3. About the Third and Fourth Change

390. But about the third change (which is according to more and less), and the fourth change, there is doubt.

a. About the Third Change

391. Briefly, the common opinion (as was stated to the issue at hand), indeed every opinion, namely that ‘some quantity is new in rarefaction’ [nn.349-352], labors under the same difficulty as does also the opinion that posits the whole quantity to be new [n.328] - unless the way touched on is held to, that rarefaction is a certain juxtaposition of finer bodies within the parts of a grosser body [n.362]. Now, according to this way, the difficulty would be avoided, save that it is difficult to see how in this case a body finer than wine could be generated from fire or the sun - and on this point one must speak the way that will be stated in the following question [n.431]. There is also the other difficulty that, as quickly as the species would be rarefied, some new substance would at once be there, and consequently that Christ’s body is not everywhere there.

392. It also seems strange that no substance could be changed from rare to dense, or conversely, when it remains altogether the same.

393. But what about when the common opinion is held to, that another quantity is there [in the Eucharist], and without a subject [n.350] (whether the whole is new or not the whole, I care not)? Will this be able to be by a created agent?

394. I say no:

First because what is conserved immediately by God cannot be corrupted by a created agent; for on this account supernatural accidents cannot be destroyed by a creature as efficient cause (the reason for which is that no created cause can have an active virtue superior to the virtue of the cause that conserves the accidents in their being); but quantity here has supernatural being immediately from a supernatural cause conserving it;     therefore etc     .

395. Again, quantity in a subject is not destroyed by a contrary, because it does not have a contrary; therefore, it is destroyed only through a defect of the subject, or of something necessarily consequent to it. But it cannot be destroyed here by destruction of the subject, because it is here without a subject; nor in the second way, because no other accident that is in the subject necessarily follows quantity.

396. If you ask, then, by what cause a new quantity is induced, I say it is immediately by God alone. Nor yet by a new miracle, because by the will by which he has disposed the Eucharist to exist in the Church he has disposed that, as concerns species when an active natural cause is present, he would cause the sort of change in converted substances that a natural agent would cause - and this lest, if the species here were seen to be unchangeable, the merit of faith be emptied.

397. This way cannot be refuted by the senses, because it preserves everything that appears to the senses; nor refuted by reason, because if you argue that it takes from a natural agent its proper action, I say that it does not take away the action that can belong to a natural agent, namely that it change the substance of bread from form to form; but it does deny to a natural agent the action that cannot belong to it, namely to cause change and not change any subject.

398. An alternative statement when holding the common opinion in this issue, namely that in rarefaction there is a new quantity (not wholly new but partly so) in the same subject [n.391], is that there is in quantity as it is in a subject a movement of rarefaction by which there is per accidens some new degree of quantity, but yet without a subject; nor is there a new miracle, because the new part is as it were combined with the existing quantity; nor is it a new miracle that a quantity combined with a separated quantity has the like way of existing, or has separation - as is exemplified of the parts of flesh generated from the food existing in Christ; for, in the same way that the Word assumed human nature, the parts of flesh generated from the food are assumed into the unity of person of the Word. So here [in the Eucharist], by the same miracle by which quantity is made separate from a subject, by that miracle is it made to be the case that whatever is part of the same quantity is likewise separate.

399. Against this view [n.398] there is first that another quantity could be added to this quantity, as would be if non-consecrated wine were added to the consecrated species, and the added quantity is not without a subject the way the quantity is that it is added to.

400. Nor is the above reason nor the likeness [n.398] to the purpose, because the parts generated from food were parts of some whole that was assumed by the Word; but these parts [sc. of quantity in the Eucharist] do not become parts of a whole that has separated being primarily, of which the consequence is that, though a part receive the like being of the whole without a new miracle, yet a part does not receive the like being of another part without a new miracle. And because the rareness of the whole is the per se term of alteration, the whole has the whole quantity for its proper subject, just as a part has part of the quantity for subject; therefore, that whole quantity presupposes this whole quantity - therefore is it greater than it; and consequently the quantity is naturally greater before this rareness is introduced.

401. In brief one must, as to this article, either hold the second opinion, that the quantity is in no way by another action of a created agent, or say that a created agent could act without a passive subject on which to act.

402. But the first option appears improbable to some.

403. The second can in some way be explained, namely: a created agent’s not requiring a passive subject, or anything supplying its place, seems to destroy the foundations of natural philosophy, (Physics 1.7.190a14-15, 9.192a31-32; On Generation 1.4.320a2-5 and often elsewhere), because there would be no need for anything the same to underlie the terms of change.

404. It also seems to destroy what appears to the senses, for an agent that has the term completely within its active virtue can, if not impeded, put that term into being; therefore, a created agent could put that term into being without any passive subject, and thus it could make an accident without a subject and a substantial form without matter -which seems manifestly contrary to the senses.

405. Hence a created agent requires a passive subject for two reasons, namely because of itself - for the passive subject is a cause that shares together with the created agent, since a created agent has a limited virtue in acting and so requires another cause, namely a material cause, to be concurrent with it in the coming to be; and also because of the effect, which is composed of matter as its pre-existing part and of form as the arriving part. Therefore, a created agent should not be posited as acting altogether without matter, whether matter in itself or in something equivalent.

406. But it would be said that the First Being supplies the place of the subject in relation to a created agent. The proof of this is that, just as the First Being can supply the place of the subject in relation to a created agent as concerns settled being in regard to an accident, so this Being can supply the place of the subject in regard to the agent as to the coming to be of the effect (proof: a cause seems to be required more for the effect than for another cause in the causing; now a subject in regard to an accident has the idea of cause, but an accident in regard to an agent and causer has the idea of co-cause only;     therefore etc     .).

407. The manner of this conclusion, then, is this, that a created agent does not act without a subject in itself or in something supplying the place of the subject; and yet, in the issue at hand, although there is no subject in itself, yet God supplies the place of a subject, that is, the extrinsic causality that would belong to the subject if it were present -and this insofar as the extrinsic cause is required as co-cause along with the created agent. And this is possible, just as it is possible for God to supply the place of the cause with respect to the caused effect; for the cause does not depend on the co-cause more than the effect caused depends on both causes.

408. But against this [n.407] it is again argued:

Because the causality of the subject is reception of the form; but it is impossible for God, whether in himself or anything else, to have the idea of receptivity to form.

409. Again, if a created agent requires a passive subject, that is, as co-cause and this in idea of being receptive of form, then a created agent cannot act on such a passive subject without a new miracle; and so, once some such thing is posited to supply the place of the subject, the fact that the created agent does act will be a new miracle. But in miraculous action the created agent does not act wholly of itself; therefore, one must return to the fact that the action is not by a created agent.

b. About the Fourth Change

410. About the fourth change, which is in quantity in itself, the thing is easier. For here there is no possible action as to growth and diminution, because the species are then not animate; but action here is possible as to addition and subtraction; for the surface can be divided into parts, and some quantum can be added to it.

411. As to division I say that it is not properly a change of the same subject but is only a certain reduction to act of parts that were in potency, that is, were indistinct, in the whole before - I mean reduction to distinct act, because the parts were continuous, and so in a way one, in the whole before, and afterwards, outside the whole, they are discontinuous.

412. But if the question is altogether about the subject here in such qualitative change, I reply that the subject can be posited to be the parts as they remain according to the same entity (albeit not the parts with the dividing up we understand when we speak of parts in act), because they were in the whole and afterwards outside the whole according to the same positive entity; but in the whole they had continuity, which prevents the actuality that includes dividing up, while outside the whole they do have that actuality, so that the parts are changed from form to privation of form. And thus there is no generation here but, as it were, corruption without generation, because the entity, which is now positive in each part, existed as a totality before, although it did not exist before under the dividing up (namely, not being along with something else) that it now exists under; and the entity of the whole, which existed before, does not now remain.

413. It is plain, therefore, how this change does not require the same remaining quantity (speaking of the sameness that is continuity), but it does require sameness speaking of whatever here and there is positive, although a positive differently disposed.

414. As to addition, I say that it is possible for another quantity to be added to this one and to be continuous with it, and this while no subject, except perhaps the continuous parts, remains the same (as was said before in the case of division [n.411]). And thus the quantity will not only be the same with sameness of continuity but also with the same positive sameness that preceded the continuity, namely the quantity that is in this part and likewise in that whether they are continuous or discontinuous.

415. And this difficulty is common to any union or division. For if either union or division is change, and you ask for its subject, nothing common remains save the entities of the divided or united parts, and that entity, when union is made, has something separate which it lacks when there is division, namely some relation of the united pars or the continuity of them (speaking of quanta). And thus the change is universally privative in the case of division but positive in the case of continuity.

416. And if you argue “if some quantum is added to this one, and is made continuous with this species, then there is the same limit in act for both of them; the limit then is either in a subject or without a subject” - look for the response.a

a.a [Interpolation] It is said that the body of Christ is not under anything indivisible, nor under anything that is not part of the quantum; the limit then or the line, since it is not part of the quantum,A line is the limit or division of a surface (a quantum in two dimensions) and not a part of it, just as a point is the limit or division of a line (a quantum in one dimension) and not a part of it. A line, then, has a subject, since it is an attribute of quantity, but the quantity or quantum of which it is the attribute does not have a subject. ⁵⁴ is not realized on the side of what is without a subject.

     If you say that there is no greater reason for it to be realized on the side of this than of that - denied, because the line is in a subject, though it is not part of the [sacramental] host.

417. It could also be said, though less probably, that the breaking up or division of parts of a quantity is only a certain local motion, and exists in the things relocated as in a subject; but then it would be necessary to say, conversely, that continuity is nothing but a certain relocating, because relocating does not make for continuity but contiguity only.