This is the bread which comes down from heaven.
Manna signified this bread; God's altar signified this bread. Those were
sacraments. In the signs they were diverse; in the thing which was signified
they were alike. Hear the apostle: For I would not that you should be ignorant,
brethren, says he, that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed
through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea;
and did all eat the same spiritual meat. Of course, the same spiritual meat; for
corporally it was another: since they ate manna, we eat another thing; but the
spiritual was the same as that which we eat. But our fathers, not the fathers
of those Jews; those to whom we are like, not those to whom they were like.
Moreover, he adds: And did all drink the same spiritual drink. They one kind of
drink, we another, but only in the visible form, which, however, signified the
same thing in its spiritual virtue. For how was it that they drank the same
drink? They drank, says he of the spiritual Rock that followed them, and that
Rock was Christ. 1 Corinthians 10:1-4 Thence the bread, thence the drink. The
rock was Christ in sign; the real Christ is in the Word and in flesh. And how
did they drink? The rock was smitten twice with a rod; the double smiting
signified the two wooden beams of the cross. This, then, is the bread that
comes down from heaven, that if any man eat thereof, he shall not die. But this
is what belongs to the virtue of the sacrament, not to the visible sacrament;
he that eats within, not without; who eats in his heart, not who presses with
his teeth.
Believers know the body of Christ, if they neglect
not to be the body of Christ. Let them become the body of Christ, if they wish
to live by the Spirit of Christ. None lives by the Spirit of Christ but the
body of Christ. Understand, my brethren, what I mean to say. You are a man; you
have both a spirit and a body. I call that a spirit which is called the soul;
that whereby it consists that you are a man, for you consist of soul and body.
And so you have an invisible spirit and a visible body. Tell me which lives of
the other: does your spirit live of your body, or your body of your spirit?
Every man that lives can answer; and he that cannot answer this, I know not
whether he lives: what does every man that lives answer? My body, of course,
lives by my spirit. Would you then also live by the Spirit of Christ. Be in the
body of Christ.
For surely my body does not live by your spirit.
My body lives by my spirit, and your body by your spirit. The body of Christ
cannot live but by the Spirit of Christ. It is for this that the Apostle Paul,
expounding this bread, says: One bread, says he, we being many are one body. 1
Corinthians 10:17 O mystery of piety! O sign of unity! O bond of charity! He
that would live has where to live, has whence to live. Let him draw near, let
him believe; let him be embodied, that he may be made to live. Let him not
shrink from the compact of members; let him not be a rotten member that
deserves to be cut off; let him not be a deformed member whereof to be ashamed;
let him be a fair, fit, and sound member; let him cleave to the body, live for
God by God: now let him labor on earth, that hereafter he may reign in heaven.
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