Again? When do you suppose you might actually prove something, instead of continually spouting unfounded and unprovable assertions?
I can prove my argument, so therefore I will. For those who can read and think for themselves, I will post the truth for them to see and discern.
ST. AUGUSTIN:
HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN
HOMILIES ON THE FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN
SOLILOQUIES
Tractate XXVI.
Chapter VI. 4159
. . . . Wherefore, the Lord, about to give the Holy Spirit, said that Himself was the bread that came down from heaven, exhorting us to believe on Him. For to believe on Him is to eat the living bread. He that believes eats; he is sated invisibly, because invisibly is he born again. A babe within, a new man within. Where he is made new, there he is satisfied with food.
. . . A man can come to Church unwillingly, can approach the altar unwillingly, partake of the sacrament unwillingly: but he cannot believe unless he is willing.
If we believed with the body, men might be made to believe against their will. But believing is not a thing done with the body. Hear the apostle: With the heart man believeth unto righteousness. And what follows? And with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.514514 Rom. x. 10. That confession springs from the root of the heart.
3. . . . For we do not run to Christ on foot, but by believing; nor is it by a motion of the body, but by the inclination of the heart that we draw nigh to Him.
Chapter 5.It is a Wretched Slavery Which Takes the Figurative Expressions of Scripture in a Literal Sense.
9. But the ambiguities of metaphorical words, about which I am next to speak, demand no ordinary care and diligence. In the first place, we must beware of taking a figurative expression literally. For the saying of the apostle applies in this case too: The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.18541854 2 Cor. iii. 6. For when what is said figuratively is taken as if it were said literally, it is understood in a carnal manner. And nothing is more fittingly called the death of the soul than when that in it which raises it above the brutes, the intelligence namely, is put in subjection to the flesh by a blind adherence to the letter. For he who follows the letter takes figurative words as if they were proper, and does not carry out what is indicated by a proper word into its secondary signification; but, if he hears of the Sabbath, for example, thinks of nothing but the one day out of seven which recurs in constant succession; and when he hears of a sacrifice, does not carry his thoughts beyond the customary offerings of victims from the flock, and of the fruits of the earth. Now it is surely a miserable slavery of the soul to take signs for things, and to be unable to lift the eye of the mind above what is corporeal and created, that it may drink in eternal light.
Chapter 10.How We are to Discern Whether a Phrase is Figurative.
14. . . . But in addition to the foregoing rule, which guards us against taking a metaphorical form of speech as if it were literal, we must also pay heed to that which tells us not to take a literal form of speech as if it were figurative. In the first place, then, we must show the way to find out whether a phrase is literal or figurative. And the way is certainly as follows: Whatever there is in the word of God that cannot, when taken literally, be referred either to purity of life or soundness of doctrine, you may set down as figurative. Purity of life has reference to the love of God 561 and ones neighbor; soundness of doctrine to the knowledge of God and ones neighbor.
Chapter 16.Rule for Interpreting Commands and Prohibitions.
24. . . . If the sentence is one of command, either forbidding a crime or vice, or enjoining an act of prudence or benevolence, it is not figurative. If, however, it seems to enjoin a crime or vice, or to forbid an act of prudence or benevolence, it is figurative. Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, says Christ, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.18671867 John vi. 53. This seems to enjoin a crime or a vice; it is therefore a figure, enjoining that we should have a share in the sufferings of our Lord, and that we should retain a sweet and profitable memory of the fact that His flesh was wounded and crucified for us.
Is that clear enough for you?
Not at all.
It is totally irrelevant to the point. Augustines belief in the real presence is not in doubt. I'm not even sure what point you are trying to make.
"You ought to know what you have received, what you are going to receive, and what you ought to receive daily. That Bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the Body of Christ. The chalice, or rather, what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the Blood of Christ."
-"Sermons", [227, 21]
"He who made you men, for your sakes was Himself made man; to ensure your adoption as many sons into an everlasting inheritance, the blood of the Only-Begotten has been shed for you. If in your own reckoning you have held yourselves cheap because of your earthly frailty, now assess yourselves by the price paid for you; meditate, as you should, upon what you eat, what you drink, to what you answer 'Amen'".
-"Second Discourse on Psalm 32". Ch. 4. circa
"For the whole Church observes this practice which was handed down by the Fathers: that it prayers for those who have died in the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, when they are commemorated in their own place in the sacrifice itself; and the sacrifice is offered also in memory of them on their behalf.
Source: St. Augustine, Sermons 172,2, circa 400 A.D.
"The fact that our fathers of old offered sacrifices with beasts for victims, which the present-day people of God read about but do not do, is to be understood in no way but this: that those things signified the things that we do in order to draw near to God and to recommend to our neighbor the same purpose. A visible sacrifice, therefore, is the sacrament, that is to say, the sacred sign, of an invisible sacrifice
. Christ is both the Priest, offering Himself, and Himself the Victim. He willed that the sacramental sign of this should be the daily sacrifice of the Church, who, since the Church is His body and He the Head, learns to offer herself through Him.
Source: St. Augustine, The City of God, 10, 5; 10,20, c. 426:
