d. Rejection of Aquinas’ Reasons

116. However it may be with the opinions, these reasons do not seem to be effective in rejecting them.

117. The first [n.110] is not valid, because he who now adores Christ in the Eucharist is not now an idolater, and yet it cannot be denied that there is some creature there, namely the species; but what should be adored is not the perceptible container but the contained Christ. And then one might say in the same way that Christ is contained under the quantum and quality of the bread, and so the bread is not adored but Christ who is contained in the bread as in a sign.

118. And if you object “at any rate the simple, who do not draw this distinction, would be idolaters,” I say that so can it be argued against you now, because the simple do not distinguish the accidents per se from the contained body of Christ. But in all such matters there is one response, that the simple give adoration within the faith of the Church, and this suffices for their salvation. But the more advanced adore distinctly what is contained and not the containing sign, and that whether the containing sign is an accident only or the substance of the bread with the accident.

119. As to the second argument [n.111] I say it proves the opposite, because if the substance of bread were there, the double signification [n107] would be true: namely the natural one whereby the accidents signify their substance, and also the one that is by divine institution, whereby a perceptible thing signifies the body of Christ - it would be true. But now the only signification that can be preserved as true is precisely the second one.

120. Nor can it be said that the natural signification would, because of the other signification that is by institution, come to an end; because then the accidents would no longer lead naturally (as concerns themselves) to an apprehending of the substance of the bread; instead their natural signification or representation, which yet was in them before, would totally cease. And then, after this cessation, the accidents would affect the intellect to make it apprehend the body of Christ in some way otherwise than before (supposing the substance of the bread is not there); this is a nothing.a

a.a [Text canceled by Scotus] and then the accidents would in some way affect the intellect differently before the consecration than afterwards; which is a nothing.

121. I reply therefore that the first thing by institution signified should be the body of Christ, and so it is, whether the substance of the bread remain or not. But the first thing signified by the accidents, namely what they signify naturally, is always the substance that they qualified before or were of a nature to qualify before, because the natural signification does not change.

122. As to the third argument [n.112] I say that it is not valid, because it is manifest even now that the species give nutriment, according to the Apostle I Corinthians 11.21, “One indeed is hungry, while another is drunk,” and this from receiving the sacramental species; and yet there is no denial here that it is food for the soul when that is given which is contained under the bodily food. Thus too, if the bread were posited as remaining there, it would be bodily food and yet what was contained under it would be food only for the soul.

123. As to Aquinas’ other point, about impossibility [n.113], a sufficient solution was given in d.10 q.1 nn.149-58, that the body of Christ does not begin to be here without any change, if one extends ‘change’ to include that body’s altogether simple presence.

124. To the point about ‘here’ and ‘this’ [n.114], it is nothing against the minor premise. For it is true that ‘here is my body’ and it is true that ‘this is my body’; however it is not true that ‘this accident is my body’ but that what is contained under the accident is so. In the same way, if the substance of the bread remained, that which is the substance of the bread would not be Christ’s body, but that is which is contained under the bread. But the Savior preferred to use the word ‘this’ rather than ‘here’ because it expresses the truth more, although both statements might be true.

125. To the argument against the second opinion [n.115] one could reply either by positing annihilation of the bread totally, or if reduction to the matter from which the bread comes to be is posited - the argument is not cogent. For it could be said that the reduction would be to bare matter and into matter under another form, and it could be said that the reduction is into matter remaining where it was before or moved from there in its location.

126. And when it is argued [n.115] against the first reply [sc. reduction to bare matter] that then the matter would be without form and so would be in act and not in act, there is equivocation over the term ‘act’. For in one way ‘act’ is that difference of being which is opposed to potency, insofar as all being, and anything that is, is divided, namely into act and potency. In another way ‘act’ states the relation that ‘form’ states to what can be formed, or to the whole of that of which it is the form.

127. And there is an equivocation over ‘potency’ in the same way. Because as potency is opposed to act in the first way [n.126], it states diminished being, namely something to which the ‘to be’ that is distinct from being in act is not repugnant, even when it is outside its cause; but being that is in act as act is opposite to potency is being that, whatever it may be, is complete in its ‘to be’ outside the soul and outside its cause. In another way potency states a principle receptive of act (in the second way of speaking of act [n.126]), the way matter is called potency and form is called act.

128. This distinction is made clearly plain by the Philosopher Metaphysics 9.1.1045b34-35, 6.1048a25-27.

129. The members of the distinction can also be proved from what the Philosopher says in many places when he speaks of act and potency now in this way and now in that, as in Metaphysics 7.16.1040b10-16. And in Metaphysics 8.6.1045b20-21 he says that from act and potency something per se one comes to be, where the understanding is not about act and potency as these are opposed, because as opposed they do not exist together. In another way, in Metaphysics 9.6.1048b1-6, he says, “Now there is an existing in act of a thing, but not as we say it exists in potency;” and then in explanation he manifests the fact in the case of many opposites, as being awake to sleeping, seeing to having one’s eye closed, work completed to work not completed. And to the one part of this difference, he says, determinate act belongs, and to the other part the possible.

130. As concerns the issue at hand, matter without form is in act and not in potency in the first way [n.129]. The proof is from Augustine Confessions 12.7.7; here are his words: “Matter itself has received this imperfect ‘to be’, which namely it has in potency;” and he has to posit this, because he concedes that matter is created by God.

131. But before it was created, it was in potency in the first way [n.127]. The proof is because otherwise that would be created which is incapable of being created. Therefore, after creation it is not in potency in that way, for then there would, after creation, be no entity of produced matter. Only after creation, then was it not in potency in that way but in the second way, because it was receptive of act in the second way of speaking of act. But now there is a mistaking of the question, or ‘ignoratio elenchi’, when it is said [by Aquinas, n.126] that ‘matter is in act in the first way and not in act in the second way, therefore it is in act and not in act’. In the same way there is equivocation about potency on this side and that.

132. Also, if the second sense were granted [nn.115, 126], namely that the matter would receive some form and would remain together with the body of Christ, one could not refute the claim that this would be possible for God, because it does not include a contradiction. For if the body of Christ, even as a quantum, can be together with a quantity of bread, and quantum is more repugnant to quantum (as far as concerns their being together) than the substance is to the substance and consequently more than substance is to any substance whatever (for thus does the Philosopher argue in Physics 4.8.216b10-11, that if two bodies can be together then any number of bodies at all can be together), then it follows that it is not impossible for any substance composed of the matter and a new form to remain together with the body of Christ. If, again, it be granted that this body would be expelled, and yet not in such a way that the expelling of the air would manifestly appear - neither can this be proved impossible for God, because it includes no contradiction.