And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave to them, and said,
Take, eat: this is my body.
All Commentaries on Mark 14:22 Go To Mark 14
Tertullian of Carthage
AD 220
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 had first been a palpable body. A phantom or mere void is not capable of embodying a figure. But Marcion would claim that Jesus only pretended that the bread was his body because he presumably had no bodily substance, so in the absence of his body he gives us bread. It wouldn’t change his theory of a phantom body much if we stretched the point to say that the bread was crucified! But in that case why would we need to call his body bread? Why not rather come up with some more interesting edible thing, like a melon, which maybe Marcion had in place of a heart! Against Marcion
