“It seems you are saying that all of Augustine’s exceptionally clear, explicit statements about Christ’s Real, Eucharistic Body (the first, second, and third paragraph-long quotes) are nullified because he used the four words “In a certain manner.””
They’re nullified because it’s common sense to assume that when the writer tells us that his language is symbolic, as shown in the very same sermons where he asserts they are the body of Christ, that we ought to take them as symbolic too.
From sermon 227:
““I promised you [new Christians], who have now been baptized, a sermon in which I would explain the sacrament of the Lord’s Table. . . . That bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ” (Ser. 227)”
Also from sermon 227:
“What you can see passes away, but the invisible reality signified does not pass away, but remains. Look, it’s received, it’s eaten, it’s consumed. Is the body of Christ consumed, is the Church of Christ consumed, are the members of Christ consumed? Perish the thought! Here they are being purified, there they will be crowned with the victor’s laurels. So what is signified will remain eternally, although the thing that signifies it seems to pass away.”
You can’t be more explicit than that. And this isn’t two different sermons here. It’s the same one.
The rest of your post doesn’t touch upon any of the actual specifics of any of the quotes, but seems to pass over them in silence while seeming to be some kind of an answer to them.
::snort::
Except that when he was speaking of the Body of Christ there? He was talking about the People of God as the Body of Christ, not Christ’s literal Body. That’s why the next phrases are “Church of Christ”. So, yeah, the people of God are not consumed.
Funny.
Your conclusion does not follow, because every single thing that is real can also be symbolic "in one sense." It's not an either/or situation.
Thus when Augustine (or any other Catholic "Father of the Church") speaks of signs, outward manifestations, he's not speaking of something like a marker (like a red octagon means "stop") but something with greater semiotic depth, like the way an acorn symbolizes an oak but also is an oak.
"Forma rei" and "ipsissima rei" are the same thing, although appearances may vary --- and in fact appearances vary all the time. (That's why the consecrated Host doesn't "look like" an 180-lb swarthy bearded Semitic male who spent a lot of time outdoors.)
Wait. It's not fair to write basic metaphysics without stopping to define every term, and that would end up being beside the point, because Jesus wasn't teaching on the subject of Metaphysics, but on the subject of Himself.
As it is written:
"For from the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same, my Name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place incense shall be offered unto my Name, and a pure offering: for my Name is great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts."
Malachi 1:11
Now just what is God's prophet prophesying? First (earlier in Ch. 1) he reproaches the Israelites for offering unsatisfactory sacrifices upon the altar; then he lifts up his eyes and sees something astounding: all gentile nations around the world offering a truly pure, acceptable sacrifice.
1599 Geneva Bible
What would this sacrifice be? What is this perfect sacrifice? It is the sacrifice of Our Lord. Who is offering it continually, everywhere, at all times, from the rising of the sun to its setting? Gentiles. Not offering in the name of some heathen god, but in the name of the True God: in "My Name," says the Lord of Hosts.
Gentiles who offer a Pure Sacrifice? A truly Eucharistic vision. It would be rewarding for me and for you to ponder this.
Off to an all-day singing tomorrow, Mass and Corpus Christi procession Sunday, I may not get back to this strange alternative reality known as FReeperland til Monday. Meantime, God bless you all.
'Bye! I'm off to weed my beans.