The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

the Supper is not Christ's body, but the sign of it, then the panis in the
prophet would not mean Christ's body, but would mean the sign of it; and
the inference would be that he means, let us put the wood upon the sign of
His body, that is, on the bread--which would make the inference exactly
the opposite of that which Tertullian does make, would cause him to
stultify himself and the prophet, and instead of confuting Marcion, he
would play into his hands. Tertullian's whole point is this, what "bread"
means in Jeremiah, it is in the Supper. It means Christ's body in Jeremiah,
because it is Christ's body in the Supper. "To assign the (prophet's) figura
of His body to the (sacramental) bread," means that what the prophet
figured, that is meant by bread as a figura, to wit, Christ's body, is by
Christ assigned to the sacramental bread--what the first means, the second
is, to wit, Christ's body.
Advers. Judaeos. Chap. X.
In another passage the same thought is repeated. He is showing that
the "wood" of the cross is prophesied of. He again quotes Jeremiah: "'Let
us put wood upon His bread.' Assuredly wood was put upon His body.
For so Christ hath revealed, calling bread His body, whose body aforetime
the prophet figurated upon bread." The point again is, Why does the
prophet give the name of bread to Christ's crucified body? The answer is,
Christ gives the name of His crucified body to bread. But how does this
answer meet the case? for the prophet, as Tertullian marks and emphasizes,
has done exactly the opposite. The prophet calls Christ's body bread.
Christ calls the bread His body. If Christ by this one phrase means that the
bread is the sign of His body,.the prophet by the other would of necessity
mean that the body is the sign. of the bread, which is absurd. The whole
point of Tertullian rests again upon the supposition that it is one and the
same thing which is called "bread" by the prophet and by Christ; and that
because Christ calls bread His body, bread in the prophet means His
body. On the contrary, if by "bread" Christ means not his body, but the
symbolic signs of his body, then the prophet does not mean His body by
bread, but the symbolic sign of His body; and Jeremiah's bread is bread.
Adv. Marcion, IV, 40.
These facts prepare us for a clearer view of the passage in