Four reasons why the Bread of Life Discourse cannot be a metaphor

I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world. […] Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. […] Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.

Most, though not all, Protestants wiggle and fidget as they come to the Bread of Life Discourse in the sixth chapter of the Gospel according to St. John; and they have good reason to be disturbed! Our Savior speaks quite plainly of the Eucharist when he states, For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed (John 6:56).

The common solution for many modern Protestants (following the path set out by Zwingli) is to call upon the words which follow toward the end of the discourse: It is the spirit that quickeneth: the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I have spoken to you, are spirit and life (John 6:64). Appealing to these words, which reference the spirit as opposed to the flesh, these Protestants will claim that the Bread of Life Discourse is an extended metaphor.

There are four reasons why our Savior’s words in John 6:26-72 cannot be understood as an analogy or a metaphor. Among these, the second is perhaps rather unknown. [all four reasons come from Ludwig Ott’s Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma]

1) From the nature of the words used One specially notes the realistic expressions “true” and “real” referring to the “food” and “drink” which is our Savior’s body and blood. Likewise, we note the concrete expressions employed to denote the reception of this Sacrament: the Greek word commonly translated as “to eat” is more literally “to gnaw upon” or “to chew”. The bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world. […] For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed (John 6:52,56).

2) From the biblical usage of the figure “to eat one’s flesh” In the language of the Bible, to eat another’s flesh or to drink his blood in the metaphorical sense is to persecute him, to bring him to ruin and to destroy him. Thus, if Christ tells the Jews that we all must eat his flesh and drink his blood, and if he means this metaphorically, we would be led to conclude (following the witness of Sacred Scripture) that our Savior intends us to reject him.

Consider how the metaphor of eating flesh and drinking blood functions in the Scriptures: Whilst the wicked draw near against me, to eat my flesh. My enemies that trouble me, have themselves been weakened, and have fallen. (Psalm 26:2)

By the wrath of the Lord of hosts the land is troubled, and the people shall be as fuel for the fire: no man shall spare his brother. And he shall turn to the right hand, and shall be hungry: and shall eat on the left hand, and shall not be filled: every one shall eat the flesh of his own arm: Manasses Ephraim, and Ephraim Manasses, and they together shall be against Juda. (Isaiah 9:19-20)

And I will feed thy enemies with their own flesh: and they shall be made drunk with their own blood, as with new wine. (Isaiah 49:26)

You that hate good, and love evil: that violently pluck off their skins from them, and their flesh from their bones? Who have eaten the flesh of my people, and have flayed their skin from off them: and have broken, and chopped their bones as for the kettle, and as flesh in the midst of the pot. (Micah 3:2-3)

Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl in your miseries, which shall come upon you. […] Your gold and silver is cankered: and the rust of them shall be for a testimony against you, and shall eat your flesh like fire. (James 5:1,3)

And the ten horns which thou sawest in the beast: these shall hate the harlot, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and shall burn her with fire. (Revelation 17:16)

3) From the reactions of the listeners The listeners understand Jesus to be speaking in literal truth – How can this man give us his flesh to eat? (John 6:53) – and Jesus does not correct them, as he had done previously in the case of misunderstandings (cf. John 3,3; 4:32; Matthew 16:6). In this case, on the contrary, he confirms their literal acceptance of his words at the rist that his disciples and his apostles might desert him. Indeed, our Savior is willing to test his apostles on this point: Then Jesus said to the twelve: Will you also go away? (John 6:68)

4) From the interpretation of the Fathers and the Magisterium Finally, we can recognize that this text is not to be understood as a metaphor from the interpretation of the Fathers, who ordinarily take the last section of the Bread of Life Discourse as referring to the Eucharist (e.g. St. John Chrysostom, St. Cyril of Alexander, St. Augustine, et al.). Moreover, the interpretation of the Council of Trent confirms this. The words that I have spoken to you, are spirit and life In John 6:64, Jesus does not reject the literal interpretation, but only the grossly sensual interpretation. Our Savior insists that the Eucharist is spirit and life insofar as it gives life. For the body we receive in the Eucharist is not dead flesh, but profits us unto eternal life.

So St. Augustine says, “This Flesh alone profiteth not, but let the Spirit be joined to the Flesh, and It profiteth greatly. For if the Flesh profiteth nothing, the Word would not have become Flesh.” The same (lib. 10, de. Civit. Dei) says, “The Flesh of itself cleanseth not, but through the Word by which it hath been assumed.” And S. Cyril, “If the Flesh be understood alone, it is by no means able to quicken, forasmuch as it needs a Quickener, but because it is conjoined with the life-giving Word, the whole is made life-giving. For the Word of God being joined to the corruptible nature does not lose Its virtue, but the Flesh itself is lifted up to the power of the higher nature. Therefore, although the nature of flesh as flesh cannot quicken; still it doth this because it hath received the whole operation of the Word.”

Hence, we do well to pray: May the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ guard my soul unto everlasting life. Amen.

You position logically leads to multiple truths since by your lights there is no ONE visible Church.

So you just ignore the FACT that your position logically leads to invalidating the NT church itself, since we are to submit to the historical magisterium, disobedience to which was even a capital crime, (Dt. 17:8-13) and the instruments and stewards of Scripture, and the recipient of the promises?

Tell me, under the RC model how could you justify following an itinerant Preacher whom those who sat in the seat of Moses rejected, asking like a RC By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority to do these things? (Mark 11:28) Who in response invoked the authority of another itinerant preacher?

And rather than the veracity of His truth claims resting upon the premise of magisterial veracity as it must for Rome, established His Truth claims upon scriptural substantiation in word and in power, as did the early church as it began upon this basis?

While your argument is that there must be one visible church, Rome cannot be it as its very basis for authority is unScriptural, as are many of her primary teachings.

Which includes Rome having presumed to infallibly declare she is and will be perpetually infallible whenever she speaks in accordance with her infallibly defined (scope and subject-based) formula, which renders her declaration that she is infallible, to be infallible, as well as all else she accordingly declares.

Nor was there even one visible church in Scripture, let alone all, that looked to Peter as the first of a line of infallible popes reigning supreme in Rome over all the churches. Even outside Scripture, RC scholarship provides evidence to the contrary.

• Klaus Schatz [Jesuit Father theologian, professor of church history at the St. George’s Philosophical and Theological School in Frankfurt] in his work, “Papal Primacy ,” pp. 1-4, finds:

“New Testament scholars agree..., The further question whether there was any notion of an enduring office beyond Peter’s lifetime, if posed in purely historical terms, should probably be answered in the negative.

That is, if we ask whether the historical Jesus, in commissioning Peter, expected him to have successors, or whether the authority of the Gospel of Matthew, writing after Peter’s death, was aware that Peter and his commission survived in the leaders of the Roman community who succeeded him, the answer in both cases is probably 'no.”...

If one had asked a Christian in the year 100, 200, or even 300 whether the bishop of Rome was the head of all Christians, or whether there was a supreme bishop over all the other bishops and having the last word in questions affecting the whole Church, he or she would certainly have said no."...

“We probably cannot say for certain that there was a bishop of Rome [in 95 AD]. It is likely that the Roman church was governed by a group of presbyters from whom there very quickly emerged a presider or ‘first among equals’ whose name was remembered and who was subsequently described as ‘bishop’ after the mid-second century.”

• Paul Johnson, educated at the Jesuit independent school Stonyhurst College, and at Magdalen College, Oxford, author of over 40 books and a conservative popular historian, finds,

With Cyprian, then, the freedom preached by Paul and based on the power of Christian truth was removed from the ordinary members of the Church, it was retained only by the bishops, through whom the Holy Spirit still worked, who were collectively delegated to represent the totality of Church members...With Bishop Cyprian, the analogy with secular government came to seem very close. But of course it lacked one element: the ‘emperor figure’ or supreme priest...

[Peter according to Cyprian was] the beneficiary of the famous ‘rock and keys’ text in Matthew. There is no evidence that Rome exploited this text to assert its primacy before about 250 - and then...Paul was eliminated from any connection with the Rome episcopate and the office was firmly attached to Peter alone... ...There was in consequence a loss of spirituality or, as Paul would have put it, of freedom... -(A History of Christianity, by Paul Johnson, pp. 61,63. transcribed using OCR software)

• Johnson also writes,

Eusebius presents the lists as evidence that orthodoxy had a continuous tradition from the earliest times in all the great Episcopal sees and that all the heretical movements were subsequent aberrations from the mainline of Christianity.

Looking behind the lists, however, a different picture emerges. In Edessa, on the edge of the Syrian desert, the proofs of the early establishment of Christianity were forgeries, almost certainly manufactured under Bishop Kune, the first orthodox Bishop, and actually a contemporary of Eusebius...

• Catholic theologian and a Jesuit priest Francis Sullivan, in his work From Apostles to Bishops (New York: The Newman Press), examines possible mentions of “succession” from the first three centuries, and concludes from that study that,

Hence I stand with the majority of scholars who agree that one does not find evidence in the New Testament to support the theory that the apostles or their coworkers left [just] one person as “bishop” in charge of each local church... — Francis Sullivan, in his work From Apostles to Bishops , pp. 222ff

• American Roman Catholic priest and Biblical scholar Raymond Brown (twice appointed to Pontifical Biblical Commission), finds,

“The claims of various sees to descend from particular members of the Twelve are highly dubious. It is interesting that the most serious of these is the claim of the bishops of Rome to descend from Peter, the one member of the Twelve who was almost a missionary apostle in the Pauline sense – a confirmation of our contention that whatever succession there was from apostleship to episcopate, it was primarily in reference to the Puauline tyupe of apostleship, not that of the Twelve.” (“Priest and Bishop, Biblical Reflections,” Nihil Obstat, Imprimatur, 1970, pg 72.)

Of-course, you have been refuted by such before , but you just keep on posting spurious propaganda.

In addition, the visible church cannot be the one true church as it is an admixture of tares and wheat, while church as the body of Christ is what is referred to as the bride of Christ, as it alone 100% consists of true believers.

And which body is visible wherever believers, by the one Spirit they received, live out their one essential faith in the one Lord, which the one baptism identifies and confesses. And gather together under pastors - presbuteros/episkopos (Titus 1:5) not a sacerdotal class of believers distinctively titled "hierus"="priests" which, among other things is nowhere is seen in the NT church.

Meanwhile, while the NT church was quite diverse, never was submission to Peter as supreme head enjoined in even one of the letters to the churches, including that of the Lord in Rc. 2,3 to the 7 representative churches.

Nor is recorded or taught in Scripture any apostolic successors (like for James: Acts 12:1,2) after Judas who was to maintain the original 12: Rv. 21:14) or elected any apostolic successors by voting, versus casting lots (no politics). (Acts 1:15ff)

However, the NT church saw its limited degree of unity under a central magisterium, but which was led by manifest apostles of God who could say,

But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings; By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left,... (2 Corinthians 6:4-7)

But Rome's pseudo-successors (in particular) fail of both the qualifications (Acts 1:21,22; 1Cor. 9:1; Gal. 1:11,12) and credentials for being. And so if it was only with difficultly that the NT church had its limited unity then lacking such apostles today, it is no surprise that today we see more disunity

Yet a central magisterium is the ideal, led by presbuteros, not priests, but which the arrogant presumption of Rome's pseudo-apostles has poisoned the well against, and it was her own impenitent Roman recalcitrance which necessitated division.

And which Scripture requires and affirms as sometimes necessary. (1 Corinthians 11:19)<

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? (2 Corinthians 6:14)

Rome treats even proabortion/sodmite/Muslim pols as members in life and death, which you must own. But which, along with her false doctrines, forbids faithful conservative evangelicals from being joined to her.

You cannot possibly deny that for ELEVEN centuries the Catholic Church assembled, interpreted and taught the canonical texts through the prism of scared scriptural, the received oral tradition and liturgy.

Which simply continues your logical fallacy, that historicity equates to ensures veracity, which as show, invalidates the NT church. Orthodox Jews claim the same thing as Rome in essence with oral tradition, by which the interpret the Scriptures, as does Rome. And both dismiss Scriptural evidence to the contrary of themselves, under the premise of historicity equating to veracity. And in reality, like the Jews, what Rome did was not simply pass down Scriptural Truths, but due to her exaltation of herself and her amorphous oral tradition, out of which she channels doctrines (even if they even lack early testimony), she has perpetuated the errors of traditions of men.

But like as God did in Scripture, rather than ensured magisterial infallibility, the Lord raised up men from without the magisterium to reprove it and to preserve faith. And which is how the church itself began, and faith has since been preserved. Thanks be to God. But with Rome's immorality and falsities necessitating separation from her,. as it does now.

And here is where your preservation even led to, leading up to9 the Reformation.

Referring to the schism of the 14th and 15th centuries, Cardinal Ratzinger observed,

"For nearly half a century, the Church was split into two or three obediences that excommunicated one another, so that every Catholic lived under excommunication by one pope or another, and, in the last analysis, no one could say with certainty which of the contenders had right on his side. The Church no longer offered certainty of salvation; she had become questionable in her whole objective form--the true Church, the true pledge of salvation, had to be sought outside the institution.

• Cardinal Bellarmine:

"Some years before the rise of the Lutheran and Calvinistic heresy, according to the testimony of those who were then alive, there was almost an entire abandonment of equity in ecclesiastical judgments; in morals, no discipline; in sacred literature, no erudition; in divine things, no reverence; religion was almost extinct. (Concio XXVIII. Opp. Vi. 296- Colon 1617, in “A History of the Articles of Religion,” by Charles Hardwick, Cp. 1, p. 10,)

The most obvious answer was that the apostles had committed it orally to the Church, where it had been handed down from generation to generation.

And which Kelly, whose work “Early Christian Doctrines,” I have on my lap, also was based upon the false and novel premise that the “Church's bishops [an artificial distinction being made between presbuteros and episkopos: cf. Titus 1:5-7] are on his [Irenaeus] Spirit-endowed men who have been vouchsafed 'an infallible charism,'” a fantasy which was never promised or necessary for God to preserve Truth. Yet Kelly also states that Irenaeus said that “what the apostles at first proclaimed by word of mouth, they afterward by God's will conveyed to us in Scriptures.” (pp. 37,38) But what this two-equal-source position manifestly progressively resulted in was reliance upon the premise of magisterial veracity when faced with Scripture-quoting challenges, rather than meeting them on that ground as the Lord did with the devil and those who sat in the seat of Moses, and the Sadducees. It was not tradition but Scripture that the Lord invoked as authoritative.

Thus by making oral tradition equal to Scripture and the magisterium as supreme, the accretions of erroneous traditions were perpetuated alone with Truth. Which the Lord allows to grow together as a test for the people, as He did in allowing competition to His own claims, but overcoming evil with Good.

You say for 1400 years the Church failed to provide an indisputable cannon? From where on earth did you fetch this piece of historical nonsense?

Which ignorance on your part is due to your uncritical acceptance of RC propaganda that has been passed down.

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Canon of the New Testament, (1917), states (emphasis mine throughout the proceeding),

► “The Canon of the New Testament, like that of the Old, is the result of a development, of a process at once stimulated by disputes with doubters, both within and without the Church, and retarded by certain obscurities and natural hesitations, and which did not reach its final term until the dogmatic definition of the Tridentine Council. (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03274a.htm)

► "The Tridentine decrees from which the above list is extracted was the first infallible and effectually promulgated pronouncement on the Canon, addressed to the Church Universal. ” (Catholic Encyclopedia, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm;

► “Catholic hold that the proximate criterion of the biblical canon is the infallible decision of the Church.” “The Council of Trent definitively settled the matter of the OT Canon. That this had not been done previously is apparent from the uncertainty that persisted up to the time of Trent." (New Catholic Encyclopedia, Catholic University of America , 2003, Vol. 3, pp. 20,26.

As Catholic Church historian and recognized authority on Trent (2400 page history, and author of over 700 books, etc.), Hubert Jedin (1900-1980) observes, it also put a full stop to the 1000-year-old development of the biblical canon (History of the Council of Trent [London, 1961] 91, quoted by Raymond Edward Brown, American Roman Catholic priest and Biblical scholar, in The New Jerome biblical commentary, p. 1168)

►The question of the “deutero-canonical” books will not be settled before the sixteenth century. As late as the second half of the thirteenth, St Bonaventure used as canonical the third book of Esdras and the prayer of Manasses, whereas St Albert the Great and St Thomas doubted their canonical value. (George H. Tavard, Holy Writ or Holy Church: The Crisis of the Protestant Reformation (London: Burns & Oates, 1959), pp. 16-17)

► "For the first fifteen centuries of Christianity, no Christian Church put forth a definitive list of biblical books. Most Christians had followed St. Augustine and included the 'Apocrypha' in the canon, but St. Jerome, who excluded them, had always had his defenders." (Joseph Lienhard, S.J., A.B., classics, Fordham University, “The Bible, The Church, And Authority;” [Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1995], p. 59)

So much for "historical nonsense."

It was not until the Synod of Rome (382) and the Councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) that we find a definitive list of canonical books being drawn up,

Ignorance continued The Synod of Rome claim depends upon the “The Decree of Gelasius (Decretum Gelasianum), which contains a list of canonical books, was so called because it was formerly ascribed to Pope Gelasius (in office from 492 to 496). Various recensions of the same decree were also ascribed to the earlier Pope Demasus (366-384) and the later Hormisdas (514-523), or to councils over which they presided. But for the past century most scholars have agreed with Ernst von Dobschütz's conclusion that all the various forms of the decree derive from the independent work of an anonymous Italian churchman in the sixth century.” - http://www.bible-researcher.com/gelasius.html In addition the Council of Rome found many opponents in Africa.” More: http://www.tertullian.org/articles/burkitt_gelasianum.htm

But since you brought up the Synod of Rome, for which no formal account remains of its proceedings exist, this was under under the authority of Pope Damasus I (pope from 366-384), who provides another example of the progressive deformation of Rome, which is to be avoided.

Also from J. N. D Kelly:

Upon Pope Liberius's death September 24 A.D. 366, violent disorders broke out over the choice of a successor. A group who had remained consistently loyal to Liberius immediately elected his deacon Ursinus in the Julian basilica and had him consecrated Bishop, but the rival faction of Felix's adherence elected Damasus, who did not hesitate to consolidate his claim by hiring a gang of thugs, storming the Julian Basilica in carrying out a three-day massacre of the Ursinians....

..the pagan historian Ammianus Marcellinus reports that they left 137 dead on the field. Damasus was now secure on his throne; but the bishops of Italy were shocked by the reports they received, and his moral authority was weakened for several years....

Damasus was indefatigable in promoting the Roman primacy, frequently referring to Rome as 'the apostolic see' and ruling that the test of a creed's orthodoxy was its endorsement by the Pope.... This [false claim to] succession gave him a unique [presumptuous claim to] judicial power to bind and loose, and the assurance of this infused all his rulings on church discipline. — Kelly, J. N. D. (1989). The Oxford Dictionary of Popes. USA: Oxford University Press. pp. 32 ,34;

• Eamon Duffy (Pontifical Historical Commission, Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Cambridge, and former President of Magdalene College) states: “Self-consciously, the popes began to model their actions and their style as Christian leaders on the procedures of the Roman state”. — Eamon Duffy notes (“Saints and Sinners”, ©2001 edition)

Nor was Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) ecumenical and thus were not definitive in settling the issue of the canon, as will be evidenced.

From this point on, there is in practice no dispute about the canon of the Bible and its universal interpretation given by the Church. The only exception being the so-called Protestant Reformers, who entered upon the scene in 1517, an unbelievable 11 centuries later.

Ignorantly parroting polemics, continued. In your words, "From where on earth did you fetch this piece of historical nonsense?"

Lets start with just a couple among others before 382:

● Jerome (340-420), the preeminent 3rd century scholar rejected the Apocrypha, as they did not have the sanction of Jewish antiquity, and were not received by all, and did not generally work toward "confirmation of the doctrine of the Church." His lists of the 24 books of the O.T. Scriptures corresponds to the 39 of the Protestant canon,

Jerome wrote in his Prologue to the Books of the Kings,

“This preface to the Scriptures may serve as a helmeted [i.e. defensive] introduction to all the books which we turn from Hebrew into Latin, so that we may be assured that what is outside of them must be placed aside among the Apocryphal writings. Wisdom, therefore, which generally bears the name of Solomon, and the book of Jesus the Son of Sirach, and Judith, and Tobias, and the Shepherd [of Hermes?] are not in the canon. The first book of Maccabees is found in Hebrew, but the second is Greek, as can be proved from the very style.

In his preface to Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs he also states,

“As, then, the Church reads Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees, but does not admit them among the canonical Scriptures, so let it read these two volumes for the edification of the people, not to give authority to doctrines of the Church.” (Shaff, Henry Wace, A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, p. 492)

● Cyril of Jerusalem (d. circa. 385 AD) exhorts his readers “Of these read the two and twenty books, but have nothing to do with the apocryphal writings. Study earnestly these only which we read openly in the Church. Far wiser and more pious than thyself were the Apostles, and the bishops of old time, the presidents of the Church who handed down these books. Being therefore a child of the Church, trench thou not upon its statutes. And of the Old Testament, as we have said, study the two and twenty books, which, if thou art desirous of learning, strive to remember by name, as I recite them.” (http://www.bible-researcher.com/cyril.html)

His lists supports the canon adopted by the Protestants, combining books after the Hebrew canon and excludes the apocrypha, though he sometimes used them, as per the standard practice by which the apocrypha was printed in Protestant Bibles, and includes Baruch as part of Jeremiah.

The Catholic Encyclopedia (in the face of ancient opposition) states,

Obviously, the inferior rank to which the deuteros were relegated by authorities like Origen, Athanasius, and Jerome, was due to too rigid a conception of canonicity, one demanding that a book, to be entitled to this supreme dignity, must be received by all, must have the sanction of Jewish antiquity, and must moreover be adapted not only to edification, but also to the "confirmation of the doctrine of the Church", to borrow Jerome's phrase. (Catholic Encyclopedia, Canon of the Old Testament; http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm)

● Summing up this period, the Catholic Encyclopedia states,

At Jerusalem there was a renascence, perhaps a survival, of Jewish ideas, the tendency there being distinctly unfavourable to the deuteros. St. Cyril of that see, while vindicating for the Church the right to fix the Canon, places them among the apocrypha and forbids all books to be read privately which are not read in the churches. In Antioch and Syria the attitude was more favourable. St. Epiphanius shows hesitation about the rank of the deuteros; he esteemed them, but they had not the same place as the Hebrew books in his regard. The historian Eusebius attests the widespread doubts in his time; he classes them as antilegomena, or disputed writings, and, like Athanasius, places them in a class intermediate between the books received by all and the apocrypha. The 59th (or 60th) canon of the provincial Council of Laodicea (the authenticity of which however is contested) gives a catalogue of the Scriptures entirely in accord with the ideas of St. Cyril of Jerusalem. On the other hand, the Oriental versions and Greek manuscripts of the period are more liberal; the extant ones have all the deuterocanonicals and, in some cases, certain apocrypha.

The influence of Origen's and Athanasius's restricted canon naturally spread to the West. St. Hilary of Poitiers and Rufinus followed their footsteps, excluding the deuteros from canonical rank in theory, but admitting them in practice. The latter styles them "ecclesiastical" books, but in authority unequal to the other Scriptures. St. Jerome cast his weighty suffrage on the side unfavourable to the disputed books... (Catholic Encyclopedia, Canon of the Old Testament, eph. mine)

▀ Now coming to post 4^th century, and the Middle Ages, The Catholic Encyclopedia states,

● In the Latin Church, all through the Middle Ages [5th century to the 15th century] we find evidence of hesitation about the character of the deuterocanonicals. There is a current friendly to them, another one distinctly unfavourable to their authority and sacredness, while wavering between the two are a number of writers whose veneration for these books is tempered by some perplexity as to their exact standing, and among those we note St. Thomas Aquinas. Few are found to unequivocally acknowledge their canonicity. The prevailing attitude of Western medieval authors is substantially that of the Greek Fathers. The chief cause of this phenomenon in the West is to be sought in the influence, direct and indirect, of St. Jerome's depreciating Prologus (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm)

● John of Damascus, eminent theologian of the Eastern Church in the 8th century, and Nicephorus, patriarch of Constantinople in the 9th century also rejected the apocrypha, as did others, in part or in whole.

▀ Dissent before and in Trent

Among those dissenting at Trent was Augustinian friar, Italian theologian and cardinal and papal legate Girolamo Seripando. As Catholic historian Hubert Jedin (German), who wrote the most comprehensive description of the Council (2400 pages in four volumes) explained, “he was aligned with the leaders of a minority that was outstanding for its theological scholarship” at the Council of Trent.” Jedin further writes:

►: “Tobias, Judith, the Book of Wisdom, the books of Esdras, Ecclesiasticus, the books of the Maccabees, and Baruch are only "canonici et ecclesiastici" and make up the canon morum in contrast to the canon fidei. These, Seripando says in the words of St. Jerome, are suited for the edification of the people, but they are not authentic, that is, not sufficient to prove a dogma. Seripando emphasized that in spite of the Florentine canon the question of a twofold canon was still open and was treated as such by learned men in the Church. Without doubt he was thinking of Cardinal Cajetan, who in his commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews accepted St. Jerome's view which had had supporters throughout the Middle Ages.” (Hubert Jedin, Papal Legate At The Council Of Trent (St Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1947), pp. 270-271)

►“While Seripando abandoned his view as a lost cause, Madruzzo, the Carmelite general, and the Bishop of Agde stood for the limited canon, and the bishops of Castellamare and Caorle urged the related motion to place the books of Judith, Baruch, and Machabees in the "canon ecclesiae." From all this it is evident that Seripando was by no means alone in his views. In his battle for the canon of St. Jerome and against the anathema and the parity of traditions with Holy Scripture, he was aligned with the leaders of a minority that was outstanding for its theological scholarship.” (ibid, 281-282; https://aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?blogid=1&query=cajetan)

Cardinal Cajetan who himself was actually an adversary of Luther, and who was sent by the Pope in 1545 to Trent as a papal theologian, had reservations about the apocrypha as well as certain N.T. books based upon questionable apostolic authorship.

►"On the eve of the Reformation, it was not only Luther who had problems with the extent of the New Testament canon. Doubts were being expressed even by some of the loyal sons of the Church. Luther's opponent at Augsburg, Cardinal Cajetan, following Jerome, expressed doubts concerning the canonicity of Hebrews, James, 2 and 3 John, and Jude. Of the latter three he states, "They are of less authority than those which are certainly Holy Scripture."⁶³

►The Catholic Encyclopedia confirms this saying that “he seemed more than three centuries in advance of his day in questioning the authenticity of the last chapter of St. Mark, the authorship of several epistles, viz., Hebrews, James, II Peter, II and III John, Jude...”— http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03145c.htm

►Erasmus likewise expressed doubts concerning Revelation as well as the apostolicity of James, Hebrews and 2 Peter. It was only as the Protestant Reformation progressed, and Luther's willingness to excise books from the canon threatened Rome that, at Trent, the Roman Catholic Church hardened its consensus stand on the extent of the New Testament canon into a conciliar pronouncement.⁶⁴http://bible.org/article/evangelicals-and-canon-new-testament#P136_48836

▀ Is the canon of Trent the same as that of Hippo and Carthage?

Not only was the canon not settled before Trent, with Trent arguably following a weaker scholarly tradition in pronouncing the apocryphal books to be inspired, but it is a matter of debate whether the canon of Trent is exactly the same as that of Carthage and other councils:

“The claim that Hippo & Carthage approved the same canonical list as Trent is wrong. Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) received the Septuagint version of 1 Esdras [Ezra in the Hebrew spelling] as canonical Scripture, which Innocent I approved. However, the Vulgate version of the canon that Trent approved was the first Esdras that Jerome designated for the OT Book of Ezra, not the 1 Esdras of the Septuagint that Hippo and Carthage ( along with Innocent I) received as canonical. Thus Trent rejected as canonical the version of 1 Esdras that Hippo & Carthage accepted as canonical. Trent rejected the apocryphal Septuagint version of 1 Esdras (as received by Hippo and Carthage) as canonical and called it 3 Esdras.” More.

In addition,

►“Luther's translation of the Bible contained all of its books. Luther also translated and included the Apocrypha, saying, "These books are not held equal to the Scriptures, but are useful and good to read." He expressed his thoughts on the canon in prefaces placed at the beginning of particular Biblical books. In these prefaces, he either questioned or doubted the canonicity of Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation (his Catholic contemporaries, Erasmus and Cardinal Cajetan, likewise questioned the canonicity of certain New Testament books). Of his opinion, he allows for the possibility of his readers to disagree with his conclusions. Of the four books, it is possible Luther's opinion fluctuated on two (Hebrews and Revelation). Luther was of the opinion that the writers of James and Jude were not apostles, therefore these books were not canonical. Still, he used them and preached from them.” (Five More Luther Myths; http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=2089)

Thus, rather than the canon being settled and indisputable, scholarly doubts and disagreement continued down thru the centuries and right into Trent, which after the death of Luther - who had no infallible canon to dissent from - settled the canon for RCs (though perhaps not excluding late additions) apparently after an informal vote of 24 yea, 15 nay, with 16 abstaining (44%, 27%, 29%) as to whether to affirm it as an article of faith with its anathemas on those who dissent from it.

Of course, all this and more was provided to you in the past via a link , which could have been read by you and delivered you from being shamed as an ignorant parroting polemicists, and saved me from having to post all these excerpts, but like other RCs who will not follow links to material that discomforts them so you did not either, thus necessitating making this post even longer.

For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: (1 Peter 2:15)

But you play “internet theologian” as do Bible Christians... This is the stuff of neophytes untutored on scripture, context, and history.

Rather, it is you who are "playing," that of uncritically parroting prevaricating papal polemics.

You keep again and again avoiding the tough questions on why scores of eminent Protestant theologians have joined a constellation of Catholic scholars and theologian in proclaiming both historically and scripturally that it is the Catholic Church

Avoiding "scores of eminent Protestants?" Exaggeration much? You mean you avoided answering "Why should we then leave conservative evangelical churches and join Rome like your relative few who swim the wrong way over the Tiber, to become members with even liberal proabortion/sodomy/Muslim pols?"

Instead of admitting such fruit, which Mt. 7:20 says to judge by, testifies to what Rome really believes, you tried to blithely dismiss it as irrelevant! But which it is, as unlike me, you preach a particular elitist church as the one true one, and as what one really believes is manifest by what they do and effect, then you must own and deal with your church fostering and coddling impenitent liberals whom we must separate from, in addition to her false doctrine.

In addition, just where in the Bible do you get the idea - which you have often ignorantly reiterated - that it is the lettered, formally schooled elite that are typically the weighty examples of faith which are to followed, versus common people? Once again this, like Rome herself, is contrary to the NT church. Which began with prophets and apostles, not the learned scholar who sat in the seat of Moses.

Just what university did the greatest man born of a women get his education and authority to preach from?

And how about the apostles? Paul was the only one who we know had letters, while those who did marvelled "that they were unlearned and ignorant men," "and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus." (Acts 4:13)

And the common people heard him gladly. (Mark 12:37)

For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: (1 Corinthians 1:26)

This unworthy servant, and HS graduate and former truck driver would like to debate here one of those theologians now, by the grace of God. '

You cannot assail the unassailable i.e. the faith and interpretation of the early Church Fathers as to the teachings of the Church.

The literal "unanimous consent” of the fathers is more bombast.

The fact is that according to Rome, she judges the "fathers" more than they do her, and in fact history, tradition and Scripture, truth and error, only officially consist of and mean what she says. Which includes claiming Scriptural support but which is contrived and contradictory, and “unanimous consent” of the fathers" when it is not a reality, and in contradiction to some.

You blithely ignore the writings of many of them, some whom were contemporaries of the Evangelist John.

"Some?" Exaggeration much? How many, and what documentation do you have for this, outside of possibly Polycarp, of whom we have very little on? And why o why should any of their words be the standard for Truth, and Rome's interpretation of them, versus what Scripture manifestly teaches? Which does not teach the NT believed many things Rome holds.

You gloss over the unwritten Word of God (Jn: 21:25) which ONLY the Church carried forward.

Which means you uphold a virtually bottomless pit of amorphous tradition, which even due to its form is supremely susceptible to undetectably corruption, unlike Scripture, and which in reality rests upon the spurious basis of the novel unScriptural premise of ensured magisterial infallibility of Rome. Which even finds disagreement with the tradition-based EOs.

But you gloss over the written Word which does not say that the oral word contains anything that was not subsequently written and necessary for all Christians, while in contrast what John says is,

And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name. (John 20:30-31)

And that is was not oral tradition that the Lord invoked in defeating the devil, as well as the the scribes and Pharisees, and opened the minds of the disciples to, and that Peter, Paul and Apollos reasoned from, but Scripture. (Mt. 4:4; 22:23-45; Lk. 24:27,44; Acts 2:19-40; 17:2; 18:28; 28:23) Which also validated the miraculous value of signs and wonders as attestation.

And that as written, Scripture became the transcendent supreme standard for obedience and testing and establishing truth claims as the wholly Divinely inspired and assured, Word of God. As is abundantly evidenced

And which testifies (Lk. 24:27,44; Acts 17:2,11; 18:28; 28:23, etc.) to writings of God being recognized and established as being so (essentially due to their unique and enduring heavenly qualities and attestation), and thus they materially provide for a canon of Scripture (as well as for reason, the church, etc.)

There was no other Church at the time.

Which Scriptures easily manifest that this was not the church of Rome, while the body of Christ always continued, even though it was expressed thru visible churches which also expressed the faith of tares, as Rome increasingly did .

At the end of the day, as it has been for over 2000 years, there is ONE Church and the rest is all drivel

More fantasy, while your "drivel" (worthless message) contradicts your own modern church which affirms,

Lumen Gentium: "..there are many who honor Sacred Scripture, taking it as a norm of belief and a pattern of life, and who show a sincere zeal. They lovingly believe in God the Father Almighty and in Christ, the Son of God and Saviour. (Cf. Jn. 16:13) They are consecrated by baptism, in which they are united with Christ. They also recognize and accept other sacraments within their own Churches or ecclesiastical [Protestant] communities…"

• "They also share with us in prayer and other spiritual benefits. Likewise we can say that in some real way they are joined with us in the Holy Spirit, for to them too He gives His gifts and graces whereby He is operative among them with His sanctifying power. Some indeed He has strengthened to the extent of the shedding of their blood." — LUMEN GENTIUM: 16.

Thus far you have contradicted Scripture, history and your own church.

No wonder Protestantism has been reduced to a Saturday Night caricature from the likes of TD Jakes to Joel Osteen.

More sophistry, as in reality the convenient one-size-fits-all RC definition of Protestant is so broad that you can drive a Unitarian Scientology Swedenborgian Episcopalian 747 thru it.

In contrast, and as shown, those who hold most strongly to the most fundamental distinctive of the Reformation are far more unified in basic Scriptural values and beliefs than the fruit of Catholicism, which itself exists in schisms and sects. And rather than being disunified drivel, both Rome and liberal treat evangelicals as their greatest threat in the West.

Thus their constant propaganda here, which continually has been exposed as being so. Thanks for another opportunity to do so, by God's grace.

Martin Luther may have been, or had chosen to work for, the dragon released from The Abyss after “The Thousand Year Reign” described in Revelation 20. That Chapter tells us that after the dragon, or satan, is allowed to emerge from the abyss he will “deceive the nations”.

Which is more RC desperate deception. For not only do you have your eschatology dramatically wrong - unless you believe that the Lord returned, and devil was bound till the 15th c., and released - but Luther is hardly some pope which bound souls to obey him as an infallible autocratic entity, which unScriptural presumption belong to Rome.

Instead, it is Rome which has become as the gates of Hell for multitudes.

First, The Catholic Church ruled the spiritual kingdom of Christendom for a thousand years between the Fall of Rome and Martin Luther’s fragmenting of The Only Church Jesus Founded. That is the “Thousand Year Reign” than many of us can recall.

Thus you concur with those how hold that Catholic Church really began around the time of Fall of Rome, not Pentecost, and thus indict Rome as Babylon! And

Secondly, the disturbing reality for RCs who see their past with Rome-colored glasses is that she was not unified, by saw division long before Luther.

Going as far back as the 5th c., Samuel Hugh Moffett in "A History of Christianity in Asia," writes,

What finally divided the early church, East from West, Asia from Europe, was neither war nor persecution, but the blight of a violent theological controversy, that raged through the Mediterranean world in the second quarter of the fifth century. It came to be called the Nestorian controversy, and how much of it was theological and how much political is still being debated, but it irreversibly split the church not only east and west but also north and south and cracked it into so many pieces that it was never the same again. Out of it came an ill-fitting name for the church in non-Roman Asia, "Nestorian."

And here is a video of the Eastern Orthodox bishop Kallistos Ware flatly stating that the Churches of the East never held to "Nestorianism", and that "Nestorius himself did not hold the Nestorian heresy": http://www.oltv.tv/id518.html

Then you had the big split between East and West, which see significant differences today that refuse to go away. Which is a real split with 2 competitors for the title of "one true church," regardless of their common worship of wafer and effectively of their Mary .

And then further one, rather than unity, leading up to the Reformation you had this mess. As Cardinal Ratzinger found:

"It is against this background of a profoundly shaken ecclesial consciousness that we are to understand that Luther, in the conflict between his search for salvation and the tradition of the Church, ultimately came to experience the Church, not as the guarantor, but as the adversary of salvation. (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Sacred Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith for the Church of Rome, “Principles of Catholic Theology,” trans. by Sister Mary Frances McCarthy, S.N.D. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989) p.196). http://www.whitehorseinn.org/blog/2012/06/13/whos-in-charge-here-the-illusions-of-church-infallibility/)

Cardinal Bellarmine:

"Some years before the rise of the Lutheran and Calvinistic heresy, according to the testimony of those who were then alive, there was almost an entire abandonment of equity in ecclesiastical judgments; in morals, no discipline; in sacred literature, no erudition; in divine things, no reverence; religion was almost extinct. (Concio XXVIII. Opp. Vi. 296- Colon 1617, in “A History of the Articles of Religion,” by Charles Hardwick, Cp. 1, p. 10,)

• Catholic historian Paul Johnson additionally described the existing social situation among the clergy at the time of the Reformation:

“Probably as many as half the men in orders had ‘wives’ and families. Behind all the New Learning and the theological debates, clerical celibacy was, in its own way, the biggest single issue at the Reformation. It was a great social problem and, other factors being equal, it tended to tip the balance in favour of reform. As a rule, the only hope for a child of a priest was to go into the Church himself, thus unwillingly or with no great enthusiasm, taking vows which he might subsequently regret: the evil tended to perpetuate itself.” (History of Christianity, pgs 269-270)

• In the summer of 1536 [10 years before Luther died], Pope Paul III appointed Cardinals Contarini and Cafara and a commission to study church Reform. The report of this commission, the Consilium de emendanda ecclesiae, was completed in March 1537. The final paragraphs deal with the corruptions of Renaissance Rome itself:

“the swarm of sordid and ignorant priests in the city, the harlots who are followed around by clerics and by the noble members of the cardinals’ households …”

“The immediate effects of the Consilium fell far below the hopes of its authors and its very frankness hampered its public use. … the more noticeably pious prelates [note: this the “noticeably pious” clergy] had no longer to tolerate the open cynicism of the Medicean period, and when moral lapses by clerics came to light, pains were now taken to hush them up as matters of grievous scandal.” (G. Dickens, “The Counter Reformation,” pp. 100,102)

Something here about fair and balanced reporting.

Secondly, the fragmentation that Martin Luther began did result in the metastasizing of One Church into 43,000 Somewhat Christian denominations.

Which is an invalid argument, for,

1. Using the same source from which even the lower often posted and refuted exaggerated figure of 33k is obtained, then over 1,000 Catholic denominations can be obtained. See here .

2. The RC definition of Protestant here is so wide as to be largely meaningless, and in some cases is more unwarranted than calling the Santeria religion Catholic.

3. RCs cannot claim their church to be more unified than certain particular denominations she calls Protestants.

4 . Nor can unity itself be the criteria for validity. And Scripture affirms division is necessary, and the church itself began with division from the historical magisterium.

5. What what one professes does not constitute the evidence of what they really believe, but what they do and effect. (Mt. 7:20; Ja. 2:18) And the doctrinal unity of Rome is very limited in much of any detail and largely on paper.

6. If you separated RCs according to what they believed then you would multitudes of different kinds of Caths, which their church implicitly sanctions, effectually conveying what she really believes.

7. Rome owed her unity largely to the unScriptural use of the sword of men, which Damasus 1 began to employ way back in the 4th c. for ecclesiastical discipline. The divisions following the dissent of the Reformation were largely due to Rome having lost that power, and the move away from church-states, and as seen today, she cannot keep her flock in unity by Scriptural means.

Thus you cannot argue that the Catholic model for unity solves the problem of division, as both Catholics and Prots see division, nor can you define the latter as Protestant merely because they are not Catholic.

Instead, a valid comparison would be between churches based upon their fundamental basis for determination of Truth. In which you have two models, that of Scripture being supreme as literally being the wholly inspired infallible word of God, versus the magisterium of the church being supreme, as possessing ensured veracity, otherwise known.

And with unity being based not on official paper professions, but what those she counts as members believe and manifest.

Under the later model you do have the easiest means of unity, as seen in cults in which strict conformity to the supreme leader(s) is enforced, while in Rome it no longer is, and instead Caths testify to a greater variance than most with official teaching, and each other, as well as in things not infallibly defined. All of which is effectually sanctioned. Every time a liberal proabortion/sodomite/Muslim pol is honored in a church funeral as a Catholic and child of God, that alone interprets church teaching for the people, and teaches that no matter what you profess and so, Rome will get to to glory eventually thru her professed merits.

But in either case that is not the basis for Scriptural unity, as the NT church did not begin nor see its unity under the premise of ensured magisterial veracity, though it did begin under manifest apostles of God, (the qualifications and credentials of which Rome fails of. (Acts 1:21,22; 1Cor. 9:1; Gal. 1:11,12; 2Cor. 6:1-0; 12:12)

But both their own reputation and their Truth claims were established upon Scriptural substantiation in word and in power.

And it is those people which testify to the strongest belief in the fundamental distinctive of the Reformation, that of strongly holding Scripture as literally being the supreme wholly inspired word of God that are the most conservative and unified in core beliefs overall.

Because there is no longer one voice speaking for Christ, doers of evil have “deceived the nations” into accepting abortion and other mortal sins.

Nonsense. Catholics have as many or more abortions than Prots, and esp. more than evangelicals. While by placing the voice of a man, whose decrees are not wholly inspired of God, above Scripture then they are led astray for it.

As a result of the divisiveness begun by Luther, a billion unborn children have been killed by abortion.

More non-sense. He did not sanction abortion, and you cannot blame a liberator for what people do with freedom obtained for them. You might as well blame American Founders for crime, contrary to what they held to, due to liberating a people from a tyrant. Meanwhile the dissent of Luther is akin to not following the liberal Rome today.

It is impossible to deny that if it had not been for Martin Luther and the political disempowering of The Catholic Church that followed the Luther-inspired schisms, abortion would still be an illegal, unspeakable crime.

Which means that NKP_Vet affirms the unScriptural use of the sword of men, while the church ruling over those without, which is unseen and another part of Romanism which is clearly contrary to the NT church. You simply advocate for institution that is foreign to Scripture.

And as you require political empowering The Catholic Church as before in order to make abortion an illegal, unspeakable crime,, which it is in God's sight, then you confess that Rome is unable to bring her own people to do so by Scriptural means.

Meanwhile, if you want to see that and sodomy outlawed, then your strongest group of supporters will be evangelicals, not those your church counts as members.

There are four reasons why our Savior’s words in John 6:26-72 ~~cannot~~ CAN be understood as an analogy or a metaphor.

John only has 71 verses... (Picky; for the D-R splits verse 51 into two verses) (Or the KJV combines 51&52) let's fight over which is right in another thread.

1. Jesus' actual flesh is long gone into Heaven.
2. "This is my flesh" is kinda mindboggling since His FLESH was holding BREAD and speaking at the time.
3. Jesus used a LOT of analogies and methphors in His ministry; why single THIS one out for special treatment?
4. They were having a YEARLY meal of REMEMBERANCE; which PROPHISIED the Messiah's coming.

Kinda hard to eat what ain't around.
Kinda hard to have TWO sets of flesh at the same time.
Kinda hard to reason with VIPERS and WHITEWASHED tombs; or even dogs!
No wonder folks were confused; for they'd been eating the symbolic 'flesh' of the Messiah all along and never realized it!

John 6:26-71 KJV

26 Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.
27 Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.
28 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
30 They said therefore unto him, What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? what dost thou work?
31 Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.
32 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.
33 For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.
34 Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.
35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.
36 But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not.
37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
38 For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.
39 And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.
40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.
41 The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven.
42 And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven?
43 Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves.
44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
45 It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.
46 Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father.
47 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
48 I am that bread of life.
49 Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
50 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.
51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven:

if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
52 The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
53 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
54 Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
55 For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
56 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.
57 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.
58 This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.
59 These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum.
60 Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?
61 When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you?
62 What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?
63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
64 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.
65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.
66 From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.
67 Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?
68 Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.
69 And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.
70 Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?
71 He spake of Judas Iscariot the son of Simon: for he it was that should betray him, being one of the twelve.

John 6:25-72 Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition (DRA)

26 Jesus answered them, and said: Amen, amen I say to you, you seek me, not because you have seen miracles, but because you did eat of the loaves, and were filled.
27 Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto life everlasting, which the Son of man will give you. For him hath God, the Father, sealed.
28 They said therefore unto him: What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?
29 Jesus answered, and said to them: This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he hath sent.
30 They said therefore to him: What sign therefore dost thou shew, that we may see, and may believe thee? What dost thou work?
31 Our fathers did eat manna in the desert, as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat.
32 Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say to you; Moses gave you not bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.
33 For the bread of God is that which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life to the world.
34 They said therefore unto him: Lord, give us always this bread.
35 And Jesus said to them: I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall not hunger: and he that believeth in me shall never thirst.
36 But I said unto you, that you also have seen me, and you believe not.
37 All that the Father giveth to me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me, I will not cast out.
38 Because I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me.
39 Now this is the will of the Father who sent me: that of all that he hath given me, I should lose nothing; but should raise it up again in the last day.
40 And this is the will of my Father that sent me: that every one who seeth the Son, and believeth in him, may have life everlasting, and I will raise him up in the last day.
41 The Jews therefore murmured at him, because he had said: I am the living bread which came down from heaven.
42 And they said: Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How then saith he, I came down from heaven?
43 Jesus therefore answered, and said to them: Murmur not among yourselves.
44 No man can come to me, except the Father, who hath sent me, draw him; and I will raise him up in the last day.
45 It is written in the prophets: And they shall all be taught of God. Every one that hath heard of the Father, and hath learned, cometh to me.
46 Not that any man hath seen the Father; but he who is of God, he hath seen the Father.
47 Amen, amen I say unto you: He that believeth in me, hath everlasting life.
48 I am the bread of life.
49 Your fathers did eat manna in the desert, and are dead.
50 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven; that if any man eat of it, he may not die.
51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven.
52 If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world.
53 The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
54 Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.
55 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day.
56 For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed.
57 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him.
58 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me.
59 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead. He that eateth this bread, shall live for ever.
60 These things he said, teaching in the synagogue, in Capharnaum.
61 Many therefore of his disciples, hearing it, said: This saying is hard, and who can hear it?
62 But Jesus, knowing in himself, that his disciples murmured at this, said to them: Doth this scandalize you?
63 If then you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?
64 It is the spirit that quickeneth: the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I have spoken to you, are spirit and life.
65 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning, who they were that did not believe, and who he was, that would betray him.
66 And he said: Therefore did I say to you, that no man can come to me, unless it be given him by my Father.
67 After this many of his disciples went back; and walked no more with him.
68 Then Jesus said to the twelve: Will you also go away?
69 And Simon Peter answered him: Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.
70 And we have believed and have known, that thou art the Christ, the Son of God.
71 Jesus answered them: Have not I chosen you twelve; and one of you is a devil?
72 Now he meant Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon: for this same was about to betray him, whereas he was one of the twelve.

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