Tenth Distinction. First Part: On the Possibility of Christ’s Body Existing in the Eucharist

7. About the first part I ask three questions: first, whether it is possible for Christ’s body to be contained really under the species of bread and wine; second, whether his body could be placed at the same time in heaven and elsewhere; third, whether it could be placed at the same time in heaven and sacramentally on the altar.

Question One. Whether it is Possible for Christ’s Body to be Contained Really under the Species of Bread and Wine

8. To proceed thus to the first question, arguments are made that this is not possible:

Because the body of Christ is not contained under the species of unconsecrated bread; therefore not after consecration either. The antecedent is plain. The proof of the consequence is that a species after the consecration is not disposed differently in itself than it was before.

9. And if you say that before consecration a species is in a subject and afterwards without a subject, then I take the proposition that it is not disposed differently in relation to the body of Christ after the consecration, when it is without a subject, than it was before the consecration, when it was in a subject. For its being in a subject in no way varies this relation. But the species of bread is of this sort whether in a subject or not; therefore its relation to the body of Christ is not changed by its being or not being in a subject. But it is impossible for something to be where it was not before, unless either it or what it is in is newly changed. Therefore since the species of bread are not changed in relation to the body of Christ after consecration, the consequence is that the body of Christ must be changed in relation to the species in order for it to be newly there. But this is false, because the body of Christ remains unchangeably in heaven, according to

Augustine On John’s Gospel tr.30 n.1 (and in Gratian Decretum p.3 d.2 ch.44): “The Lord is above until the end of the age.”

10. Again second, as follows: Christ’s body under the species is either a definite quantity, a quantum, or not a quantum, because a quantity cannot be separated from the mode of the quantity (just as neither can a subject be separated from its specific property), because the specific property of quantity seems to be most of the all the mode of the quantity. Therefore Christ’s body would exist in a mode of quantity. But this is false because the less cannot exist together with the greater in this way.The mode of quantity seems to be its determinate amount, and clearly the quantity of Christ’s body is greater in amount (in size, weight etc.) than the quantity of the consecrated host. ³

11. Again third, as follows, that in the Eucharist Christ’s body has part next to part or not. If it does, then not all the parts of Christ’s body would be together under the same part of the consecrated host; and universally, if something whose parts are part next to part is under some quantum, one part is with one part of that quantum and the whole of it with the whole of it. But if part is not next to part in it, then there is no quantum there; whence the definition of a continuous quantum is that it be part next to part.

12. On the contrary:

In Matthew 26.26 Christ says, “This is my body,” and John 6.56, “my flesh is food indeed.”

13. And many authorities from Augustine and Ambrose are set down in the Master’s text [IV d.10 ch.1 n.6-ch.2 n.7, also in Gratian Decretum p.3 d.2 ch.55.

I. To the Question

14. Here two things must be explained, as is the case about other matters of belief: first what is to be maintained and by what authority; second how what is believed is possible [cf. Scotus, On the First Principle ch.3 n.1].

A. What is to be Maintained and by What Authority

15. On the first point I say that the proposition ‘the body of Christ is of a truth really there’ belongs simply to the articles of faith, in the way that the truth of any sacrament belongs to the articles of faith. For this truth was handed on expressly from the beginning, from when the Eucharist was instituted.

16. The foundation of this authority is Matthew 26.26-28 and Luke 22.19-20, where in the Cena Christ says, “This is my body; this is my blood.”

17. And if heretics [e,g, Berengar of Tours, who afterwards recanted] want to gloss this by saying that it is said figuratively, like what is said in John 15.1, “I am the true vine,” and in I Corinthians 10.4, “Now that rock was Christ” - this is altogether against the intention of the Savior.

18. The fact is plain from a saying of Augustine 83 Questions q.69 n.2, “The circumstances of Scripture show how to understand Scripture.” For universally the meaning of the words of Christ (whether he is speaking figuratively or not) can be gathered from what precedes and what follows in the same place, or from other places of Scripture. Hence when Christ say, “I am the true vine,” he adds, “and you are the branches;” for it is plain that the disciples were not natural branches but only branches figuratively.

19. But when he says in Luke 22, “This is my body,” he adds, “which will be given up for you;” also when he had said, “This is the chalice of my blood,” he adds in the same place, “which will be shed for you.” The same is also plain from another place of Scripture, namely John 6, where there is an extended sermon about this sacrament.

20. And if you say that, when Christ saw that some departed from him because of his preaching about the Eucharist, he then gave an exposition of himself saying, “The spirit gives life but the flesh is worth nothing at all; the words that I speak to you are spirit and they are life,” which Augustine treats of (On the Psalms psalm 98 n.9; in Gratian Decretum p.3 d.2 ch.44), and says, “Not this body which you see will you eat of, nor the blood that they will shed     etc .” “It is a sacrament I have commended to you; spiritually understood will it give you life.” Therefore      it seems from the words of Christ and Augustine that he does not understand them of the body save figuratively -

21. I say that the Master replies in the text, and replies well, that neither Christ nor Augustine in their exposition mean to deny the truth of Christ’s body in the sacrament, but that Christ’s body is not in the sacrament carnally, as those took it who departed from him, namely as visible in its proper form. Rather, in opposition to this way of understanding, it is there spiritually, that is intelligibly. And this is what Augustine says (and the Master adduces it, from Gratian ibid. ch.45), “It indeed is eaten, and not the body that was seen - it invisibly, not visibly.”The words are not from Augustine in fact but Lanfranc On the Body and Blood of the Lord ch.18, and from Ambrose’s Letter to Irenaeus 64 n.1. The misattributions are found first in Gratian, from whom the Master took them, and Scotus from the Master. Vatican editors. ⁴

22. In this way too does the Apostle treat at length of the Eucharist I Corinthians 11.23-29, and all later Catholics who expound these places of Scripture and say that the words of Scripture are to be understood of the real and not figurative presence of the body of Christ.

23. Hence it is a straightforward heresy today to think that the true body is not really there.

This on the first point [n.14].

B. How What is Believed is Possible

1. Four Possibilities, to be Explained in Turn in what Follows

24. On the second point [n.14] many impossibilities seem to be involved here, namely, following the principles of the philosophers: i) one is that a quantum exists together in a quantum, or that the substance of Christ’s body is here without its quantity; ii) a second is that a greater quantum exists together in a small quantum, namely in the same space as it; iii) a third is that the body of Christ begins to exist here, and yet without motion or change properly speaking, because it is not posited as leaving its ‘where’ in heaven; iv) a fourth is that a quantum exists really at once in diverse places.

25. Now the possibility of all these things is not to be explained here, because the prolixity would be too much.

For that i) the substance is not here without its quantity will be stated in the second part of this distinction 10, in question 1 nn.260-263.

26. But as to how ii) a quantum can exist together in a quantum, the difficulty is more evident about quanta that possess quantitative mode than when one or both are without quantitative mode. Therefore, this difficulty will be touched on in the material about glorious bodies, in the questions about the subtlety of the glorious body [IV d.49 p.2 suppl. q.7].

27. The final one, iii) and iv), that one quantum exists at the same time in several places, will be explained in the two questions that follow.

2. Two Possibilities to be Explained here

28. For this question, then, two things remain to be explained, namely how it is possible for the body of Christ to begin to exist on the altar without its moving in place iii), and how it is possible for Christ’s body to be a quantum without quantitative mode ii).

a. First: About Christ’s Body Beginning to Exist on the Altar without Change of Place

α. Opinion of Others and its Rejection

29. About the first it is commonly said [Aquinas, Richard of Middleton, William of Auxerre] that this is because of the change of something else into the body of Christ (namely because of the conversion of bread into the body of Christ), and so it is not necessary for Christ’s body to change in itself. For it is enough that something change into it for this sort of body to begin to be present there. Because just as a thing is generated where first something was corrupted, and not through a change proper to the generated thing, so does it seem that that into which something is converted by conversion of something else into it occurs where the thing converted into it first was, and not by a change in place proper to the term ‘to which’ of the conversion, but proper to the term ‘from which’.

30. On the contrary: I suppose that, according to them, transubstantiation, in the way it is admitted to be a change, is a substantial change. From this it follows that the change has some substance as the per se term ‘to which’. But by no change is that per se obtained which is posterior to its per se term. But this sort of presence [sc. of Christ’s body in the Eucharist] is posterior simply to the substance of the body of Christ; and this substance, it is manifest, is the term of the change. For this sort of presence is not essentially prior to it (because the substance of the body can be without this sort of presence), nor is it simultaneous in nature with it (because then its presence could only be destroyed if the substance was destroyed, which is false).

31. This reasoning can be confirmed in another way, by putting otherness for posteriority as follows: By no change is that per se obtained which is per se other than its per se term; but the sort of presence in question here is simply other than the substance that is the per se term of transubstantiation;     therefore etc     .

32. The major is plain, because to one per se change there is one per se term, and so whatever is per se other than the term, although it is per accidens the same as it, is not per se obtained through that change.

33. The minor is plain, because the sort of presence in question here is not the substance of bread, because there is no bread then; nor is it the substance of the body of Christ, because that substance was when this presence was not.

34. A second argument [sc. to the contrary. n.30] is as follows: God can make his body present to any bread while the substance of the bread remains, and yet this will not be by a change that is change to substance as to the per se term, because no substance of the bread is new, and yet thereby is obtained a presence of the same idea as the presence which is obtained now; therefore it must be by a change of the same idea; therefore it would be by a change other than substantial change.

35. The proof of the major [n.34] is that newness of what is prior does not follow on newness of what is posterior. The fact is plain from Physics 8.8.264b9-265a12 where the Philosopher maintains that in a circle there can be motion as to ‘where’ although there cannot be any newness in it as to absolute form. Hence something can be moved as to place without change as to substance (the reason is that ‘where’ is a certain extrinsic relation coming to a thing and not an absolute form). But the presence [of Christ’s body] here is posterior to the substance of the bread, just as relation is posterior to what is absolute, and posterior above all to substance. Therefore there can, without any change in the substance of the bread, be a new presence of [Christ’s] body to the bread. So there must be some change toward this sort of presence, a change that is not a substantial one. And consequently, in the matter at hand, this presence is not obtained through transubstantiation in substance, because a term of the same idea (and presence is a term of this sort) is not properly and per se the term of two changes distinct in genus.

36. And if you say that it can become present to the substance of the bread without substantial change, but yet it does become present through a substantial change of the bread into the body of Christ, and not through another change - on the contrary, God could convert the bread into the body of Christ previously made present to the bread. For there is no greater contradiction in this than there is now when the bread is converted into Christ’s non-previously present body. Therefore, if the sort of conversion of the bread done now is done into the body of Christ already present to the species of bread, the body would not come to be present there again. Or one would have to say that it became present after it was present and that the same presence would be the term of both the stated changes [sc. the change of bread to Christ’s body already present to the bread, and the change of bread to Christ’s body not already present to the bread];     therefore etc     .

37. Third [to the contrary] as follows: what is converted into something preexistent acquires the properties of that something pre-existent rather than the reverse. The point is plain, for if nutriment is converted into flesh, it is animated rather by the soul of the flesh than the flesh informed by the form of the nutriment and, universally, the nutriment acquires the absolute conditions and the ‘where’ and the other respects of the flesh rather than the reverse. Therefore, by the mere conversion of bread into the preexisting body of Christ the converted bread would acquire presence in heaven rather the body of Christ acquire the presence of the species of bread on the altar.

38. Fourth as follows: God could convert the bread into the body of Christ as Christ’s body has being in heaven, because there is no greater contradiction in this case than in the conversion that is posited now. But by such conversion Christ’s body would not then be possessed under the species of bread on the altar; therefore not now either.

39. Fifth as follows: if the bread quantum is converted into Christ’s body quantum, so that quantity is converted into quantity and substance into substance, Christ’s body quantum would not be circumscribed by the ‘where’ that the bread was circumscribed by; therefore by the conversion of substance into substance, the substance of Christ’s body does not have the definite ‘where’ which was the definite ‘where’ of the substance of bread.

40. The antecedent is manifest, because that quantum, namely Christ’s body, could not be circumscribed by the place of the bread, since it is larger than the bread.

41. The proof of the consequence is that just as a substance and a substance (which exist under quantity) are related to definite place, so also is a substance quantum related to a substance quantum as to circumscribed place; therefore that which conversion into a substance makes to be in a definite place, this the conversion of a substance quantum into a substance quantum would make to be in a circumscribed place.

β. Scotus’ own Opinion

42. As to this article, then [n.28], it does not seem one must necessarily take flight to the conversion of the bread into the body, especially since from the beginning, from when there is a thing of this sacrament, it was always believed that the body of Christ does not move from its place in heaven in order to be here, and yet there was not from the beginning as clear a belief about the conversion, as will be said in d.11 nn.105-106.

43. [Certain preliminaries] - I speak to this point, then, by laying down certain preliminaries, namely that when a body moves from place to place and expels another body, there are commonly four motions or changes in it and eight terms: namely two changes in the expelling body and two in the expelled body.

44. For the expelling body is moved from its first ‘where’ to the privation of this ‘where’, and this change between the positive term ‘from which’ to the privative term ‘to which’ can be called a losing of the first ‘where’; the same body too, from its lack of the second ‘where’, is moved to the second ‘where’, and so the change from the privation, as from the term ‘from which’ to the ‘where’ as to the term ‘to which’, can be called the acquisition of a ‘where’.

45. Similarly there are two changes and four terms concerning the body that is expelled when the first body enters its place.

46. But if a body were moved and another body not expelled from its place, there would now only be two changes, and both in the moved body: one namely that is loss of its first ‘where’ and the other its acquisition of a new ‘where’.

But if the body, by not leaving its first ‘where’, were to be now in a new ‘where’, only one change would be in it, namely from its not having the new ‘where’ to its having that new ‘where’; and this would be a change in acquisition. And there would be no change of a losing (which would be from the first ‘where’ to the lack of it), because ex hypothesi the first ‘where’ is not lost, though the body be placed in a new ‘where’.

47. But if none of these changes is posited, it would be altogether unintelligible how the body would be where it was not before. For it is impossible for what was previously not really here to be in any way here without there being some real change in it, or in that to which it is really present; for in no way is there a passage, as to any real predicate, from contradictory to contradictory [sc. from not here to here] without there being some real change; nor is there a reason why this part of the contradiction [sc. here] is more real now than it was before, nor why another [sc. not here] is more true than this one, and so both now and before either both are simultaneously true or both are simultaneously false.

48. [Application of the preliminaries to the matter at issue] - To the matter at issue: that there is a losing in the body of Christ of its ‘where’ in heaven is posited by no one, according to Augustine above, “The Lord is above until the end of the age” [n.9] -and understanding by this, ‘unless it pleased him, by some special grace, to make a local descent’, which is not posited as happening because of the truth of the Eucharist.

49. However, in order to save the real presence of Christ’s body here on the altar, one must posit that there is some presence of it to the species of bread that there was not before, otherwise it would not be more present now than not present. For the change that concerns the species, namely that they were first in a subject and now without a subject, does nothing for the fact that Christ’s body becomes present to them from not being present to them (as was proved above [nn.30-41]); for that presence has per se terms other than this change to make its non-presence become presence. Therefore, one must posit some per se change in Christ’s body that makes for acquisition of this new presence.

50. But this change cannot properly be called change in place, for two reasons. First, because no loss of the prior ‘where’ accompanies this change, as it commonly does in change of place; for one can identify in it, namely in change of place, a positive term ‘from which’ and a positive term ‘to which’, and these accompany two privations, in the way the Philosopher says in Physics 5.1.225a7-10, that “movement is from non-subject to subject.” Second, nor is there properly here a ‘where’ term of the change, because Christ’s body at the term of this sort of change does not properly have here a ‘where’, nor a being circumscribed by something, but its term is a certain simple presence to the species, though a true and real presence.

51. And if you ask ‘to what category does this change and term of change belong?’ - I say that if an angel be placed newly present to a body, that angel is said indeed to be in a definite place, in the way in which it belongs to an angel to be in place [Ord. II d.2 nn.249-251; also below nn.117-118, 146]. And thus is the angel said to change, although the change is very far from a true change in ‘where’.

52. Further, as to the other conditions, this presence of the body of Christ departs more from the true idea of ‘where’ than the existence of an angel in place does, because in no way is Christ’s body by this presence so determined to a single ‘where’ that another ‘where’ is repugnant to it. But an angel is by its ‘where’ so determined to that ‘where’ that another ‘where’ is repugnant to it.

53. And if you hold it unacceptable to say that there is any change of any kind in the real being of Christ’s body, I say that it is necessary at least to posit some respect coming to that body from outside, which does not follow necessarily on the foundation and term when these are posited in act, because every respect that follows in this way comes to a thing from within (as was shown in the question about character [IV d.6 n.295]). Therefore the respect can come to it newly from outside without anything new either in the foundation or the term.

54. So, therefore, it is not unacceptable that the body of Christ is newly present to something that does not have a new absolute form nor a new respect in respect of that body; or if it does have such a new respect then, by parity of reasoning, the body of

Christ too will have a new respect to it, because if the species are newly present to the body, then the body is newly present to them; for although containment is not a mutual real relation, yet presence is a mutual relation. Nor will it in that case be unacceptable to posit in Christ’s body this sort of change to a respect coming to it from outside.

55. And if you object that ‘there is no change that is change to a respect’ - the solution is in the question about ‘character’ [n.53, ibid.].

And if your whole complaint is, ‘this respect that comes from without, which is called simple presence, what category does it belong to?’ - one can say that, among all the respects that come from without, it is more properly reduced to the category ‘where’, because it agrees with that respect in many ways. And if perhaps it is not properly in that category, it follows that the ten categories do not sufficiently exhaust the whole of being; which is not unacceptable in the way the philosophers speak about the ideas of them; because it is not repugnant to find some respect (as of an angel to a stone) which does not have any idea of respect in a category the way the philosophers say. Nor yet does it follow from this that there are more categories than ten, but that the ideas of them, or of one of them, is not assigned under an idea as common, or is not as general, as could be assigned.

b. Second: About Christ’s Body Quantum without Quantitative Mode

α. First Opinion and its Rejection

56. On the second point it is said [Richard of Middleton, Henry of Ghent, Giles of Rome et al.] that the quantity of Christ’s body is not under the species of bread save concomitantly, because the first term of the conversion is the substance of the body of Christ, and a thing is there in the way in which it is the term of the conversion. Therefore the quantity is not there by way of being the first term. But the first term, which is the substance, does not of itself have a quantitative or commensurate mode; therefore the quantity existing there under the idea or the mode of it, that is of the substance, will be there in non-quantitative mode.

57. On the contrary: each thing, whether it is the first term of the transubstantiation or the second, provided however it is there, has the properties that necessarily or naturally belong to it.

There is proof also of this through an example, because if God were to create a substance quantum or if nature were to generate a substance and quantity were a concomitant, the first term of each production will be the substance and the quantity will be concomitant; and yet both in the generated and the created thing the quantity has its real mode, just as it would also have if it were the first term of a change.

58. This is also proved by reason:

Because a different relation to the agent does not vary the nature of the thing, whether the relation is first or second, mediate or immediate, provided however that the thing is produced; because neither does a relation to a different agent vary the nature of the thing done, according to Augustine On the Trinity 3.9 n.16. Therefore neither will quantity lack its natural mode merely for the reason that it is not the first term of transubstantiation, provided it is really there (whether primarily or secondarily) through the change.

Secondly as follows: if, through the conversion, the term ‘to which’ is where the term ‘from which’ was before, the mode of being of the latter and the former will be similar, at least the mode of being that can be common to both. But the converted bread was here quantitatively in its own way, because it was under quantity having part next to part. Therefore the substance of Christ’s body as well, existing here by force of the conversion, will be here quantitatively in its own way, namely having part of substance under part of quantity; and then quantity will be here in its proper dimensions.

β. Second Opinion and its Rejection

59. Alternatively it is said [Godfrey of Fontaines, Albert the Great] that the parts of Christ’s body are next to each other in the sacramental host.

The proof is as follows, that just as it is possible for divine virtue that a body be simultaneously together with a body such that one part of the body exist simultaneously together with another part, so can divine virtue make part interpenetrate part, and so on and so on, making the part that has interpenetrated another again interpenetrate another, and in this way they will interpenetrate each other mutually up to the smallest natural quantity. Thus the true reality of each part is preserved and yet there is no extension of part next to part (just as the true reality of one body is preserved notwithstanding that it exists by interpenetration with another).

60. On the contrary: for this view takes from the body of Christ its position in the whole, as well as all shape that is perhaps necessary for an animated body. For if the head is not distant from the foot and the whole interpenetrates the whole up to the smallest natural part, there will no longer be the ordering of parts in the whole, nor the shape, that is necessary for an animated body.

γ. Scotus’ own Opinion

61. I say otherwise, then, that the position that is a difference of quantity is necessarily present in a permanent continuous quantum; and one must preserve it in the matter at hand, namely that it states the order of parts in the whole. For that something is a quantum with dimensions, and yet that this does not signify an order in the whole of this part to another part according to intervening quantity, is not very intelligible.

62. But the sense of position that is set down by some as a category, adds something else. For, on the presupposition that there is an order of parts in the whole, position states further an order of parts to place or to the parts of place or of what locates it in place; that is to say, that the parts are coextended with the parts of the place (as a ‘whole’ is said to be primarily commensurate with the whole place in which it has its ‘where’), so that position as a category presupposes position as difference of quantity, and it specifies the ‘where’.

Now by quantitative or dimensioned mode (however it is named) I understand only position said in the second way [sc. ‘where’].

63. But this relation can be separated by God from a quantum (while position in the first sense remains), and not merely by negation of limit, just as he could make a body outside the universe. And then it would not have position in the second sense [sc. ‘where’], because it would not have anything containing it with whose parts the parts of the contained thing were commensurated. But even when a limit has been posited, namely a limit with whose presence there could be commensuration or coextension with another body, God could preserve a quantum and its coexistence with another quantum and yet without a coextension of the parts of one quantum with the parts of the other, which coextension is what is meant by position in the sense we are speaking of [sc. ‘where’].

64. I prove this in a first way as follows: any nature that has a contingent relation to some form of some genus is simply related contingently to the whole genus (by ‘simply’ I mean ‘not necessarily from an intrinsic cause’). This seems sufficiently evident in that, if there were some nature and if it were from some intrinsic cause that necessarily determined a genus for it, it would necessarily determine some species of that genus for it. For one nature does not intrinsically have a necessity for disjunct opposites without having a necessity for one of those opposites.

65. And hereby is solved an objection that could be made: number is necessarily equal or unequal, but it is not necessarily one rather than the other. For the objection is about some common respect of a property that has distinctions, but any specific instance is necessarily related to one of the two as also to the genus.The objection seems to be that if number is necessarily equal or unequal, then it is necessarily equal or necessarily unequal. But the necessity refers to the disjunction (which is common to both), namely ‘number is necessarily one or the other’, and not to the disjuncts (which are distinct for each), namely ‘number is necessarily this one’, or ‘number is necessarily that one’. Of course, any particular number, as opposed to number as a class, will necessarily be the equal it is or necessarily the unequal it is. ⁵ Nor is there even an objection to the matter at hand, because there is no subject here that is contingently disposed to some form of the whole genus.The subject is a quantum that coexists with another quantum, but which God withholds from having coextension with it, and so place [n.63]. Such a quantum, then, has no ‘where’ and is not disposed, even contingently, to having this ‘where’ or that ‘where’ or some other ‘where’. ⁶

66. And if you object that a surface is necessarily colored and yet it is contingently related to any particular color - this is not an objection, because here there is no necessity intrinsically; for one could not find an intrinsic idea whereby there would be a contradiction on the part of a surface that it was without color, as there is contingency in respect of any particular color.The objection seems to be that just as a surface is necessarily colored but not necessarily this color rather than that color, so a quantum is necessarily in a place but not necessarily in this place rather than that place. The response is to deny the analogy by denying that a surface qua surface is necessarily colored (there is no necessity intrinsically, or no necessity in surface as such). For color is not surface but the limit of the transparent at a surface, and a surface would have no such limit in the dark (when there is no transparency for it to be a limit to), nor would it if the surface were transparent (like glass) and so were not a limit to whatever transparent medium there was. So similarly a quantum has no necessity in itself to be in a place. The objection fails, therefore, because it does not hold of a quantum simply, as it does not hold of surface simply, but only of a quantum together with the additional relation of place and only of surface with the additional property of being the limit of the transparent. ⁷

Taking this major, then [n.64], I add the minor, namely that a body is related contingently to any position (this is plain, because I can move my body from any position to another). Therefore a body, even when it has the position of parts in the whole, is not simply related necessarily to the position that is a category [sc. ‘where’], nor is the coexistence of a quantum with a quantum simply a necessary reason for position in that sense; for it is possible to understand coexistence of something with the whole without understanding the coexistence or coextension of parts with parts. For this latter coexistence is different from the former, even when they go together, nor does the former include the latter in its formal idea. Therefore, a body quantum absolutely, possessing the first sense of position [n.61], could be without all extrinsic position or idea, that is, it could be understood to be a quantum and to have coexistence with another quantum without this sort of position [sc. ‘where’].

67. And if you ask what this means, namely ‘preserving quantity without extrinsic position’ [sc. ‘where’] - I say that it means nothing other than conserving an absolute without the respect that comes to it from outside. In this way too, preserving the coexistence without that [extrinsic] position is nothing other than to conserve one relation without a different extrinsic relation - as the relation that is position ‘where’ is the relation of the whole circumscribed thing to the whole circumscribing thing. But position in the sense stated, which is a different genus [the genus of position in the sense of relation of parts with each other without extrinsic relation to a circumscribing body], adds the respect of parts to parts. And that the first necessarily has the second is only because its respect is such that it includes the diversity of the parts and the presence of them to the parts of what locates them. But the coexistence of some whole with the whole or with any part abstracts from position in this sense, the sense in which ‘where’ necessarily has position. Therefore it is simply possible for this coexistence to be without position [sc. without ‘where’].

68. And this can be well explained briefly as follows, that the second sense of position presupposes ‘where’ strictly speaking; therefore if God can conserve a quantum without a ‘where’ properly speaking, he can also conserve it without position.

69. And if you say “it can well be without a ‘where’ but not when it has presence or coexistence with another body” - this is false, for although coexistence is of a quantum with a body, it is however not formally a ‘where’.

70. And if it be objected that quantity cannot be posited without the respect that quantitative mode states, because there cannot be a quantum and another quantum unless the one be commensurated with the other - I say that equality and inequality, which state a respect coming from within, do indeed follow on quantity when quantity is posited. But an extrinsic respect does not necessarily follow, and of such sort is commensuration, or more properly coextension, as we are here speaking of it [sc. ‘where’]. For if you speak of commensuration as to equality and inequality, namely that this is bigger or smaller than that, I concede that, in the matter at hand, Christ’s body is bigger than the sacramental host. But this commensuration is not what is properly called ‘coextension’, for this properly states the being together of part with part [sc. ‘where’].

II. To the Initial Reasons

71. Herefrom is plain the solution to the initial reasons.

To the first [n.8] the answer is plain from the first article [nn.15-16, 21-23], because I concede that here there is not only a change of the species, whereby they come to be without a subject from being in a subject, but also another change, whereby they come to be present to the body of Christ. And together with this I concede a new presence of the body of Christ to the species; and there is change toward this presence, and the change must be judged to be of the sort that the form is.

Or if use of the word ‘change’ does not please, let it be said that some new extrinsic respect coming from outside is without all change; nor will ‘to change’ then be ‘to go from one to the other’ the way Gregory says in Moralia V ch.38 n.68; nor will change be for the same thing to be somehow or other differently disposed in itself to something else, but only to be differently disposed in itself to itself, or to another, from a relation coming to its foundation extrinsically. But the relation will not then be a change, because nothing new comes to it, from Physics 7.3.246b24-27.

72. To the second [n.10] I say that quantitative mode is not a property of a quantum (as ability to laugh is a property of man); rather it is an accident per accidens of it, namely a respect, coming from outside, of parts of a quantum to parts of another quantum.

73. To the third [n.11] I concede that part is next to part, insofar as the ‘next to’ has regard to the per se parts of the body and is required for position in the sense of a difference of quantity. But insofar as ‘next to’ belongs to place, part is not next to part in this sense, that is, not next to the place where another part is. Nor does it follow from this that the whole is not a quantum, because a whole quantum, having its parts next to each other in the same way in the whole, can have a single presence of itself and of all its parts to some single thing next to it that is indivisible, or divisible as little as possible, such that there is not there one presence to one part and another presence to another part to which a part is present.

Question Two. Whether the Same Body can be Located in Diverse Places at the Same Time

74. To proceed thus to the second question - it seems that the same body cannot be located in diverse places at the same time.

First as follows: the same thing cannot be referred to itself by opposite relations, because opposite relations include contradictories. But if the same thing were in diverse places at the same time, it could be said to be above or below itself and above or below some same other thing; likewise as to being to the left or right, and so on as to other relations opposite in situation;     therefore etc     .

75. Again, near and distant are opposite relations, as are like and unlike. But if the same thing were in diverse places at the same time, it could be near to and distant from the same thing at the same time, which is as unacceptable as that the same thing is at the same time like and unlike the same thing in the same quality.

76. Again, the same timed thing cannot be simultaneously in diverse times; therefore neither can the same placed thing be simultaneously in diverse paces.

77. Again, it then follows that the same body could move and be at rest at the same time, because it can move in one place and be at rest in another. The consequent is impossible because these are opposites by way of privation.

78. Again, it follows that the same human body, as the body of Christ, could have an operation of the senses in one place, because it could see in one place a body near itself, and in another place not see the same body because that body would be disproportionately far off, and closeness to hand is required, because vision is in an organ.

79. On the contrary:

Hugo of St Victor On the Sacraments II p.8 ch.11 says, “He who made it that one body would be in one place, made it as he wished; and if he had wished otherwise he could have done otherwise.”

I. To the Question

A. The Opinion of Many People for the Negative Conclusion

80. Here the negative conclusion is maintained by many people, but different ones prove it in different ways.

1. The Reasons of Henry of Ghent

81. [First reason] - One doctor [Henry, Quodlibet XIII q.4] argues as follows: When, as far as depends on the power of the agent, something could be done indifferently in various ways to the same thing, if the same thing were susceptible according to one way among them, it would be possible for it to be acted on similarly in any of the other ways. Now, on the part of the agent, since it is of infinite power, there is an equal possibility that a single body may come to be at the same time in several places according to any manner of plurality. But it is impossible that, with God as agent, the same body should be everywhere; therefore, it is impossible simply that the same body come to be at the same time in diverse places. The proof of the minor is that ‘being able to be everywhere at the same time’ is proper to God.

82. [Second reason] - Again, many contradictories would follow, for when a body is put in one place, either it has the same form as in another place or it does not.

If it has the same form, let ice be put in one place and heat in another place; it follows that in one place the body will have cold and in another place heat. Likewise if it not find anything to eat in one place it would be hungry there, in another place finding food it would not be hungry; and in one place it would incur sickness from the inclemency of the air, and in another place health from the air’s clemency, and so it would at the same time be healthy and not healthy but ill; and fourth, in one place it would be killed and in another not, so it would at the same die and not die

But if the second alternative is chosen [the thing has different forms in different places], the same results follow, because the same body will have at least contrary properties, save that according to the second member it will have contraries in each place, and according to the first member it will have one contrary in one place and another in another.

83. [Third reason] - Again, as a thing in place is commensurate with the dimensions of the place, namely as quantum and as continuum, it is thus commensurate to the place as [the place] is one and many; therefore, if the same placed thing is in diverse places, it will be one and many at the same time.Scotus’ expression here is obscure [see also n.144 infra]. He is referring to an argument in Henry’s Quodlibet IX q.32, where Henry argues that if the same body is present by its dimensions in several places, it is one because it is commensurate with the dimensions of one place (one both numerically and as an extension) and many because commensurate in the same way with the dimensions of many places. So the dimensions of the same body will have to be multiplied according as they are commensurate with the dimensions of several places, and hence the same body will be one (because it is the same body) and many (because it has as many sets of dimensions as the number of places it is in). ⁸

84. And if you object against the second reason [n.82], that its conclusion seems to apply in the same way to Christ’s body on the cross and in the pyx, because on the cross it was wounded but not in the pyx, Henry responds that when something belongs to something according to what naturally belongs to it, it belongs to it simply (as that if a man is curly as to his head he is curly simply, though he is not curly as to another part); but to be wounded, which includes division of what is continuous, belongs to something as it has being in place only; and therefore if it exists by location in one place and not by location in another place, if it is wounded where it is by location, it is simply wounded; and if it is not wounded in another place where it is not by location, not for this reason is it not wounded, but there is a fallacy according to simply and in a certain respect. But if the same body is by location in two places, and consequently in its dimensions in diverse places, one must say that whatever it naturally does or suffers in one place it does or suffers in the other; therefore in that case it follows that it will have opposites at the same time.

2. Other Doctors’ Reasons

85. Another doctor [Godfrey of Fontaines] argues as follows: the limits of place and of the placed thing are simultaneous; therefore if the placed thing is outside the limits of its proper place it is outside its own limits.

He also brings in about an angel that it cannot be in diverse places at the same time; therefore much less can a body be placed in diverse places.

86. Another doctor [Giles of Rome] argues as follows: as a thing is by its proper nature in only one species, so it is by one dimension in only one place at the same time.

87. Another [William of Ware] argues thus: if the same thing were at the same time in diverse places then either through one change or two. Not through one because one change is only to one term. Nor through two, because these two are either of the same kind or of a different kind. Not of the same kind, because the same thing cannot be moved at the same time by two motions of the same species, from Physics 3.3.202a34-36 [cf. Ord. II d.2 nn.259, 270-272] and Metaphysics 5.9.1018a5-9. Nor by two of different species, because the terms would be contraries and so the motions would be incompossible.

88. Again the terms of any motion are incompossible, from Physics 5.3.227a7-10 [sc. the beginning and end points of a motion are not simultaneous]; but any two ‘wheres’ can be the terms of any motion, because a body can move from one ‘where’ to the other; therefore any two ‘wheres’ are incompossible as to the same subject.

3. Further Reasons that can be Brought Forward

89. Now I put forward some other reasons.

The first is that a natural agent does not per se intend the corruption of the term ‘from which’ but only per accidens, because the term ‘from which’ is incompossible with the term ‘to which’ that it intends to introduce. Therefore if one ‘where’ be compossible with another ‘where’, a natural agent would not corrupt the first ‘where’ in order to introduce the second ‘where’; therefore it would be possible to put a body in the new ‘where’ without that body being moved from the ‘where’ it previously had.

90. Second thus: it is impossible for the same matter to be under two substantial forms at the same time; but if it be possible for the same body to be in diverse places at the same time, the opposite of this would follow.

Proof of the minor:

The first proof is: let the same nutriment be put in two or three places, and let it be eaten by different animals existing in those places; the nutritive power of each animal would convert that nutriment into its own substance and consequently the same matter of the nutriment will be informed by the form of each animal, and so the matter of the nutriment will be under diverse substantial forms at the same time, and will be animated by the sensitive souls in diverse brutes and by the intellective souls in diverse men.

The second proof of the same minor is: suppose that the same wood is in diverse places, and that in those places are two fires and that they act on the wood and destroy it (because the wood cannot resist the power of the agent) and introduce the form of fire into it - but not the same form, for the agents are diverse, therefore different forms of fire in the same matter, because the matter of the destroyed wood was the same just as the wood was the same.

91. Again third, it would follow that the fire, however small it be, could burn everything combustible. For let the fire have this combustible thing here proportioned to it, and that one there, and a third one in a third place - it could act on this one here and that one there and so on simultaneously in an infinite number of places. And thus any number of combustible things could be burned at the same time by however small a fire. But any power that can act on many small objects at the same time, can act on one great object put together from the small ones; therefore the smallest fire could at the same time burn what is to be put together from all those, and that burning from all the burnings.

92. Fourth as follows: it follows that some nourishable thing could be sustained in some place without receiving nutriment; for if it had suitable nutriment in one place it would be nourished there and consequently here too; or it would follow that it would be nourished and not nourished at the same time, and thus that it would be nourished here and would not take in nutriment here.a

a.a [Interpolation] an animal possessing suitable nutriment here would be nourished, but elsewhere, not having nutriment, it would not be nourished, and so it would be nourished and not nourished at the same time.

93. Fourth as follows, that if it had suitable nutriment in two places and were to ingest it in suitable amount in both places, the consequence would be that it would be nourished to double amount, or the nutriment ingested would be lost and not converted into nourishment.

B. The Possibility of an Affirmative Conclusion

1. Argument in General

94. Sufficient in general against the above is that anything is to be considered possible for God that is not manifestly impossible by virtue of its terms, or from which no impossibility or contradiction is evidently deduced. Such is the case here, as will be plain from solving the arguments [nn.128-169].

2. Particular Reasons, drawn from the Statements of Henry of Ghent

95. But there is argument in particular from certain reasons that the doctor, whose reasonings were repeated first [Henry, nn.81-84], sets down and strives to solve.

a. First Reason

96. The first reason is as follows: “It is no less unacceptable for two bodies to be together at the same time than for the same body to be in diverse places; but the first is possible for God, so the second is as well.”

97. The major is plain: philosophers, according to their principles, would posit a repugnance altogether between two quanta with respect to the same ‘where’, just as between white and black with respect to the same subject, as is plain from Physics 4.8.216a26-b15. Because a quantum, by the fact it is a quantum, expels another of the same quantity, and not because it is of this or that sort (he gives an example about a cube). The minor is plain from what happened (by the gift of subtleness) in the nativity of Christ, and his entrance through closed doors to his disciples, and from the closed sepulcher.

98. Henry replies that two dimensions are repugnant because of situation in place, and that the gift of subtleness takes this away. But that which is the reason for limitation to one ‘where’, namely a location that is determinate, cannot be taken away by any gift or endowment, because the glorious body too has a determinate location whereby it must be so here that it is not elsewhere, though it not have a location in place by which to give resistance to another body.

99. But against this is the argument from his third reason [n.83], which is about commensuration according to one and many; because, according to that reason, it is impossible for two bodies to be together more than for one body to be in two places, because the placed thing is co-multiplied with the multitude of the places either for the reason that it is commensurate with the place, or for some other special reason.

If on account of the first reason, then, since it is equally necessary for places to be commensurate with the things placed in them (because such commensuration is a common relation), a multiplication of places follows on the multiplication of placed things; and so follows the intended conclusion, that it is as equally impossible for two bodies to be together as for the same body to be in diverse places.

But if on account of something else, this can only be natural posteriority or simultaneity of place with respect to the placed dimension, for the naturally prior should not be multiplied with the posterior, but the posterior with the prior, and what is simultaneous to it with what it is simultaneous to.

100. But according to this second reason [previous paragraph], it is manifest that the dimensions of place are posterior to the dimensions of the placed thing; the dimensions of the place should rather be multiplied with the multiplication of the dimensions of the placed thing than the reverse.

101. The assumption is plain, because the dimensions of the placed thing are cause of the dimensions of the place; first because the placed thing makes the sides of the containing thing to be apart and for its surface to be actual; and second because the first is what can be without the other and not the reverse, because the surfaces of the locating thing cannot be apart without the distance of the parts of the placed thing.

102. The assumption is also plain for another reason, that in any motion in place the same surface of the placed thing remains, but the same surface of the place does not commonly remain when the placed thing is changed; also if a body of like shape succeeds to an equal body and similarly shaped, still the same surface as for the prior body does not remain circumscribing the second body.

103. This reason [n.99] can thus briefly be formed not only against Henry but also to prove the consequence that ‘two bodies can be together, therefore the same body can be in two places together’. The antecedent is conceded by everyone.

Proof of the consequence: because it is more possible that with the unity of the naturally prior stands a multitude in the naturally posterior than the reverse; but the dimension of the placed thing is naturally prior to the dimension of the place, as has just been proved [nn.100-102]; therefore it is simply more possible for several dimensions of places to correspond to one placed body than the reverse.

104. And thus is this first reason [n.99], in the first consequence [n.103], proved in this way.

b. Second Reason

105. The second reason is as follows: it is possible for God to convert the quantity of the bread into the quantity of his body, just as he converts substance into substance. On this basis, since, according to him [Henry], that into which something is converted [sc. Christ’s body, into which the bread is converted] exists where the converted thing [sc. the bread] was before, the result is that the body into which there is a conversion will be where that which is converted into it was before. And it cannot be in another place as to its quantity (such that the quantity would be its reason for being there, as would be the case if the quantity were the per se term of the conversion) without the quantity, according to them [followers of Henry], being placed there; therefore the same body will be placed where the converted thing [sc. the bread] was placed before and, along with this, it will remain in its own proper place [sc. heaven], because the conversion does not take away from its own place the term into which [sc. Christ’s body] the conversion is; therefore it [sc. Christ’s body] can be placed at the same time in two places.

106. He replies that the substance of the bread either (a) remains in such conversion, and then: (i) either it is affected by the dimensions of Christ’s body and the proposed thesis does not follow that Christ’s body is, by its dimensions, in two places, but only in one; (ii) or it is not affected by these other dimensions and then Christ remains where the substance of the bread is only by reason of the substance of the bread, and consequently he does not remain in his dimensions (because, according to the Philosopher Physics 1.2.185b3-5, substance has no magnitude), and so he will not be located in two places. Or (b) the whole is altogether converted into the whole, and then nothing remains [sc. of the converted bread] by reason of which Christ’s body may be said to be there, namely in the place of the converted [bread].

107. And further, he says [Quodlibet IX q.32 ad 2] that this is not to be posited, for it [Christ’s body] would not be anywhere sacramentally, because not under any perceptible species and it is, other than sacramentally, not anywhere save in heaven.

108. And further [ibid.] “since Christ’s body would not be there in its dimensions, it would not fill the place that the dimensions of the bread filled before, and thus the capacity of the place would not remain but, in the instant of the conversion, parts of air would rush in and the place that was there before would cease to be, and so thereby no body of anything would remain there save the body of Christ, just as no body remains when the species of bread are corrupted. If, therefore, a body still remained, this would only be because of the substance of the parts of air, which were before immediately touching the dimensions of the bread. And so the body of Christ would always remain there, because the parts of air could always remain in substance.”

109. Against this: the second reason [n.105] does not seem to be solved, because let an amount of substance [sc. of bread] equal to the substance of Christ’s body be converted into an amount of Christ’s body, and the argument will still stand, because that into which the conversion is made [sc. Christ’s body] will be quantitatively in the place of the converted term [sc. the bread] and in its proper place [sc. heaven] where it was before;     therefore etc     .

When therefore he replies by making a division [n.106], the second member of it could be granted that (b) ‘the whole is altogether converted into the whole’; nor does it follow that the term of the conversion [sc. Christ’s body] is not there if nothing [sc. of the bread] remains, unless this proposition is denied ‘the term of the conversion is where the thing converted was before’; and perhaps he would deny it, unless it has this addition ‘if that remains which was the reason for the converted thing’s having a location’.

110. And then this argument [n.106] does not work against him [n.105]. Nor either the argument about an equal amount of air converted into the body of Christ [n.108].

111. And I do not care to insist that I believe the proposition is false on which this reason rests, that ‘the term of the conversion must be where the thing converted was before’ [n.105], whether or not that remains which in the thing converted was the reason for its having a location.

112. However the other member of the division could be granted [n.106], namely that a quantity of air be converted into a quantity of Christ’s body while the substance of the air remains; and then one could infer that Christ’s body would exist under quantity and dimensions (as is plain), and that its quantity would be where the quantity of the converted air was before;     therefore the body of Christ will be there in its dimensions and, along with this, in heaven; therefore etc     . [it will be in two places].

c. Third Reason

113. I argue with another reason, that can be the second, I say, for this conclusion, though perhaps the third against the man [Henry], and I argue as follows. Wherever God can make some natural substance not under its natural mode, or under an opposite mode, he can make it in the same place under its own natural mode, or a mode agreeable to its nature. The proof is that his not making it under its natural mode is a twofold miracle, which is not the case with his making it under its natural mode.The twofold miracle is [in the case of the Eucharist] God making Christ’s body to be present here and God making it to be under the species of bread, or not in its natural mode. But if God can do two miracles together he can do one of them alone, namely make Christ’s body to be present here and not in the mode of bread but in its own or natural mode. ⁹ But God can make Christ’s body to be present here without converting another thing into Christ’s body; therefore he can make it to be present here under its natural mode, and present here by location in place.

114. Proof of the minor, because conversion of something else into Christ’s body is not formally the reason for its being here. The point is clear because, when the conversion is over, the term of the conversion here remains. Therefore, without contradiction, a thing’s being here can be conferred on it without any conversion of something else into it.a

And if you perhaps say that this conversion, as past, is the cause of this presence -on the contrary: God cannot by his absolute power make a past conversion of this sort not to be past; therefore he could not by his absolute power make ‘present in this way’ not to be present in this way, which is nothing.

a.a [Interpolation] Proof, because in the first way there are two miracles and in the second way one. But God, according to everyone, can make his body to be present sacramentally (that is, not under its natural mode) in diverse ‘wheres’, and make it so in fact. Therefore he can do the same in the same ‘wheres’ by way of position in place and by bodily dimensions.

     Not that it is said to be here by conversion of something else into it, because it can come to be without conversion just as with conversion, because when the conversion is over...

115. If you also say in a different way that the species of the converted thing [sc. the bread] left behind after the conversion is the reason for Christ’s body being here, and so the conversion is necessarily required for it to be here, and consequently if you posit that nothing [sc. of the bread] remains but the whole is converted into the whole, the result is that Christ’s body will not be in the place of the converted thing [sc. the bread] -on the contrary: the species is not formally in the body of Christ, therefore it is not formally the reason for the body of Christ having some quality or other, and meaning generally by ‘some quality or other’ whatever is formally existent in the body of Christ; but the body of Christ is admitted to be present here formally.

116. The above minor proposition [n.114] is proved also as follows: there can be newness in something posterior while there is no newness in something prior; therefore it is possible for such presence to be new without newness in the substantial form, which is prior to any such respect.

d. Fourth Reason

117. I argue fourth thus: an angel can be in several places together definitively; therefore so can a body be in several places together in its dimensions, or in place and by being circumscribed there.

The consequence is plain because the limitation is the same here as there, and consequently also determination as to place is similar, in the way suitable to each; hence, and generally, those who deny the consequent deny the antecedent.

118. Proof of the antecedent: God can convert bread into an angel (as will be shown in d.11 n.61); but, according to Henry [n.105], the place where something is converted [sc. the bread] is the place where what it is converted into is [sc. the angel] (after the conversion at any rate, if the reason for the converted thing’s having a location remains);     therefore an angel will be where the bread was. And the angel is not moved from heaven; therefore it is in two places. And it cannot be present there without being in the place there in the way suitable for it, namely definitively; therefore etc     .

3. What Must be Said about these Four Reasons

119. The fourth and second reasons are only against the man [Henry] who puts them forward, but the first and third seem to prove the intended conclusion simply.

Therefore I give consideration to the first and third of these four reasons. The second and fourth only proceed on the basis of a certain supposition, which I do not believe to be true. They would however be conclusive against many who concede this supposition [sc. ‘that into which something is converted is where the converted thing was before’ nn.105, 118].

120. Hugh of St. Victor’s intention is to this same effect [n.79], and although this doctor [Henry] strives to expound him, yet for anyone who reads Hugh it is sufficiently plain that the whole of what belongs to the thesis ‘being at the same time in two places’ is attributed by Hugh to the omnipotence of God, and not to any conversion of anything into the term of the conversion.

C. Scotus’ own Response

121. To the question, therefore, I respond that since I concede anything in accord with a maxim known to me (which is a maxim most certain for me), I concede that ‘for God everything is possible that does not evidently include a contradiction, and on which too no necessary contradiction follows’; and this maxim is of that sort, because the reasons that lead to proving a contradiction do not seem probative, as will appear in solving the reasons [nn.138-145] - I say, therefore, that it is simply possible for God to make the same body to be located at the same time in diverse places.

122. This is plain from understanding the terms: for when I say ‘a body is placed at the same time in diverse places’ I do not say anything over and above ‘body’ save a certain externally arising respect founded on a quantum to another quantum that circumscribes it.

123. But ‘that such a respect is, on the same foundation, multiplied to diverse terms’ does not appear to be against anything known to reason, because respects that come to a thing from within, about which the point is less evident, can be multiplied on a foundation that remains the same (as on the same whiteness two likenesses can be founded to two terms, as was proved in Lectura III d.8 n.49).

124. The assumption [n.122], namely that ‘where’ only states a respect coming from outside, is sufficiently clear from what was said in the previous question [nn.35, 5455].

125. And it is a wonder that those who so much follow reason follow imagination, that because imagination does not separate place from body or conversely, nor perceives that one is multiplied without the other, therefore let it be said to be simply impossible that one is multiplied without the other, since, in following imagination, nothing else appears. But according to reason no necessity from the ideas of the terms is or appears that when one is multiplied the other is too. For when a posterior is multiplied there is no necessity for the prior to be multiplied. But the ‘wheres’ are manifestly posterior to the located quantum, and they come to a thing accidentally and contingently. In many other cases too, where there is a greater connection, we concede according to reason that one is multiplied without the other. For scarcely is any other relation more accidental to its foundation than ‘where’ is - no mode of ‘existing in’ is, nor any mode of ‘being from’, and so on about many other relations. And yet in the case of other relations there is no such impudent assertion of the impossibility of multiplying relations on the same foundation.

126. And if you object that it is true that many respects can be founded on the same foundation when one of them is not adequate to the whole foundation, but here one thing is adequate to the whole idea of a quantum insofar as a quantum is locatable in place - this seems to be said without reason, because a respect that arises from the nature of a foundation seems to be more adequate to the foundation than that respect which comes to it from without, ceteris paribus. But two such respects to two terms, respects arising from the nature of the foundation, can exist in the same foundation, as two equalities to two equal quantities; therefore, without reason is it imagined that here there is one adequate respect.

127. And there is a confirmation, because a quantity’s presenceInstead of “quantity’s presence” and “substance’s presence” the Latin ‘sua’ could mean “his [Christ’s] presence” and “his [Christ’s] substance” ¹⁰ to place is not more adequate to the quantity than a substance’s presence, a presence fitting to it, is adequate to the substance, as on altars. But no presence on the altar is adequate to the substance, because the substance of Christ’s body is posited as able to have several presences, even primarily, since it is the first term of many conversions on altars, and yet along with this his body is present in heaven under its own quantitative mode.

D. To the Arguments Adduced for the Negative Opinion

128. As to the arguments [nn.81-93], some are universal and are solved in general in the way they proceed; many others are difficult as to imagination, and the way they proceed is in the examples above adduced about heat, hunger, saturation, health, sickness, life and death, and so on.

1. Three Preliminary Propositions

129. To solves these arguments I set down three propositions:

The first of them is: “Whatever things are essentially prior to the ‘where’ exist uniformly in the body even though the body has diverse ‘wheres’; but what things are posterior or simultaneous in nature with the ‘wheres’ will vary according to the variety of the ‘wheres’.” This is plain because something prior does not vary essentially because of variation in something posterior, but something posterior does indeed vary with variation in something prior. Also things that are simultaneous in nature with something, vary with that something. This is the first proposition.

130. The second proposition is: “As something passive which exists in one ‘where’ would receive a form from two agents next to it in the same place, so will it, if existing in two places or two ‘wheres’, be acted on by the same two agents next to it in the two ‘wheres’.” And I understand this about a being-acted-on that is toward absolute form. And this is plain, because in order for something passive to be acted on by an agent and to receive the form, there is only need that it be in a state of passive potency, and that the agent have an active form, and that they be duly near each other. But whether they are near each other in this ‘where’ or in that one makes no difference as far as action to absolute form is concerned. But when a passive thing is put in two ‘wheres’, it has the same passive potency for absolute form, and the active thing has the same active potency, and the passive thing can, as it is in this ‘where’ or in that one, be near the active thing in the same way. Therefore it will be acted on in the same way as to any absolute form by any active thing that is near it whether in this ‘where’ or in another one, just as if it were in one ‘where’ and the agent were near it. I have added the phrase ‘as to absolute form’ because it is not necessary that the passive thing receive the same effects when speaking of relative things that are simultaneous in nature with or posterior to the ‘where’; because these can vary as the ‘where’ does (from the first proposition [n.129]). However, this second proposition could also be conceded in their case, as will be plain in responding to the objections specifically [nn.177-179].

131. The third proposition is “Just as a body existing in one ‘where’ is disposed in idea of activity to the diverse things near it in that ‘where’, so is it, when existing in two ‘wheres’, disposed to the same things next to it in those ‘wheres’.” This is plain from the proof of the preceding relation [n.130].

2. To the Individual Reasons

132. Answer on the basis of these propositions to the reasons adduced for the negative opinion.

a. To the Reasons of Henry of Ghent

133. [To the first] - To the first [n.81] I say that the first proposition [the major] could be so understood that it would have to be denied absolutely. For God has power for all vision and for all modes of vision; but he cannot cause every vision in every eye, because not every eye is susceptive of every vision, as the eye of a bat is not capable of the vision of an eagle, because the vision of an eagle is repugnant to its receptive power. But let it be that Henry is speaking of any form to which the power of the agent is of itself equally disposed, and to which the receptive power is equally disposed, and let it be that anything through this power could be caused in the recipient - then the proposition is true, because both by reason of the active power and by reason of the passive power the possibility would be equal.

134. But the conclusion still does not follow if it is about any power individually and about all the many possible forms at once, because a surface has, on the part of God and of the active and passive recipient, an equal possibility for every color, but not for every color at once. And then Henry would need to show that a body is on its part equally receptive of all diverse ‘wheres’ and of two of them, which is denied by an adversary. However, I concede as to the thing that, on the part of God as active and on the part of body as receptive, there is an equal possibility in a body for two ‘wheres’ that are simply distinct, and to each or to any number, and then to all.

135. And when it is said that ‘by no virtue can one body have all ‘wheres’ or be everywhere’ - this is false. And my proof is that they concede that Christ’s body could be everywhere sacramentally; for God could convert any body universally, just like bread, into the body of Christ. And I say that, when making comparison with the power of God, there is no greater limitation to existing anywhere by location than to existing anywhere sacramentally.

136. Also, whatever can be done by an active second cause God can do immediately; but the sacrament, that veils the body of Christ, is only the reason for the body being here as second effective cause, because it is not the formal cause, as was proved before [d.8 nn.141-149].

137. And when it is said [n.81] that ‘being everywhere is proper to God’, I say that God is necessarily everywhere by his immensity, because there can be no ‘where’ in which God does not exist by his power, presence, and essence; and in this way is it impossible for anything other than God to be everywhere. But it is not unacceptable that something other than God be by God’s active power in any ‘where’ whatever, nor should it for this reason be said to be everywhere the way God is, for it is not immense.

138. [Second reason] - As to the argument [n.82] that includes many of those contradictories or repugnancies, the answer is plain from the three aforesaid propositions [nn.129-131]. Yet I apply them as follows: let it be that to this body in this place an agent, namely fire, comes next to it, and another agent, namely water, does so in another place - I say that either the agents are of equal power in action or one overcomes the other.

If they be of equal virtue and if they be then next to the body that has one ‘where’, either each would impede the other so that neither would act, or they would act for some intermediate effect in which the passive thing would be perfectly assimilated neither to one nor to the other. And I answer in the same way now when they are next to the same body that exists in diverse places or ‘wheres’.

But if the virtue of either one overcomes the other, it will either assimilate the passive thing to itself or will do so more than the other does.

139. And I reply in the same way if they are in diverse places, because there is no greater difficulty in this case than if fire and water were placed together (which it is not denied can be done by God), and if the same body were next to fire and water having the same ‘where’, because one should not there say, so as to prevent contraries in the passive thing, that ‘anything can more easily, or equally easily, avoid it here’.

140. About hunger and satiety [n.82] I say that hunger is appetite for the cold and dry. But this appetite is either natural or voluntary, namely the wish to eat, and whether it is one or the other it states something absolute. Therefore it does not vary with variation in ‘where’ (from the first proposition [n.129]), and consequently if it be here sated and its appetite cease in one ‘where’, it would cease elsewhere too, though not from food taken there, as will be immediately said about death [n.143].

141. But if you say satiety is ‘bodily fullness of stomach’ then, since it would not receive food as it does here, a doubt is possible whether it would for this reason be thus full here. And I say no (just as neither was the body of Christ wounded as it is in the pyx), because this fullness only states the presence of food contained by the container, namely the belly; and just as it is possible that the containing capacity of this body is different in this place and in that, so it is possible that the active containing capacity of this body here is different from the containing capacity of the same body in another ‘where’, for this containing capacity does not state something absolute but an extrinsic respect.

142. About the third [n.82], namely about health and illness, and temperateness and intemperateness, I say that intemperateness of the air expels temperateness as to the body of an animal on which the temperate or intemperate air acts. And then, in brief, the body would be such as the overcoming agent would be of a nature to cause it to be, although it would perhaps act less intensely because of the reaction of some contrary thing impeding or resisting it. But if they are equal in acting, the passive thing will then alter to the middle state, in the same way in short as you would say healthy and unhealthy things would be if they were together (which you concede God can do), and the same body would be next to this one and to that one together.

143. The fourth, which is about death and life [n.82], is easily solved, because each is something absolute (privative or positive), and consequently does not vary because of variation in ‘where’ (according to the first proposition [n.129]). If then it dies here, it dies there as well, but yet this inference does not follow ‘it is wounded here, therefore it is wounded there’, because wounding states a division of what is continuous as it is here by something dividing it here. But yet it is true that if it has a wound here it has it elsewhere as well, because such is what the discontinuity of the parts is like, and if it is in this body there it is also in the same body elsewhere.

144. [To the third] - To the next argument [n.83], the third main one by this doctor, I say that it is not necessary that something located in place be commensurate with the dimensions of place according as [the place] is one and many, so that according to the multitude of the dimensions of place there follows a multitude of the dimensions of the placed thing; just as neither does a multitude in what is prior follow on a multitude in what is posterior, especially as to an extrinsic respect and foundation, as was touched on in argument earlier [nn.123-126].

b. To the Reasons of the Other Doctors

145. To the first reason of another doctor [n.85] I say that the terms of one thing can be understood to be simultaneous with the terms of another either in simultaneity precise and adequate or in simultaneity neither precise nor adequate.

If simultaneity is understood in the first way I say that the major is true and the minor false.

But if it is understood in the second way, namely simultaneity that is not adequate, then the major is false, because it is not necessary that what is outside the terms of one be outside the terms of the other. For, universally, if one thing exceeds another, it is not necessary that what is simultaneous with the exceeding thing be simultaneous with the exceeded thing. An example: if the soul according to its quidditative terms (for it does not have a quantitative term) is simultaneous with the terms of a finger, not for this reason does it follow that whatever is outside the terms of the finger is outside the terms of the soul.

146. To the other point about an angel [n.85], I say that it proves the opposite, as was shown in the fourth reason against the opinion [nn.117-118]; for an angel can in its own way, that is definitively, be in several places simultaneously, namely by divine power.

147. To the next argument from another doctor [n.86] I say that the likeness about the nature of a thing does not hold, because one nature is the formal reason for being in one species, but being circumscribed by something else is the formal reason for being in one place. And dimension is not the proximate formal reason for being in a place but it is only the fundamental reason. Now dimension can be one though the respects are diverse, just as whiteness can be one though the likenesses are diverse. But only through one likeness is a like thing constituted formally in a species. And if a like species is not able to be multiplied in the same thing, neither is the likeness able to be.The sense seems to be that a white thing can be like many other things in being white, but it has whiteness only by being white or being like whiteness. So as whiteness is not multiplied though the things are that are alike in whiteness, so dimension is not multiplied though the places are that the dimension is in. ¹¹

148. To the next from another doctor [n.87] I say that if the same thing remains in the same ‘where’ in which it was before, it can acquire a new ‘where’ by a single change, and two new ‘wheres’ by two changes.

149. And if you ask whether these changes are of the same species or not - let either one or the other be granted, I care not.

150. And when you argue that two changes of the same species are not simultaneous in the same thing [n.87], I say that incompossibility in two changes is only from the incompossibility of the terms or forms toward which the changes are. It would first, then, be necessary to prove the incompossibility of the two ‘wheres’, which I deny, because there is no incompossibility of two changes of this sort to those ‘where’ terms, as was shown above [n.148].

151. To the other argument of the same doctor [n.88], when he says that the terms of a change are incompossible, I say that this is true of first terms but not of concomitant terms. And I mean that the first terms of any change are privation and form, or conversely, but concomitant terms are those that are joined to those just mentioned.

152. I therefore concede universally that privation and form are incompossible, but concomitants can be compossible.

153. For example:

In the case of changes in individuals, if an animated thing is posited as having a single form, the organic body precedes the animation, animation being the term ‘to which’. But the organic body is not the per se term ‘from which’ but lack of animation is, because the change is between animation and lack of animation. Now while lack of animation and animation are incompossible together, yet organic body and animation are not.

154. In the same way in the case of corruption: if the same form of the body remains that was previously the per se term ‘from which’, namely the form which is succeeded by privation, the term does not remain, but the term concomitant with the per se term ‘from which’ does remain.

155. In the same way as to increase, if the whole preexisting quantity is posited as remaining, the positive whole term ‘from which’ remains, which is concomitant with the privation that is the per se term ‘from which’.

And conversely as to decrease, some positive quantity that was before remains but not the same per se term ‘from which’

156. Likewise as to alteration in intensity or remission.

157. And in the same way about motion, which is not a contradiction because a motion of acquiring does not involve loss. And then with the term ‘to which’ the per se term ‘from which’, which is privation, does not remain; but the term does remain that is as it were the per accidens and concomitant term, being concomitant with the per se term.

158. To the matter at hand: in this case only a motion is posited that acquires a new ‘where’ without a motion of loss, and this sort of per se term ‘from which’ is privation of the ‘where’ that is acquired. And it does not remain with the term ‘to which’. But there is no term here concomitant with the per se term ‘from which’, because such term is only where there are two concomitant changes and the per se term of one is the per accidens term of the other.

c. To the Other Reasons that were Adduced

159. To the arguments added on.

To the first argument [n.89] I say that one can prove through it that two bodies could not be together, because a natural agent does not intend to expel one body unless it introduces another body. If, then, there were no repugnance in two bodies being in this place here, a natural agent in moving this body to that ‘where’ would not expel the other body and so nature could make two bodies to be together. So, because the conclusion is manifestly unacceptable, I say that there are some repugnancies in respect of created and limited power that created virtue cannot deal with simultaneously, and yet they are not simply incompossible. An example: it is as impossible for nature to make a virgin conceive as to make two bodies to be in the same place and one body to be in diverse places; for created virtue has no power with respect to these at the same time, although their absolute simultaneity does not involve a contradiction simply, as was seen [nn.96-97], and therefore they are possible for God.

160. To the second [n.90] I say that one could concede that the matter of a body in two places might be changed by two agents into two forms, nor would a new miracle there be needed, but the matter would through the old miracle be fitted to receive the action of those agents.

161. However I say otherwise, that if the same thing is put in two places, it does not follow that the same matter would be informed by two forms at the same time, whether of the same or different species, and that one could argue in the same way about this one and about that, whether the agents were posited as of the same or different species.

162. As to the example about food [n.90] I say that the same thing would happen with food taken by diverse things in diverse ‘wheres’ as would happen if two stomachs were to come to be in the same place and the food was in each of them. For then either one power would totally overcome the other and all the food would be converted into its body; or the powers would be equal, and then they would convert the food equally, one into its body and the other into its; or the powers would be unequal yet not such that one would entirely overcome the other, and then the stronger would convert more of the food into its body and the weaker would convert less food into its. So as you would have to speak there about the stomachs of animals existing together and about the food received into each, so I speak in the same way here, following the second proposition set down above [n.130].

163. The same point serves for the other argument [n.90], about fires next to wood in diverse places; I say the same as you would have to say if two fires by the power of God were next to the wood.

164. And if you ask, “What should be said then? Surely the wood would be converted into fire, and into which fire and by which fire? For not more by one fire than the other because they are equal; nor into one fire only, because the agents are two and total agents, and there cannot be two total causes of the same effect.” - I say that either they would generate a more perfect fire, and so the effect would be divisible according to perfection if the substantial form could have part and part, just as one would say about heat. But if they were to generate an altogether indivisible effect, yet they would generate it in the same manner of efficient causality where neither of them could be the cause of the total effect, because the effect would happen after so brief an alteration that it would not suffice for ignition by either agent precisely. And then this proposition is true, that “two total causes totally causing cannot be causes of the same effect.”

165. To another argument [n.92] I say that an animal that exists in some ‘where’ without nutriment, would be nourished in that place if it took in appropriate food in another ‘where’. For although the local motion of the food to the stomach would not be the same here as there (and no wonder, because from the fact that the ‘where’ is different, so can the local mP3otion to the thing in that ‘where’ be different), yet the conversion of food into the substance of the thing to be fed is the same here as there, because the conversion is the generation of a part of the substance of the thing nourished, and the whole substance of the thing nourished and any part of it is prior to the ‘where’, and so will not vary with variation in the ‘where’.

166. And when the addition is made “if it had sufficient food in both places it would be nourished twice” [n.93], I say that either it would take in the food in both places and consequently it would receive food superfluously, because half of it would suffice for its nourishment; or it would take in one part in one place and the other in the other, and in each place (from what has been said [nn.140-141]) it would be sufficiently nourished.

167. To the argument about the small fire [n.91] I answer using the second proposition [n.130]. For let a fire be put in one place and much combustible material next to it as it is in that ‘where’ alone - what you would say then about the fire with respect to that material I say now, for either the fire would act precisely on some part of the material, or if it acted on any part, then, if we suppose that the whole matter is together, it would act on it yet with little intensity. I speak in the same way as to the matter at hand, that the action will not be intense on any part of the matter in comparison with the action it would have on one part if it acted on no other part. And no wonder, because natural virtue works less on more things than on fewer, and on many than on one.

168. To the argument about figure [n.84, Christ’s body on the cross and in the pyx], I say that although figure seems to be quality yet it follows the ‘where’.

169. To the other point about whole and part [n.84, about being curly because curly as to the hair], I say that a part outside the whole has nothing outside the whole that it does not have in the whole; for the actuality that is attributed to a part not in the whole outside the whole is only by way of making a precision.

170. But on the contrary: because continuity is an absolute form and consequently is prior to the ‘where’, then the same body cannot be continuous in one place and not continuous in another; and consequently neither is there a part here and a non-part there in the way that being continuous with another is called a part.

171. Look for the response.a

a.a [Interpolation ] - One can say that figure is double. One is an absolute form and it belongs to the category of the quality ‘form or an abiding form in something’, and so it does not follow ‘where’. Another is figure that is the siting of parts in place and in the container of them, and this is relative form that follows the ‘where’; and the argument proceeds in this latter way. But on this matter see d. 12 q.4 n.387, in the response to the question there ‘But about different shapes...’

II. To the Initial Arguments

172. [To the first] - To the first initial argument [n.74] I say that many do concede that opposite relations can exist together in the same thing when they say ‘the same thing in the same respect is the principle of acting and of undergoing’. But as to the present purpose there is no need to fall into this difficulty. For no one denies that opposite relations can exist in the same thing according to different foundations, as that a thing is greater in one way and smaller in another, and that with respect to itself or something else. But ‘where’ is different first in this body itself, being above and below through the mediation of this ‘where’ as it is a different foundation. It is not unacceptable, therefore, that a body that has a ‘where’ above and below is above and below. Nor should you wonder that the respect of above and below is founded on a ‘where’, although ‘where’ is a respect; for a respect can be founded on a respect, as was touched on above [nn.123-126].

173. [To the second] - To the next [n.75] I say that relations contrary in genus can very well be present in the same thing according to different foundations, just as the same thing can very well be similar to something in whiteness and dissimilar to the same thing in science. But being near and distant are founded on a body located in place, because the ‘where’ of it is near or distant. Therefore, if there is another ‘where’, it is not unacceptable that near and distant belong to the same body, just as near and distant belong to two ‘wheres’ that belong to that body and are the foundations of the nearness and distance.

174. [Third argument] - To the third [n.76] I say that just as the same temporal thing cannot exist simultaneously in time, that is, be in the same ‘temporality’ (so to say) in diverse times. But if you take ‘simultaneous’ in the antecedent as simultaneous in time and if likewise you take it in the consequent as simultaneous in place, the consequence or proportion does not hold, because simultaneity in time should be compared to the same time in the temporal thing, just as simultaneity in place should be compared to the same place in a located thing. I concede, therefore, that the same placed thing cannot by one locating, that is to say ‘by simultaneity in place’, be in two places simultaneously.

175. But this reasoning can lead to the opposite conclusion, albeit sophistically, as follows: the same placed thing existing simultaneously, that is, existing in the same place, can exist in diverse times; therefore too, what is simultaneous in time can exist in diverse places. Let them solve this sophism, and they will solve their own argument, if perhaps they reckon there is evidence for it.

176. [Fourth argument] - As to the next argument [n.77], that the same thing would move and be at rest, I say. according to the first of the three propositions [n.129], that since ‘to be moved or at rest in place’ is simultaneous or posterior to the ‘where’, it will vary according to variation in ‘where’, and so it will be able in one ‘where’ to be at rest in place and in another ‘where’ to move in place, because to rest in place here is nothing other than to possess continuously the same ‘where’ as before, and to be moved there is nothing other than to have there different ‘wheres’. But just as it is possible for the same body to have here one ‘where’ permanently and there to have another ‘where’, so it is possible for it to have here one ‘where’ permanently and several ‘where’s successively elsewhere. One must speak in the same way about the parts of the whole, if they come to be instantaneously, that it is possible for all the parts here of the whole to rest in the whole and some parts there to be moved (as the hand or foot), because all these follow the ‘where’ (that is, this ‘where’ or that ‘where’).

177. And if you argue: “therefore as it is in one ‘where’ it could move toward itself as it is in another ‘where’, and so approach the ‘where’ in which it already is. And then it would either expel itself from the ‘where’ it approaches (and then it would be incompossible with itself in ‘where’, just like some other body), or it would not expel itself (and then it would cease to have that ‘where’ by its own power but receive it from the ‘where’ of what is at rest), or it would make itself possessor of the other ‘where’ along with itself (and thus as two bodies together). And similarly, if it were animate it could move itself by repelling or dragging itself, and then the same man could have a thousand ‘wheres’ and produce dances and a very large army in a camp, and do many other things that seem to be wondered at, and also speak and be silent and dispute with himself.” I say that all these things are puerile and come from sense imagination. But if a reason be asked for the things here being dealt with, there is no greater difficulty in a body moving to the ‘where’ in which it is at rest than to any other ‘where’; and then, when it came to that ‘where’, I say that it would expel the same body from the where in which it is resting, unless perchance the acting power by which it had the other ‘where’ ceases to conserve it as it is located in that other ‘where’, and then it will have only the ‘where’ in which it was previously resting; but it did not have this ‘where’ before as the term of its motion. Instead it would cease to be in the ‘where’ it had in its moving. But to have a ‘where’ at all, whether as having it in motion or as in the term of motion, does nothing to vary or multiply the absolutes that exist in reality.

178. Hereby I respond to the points about dance and war and disputation with itself [n.177], because if ‘to speak’ states an act of imagination or intellect, it exists wherever the speaker was. But if ‘to speak’ is formally only the formation of voice through natural or vocal instruments in striking the air, and if indeed there is one air next to the vocal organs in this ‘where’ and another air next to them in another ‘where’, and suppose that the air is the same but that it will be able to move in place here and not there, then voice will be formed in the former air but not in the latter, and the former will speak and the latter will be silent, and the former will hold the tenor part and the latter the fifth.In medieval music the tenor was the part that held the melody, and the fifth was kept steady as a sort of drone. ¹² And the former, being out of the water, will draw in air, and the same as being in water will not be able to take in air, and yet it will not be drowned because its body will be sufficiently cooled elsewhere, in the place where it has the cooling air it has taken in.In ancient and medieval science, the intake of breath was believed to be for cooling the heat coming from the heart. ¹³ So I concede too that as it is in one ‘where’ it will be able to move its body as its body is in another ‘where’, by expelling or drawing it, for the idea of being movable or mover is not taken from it because the body is identical.

179. And if the following argument is made: “It moves, therefore it is not at rest; it is at rest, therefore it does not move; therefore it moves and is at rest simultaneously, and moves and does not move simultaneously,” - I reply that in the case of opposite relations there is no absolute affirmation and negation but only affirmation and negation in a certain respect. It is like the way the following does not hold: “it is similar and dissimilar, therefore it is similar and not similar.” For the antecedents are true if they are understood in respect of diverse things, and that in a particular case; for if it is similar to this it is similar, and if it is dissimilar to that it is dissimilar. As the Philosopher argues in Categories 6.5b33-6a11, if something is large relative to this it is large, and if small relative to that it is small. And from this he infers that large and small are not contraries, because the argument would not hold unless ‘large relative to this’ implied large and ‘small relative to that’ implied small. In the same way here: from ‘it is at rest in this ‘where’’ follows ‘therefore it is at rest’, and from ‘it is moved in this way’ follows ‘therefore it moves’. Yet from these affirmations do not follow the other negations, as ‘at rest’ ‘not moving’ ‘moving’ ‘not resting’; rather there is a fallacy of the consequent, because the antecedent is true relative to one of the terms, and the negative consequent is a denial with respect to each.

180. [To the fifth] - To the last argument [n.78] I say that every immanent act that would be in the human body in this ‘where’ would be in it in any ‘where’, although it would not come to be in the latter as it is in the former ‘where’ (more will be said of this in the second article of this distinction, in the second question [nn.275-293]). But whether blood or spirit or the like, which are not of the true form of human nature, would be the same here and there, will be solved when spoken about next [question 3].

Question Three. Whether the Body of Christ could be Located at the Same Time in Heaven and in the Eucharist

181. Proceeding thus to the third question [n.7], it seems that the body of Christ cannot be simultaneously in heaven and in the Eucharist.

First from the remark of Augustine [On John’s Gospel tr.30 n.1] and it is in Gratian Decretum p.3 d.2 ch.44: “Christ’s body is above and it must be in one place.”

182. Second as follows: because the formal reason for being in a place is quantity, according to the Philosopher Physics 4.7.213b30-34; but nothing can be multiplied unless its formal idea is multiplied; therefore, since the quantity of Christ’s body is one, it can only be in one place.

183. Further, third, as follows: “Things that are the same as one and the same thing are the same as each other” [Physics 3.3.202b14-15];     therefore things that are together with one and the same thing are together with each other. Therefore if the body of Christ were here and also there, then what would be with it here and what would be with it elsewhere would be together. But the consequent is false, for one of them could be at Rome and the other at Paris; therefore etc     .

184. Fourth as follows: what is distant from something is other than it, because nothing can be properly distant from itself. But Christ’s body, if it were in the Eucharist, would be distant from itself in heaven; therefore it would be different things. The proof of the major is that distance includes discontinuity, but the unity of continuous quantity is continuity. Therefore distance is repugnant to that unity, and so it posits plurality.

185. Fifth thus, because the same thing would be able to move and be at rest, for the body of Christ would be at rest in heaven and in the Eucharist move with the motion of the Eucharist, according to the Philosopher Topics 2.7.113a29-30, “When we move, everything in us moves.”

186. On the contrary, because the body of Christ is in heaven, according to Augustine [On John’s Gospel tr.30 n.1], and it is in Gratian Decretum p.3 d.2 ch.44, “Until the end of the age, the Lord is above;” and the body of Christ is also truly in the Eucharist, as was touched on in the first question of this distinction [n.9].

I. To the Question

187. The conclusion is certain for any of the faithful, as was shown above in question one [n.15].

A. Opinion of Henry of Ghent

1. Exposition of the Opinion

188. But one way of putting the point is as follows [Henry of Ghent and his followers], namely that the same body can be elsewhere than in its natural place by conversion of something else into it, because where the thing converted was there that into which it is converted is - not by location but sacramentally. And in this way, namely sacramentally, the same body can be in another place, and in several places. Now it is not there by location nor in its dimensions, because being there by location would involve a contradiction (following their reasons set down in the preceding question, nn.81-84); but its being there sacramentally does not involve a contradiction, because it is not there according to the laws of place, but only that under which it sacramentally exists is there according to those laws.

2. Refutation of the Opinion

189. But against this are some of the arguments in the preceding question [nn.30-41], that conversion is not the formal reason for a body’s existing here, whether as present (the point is plain, because when the conversion is over the body remains here) or as past, because then God could not make his body not to be here, just as he cannot make a past conversion not to be past. Nor is that which is called the sacrament, namely the species, the formal reason for the body’s being here, because the species are not formally in the body of Christ, therefore neither can anything through them be formally in the body of Christ.

190. From this the argument is as follows: God can make something in a creature without making what is not the reason for that something’s being, or what does not in any way belong to its essence; conversion, as was shown [n.189], is not the formal reason for Christ’s body being here and neither are the species or the sacrament, and these do not in any way belong to its essence; therefore, God can make the body of Christ to be here without either of them.

191. Again, there is no greater repugnance in Christ’s body being together with the substance of the bread than being together with its quantity, because, as far as such being together is concerned, substance is not more repugnant to substance than quantity is to substance. But while the body of Christ is existent in heaven, God can, in everyone’s view, make the same body to be together with the quantity of the bread. Therefore he can make the same body to be together with the substance quantum of the bread, and do so without any conversion.

This as to the first of the arguments that have been touched on [n.189].

192. Also, if the substance quantum of the bread be set down as the sacrament [n.189], the point is still against them [Henry and his followers]. Because, as was shown [n.113], it is easier to make a body to be somewhere with its natural mode than without it; but God can make his body to be with the substance quantum of the bread in a sacramental, that is, non-natural way; therefore he can also make it present in a natural way. Therefore it would be possible for God to make that body to exist in its natural mode along with the substance quantum in other places besides heaven.

193. And if you say to the first reason [n.190] that the thing cannot be done without the proper term of the sort of relation in question, nor without the foundation; but the proper term of this presence is the sacrament, that is, something perceptible which fills the place and with which and under which the body of Christ non-locally exists; - on the contrary: it is not more impossible, as it seems, for the body of Christ to be with the former than with the latter; therefore it is not more impossible for it to be with the substance of the bread than with its quantity (as was said [n.191]), and so on as to anything at all other than itself. And then further: if it can come to be in a non-natural mode elsewhere than where it is, then also can it do so in a mode natural to it.

B. Scotus’ own Opinion

194. I say therefore that if one posits conversion in the matter at hand (which will be spoken about in d.11 nn.14-29) and if one posits that there is here some perceptible sign truly containing the body of Christ here present, which sensible sign may be called the sacrament - I say indeed that this is true, namely that the body of Christ is in fact here under the sacrament after the consecration or conversion. But that it could not be here without conversion or without being under the sacrament (meaning some determinate sensible sign or other), I do not see, as was argued in the preceding question [nn.113-114].

195. And perhaps those, who deny that God can make Christ’s body to be outside heaven otherwise than by conversion and under the sacrament, would not concede that God could do so save because they were constrained by the faith.

196. As to this way of existing without quantity and without dimensions or non-locally, I do not see how this same thing could be done in several places without it also being possible for it to be done in a natural way, since in the first way there are two miracles and in the second only one, namely the two of causing the presence here of the body of Christ and of separating it from its natural mode. Consequently, therefore, the body can be here in a natural mode just as also in the sacrament.

II. To the Initial Arguments

197. To the first argument for the opposite [n.181] I say that Augustine so understands ‘must’ that it means ‘is appropriate’ (that is, fitting) for the body to live in the kingdom prepared for the glorious; but it is not required, that is, it is not simply necessary. For the body of Christ can sometimes move from its place even locally, and much more so can it, by divine action absolutely, be elsewhere both sacramentally and locally, putting itself in another ‘where’ without loss of its ‘where’ in heaven, just as we now hold that that body is present non-locally in the Eucharist.

198. To the second [n.182] I say that ‘formal reason’ can be understood in two ways: first properly, for the proximate formal reason, and second for the remote formal reason (taking ‘formal reason’ broadly for remote foundational reason, in the way that heat is said to be the formal reason for something being similar, namely to the extent that heat is the ‘principle by which’ of action and whiteness the principle by which of similarity). When speaking of reason in the first way, one can concede that what the formal reason is the formal reason of is not multiplied without the multiplication of the formal reason. But, when speaking of formal reason in the second way, the claim is false, because the same thing could be the proximate cause of acting as regard many actions, and the same thing could be the proximate foundation as regard many relations. Now quantity is the formal reason of being in place not in the first way but in the second, because it is the proximate foundation of this relation; and from this the proposed conclusion follows, namely that several relations can be founded on the same foundation, especially relations that come to a thing from outside.

199. To the third [n.183] I say that the first proposition is false, unless the unity of the third thing in itself and the unity of the things that are proved to be one from the unity of that third thing are understood in a uniform way, because if there is a lesser unity in itself of the third thing, one cannot infer a greater unity of the others with each other, but a unity through their unity in that third thing. The same holds of ‘together’, that unless the third thing, with which the others are together, is limited to the unity according to which they are together with the third, their togetherness with each other does not follow. Yet neither is what is in Paris together with the same thing in Rome if the third thing, because immense, is unlimited. Hence the following inference does not hold, ‘I am together with eternity and with the soul of Antichrist, therefore that soul and eternity are together with each other’, for eternity is immense as to its actual presence. - To the matter in hand I say that that which is together in two places is unlimited, though not by its own power but by the power of God as agent, I mean unlimited as to ‘where’. And therefore things that are present with it as it is thus unlimited do not have to be together with each other.

200. To the fourth [n.184] I say that, when taking ‘distance’ for distance in place, the major is false. As for the proof about discontinuity, I say that a thing is the same as itself not because it is continuous with itself but because it has a truer unity, for continuity is unity of part in relation to part in the whole, but the unity of the whole with itself is true identity. I say therefore that if a whole as distant is not continuous with itself as distant, yet in each term of the distance it is truly the same, possessing the same continuity of parts in the whole.a

a.a [Interpolation] Hence the soul exists in the head and the foot, and a man has the same being now and at the end of his life, and that being is distant from itself in duration but it is not a different being; hence diversity in what is posterior does not argue diversity in what is prior.

     And when it is said that the unity of a continuous whole is its continuity, this is true of its unity as composed of parts; but its identity with itself is not continuity of the same whole with itself in the way a part is continuous with a part.

201. As to the fifth [n.185], the answer will be plain in the second part of this distinction, question three [nn.307-312].