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.