Question Three. Whether any Sense could Perceive the Body of Christ as it exists in the Eucharist

423. Proceeding thus to the third question [n.347], it is argued that the existence of Christ’s body in the Eucharist could be seen by a bodily eye.

First because the blessed, when seeing the species [of bread and wine], are not deceived, for deception is repugnant to blessedness. But if they were not to see the body of Christ, they could be deceived in believing the substance of bread to be there;     therefore etc     . At least they could be in doubt about whether the substance of bread was there if they did not see the body of Christ. Doubt is repugnant to the state of blessedness, as imperfection is repugnant to perfection.

424. Second, because if there were light at a point it would be seen or would be visible; therefore by parity of reasoning the body of Christ as it is here would be visible. The consequence is plain because Christ’s body is not here under the idea being less visible than if it had the form of a point. The proof of the antecedent is, first, because the light would diffuse itself like a sphere and it would be seen as a sphere; second, because reflection starts from a single point of the reflecting body (as is plain in a reflected line, and yet the ray reflected there is diffused first from that first point), but what the reflection comes from is seen.

425. On the contrary:

What is seen is seen in a pyramid whose base is in the thing seen and whose apex is in the eye. Therefore the body of Christ would be seen in such a pyramid. But there is no base for a pyramid at Christ’s body because it would be simultaneous with the base where the host would be seen, for Christ’s body is everywhere with the host. And then the body of Christ and the host would be seen together from within the same angle, because the angle is the angle of both. But things seen from within the same angle are seen as equal; therefore the body of Christ would be seen as equal with the species. The result would also be that the body of Christ would be seen as round, because the base from which the species is seen is round.

I. To the Question

A. The Opinion of Others

1. Exposition of the Opinion

426. It is stated here [Richard of Middleton, Thomas Aquinas] that a distinction can be drawn between glorious vision and non-glorious vision, and between seeing naturally and seeing miraculously. Neither sort of vision can naturally see the body of Christ in the Eucharist.

427. One reason set down is that there can be no contact there, and without contact there is no natural action in bodies. Now the reason that there cannot be contact there is that the body of Christ does not regard the species under the idea of quantity, but quantity is the only reason for contact.

428. And another reason is that color has regard to quantity as its per se subject; but Christ’s body has no ordered relation to place through quantity, and so not through color either. Therefore Christ’s body cannot, by any change, affect the medium through color and so it cannot reach vision either.

429. Now another reason is set down, that the species there cannot be derived from the object through a medium, because the object is not located in place; and such deriving is required for sight.

430. Another reason too is added, that the bodily light of glory, of the sort that is posited in the glorified eye, cannot reach an object that does not exist anywhere;     therefore it cannot reach Christ’s body either, since his body is not, as it is here, in any place.

431. A third added reason is that neither can a miracle raise an eye to knowledge of the body, because the eye cannot be raised to knowledge of the existence of a separate substance; but the body of Christ as it is here has the mode of existence of a separate substance; therefore etc     .

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.

B. Scotus’ own Opinion

440. To the question, then, one can say that God of his absolute power can cause vision of this body in a glorious or non-glorious eye, even though that body were nowhere save in the Eucharist.

441. The proof is that vision is an absolute form, from Ord. I d.3 n.183; therefore it can without contradiction come to be when there is no relation of presence, or any such relation, to the object.

442. Second I say that no vision, even when caused in this way, can be of the body as it is here, because this would include the body as it is here being either the cause of vision or the proper and first term of vision. But the body as it is here cannot be the cause first as it is here, nor can it be the first term as it is here, because such causing and such term require a due disposition in the object that is the first cause and term - and that too as to location and as to due nearness and distance. But this body as it is here cannot have the due nearness to the organ nor the due distance as it is here, because it is not located in place as it is here. And a miracle here does not help, because the body as it is here is absolutely not visible, either as cause or as term of the vision; and there is no miracle for something that includes a contradiction.

II. To the Initial Arguments

443. To the first argument [n.423] I say that our senses too are not deceived about the Eucharist; for they per se perceive what is there, namely quantity, shape, color, and the like; nor is it possible now that our vision is deceived about the Eucharist, but there is only the intellect arguing, from what the senses apprehend, that the substance of bread is there. But this argument is sophistical, because although it happens thus for the most part yet not necessarily.

444. I say therefore that the senses of the blessed might perceive what our senses perceive, namely sensible accidents - nor would they in any way be deceived, just as our senses are not deceived; rather they would be deceived less than our senses are. But neither would the intellect of the blessed argue sophistically from the act of sensing as ours does.

445. To the point about doubt [n.423] I say that the blessed, left to their natural cognition, would not know by an act of sense that Christ’s body was here, but only by an act of intellect intuitively seeing that body, as was said about intuitive knowledge in the preceding question [nn.402-404].

446. To the second argument [n.424], that light at a point would not diffuse itself to the bodily organ so as to be visible, according to the common opinion which says that it is not possible for what is indivisible to be moved, from Physics 6.4.234b10-20. But this was discussed in Ord. II d.2 nn.301-304 about the motion of an angel.

447. And when you prove that it would diffuse itself spherically [n.424], this would have to be denied according to this way; indeed there would be need that it first have quantitative divisibility in itself before it might act on the passive subject.

448. Now the other argument, about the reflection of light from a point [n.424], is not cogent, because the first agent in reflection is not the light at a point that touches the body whence the reflection comes to be (if however light is at a point there), but it is the primary object itself from which the light is diffused; for the same object acts on direct, reflex, and refracted vision. Hence a point, when touching the surface of a mirror, does not diffuse the reflex ray; rather the first luminous thing (which diffuses its light as far as the mirror) immediately diffuses, in the form of a cause, the reflex ray.

449. And the reason is that because a natural agent acts according to the utmost of its power, when it is impeded from acting along the line most agreeable to natural action (namely a straight line, which is the shortest line) it acts along that line as much as it can, namely along a reflected straight line. And this is the reason why an image of the body diffused as far as the mirror is not seen in the mirror, but the body itself is of which it is the image.