Transubstantiation Exploded, Part 1 · Paragraph 9
PAR. 9.
Twelve passages out of Tertullian against Transubstantiation vindicated, and all objections out of him for the carnall presence answered.
THis was or should have beene the aS E … foreignRodus, our stand, now let us measure the leape, of which you have made seven jumpes. Thus I took my rise. That doctrine which h… no foundation in the Word of God is repugnant to the doctrine of the true ancient Church, and overthro… eth the principles of right reason, i… plying palpable absurdities and apparant contradictions is to be rejected a erroneous and hereticall: but the doctrine of the Church of Rome concerning Christs bodily presence in the Sacrament is such, Ergo it is to bee disclaimed as erroneous and hereticall.
The Major or first proposition had his passe from you, nor can it be impeache… by any who rightly understandeth the termes, and seriously weigheth the consequence. For divine faith must bee built upon a divine and unmooveable foundation, which can bee no other then Gods Word. And sith we on both sides acknowledge that the Church in which the Primitive Fathers lived and died, was the true Church, they who gaine-say the faith thereof, are to be ranged with hereticks. Lastly, that metaphysicall principle is of undoubted verity, verum vero non opponitur, truth never opposeth truth. That doctrine therefore which destroyeth the principles of reason, and quencheth the sparkles of divine light kindled in our soules by God, cannot but bee from the Prince of darknesse.
The Minor or assumption hath three branches as you see on the first: whereof I insisted in that conference. My prosyllogismes which you and S. E. both omit were these. First, if there bee any ground in Scripture for your carnal presence in the Sacrament, it is either in the words of bMat. …. 26. This is my Body.institution, or on those Iohn the 6. 53. Except ye eate the flesh of the Sonne of man and drinke his blood, ye have no life in you. For upon these both the Bishops in that Lateran, and Trent Councell, and all the learned on your side build their faith especially in this point. But neither the one nor the other Text are any sure ground for it, Ergo you have none. The Major in this prosyllogisme being assented unto by you, I proceeded to the confirmation of the Minor in this wise. If the words of institution, Mat. 26. and the other alledged out of Iohn the 6. are to be taken figuratively, and not in the proper sense nothing can be concluded from them for the bodily presence or carnall eating Christ with the mouth. But the words above alleadged in both places are to be construed figuratively, and not in the proper sense, Ergo nothing can bee concluded from them for the bodily p…esence of Christ in the Sacrament, or carnall eating of him with the mouth. The Major in this second Syllogisme being likewise evident to all men of learning, who know that to argue from a figurative sense to the proper is a fallacy in Logick, and a dangerous errour in Divinity: against which Saint cAust. l. 31 de doct. christ c. 5. In principio cavendum est ne figuratam locutionem ad literam accipias, cum enim figuratè dictum sit accipitur tā quam propriè dictum sit, carnaliter sapitur.Austin giveth us a speciall caution, I undertooke the proofe of the Minor both by unavoidable testimonies of antient Fathers, and pregnant argumen…s drawne from the circumstances of those Texts. And first because with the ancient is wisedome, Iob 12. 12. let the antient speak, Tertullian, Origen, Austin, Prosper, &c. dAcceptum panem & distributum Discipulis, corpus suum illum fecit, bcc est corpus meum dicendo, id est figura corpo…is mei, figura autem non fuisset nisi veritatu esset corpus.Tertullian in his fourth book against Martion, the 40. Chapter, the bread taken and distributed to his Disciples hee made his body saying, this is my body, that is a figure of my body. Now a figure it had not or should not have beene, unlesse his body had beene a body of truth or a true body, for avoid or empty thing, such as a phantasme is, is not capable of a reall figure. Tertullian his argument in this 40. Chap. against Marcion, who taught that Christ had no true body but an imaginarie or phantasticall standeth thus.
That body whereof bread is a figure must needs bee a true body.
But the Body of Christ is such a Body whereof bread is a figure, Christ himselfe sa…ing, when hee tooke bread in his hand, This is my Body, that is a figure of my Body. Therefore Christs Body is a true Body.
If Christ made not bread a figure of his Body, but turned it into his own Body, as you teach, how could Tertullian out of those words of our Saviour, prove against Marcion that bread was a figure of Christs Body? Againe, if the meaning of the words of institution (This is my Body) be, this bread is a figure of my Body as Tertullians id est inforceth, then are the words of the institution metonymically or figuratively to be taken. A faire evidence for the truth is this testimony of Tertullian which so puzzels our adversaries, th… they turne them every way, yet cann… avoid or impeach it.
Fisher falls fowle upon this ancie… Rossens. cont. Oecolamp.and most learned Father, disabling h… testimonie in regard of his taint o… Montanisme.
But neither was Tertullian slipt in… that heresie when hee wrote these bookes, neither did the heresie of Montanisme concerne the Sacrament, neither was ever this passage eBellar. de Sacra bucha l. 2. c. 7. Quam… i… fuerit Mon tanista in extrema aetate suâ, tamen a nullo veterū Pa…rum reprehenditur hoc nomine quod …rraverit circa Sacramentū Dominici corporis.excepted against by any of the Antients, nor the Father himselfe branded for any errour about the Lords Supper.
Steven Gardiner giveth a more respective answer, that Tertullian spake these words, foreign, not foreign in heate of opposition to his adversary, not deliberately and doctrinally.
But he that readeth these bookes against Marcion, which the author so esteemed that he translated them into verse; will finde in them strength of reason, not violence of passion. These words sparkle not with anger, but give a cleare light to the words of the insti…tion: and the like are found in him …ls where and in other of the Fathers, when they wrote in coolest temper in their Epistles, Commentaries on Scriptures, Homilies, and Treatises of piety, the places are quoted particularly by fDesentia ad Gardinerum de Euchar… par… 1. Ob. 161.Peter Martyr.
Verius ergo
Et magis ingenuè Peribomius.
Well fare honest gRhenanus in tract. de Monogam. … hîc …ertulliani error verba sacra… caenae figuratè exponentis in Berengarij personâ re… tatus est.Rhenanus who ingeniously confesseth, that Tertullian favoured our figurative interpretation, for which your Church condemned Berengarius.
But you like not so well of this plaine dealing, you have beene better instructed by the Belgick hIndex ex purg. Belgick anno 1571. Cum in catholicis vateribus alijs plurimos seramus errores & extenuemus excogitato commento per saepè negemus & commod…s ijs sensi… affi…gamus cum opponuntur in disputationibus aut in conflictionibus cum adversari….inquisitors to devise some shift and faine a commodious sense to the testimonies of the Fathers, and blanch their words with ingenious glosses when they are obj…cted against you in disputation or conflicts with us. Therfore after ii A…tat in Tertul l. cou…. Marcionem 4. c. 40. …otae 662.Pammelius, kBel… de sacrament Eucha l. 2. c. 7.Bellarmine, and lPerone resp. ad Plesseum. p. 9 0.Perone conster, Tertullian thus: This, which was once an old figure of my body is now my body; for he doth not referre those words, id est figura corporis mei to corpus meum: but to hoc.
For this your strange forced and incongruous interpretation, you produce first a paralell place to this out of the booke adversus mPrax. c. 29 Dicendo Christus mortuus, id est unctus.Praxean, Christ is dead that is annointed, where the words id est are referred to the subject (Christus) not to the attribute (Mortuus.) Secondly out of the words hee made bread his owne body, since say you Tertullian saith, that our Saviour taking bread made it his body, he was not so forgetfull as immediately to add that the Eucharist is a meere figure of his body: this reason you backed with a third, that Tertullian presently after the foresaid words saith, figura autem non fuisset, it had not beene a figure, &c. by which words he shewes that he speaketh of the figure which was before our Saviour said, This is my Body. Lastly, you much insisted upon the words veterem figuram, an old figure, and those that follow in the same place, but why calleth hee bread his body? and not a Pepon or Melone rather? which Marcion had in place of a heart, not understanding Or inst…d of his heart, Cor Christi loco.that it was an old figure of the body of Christ.
Though the water bee never so cleare, it is an easie matter by stirring the bottome with a stick to trouble it, and make it all muddy, stay but a while till it settle, and you shall see the streame run clearely, and the silver w… seeke for in the bottome bearing the Image of Christs Body. Tertullian here prooves the reality of Christs Body by the reality of the figure thereof bread. Bread he prooves to be the figure of his body, both out of the Gospell of Saint Matthew in the first place, and afterwards out of the Prophecy of Ieremy, where the Jewes conspiring against the Prophet, said, Come let us cast wood on his bread, that is, the crosse on his body. The illightner therefore of antiquities declared sufficiently what hee would have bread then to signifie, calling his body bread. Marke I beseech you, Tertullian sets the Texts of Matthew and Ieremy like glasses, to cast a mutuall light one upon the other. In Ieremy Christs Body is called bread, in Saint Matthew, bread is called his Body, both by a like figure: but I subsume Christs body is not called bread in Ieremy, because it was transsubstantiated into bread as you must needs confesse, therefore neither in Saint Matthew is bread called Christs body, because bread was transubstantiated into it. nIn Dialogo 1. foreign.Theodoret harpes upon the like strings tuned together, Our Saviour, saith he, changed names and attributed to his body the name of the symbole, or signe thereof, and to the symbole or signe the name of his body, he that called bread his body, calle… himselfe bread: in both which speeches there is according to both these Fathers, a foreign no foreign, a trope or turning of speech, no Theod. 16. foreign.change of nature.
The sparkes flie up in the smoake before the fire breakes into a flame, afterwards they vanish away: such your objections appeare to be after the blazing (if I may so speake) of Tertullians meaning, by the precedent elucidations of this place.
The first taken out of his booke Object. 1against Praxeas, thus vanisheth to nothing, foreign, one swallow makes not a summer, nor one heteroclyt overthrowes a generall rule in grammar. You and your Chaplaine talke of o…. 3…. Neither did he say any thing to the places wherein Tertullian had in like… sort inverted the order.places in the plurall number, as if such a Transposition were usuall in Tertullian, name you but one other passage in all Tertullian where the like hyperbaton or dislocation is used,
Et Phillida solus habeto
There is in this passage I grant a Metathesis or transposition of the words, id est unctus, which should have beene placed before mortuus not after: but yet that place of Tertullian is not like Sol 1.this as you interpret it: for there id est must of necessity be referred to the subject Christus, and cannot be referred to the predicate mortuus: because the word mortuus doth not signifie annointed, as Christus doth: but in this place id est may well be referred to the predicatum corpus, as pArt 13. Cited by S. ….Ruardus Tapperus, and Gardinerus, and Renanus, and all other Papists referred them, before this new crochet was found out by Pammelius, or Peron. Againe, in those words Christ Sol 2.is dead that is annointed, the sense is made good by a meere inversion thus, Christ that is the annointed is dead, wheras besides an inversion you add the words quod erat vetus: (non nunc est) which words if you should add to the other place, saying Christus mortuus est, id est is qui erat unctus est mortuus, you would make the speech blasphemous, insinuating that Christ was the Lords annointed but is not, as you make Tertullian say bread which was a legall figure, but now is not, is Christs body.
But to put this passage of Tertullian Sol. 3.out of all peradventure, the words (id est) that is to say, must needs be referred to that tearme in the proposition which was obscure, and needed some explication. But that was not the subject (hoc) for Christ by taking the bread in his hand and pointing to it sufficiently, shewed what he meant by (hoc) all the doubt that could be made was of the predicate body, what that tearme signified, or in what sort it agreed to the subject (hoc) the id est therefore of necessity is to be applied to the obscure predicate (corpus) not to the subject (hoc) which was then when Christ uttered those words evident ad oculum.
Your second objection melteth of it selfe, since Tertullian (say you) affirmes Object. 2that our Saviour made bread his body, hee was not so forgetfull as immediatly to add, that the Eucharist is a meere figure of his body: neither doe wee Sol. 1.say so, as I have proved at large in the former Paragraph. It was not forgetfullnesse in Tertullian to add this glosse, Sol. 2.id est figura corporis mei, but mindfullnesse and cautelous wisdome maturely to remove a block, at which his Reader was like to stumble. When he had said before corpus suum ipsum fecit, he made bread his body, a man might have thought that he did it so by Consubstantiation, or by Transubstantiation: to prevent which mistakes, hee adds that Christ did it by Sacramentall consecration, saying, This is my Body, that is, a figure of my body.
Your third objection is an idle criticisme, Object. 3as if there were great difference betweene esset and fuisset, for your Candor, looke but upon Lillie his grammar, Sol. 1.and you shall finde that eram and fueram, and ero and fuero, and essem and fuissem are indifferently used as Synonima. Yet if you will have (fuisset) in Sol. 2.these words (figura autem non fuisset) not to be rationall, but temporall, nor to construed it should not be, but it had not beene, you must howsoever referre it to that which goeth before, acceptum panem & distributum, not to that which followes sixe lines after, veterem figuram corporis Christi dicentis per Ieremiam, the apparent sence then is, Christ by saying This is my body, made the bread then a figure, or Sacrament of his body, which it had not beene if he had not then, when he spake so, a true body, but onelyonly an imagnarie, as the phantasticall hereticke Marcion surmised.
Your fourth & fift reasons are answered Resp. ad 4. & 5. Object.already. Tertullian as it is evidently deduced from the passage you cote, and another paralell unto it, l. 3. cont. Marcion. c. 19. (So God hath revealed in the Gospell, calling bread his body, that hence now thou maist understand, that he hath given the figure of bread to his body, whose body the Prophet long before figured in bread) taught that bread had beene a legall figure, and was also an evangelicall signe or Sacrament of Christs Body. But why Christ made choice rather of bread then of a Melone, as Tertullian speaketh, or any other solid thing to be the Symbole or Sacrament of his body, as also why hee rather chose wine then any other licour to bee the embleme and memoriall of his blood, we can assigne certainely no other reason then his meere will. Tertullian his guesse is but probable, that Christ in the institution of the Sacrament in the formes of bread and wine had an eye to the Prophecy of Ieremy, or Iacob. But I…r. 11. 1…. Gen. 49. ….be it probable or necessary, it matters not, seeing it is confessed on all hands, that bread is a figure of Christs body, though not now a Legall Type, yet an Evangelicall. Being both, it makes the stronger for this glosse of Tertullian, this bread is my body, that is, a figure of P. 44. Object. 6my body.
But here S. E. helpes you at a dead lift, alleadging a testimony out of qDe resurrect. carnis. c. 8. Caro abluitur ut anima emac…letur, caro …gitur ut anima consecret…r, caro corpore & sanguine Christi ves…itur ut & anima do Deo saginetur. Eras. glori… tur Adag. ut Pelei…s in Machar….Tertullians booke de resurrectione carnis, for the carnall presence of Christ in the Sacrament. The words of Tertullian are these, The flesh is washed that the soule may be cleansed, the flesh feeds upon the body and blood of Christ, that the soule may be fatted by God. Of this place of Tertullian he is as proud as P…lius in the proverbe was of his sword, not observing that the point of it lyeth against himselfe: for if hee expound these words according to the rule of the Fathers, the signes have usually the names of the thing signified, by them then hee confirmes our figurative interpretation, understanding by the body of Christ the Symbole or signe thereof, upon which our flesh seeds, when we receive the Sacrament: but if he understand the words of Tertullian properly as if our very flesh or stomach turned Christs Body into corporal nourishment, and so really fed upon it to fatten or cheare our soules, he makes Tertullian blaspheme, and hee gives the lie to his Lord your selfe who page 65. in expresse tearmes affirme, that in the Fucharist there is no violence offered to Christ his flesh in it selfe, nor is it eaten to the end our bodies may thereby be nourished. To affirme that the substance of our mortall body is nourished, or increased by the flesh of Christ taken in the Sacrament, is to make the Eucharist cibum ventris non mentis, the foode of the belly, not of the soule, then which grosse conceit nothing can bee more absurd in the judgement of your owne Cardinall rBellar l. 2. de Sacra Eucharist. c. 4. Non intelligunt patres cum hoc dicunt Eucharistiâ nutriri vel augeri mortalem substantiam corporis nostri, sic enim facerent Eucharistiam cibum ventru non mentis, quo nihil absurdius fingi potest.Bellarmine. Tertullian disclaimes this carnall fancy in the very words alledged by your Chaplaine, ut anima saginetur, the flesh saith the Father feeds on the Body and Blood of Christ, that the soule may bee fatted, the soule not the body. If hee demand how can the soule bee satisfied or fatted by the bread in the Sacrament, if it bee not turned into Christs Body? I answer out of the former words of Tertullian, even as the soule is cleansed in Baptisme by washing the body with water, though that water be not turned into Christs blood.
You have heard that sTer. de resurrett. carnis. c. 37. ex materia dicti dirigendus est sensu… nam quia durum & intolerabile existimaverum sermonem eius, quasi verè carnem suam illis edendam determinasset, premisit spiritus est qui vivificat. Arg. 1 ex Tertul. pro Protest. doctr Ioh. 6. 53.Tertullian doth not so much as lispe in your language, heare now how lowd hee speakes in ours. The sense of the word (saith he) is to be taken from the matter, for because they thought his speech hard and intolerable (unlesse ye cate the flesh of the Sonne of man, &c.) as if hee had appointed his flesh truly and in very deed to bee eaten of them, he premised it is the Spirit which quickneth, and a little after, appointing his Word to be the quickner, because his Word is spirit and life, he called the same his flesh, for the Word was made flesh, therefore to be desired with an appetite, to give and maintaine life in us, to be eaten by tTer. ib. Devorandus auditu ruminandus intellectu, side digerendus.hearing, to be chewed by understanding, to be digested by beleeving. These words are so plaine, that you cannot mistake the meaning of them, and if you should goe about to draw them to any carnall sense or eating Christ with the mouth, he will checke you in the words following, where he saith, that Christ used an uTer ib. Carnem suam panem c…elestem pronunciarat arguens us que qua que per allegoriam necessariorū pabulorum. Arg. 2 ex Tertul.allegorie in this place: now an allegorie is a figure in which an other thing is to be understood, divers from that which the words import taken in the usuall and proper sense.
Doubtlesse he who held the bread at the Lords Table to be a representation of Christs body, and the wine a memoriall of his blood, beleeved not that the bread was turned into his body, or the wine into his blood: for no picture is the life it selfe, no memoriall is of a thing present but absent.
But wTer. advers Marcionem l. 1. c. 14. Nec reprobavit panem Creatoris quo ips…m corpus suum representat.Tertullian called bread that whereby Christ represented his owne body, taking the word represent in the same sense which Saint xBer. Ser. 6. in vigiliâ nat. Dom. Videtur quotidie nascidū fideliter representamus cius nativitatem.Bernar doth. As Christ after a sort is sacrificed every day when we shew forth his death, so he seemeth to be borne whilest we faithfully represent his birth. As the figure, signe, or that whereby any thing is represented or set before the eye, is not the thing it selfe: so neither a monument or a memoriall of our friend is our friend: the wine therefore which yTer. l. de anima cap. 17. saporem vini quod … sanguinis sui memoriam consecravit.Tertullian saith Christ consecrated for a memoriall of his blood, cannot bee his very blood.
The same Father in his booke of the Arg. 3. ex Tertul.flesh of Christ smiled at the heretickes, who imagined Christ to have flesh hard without z…b. de carne Christi. c. 5. Sine ossibu…duram, sine muscul…s solidam, sine sanguine cruemam.bones, solid without muscles, bloody without blood, &c. They saith he that fancy such a Christ as this, that deceiveth and deludeth all mens eyes, and senses, and touchings, should not bring him from heaven, but fetch him rather from some jugglers aIb… Ecce fallit & decipi… omm… oculos, omn… sensus, omnium accessus & contactus, ergo iam Christum non de coelo deferre de bueras, sed … aliquo circula…orio ca…. Arg. 4. ex Tertul.box. I trow hee meant not your Popish Pix, yet sure such a flesh it encloseth, hard (if it bee so) without bones, solid without muscles, and bloody without blood, for you say Christs blood is there, and sh…d too, and yet tear me your Masse an unbloody sacrifice. I take you to be so ingenuous that you would not belie your senses, I am sure you will confesse that you see nothing in the pyx but the whitenesse of bread, in the Chalice but the rednesse of wine, no flesh or blood colour in either. You tast nothing but bread in the one, and the sapour of wine in the other, you touch no soft flesh with your hand, nor quarrie blood with your lips, or tongue. But I inferre out of bTer. l de amma c. 17. Non licet nobis in dubium sensus istos revocare, ne & in Christo de fide eorum deliberetur, ne fort… dicatur quod falso Satanā prospectarit de coelo praecipitatum, &c.Tertullian, You must not question the truth of your senses, lest thereby you weaken the sinewes of our faith, lest peradventure the heretickes take advantage thereupon, to say that it was not true that Christ saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven, that it is not true that he heard a voice from heaven, but the sense was deceived. Were not the senses competent judges of their proper objects, even in the case we are now putting, viz. the discerning Christs true body; Christ would never have cLuke 24. 39.appealed to them as hee doth. Behold my hands and my feet, that is, I my selfe, handle me and see, for a Spirit hath not flesh and bones as you see me have.
I have given a touch hitherto, but Arg. … ex Tertul.upon sing…e testimonies as it were single strings: now in the close, listen to a chord. So Christ hath revealed unto us, calling dTer. ad. Iud…s c. …. Sic Christus revelavit panem corpus suum …ppellans, cuius retro corpus in pane Prophetis siguravit.bread his body, whose body the Prophet prefigured in bread. Christ is our bread, because Christ is our life, and life is our bread, I am, saith he, the bread of life: as also because his body is eTum quod corpus … in pane c…setur, hoc est corpus me…m, it a que petendo pa… quotidimum … … in Christ… … a corpo… eius.accounted for bread, taking the bread (he said) this is my body, when therefore we pray for our daily bread, we desire to continue in Christ and never to be severed from his body. And against fTer. l. 3. c. 19 Pa…m carpus suum appellans ut hinc eum intelligas corpor… sui siguram pani dedisse. Et s…q. l. 4. c 4…. cont. Marcionem. Cur autem panem corpus suum appellat & non magis peponem, qu…m Marcion cordis loco habuit, non intelligens veterem fuisse illam siguram corporis Christi.Marcion, So God revealed in your Gospell, calling bread his body. And againe, why doth hee call bread his body, &c. But I assume bread cannot be Christs body in the proper sense; because disperate substances cannot properly bee predicated one of the other, therefore when Christ spake these words, This is my Body, which Tertullian constantly and perpetually silleth up thus, this bread is my body, he used a Metonymie, called signatum pro signo, or figuratum pro figura, which quite overthroweth your carnall presence, and beateth you out of your strongest fort, the words of Christs holy institution which you would have to be taken according to the letter. Thus you see Tertullian is clearely against you, and you are foyled in the first argument.