b. Second Conclusion

223. The second conclusion is that there is no necessity simply the other way, namely that it does not follow simply necessarily that, if the body of Christ has these parts and properties in a sacramental way, it have them for this reason in natural existence.

224. This is plain first as follows: when some existence is indifferent as to two modes, then just as it can be had simply in one mode, so can it also be had simply in the other mode; but the existence simply of Christ’s body (or the thing of Christ’s body simply and really) is indifferent to these two modes, namely natural and sacramental; therefore it can be had in the latter way just as in the former, or even though not in the former.

225. Some say [Aquinas] to this, that the sense of the first premise is when neither mode depends on the other; but it is not so here, because the sacramental mode depends on the natural mode, because the natural mode is the first way the thing in the sacrament exists.

226. On the contrary, and to the main conclusion: existence in the natural mode is not of the essence of existence in the sacramental mode, nor is it the cause of it; therefore the latter does not depend on the former, because nothing depends on something which is not of its essence or cause of it, as it seems.

The first part of the antecedent is plain, because the thing of the Eucharist does not have there its natural mode of being, namely extension; but it would have it if this were of the essence of the existence or mode of being that it has there; for everything that has something has what is of the essence of it.

The proof of the second part of the antecedent is that God is the immediate cause of this existence, name of Christ’s body in the sacrament; therefore the body in its natural existence is not cause of sacramental existence.

227. Again (and it is the same as the prior argument [n.224]), the Eucharist does not depend on that which is neither the sacrament nor the thing of the sacrament, or that is not cause of one or the other; existence in the natural mode is not the sacrament (as is plain), nor is it the thing of the sacrament; rather the thing of the sacrament is existence in another, disparate mode; nor is existence in the natural mode cause of one or the other, as is plain from what has been said [n.226].

228. Again (and this is almost the same), God can cause a thing without any created thing not intrinsic to that thing; existence in the natural mode is not intrinsic to the Eucharist;     therefore etc     .

229. You will say that the major is true of absolute things but not of a relation, because a relation cannot come to be without its foundation and term; but the Eucharist includes a relation, whose term is the existence of the body.

230. On the contrary: although existence is the same in both modes, namely sacramental and natural, yet it is not the term of the relation that is included in the Eucharist in its natural mode but in a disparate mode. Proof: the thing is contained in the Eucharist in the same way that it is the primary signified thing of this sign; for this is the difference between this sacrament and others, that it really contains the first thing it signifies; but existence in the natural mode is not contained here really, but rather in another disparate mode;     therefore etc     .