Folks online, who wish to rewrite church history to turn church fathers into symbol only affirming and real presence denying teachers, love to use articles like this that purport to set the record straight:
https://onefold.wordpress.com/early-church-evidence-refutes-real-presence/
The writing boldly claimed at the start: “ This article will examine the writings of Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian of Carthage, Irenaeus of Lyons, Justin Martyr, Ignatius, and a contribution from Origen in order to show that the ancient church never believed, taught or even conceived any doctrine like the real presence dogma.”
Then it added, “Within these writings are clear references to the flesh and blood of Christ in the eucharist being symbolical, and the words, ‘Eat My flesh and drink My blood’ spoken by Jesus in the bread of life discourse as being metaphorical.”
The rebuttal to what it claimed on Ignatius is dealt with here:
https://g2witt.blogspot.com/2020/08/use-and-abuse-of-early-church-fathers.html
In regards to what was claimed on Justin can be found here:
https://g2witt.blogspot.com/2020/08/use-and-abuse-of-early-church-fathers_22.html
How it dealt with Irenaeus is rebutted here:
https://g2witt.blogspot.com/2020/08/use-and-abuse-of-early-church-fathers_23.html
This response here will be in regards to the article’s claim on early third century apologist Tertullian.
The article quoted Tertullian in Resurrection of the Flesh Chapter 8:
“The flesh, indeed, is washed, in order that the soul may be cleansed; the flesh is anointed, that the soul may be consecrated; the flesh is signed (with the cross), that the soul too may be fortified; the flesh is shadowed with the imposition of hands, that the soul also maybe illuminated by the Spirit; the flesh feeds on the body and blood of Christ, that the soul likewise may fatten on its God. They cannot then be separated in their recompense, when they are united in their service. Those sacrifices, moreover, which are acceptable to God–I mean conflicts of the soul, fastings, and abstinences, and the humiliations which are annexed to such duty–it is the flesh which performs again and again to its own especial suffering.”
It remarked: “And it is one of these examples that Catholic apologist target for ‘real presence’ support.” And then the article said:
“Exactly what Tertullian believed regarding the flesh and soul of Christians would no doubt make for interesting discussion. But the thing Catholic apologists really want to present here is the fact that Tertullian refers to the eucharist elements as the ‘body and blood’ of Christ. But this is completely inadequate for their purpose.”
Except that it isn’t inadequate for those (not just Roman Catholics) who hold to real presence, such as Lutherans. Tertullian specifically said, “the flesh feeds on the body and blood of Christ.” He didn’t say “the flesh feeds on the symbols of the body and blood of Christ.” And he followed that by saying, “ that the soul likewise may fatten on its God.” He was using real presence language which involved us feeding on God in the flesh, even His body and blood. He said all that after using high sacramental language (such as baptismal rebirth, as in “The flesh, indeed, is washed, in order that the soul may be cleansed”), so he was in that context treating it as a means of grace, not symbol only.
So how did the article tried to explain this away?
It claimed: “One would be hard pressed to find Christians who didn’t refer to the elements as the body and blood of Christ; even in the same way Tertullian did in his treaties on prayer where he said, ‘Will not your Station [day of fasting] be more solemn if you have withal stood at God’s altar? When the Lord’s Body has been received and reserved?’”
That’s because Tertullian actually held to real presence. Here’s what he actually wrote in chapter 19 of On Prayer:
“Similarly, too, touching the days of Stations, most think that they must not be present at the sacrificial prayers, on the ground that the Station must be dissolved by reception of the Lord's Body. Does, then, the Eucharist cancel a service devoted to God, or bind it more to God? Will not your Station be more solemn if you have withal stood at God's altar? When the Lord's Body has been received and reserved each point is secured, both the participation of the sacrifice and the discharge of duty.”
Note Tertullian said in reference to the Eucharist: 1) reception of the Lord’s body, 2) the Lord’s body has been received and reserved, and 3) participation of the sacrifice. Hardly a symbolic only view of the Eucharist.
Trying to explain his words away by making an untrue statement that “one would be hard pressed to find Christians who didn’t refer to the elements as the body and blood of Christ” doesn’t even begin to refute the fact he held to real presence. The simple fact is most Christians, who reject real presence, don’t refer to the elements as the body and blood of Christ. And the article undermined its own absurd claim by another absurd claim that Justin must have agreed with it in denying real presence since the church father and martyr in Dialogue with Trypho paraphrased Jesus’ words of institution (without comment on what the passage meant) didn’t say His words that the elements are the body and blood of Christ, as if we are supposed to forget Justin DID say the elements are the body and blood of Christ in First Apology.
The article then asserted: “I think many Catholics are under the impression that only they refer to the Eucharist in this way. The Lord instituted the memorial by saying, ‘This is My body’ and ‘This is the cup of the new testament that is in My blood; do this in remembrance of Me.’ It is profoundly Christian to refer to the eucharist as the body and blood of Christ because the eucharist is the celebration of the passion of our Lord.”
Yet the article wanted to claim Justin agreed with it because he didn’t, while paraphrasing Christ’s words of institution, mention the elements as the body and blood of Christ in one writing (ignoring the fact he said these were the body and blood of Christ in another writing)?
So hard to believe the article actually is being serious when it said, “It is profoundly Christian to refer to the eucharist as the body and blood of Christ because the eucharist is the celebration of the passion of our Lord.”
The fact is those who say with symbol view only in mind, as the article does, “But that does not mean that the bread and wine used in the Eucharist celebration are the literal body and blood of Christ”, do not commonly refer to the elements as the body and blood of Christ.
Then, the article said: “Later, in chapter 13, Tertullian gives us a glimpse into his interpretation of the bread of life discourse (the biblical bases for the real presence doctrine) while expounding on the topic of flesh and soul.”
It offered this quote from “later, in chapter 13”:
“For the soul-flesh, or the flesh-soul, is but one; unless indeed He [Christ] even had some other soul apart from that which was flesh, and bare about another flesh besides that which was soul. But since He had but one flesh and one soul,–that “soul which was sorrowful, even unto death,” and that flesh which was the “bread given for the life of the world,”–the number is unimpaired of two substances distinct in kind, thus excluding the unique species of the flesh-comprised soul.”
Just one problem to start: the two quotes the article claimed to be from the same writing by Tertullian aren’t from the same writing as it claimed (so the article can claim in context Tertullian didn’t really mean we fed on. Christ’s body and blood in the first quote). The quote from chapter 8 is from On Resurrection of the Flesh, and the quote just mentioned from chapter 13 is from another writing by Tertullian, On the Flesh of Christ.
It offers this take on the latter:
“Notice the use of the past tense in the sentence ‘and that flesh which was the ‘bread given for the life of the world.’ If Tertullian believed in a doctrine like the real presence, he would not have used the past tense.”
The whole context wasn’t at all about the Eucharist but about Christ’s Incarnation and atonement (“bread given for the life of the world”), which no one is denying.
What is noticed is that the article in order to avoid dealing directly with one writing by Tertullian saying directly the flesh feeds on Christ’s body and blood so that it fattens on its God run to another writing (while passing it off as the same writing) involving a different context to argue Tertullian didn’t mean real presencein context in the first writing.
So since the article wanted to argue for Tertullian to believe in real presence, he must use the present tense, then let’s refer back to the first quote: “the flesh feeds on the body and blood of Christ, that the soul likewise may fatten on its God.” Tertullian said the flesh “feeds” not “fed.” He used the present tense for feeding on Christ’s body and blood.
Not to mention, Tertullian treated receiving the body of Christ in the Eucharist as present condition in On Prayers Chapter 19 as well: “When the Lord’s Body has been received and reserved each point is secured, both the participation of the sacrifice and the discharge of duty.”
And Tertullian also used the present tense for feeding on Christ’s body in the Eucharist in In Modesty Chapter 9: “The ring also he is then wont to receive for the first time, wherewith, after being interrogated, he publicly seals the agreement of faith, and thus thenceforward feeds upon the fatness of the Lord’s body—the Eucharist, to wit.”
Likewise, Tertullian used the present tense in regards to drinking the blood in regards to those who have been been baptismally regenerated in On Baptism Chapter 16:
“We have indeed, likewise, a second font, (itself withal one with the former,) of blood, to wit; concerning which the Lord said, ‘I have to be baptized with a baptism,’ when He had been baptized already. For He had come ‘by means of water and blood’, just as John has written; that He might be baptized by the water, glorified by the blood; to make us, in like manner, called by water, chosen by blood. These two baptisms He sent out from the wound in His pierced side, in order that they who believed in His blood might be bathed with the water; they who had been bathed in the water might likewise drink the blood.”
See especially the last sentence: “ they who had been bathed in the water might likewise drink the blood.”
The article defeated its own claims against Tertullian holding to real presence there.
“The biblical support for the real presence doctrine relies on the interpretation that Jesus was referring to eating His physical flesh when He said, ‘and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.’ Since Tertullian referenced the event as having occurred in the past, he could not have believed that Jesus was saying He would give his flesh to be literally eaten, but rather that He gave His flesh sacrificially at the cross for the life of the world.”
Absolutely no one the article purports to refute denies Christ gave His flesh sacrificially at the Cross. What happened at the Cross is past indeed. But as pointed out, Tertullian said the flesh feeds, not fed, on Christ’s body and blood. That’s current, not past.
When the article did get around to citing an actual chapter from the same writing as On the Resurrection of the Flesh chapter 8, it offered this quote from chapter 37:
“They thought His discourse was harsh and intolerable, supposing that He had really and literally enjoined on them to eat his flesh, He, with the view of ordering the state of salvation as a spiritual thing, set out with the principle, It is the spirit that quickens; and then added, The flesh profits nothing — meaning, of course, to the giving of life. He also goes on to explain what He would have us to understand by spirit: The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. In a like sense He had previously said: He that hears my words, and believes in Him that sent me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but shall pass from death unto life. Constituting, therefore, His word as the life-giving principle, because that word is spirit and life, He likewise called His flesh by the same appellation; because, too, the Word had become flesh, We ought therefore to desire Him in order that we may have life, and to devour Him with the ear, and to ruminate on Him with the understanding, and to digest Him by faith.”
The article commented on this quote: “Nothing in Tertullian’s works, however, is more clearly opposed to the Catholic understanding than what he specifically stated about the discourse on the bread of life.”
In this case, the article is opposed to all views of real presence, not just Rome’s. It conflated transubstantiation with real presence to argue untenable the fathers held to symbol view only of the Eucharist.
So how did the article claimed what Tertullian said was proof he denied real presence? It said: “But notice that Tertullian understood the Lord as speaking metaphorically, et devorandus auditu, to devour Him with the ear.”
That’s ignoring what Tertullian actually said earlier in the writing: “the flesh feeds on the body and blood of Christ, that the soul likewise may fatten on its God.”
Tertullian didn’t say there that the ear devoured Christ but the flesh feeds on the body and blood of Christ. What the article wanted to do is have one thing he said negate the other instead of him affirming both as true.
Furthermore the quote, that the article provided as “proof” he denied real presence, actually itself used sacramental language in ways in inconsistent with the symbol only viewof the Eucharist that it wanted to pass off the fathers as holding to.
Consider what Tertullian said: “Constituting, therefore, His word as the life-giving principle, because that word is spirit and life, He likewise called His flesh by the same appellation.”
Word makes the sacrament. That’s the consistent theme of how the fathers saw sacraments such as baptism and the Eucharist.
Furthermore, he wrote: “We ought therefore to desire Him in order that we may have life, and to devour Him with the ear, and to ruminate on Him with the understanding, and to digest Him by faith.”
In any sacrament, where God’s saving grace is at work, be it baptism and Eucharist, our senses are involved. It isn’t just with the taste in regards to the Eucharist. The ears are as well. It comes back to the fact that word (that is heard by the ears) make the sacrament. So when the Eucharist is received, it isn’t just received with the mouth but all the senses are involved, hearing included.
And faith is always necessary before one is permitted to “digest Him” in the Eucharist. Nothing Tertullian said there denied real presence or the sacramental nature of the Eucharist. What he said was anything but symbolic view only.
The article followed:
“There are a few other places in Tertullian’s works that Catholic apologists like to use for support of the real presence doctrine. One quote often used is found in a work called ‘The Chaplet.’ The quote used is often presented like this: ‘We take anxious care lest something of our Cup or Bread should fall upon the ground.’”
Then it said: “The purpose is to convey the notion that Tertullian is imploring caution in the handling of the eucharistic elements because they are believed to be the actual body and blood of Christ. But if that were true, why does he call them cup and bread?”
Real presence, as pointed out, in previous articles, doesn’t necessarily mean transubstantiation. For example, Lutherans here at this blog affirmed bread and wine remained bread and wine while Christ’s body and blood are present in and under the bread and wine.
Then the article offered this bizarre comment:
“The context from which this quote is taken doesn’t even suggest that Tertullian is speaking of the Eucharist.”
It tried to prove that by further quoting Tertullian there
“We take also, in congregations before daybreak, and from the hand of none but the presidents, the sacrament of the eucharist, which the Lord both commanded to be eaten at meal-times, and enjoined to be taken by all alike.
“As often as the anniversary comes round, we make offerings for the dead as birthday honors.
“We count fasting or kneeling in worship on the Lord’s day to be unlawful. We rejoice in the same privilege also from Easter to Whitsunday.
“We feel pained should any wine or bread, even though our own, be cast upon the ground.
“At every forward step and movement, at every going in and out, when we put on our clothes and shoes, when we bathe, when we sit at table, when we light the lamps, on couch, on seat, in all the ordinary actions of daily life, we trace upon the forehead the sign.”
The fact Tertullian mentioned Eucharist as in mind in the first paragraph quoted undercut the claim he didn’t have the Eucharist in mind.
The article concluded on Tertullian: “These things Tertullian is describing are unwritten customs that were practiced at the time. There is nothing to suggest he believed or even heard of real presence.”
Nothing to suggest he believed or even heard of real presence? Well except the times documented here that he did indeed believed in real presence despite the attempts at spinning his word.
Let’s close by quoting Tertullian’s Against Marcion Book IV:
“Then, having taken the bread and given it to His disciples, He made it His own body, by saying, ‘This is my body,’ that is, the figure of my body. A figure, however, there could not have been, unless there were first a veritable body. An empty thing, or phantom, is incapable of a figure. If, however, (as Marcion might say,) He pretended the bread was His body, because He lacked the truth of bodily substance, it follows that He must have given bread for us. It would contribute very well to the support of Marcion’s theory of a phantom body, that bread should have been crucified! But why call His body bread, and not rather (some other edible thing, say) a melon, which Marcion must have had in lieu of a heart! He did not understand how ancient was this figure of the body of Christ, who said Himself by Jeremiah: ‘I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter, and I knew not that they devised a device against me, saying, Let us cast the tree upon His bread,’ which means, of course, the cross upon His body. And thus, casting light, as He always did, upon the ancient prophecies, He declared plainly enough what He meant by the bread, when He called the bread His own body.
“He likewise, when mentioning the cup and making the new testament to be sealed ‘in His blood,’ affirms the reality of His body. For no blood can belong to a body which is not a body of flesh. If any sort of body were presented to our view, which is not one of flesh, not being fleshly, it would not possess blood. Thus, from the evidence of the flesh, we get a proof of the body, and a proof of the flesh from the evidence of the blood.”
Note first, Tertullian said: “Then, having taken the bread and given it to His disciples, He made it His own body, by saying, ‘This is my body,’ that is, the figure of my body.” In other words, he saw the words “This is My body” as meaning Christ turned the bread into His body.
Before folks point out Tertullian said, “that is, the figure of my body,” he defined what he meant by that:
“A figure, however, there could not have been, unless there were first a veritable body. An empty thing, or phantom, is incapable of a figure. If, however, (as Marcion might say,) He pretended the bread was His body, because He lacked the truth of bodily substance, it follows that He must have given bread for us.”
For Tertullian, for the bread to be a figure of Christ’s body that requires Christ’s body to be present. Note especially where he ridiculed Marcion for suggesting Christ pretended the bread was Christ’s body:
“If, however, (as Marcion might say,) He pretended the bread was His body, because He lacked the truth of bodily substance, it follows that He must have given bread for us. It would contribute very well to the support of Marcion’s theory of a phantom body, that bread should have been crucified! But why call His body bread, and not rather (some other edible thing, say) a melon, which Marcion must have had in lieu of a heart!”
Tertullian would have ridiculed the article, too.
Here we stand.
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