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

"The main controversy is on the meaning of the word 'is,'" and then states
what had then come to be the accepted position of his party: "'Is' is taken
for signifies: 'This is, that is, this signifies my body.' On account of this
signification (propter hanc significationem) of the copula, or verb is, we
say that Christ's words: 'This is my body,' ought not to be understood
literally" (non debere intelligi proprie). From Zwingli's time, in fact, this
has been the position, almost without exception, of all who have attempted
to defend the metaphorical character of the words, and this is the position
of most writers of that school now. Yet so invincible are the facts and
principles that after the retreat to “is," as the point for a last struggle, many
of the best Zwinglian and Calvinistic writers felt themselves compelled to
abandon it. At the the beginning of the controversy Carlstadt and
OEcolampadius admitted that "is" has the exact force claimed for it by
Luther. On this point they stood with Luther against Zwingli. They
concurred with Zwingli's doctrine, but denied the validity of his proof.
They supposed him to have reached the truth by a process of error. His
conclusion was right, though the reason which led him to it was wrong.
The three men reached a common result of inference, though each one of
the three premises implied the falsehood of the other two. Even after the
violent controversies of the sixteenth century, when both parties had so
many reasons which made the most powerful appeal to natural pride not to
abandon a position with which their cause had been identified, Calvinistic
theologians of the first rank confessed the old position in regard to "is"
entirely untenable.
Keckermann, Piscator.
Thus KECKERMANN (d. 1609) says: 401 "Some maintain that
there is a trope in the copula, a position which it is impossible to
approve...There cannot be a trope in it." Still more extraordinary is the
admission of PISCATOR of Herborn (d. 1626) who, following Beza, in
controversy with DANIEL HOFFMANN, of Helmstädt (d. 1611), had
fully committed himself to the position whose falsity he came to confess.
In his first work he had said: "I affirm that the metonomy lies in the
substantive verb 'is,' and I prove
401 System. Theolog. III. 8.