Annotatio I §.V: Augustine’s signum corporis; contention de verbis not de re — Epist. Buceri ad Pontanum
Calling bread a figure and sign of Christ’s body does not prove the body is absent — else Augustine too would be read as teaching bare bread, though he wrote against Adamantus: Christ did not hesitate to say this is my body when giving the sign of His body.
Our doctors never meant to deny presence; they only press that bread is not substantially the body, to lead people from visible bread to invisible Christ — so the fight is about words, not the thing (Bucer to Pontanus).
Latin
Deinde & hoc manifestum est ex hac locutione, qua panis figura & signum corporis Christi esse dicitur, nequaquam sequi quòd corpus Christi propterea non adsit: aliàs enim de Augustino quoque dici posset, quòd nudum panem in Coena esse senserit, cum tamen contraria sententia in libris ipsius ubique reperiatur: nam contra Adamantum scribens his verbis usus est: Christus non dubitavit dicere, hoc est corpus meum, cùm daret signum corporis sui. Cùm igitur nostrae partis Doctores per interpretationem suam Christi praesentiam tollere aut negare nequaquam voluerint, sed in omnibus scriptis & libris suis eam sint testati, nec aliud quidpiam quam hoc planum facere & obtinere interpretatione sua studuerint, quòd panis non sit substantialiter corpus Christi, hac ratione vulgum à pane visibili ad Christum invisibilem adducere volentes, equidem non de re, sed tantum de verbis contentiones esse reperio. Epist. Buceri ad Pontanum non procul ab initio.