Against those of the body as phantom (birth not of water and blood, 1Jn), bread crucified, and what Tertullian understood:
When He so earnestly expressed His desire to eat the passover, He considered it
His own feast; for it would have been unworthy of God to desire to partake of what was not His own. Then, having taken the bread and given it to His disciples, He made it His own body, by saying, This is my body,
50835083 Luke xxii. 19. [See Jewells Challenge, p. 266,
supra.] that is, the figure of my body. A figure, however, there could not have been, unless there were first a veritable body.
50845084 Corpus veritatis: meant as a thrust against Marcions
Docetism. 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 Marcions theory of a phantom body,
50855085 Ad vanitatem Marcionis. [Note 9, p. 289.] that bread should have been crucified! But why call His body bread, and not rather (some other edible thing, say) a melon,
50865086 Peponem. In his
De Anima, c. xxxii., he uses this word in strong irony: Cur non magis et
pepo, tam insulsus. 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
50875087 [This text, imperfectly quoted in the original, is filled out by Dr. Holmes.] they devised a device against me, saying,
Let us cast the tree upon His bread,
50885088 So the Septuagint in
Jer. xi. 19, Ξύλον εἰς τὸν ἄρτον αὐτοῦ (A.V. Let us destroy the tree with the fruit). See above, book iii. chap. xix. p. 337. which means, of course, the cross upon His body. And thus, casting light, as He always did, upon the ancient prophecies,
50895089 Illuminator antiquitatum. This general phrase includes typical ordinances under the law, as well as the sayings of the prophets. 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,
50905090 Luke xxii. 20. 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.
ANF03. Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian - Christian Classics Ethereal Library
