Annotatio I §.IV cont: Picherellus — Tertullian’s quasi vere; Origen, Augustine, Cyril on figurative eating
Picherellus is worth quoting: few own his Opuscula, and a Pontifician witness carries extra weight when his own side presses Christ’s words as proper.
On John 6’s Unless you eat the flesh… he reads Tertullian as taking the eating not truly — i.e. improperly — because the hearers treated the sermon as hard as if He had truly set His flesh to be eaten (quasi vere → non vere).
Origen, Augustine, and Cyril likewise mark figurative speech for that hard saying.
Latin
Hujus Verba recitare operae pretium duco, tùm quòd Opuscula viri in paucorum admodum manibus versantur, tùm quòd tantò majorem fidem meretur Autor, quantò Pontificii communiter proprietatem verborum Christi pressius urgere consuevere: Cum diceret Christus Joh. 6., inquit Picherellus, nisi carnem filii hominis manducaveritis &c. intelligit Tertullianus lib. de resurrect. carnis, num. marg. 28. non verè (i. e. improprie) dixisse edendam carnem suam, durum inquit & intolerabilem existimaverunt sermonem ejus, quasi verè carnem suam illis edendam determinasset. Voces hae quasi verè, faciunt ut Tertullianus intellexerit non verè. Cui adstipulatur Origenes in Lev. cap. 7timum, qui citatur de consecr. dist. 2 can. de hac. De hac hostia, quae in Christi commemorationem mirabiliter fit, edere licet: de illa verò, quam Christus in ara crucis obtulit, secundum se edere non licet. Ad eumque modum, quia videtur hoc dicto Christus facinus vel flagitium jubere, Augustinus ait figuratam esse locutionem, de doctr. Christ. lib. 3. cap. 16. & de fide contra Manich. cap. 37. 38. & figuratam etiam agnoscit Cyrillus in libro 7timo ad Leviticum.