On Prayer 27.9

Since we have said these things in inquiring about being, because of “the daily” “bread” and the “people for his own possession,” in order to distinguish the meanings of “being,” and since in what went before the bread we ought to ask for was intelligible bread, it is necessary to understand being as akin to the bread; so that, just as bodily bread, distributed into the body of the one nourished, passes into his being, so “the living” “bread” that came down “from heaven,” distributed into the mind and soul, imparts its own power to the one who has given himself to the nourishment that comes from it; and so the “bread” we ask for will be “daily” (epiousios). And again, just as the one nourished comes to have different strength according to the quality of the “food,” whether “solid” and suited to athletes, or like milk or vegetables, so it follows that, as the Word of God is given either as milk suitably to children, or as vegetables fittingly to the sick, or as meat seasonably to those who contend, each of those nourished, in proportion to the Word to which he has given himself, is able to do this or that and to become this kind or that. There is, however, some supposed food that is poisonous, another that causes disease, and another that cannot even be digested; all of which must be transferred by analogy to the differences among the teachings thought to be nourishing. The daily bread, then, is the one most suited to rational nature and akin to being itself, bringing health, good condition, and strength to the soul, and imparting its own immortality (for the Word of God is immortal) to the one who eats it.