Some cavil that it is called bread
because of the natures which are exchanged; to speak in their style, they say
the name is a terminus a quo, and offer examples. When a serpent was
made from Aaron’s rod it devoured the serpents of the magicians, which they had
also made from their rods; it is said the rod of Aaron devoured the serpents of
the magicians. Again, in the sacred writings man is often called earth, since
his body was made from it. Woman also was called by Adam bone of his bones and
flesh of his flesh, because she was formed from them by God. But these are empty
objections, because Scripture clearly takes note of these changes, so that the
necessity of history and of the words forces us to these tropes, and we admit
them. First let them show us in Scripture that this change was made (namely of
bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ) and we will also grant them
the tropes; that is, the bread is called not what it is now but what it was
before. By the same token they might say: if someone gives me wine which at
once turns sour, and I put the vinegar in a pot, I might well say, this is your
wine. Not that it was then wine, but because it was wine before. But here one’s
sense judges the change of wine into vinegar, which does not occur in the
Eucharist. For in that case, neither sense nor reason nor holy Scripture drives
us to admit such a change. (Peter Martyr Vermigli, “Treatise on the Sacrament
of the Eucharist,” in The Oxford Treatise and Disputation on the Eucharist [trans.
Joseph C. McLelland; The Peter Martyr Library 7; Moscow, Idaho: The Davenant
Press, 2018], 30-31)
