II. To the Initial Arguments

341. As to the first reason [n.298], although it be said that Christ’s body was wounded on the cross and not in the pyx, yet I reply that wounding can be taken for the formal division of parts of something continuous, or for the division itself as inflicted by a body [sc. weapon] as it there enters and divides the parts of a body.

If in the first way then the body would have been divided in the pyx just as it was on the cross, provided the argument is made that “continuity and non-continuity cannot be preserved because there are different ‘wheres’.”

If in the second way, it is true, because the division was not made in the body first as it is in the pyx. Also, there would have been this division of parts of the body in the pyx by comparing it to the whole of which they are parts, but not by comparing it to the containing place, because the divided parts would not have had ‘wheres’ spatially distant as the divided parts on the cross did. And the reason is that the parts of the body on the cross had bodily extension corresponding to the extension of the containing place; and therefore to the division of them in the whole there corresponded a distinction in the parts of the containing place. But the parts are not like this in the Eucharist; hence the parts there, divided and discontinuous as in the whole, would not have had distinct parts of the containing place corresponding to them.

342. Hereby can be solved an argument that is made to the second part, because if fluid could be in two places, here in a sealed jar and there in a perforated jar, it would as a result remain continuous here but flow out there - I reply that the parts, in comparison with the whole, would have continuity here and there in the same way; but in comparison with the container, they could have the corresponding continuity of the container here, and an unlike corresponding continuity there.

343. As to the second reason about nutrition [n.299], it is plain that it would have belonged to the body as it exists in both places, taking ‘nutrition’ for adding a part of substance to the whole nourished thing. But from this does not follow a bodily change of the body first as it is here, because the change would not be by nutriment nearby to the body as the body is here, but the change would only be here concomitantly, because of the conversion elsewhere of nutriment that was nearby elsewhere, and because of the identity of the substance here and there, which substance must have the same parts everywhere.

344. As to the third [n.300], it is plain how and by what Christ’s body is moved, taking motion in the extended sense in the third conclusion [nn.309, 315].

345. As to the fourth [n.301] I concede what it proves, namely that the body can be absolutely moved first there with a bodily motion strictly speaking. But it cannot be so moved by anyone, but by God immediately as was said in the second conclusion [nn.308, 314]; and not by anyone else, even concomitantly, because a created agent, in order to change a body, needs to have it nearby, while God can act on a body however much it exists without location in place; for God’s power has regard to a passive subject absolutely according as it is receptive of the term [of action]; but God’s power does not regard it precisely in the accidental conditions of closeness or distance in place, which are necessary for any natural agent.

346. Here one needs to understand, following the argument about nutrition [n.343], that if a body is only nourished here concomitantly, because it is nourished first elsewhere, and its nutrition is necessary for the preservation of natural life, then the body cannot continue in life here without concomitantly continuing in life elsewhere. And from this follows that if it were nowhere else in natural mode then either it would die from lack of already digested nutriment, or it would remain perpetually in mortal life without taking in nutriment. Note, therefore, that if it were nowhere located in place but only existed sacramentally, it would remain there perpetually in the same way of being in which it had begun to be there. For it could no more die there than it could be nourished there. Therefore it would be possible for a body here to live, in some mode of being, with mortal life and yet do so immortally without also taking in food and without breathing and without having the other things that are commonly required for mortal life.