ACC ~ John 6 v33

CHRIST IS OUR DAILY BREAD BECAUSE HE IS OUR LIFE

TERTULLIAN: For Christ is our Bread because Christ is Life, and bread is life. “I am,” says he, “the Bread of life.” [1] And, a little above he says, “The bread of God is that which comes down from heaven.” Then we find, too, that his body is reckoned in bread: “This is my body.” [2] And so, in petitioning for “daily bread,” we ask for perpetuity in Christ and indivisibility from his body. But, because “bread” is admissible in a carnal sense too, it cannot be so used without the religious remembrance of spiritual discipline. For the Lord commands that bread be prayed for which is the only food necessary for believers. ON PRAYER 6. [3]

[1] Jn 6:35.

[2] Mt 26:26.

[3] ANF 3:683*.

THE MANNA FORESHADOWED THE TRUE BREAD

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: Imagine Christ saying something like this: “You foolishly suppose that the manna is ‘the bread from heaven,’ since it merely fed the people of Israel in the wilderness while there were countless other nations throughout the world. You suppose that God wanted to demonstrate his loving kindness so narrowly as to give food to only one people?… Let no one think,” says Christ, “that the manna was truly the bread from heaven; but one should rather choose that which is clearly able to feed and to completely give life to the whole world.” … The only begotten of God the Father is the true manna, the bread from heaven, given to all rational creatures by God the Father. COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 3.6. [1]

[1] LF 43:362, 365**.

BETHLEHEM, HOUSE OF BREAD

EUSEBIUS OF CAESAREA: He would be born nowhere else but in the place at Bethlehem, near Jerusalem, in the spot that is even now pointed out. [1] For no one is witnessed to by all the inhabitants as having been born there—in accordance with the Gospel story, no one remarkable or famous among all people, except Jesus Christ. Bethlehem is translated “House of Bread,” bearing the name of him who came forth from it, our Savior, the true Word of God, and nourisher of spiritual souls, which he himself shows by saying, “I am the Bread that came down from heaven.” PROOF OF THE GOSPEL 7.2.43-44. [2]

[1] Eusebius in the early fourth century was confident that the specific place of birth”the spot even now pointed out,” was the same as that attested by the Evangelists.

[2] POG 2:84*.