Multi ergo audientes ex discipulis eius dixerunt durus est hic sermo quis potest eum audire
πολλοὶ οὖν ἀκούσαντες ἐκ τῶν μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ εἶπον· σκληρός ἐστιν ὁ λόγος οὗτος· τίς δύναται αὐτοῦ ἀκούειν;
Of the English translations I have, I like the NIV the best: "On hearing it, many of his disciples said, 'This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?'"
Almost all of the translations I lookt at understand this in the same way and take "sermo" (λόγος in the Greek) as the antecedent of "eum" (αὐτοῦ), but the antecedent could also be Jesus since, grammatically, Jesus is also a masculine singular. Consequently, "eum" (αὐτοῦ) could be translated as "Him" instead of "it," resulting in: "Who can hear Him?" or "Who can accept Him?"
In the immediate context, "sermo" (or λόγος) does seem to be a more likely antecedent, but taking Jesus as the antecedent results in a reading that's similar to verse 41, where the Jews grumble about Jesus because of what He said. Verse 60 could express something similar and show the crowd dismissing Jesus because it is unable to accept this particular point of His teaching.
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In my French translation, the antecedent is ambiguous: "Plusieurs de ses disciples, après l'avoir entendu, dirent: Cette parole est dure; qui peut l'écouter?" The pronoun is elided into "écouter," and it could be either the feminine la, referring to "cette parole" or the masculine le, referring to Jesus.
