Which is a far cry from dismissing it as a "metaphor" and what of the High Church Anglicans whose belief is nearly identical to the Catholic Church's.
"Do this in rememberance of Me", the text tells us it is meant as a memorial of Lord's Sacrifice, AND a proclamation, 1 cor 11:26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
That makes no sense in light of St. Paul's use of the words unworthily and guilt in the subsequent verses.
The RCC did not declare the bread and wine to be literal until the 10th or 11th century. Both symbolic an literal understandings existed until then. Augustine understood them to be symbols.
Have you actually got writings by Saint Augustine where he dismisses the Eucharist as merely symbolic?
Which is what Protestants do at the Lords table.
Have you actually got writings by Saint Augustine where he dismisses the Eucharist as merely symbolic?
I do not know if he does but I do
"It may be also understood in this way: 'The poor ye will have always with you, but me ye will not have always.' The good may take it also as addressed to themselves, but not so as to be any source of anxiety; for He was speaking of His bodily presence. For in respect of His majesty, His providence, His ineffable and invisible grace, His own words are fulfilled, 'Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world.' But in respect of the flesh He assumed as the Word, in respect of that which He was as the son of the Virgin, of that wherein He was seized by the Jews, nailed to the tree, let down from the cross, enveloped in a shroud, laid in the sepulchre, and manifested in His resurrection, 'ye will not have Him always.' And why? Because in respect of His bodily presence He associated for forty days with His disciples, and then, having brought them forth for the purpose of beholding and not of following Him, He ascended into heaven and is no longer here. He is there, indeed, sitting at the right hand of the Father; and He is here also, having never withdrawn the presence of His glory. In other words, in respect of His divine presence we always have Christ; in respect of His presence in the flesh it was rightly said to the disciples, 'Me ye will not have always.' In this respect the Church enjoyed His presence only for a few days: now it possesses Him by faith, without seeing Him with the eyes." (Augustine, Lectures on the Gospel of John, 50:13)
Would you like more?
Ignatius, Epistle to the Smyrnæans, 7:1 (circa 110 AD) He has acknowledged the cup (which is a part of the creation) as His own blood, from which He bedews our blood; and the bread (also a part of the creation) He has established as His own body, from which He gives increase to our bodies. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 5.2.2 (circa 190) 7. Moreover, the things which are hung up at idol festivals23742374 πανηγύρεσι. The Panegyris was strictly a religious festival, but was commonly accompanied by a great fair or market, in which were sold not only such things as the worshippers might need for their offerings, e.g. frankincense, but also the flesh of the animals which had been sacrificed. Cf. Dictionary of Greek and Rom. Antiq. “Panegyris.” Tertull. Apolog. § 42: “We do not go to your spectacles: yet the articles that are sold there, if I need them, I shall obtain more readily at their proper places. We certainly buy no frankincense.”, either meat or bread, or other such things polluted by the invocation of the unclean spirits, are reckoned in the pomp of the devil. For as the Bread and Wine of the Eucharist before the invocation of the Holy and Adorable Trinity were simple bread and wine, while after the invocation the Bread becomes the Body of Christ, and the Wine the Blood of Christ, so in like manner such meats belonging to the pomp of Satan, though in their own nature simple, become profane by the invocation of the evil spirit. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures XIX (First Lecture on the Mysteries), paragraph 7 (circa 350) Consider therefore the Bread and the Wine not as bare elements, for they are, according to the Lord’s declaration, the Body and Blood of Christ; for even though sense suggests this to thee, yet let faith establish thee. Judge not the matter from the taste, but from faith be fully assured without misgiving, that the Body and Blood of Christ have been vouchsafed to thee. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures XXII (On the Body and Blood of Christ), paragraph 6. (circa 350)They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again.
The second and fourth centuries are both prior to the 10th or 11th centuries, aren't they?