Tertullian and Transubstantiation

Q. Did Tertullian advocate the Roman dogma of transubstantiation?

Tertullian (c. 155-240 A.D.):

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. ...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. (Phillip Schaff, ANF, Vol III, Tertullian, The Five Books Against Marcion, IV.XL). Here

 

It was as full of this splendid example that Paul said: “Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body.” But if you maintain that a transfiguration and a conversion amounts to the annihilation of any substance, then it follows that “Saul, when changed into another man,” passed away from his own bodily substance; and that Satan himself, when “transformed into an angel of light,” loses his own proper character. Such is not my opinion. So likewise changes, conversions and reformations will necessarily take place to bring about the resurrection, but the substance of the flesh will still be preserved safe. (Philip Schaff, ANF, Vol III, On the Resurrection of the Flesh, LV). Here

 

You have sometimes read and believed that the Creator’s angels have been changed into human form, and have even borne about so veritable a body, that Abraham even washed their feet, and Lot was rescued from the Sodomites by their hands; an angel, moreover, wrestled with a man so strenuously with his body, that the latter desired to be let loose, so tightly was he held. Has it, then, been permitted to angels, which are inferior to God, after they have been changed into human bodily form, nevertheless to remain angels?  (Philip Schaff, ANF, Vol III, On the Flesh of Christ, III). Here

In order, however, that you may discover how anciently wine is used as a figure for blood, turn to Isaiah, who asks, “Who is this that cometh from Edom, from Bosor with garments dyed in red, so glorious in His apparel, in the greatness of his might? Why are thy garments red, and thy raiment as his who cometh from the treading of the full winepress?” ...He represents the bleeding condition of His flesh under the metaphor of garments dyed in red, as if reddened in the treading and crushing process of the wine-press, from which the labourers descend reddened with the wine-juice, like men stained in blood. ...“He washed His garments in wine, and His clothes in the blood of grapes”—in His garments and clothes the prophecy pointed out his flesh, and His blood in the wine. Thus did He now consecrate His blood in wine, who then (by the patriarch) used the figure of wine to describe His blood. (Phillip Schaff, ANF, Vol III, Tertullian, The Five Books Against Marcion, IV.XL). Here

 

For that it is not by earthly sacrifices, but by spiritual, that offering is to be made to God, we thus read, as it is written, An heart contribulate and humbled is a victim for God;’ and elsewhere, ‘Sacrifice to God a sacrifice of praise, and render to the Highest thy vows.’ Thus, accordingly, the spiritual ‘sacrifices of praise’ are pointed to, and ‘an heart contribulate’ is demonstrated an acceptable sacrifice to God. And thus, as carnal sacrifices are understood to be reprobated – of which Isaiah withal speaks, saying, ‘To what end is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? saith the Lord’ – so spiritual sacrifices are predicted as accepted, as the prophets announce. (Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. III, [1870], An Answer to the Jews, Chapter V, p. 215). Here

Indeed, up to the present time, he has not disdained the water which the Creator made wherewith he washes his people; nor the oil with which he anoints them; nor that union of honey and milk wherewithal he gives them the nourishment of children; nor the bread by which he represents his own proper body, thus requiring in his very sacraments the “beggarly elements” of the Creator. (Philip Schaff, ANF, Vol. III, Tertullian, The Five Books Against Marcion, I.XIV). Here

 

For so did God in your own gospel even reveal the sense, when He called His body bread; so that, for the time to come, you may understand that He has given to His body the figure of bread, whose body the prophet of old figuratively turned into bread, the Lord Himself designing to give by and by an interpretation of the mystery." (Phillip Schaff, ANF, Vol III, Tertullian, The Five Books Against Marcion, III.XIX). Here

 

He might also have been betrayed by any stranger, did I not find that even here too He fulfilled a Psalm: “He who did eat bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me.” (Phillip Schaff, ANF, Vol III, Tertullian, The Five Books Against Marcion, IV.XL). Here

 

But was it not because He had to be “led like a lamb to the slaughter; and because, as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so was He not to open His mouth,” that He so profoundly wished to accomplish the symbol of His own redeeming blood? (Phillip Schaff, ANF, Vol III, Tertullian, The Five Books Against Marcion, IV.XL). Here

 

On John Ch. 6:

He says, it is true, that “the flesh profiteth nothing;” but then, as in the former case, the meaning must be regulated by the subject which is spoken of. Now, because 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 quickeneth;” and then added, “The flesh profiteth 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 heareth my words, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath 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. Now, just before (the passage in hand), He had declared His flesh to be “the bread which cometh down from heaven,” impressing on (His hearers) constantly under the figure of necessary food the memory of their forefathers, who had preferred the bread and flesh of Egypt to their divine calling. Then, turning His subject to their reflections, because He perceived that they were going to be scattered from Him, He says: “The flesh profiteth nothing.” (Philip Schaff, ANF, Vol III, On the Resurrection of the Flesh, XXXVII). Here

~ Soli Deo Gloria