Much love,

Ben

I think the thing that all converts accept in coming to the Catholic faith about the Protestant narrative of ‘what the Reformation was truly about’ is its final inadequacy – in all respects, leaving the universal, original instituted church is simply not the Good that not leaving it is, no matter the philosophical rationale or exigetical justifications on offer.

All the ages of Catholic faith and its expressions don’t sink or swim according to the criticism of one school of ‘reformers’ – but inasmuch as the influence of the reformers were medicinal, the Catholic Church (but especially all of us as individual Catholic Christians) must not deny ourselves the best Protestant ‘cures’ for our dis-eases, be they private or corporate – good preaching, simple prayers, a love of Scripture, a de-emphasis of our institutionalism in favor of unpretentious community.

Many Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christians point to John 6 as clinching the argument for their belief that we are in fact to eat Jesus’ flesh and drink his blood, and that therefore partaking of the Eucharist at the Mass (Catholic) or Divine Liturgy (Orthodox), where the bread and wine by the power of the priest’s words (Catholic) or by the power of the Holy Spirit through the priest’s invocation (Orthodox) become Jesus’ actual body and blood (and soul and divinity, according to Roman Catholic teaching), is an essential aspect and practice of one’s Christian life and salvation.

But is that what Jesus is actually saying and teaching in John 6?

There are nine verses in John 6 that have to do with eating Jesus’ flesh and/or drinking his blood, i.e., John 6:50-58. That’s all. And for reasons I’ll explain, it’s not at all clear that in these verses Jesus is talking about actually eating his flesh or actually drinking his blood.

For example, when his disciples say that “This is an intolerable saying” (6:60), Jesus doesn’t respond as if his talking about eating his flesh and drinking his blood is what offended them. Rather, he responds as if his claim to have come down from heaven is the “intolerable saying” they’re grumbling about (6:62). He then goes on to say that it’s his words that are spirit and life, not his flesh and blood, and Peter then says that they will continue to follow him because Jesus has words of eternal life, not because he is going to give them his flesh and blood to eat and drink.

Those who believe in the bread and wine of the Mass or Eucharist necessarily becoming Jesus’ flesh and blood also argue that this is supported by Jesus switching from “eat” (Greek ἐσθίω/ἔφαγον (present/aorist tense)) to “chew/munch” (Greek τρώγω) at John 6:54, thus showing by his graphic language that he really was talking about really eating his real flesh. But this argument fails at multiple points, among them being:

1. The Gospel author’s penchant for switching between semantically-similar words.
2. τρώγω and ἐσθίω/ἔφαγον being interchangeable in Greek usage.
3. The Gospel author always using τρώγω for present tense forms of “eat” (and a present participle works best for the meaning “he who eats”; an aorist participle would mean “he who ate”) and always using ἔφαγον for non-present tense forms of “eat.” In fact, whereas Psalm 40:10 (41:10 Hebrew; 41:9 English) in the LXX reads ὁ ἐσθίων, John 13:18 has Jesus, when quoting this Psalm, saying ὁ τρώγων instead.

I.e., the author’s switch from ἔφαγον to τρώγω can be explained without resorting to claims that this means that Jesus is really saying that we must really eat his real flesh and really drink his real blood.

Also, per John 6:57 (“Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, likewise that person who eats me will also live because of me.”), does Jesus actually eat his Father’s flesh in order to live? That would be the implied correspondence between how Jesus lives and how his followers are to live if they actually have to eat his flesh in order to live. But if Jesus doesn’t here mean that he actually eats his Father’s flesh in order to live, how can it be argued that he means that his followers are actually to eat his flesh?

Jesus earlier said that his nourishment was to do his Father’s will and accomplish his Father’s work (ἔργον) (John 4:34), not to eat his Father’s flesh or drink his Father’s blood. And when the ones in John 6 who followed Jesus asked him what they should do to do God’s work (ἔργον), Jesus replied that God’s work (ἔργον) was that they believe in him whom God had sent – i.e., believe in Jesus (John 6:29).

As I said, there are only nine verses in the entirety of John’s Gospel about “eating” Jesus’ flesh and “drinking” his blood, and they’re all in one small part of one chapter of the Gospel, and they are in verses that could be omitted without changing the meaning or impact of what Jesus says in all that comes before or after them in the chapter. (Try it and see for yourself.)

Compare this to how many verses there are in the Gospel of John about coming to Jesus and believing in him in order to have eternal life. Count how many such verses or phrases there are in just John 6, and then count how many such verses or phrases there are in the rest of the Gospel of John.

“But as many as received him, to those who believe in his name, he gave them the right to become children of God.” (John 1:12)

“These signs have been written about so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:31)

The disciples admit that they, too, would have left, if they weren’t sure that Jesus had the words of life.

“Show me where that’s in the Bible!” cries the earnest Protestant about some Catholic tradition.

When the Catholic does that, the Protestant then says “Oh, that’s not what that means at all!”

So we are bound by God’s law to tithe our incomes because it says so right there in black-and-white from Leviticus to Corinthians.

But that’s not a Eucharistic chapter because come on, what does eating and drinking have to do with the Eucharist in this context?