(Jn 6:1-15)

John 6:3 Jesus went up the mountain and there sat down with his disciples.

John 6:4 The Passover, the feast of the Jews, was near.

John 6:5 When Jesus had lifted up his eyes, he saw that a great crowd was coming to him, and he said to Philip, "Where can we buy bread so that these people may have something to eat?"

John 6:6 He said this to test him; for he knew well what he was about to do.

John 6:7 Philip answered him, "Two hundred denarii of bread is not enough even for each one to receive a piece."

John 6:8 Then one of the disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him:

John 6:9 "There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what is this to so many people?"

John 6:10 Jesus answered, "Let them sit down." There was much grass in the place. So they sat down, and there were about five thousand men.

John 6:11 Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who sat down, and the same he did with the fish, as long as they wanted.

John 6:12 And when they were full, he said to the disciples, 'Gather up the leftover pieces, that nothing may be lost.

"Jesus went up the mountain. The mountain in ancient times was considered the abode of divinity and the manifestation of its glory. Jesus therefore 'ascending' the mountain indicates his having ascended to divine glory. But Jesus ascending the mountain is caught in a particular position: "and there he sat down with his disciples". The sitting down with the disciples indicates the proper attitude of the teacher imparting his teachings. This scene also closely recalls another scene, that of Mount Sinai where Yahweh dwelt in his terrifying and glorious presence, imparting his teachings to Moses and the people (Ex 19:16-21). V. 3 then presents a glorified Jesus teaching his disciples from the mountain of his glory.

V. 4 introduces the miracle of the loaves and fishes by framing it within the Passover, which serves as the key to reading not only this miracle, but also the whole of ch. 6. Within this frame, the ancient Passover experience of Israel is reread and reinterpreted, which here becomes the figure of a new Passover. But when speaking of feasts, John never fails to make his disqualifying polemical note: the Passover is defined as "the feast of the Jews", an expression that recurs every time a feast appears in which the activity of Jesus is placed, underlining the extraneousness of the ancient cult, from which the new Christian one was to be definitively detached. The tone here is not only one of detachment, but at the same time also disqualifying. The name "Jews", in fact, in John's Gospel always acquires a strongly negative connotation, becoming synonymous with closure and unbelief.

V. 5 is divided into two parts: in the first Jesus, looking up, sees a large crowd coming towards him; in the second he asks Philip a question. Jesus is attracted by the crowd that 'came to him'; but his is a perplexed seeing, expressing doubts. In fact, the Greek verb used to indicate Jesus' seeing is "theasámenos", which expresses a seeing that reflects and questions, a doubtful seeing. This uncertainty of Jesus will find its confirmation in vv. 14-15, where the crowd understands Jesus as the messianic prophet come to raise the fortunes of Israel - and therefore they want to make him king. An interest completely unrelated to what Jesus meant by that miracle. Right from the start, therefore, John indicates how the miracle of the loaves moves within a framework of distrust (that of Jesus), and of distorted interpretation (that of the crowd).

The scene, almost suddenly, changes completely; Jesus' attention shifts from the crowd to the disciples: "he said to Philip: Where can we buy bread so that they may have something to eat?". The question posed here is fundamental: "WHERE can we buy bread so that these people may have something to eat?"; in fact, the question arises as to the origin of bread, the purpose of which is to feed the crowds. V. 5 then introduces the reader into the drama that is being played out: amidst mistrust, doubts, uncertainties, the great mystery of the divine origin of a bread destined to feed the crowds of people is set.

V. 7 reports Philip's obvious answer: "Two hundred denarii of bread are not enough even for everyone to receive a piece". It is a logical response, prompted by Jesus' "Where can we buy bread". It is he, therefore, who suggested the answer to Philip, he misled him in some way by pointing him to the commercial route, that of money as the solution to the problem. But the reader knows, because he is informed by v. 6, that this is a test to which Jesus subjects his disciples. Two hundred denarii is not enough. It is therefore a matter of bread that cannot be bought.

Vv. 8-9 widen the round of proposals to resolve Jesus' question, and Andrew intervenes alongside Philip. The latter comes up with the proposal of five barley loaves and two fish. It is already clear that this idea is not a solution. On their own they are insufficient to give an adequate response to the multitude of crowds.

Vv. 10-11, constitute the heart of the story. The two verses present two scenes, one (v. 10) preparatory to the other (v. 11) which together create the context of a convivial banquet. Jesus gives the command to the disciples to make men lie down; the command carries within itself a kind of implicit mission: that of making men sit down around the banquet of the bread of life. Jesus therefore in some way entrusts the disciples with the mystery of this banquet, around which a large crowd, indicated as five thousand men, is seated, highlighting the enormous and unbridgeable disproportion with the five loaves. The bread of man is therefore not able to feed the crowds that Jesus entrusted to his own.

But it is significant how between the command for the crowd to sit down and their sitting down, John points out that 'there was much grass in that place'. Tying Jesus' command to a grassy place closely recalls Ps 22:1-2: 'The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want; on grassy pastures he maketh me to lie down...'. The reference to grass thus alludes to Jesus as the shepherd of the new believing community, who makes them sit in grassy pastures. The "much grass" is a reference to the abundance proper to messianic times.

V. 11 is characterised by three movements of Jesus: "he took the loaves", "he gave thanks", "he distributed them"; three movements that we find in all the synoptic accounts of the Last Supper.

V. 12 opens by emphasising the theme of abundance: "And when they were full, he said to the disciples". Jesus, before addressing his disciples, waits until everyone has had their fill. For he came that all might have life and have it in abundance. But once this mission of his has been accomplished, it becomes necessary for others to seize the inheritance: 'Gather up the leftovers, that nothing may be lost'. The meaning of the Greek verb 'synagágete' (gather) is very dense. It means to gather, but also to gather, to put together, to convene. All meanings that pertain to the mission proper to the nascent Church, which consists in gathering the nations around the one Word, summoning them to the one table of the true Bread come down from heaven. The disciples' task, therefore, is to gather "the leftovers". It is not a matter of collecting the leftovers of food, but of receiving and welcoming the inheritance left by Jesus: the superabundance of his divine life, which became Bread for the nations, and which he now bequeaths to his own so that they may continue to offer this gift to the nations. A mission therefore aimed at the nations, but one that is subtended by a single purpose: "so that nothing may be lost".

This is not a work done out of antipathy towards Protestantism, or resentment towards evangelicals, but to defend the true faith, without warlike aspirations. I spent much of my life in the Protestant world, and late in life I discovered that I did not know the Catholic Church I was criticising at all, and it is this ignorance that leads many Catholics to allow themselves to be convinced or influenced by Protestants.  

These are divided into a myriad of denominations, some of which do not like to be called 'Protestant', but would like to be referred to only as 'Christian'. We also know that for Protestants, Catholics are not Christians, but idolaters and pagans; it follows that evangelicals in wanting to be called only 'Christians' aspire to the implicit recognition that they are the only 'true Christians'.

The problem is that only very few Protestants know the history of the Church; a great many only accuse by hearsay, but have never opened a book on Christian history over the centuries. All they need is what the pastor on duty says, a few pamphlets, and the internet to form their anti-Catholic 'culture'.

Many Protestants and/or Evangelicals, rather than being ashamed of their ignorance about Christianity, are proud of it, saying the classic phrase 'I am only interested in the Bible', a phrase that is already a whole programme. People's biblical-historical ignorance is essential in order to be able to guide them. A serious Protestant who would study the history of Christianity would have a good chance of ceasing to be a Protestant. 

In all Protestantism there is a do-it-yourself faith! The Holy Spirit guides us to understand the Bible well, it is true, but in the Protestant world, this pretext is used to cover an unrestrained and in some ways arrogant presumption, which leads every pastor to become a kind of infallible 'pope' in teaching people.

Presumption and arrogance are not immediately apparent - no one shows these faults so easily. They all seem God-fearing, observant of the Word and full of love for their neighbour. Too bad that their neighbour in most cases is the one who listens passively and does not contradict their biblical teachings. Those who dare to dissent are then no longer loved, often no longer greeted, and sometimes slandered. 

For a long time, thanks to Luther, the pope was considered the antichrist, therefore hated and accused, and so were all Catholic bishops and priests. Observant individual Catholics were also included in this climate. 

Protestants criticise papal infallibility, but in fact behave as infallibles; each in their own community, free to invent whatever they want, pulling the jacket on the Holy Spirit, as a guarantee of their doctrines! The result? A myriad of denominations with doctrines that often conflict heavily with each other.  

The problem lies in the great ignorance mixed with presumption that so many Protestants and/or Evangelicals have. Are Catholics less ignorant? No, most Catholics, unfortunately, are very ignorant in biblical matters, but at least they do not set themselves up as teachers to anyone who happens to be within their reach. The average Catholic is aware of his own ignorance, the average Protestant, on the other hand, is very presumptuous in biblical matters.

A Protestant who truly loved, as he says, the truth, would go and see for himself what the early Christians, our ancestors in the faith, wrote and how they lived, in order to understand if and how the Catholic Church is wrong, or where the Protestants are wrong in their interpretation of the Bible.    

Logically, rather than trusting a pastor who explains the Bible 2000 years later, it would be better to trust the early fathers, who learned Christian teaching directly from the voice of the apostles. Unfortunately, many Protestants do not use logic, but only anti-Catholic ideologies, cultivating a visceral dislike for everything Catholic, because they dismiss a priori the evidence of how the very first Christians lived, who lived after the apostles but before Constantine.  

The Christian faith is one, because the Spirit of God is one! So many take the wrong path, and we have a duty to understand who is in the right one and who is in the wrong one. Unity is the cohesion of the elements, of the parts that make up an entity (e.g. the cohesion between the parts of a car such as the body, the wheels, the engine, etc.) as Plotinus already said; if unity is lacking, that entity is also lacking and others may result, but no longer the entity it was before [if the cohesion of the body, wheels and engine is lacking, there is no longer the car entity, but rather the entities body, wheels, engine]. Here, Protestantism looks so much like the pile of sheet metal that a car once was. There is much criticism of the Catholic Church, but how many people know, for example, that Bultmann, a famous Lutheran Protestant theologian and exegete, reduced the resurrection to a theological symbol? Indeed, he did not consider it possible that physically Jesus was resurrected. In order to compare different biblical interpretations, one must have one's mind as clear as possible of ideologies and preconceptions. One must be open to any hypothesis if it is properly motivated and proven. If we rely on ideological prejudices that bind us to our doctrinal beliefs, we can do without reading or listening to any text or person; it is useless anyway. Our pride will prevent us from learning truths other than 'our own'. We often defend our biblical error with an impenetrable shell, we keep our truth, rejecting any other, which bangs on the shell and slips away. As soon as one touches the religious/spiritual plane, strangely enough, it is as if many pull the switch off their own mind, or at least a part of it. When Protestants converse with a Catholic, for example, they receive no information at all, only sounds that slip over their eardrums, but do not reach their brains. They do not listen.   

The history of Christianity means nothing to them, it is of no importance, except in the events to be held against them - see crusades, inquisitions, etc. - without knowing the true history of these events, and without knowing that the Protestants also had their wars, and also had their inquisitions, which were much bloodier than the Catholic ones.

They claim to be guided by the Holy Spirit, but strangely enough there are many groups that receive different and contradictory information from the same Holy Spirit, inexorably losing credibility. 

I realise that the Catholic Church has neglected the problem of Protestant proselytism. Evangelicals have been successful not because they are right, but simply because they find the Catholic people very ignorant in biblical matters, incapable of defending their faith properly, taking refuge behind the classic "I have no time to lose"; perhaps they even lose their faith... but time cannot be touched.   

Many Catholics claim to have faith in Jesus Christ, but this faith of theirs is only seen in times of need: when everything runs smoothly, Jesus is forgotten, and the Bible is of no interest to anyone to read. In contexts like these, evangelicals find a people who really need to be evangelised, by them. Many Catholics do not resist this proselytism because they have no biblical answers to give, only ignorance to hide. In such terrain the Protestant conquest is easy, and it is as if they were facing an unarmed army.   

But those who study the Bible and strive to deepen their understanding of the meaning of God's word realise that in reality Protestants are not at all the biblical teachers they appear to be, but are profoundly ignorant historians and biblical scholars, plagiarised by their sect of membership. By calling them ignorant I do not mean to offend them, for otherwise I would call them "false and liars". By calling them ignorant I acknowledge their good faith, they believe in some wrong doctrines, not realising that they are wrong.  

The point is that the Holy Spirit cannot contradict Himself, and so certainly the conflicting interpretations of different denominations cannot all be true, nor all inspired. Clearly, it is not possible for the same Spirit to suggest different doctrines to each. This creates watertight compartments, each Protestant group believing it is in the truth more than the others, isolating itself and preaching its own gospel. For example, according to the Adventists, all other Christian churches have abolished the Sabbath commandment by worshipping on Sunday, and therefore everyone except them is doomed to hell if they do not abolish Sunday as the Lord's Day. Of course, they justify these accusations of theirs with certain Bible verses, interpreting them in their own way. Here, this is the point that escapes all Protestants, classical and modern: the Bible cannot be interpreted subjectively, because the Truth is not subjective at all.

But being divided into watertight compartments, not communicating with one another, it is difficult for any of them to notice the doctrinal differences with other Protestants. If anyone does notice them, they pretend that they do not, or do not give them the proper weight, just believe in Jesus as our personal saviour. Their attention is only turned towards the Catholic Church, the enemy to be defeated! It is all too convenient to proudly claim that "I understand what is written in the Bible because the Holy Spirit guides me. God has hidden the truth from the wise and revealed it to the humble'. Here, every good Protestant uses such phrases to reject the interpretative authority of the fathers and doctors of the Church.In this context, we witness scenes in which any Protestant, of any degree of culture, scoffs at the writings of Irenaeus, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and does so casually, because in interpreting the Bible he feels humble enough to be guided directly by God, but at the same time he is blind enough not to realise that too many 'humble' Protestants then profess very different doctrines. They despise the Catholic, but elect a "do-it-yourself" that prides itself and says: "I do not need to read the writings of the church fathers, the Bible alone is enough for me", so the teachers of which the Apostle Paul speaks would be of no use: "It is he who established some as apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers" (Eph 4:11). 

One only has to read the history of the heresies that have affected Christianity throughout the centuries to realise that heretics based and always base their theses on the Bible, explaining it in their own way. People are unlikely to go poking around intertwined doctrinal and theological issues. It is easier to find a priest who has committed some human error and choose him as a target, in order to corroborate anti-Catholic theses and consider the Catholic Church as the enemy of Christianity and truth, allied with Satan to mislead souls and lead them to hell. Not even the archangel Michael flaunted such confidence in branding or judging the devil, yet it was the devil (Jd 1:9):  

The archangel Michael, when in dispute with the devil over the body of Moses, did not dare to accuse him with offensive words, but said: You condemn the Lord!

The truth is that the accuser par excellence is Satan himself; the saints do not accuse anyone, not out of respect, but because they defer to God's judgement. For a Protestant, on the other hand, it is normal to say that Catholics go to hell because they are idolaters. They set themselves up as judges, believing they know the hearts, and misunderstand the concept of worship. Any Christian should ask himself questions, to verify what he believes, and should be able to discern whether his beliefs in matters of faith are just the result of autosuggestion, induced fantasies, or whether they find confirmation in the history of Christianity and in the Bible.   

Argentino Quintavalle

 author of the books

 Argentino Quintavalle, author of the books 

- Revelation - exegetical commentary 

- The Apostle Paul and the Judaizers - Law or Gospel?

Jesus Christ true God and true Man in the Trinitarian mystery

The prophetic discourse of Jesus (Matthew 24-25)

All generations will call me blessed

 Catholics and Protestants compared - In defence of the faith

(Buyable on Amazon)