A. The Supposition being Made

209. For it is supposed that Christ’s body exists in a double way, namely in heaven in a natural way and in the Eucharist in a sacramental way.

Each point is sufficiently manifest. The first from 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.” The second is manifest from what was said in question 1 earlier [nn.15-23].

210. But a doubt about the body as it is in the Eucharist concerns what the things are that it contains as parts.

211. I say that it does not contain the soul nor the accidents.

This is possible if one takes body for the thing that the soul first perfects, because there is no contradiction in this sort of body being without soul and without accidents.

212. It is also fitting, because the species represent food, and so substance and not accidents.

213. It also did in fact happen, because if the Eucharist had been consecrated during the Triduum, the true thing of the sacrament would have been there, and yet the soul would not have been there, as will be said at the end of this solution [nn.254-255, 258].

214. Also, the body does not in this way contain the blood, because this is possible and is true in fact, for blood is not animate and consequently not part of the primarily animated thing.

215. It is possible too on the part of the sacrament or in the sacrament, because in the case of different things there can be the same freely chosen sign or a different sign. The body, as taken in the stated way, differs essentially from the soul and secondarily from other things (as the blood and the like); therefore it can have a different sign. And this is proved a minori, because the body can have a natural sign that is not the same [as the sign of the blood]. For there are two essentially distinct concepts for body and blood, which concepts are the signs of conceived things, On Interpretation 2.16a19-20. And blood is essentially different from the body as the body is the thing primarily perfected by the soul. Therefore there can be a sign of it, namely of the body, that is not the same as the sign of the blood.

216. This is also proved as a fact, because it was possible for all the blood to have been separated from the body of Christ in death, and yet if the Eucharist had then been consecrated, there would have been the same thing as now. It is also possible that a large amount of the blood flowed out, and yet the whole same thing would have remained under the species of bread.

217. One must therefore hold here that the body of Christ, as it is primarily signified and contained in the species of bread, does not include the soul nor the accidents nor the blood.