276 The Faith of Our Fathers you had been among the number of our Savior's hearers on that occasion, would you not have been irresistibly led, by the noble simplicity of His words, to understand Him as speaking truly of His body and blood? For His language is not susceptible of any other interpretation. When our Savior says to the Jews: "Your fathers did eat manna and died, ... but he that eateth this (Eucharistic) bread shall live forever," He evidently wishes to affirm the superiority of the food which He would give, over the manna by which the children of Israel were nourished. Now, if the Eucharist were merely commemorative bread and wine, instead of being superior, it would be really inferior to the manna; for the manna was supernatural, heavenly, miraculous food, while bread and wine are a natural, earthly food. But the best and the most reliable interpreters of our Savior's words are certainly the multitude and the disciples who are listening to Him. They all understood the import of His language precisely as it is explained by the Catholic Church. They believed that our Lord spoke literally of His body and blood. The Evangelist tells us that the Jews "disputed among themselves, saying: How can this man give us His flesh to eat?" Even His disciples, though avoiding the disrespectful language of the [290] multitude, gave expression to their doubt in this milder form: "This saying is hard, and who can hear it?"368 So much were they shocked at our Savior's promise that "after this many of His disciples went back and walked no more with Him."3 They evidently implied, by their words and conduct, that they understood Jesus to have spoken literally of His flesh; for, had they interpreted His words in a figurative sense, it would not have been a hard saying, nor have led them to abandon their Master. 368 John vi. 61. 369 Ibid. vi. 67.