c. Two Corollaries that Flow from the Second Conclusion

231. From this second conclusion follows a corollary, that before the Incarnation there could have been a Eucharist as true as there is now, and this both as to signification and as to the thing signified and contained.

232. A second corollary is that, after the Incarnation, Christ’s body could have ceased to exist in its natural mode, and yet a true Eucharist would remain both as to the truth of the sign and as to the truth of the thing signified and contained. The consequence is plain, that if from ‘the body of Christ is really contained in the Eucharist’ does not necessarily follow ‘the same body has existence in its natural mode’, then the first could be done without the second, whether it precedes or remains after the destruction of the second.

233. A proof specifically about the first as preceding the second [n.232] is this: wherever a temporal thing can have one real existence, it can simply begin to be there really after it was not. But the body of Christ can simply begin to have one real existence in the sacramental mode of existence; therefore it can simply begin to be in this mode of being, namely in the sacramental mode, after it was not here. Therefore, in order for it to begin simply to be, it is not necessary that it begin to be also in the other mode of being.

234. And if you say that when it begins here it must begin elsewhere at the same time, because, if there is a beginning simply, there is a being of the thing in itself simply; for if it begins to be in another at the same time, then, for there to be a beginning simply, it is no less necessary that it begin to be in itself, because the beginning simply of a thing is the same, just as its being simply is the same; but the being simply of this thing in itself is the being of it in its natural mode. - This response is excluded by the reasons given for the second conclusion [nn.224, 227], because if it [Christ’s body] has real existence in this way as much as in the other (from the first reason), and the latter does not depend on the other (from the second reason), then it follows that it can have a beginning simply in this sacramental mode without having a beginning in the other [natural] mode.

235. One can argue in the same way for the corollary about ‘ceasing to be’ [n.232], because wherever a temporal thing has true existence, then, as long as it remains there, it would not altogether cease to be when it ceased to be in the other mode.