CHAPTER LXL-OftAe Eucharist BECAUSE spiritual effedts are produced on the pattern of visible effc&s, it was fitting that our spiritual nourishment should be given us under the appearances of those things that men commonly use for their bodily nourishment, namely bread and wine. And for the further correspondence of spiritual signs with bodily efFe6ts, in the spiritual regeneration of Baptism the mystery of the Word Incarnate is united with us otherwise than ^Tit is united in this Sacrament of the Eucharist, which is our spiritual nourish- ment. In Baptism the Word Incarnate is only virtually contained, but in the Sacrament of the Eucharist we confess Him to be contained substantially, as nourishment must be substantially united with the nourished.
And because the completion of our salvation was wrought by Christ's pas- sion and death, whereby His Blood was separated from His Body, therefore the Sacrament of His Body is given us separately under the species of bread, and His Blood under the species of wine. J • As balsam is brought into Europe from the t Thus the consecration of the Eucharist becomes distant East. Cf. iEschylus, Agamemnon, 96, -xtXavy a memorial of Christ's death, and thereby assumes fivxodev fiatriXely. the character of a representative Sacrifice. See Oxford t Under the Romans this was done by the pro- and Cambridge Conferences, First Series, pp. 292-306. consul, the military governor of the district.
CHAPTER LXlll-Ofthe Conversion of Bread into the Body of Christ IT is impossible for the true Body of Christ to begin to be in this Sacra- ment by local motion, because then it would cease to be in heaven, upon every consecration of this Sacrament; as also because this Sacrament could not then be consecrated except in one place, since one local motion can only have one terminus; also because local motion cannot be instantaneous, but takes time. Therefore its presence must be due to the conversion of the substance of bread into the substance of His Body, and of the substance of wine into the substance of His Blood. This shows the falseness of the opinion of those who say that the substance of bread co-exists with the substance of the Body of Christ in this Sacrament;* also of those who say that the sub- stance of bread is annihilated. If the substance of bread co-exists with the Body of Christ, Christ should rather have said, Here is my Body, than, This is my Body. The word here points to the substance which is seen, and that is the substance of bread, if the bread remain in the Sacrament along with the Body of Christ. On the other hand it does not seem possible for the substance of bread to be absolutely annihilated, for then much of the corporeal matter of the original creation would have been annihilated by this time by the frequent use of this mystery: nor is it becoming for anything to be annihilated in the Sacrament of salvation.f We must observe that the conversion of bread into the Body of Christ falls under a different category from all natural conversions. In every natural conversion the subject remains, and in that subject different forms succeed one another: hence these are called 4 formal conversions/ But in this conver- sion subject passes into subject, while the accidents remain: hence this con- version is termed Substantial.' Now we have to consider how subject is changed into subject, a change which nature cannot effect. Every operation of nature presupposes matter, whereby subjects are individuated; hence nature cannot make this subject become that, as for instance, this finger that finger. But matter lies wholly under the power of God, since by that power it is brought into being: hence it may be brought about by divine power that one individual substance shall be converted into another pre-existing substance. By the power of a natural agent, the operation of which extends only to the producing of a change of form and presupposes the existence of the subjedl of change, this whole is converted into that whole with variation of species and form. J So by the divine power, which does not presuppose matter, but produces it, this matter is converted into that matter, and consequently this individual into that: for matter is the principle of individuation, as form is the principle of species.§ Hence it is plain that in the change of the bread into • For this early mention of consubstantiation St dogma is guaranteed by the Catholic Church. The Thomas refers to the Master of the Sentences (Peter explanations of the dogma lie beyond the domain Lombard), 4 Sent., dist. 1 1, not as approving but as alike of faith, of sensible experience, and of physical recording the opinion. science. They rest on a structure of abstruse met*- t See Chap. LXVI, with note, p. 390. St Thomas physics, into which there enter elements much open is reluctant to call that substance annihilated, the acci- to debate, as the 'principle of individuation? At the dents of which remain. same time, any one who will have it that transub- X e.g., this whole hooJ^ thrown into the fire, is con- stantiation is philosophically absurd, may well be verted into gas, smoke and ashes. asked whether he has mastered these scholastic sub- $ Many will find these scholastic explanations tleties, and has his reply ready to dispel them. All harder to accept than transubstantiation itself. The that a Catholic need care to do is to point out, as the Body of Christ there is no common subject abiding after the change, since the change takes place in the primary subject [i.e., in the matter], which is the principle of individuation. Yet something must remain to verify the words, This is my body, which are the words significant and effective of this conversion. But the substance does not remain: we must say therefore that what remains is something beside the substance, that is, the accident of bread. The accidents of bread then remain even after the conversion.
This then is one reason for the accident of bread remaining, that some- thing may be found permanent under the conversion. Another reason is this. If the substance of bread was converted into the Body of Christ, and the accidents of bread also passed away, there would not ensue upon such conver- sion the being of the Body of Christ in substance where the bread was before: for nothing would be left to refer the Body of Christ to that place. But since the dimensions of bread (quantitas dimensroa panis), whereby the bread held this particular place, remain after conversion, while the substance of bread is changed into the Body of Christ, the Body of Christ comes to be under the dimensions of bread, and in a manner to occupy the place of the bread by means of the said dimensions.
CHAPTER LXIV-An Answer to Difficulties raised in respect of Place IN this Sacrament something is present by force of conversion, and some- thing by natural concomitance. By force of conversion there is present that which is the immediate term into which conversion is made. Such under the species of bread is the Body of Christ, into which the substance of bread is converted by the words, This ismy body. Such again under the species of wine is the Blood of Christ, when it is said, This is the chalice of my blood. By natural concomitance all other things are there, which, though conversion is not made into them, nevertheless are really united with the term into which conversion is made. Clearly, the term into which conversion of the bread is made is not the Divinity of Christ, nor His Soul: nevertheless the Soul and the Divinity of Christ are under the species of bread, because of the real union of them both with the Body of Christ. If during the three days that Christ lay dead this Sacrament had been celebrated, the Soul of Christ would not have been under the species of bread, because it was not really united Newman does (note, p. 391), how by reason of the very a unique position among substances. God's Body obscurity of the subjecl arguments against the possibi- may well 1 supercomprehend,' so to speak, all lower lity of transubstantiation cannot be cogent and apo- material substances; and be able, after unseating any dictic. We are not bound to have forthcoming positive of them from the throne where it sits queen, surevidence of that possibility. We take the fa8 from the rounded by attendant accidents, itself occupy that teaching of the Church, and leave the bow to God. same throne in the midst of those same accidents.
When physical science has said its last word on the We cannot safely conclude thereupon that any other constitution of matter; when psychology and meta- material substance is capable of doing the like. It physics have finally disposed of substance and accident, does not follow, to borrow St Thomas's own illustra- * things in themselves' and phenomena; we shall then tion, that because bread and wine can be changed be not quite so ill equipped as we are at present for into the Body and Blood of Christ, therefore, of my speculating on the philosophy of transubstantiation. two fingers, one can be changed into the other. Of Meanwhile, one important point seems to have the intrinsic possibility of this latter conversion, — and escaped notice. Faith does not raise the question of not even God can effect intrinsic impossibilities, — I any substance being converted into any other substance, confess I entertain the gravest doubts. And Catholic but only of the substances of bread and wine being faith allows me to doubt it. Vasquez (torn. 3, disp.
converted into the substance of the Body and Blood 1 84) discusses an qua lib et res in quamftbet a/iam convert of Christ. Now the Body and Blood of Christ are possiu the Body and Blood of God, and consequently hold with His Body: nor would His Blood have been under the species of bread, nor His Body under the species of wine, because of the separation of the two in death. But now, because the Body of Christ in its nature is not with- out His Blood, the Body and Blood are contained under both species; the Body under the species of bread by force of conversion, and the Blood by natural concomitance; and conversely under the species of wine.
Hereby we have an answer to the difficulty of the incommensurateness of the Body of Christ with the space taken up by the bread. The substance of the bread is converted diredtly into the substance of the Body of Christ: but the dimensions of the Body of Christ are in the Sacrament by natural concomitance, not by force of conversion, since the dimensions of the bread remain.* Thus then the Body of Christ is not referred to this particular place by means of its own dimensions, as though commensurate room had to be found for them, but by means of the dimensions of the bread, which remain, and for which commensurate room is found.
And so of the plurality of places. By its own proper dimensions the Body of Christ is in one place only; but by means of the dimensions of the bread that passes into it, the Body of Christ is in as many places as there are places in which the mystery of this conversion is celebrated, — not divided into parts, but whole in each: for every consecrated bread is converted into the whole Body of Christ.
CHAPTER LXV-The Difficulty of the Accidents remaining IT cannot be denied that the accidents of bread and wine do remain, as the infallible testimony of the senses assures us. Nor is the Body and Blood of Christ affe<5ted by them, since that could not be without change in Him, and He is not susceptible of such accidents. It follows that they remain without subjedt. Nor is their so remaining an impossibility to the divine power. The same rule applies to the production of things and to their con- servation in being. The power of God can produce the effects of any secon- dary causes whatsoever without the causes themselves, because that power is infinite, and supplies to all secondary causes the power in which they aft: hence it can preserve in being the effects of secondary causes without the causes. Thus in this Sacrament it preserves the accident in being, after re- moving the substance that preserves it.f • How this distin&ion meets the difficulty, is ing truth in the best terms of human intelligence, explained in Chap. LXVII, etsi difficile vidtatur, as with an expression accurate and correct, yet inade- St Thomas there avows. quate in respeel of the further fulness that lies beyond t A 'Domino faBum est istud; and how He does it, our ken. So we wait in adoration behind closed veils, there are guesses many, but no man tywetb. We till the veil be rent and Christ revealed. The scoffer, must not confound guesses as to the rw? (the man- on the contrary, has made up his mind on what he ner how) with articles of faith as to the £r< (the does not comprehend: in the darkness he has defined fact). We repeat the accredited phraseology of the for himself one dogma, the absolute incredibility of Church: we believe in that phraseology as express- Christian teaching.
CHAPTER LXVl-lFhat happens when the Sacramental Species pass away FOR the removal of this doubt there has been invented a famous theory {famosa positio), which is held by many. They say that when this Sacrament comes to be changed in the ordinary process of digestion or to be burnt, or otherwise destroyed, the accidents are not converted into substance, but there returns by miracle the substance of bread that had been before, and out of that are generated the produ6ts into which this Sacrament is found to turn. But this theory cannot stand at all. It seems better to say that in the consecration there is miraculously conferred upon the accidents the power of subsistence, which is proper to substance: hence they can do all things, and have all things done to them, that the substapce itself could do, or have done to it, if it were there: hence without any rtew miracle they can nourish, or be reduced to ashes, in the same mode and order as if the substance of bread and wine were there.* CHAPTER LXVll-Answer to the Difficulty raised in respeEl of the Breaking of the Host IT has been said above (Chap. LXIV) that the substance of the Body of Christ is in this Sacrament by virtue of the Sacrament [Sacramental words]: but the dimensions of the Body of Christ are there by the natural concomitance which they have with the substance. This is quite the opposite way to that in which a body naturally is in placet A body is in place by means of its dimensions, by which it is made commensurate with its place. J But substantial being and quantitative being do not stand in the same way related to that in which they are. Quantitative being is in a whole, but is not whole in each part: it is part in part, and whole in the whole.§ But substantial being is whole in the whole, and whole in every part of the same, * The Real Presence is attached, not to the chemi- under the changed accidents, those changed accidents cal elements of bread and wine, still less to any ulti- mate atoms, molecules, electrons, or the like, but to the visible appearances of bread and wine. When these appearances disappear, the Real Presence is gone and the question is, what has happened to what is left. St Thomas here, and Sum. Theol. 3, q. 77, art. 5, seems to hold that what is left continues in the miraculous state of accidents functioning as sub- stance to the end of time. But may we not plead against the saint his own words, that at that rate " by the frequent use of this mystery much of the cor- poreal nature originally created would have been reduced," not exactly to "nothing," but to a state bordering on nothingness? (Chap. LXIII.)
This solution is not commonly taken. See Pesch, S.J., Prakctiones Dogmatic*, vol. VI, pp. 311, 312.
Also that wary theologian, Cardinal Franzelin, writes: " When the accidents are so changed that naturally they would no longer point to the substance of bread and wine, but to some other, it becomes neces- sary for the Body and Blood of Christ no longer to remain under them. Were they to remain, it would be no longer the Sacrament instituted by Christ under the appearances of bread and wine. When this sub- stance of the Body and Blood of Christ ceases to be connaturally require some substance to answer to them. As then upon the sufficient organisation of the foetus the creation and infusion of the soul follows according to a natural law laid down by God, so when the accidents are specifically changed and the Real Presence ceases, there follows the creation of a corresponding substance under those new accidents, — and that, we may say, connaturally, according to a constant law laid down by God. This is equivalent to the restitution of the matter that was before con- secration " ( T>e Eucharistia, pp. 240 sq. 293).
t We must always remember that 'place* {locus) in St Thomas, is the Aristotelian nwroc, to rpwrov irepitypv (TutfjiaTutv exama/v (Physics, iv, 2), the out- line marked in space by the exterior surface lines of a body, — the shell or mould, which the body fills up.
t As the outer surfaces of the soft part of an egg formally render the contents commensurate with the shell.
§ In a phial filled with an ounce ot wine, there is not an ounce of wine at the bottom, and an ounce at the top; but some uncial fraction of the wine in each section of the phial, and the whole ounce in the whole phial.
as the whole nature and species of water is in every drop of water, and the whole soul in every part of the body.* Since then the Body of Christ is in the Sacrament by reason of its substance, into which the substance of bread is changed, while the dimensions of bread remain, — it follows that as the whole species of bread was under every part of its (visible) dimensions, so the whole Body of Christ is under every part of the same. The breaking then (of the Host) does not reach to the Body of Christ, as though the Body of Christ were subjected to that breaking: its subject is the dimensions of bread, which remain.f CHAPTER LXVIII-The Explanation of a Text NOR is there anything contrary to the tradition of the Church in the word of the Lord saying to the disciples, who seemed scandalised: The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life (John vi, 63). He did not thereby give them to understand that His true flesh was not delivered to be eaten by the faithful in this Sacrament, but that it was not delivered to be eaten in the way of ordinary flesh, taken and torn with the teeth in its own proper appearance, as food usually is; that it is received in a spiritual way, not in the usual way of fleshly food.
CHAPTER LXIX-Ofthe kind of Bread and Wine that ought to be used for the Qonsecration of this Sacrament THOSE conditions must be observed which are essential for bread and wine to be. That alone is called wine, which is liquor pressed out of grapes:J nor is that properly called bread, which is not made of grains of wheat. Substitutes for wheaten bread have come into use, and • When St Thomas speaks of quantitas dimensffa, he means 4 visible bulk.9 Of invisible bulk he took no note at all. He says (Chap. LXIII, not translated): " If the substance of bread were resolved into its prime corporeal elements, this change would neces- sarily be perceptible to sense, since corporeal ele- ments are sensible." By * corporeal elements' he meant fire, air, earth, and water. The schoolmen herein followed Aristotle; Aristotle followed Plato; and Plato had a singular dislike for Democritus, the author of the atomic theory. Compare however the elemental rpiyvva of Tttiucus, 53 sq., which triangu- lar atoms Plato expressly declares to be invisible. Every chemist and electrician now recognises that visible bulk is not of the essence of material substance; and the question stands open, whether the ultimate elements of such substance have any bulk, even invi- sible,— whether they are extended at all. But every body is extended, still more every living body, in its natural state. We say then that the Body of Christ is not in the Sacrament of the Altar in its natural state, t Read I Cor. xiii, 8- 12, and thereupon the fol- lowing from some unpublished 'Dialogues of the Dead.
Spirit of Aristotle: " Thomas, your explanations are harder to accept than the doctrine which you undertook to explain."
Spirit of Aquinas: " My dear sir, take all this ex- planation as child's play on my part: for, as Paul says, when I was a child, I spoke as a child, I under- stood as a child, I thought as a child: but now I am become a man, and see face to face, I have put away the things of a child."
Surely we may call the things 0/ a child all mere human speculations on a mystery so incomprehensible as the Holy Eucharist. I have nothing to say against the wisdom of the school, but it does not make tran- substantiation one whit clearer to me. I remain in Cardinal Newman's frame of mind, when he wrote: u I cannot tell how it is, but I say: Why should it not be? What's to hinder it? What do I know of substance or matter? Just as much as the greatest philosophers, and that is nothing at all...The Ca- tholic doctrine leaves phenomena alone. It does not say that the phenomena go: on the contrary, it says that they remain: nor does it say that the same phe- nomena are in several places at once. It deals with what no one on earth knows anything about, the material substances themselves" (Apologia, p. 239, The Cardinal in this passage writes in the easy epistolary style which he often affects, not in the solemn and strict phraseology of a legal document, civil or ecclesiastical. Newman knew, as well as any man, that substance is the reality that underlies appear- ances, the objective unity of those appearances, the noumenon, or thing in itself. We know that, and we say that; and, thanks to that modicum of knowledge, transubstantiation is not to us a tox nihili: but how much more do we know? and how far does that slight concept of substance carry towards a comprehensive understanding of transubstantiation?
t Nothing is said of fermentation; and apparently the unfermented juice of the grape would be yalid matter of consecration.
have got the name of bread; and similarly other liquors have come into use as wine: but of no such bread other than bread properly so called, or wine other than what is properly called wine, could this Sacrament possibly be consecrated: nor again if the bread and wine were so adulterated with foreign matter as that the species should disappear. A valid Sacrament may be con- secrated irrespedtively of varieties of bread and wine, when the varieties are accidental, not essential. The alternative of leavened or unleavened bread is an instance of such accidental variety; and therefore different churches have different uses in this respe6t; and either use may be accommodated to the signification of the Sacrament. Thus as Gregory says in the Register of his Letters*: "The Roman Church offers unleavened bread, because the Lord took flesh without intercourse of the sexes: but other Churches offer leavened bread, because the Word of the Father, clothed in flesh, is at once true God and true man." Still the use of unleavened bread is the more con- gruous, as better representing the purity of Christ's mystical Body, the Church, which is figured in a secondary way {configurator) in this Sacra- ment, as the text has it: Christ our passover is sacrificed: therefore let us feast in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth (i Cor. v, 7, 8).
This shuts out the error of some heretics who say that this Sacrament cannot be celebrated in unleavened bread: a position plainly upset by the authority of the gospel, where we read (Matt, xxvi, 17: Mark xiv, 12: cf. Luke xxii, 7) that the Lord ate the passover with His disciples, and insti- tuted this Sacrament, on the first day of the azymes, at which time it was unlawful for leavened bread to be found in the houses of the Jews (Exod. xii, 1 5); and the Lord, so long as He was in the world, observed the law. It is foolish then to blame in the use of the Latin Church an observance which the Lord Himself adhered to in the very institution of this Sacrament, t CHAPTER LXX-That it is possible for man to sin after receiving Sacramental Grace \ * We have Registers of the letters of St Gregory I, St Gregory VII, and St Gregory IX, but this passage is none of them.
t There follows a discussion of John xiii, I: xviii, 28, as compared with the Synopties. See Scrip- ture (Manuals for Qatholic Schools, St Matthew, pp. 217- 9: St John, pp. 94-5. Either of the two views taken by modern scholars holds with the employment of unleavened bread at the institution of the Holy Eucharist. To be well within the law, the Jews of the time had all the leaven removed from their houses by sundown on the 13th Nisan, which evening is the earlier of the two assignable dates for the Last Supper.
X St Thomas, characteristically, proves his thesis by four a priori arguments, and one of testimonies from Scripture. We may rest satisfied with the one too common argument of experience. He continues: 44 Hereby is excluded the error of certain heretics (St Jerome Contra JoVin. Chap. XXXI, says it was an error of Jovinian), that man, after receiving the grace of the Holy Ghost, cannot sin; and that if he sins, he never had the grace of the Holy Ghost." The only possibility of heresy in such a plain matter is by taking sanctifying grace to consist in nothing else than election and predestination to glory (cf. B. Ill, Chap. CLXIV). In the tautological sense that all whom God foresees in the ranks of the Blessed will be finally Blessed, it is true to say that 4 once elect, always elect.' But it would be heresy to say that sin is never im- puted to the elect. Oliver Cromwell, dying, asked a minister, whether it was possible to fall from grace. The Calvinist minister at his bedside said that it was not possible. "Then," said the dying man, 44 I am safe, for I was in grace once." How did he know that? Was it provable from a baptismal register? Not to a Calvinist.