I. About the Ways it cannot be Signified

351. I reply that it cannot be truly signified by the word ‘being’ or ‘becoming’, nor by the word ‘can’ or ‘possible’, and that according to no difference of time. For the bread neither becomes nor was the body of Christ, nor is it nor will it be the body; nor conversely was the body the bread, nor is it nor will it be the bread.

352. And the reason for all these statements is:

Because ‘to be’ marks the union (essential or accidental) of the extreme terms for the time that it signifies. But for no difference of time do these extremes have an essential or accidental union. Rather they have for every instant either disparate-ness (that is, when both terms are positive beings), or a repugnance that is greater, namely the repugnance of being to non-being for the instant when one is and the other is not.

353. A second assertion is that the bread neither becomes, nor did become, nor will become, the body of Christ, nor conversely. And for these statements the reason is that, when ‘to become’ is predicated as the added second element of the statement,The difference between second and third element added is the difference between using ‘is’ or ‘comes to be’ etc. as predicate or as copula. ‘Socrates is’ asserts being simply of Socrates, and ‘Socrates is just’ asserts the property of justice of him, and in this second proposition the ‘is’ comes in as third element (for it joins ‘Socrates’ and ‘just’), while in the first proposition it comes in as second element (for it asserts existence of Socrates as ‘is just’ asserts justice of him): Aristotle On Interpretation 10.19b19-25; also Boethius’ commentary thereon (Commentary IV): “In the statement ‘man is just’, ‘man’ is subject and ‘just’ and ‘is’ are both predicated; so there are here two predicates and one subjects In ‘man is just’ the ‘is’ is the third element added, but the predicate ‘just’ is not the third but the second element added. So the third is said to be added and the second to be predicated...” ³⁴ it predicates ‘to become’ simply of that of which it is said, and it does not thus combine anything in apposition to the subject. In this way the bread became (came to be) when it was baked, and thus did the body come to be when it was formed in the Virgin’s womb; but this is not relevant to the minor premise [n.351]. But when ‘to become’ is predicated as the third added element of the statement, then it denotes that the subject comes to be according to the form of the predicate. But the bread does not come to be, for any difference of time, according to the form of the predicate. And this is plain in a likeness by way of opposite; for ‘man becomes white’ is true for this reason, that man comes to be under the form of whiteness and, by way of opposite, this statement is impossible ‘man becomes an ass’, and this when one is speaking strictly of the force of the sentence. So does it seem to be in the issue at hand.

354. A third assertion is that the bread cannot be, and could not be, and will not be able to be, the body of Christ, nor conversely. And the reason for all these is that a proposition about possibility, of which a statement about actual presence is impossible, is false; for any proposition about possibility can be asserted, although perhaps falsely, about something that can be present. But any proposition about presence corresponding to any of the above about possibility, is impossible (from the first conclusion just proved); for this proposition about presence is impossible ‘the bread is the body of Christ’, and the proposition ‘this bread will be or was the body’; and the same with the verb ‘to become’.