Brief Commentaries on St. John Chapter Six, Part One: The Feeding of the 5,000 (6: 1 – 15)
Posted: April 30, 2018 Filed under: The Eucharist and Living the Eucharist | Tags: 000, 000 and the Eucharist, 000 is a New Testament type of the Eucharist: John chapter six, Feeding of the 5, Jesus Eucharistic actions in St. John's account of the Feeding of the 5, St. John 6: 1 - 15, The 12 baskets full of leftover pieces of bread correspond to the Apostle's care of the Eucharistic Bread, The Eucharist in John 6: 1 -15, The Eucharist in St. John Chapter Six, the Feeding of the 5 1 Comment
As an introduction, the entirety of the sixth chapter of St. John’s gospel is to be taken as a whole. It is not to be fragmented into isolated parts that have no connection with one another. This can be stated because an inclusio holds the chapter together: the Greek phrase meta tauta (“after these things”) begins the chapter, and the same phrase begins chapter seven of this gospel. This phrase brackets the chapter together. Taken all as one, St. John’s sixth chapter is his teaching about the Eucharist.
The first event recorded by St. John in the sixth chapter is the miracle of the Feeding of the Five Thousand as recorded in verses 1 —15. This miracle is recorded in all four gospels. However, St. John interprets it, and presents it, differently than the accounts found in the three synoptic gospels. He sees this miracle as a New Testament type of the Eucharist.
Father Irenaeus Williams 