d. Difficulties against the Two Corollaries and their Solution

236. Against the first corollary [n.231] I infer this unacceptable result: therefore the body could begin to be after it was, for the body began to be in the Incarnation, and yet it would have truly been before, if there had been a true Eucharist [before].

237. Against the second corollary [n.232], because then the same body would cease to be after it had ceased to be. Proof: because by ceasing to be in its natural mode it would cease to be, and yet it would remain if a true Eucharist afterwards remained.

238. I say that neither consequence is valid, because what has being simply does not, if it begins to be in another mode, begin to be save in a certain respect. Similarly, what remains in being simply would not, if it ceased to be elsewhere in another mode, cease to be save in a certain respect.

239. As to the argument about the Incarnation [n.236] I say that it would have been possible for that body to have been formed of the blood of the Virgin, and this in its natural mode of existing, notwithstanding the fact that a true Eucharist had preceded. But this formation would not have been the beginning of Christ’s body save in a certain respect, just as now the conversion of the bread into the body is not a beginning of the body save in a certain respect; and the whole reason is that what begins thus to be has being simply beforehand.

240. I speak similarly about the second argument [n.237], that the ceasing to be of the body in the natural mode would not be a ceasing to be save in a certain respect, provided however that the same body remained having the same real existence in the sacramental mode.

241. And if you object that “as it is, there was a beginning simply of Christ’s body in the Incarnation, so there would likewise have thus been a beginning simply if the Eucharist had preceded, for the being of Christ’s body in its natural mode would have been no less true then than now, and consequently, when it acquired that being, his body would, in receiving that sort of being, have had no less true a beginning” - I reply that beginning simply requires not only a beginning to true being and to being simply of that which is said to begin, but also a beginning to the first being of it. But, as it is, there was in the Incarnation a receiving not only of being but also of first being. Then, however, [sc. if the Eucharist had preceded the Incarnation] there would have been a beginning of being simply in one mode, but not the first mode, because the same being simply would have preceded under a different mode [sc. the sacramental mode], and then there would have been a beginning in a certain respect, but now a beginning simply.

242. But if you argue about ceasing to be, that ceasing to be in the natural mode is ceasing to be simply, for corruption in that sense is corruption simply and a corruption everywhere, since if it is not corrupted here then it remains after it was corrupted - I reply that no contradictories are to be admitted about the same thing when there is a distinction in their modes of being (as will be stated immediately). If therefore you are speaking of the corruption that is the separation of part from part (as of the body from the soul, or of the form of corporeity from the matter), then if there is such a corruption of something existing in such a mode, there is also a corruption of it in any mode. Otherwise the same form would inform and not inform the same thing at the same time, and consequently Christ’s body could not be made to be without a soul in the natural mode without it also being made to be without a soul in the sacrament, and vice versa. Nor too could Christ’s body be resolved into matter (the form of corporeity having been here separated from it) without being resolved there, and vice versa.

243. But if we are speaking of a corruption or separation, namely about the total ceasing to be of what is contained in this mode and in the other, Christ’s body could well cease to be here without ceasing to be there, and vice versa, because the whole ceases to have one mode of its existence while retaining the other mode, under each of which modes its total existence is truly preserved.