a. Universally

279. Proof of the first conclusion.

First in general as follows, that nothing absolute ceases to be in another because of a new respect coming from outside; but operation is an absolute form, as was shown in Rep. IA d.3 nn.169-174; therefore, the operation does not cease to be in its subject because of a new presence, which is a new respect coming from outside. And evidence for this reason can be obtained from the end of the solution of the preceding question, where this reason was more fully dealt with [nn.246-252].

280. Some say [Henry of Ghent] to this that the major is true of absolute form simply; but operation is not thus absolute, because it requires the relation of power to object.

281. On the contrary: some qualities depend thus in their coming to be on the closeness of the agent to the passive subject, as is plain of heat and cold and other qualities that alteration is toward; and yet in their being simply they are absolute. And according to everyone, all such qualities, absolute ones as well, that were in the body of Christ on the cross, were also in the pyx.

282. Likewise too, in their coming to be they do not require such a relation, and that when they are present concomitantly and not first; for it is apparent that if Christ’s body on the cross grew cold, the cold was also in the body of Christ as it is in the pyx, but not first. And for the latter coming to be there was not required a closeness of the agent there to the passive subject; so, by similarity, since this quality is in itself absolute, although it requires in its coming to be the presence of the object to the power and this will only be where it is present first, so it can come to be concomitantly without any such respect.

283. They reply that operation includes a relation more than other forms about which there is argument do (as heat and the like), because the latter require only a relation of agent to passive subject, and this where they come to be first; but after their coming to be in their proper being, they do not require this sort of relation; but operation is in continuous coming to be, and therefore it requires the continuous closeness of power to the object. From this it seems that it is more repugnant for operation to come to be or to be present without such relation than it is for heat.

284. I say that although it continuously come to be, yet it does not follow that it cannot be concomitantly present and continuously come to be without the presence of the object. For just as heat can come to be in the body in the Eucharist without the closeness of the agent as there, so if the being of heat were to come to be, it could be always caused and always remain in the body and in the host, and yet without such closeness as to ‘where’. For a continuous relation to continuous coming to be does not seem to be required more than a relation then present is required for transient coming to be.

285. And if you object [Henry of Ghent] that “for operation there is required not only the object as cause, because it is a cause in becoming, but in addition its presence in the idea of term of the operation; so just as it impossible for there to be an operation and for it not to terminate at the object, so it is impossible that an operation be in something somewhere and not terminate there in an object present to it” - I say that the presence of the object in itself is needed not because there is a term to the act but only because there is a cause of it, so that when some sufficient cause of the act is posited the presence of the object is not needed to be the term of it (the point is plain about seeing a creature in the divine essence; if the divine essence were the cause of that seeing, the object, which is the term of the seeing, is not required to be present in its own proper presence).