But I told you that you have seen me, and yet you don’t believe.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 36. You demand this bread; behold it is before you, and yet you eat it not. I am the bread; to believe in me is to eat me. You see me, but you believe not in me. Saint Augustine.—It is to this place that those words of Saint Augustine are to be referred: “Why do you prepare your teeth and belly? believe in me, and you have eaten me.” Words which do not destroy the real presence, of which he is not speaking in this verse. Maldon. 35.—Jesus Christ leads them gradually to this great mystery, which he knows will prove a stumbling block to many. The chapter begins with the miraculous multiplication of the loaves; then Christ walking on the sea; next he blames the Jews for following him not through faith in his miracles, but for the loaves and fishes, and tells them to labour for that nourishment which perishes not, by believing in Him, whom the Father had sent; and then promises, that what their fathers had received in figure only, the manna, the faithful shall receive in reality; his own body and blood.