2. Refutation of the Opinion

432. Against the first argument [n.426]: an angel is never present to a place save definitively, but it moves in place a body proportionally present to it; and if it had the power to alter it, it would alter the body as it is present here; therefore bodily existence is not required on the part of the angelic mover for him to alter the organ toward sensation.

433. Again, the body of Christ is not present anywhere in the species save in the smallest thing perceptible (for it is not present there to anything indivisible); but the smallest thing perceptible can be perceived by the most perfect sense, according to the Philosopher On Sense and Sensibles 6.445b3-11 [Ord. II d.2 n.294]; therefore Christ’s body too will be able to be perceived by the most perfect vision, notwithstanding the body’s mode of existence here.

434. Against the other point [n.426]: there is no likeness between a separated substance and Christ’s body, because Christ’s body is a quantum with shape and color, while a separate substance is not.

435. The first argument about contact [n.427] is not probative, because contact, as it states an extrinsic relation of body to body, does not seem required necessarily for any absolute action of the sort that change in the sense power is, because an absolute action seems to be able to precede any such relation coming from outside; therefore although the body as it is here is not in contact with any other body (excluding such relation as comes from outside), it does not follow that it cannot alter anything, that is, change it toward an absolute form of sensation.

436. Against the second reason [n.428]: all that follows is that color does not have an ordering to place in the way that quantity (which is the subject of color) does not have an ordering to place; but this is only because there is no extension proportional to the extension of the quantity of the body. If therefore you infer that color is not extended with the extension of the containing quantum, I concede it. But if you infer that therefore it cannot alter the medium, this does nothing for the minor (sc. the minor that the body has no ordering through quantity to a place, [n.428]).

437. As to the third [n.429] about being derived through a medium, it is disproved through the first response [n.432], because an angel could well have some effect on the passive subject, derived in orderly fashion, according to the parts of that subject, although the angel himself, as agent, would not have a being located in place anywhere.

438. As to what is added about the light of glory [n.430], it is not evident how, because of its non-existence in place, the body could not be attained in idea of object by someone who has such light.

439. As to what is added about a miracle [n.431], the point is not proved. For the existence of this body, although in some respect it is like the existence of an angel, yet it is not so as to what is sensible and non-sensible, because an angel lacks the principles which are required in an object for an act of sensation, namely quantity and sensible qualities. But this substance [of Christ’s body in the Eucharist] has quantity and sensible qualities, although some mode [of being] is taken from them. But it would be necessary to prove that in order for there to be sensation of them this mode was simply a necessity.