I. To the Question

A. Opinion of Thomas Aquinas and Richard of Middleton

385. Here it is said [Aquinas, Richard] that the existence of Christ’s body in the Eucharist cannot be naturally known by the intellect of a wayfarer, because it is the object of faith. However it can well be known by the blessed, and that too in the beatific act, because things known obscurely, that is, by a wayfarer, are succeeded in blessedness by clear vision.

386. The same in substance as the first point above [n.385] is said in another way but for a different reason, namely that the natural light does not reach to knowledge of this existence.

387. There is disagreement on the second point [sc. the knowledge of the blessed, n.385], because it is said [Richard] that the blessed are able not only to see this existence in the Word but also in its proper genus. For although this mode of existence exceeds the faculty of the natural light, yet it does not exceed the faculty of the light of glory. And therefore, although no created intellect left to its natural light could see this way of existing, yet the intellect aided by the light of glory will be able to see it. Hence he says [Richard] that the mode of existence of the body of Christ under the sacrament and everything that belongs to faith is seen clearly by any blessed intellect not only in the Word, but also in the vision that is said to be vision in its proper genus.

388. And note that Richard does not prove that vision of this sort in the Word or in its proper genus is in the blessed, but he says “I believe”, and this is his proof.

B. Scotus’ own Opinion

1. On the Acceptation of the Terms ‘Intellect’, ‘To see’, ‘Naturally’

389. I reply to the question by first expounding these three terms: ‘intellect’, ‘to see’, ‘naturally’.

390. For a created intellect is either altogether separate from matter, as an angelic intellect, or similar to it in its operation, namely the intellect of the separated soul and the intellect of the soul joined to a blessed body, which are like angels in operation (as I assume here, and it will be proved below [nn.398-400]); or it is a created intellect joined to a corruptible body, which ‘weighs down the soul’ Wisdom 9.15. And this last intellect only understands things that are imaginable or that are displayed in phantasms of what is imaginable, from On the Soul 3.7.431a14-b2.

391. By the term ‘naturally’ is not meant that the intellect can of its own nature know the object, for the intellect is like a blank slate which can know nothing of itself alone, ibid. 3.4.429b30-430a2. But what is meant is that the intellect naturally knows that which it can know with the concurrence of its natural causes, namely the active and passive intellect.

392. Now ‘to see’ brings in intuitive intellection as it is distinguished from abstractive intellection; and, as was said elsewhere [Ord. II d.3 nn.318-323, III d.14 nn.107-118], intuitive intellection is knowledge of a thing as it is in itself present; abstractive intellection can be of a thing as it is displayed in some likeness, which can be of the thing as existing or as non-existing, or as present or non-present.

393. The question, then, is not about ‘understanding naturally’ but about ‘seeing [naturally]’ because, when one is speaking of abstractive understanding or intellection, it is manifest that the intellect can naturally understand the body of Christ. For it is impossible to form or conceive any proposition whose terms are not conceived, but it is possible for our intellect to conceive this proposition ‘the body of Christ is in the Eucharist’, otherwise it could not form it. Therefore our intellect can, in some intellection, understand both this proposition and its terms.

394. And if you ask how Christ’s body or its existence in the Eucharist can be known by us by abstraction, I reply that Augustine teaches, On the Trinity 8.4 n.7, how we have faith about Christ, although, however, we have not seen Christ, namely that we do so (according to Augustine) in certain general intentions or concepts taken from singulars, as he teaches there at large. For it makes no difference to our faith whether we err in certain sensible conditions we have conceived about Christ, since our faith does not per se regard those proper conditions, but it regards an individual man, knowledge of whom can come to be in us from knowledge of any individual man. So too the existence of Christ’s body here could have come to be in us from some other existence, as the existence of something else contained in a container or signified in a sign or covered with a covering.

Now it is about ‘seeing’, that is, about intuitive knowledge of this existence, that the question here is being moved.

2. Solution Consisting of Three Conclusions

a. First Conclusion

396. And let the first conclusion be that our intellect in our state as wayfarers cannot naturally see the body of Christ as existing there in the Eucharist.

397. The proof of this is that an intellect that understands only from things sensible understands from these sensibles in the same way in which the sensibles are present to it; our intellect is of this sort for now, and sensibles are present to it in the same way before Christ’s body is there in the Eucharist as they are present to it afterwards;     therefore etc     . But our intellect does not see Christ’s body intuitively before, because that body is not there before; therefore it does not see it intuitively afterwards either.

b. Second Conclusion

398. The second conclusion is about an intellect not tied to sensible things in its understanding, and it is this: every such intellect, whether angelic or belonging to the separated soul or to a man in bliss, can naturally see the existence of Christ’s body in the Eucharist.

399. The proof is that an intellect disposed to intelligible things as they are intelligible in themselves understands first what is intelligible in itself first and consequently what is in itself a being first, because “as each thing is disposed to being, so is it disposed to truth,” that is, to intelligibility, according to Aristotle Metaphysics 2.1.993b30-31. Now such an intellect [sc. one not tied to sensible things in its understanding] has regard to the whole of being, that is, to everything at all in the order of its intelligibility. But substance, in knowability just as in being, is first, prior to any accidental mode of the substance; therefore such an intellect understands substance first, prior to any mode of it, and consequently no mode under substance can prevent such an intellect’s understanding of substance.

400. The argument here is briefly as follows: an accidental mode in a per se object does not prevent knowledge of that object. The presence of Christ’s body in the Eucharist is an accidental mode of the substance of Christ’s body. Therefore, it does not prevent that substance from being known by an intellect whose per se object substance is. But it is the per se object of the abstract intellect that does not depend on sensible things in its understanding.

401. You will say [Aquinas, Richard, nn.385-386] that these points prove that such substance of Christ’s body could be known by such an intellect but not intuitively seen by it, because that existence is supernatural and consequently not proportioned to any created intellect as such intellect naturally knows.

402. First against the conclusion and then against the reason.

403. To the first point in two ways:

First, because an intellect able to know an object intuitively while the object is present can know its absence while it is absent (as is plain from On the Soul 2.10.422a20-22, because we know by vision not only light but also darkness); such an abstract intellect can know the presence of bread when bread is present, because this is not a supernatural object; therefore it can know the bread’s absence when bread is absent. And the reason whereby it can thus know the absence of the substance of the body of bread is reason too whereby it can know the presence of the substance of the body of Christ; for that body in itself is an object proportioned to such intellect in its act of intuiting. Therefore, the accidental mode of the body does not prevent it being an intuitable object for the same intellect.

404. The argument here is briefly as follows, that the whole of created being, as it is an object proportioned to such intellect as to abstractive knowledge, so also as to intuitive knowledge; for intuitive knowledge differs from abstractive knowledge only because of a different presence of the object; anything therefore that can be an object proportioned to the intellect in this presence can be an object proportioned to it also in that presence. If therefore any being can be abstractively known by such an intellect when present to it in one way, can as a result be intuitively known by the same intellect when perfectly present to it in its actual proper existence.

405. Also, against the reason for this response about the supernatural [nn.401-402] I argue as follows: that natural and supernatural do not distinguish the nature of anything in itself but only in relation to the agent (since for this reason is something called supernatural, because it is from a supernatural agent, and natural because from a natural agent); but a relation to different agents does not necessarily prove that something is different in itself, according to Augustine On the Trinity 3.9 nn.16-19; therefore it does not necessarily prove that it is different in idea of being intelligible.

406. This is plain because an imperfect being could be supernatural and something natural could be much more perfect than it, just as any substance is more perfect than any accident, Metaphysics 7.1.1028a10-b2, and yet in a substance that is purely a natural being there can be an accident that is supernatural.

407. This is also plain because the theological virtues (as charity and the like) are in a determinate species of quality, and, according to many [Aquinas, Godfrey of Fontaines, Giles of Rome, Robert Kilwardby], an angel naturally has the principles for knowing all the species of beings; therefore an angel naturally has the principles for knowing these virtues, although they are supernatural beings.

c. Third Conclusion

408. The third conclusion is that a blessed intellect in no way sees through the beatific act the body of Christ in the Eucharist.

409. The proof is that someone blessed is only distinguished from someone not blessed in seeing the beatific object as it is the beatific object, and seeing the things that are included in it as it is such an object. But the body of Christ as it is in the Eucharist is not such an object (as is plain) nor is it included in the beatific object (it is plain). For it belongs equally naturally to the beatific object to include the thing of one sacrament in the idea of the seen object as to include the thing of another (just as it belongs equally to the truth of faith to believe the truth of one article as the truth of another). But it in no way belongs to the beatific object to include in the idea of what is displayed the conferring of grace on a child in baptism, or the conferring of grace on the penitent in confession - and these conferrings are equally truly included in these sacraments as the body of Christ is included in the Eucharist. Therefore in no way does the beatific object, as it is such object, include the body of Christ as a thing seen in the Eucharist.

410. I add further to this that much less is it required for beatitude that the blessed see the existence of the body of Christ in its proper genus, because much less is such perfection of vision required for beatitude than the perfection of vision in the Word.