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Gen_40:12 And Joseph said unto him, This [is] the interpretation of it: The three branches [are] three days:
Ver. 12. The three branches are three days.] That is, They signify three days. So Gen_41:26. "The seven kine are seven years." So, "this is my body": that is, This signifieth my body, saith Zuinglius, after Augustine and Ambrose. Or, This is the sign and figure of my body, saith Calvin, after Augustine and Tertullian; whatsoever Bellarmine and Hunnius {a} prate to the contrary. It is an ordinary metonymy, whereby the name of a thing signified is given to the sign, for the analogy that is between them, and for the certainty of signification. Homer and Virgil have the like. {b} As for those Christians that eat their God, let my soul be with the philosophers, rather than with them, saith Averroes, the learned Arabian. When it was objected to Nicolas Shetterden, martyr, by Archdeacon Harpsfield, that the words of Christ, when he said, Hoc est corpus meum, did change the substance, without any other interpretation, or spiritual meaning, he answered: Then like when Christ said, "This cup is my blood," the substance of the cup was changed into his blood, without any other meaning; and so the cup was changed, and not the wine. Harpsfield hereupon was forced to confess that Christ’s testament was broken, and his institution changed from that he left it; but he said, they had power so to do. {c}
{a} Hun., De Sacram., cap. 14.
{b} Hom. (Iliad, iii. 280) victimas quibus faedera sanciebantur ïñêéá , i.e., faedera vocat. - Virgil, "fallere dextram" dixit, i.e., fidem et iusiurandum, quod datis dextris concipitur.
{c} Act. and Mon., fol 1515.