For we being many are one bread, and one body "As one loaf is made up of many grains, and one body is composed of many members, so the Church of Christ is joined together of many faithful ones, united in the bonds of charity." Augustine. So Chrysostom and Theodoret, and our English bishops Andrewes and Hall. Cf. ch. 1 Corinthians 12:12; Galatians 3:28; Ephesians 4:4; Colossians 3:15.

for we are all partakers of that one bread Literally, for we all partake of the one bread. See St John 6:35-58. As the bread passes into our bodies and becomes a part of each of us, so the Body of Christ, which the bread is the means of conveying, enters into and becomes part of each of us. Calvin reminds us that here St Paul is not dealing so much with our love towards and fellowship with one another, as with our spiritual union with Christ, in order to draw the inference that it is an unendurable sacrilege for Christians to be polluted by communion with idols.

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