Footnotes

¹‘Every man who is other than Socrates is running’ can be understood, in the sense of composition, to mean that among the men Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus, all are running save the man Socrates; or it could be understood, in the sense of division, to mean that all men are other than Socrates, so that Socrates is not a man. In the context of the canon of the mass the words ‘which is shed for you’, if taken in the sense of composition would mean ‘my blood, that is, the blood which is shed for you’. In the sense of division, it would mean, ‘my blood, and it is shed for you’.

²That is, we do not see the universal ‘body’ before we see the individual Socrates, but we see this body, this animal, this man, Socrates.

³The mode of quantity seems to be its determinate amount, and clearly the quantity of Christ’s body is greater in amount (in size, weight etc.) than the quantity of the consecrated host.

⁴The words are not from Augustine in fact but Lanfranc On the Body and Blood of the Lord ch.18, and from Ambrose’s Letter to Irenaeus 64 n.1. The misattributions are found first in Gratian, from whom the Master took them, and Scotus from the Master. Vatican editors.

⁵The objection seems to be that if number is necessarily equal or unequal, then it is necessarily equal or necessarily unequal. But the necessity refers to the disjunction (which is common to both), namely ‘number is necessarily one or the other’, and not to the disjuncts (which are distinct for each), namely ‘number is necessarily this one’, or ‘number is necessarily that one’. Of course, any particular number, as opposed to number as a class, will necessarily be the equal it is or necessarily the unequal it is.

⁶The subject is a quantum that coexists with another quantum, but which God withholds from having coextension with it, and so place [n.63]. Such a quantum, then, has no ‘where’ and is not disposed, even contingently, to having this ‘where’ or that ‘where’ or some other ‘where’.

⁷The objection seems to be that just as a surface is necessarily colored but not necessarily this color rather than that color, so a quantum is necessarily in a place but not necessarily in this place rather than that place. The response is to deny the analogy by denying that a surface qua surface is necessarily colored (there is no necessity intrinsically, or no necessity in surface as such). For color is not surface but the limit of the transparent at a surface, and a surface would have no such limit in the dark (when there is no transparency for it to be a limit to), nor would it if the surface were transparent (like glass) and so were not a limit to whatever transparent medium there was. So similarly a quantum has no necessity in itself to be in a place. The objection fails, therefore, because it does not hold of a quantum simply, as it does not hold of surface simply, but only of a quantum together with the additional relation of place and only of surface with the additional property of being the limit of the transparent.

⁸Scotus’ expression here is obscure [see also n.144 infra]. He is referring to an argument in Henry’s Quodlibet IX q.32, where Henry argues that if the same body is present by its dimensions in several places, it is one because it is commensurate with the dimensions of one place (one both numerically and as an extension) and many because commensurate in the same way with the dimensions of many places. So the dimensions of the same body will have to be multiplied according as they are commensurate with the dimensions of several places, and hence the same body will be one (because it is the same body) and many (because it has as many sets of dimensions as the number of places it is in).

⁹The twofold miracle is [in the case of the Eucharist] God making Christ’s body to be present here and God making it to be under the species of bread, or not in its natural mode. But if God can do two miracles together he can do one of them alone, namely make Christ’s body to be present here and not in the mode of bread but in its own or natural mode.

¹⁰Instead of “quantity’s presence” and “substance’s presence” the Latin ‘sua’ could mean “his [Christ’s] presence” and “his [Christ’s] substance”

¹¹The sense seems to be that a white thing can be like many other things in being white, but it has whiteness only by being white or being like whiteness. So as whiteness is not multiplied though the things are that are alike in whiteness, so dimension is not multiplied though the places are that the dimension is in.

¹²In medieval music the tenor was the part that held the melody, and the fifth was kept steady as a sort of drone.

¹³In ancient and medieval science, the intake of breath was believed to be for cooling the heat coming from the heart.

¹⁴That is, the contradictories of asserting and denying of the same subject (Christ’s body) the same quantity and properties. For these properties, being absolute, would belong or not belong to Christ’s body regardless of differences in the extrinsic relation of ‘where’.

¹⁵A proof of the sixth conclusion is not offered because the conclusion is already plain from what was said in proof of the first and second conclusions [nn.313-314], and will be plain from the response to the fourth initial argument [n.345].

¹⁶As noted before, Scotus is following the Aristotelian view that breathing is for cooling the body to balance the heat from the heart.

¹⁷As St. Bonaventure Sent. III d.25 a.1 q.1 ad 3, “The belief that the body of Christ is on the altar is better reduced to the article about the unity of the Church, as is also faith about the other sacraments.”

¹⁸Reading ‘autem’ rather than ‘aliud’ at line 921.

¹⁹The argument is ‘a supernatural makeable is not naturally makeable, therefore a supernatural knowable is not naturally knowable’. So if, first, the latter clause or consequent means ‘a knowable only supernaturally is not a knowable naturally’ (as the former clause or antecedent means ‘a makeable only supernaturally is not a makeable naturally’) then the consequence can be allowed but the minor premise to complete the inference ‘this existence [of Christ’s body in the Eucharist] is a supernatural knowable’ is false. For it now means ‘this existence is knowable only supernaturally’ but in fact, despite being made supernaturally, this existence could still be knowable naturally (just as the world was supernaturally made but is naturally knowable to human beings). If, second, the term ‘being’ or ‘thing’ is added to the consequence so that it reads: ‘a supernatural makeable thing is not a natural makeable thing, so a supernatural knowable thing is not a natural knowable thing’, then the consequent is not about knowability but about makeability (as is also the antecedent). For the sense is ‘a knowable thing made supernaturally is not a knowable thing made naturally’, which is true but says nothing about whether what is thus made supernaturally is knowable naturally or not.

²⁰William of Sherwood, Syncategoremata: “A ‘whole’ sometimes states the totality of something according as it is a thing, and it is equivalent to that which is integral or complete, and is a category term [a predicate or subject]. Sometimes it states the totality of something with respect to a predicate and is a syncategorematic term [additional to or modifying predicate or subject], and amounts, as is said, to the same as ‘each part whatever’ and is a sign of universality.”

²¹Hot wood is a combination of a subject, wood, and a property or accident, hot, and the subject does not change when the wood becomes cold but only the property or accident of heat in the subject.

²²Sc. ‘whole’ could mean ‘whole substance’ (e.g. wood) or ‘whole of substance and accidents’ (e.g. hot wood).

²³Sc. matter taken as precisely as matter does not differ into matter under this form or matter under that form, for as taken precisely it has no reference to this form or to that. So there can be no conversion of it taken precisely, for there is thus no different matter or form for it to be converted into.

²⁴If the quantitative mode is other than matter precisely taken, then it is nothing, for by supposition there is nothing but matter there, since conversion, as Giles says, is not into anything with quantity. If the quantitative mode is precisely the matter, then nothing is added by talking about it.

²⁵The proposed conclusion is gained because the matter without accidents will be what conversion is into (n.191), which returns to the former view that the body is a natural body through a natural substantia form.

²⁶The argument seems to be that, if one supposes there could be many substantial forms on the ground that a prior substantial form would be incomplete and would be completed by a later and more complete substantial form, then one has abolished the distinction between substance and accident. For an accident is said to be an accident because it comes to or is added to what already exists as a substance. But if a previous incomplete substantial form is completed by another more complete substantial form that comes to or is added to it, then there is no difference between a substantial form that comes to or is added to an (incomplete) substance and an accidental form that comes to or is added to an (incomplete) substance. But to abolish the distinction between substantial and accidental forms is irrational.

²⁷Scotus’ Exposition of Aristotle’s Metaphysics 7 sect.2 ch.13 n.103: “One must note that those who deny the plurality of forms want to take their argument from this, that the unity of a definition comes from the fact that the genus is nothing besides the species of the genus, at least as to quidditative ‘to be’^”

²⁸“It will be plain if one transpose such definitions, as the definition of ‘man’ which says ‘a two-footed animal having feet’; for it is superfluous to say ‘having feet’ when ‘two-footed’ has been said. But there is no order in the substance, for how should one understand that the latter is posterior and the former prior?”

²⁹Latin ‘res’ ‘thing’ from Latin ‘reor, reris’ ‘I/you think’, or ‘res rata’, with ‘rata’ also coming from the same verb ‘reor’. The etymology is dubious but adopted by Henry and many others. There is no such etymological connection in English between ‘thing’ and ‘think’, or of course ‘ratify’. The English translation nevertheless tries, if fancifully, to capture something of the Latin word play.

³⁰The point of this argument seems to be that Giles has given a sense to the idea of annihilation such that nothing can ever be annihilated unless everything, or everything bodily, is annihilated. But this view is absurd, for something can surely be annihilated without everything else being annihilated as well. So, annihilation cannot be what Giles says it is, and consequently he has not given an adequate reason for saying that the bread is not annihilated in its conversion into Christ’s body. The same should be said, mutatis mutandis, about the point of the next two arguments [nn.308-309].

³¹Boethius On Hypothetical Syllogism I, “I call those things ‘disparate’ which are only diverse from each other, with no conflicting contrariety, as ‘earth’, ‘clothing’, ‘fire’ etc.

³²This argument seems to assert what has just been denied [n.322], that the conversion of the bread into the body of Christ is not annihilation. But the meaning rather is that though the first part of the transition (from the being of the bread to the non-being of the bread) could be, or indeed is, annihilation, yet the whole conversion is not, as n.337 makes clear (cf. also nn.312, 322).

³³This argument seems to be a reductio: if annihilation is regarded as the non-being of bread and the presence of the body here of Christ, then the conversion of the bread into the body would be annihilation however that conversion is understood. But this conversion can be understood as not annihilation;     therefore annihilation must be more than the non-being of bread and the presence of the body here of Christ (as per Scotus’ explanation in n.318).

³⁴The 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...”

³⁵This dispute is dealt with at length by Eusebius Ecclesiastical History V.23-25, IV.26, and by Innocent III, On the Sacrament of the Altar IV ch.4, on whom Scotus here draws.

³⁶The solution is that ‘pasch’ refers sometimes to the day of unleavened bread, and sometimes to the day of the paschal sacrifice, so that Christ could institute the Eucharist on one day (the Thursday) and suffer on the next (the Friday) and both days be days of the pasch.

Nevertheless the timing of the cena (the Last Supper) and the institution of the Eucharist in the Gospels is puzzling, and Scotus’ treatment does not entirely solve that puzzle (even if his answer is sufficient against the Greeks). The Gospels put the cena on Thursday evening and suppose that the paschal sacrifice proper, which the Chief Priests and Pharisees celebrated, was later on Friday afternoon. Consequently the cena took place before the paschal sacrifice, and Christ himself suffered and died after the cena, at the same time as that sacrifice (being himself, of course, the true Lamb of God). Now in Jewish reckoning each day begins on the previous evening, so that Friday begins on Thursday evening and ends at Friday evening (when Saturday begins). So the cena, though it occurred on the Thursday evening, did occur on the fourteenth day; it just occurred much earlier in that day than the paschal sacrifice proper. The cena, then, could have used leavened bread since it occurred before the legal requirement for unleavened bread came into effect, but it could have used unleavened bread if it was an anticipation of the paschal sacrifice. So, from this point of view, the requirement that the bread for the Eucharist be leavened or unleavened does seem a matter of choice, to be determined by the Church’s law.

³⁷The being of a separate quantity or quality would not be acquired by change of increase or alteration because quantity or quality would already be presupposed as the subject of the change and so would not acquire being through it; and as for the being that is supposedly acquired, it would be the being of quantity or quality and so would again not be acquired through the change but presupposed to it. And if one asks how such presupposed being is acquired, the same questions would arise again, and so on ad infinitum.

³⁸The authentic text does seem to be the reading Scotus rejects.

³⁹The first mode of per se is when the predicate belongs to the essence of the subject (as in ‘man is rational’), while the second mode is when the subject belongs to the essence of the predicate (as in ‘man is capable of laughter’).

⁴⁰The ordering here is clearly one of predication, where the most universal term is predicated ultimately of the individual singular. So sense quality is most universal, color is less universal, red is less universal still, this individual red is least universal, and all the others are ultimately predicated of this individual red. So, individuation in color must be in the genus of color and not derived from individuation in something else, as say from the individual red being the color of this individual extension or quantity.

⁴¹The first reason (extension in the form of whiteness and non-extension in an angel) is based on a property of whiteness and angel. The second reason (this form is this form, an angel is an angel) is based on the essence of whiteness and angel (whiteness/color is the limit of the transparent in the surface of a body, an angel is a non-bodily substance). So even if the first reason were taken away, the second would remain and be sufficient by itself to prove the relevant impossibility; and thus denial of the second would not follow denial or dismissal of the first (contrary to what the initial argument supposed [n.119]).

⁴²Averroes: “And Aristotle says this because it is impossible for separated forms to transform matter; for only what is in matter can transform matter. And so it turns out, for those who say the world is generated, that what transforms it must be some individual, namely a particular body.” Cf. Scotus Quodlibet q.7 n.24.

⁴³These objections against may seem to be missing the point. For one could gloss Thomas’ position as that accidents act in virtue of substance (as the red of an apple acts on the eye) because they are really there, and they are really there because the substance they are accidents of is really there. But if accidents do nothing unless really there in an actual substance, so a substance does nothing through accidents it lacks (a green apple, for instance, causes no perception of red). So, it would seem that accidents act in virtue of substance, not because they receive some form from substance, but because they exist in virtue of substance. However, if they were to exist without substance (as they do by divine power in the Eucharist), then they would act through their own form in virtue of existing, but their existing would not be in virtue of substance. Thus the ‘in virtue of substance’ Thomas is talking about seems to refer, not to the form of the accident (redness, for instance), but to the existence of the accident. If so, Scotus’ objections would seem misdirected. However, Scotus returns to this issue later, nn.204-211, and argues that, on Thomas’ own principles, substance must be cause also of the form of accidents and not just of their existence. But be that as it may, for nothing prevents Scotus having his own different view on the matter regardless.

⁴⁴That is, has a potency for contradictory results. Cf. Thomas, On Metaphysics 9 lectio 9: “Every power is a power simultaneously for contradiction. But this is said of passive power, according to which something is said to be able to be or not to be, either simply or in a certain respect.”

⁴⁵It was a common opinion, derived from Aristotle, that some flies and grubs were generated by the sun from putrefying matter. That they are in fact generated from eggs, invisible to the naked eye, laid by parent flies and grubs was unknown. Still the sun would be needed to keep the eggs, and the decaying matter, warm enough for incubation.

⁴⁶Missing in fact in the Ordinatio as it now stands. Scotus’ view must be looked for instead in Lectura II d.18 nn.27-39, 66-72.

⁴⁷The reference is to the several species of quality listed by Aristotle, the third of which is the perceptible qualities that affect the several senses, Categories 8b26-10a11.

⁴⁸Treating the Latin ‘corrumpentis’ as intransitive and as meaning ‘undergoing corruption’. Otherwise the text seems hard to make sense of.

⁴⁹The text says ‘compossible’ but a variant reads ‘incompossible’, which latter may be right.

⁵⁰The proper sensibles are those perceived by only one sense, as color, taste, sound etc., and the common sensibles are those perceived by more than one sense, as size, shape, place etc.

⁵¹‘Trufa’, a medieval word for ‘truffle’ but also for untruths or lies.

⁵²The text says ‘which was before’, but a variant says ‘because it was before’, and the variant looks to make more sense.

⁵³Sc. according to Godfrey’s opinion, not necessarily Scotus’.

⁵⁴A line is the limit or division of a surface (a quantum in two dimensions) and not a part of it, just as a point is the limit or division of a line (a quantum in one dimension) and not a part of it. A line, then, has a subject, since it is an attribute of quantity, but the quantity or quantum of which it is the attribute does not have a subject.

⁵⁵Gloss on I Corinthians 11.24, from Nicholas of Lyra, “Each receives his own part, the body of Christ is eaten in parts, and it remains whole. From which is plain that the whole and uncorrupted body of Christ is eaten; and if there is breaking or dividing into parts there, it seems to be not in the body but in the sacrament.”

⁵⁶“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.”

⁵⁷Understand: “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.

⁵⁸The first four of the ten categories are substance, quantity, quality, and relation. The remaining six, namely when, where, action, passion, position, being clad, all involve relation or reference to something, so that if everything involving relation belongs to the category of relation, these six categories would not be distinct categories after all but members of the category of relation.

⁵⁹Author: Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Mucadh.