Question One. Whether Christ Existing in the Eucharist could, by some Natural Virtue, Change Something Other than Himself

348. As to the first question, argument is made that he could:

Because, according to the Philosopher Metaphysics 5.12.1020a4-6, 11.1.1046a9-11, “active power is the principle of changing another thing insofar as it is other;” but Christ in the Eucharist has active power because he has every absolute form that he has in his natural existence; therefore he has in the Eucharist the principle for changing things.

But he who has the principle for changing things could do so through it, just as he could become a force for the gerundive ‘changing’, according to what was said in Rep. IA d.7 q.2 nn.61-62.

349. Again, a man living with mortal life is always being nourished, On Generation 1.5.322a24; but the body of Christ in the Eucharist would have lived with mortal life while Christ was mortal; therefore it was always being nourished; therefore nutriment would always be being converted into the body’s substance.     Therefore it would always be acting.

350. Again, a man living with mortal life always needs to breathe air in and out; the point is plain, because suffocation, whether in water or in air, always happens because of a deficiency of this sort (as is clear from On Respiration 16.478b15-16). The body of Christ, as above [n.349], lived here with mortal life; therefore it is continually breathing air in and out. But these are actions; therefore etc     .

351. Again, Christ as he is in the Eucharist has the same power of moving as he has in heaven, and that power is not impeded here; therefore Christ can, by that power, issue here in act, and consequently move his body with local motion.

352. On the contrary:

“Everything acting physically suffers reaction,” Physics 3.1.201a23-24; the body of Christ, as it is here, cannot suffer physically; therefore neither can it act.

353. Secondly as follows: a body acting on another body requires determinate closeness in place to the other body; the body of Christ is not here by way of location in place; rather, as regard every relation to another body, it is here as if it were not here, because it does not occupy place.

I. To the Question

A. About Human Powers

354. I reply:

As man is a composite of soul and body, so he has certain purely spiritual powers, which belong first to the soul and yet per se to the whole through the soul, as are the powers of intellect and will.

355. He also has certain bodily powers, namely which do not belong to the soul per se but to the whole thing conjoined of body and soul (from the beginning of On Sense and Thing Sensed 1.436a1-b8). And the things that belong to the conjunct whole are some more bodily, namely those that follow the nature of this sort of mixed body, and some closer to the nature of the soul, namely those that follow the whole animate body insofar as it is such.

B. Conclusions Flowing Herefrom

356. Reply, then, must be made about these powers in order, supposing that some here and there are active.

1. First Conclusion and its Proof

357. And let the first conclusion be that Christ in the Eucharist cannot use any bodily active power, whether it be merely bodily (namely what follows the nature of this sort of mixed body) or bodily in the sense of following first or immediately the animate whole.

358. The proof is briefly that all bodily active powers require that the passive object, on which they act, be close to them in location. These powers, as they are here [sc. in Christ’s body in the Eucharist] are not anywhere by location; therefore they cannot, as they are here, have a passive subject close to them in the way required for the action of such powers. The major proposition is plain from Physics 7.1.242b24-26, where it is proved that a bodily agent must be close to the passive subject, whether mediately or immediately.

2. Second Conclusion and its Proof

359. The second conclusion is that Christ in the Eucharist can use any spiritual active power.

360. This proof is through the opposite middle term [n.358], that a spiritual power does not require for action that it be located in place; for although what acts through a spiritual power is located in place yet there is no requirement that it be located there in place in order to do what it does.

a. Explication of the Second Conclusion

361. Now explaining this second conclusion specifically I say that Christ as he is in the Eucharist can have a merely spiritual action, namely both on the part of the principle of acting and on the part of the term of the action. He can also have an action spiritual on the part of the principle of acting but bodily on the part of the term of the action.

362. The first of these claims I prove because if some angel were present to Christ in the Eucharist, the soul of Christ could enlighten the angel and speak to him in mental speech, in the way that an angel existing where Christ is present could enlighten another angel or speak to him. For this enlightening and speaking only require an active principle sufficient for enlightening and speaking, and an able subject on the side of him who is illumined or to whom speech is made. And perhaps there is required closeness in definite ‘where’, or a simple closeness of the enlightener to the enlightened or of the speaker to the one spoken to. And their presence there in place is not required, just as neither is it if an angel were to speak to another. Now all this is included in the matter at issue.

363. But as to how Christ has a principle of enlightening angels and speaking intellectually to them, let it be supposed from Ord. III d.14 nn.80-83.

364. The second claim [n.362], namely that he can have an action spiritual on the part of the principle yet bodily on the part of the term, is made clear as follows, because an angel has a power, a non-organic power, of moving in place. The point is plain because an angel cannot have any organic power; the non-organic power can be a principle of moving a body as a whole, not as to the parts in the way our body is moved organically; but any intellective soul has such a power; therefore it can be the principle of such motion; and consequently it is merely spiritual on the part of the principle, because it is in no way organic, and yet it is bodily on the part of the term, because its term is the local motion of a body in place.

b. Objection to the Aforesaid Explanation, and Rejection of this Objection

365. And if it is argued [Godfrey of Fontaines] that then the soul of man has a twofold active power of moving in regard to a body in place (namely it has one organic power, as is plain, and besides this it has, for you, this non-organic power); but to posit this twofold power seems superfluous, first because both powers seem to be of the same nature, second because one of them cannot issue in act in our present state (as is manifest); - I reply that just as the soul is like an angel in many other respects, so too is it in respect of non-organic power to move a body. For there is no reason why this substance [sc. the soul] does not have this sort of power of moving a body. And universally, no substance should be denied something that would be a perfection in it unless it is plainly manifest that such perfection is repugnant to it; for, according to the Philosopher, On Generation 2.10.336b27-29, “nature is always to be considered worthy of what is better, as far as possible.”

366. And when you argue that the powers would be of the same nature [n.365], I deny it, for this non-organic power that moves the whole body at once, not in ordered parts the way an animal body moves limbs in forward progress - this non-organic power, I say, is of a different nature from the power of progression, because this power has the action of moving the whole body immediately, not part after part. But the other power cannot move the whole save by orderly movement of parts, and of part after part, just as now the power of progression first moves some parts, then others through them. and then the whole body. The two powers, therefore, are of different nature, because of parts that are of different nature.

367. To the second point, when you say that this non-organic power is vain, because no act of it can now be possessed [n.365], I say that we now posit taste and the other senses as necessary for the perfection of human nature, and yet there is no need for all of them to exist in their own act, nor to exist precisely in their own act in beatitude. But they are not vain, because they belong to the natural perfection of that in which they are. If therefore those senses are not vain whose use is vain for the state that is simply the perfect state of human nature (but their possible use is precisely for this [present] unnatural state), much more will the non-organic power of moving not be vain, although the use of it now will not be able to be possessed - but its use will be perpetual in beatitude, because not only will the blessed then be able to move their body progressively (that is, by moving one part first, and then another through it, and then the whole), but they will also be able to move their body in ‘where’ at once and immediately without such ordered motion of parts. More about this below, in the discussion of agility [Ord. IV d.49 suppl. p.2 q.5].

3. Final Opinion

368. I suppose, then, that this non-organic power of moving is in the soul of Christ, because it is also in the soul of each of the blessed, and not as to habit only but also as to act or possibility of use. He will also be able to use this power immediately, by moving some body as a whole in itself, as an angel could move it.

369. Perhaps Christ also used this power in this life, as when he escaped the hands of the Jews who, taking him up to the mountain “on which their city was set,” wanted to throw him down headlong [Luke 4.29-30]. Also when he slipped away from the hands of his parents and “remained in Jerusalem” [Luke 2.40-50], as is plain from Origen Homily on Luke 19, “when Jesus was 12 years old,” and it is read in the homily for the octave of Epiphany.

370. Therefore the soul of Christ as existing in the Eucharist will be able to use this motive power, by moving the species or the host - and perhaps thus is the host sometimes moved by Christ existing immediately there.

371. And if you ask, “Surely he first moved his body by this motive power before moving the host?” - I reply that this was not necessary, just as it is not necessary that an angel first move himself in place so as to move in place a body made close to him.

II. To the Initial Arguments

372. To the first argument [n.348] I say that the description of power that is ‘a principle of changing’ needs to be understood as far as concerns the power itself; but many impediments can come up or run together (either on the part of him who has the power or on the part of the object or of the medium), because of which he who has the power cannot issue in act.

373. Now if this gerund ‘changing’ is weighed according to what was said in Ord I d.7 n.212, about the power of generating, I say that it must be understood as far as concerns that power; but it does not follow that nothing could impede the actual changing.

To the second [n.349] I say that the body as it is here is nourished if it is nourished in its natural existence. But it does not follow that     therefore it acts as it is here, because nutrition is only the added generation of a part of the nourished substance, and this added generation can be through the action of the nutritive power either as it is here or as it is elsewhere.

374. Likewise as to the third, about respiration etc     . [n.350], I say that the body of Christ as it is here does not breathe air out or in, for then it would be necessary to posit some air as being here together with the body of Christ under the host. But yet the body of Christ as it is here has a cooled lung as it does elsewhere in its natural existence, because cold caused by the air drawn in there is caused concomitantly here, although not first.As noted before, Scotus is following the Aristotelian view that breathing is for cooling the body to balance the heat from the heart. ¹⁶

375. As to the fourth [n.351] I say that the motive power of Christ that is organic and bodily, although it is in the body of Christ as it is here, yet cannot be the principle of his action in the body as it is here, because it requires part next to part, not only in the whole but in reference to the location, so that through the motion of one part it might move in place another part. But that other motive power, the non-organic one, can be in action here as in heaven, and so he can in accordance with it move a body that is next to him, just as an angel could. But nevertheless he cannot move his body as it is here, because his body in this way of being is not subject to any motive power save immediately to divine power, as was said above [n.370].