Single Question. Whether in Any Change that is Made in the Eucharist Some Substance Must Return by Divine Action

444. Finally I ask whether in any change that is made in the Eucharist some substance must return by divine action.

445. It seems not:

Because a separate quantity has the mode of a substance in acting, so does it have it in coming to be and undergoing; therefore whatever can be generated from a substance, were it there, will be able to be generated from a separate quantity; there is no need, then, for some substance to return.

446. Again, a natural agent next to a passive subject naturally changes it; therefore no miracle is required for it to cause change; but the substance cannot return save through a new miracle; therefore no possible change there requires a substance to return.

447. Again, an unimpeded natural agent acts necessarily, so it does not depend in its acting on any action that belongs immediately to the divine will, for the divine will is a principle of external action only contingently; but what is necessary cannot depend on what is contingent; therefore nothing that is caused immediately by the divine will is required in the action.

448. Again, Augustine says, City of God 7.30, “God so manages the things he has established that he allows them to perform their own motions.” Therefore, he allows a natural agent to perform its own natural motion, and consequently to change the Eucharist without any new miracle; therefore also without a substance returning.

449. On the contrary:

The species [of the Eucharist] are able to give nourishment, as the gloss [Lombard ad loc.] says on I Corinthians 11.21, “One indeed is hungry, another is drunken;” so they can be changed into the substance of someone needing nourishment;     therefore substance can be generated from them. But this is only possible if substance return, because substance does not come to be from non-substance.

450. Again, it is plain to sense that the consecrated host can be corrupted into fire, or into a living thing generated by way of putrefaction, just as it would be corrupted if the substance of bread were there; and then, as before [n.449], a substance can only be generated if substance return; therefore etc     .

I. To the Question

A. First Opinion, which is from Pope Innocent III

1. Exposition of the Opinion

451. There is an opinion here from Innocent III On the Sacrament of the Altar 4.11,“Just as the substance of the bread is miraculously converted when the Lord’s body begins to be under the sacrament, so it somehow miraculously returns when his body ceases to be there.” ⁵⁶ which says the substance of bread returns.

452. This can be proved as follows, that Christ is in the Eucharist as spiritual nourishment, and suitable bodily nourishment remains as long as the species exist; therefore when the species cease to have the idea of suitable nourishment (as substances unsuitable for nourishment bodily would be if they were in the substance of bread and wine), then the body of Christ really ceases to be there as spiritual nourishment; but when the Eucharist ceases, the substance returns. Therefore in such change the substance returns.

453. Nor must one posit a new miracle here, because the body of Christ ceases to be there when the species would not be of a nature to affect the substances converted, for God has instituted the Eucharist not to remain unless suitable species remain.

454. Nor too is there a new miracle because, namely, the substance returns there when the body of Christ ceases to be there, for God has ordained accidents never to be without a subject save in the Eucharist.

2. Rejection of the Opinion

455. Against this: I ask when the substance of bread returns.

456. Either this is in the final instant, when a new substance is generated there, and then it follows that bread and non-bread are there together; for bread is corrupted when something different is generated,Understand: “so, in the same way, something different is corrupted when bread is generated” and, since the bread is there first, the non-bread that is corrupted is there along with the bread. ⁵⁷ and for you the bread is there first, and this is unacceptable.

457. Or it is before the final instant, and then two unacceptable things seem to follow:

The first is that the Eucharist does not remain as long as the non-corrupted species remain, or that the Eucharist will remain there at the same time and that the substance of bread will be there along with the body of Christ.

458. The second unacceptable thing is because, when one part of the motion is no more repugnant to the receptive subject than another part is (this is apparent from what was said above in q.1 [nn.367-372]), an agent that has power for part of the motion has power for the whole of the motion and for the term. But, as long as the species are not simply corrupted but are being altered otherwise, one part of the alteration is no more repugnant to the species than another part is; therefore an agent with power for one part of the alteration has power also for any degree of it; so while the alteration remains the substance should not return.

459. But, as to this argument, it would be more probable to grant the second member [n.457].

460. And then the first thing inferred [n.457] would perhaps not be unacceptable to one holds the opinion; for he would say that the Eucharist does not remain when the species are disposed in just any way but as long as they remain as suitable for nourishment. But the species could be so altered that, before they are totally corrupted, they are not suitable for nourishment, just as bread, before the flavor and the other accidents were corrupted [sc. in the process of eating?], could not be suitable nourishment; and then it would be difficult to find the definite degree of alteration or putrefaction up to which precisely the Eucharist would remain.

461. To the second [n.458] it might be said that the substance ought not to return on account of the whole alteration that precedes the corruption of the species and, consequently, the corruption of the Eucharist, but that it ought to return on account of the generation that follows the alteration and accompanies the corruption of the species; but it cannot return when the corruption is going on, because then it would both be and not be.

462. But this response does not assign a return of the substance of the bread that is sufficient; for a natural agent could, for you, do as much up to the final instance if the substance of the bread did not return; so the response does not speak sufficiently.

B. Second Opinion, which is that of Thomas Aquinas

1. Exposition of the Opinion

463. There is another opinion [Thomas Aquinas, Sentences IV d.12 q.1 a.2, ST IIIa q.77 a.5] that posits return of the matter.

463. The exposition, however, is that the opinion cannot be understood of the matter that was previously annihilated, “because what has been reduced to nothing cannot return numerically the same.” Nor can it be understood either of matter previously converted into the body of Christ, because this matter cannot return again unless the body of Christ or the matter of the body of Christ were, contrariwise, converted into the matter of bread, just as neither could the converted bread return unless the body of Christ were converted into bread.

465. But if this opinion is to be sustained with any probability, the understanding of it needs to be that God creates new matter. And one must not posit a new miracle, because this comes from the original miracle (lest faith lose its merit), and consequently so that every change that could be brought about if the accidents were in a substance could be brought about by a natural agent. Nor would the substance of bodily matter then simply be diminished, nor the matter created in the beginning increased, by the return of this substance, because as much of matter is created, or as much returns here, as was converted from matter into the substance of the body of Christ.

2. Rejection of the Opinion

466. I argue against this opinion: because I ask when the matter returns - whether in the final instant, when a new substance is generated there, or before the final instant?

467. Not before for two reasons: because then, while the Eucharist remains, the matter of the substance there would be different from the matter of the body of Christ, which the school in common does not hold. Then too the matter would be without form, which that doctor [Aquinas, ST Ia q.66 a.1 ad 3, q.76 a.6] says is simply impossible; at least it is not possible without a new miracle. But more miracles are not to be posited without necessity.

468. If however the matter returns in the instant of generation, in vain is it posited to return so that a natural agent may generate something from it, because a natural agent only generates from a matter quantum, especially according to him [Aquinas]. Likewise, a natural agent can only generate if some corruption accompanies the generation, and especially according to this opinion; but it will not corrupt any substance then [sc. in the instant of generation], because the matter does not return under any substantial form needing to be corrupted, for then it would have matter and not have matter at the same time.

469. The manner too, in which this doctor says the opinion must necessarily be held (namely that annihilated matter does not return nor does converted matter, but it can only be said to return because some new matter is created), does not seem probable, because both annihilated matter and converted matter can return.

470. Proof of the first point:

Because the nothing that follows annihilation is of the same idea as the nothing that precedes creation of matter, just as the term of annihilation ‘to which’ and the term of creation ‘from which’ are the same or of the same idea, as in the case of corruption and generation. And the distance from matter to the nothing that follows the annihilation of it and to the nothing that precedes the creation of it is the same; therefore the same power has power over this distance and that; therefore the power that can create can also repair what has been annihilated.

471. Again, matter that has been annihilated is not more nothing than it was before creation; therefore, it does not include a greater contradiction than it included before; therefore just as omnipotence could previously have produced what was thus nothing, so can it produce it now as well.

472. Second, namely about converted matter [n.469], the proof is that the body of Christ is not differently disposed because of the fact that bread is converted into it. Therefore, conversely, the converted bread could return in the same way in which it was converted into that body, without its being the case that Christ’s body would be in itself differently disposed; because just as this body is not disposed in a different way positively by having this entity after conversion in itself [sc. the entity of being under the species of bread], so it would not be disposed in a different way privatively by not having it in itself (namely if the bread were to return).

C. Third Opinion, which is that of Giles of Rome and Henry of Ghent

1. Exposition of the Opinion

473. The third opinion [Giles of Rome, Theorems on Christ’s Body prop.45, Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet 8 q.36] is that, as the Commentator says (Physics 1 com.64 and Substance of the Sphere 1), one must understand the dimensions in the matter of generable and corruptible things to be indeterminate before the advent of substantial form, otherwise the division of matter for the sake of diverse substantial forms being in diverse parts of matter could not be understood. But these sorts of dimensions receive, after the arrival of substantial forms, determinate and complete being; but whatever is understood to be in matter before substantial form remains numerically the same in the generated and corrupted thing, because a prior thing should remain after removal of a posterior one. Just as, therefore, the matter of the bread would, by means of these incomplete dimensions, receive the form of that which might be generated from the bread, and this when the bread has not been converted, so since now [sc. in the converted bread in the Eucharist] subsistence is granted to the dimensions and since being conform to the being of the prior substances is granted to them, so there is granted to them that they are able to be under a substantial natural form; for they do not have from their nature the ability to be only under an accidental form, but they do have this ability from a substantial form. And then matter will either come as a consequence, because of the natural concomitance of form with matter, or the nature of matter will be given by divine virtue to the dimension itself, because of dimension’s nearness to matter, so that, in this way, what is generated is a composite of matter and form.

474. Added to this opinion is that if from such dimensions a worm were generated of matter first, then substance were generated from the nutrient parts, the matter of the nutriment will eventually be the matter of that substance.

2. Rejection of the Opinion

475. Against this opinion:

A form determinate to some receptive subject can in no way perfect something different, as whiteness cannot perfect an angel nor wisdom a stone; but a substantial form is determinate to substantial matter, as to what is properly susceptive of it; therefore in no way can it perfect a dimension in the genus of quantity, which is not substantial matter.

476. Again, a form of a prior genus cannot perfect what is receptive of a posterior genus; therefore neither can substantial form perfect the dimension of bread. The proof of the antecedent is that act presupposes potency, and this when speaking of the order of origin; but the act of a prior genus does not presuppose, in either origin or perfection, anything of a posterior genus.

477. Again third, and it seems more manifest, is that substantial form is the sort of act that is of a nature to constitute something per se one with what is perfectible by it; but it cannot constitute something per se one in the genus of quantity.

478. Again, that which is essentially the idea of being the term of another thing’s dependence, cannot depend on that other thing; substantial form is of this sort with respect to quantity;     therefore etc     .

479. Again, how can a substantial form be drawn out from the potency of dimension, since a substantial form, by the nature of the thing, is not in dimension as in what is properly potential for it?

480. Thus does the first part of the opinion [n.473] seem refuted in general, namely because dimension cannot take the place of matter with respect to substantial form.

481. But as to generation from that dimension [sc. the quantity in the Eucharist], there is refutation in particular.

First as follows: fire generated from that dimension and fire from the substantial form of fire would not be something univocal, and [the former] would not be univocally fire with another fire generated from the substantial form and matter of fire; and then fire would not act univocally in burning the [sacramental] host and in burning wood.

482. Again, not only does an absurdity follow in this one case, that mathematical fire will come from quantity and substantial form, but there will be a process in generable and corruptible things of this sort up to the end of the world; for from the mathematical fire, having dimension for the matter, water will be generated, having the same thing for the matter that the corrupted thing had for matter; and from that water will be generated air, and so on to the end of the world, or to infinity according to the philosophers.

483. What the other doctor adds, about the matter of arriving nutriment [n.474], does not save the proposed opinion.

Posit that what is generated is, like fire, not nourishable: the argument is worth nothing.

484. Again, let it be that a priest were nourished from the species, and posit, as would be possible that, for the long time during which the many parts of matter would have been in flux, new parts would always have been generated - the result is that those parts will not truly be parts of flesh, constituted of the essential parts of flesh, as the other parts would be that were not generated from the species; and thus it would be possible to posit the case of a child who, nourished on species until the end of his life, would rise again only as a human being composed of dimension and of one or several substantial forms, according to them.

D. Fourth Opinion, which is that of Richard of Middleton

1. Exposition of the Opinion

485. The fourth opinion [Richard of Middleton, Sent. IV d.12 princ.2 ad1] is that in transubstantiation there is converted along with the accidents, and this by creation, a possibility for change not only into form but also into the lowest degree of actuality, which is matter; therefore, the accidents are afterwards resolved into matter from the aforesaid possibility annexed to them, having been converted into a naturally made actuality of the lowest degree.

486. And thus does this opinion agree with the second [n.465], namely that matter returns, but not immediately from God; rather by the action of a natural agent.

2. Rejection of the Opinion

487. Against this opinion is that this ‘pure possible’ is, according to him, the term of creation; therefore it is something outside its cause, or it has outside the first cause a positive entity inferior to matter. But this is false, because Augustine says in Confessions 12.7 n.7, “Lord, you have made two things: one near you (namely angelic nature) and another almost nothing (namely prime matter);” therefore, in fact there is nothing inferior to matter, though perhaps it is possible for some inferior positive thing to be created by God. But whatever may be the case with this, disputation about it has no place here.

488. To the proposal I argue as follows:

Matter is not produced by generation, since it is the foundation that is presupposed to generation; therefore, a natural agent cannot convert that pure potential, annexed to the species, into prime matter or the composite, such that it produce, by that action, prime matter or matter proper to this composite.

489. Again, let it be that such a pure potential were posited in the species of the Eucharist, and that it were possible for matter or the composite to be produced from the action of a natural agent; it would still be vainly posited, because a natural agent can only act on a quantum in act, which would not be the case here.

E. Scotus’ own Opinion

490. I say to the question, therefore, that among the changes possible in the Eucharist some (1) stand while the Eucharist remains, some (2) do not. None of the first require the substance to return, not by divine action nor by action of a natural agent, and in fact the substance does not return. But of the second some (3) do not require the substance to return, yet (4) it does by divine action return; so that there are four conclusions.

491. The first is proved thus: every agent having power for some change has power for the term of it, provided it has a receptive subject no more repugnant to the term than to the motion. But in changes where the Eucharist remains, a natural agent has power for the whole motion, and the receptive subject is no more repugnant to the term than to the motion.     Therefore etc     .

492. The minor is plain, because the receptive subject cannot be said to be the quantity here; and one degree of quality to which there can be alteration or change is no more repugnant to the quantity than is another more imperfect degree according to which, and according to others like it, there can be a motion of alteration; for quantity in its idea does not determine any degree of quality for itself.

Thus is the first conclusion plain, that, while the Eucharist remains, there is no need for the substance to return.

493. And the third conclusion [n.490] can be proved by the same point, that change corruptive of the Eucharist, while yet the same quantity remains there that is the subject of the change, does not require the substance to return.

494. The proof of the second conclusion [n.490] is that, while the Eucharist remains, only the substance of the body of Christ is there - for the accidents then remain without a subject. But neither of these would be true if another substance were to return; therefore, while the Eucharist remains, no substance in fact returns.

495. The fourth conclusion is unlike the second, and it is this: that if the Eucharist is corrupted either by alteration or by motion in quantity, the substance in fact returns; and this is composite substance, to which such accidents belong, which also they affect; and it returns in the instant of corruption and immediately from God.

496. The proof of the first part of this conclusion [n.495] is that God has established that the species, while they remain, exist in the Eucharist precisely, and not elsewhere, without a subject;     therefore etc     . He has established, then, that when the Eucharist ceases, the species are not there without a subject, and consequently that in the very instant of corruption some substance is there.

497. The proof of the second part [n.495] is that if a substance does return there, yet not one different from that which can be affected by the new accidents, because a different substance would not be able to be so affected.

498. The proof of the third part [n.495], namely that it only returns immediately from God, is because no other agent has the active virtue sufficient for this.

499. A composite substance does not return, therefore, while the accidents of the Eucharist remain uncorrupt, as the first opinion says [n.452]; nor does the matter, as the second opinion says, return at the end by being repaired or by being created, because this would be altogether superfluous, since no action of a natural agent [nn.464-465] could be preserved in that form; nor does it return because, as the third opinion says [n.473], dimension is in some way susceptive of substantial form; nor is the possibility, the way the fourth opinion speaks [n.485], anything or convertible into anything.

500. But what change could come about while the Eucharist remains? It is plain that any alteration could that nothing is induced by incompossible with bread (were it to remain), and that any change in quantity could, either per se, as breaking or division (because the homogeneous parts of bread would be of nature to remain under the parts of divided quantity); or in quantity concomitantly, as in the case of rarefaction and densification, provided however a quantity is not induced that is repugnant to the substance of non-converted bread.

501. By contrast, however, corruptive change is to a quality to the degree in which the quality could not stand along with bread (if it were to remain), and this although the quantity remains altogether the same; such change, I say, cannot be brought about while the Eucharist remains, or at least is not in fact brought about. Hence, if it were possible for the heat of fire to be induced in the consecrated species to a degree repugnant to bread (were it present), and yet the quantity that was before remained altogether the same, the Eucharist would be corrupted; because the Eucharist does not consist in quantity alone but in other accidents necessarily consequent to converted substances; and consequently, in the inducing of the incompossible heat, the substance would in fact return, as was proved in the fourth conclusion [nn.495-496].

502. But it would not be necessary for substance to return because of the action of a natural agent, as the third conclusion says [n.493]; for a natural agent would have for subject the quantity into which the heat could be induced, as the proof of the third and fourth conclusion proves [nn.491-493]; and then a quantum hot with fiery heat would be there, and yet fire would not be there.

II. To the Initial Arguments

503. To the first argument [n.445] I say that a separate quantity does not have a positive mode of substance but only a negative one, namely this: ‘not actually being in a subject’. But this negative mode does not suffice for it to be more a subject than it was before; on the contrary, what it was able to be the immediate subject of before, that it can be the subject precisely of now as well. However, the argument that ‘quantity can be the subject of some change’ can be conceded, but not that quantity can be subject of change to substance, because required in that case is that the subject be the principle of a composite substance, as matter.

504. As to the second [n.446] I concede that a new miracle is not required for the action of a natural agent, as long as the agent has a passive object; but when it does not have a passive object, it cannot act unless a passive object is by a miracle given to it. But just as it cannot be given by nature, so the passive object required for generation is not here, nor can it be or be made to be from anything by a natural agent so as to be here. And so, in order for a natural agent to be able to act with this action, a passive object proportioned to it must return through a divine miracle. Nor yet do I say that when, according to the fourth conclusion [nn.495-498], it does return in fact, a natural agent generates something there, but that God alone first causes there a composite substance. But if a further generation of something ought to follow from that substance, then a natural agent can act there for substantial form, because it now has a passive object suited to it.

505. To the third argument [n.447] the answer is plain from the same fact, because a natural agent necessarily acts as much as it can act; but it cannot act there for anything able to be received in quantity, and therefore not for a substantial form; and therefore divine action is necessarily required.

506. And if you ask whether a natural agent acts so that the substance (returning by divine action) be a quantum with the quality that it induces in quantity, one could say that it does, because it acts naturally after God in bringing the substance back, and in that later moment it has a passive object receptive of the formal term for which it has the power, and consequently that passive object can be affected by the formal term.

507. Or the opposite could be said, namely that a natural agent does not so act [n.506], because a created agent can only in-form a substance with some accident if that substance had something repugnant before which is taken away by this sort of natural agent.

508. But this is not necessary, because if the contrary or the privation does not here precede in order of duration, the action of a natural agent is not for this reason taken away, because a natural agent can well have an effect coeval with itself; and have it in itself, as from the proper attribute that follows the subject, or have it in another, as that if sun and air were simultaneously created, the air would be simultaneously illumined by the sun, and yet no opposite of this light would have preceded in the air.

509. As to the fourth [n.448] Augustine says, significantly, “their own motions,” that is, motions in their proper power, and such is only what has a suitable subject; and a quantity for receiving substantial form is not of this sort; and therefore a new substance cannot be produced after mere quantity save immediately by divine action.