreover, the obscurity of words always stirs the hearer and makes him more attentive. Therefore the Jews should not have been scandalized. On the contrary, they should have asked and learned.
Thus the cause of their scandal lay in their lack of understanding, not in the incomprehensibility of the discourse.
Furthermore, this teaching was not new or unheard-of. John the Baptist had already indicated it in veiled form when he called Christ the Lamb.
Finally, the disciples also did not understand this teaching. Nevertheless, they believed Christ, followed Him, and confessed that He has the words of eternal life” (Chrysostom; compare Theophylact).
Indeed, at the end of chapter 6 the Evangelist John notes that not only the Pharisees and scribes, but also many of the disciples of Jesus Christ began to murmur.
That is, even those who were favorably disposed toward Him and alien to Pharisaic hostility said, “These are strange words. Who can listen to this?” And “from that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more” (vv. 60, 66).
Under the influence of their leaders, the scribes and Pharisees, the Jewish people had been too blinded by a crudely sensual and earthly notion of the Messiah.
Marveling at the miracles of Jesus Christ and following Him, the Jewish people every time fell into perplexity and murmured when Jesus Christ revealed the mystery of His Incarnation.
He had come to earth not to establish an earthly Jewish kingdom, but to save the whole human race from sin and from the power of the devil. For this, the Messiah had to suffer.
The reason why the words concerning the Body and Blood of Christ seem strange lies in certain hearers and in their dispositions. Neither breadth of mind nor severity of character by itself will save anyone from weak and unfaithful faith. Both mind and will are diseased in us.
It is necessary to ask for heavenly help, and to ask constantly, at every moment of the soul’s life. Without this, unbelief will always appear in the soul, unable to understand the teaching of the Son of God (Jn 6:36).
We must suppose that the words, “There are some of you who do not believe,” were spoken with special expressiveness, with a distinctive tone and movement of the eyes. For the Evangelist immediately adds, “Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that did not believe, and who would betray Him.”
He knew from the beginning, as soon as anyone first came to Him. At His first meeting with Simon, He said that Simon would be Cephas, because of firmness tested by a fall.
From the first meeting He also knew the one “who is betraying Him.” The translation “who will betray” is imprecise. Before the Savior’s gaze, the future appeared as a present reality.
During the discourse on the mystical food, according to the Evangelist, Judas was among the unbelievers. John follows Judas with special attention and sketches his evil character (Jn 12:4; Jn 13:2, 27; Jn 14:22). He alone also gives the name of his father (Jn 6:71).
Judas secretly stirred up distrust in others, now by biting jests, now by questions of crafty malice. All this was done behind the Teacher’s back, and also behind the backs of those especially close to the Teacher.
The Savior knew all this and endured it. In all likelihood, the skill of the evil Judas had a great part in the fact that “many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.”
“Some,” says blessed Augustine, “were scandalized and went away. But that one, Judas, remained, not in order to understand Him, but in order not to understand Him.” More precisely, he remained to share the glory of the glorious Teacher and to gather silver coins by theft.
The question addressed by the Lord to the twelve Apostles had to touch believing hearts deeply and strike the unbeliever. The faithful pronounce the confession of faith through the mouth of Peter, for “with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Rom 10:10).
Concerning the Lord’s address to “the twelve,” we note that John the Theologian speaks below, in verse 70, of their election. Yet he clearly assumes that it is already known to all Christians from Mt 10:2-4; Mk 3:14-19; Lk 6:13-16.
We insist especially that John was commanded to write the Gospel as a supplement to the three preceding Gospels.
“Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven,” the Lord said to Simon Peter (Mt 16:17). For among men “no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 12:3).
Peter appeared as the representative of the faith of the eleven faithful Apostles. Yet in his confession there is also his own individual warmth of feeling, a faith burning with love.
This was the reason why the Lord, knowing and foretelling Peter’s fall, said to him, “When you have returned, strengthen your brethren” (Lk 22:32).
Indeed, we see that Peter’s words burst from the depth of his heart in a warm stream. Almost with desperation he utters the touching words, “Lord, to whom shall we go?”
He fears that the Lord might suspect them of unfaithfulness and send them away from Himself. “You, Lord,” he says, “have the words of eternal life.”
Perhaps more than all the other disciples, Peter had detached himself from the earthly and cleaved to the heavenly. The words of life had filled his soul with unspeakable joy.
He sincerely says that, having tasted them, he can no longer live without them. This character of Peter’s ardent faith and love stands out especially in the Gospel of John, which nevertheless does not hide Peter’s denial (Jn 18:26-27).
Let us remember that John was the beloved disciple and an eyewitness of all the events of the Lord’s earthly life.
“We have believed,” says the chief Apostle on behalf of all twelve, not yet suspecting the betrayal being prepared by one of them. “We have known that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
The expression of faith is literally the same as that recorded from Peter’s lips in the Evangelist Matthew, 16:16.
This confession of faith, formed in an unchanging form in the minds of the believing disciples, contains the dogma formulated by Peter’s lips.
It was written by the Evangelists Matthew and John at the command of the Holy Spirit for the guidance of all believers.
“You are the Christ.” That is, You are the One whom from ancient times we have awaited under the name of the Anointed One. Messiah and Christ are equivalent names, the Hebrew and the Greek, meaning Anointed.
Moses and the prophets foretold You. You brought in Yourself the expected deliverance.
“You are the Son of God.” You are the Son of the Living One, that is, of the eternally Existing One, Jehovah, the God of the Covenant. You are consubstantial with Him.
Thus, in the mouth of Peter, according to the will of the Spirit of God, the formula of the dogma is composed.
It binds the Old Covenant with the New, in fulfillment of the promise concerning the coming of the Savior, Reconciler, and Redeemer.
In His mouth are the words of life, while His Body is given up to the dread breaking as a sacrifice for the sin of men.
But the disciples do not yet know this. So far, they know only the words of life. They will understand all things afterward.
Yet only those will understand who have loved the words of life and confessed the Lord through the mouth of Peter.
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 16 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS