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

of." Hence they draw the inference that our Saviour means: "This [bread]
[represents, is a symbol of] My body." Because then it is to be a symbol of
His broken body, He breaks this bread, and because it is to be a symbol of
His body given, He gives this bread, and because it is to be a symbol of
His body taken, they take this bread--and what then?--because it is to be a
symbol of His body eaten, they eat this bread. The symbol does not help
its friends very far nor very long.
We have shown, that the laws of language forbid the application of
the symbol here, even if the words in the abstract would allow of it. We
now go farther, and maintain that the word "is" cannot have the sense of
"signify or be a symbol of." Taking the two terms as convertible, as they
have always been taken in this controversy by those who defend them; we
prove this: 373
1. By the fact that no translations, ancient or modern, with any
pretension to character, so render the word. We assert, after a careful
examination of all of those that have most reputation, that not one so
translates the word, whether they originate in the Eastern, Western,
Lutheran, or Reformed Churches. No man of character has ever dared to
insert into the text of his translation: This is a symbol of My body. Where
such terms as "means," "amounts to," or "signifies are used, though a
superficial reader might imagine that they are substituted for "is," they are
really designed to express an idea involved in the predicate. This use of
them rests on the fact that "is" always means "is." Twice two amount to
four means that twice two are four. Leo signifies lion, means that Leo is
lion. But we can neither say twice two signify four, nor Leo amounts to
lion, still less that twice two are a symbol of four, or Leo is a symbol of a
lion.
373 Zwingli (De Vera et Falsa Relig. Opera, Turici., 1832. III. 257, 258): "This signifies (significat) My body...This
thing, to wit, which I offer you to eat, is the symbol (symbolum est) of My body...This which I now command you
to eat and drink shall be to you a symbol (symbolum erit)...As often as ye eat this symbolic bread (panem
symbolicum)"--and so innumerably. "To be a symbol of," or "to signify" in the sense of "be a symbol of," is the
characteristic, fixed Zwinglian interpretation of the word "is."