Chapter 2: Propositions and Interpretations
First, the holy scripture persuadeth it. For in the sixth of John, the Lord promised that He would give His flesh, not only for the life of the world, but also to be eaten. And He added: Unless a man shall eat my flesh and drink my blood, he shall not have life. He said moreover, that He is the bread from heaven, and that the living bread, whom the Father had given.
Here He manifestly promised that He would give Himself to be eaten after the manner of bread: and that which He promised, He in good earnest performed, as the Evangelists testified was done in the last supper.
And that the same which is given is the Lord's body, Paul declareth, when he saith: He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. Again, he eateth and drinketh his own damnation, because he discerneth not the Lord's body. But they say that the whole strength of the argument consisteth in those words wherein it is said: This is my body. Which they affirm to be manifest and needeth no expositions. And it behoveth (say they) that we should believe them, for the reverence that we owe unto the word of God.
For the Evangelists, as touching those words, have conspired together in one: namely, Matthew, Mark, and Luke: also Paul the Apostle, in the first
Epistle to the Corinthians. And unless the thing were of great importance, and so to be taken absolutely as it soundeth, the Apostles would not with so great unity have consented one with another. But if it be lawful to shift off by tropes or figures, nothing (say they) will now be safe from heretics.
Chapter 2:
Propositions and Interpretations Furthermore, the propositions of such a kind, as is this, "This is my body," must be understood as that the subject and the predicate do represent and