ἐπιούσιος (e-pe-ü'-se-os): “Give us this day our epiousion bread”—Part III: John 6 & The Church Fathers: The Living Bread of New Creation

[Reading time: John 6: 7 minutes; The Fathers: 8 minutes]

Having reviewed the only two uses of ἐπιούσιος in the NT, both occurring in the Lord’s Prayer first in Matthew 6 then in Luke 11, we now move to what it modifies—ἄρτος (ä'r-tos): “Bread.” To do so, we will focus briefly on the narrative of John 6, where artos occurs 21x climaxing in Jesus’ declarations that He Himself is the “Bread of Life”, which “comes down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die”; that He is the “Living Bread” which “if any man eat will live for ever”; because this “bread” is that which He “will give for the life of the world“ (Jn 6:48-51).

John 6: Summary Synthesis

The material bread of This Age supports our physical life for the present moment—”Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead.” The Bread of Life, the Living Bread which came down from heaven, is that which will sustain us not only for the present moment but throughout the entirety of our lives into eternity—”Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.”

What is this Bread?

It is none other than Christ Himself—“I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”

“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink.”

How, then, do we “eat"“ the flesh of Christ and “drink” His blood?

As we believe—“I am the Bread of life (ἄρτος τῆς ζωῆς). He who comes (ὁ ἐρχόμενος) to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes (ὁ πιστεύων) in Me shall never thirst.” “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes (πιστεύων) in Me has everlasting life.” “The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.”

What shall we do, that we may work (ἵνα ἐργαζώμεθα) the works of God? (τὰ ἔργα τοῦ θεοῦ)” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God (τὸ ἔργον τοῦ θεοῦ) that you believe (ἵνα πιστεύσητε) in Him whom He sent.”

What is the effect?

”He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides (μένει) in Me, and I in him.” (cf. Jn 15:4-8). As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds (ὁ τρώγων) on Me will live because of Me.

Detailed Analysis

The Setting: Signs, Healing & the Passover (6:1-4)

As this chapter is 71 verses in length, rather than attempting an in-depth analysis of each verse, we will look primarily at the opening verses which set the scene for the remainder of the chapter.

The Sign of Healing: Transient or eternal?

The narrative opens when Jesus and His disciples pass over to the Sea of Galilee with a “great multitude” following Him. Their reason for doing so was “because they saw the signs (σημεῖα [sa-ma'-a])”, which He had performed on those who were in a weakened state of sickness and disease (ἀσθενούντων, From ä-sthe-ne'-o: ἀ [the negative particle] + σθενόω [To be strong], Jn 6:1-3). When the Kingdom of God comes into this Fallen Age which is weakened and broken down by the operating power of sin, it begins the process of recreation and renewal.

The previous chapter had begun with Christ healing a man in such a state of weakness (ἐν τῇ ἀσθενείᾳ) “for the past 38 years” (Jn 5:5). Yet fascinatingly enough, the world’s response to his restoration into wholeness (ὑγιὴς, 5:6, 9, 14, 15) was not joy but rather murderous rage (“On account of this [διὰ τοῦτο] did the Jews persecute Him and seek to kill Him”, 5:16). There is a deep resistance in This Fallen Age to the coming of God’s Kingdom with the mind/heart/spirit of fallen man at war with the Kingdom of Righteousness, seeking nothing less than its total destruction (cf. Rom 8:5-11).

Yet, while the religious establishment seeks Christ for the one purpose of destroying Him because He has such power to heal and restore, the “crowds” follow after Him in order to experience such healing power (θεραπεύω, 5:10). In the remainder of this section, however, Jesus will reveal that even such a desire for healing can be insufficient. They key is what healing we are actually seeking. And we will know it by its effects.

Healing in terms of This Fallen Age, just like the benefit of material bread, is only transient—We were sick; we’re better (but can get sick again). We were hungry; now we’re full (but even now are getting hungry again…). If this temporary satisfaction is what we principally seek then the outcome will not only be short-lived, but will leave us trapped in the anxiety of the ever-approaching need/desire/want.

This is not the healing that comes in and through Christ; nor the sustenance He desires to bring us. His healing renovates the wellsprings of our personalities such that we desire not what momentarily satiates us but what eternally gratifies our every need (Ps 37:3-4).

The Passover Movement

“And Jesus went up on the mountain and there sat with His disciples” (6:3). Just as in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus, “seeing the multitudes, went up on a mountain” and when “His disciples came to Him”, He “opened His mouth and taught them” (Mt 5:1-2).

The questions we now ask is, What will He be teaching?

What follows are not words but actions and signs that prepare us to receive His Teaching. Focusing our expectations even further, the Apostle John adds the very important phrase, “Now the Passover (πάσχα [pä'-skhä]) was near” (6:4).

What happened at Passover?

'“Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: ‘On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household …You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight…

“Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitterness (מֶרֹר [mer·ore]). Why “with bitterness”? This word occurs only two other times in the OT. The first is a parallel to this Passover passage in Numbers 9:11. The second, however, occurring in the Book of Lamentations reveals the source of this bitterness as Jerusalem is overrun and the Temple destroyed.

“He has filled me with bitterness (בַמְּרוֹרִ֖ים), He has made me drink wormwood.” The “affliction” by the “rod of His wrath”, the experience of “darkness”, the siege of “anguish and tribulation” is now focused on a Person (Lam 3:1-6).

And the response, “I said, ‘My strength and my hope Have perished from the Lord.’ Remember my affliction and roaming, The wormwood and the gall. My soul still remembers And sinks within me. This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope.

Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.

The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul. ‘Therefore I hope in Him!’

The Exodus passage continues, '“They shall eat it…So you shall eat it in haste. It is the LORD’s Passover (Ex 12:3, 6, 8).

What is the role of Pascha in the Gospel of John?

Movement 1: The Temple of Christ’s Body

Occurring a total of 10x in three movements, the Pascha has been viewed as an organizing structure in the Gospel of John. In the first movement, Christ enters Jerusalem to cleanse the Temple when the “Passover of the Jews was at hand” (ἐγγὺς ἦν τὸ πάσχα τῶν Ἰουδαίων, Jn 2:13—#1). In so doing, the Evangelist immediately reveals to us that the inauguration of Jesus’ ministry is inextricably tied with purification of the Place where God meets man. This Place, according to the prior chapter, is none other than God, the Word, Who “became flesh” (ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο) and “tabernacled among us" (ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν, Jn 1:14). The Temple with its priesthood had devolved into a fallen institution of man-centered religion (οἶκον ἐμπορίου, Jn 2:16), rather than being an intersection point of New Creation in This Fallen Age (Ex 40:18->24).

The sign (σημεῖον) that Christ gives in this opening Passover movement is that false, man-centered religion will ultimately “destroy” the true Temple” (Λύσατε, From λύω [lü'-o]) yet He will “raise it up (ἐγερῶ [e-ga'-ro]) in three days” (2:19). It is only Jesus Who could do so “as He was speaking about the Temple of His Body” (Jn 2:21-> Jn 10:18). No longer would the meeting place between God and man be a corruptable manmade structure, which could be destroyed. Now the intersection point of New Creation will be the eternally living Body of the crucified, risen and glorified Son of God.

Movement 2: The Bread of Christ’s Body

The next occurrence of Pascha reveals how mankind becomes united to the Temple of Christ’s Body. In this movement Jesus is no longer in Jerusalem but, as Moses before Him, is out in the wilderness with Israel following Him (6:2-3). The “Passover” being “near” (ἐγγὺς τὸ πάσχα, 6:4—#2), Jesus performs the Messianic “sign” of feeding the 5000 (6:5-14; cf. II Ki 4:42-44), then “withdraws alone into the mountain” when the Israelites come to “seize Him and make Him king” (ἁρπάζειν αὐτὸν ἵνα ποιήσωσιν βασιλέα, 6:15).

When the masses later find Him “on the other side of the sea” (6:22-25), Jesus then begins what has been called the “Bread of Life discourse” (6:6-59). And His opening words show that what He offers them is neither material nor temporary but spiritual and everlasting—

“You seek Me, not because you saw the signs (σημεῖα), but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. 

Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you” (6:26-27).

Christ then reveals that the Bread which the Son of God gives is not the manna which their “fathers ate in the wilderness and are dead” (6:49). Rather, it is Christ Himself Who is the “Living Bread that came down from Heaven”, Whose “flesh is the true food” (σάρξ μου ἀληθής ἐστι βρῶσις) and Whose “blood is the true drink” (αἷμά μου ⸁ἀληθής ἐστι πόσις, 6:50-55).

His Body and Blood are the Eucharist, the Feast of the Eternal Kingdom”

This Life-giving Truth, however, is received by the masses not with joy but with scandal and confusion (Τοῦτο ὑμᾶς σκανδαλίζει, 6:60-62). Controlled by the flesh and unable to receive the words of the Spirit (6:63-65), the result is that “from that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more” (6:66).

The scene ends with Christ asking Peter, “Do you want to go away too? Peter , however, responds, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (ῥήματα ζωῆς αἰωνίου, 6:67-68).

Movement 3: The Passion of Christ

The next movement begins in the wilderness and ends in Jerusalem. After Christ’s seventh and final sign comprised in the raising of Lazarus from the dead (11:1-44), He withdraws to the uncultivated hill-country of Ephraim as the religious leaders “conspired together (συνεβουλεύσαντο) to put Him to death” (11:53), From here Jesus then begins the 13 mile trek “up to Jerusalem” when the “Passover was near” (ἐγγὺς τὸ πάσχα, 11:55—#3). This marks the third and final Paschal pilgrimage which will ultimately lead to His Passion.

Passing through Bethany “six days before the Passover” He is anointed by Mary “for the day of His burial” (12:1, 7). Then the night before the Passover, “when Jesus knew that His hour had come” in the very moments when Judas is preparing to betray Him, He “lays aside His garments”, takes a towel and washes the feet of His disciples (13:1, 4). In the ensuing hours the religious leaders arrest and condemn Jesus, all the while maintaining their external religiosity in refusing to “go into the Praetorium” lest they be “defiled” while eating the “Passover” (18:28).

Once they consume the Passover meal, they then incite the people to refuse the release of Jesus, the release of a prisoner being a “custom” (συνήθεια) “at the Passover”, and instead call for the release Barabbas (18:39), a robber and murderer who had incited a rebellion (Mk 15:7, Lk 23:19, Jn 18:40). Their murderous conspiracy accomplished with the crowds crying out and Pilate giving way, they take Jesus away on the “Preparation Day of the Passover” at “about the sixth hour” that He may be crucified (ἵνα σταυρωθῇ, 19:14).

As this final movement ends, our eternal life in Christ begins. The Apostle Paul later connects the OT Passover Feast with the Passion of Jesus in his words, “Christ, our Passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast” (I Cor 5:7b-8a). The wording here is literally rendered “The Passover of us” (πάσχα ἡμῶν) on behalf of us (ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν) is sacrificed (ἐτύθη)—Christ (Χριστός).” That is to say, the first word is “Pascha” and the final word “Christ.” Our Passover Feast is Christ Himself. And this Feast is the Feast of the New Creation, which will “endures unto Life eternal.”

THE FATHERS

On “The Epiousion Bread” (Not exhaustive but a quick survey)

2nd Century

ORIGEN (On Prayer, p. 44)

Give us today our Needful Bread, or as Luke has it, Give us daily our Needful Bread. Seeing that some suppose that it is meant that we should pray for material bread, their erroneous opinion deserves to be done away with and the truth about the needful bread set forth, in the following manner. We may put the question to them—how can it be that He, who says that heavenly and great things ought to be asked for as if, on their view, He has forgotten His teaching now enjoins the offering of intercession to the Father for an earthly and little thing, since neither is the bread which is assimilated into our flesh a heavenly thing nor is it asking a great thing to request it?

For my part I shall follow the Teacher’s own teaching as to the bread and cite the passages in detail. To men who have come to Capernaum to seek Him He says, in the Gospel according to John, Verily, verily, I tell you you seek me not because you saw signs but because you ate of the loaves of bread and were filled . . . for he that has eaten and been filled with the loaves of bread which have been blessed by Jesus seeks the more to grasp the Son of God more closely and hastens toward Him.

Wherefore He will enjoin: Work not for the food that perishes but for the food that abides unto life eternal which the Son of Man shall give you. And when, upon that, they who had heard inquired and said: What are we to do that we may work the works of God? Jesus answered and said to them: This is the work of God that you believe on him whom He has sent. As it is written in Psalms, God sent His Word and healed them, that is the diseased, and believers in that Word work the works of God which are food that abides unto life eternal.

And my Father, He says, gives you the true bread from heaven, for the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. It is true bread that nourishes the true man who is made in God’s image, and he that has been nourished by it also becomes in the Creator’s likeness. What is more nourishing to the soul than Word, or what more precious to the mind of him that is capable of receiving it than the Wisdom of God?

What is more congenial to the rational nature than Truth? Should it be urged in objection to this view that He would not in that case teach men to ask for needful bread as if something other than Himself, it is to be noted that He also discourses in the Gospel according to John sometimes as if it were other than Himself but at other times as if He is Himself the Bread. The former in the sense of the words: Moses hath given you the bread from heaven yet not the true bread, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.

In the latter sense, to those who had said to Him Ever give us this bread, He says: I am the bread of life: he that comes unto me shall not hunger, and he that believes on me shall not thirst; and shortly after: I am the living bread that is come down from heaven: if anyone eat of this bread he shall live unto eternity: yea and the bread which I shall give is my flesh which I shall give for the sake of the life of the world.

Now since all manner of nourishment is spoken of as bread according to Scripture as is clear from the fact that it is recorded of Moses that he ate not bread and drank not water forty days, and since the nourishing Word is manifold and various, not all being capable of nourishment by the solidity and strength of the divine teachings, He is therefore pleased to offer strenuous nourishment befitting men more perfect, where He says:

The bread which I shall give is my flesh which I shall give for the sake of the life of the world: and shortly after: Except you eat the flesh of the son of Man and drinks His blood, you have not life in yourselves. He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood hath life eternal, and I will raise him up in the last day. for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him.As the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so also he that eats me—he too shall live because of me. This is the true food, Christ’s flesh, which being Word has become flesh, as it is said And the Word became flesh. When we eat and drink the Word He tabernacles in us.

When He is assimilated the words are fulfilled: We beheld His glory. This is the bread that is come down from heaven. Not as the fathers ate and died, he that eats this bread shall live unto eternity.

3rd Century

CYPRIAN. (ubi sup.)

For Christ is the bread of life, and this bread belongs not to all men, but to us. This bread we pray that it be given day by day, lest we who are in Christ, and who daily receive the Eucharist for food of salvation, should by the admission of any grievous crime, and our being therefore forbidden the heavenly bread, be separated from the body of Christ. Hence then we pray, that we who abide in Christ, may not draw back from His sanctification and His body.

(Tr. vii. 14.) Justly therefore does the disciple of Christ make petition for to-day’s provision, without indulging excessive longings in his prayer. It were a self-contradicting and incompatible thing for us who pray that the kingdom of God may quickly come, to be looking unto long life in the world below.

4th Century

JEROME

The Greek word here which we render ‘supersubstantialis,’ is ἐπιούσιος. The LXX often make use of the word περιούσιος, by which we find, on reference to the Hebrew, they always render the word sogolac. Symmachus translates it ἐξαίρετος, that is, ‘chief,’ or ‘excellent,’ though in one place he has interpreted ‘peculiar.’ When then we pray God to give us our ‘peculiar’ or ‘chief’ bread, we mean Him who says in the Gospel, I am the living bread which came down from heaven. (John 6:51.) CYPRIAN. (ubi sup.) For Christ is the bread of life, and this bread belongs not to all men, but to us. This bread we pray that it be given day by day, lest we who are in Christ, and who daily receive the Eucharist for food of salvation, should by the admission of any grievous crime, and our being therefore forbidden the heavenly bread, be separated from the body of Christ. Hence then we pray, that we who abide in Christ, may not draw back from His sanctification and His body. JEROME. The Greek word here which we render ‘supersubstantialis,’ is ἐπιούσιος. The LXX often make use of the word περιούσιος, by which we find, on reference to the Hebrew, they always render the word sogolac. Symmachus translates it ἐξαίρετος, that is, ‘chief,’ or ‘excellent,’ though in one place he has interpreted ‘peculiar.’ When then we pray God to give us our ‘peculiar’ or ‘chief’ bread, we mean Him who says in the Gospel, I am the living bread which came down from heaven. (John 6:51.)

…We may also interpret the word ‘supersubstantialis’ otherwise, as that which is above all other substances, and more excellent than all creatures, to wit, the body of the Lord.

…In the Gospel, entitled The Gospel according to the Hebrews, ‘supersubstantialis’ is rendered ‘mohar,’ that is ‘to-morrow’s;’ so that the sense would be, Give us today to-morrow’s bread; i. e. for the time to come.

7th Century

MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR (Commentary On the Lord's Prayer)

Let our intelligence, then, be moved to seek God, let our desire be roused in longing for Him, and let our incensive power struggle to keep guard over our attachment to Him. Or, more precisely, let our whole intellect be directed towards God, tensed by our incensive power as if by some nerve, and fired with longing by our desire at its most ardent. For if we imitate the heavenly angels in this way, we will find ourselves always worshipping God, behaving on earth as the angels do in heaven. For, like that of the angels, our intellect will not be attracted in the least by anything less than God.

If we live in the way we have promised, we will receive, as daily and life-giving bread for the nourishment of our souls and the maintenance of the good state with which we have been blessed, the Logos Himself; for if was He who said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven and gives life to the world', (cf. John 6:33-35). In proportion to our capacity the Logos will become everything for us who are nourished through virtue and wisdom; and in accordance with His own judgment He will be embodied differently in each recipient of salvation while we are still living in this age.

This is indicated in the phrase of the prayer which says, 'Give us this day our daily bread" (Matt. 6:11). I believe that the expression "this day" refers to the present age. It is as if one should say, after a clearer understanding of the context of the prayer, "Since we are in this present mortal life, give us this day our daily bread which Thou hast originally prepared for human nature so that it might become immortal (cf Gen. 1:9); for in this way the food of the bread of life and knowledge will triumph over the death that comes through sin." The transgression of the divine commandment prevented the first man from partaking of this bread (cf. Gen. 3:19). Indeed, had he taken his fill of this divine food, he would not have been made subject to death through sin.

He who prays to receive this daily bread, however, does not automatically receive it all as it is in itself: he receives it in accordance with his receptive capacity. For the Bread of Life in His love gives Himself to all who ask, but He does not give to all in the same way. He gives liberally to those who have done great things, and more sparingly to those who have achieved less. Thus He gives to each person in accordance with the receptive capacity of his or her intellect.

The Savior Himself has led me to this interpretation of the phrase we are considering, because He commands His disciples explicitly not to take any thought at all for sensible food saying, "Do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will put on. For the heathen seek all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things as well will be given to you' (Matt. 6:25, 32, 33).

How then can it be that He teaches us to pray for what He commands us not to seek? Obviously He does not order us to do anything of the kind: we should ask in prayer only for things that we are commanded to seek. If the Savior commanded us to seek only the kingdom of God and righteousness, then surely He intended those who desire divine gifts to ask for this kingdom in their prayers, in this way, by showing what petitions are blessed by His grace. He conjoins the intention of those who ask with the will of Him who bestows the grace.

If, however, we also take this clause to mean we should pray for the daily bread that sustains our present life, let us be careful not to overstep the bounds of the prayer, presumptuously assuming that we will live for many cycles of years and forgetting that we are mortal and that our life passes by like a shadow; but free from anxiety let us pray for bread sufficient for one day at a time, thus showing that as Christian philosophers we make life a rehearsal for death, in our purpose anticipating nature and, even before death comes, cutting off the soul's anxiety about bodily things.

In this way the soul will not transfer its natural appetite to material things, attaching itself to what is corruptible, and will not learn the greed that deprives it of a rich possession of divine blessings. Let us therefore shun the love of matter and our attachment to matter with all the strength we have, as if washing dust from our spiritual eyes; and let us be satisfied simply with what sustains our present life, not with what pampers it.

Let us pray to God for (his, as we have been taught, so that we may keep our souls unenslaved and absolutely free from domination by any of the visible things loved for the sake of the body. Let us show that we eat for the sake of living, and not be guilty of living for the sake of eating. The first is a sign of intelligence, the second proof of its absence. And let us be exact in the way we observe this prayer, thereby showing through our actions that we cleave fast to the one life lived in the spirit alone, and that we use our present life to acquire this spiritual life.

We use it, that is to say, only in so far as we do not refuse to sustain our body with bread and to keep it as far as possible in its natural state of good health, our aim being not just to live but to live for God. For we make the body, rendered intelligent by the virtues, a messenger of the soul, and the soul, once it is firmly established in the good, a herald of God; and on the natural plane we restrict our prayer for this bread to one day only, not daring to extend our petition for it to a second day because of Him who gave us the prayer. When we have thus conformed ourselves to the sense of the prayer, we can proceed, in purity to the next petition, saying, 'And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors' (Matt. 6:12).