Commentaria in Summam contra Gentiles, Liber IV

As regards the fourth difficulty ¹, St. Thomas says first that it seems sufficiently fitting from what has been posited that the same actions appear in the sacrament which previously appeared in the substance of bread and wine. For it has been said that the accidents of the bread and wine remain: among which are the sensible qualities that are the principles of such actions. — Similarly, concerning certain passions, namely those that take place according to the alteration of such accidents, there is no great difficulty once the premises are granted. For since other accidents are founded in quantity as in a subject, the alteration of other accidents around such a subject can be considered in the same way as if a substance were there; for example, if wine had been heated and were cooled, or something of this sort.

2. He says secondly that the greatest difficulty appears concerning the generation and corruption that seems to happen in this sacrament. For if someone were to use this sacramental food in great quantity, he could be sustained, and even be inebriated with the wine, according to that saying of the Apostle in 1 Cor. 11, One is hungry, etc. This indeed could not happen unless flesh and blood were generated from this sacrament. — Unless it be said, as some say, that a man cannot be nourished by this sacramental food, but only comforted and refreshed. Which is false. First, because this refreshing can indeed happen for an hour, but it does not suffice to sustain a man if he remains for a long time without food: by experience, moreover, it would easily be found that a man can be sustained for a long time by sacramental food. — Secondly, because it appears to sense that through putrefaction or combustion this sacrament is converted into another substance, namely of ash and dust.

Now this seems difficult. Since it neither seems possible that a substance is generated from accidents, nor is it right to believe that the substance of the body of Christ, which is impassible, is converted into another substance.

If it be said that this happens miraculously, it does not seem so. First, because it does not seem fitting for a miracle that this sacrament rot, and consequently be dissolved. — Secondly, because putrefaction and combustion seem to happen to this sacrament according to the customary order of nature.

3. It is said thirdly that, to remove this difficulty, it is said by many that in the aforesaid case neither the accidents of this sacrament nor the substance of the body of Christ are converted into substance; but that the substance of bread that was previously there returns by divine miracle; and that those things into which this sacrament is found to be converted are generated from it.

Now against this it is argued, first because it follows from this that the substance of the body of Christ is reconverted into bread, since the substance of the bread was converted into it. — Secondly, because it cannot return while the species of bread endure, because since, as long as they remain, the substance of the body of Christ remains under them, both substances would then exist at the same time. Nor can it return once they are corrupted. First, because the substance of bread does not exist without its proper accidents. Secondly, because, once they are destroyed, another substance has already been generated, on account of whose generation the substance of bread was posited to return.

4. He says fourthly that it seems better to say that, just as in the consecration itself the substance of bread is miraculously converted into the body of Christ, so it is miraculously conferred upon the accidents that they subsist, which is proper to substance; and consequently that they can do and suffer all things that the substance could do and suffer if it were present; and this without a new miracle.

II. Concerning the aforesaid, certain doubts arise from Scotus, In IV, d. XII. For in q. III ², he argues against the first statement ³ of the response: namely, that a separated accident cannot act toward a substantial form either by its own power or by the power of the substance which it informed. He proves the first, because it would then act by its own power beyond its species.

He proves the second, indeed, both because it would not act through anything that is in the substance of bread, since the substance of bread itself is nothing; nor through anything that is in the accident, because nothing there is nobler than the accident itself. — And also because, since the substance of bread itself does not exist, it cannot have the nature of a principal agent, so that anything might act in its power.

2. Against the last statement, indeed, ⁴ he argues in q. VI ⁵ that, namely, when a worm is generated from the separated accidents, the new substantial form is not received subjectively in indeterminate dimensions; the opposite of which St. Thomas seems to intend in this response.

First, because the substantial form is determined to substantial matter as to its proper receptive subject.

Secondly, because a substantial form cannot be educed from the potency of dimension, since ex natura rei it is not in it as in its proper potential subject.

Thirdly, because fire generated from that dimension and substantial form would not be unequivocally nor uniformly fire with other fire generated from substantial form and from the matter of fire. And thus it would not act unequivocally by burning a host as by burning wood.

Fourthly, because fire thus generated would be mathematical fire, composed namely of quantity and substantial form; and such a process could follow in generations and corruptions until the end of the world, if water were generated from it, and air from water, and so on to infinity.

Fifthly, because it would be possible to posit the case that a child nourished from these species until the end of his life would not rise again except composed of dimensions and substantial form.

III. For the clarity of the first doubt, it must be considered first that a separated instrument which an agent uses to induce its effect is spoken of in one way, and an inherent form by which a substance operates in another. For a separated instrument is related as an agent quod, subordinated nevertheless to the principal agent. An inherent form is not related as an agent quod, but as an agent quo. For the action of the acting substance and of the form itself is one and the same: of the substance, indeed, as of the agent quod that elicits the action; but of the form as of that by which (quo) the action itself is elicited; just as heating is elicited by the substance of fire through the heat inhering in it.

2. It must be considered secondly that something is said to act in the power of another in two ways. Either, namely, because some power is superadded to it through which it operates, as the power of art is superadded to a saw. Or because it is itself the power of the thing, and in its nature has an intrinsic perfection for acting from the fact that it is its form; just as the natural heat of an animal acts in the power of the substance to which it is joined toward the conversion of nourishment into the substance of the animal, not because something is superadded to such heat as its accident, but because it intrinsically and essentially has the ability to concur to that effect as the power by which the animal substance operates, from the fact that it is its form. For, as is said in De spiritualibus creaturis, the last article, ad 10, the accidental form that is the principle of action is the very power of the acting substance.

In the matter at hand, therefore, when it is asked whether, when through the quality of the wine itself an added drop of water is converted into wine, the accidents of the sacrament act toward the substantial form by their own power or by the power of another, it is said that they can be said to act by their own power, and they can be said to act by the power of another. For an accident of wine, for example its natural heat, can be considered in two ways: in one way, absolutely, insofar as it is an accident of such a species of such a genus; in another way, insofar as it is an accident accompanying such a determinate substance, namely the substance of wine.

If it is taken in the first way, it can thus be said to act by an alien power: because such an accident does not have this perfection of being able to convert water into wine insofar as it is heat, but insofar as it is heat accompanying the substance of wine; and therefore it obtains this perfection from another.

If, however, it is taken in the second way, it can thus be said to act by its own power: because acting in this way belongs to it not through something superadded to it, but through its own nature, according to which it is the accidental form of wine. And because the accidents that remain in the sacrament retain entirely the same esse and the same perfection as they had in the converted substance, therefore it must be said of them in the same way that they act by their own power or by an alien power. — With this added, that they also act by a divine power superadded to them, which, just as it preserves them without a substance, so also bestows on them the power to be able to act without a substance.

Now, whether only the active qualities that were in the converted substance concur to such effects, or also dimensive quantity? it would seem at first glance that one must say that only qualities concur to this. First, because quantity is not an active form. Secondly, because, existing in the converted substance, it was not its power by which it acted. But notwithstanding this, I would say, always saving a better judgment, that quantity itself also actively concurs to this. For just as it is conferred upon it by divine power to sustain the other accidents without a substance, and thus to take the place of substance; so it seems that it must be said that the active qualities are its powers, just as they were powers of the substance by which they were sustained; and consequently that it acts through them, just as the substance in which they were present also acted. For although quantity according to itself is not an active form, it can nevertheless, through a divine power superadded to it, take the place of an active form; just as, although it does not have from itself that it subsist without a subject, nor that it afford sustenance to other accidents, it nevertheless has this by divine power.

IV. To the first point ⁶ of Scotus, therefore, what must be said is clear. For in the way in which such an accident is conceded to act by its own power, it is not repugnant to it to act beyond its proper species insofar as it is the power of the substance in which it was present. For to act in this way by its own power is not repugnant to acting by an alien power, in the manner stated. But in the way in which it is conceded to act in the power of another, it is clear from what has been said that this is not understood as meaning that it acts through some absolute thing that was in the substance that preceded, nor through some accident superadded to it, but because it contracted some intrinsic and essential perfection insofar as it was an accident of such a substance, which perfection it retains even when separated from the substance. Hence that division assumed in the first argument was insufficient.

To the other argument, it is said that, although that which does not exist cannot have the nature of a principal agent as eliciting a new action and causing a new motion in the instrument, it can nevertheless have the nature of a principal agent insofar as the acting power had from it the perfection by which it can act. And thus we say that such accidents act in the power of the substance that preceded: because, as was said, they were the said substance's power of acting, and from it they contracted this perfection so that they could effect this effect.

V. To the arguments of the second doubt, ⁷ Capreolus says, In II Sent., d. 1, q. III, ⁸ and In IV Sent., d. XII, ⁹ that they do not proceed against the mind of St. Thomas. Because it is not his mind, when some substance is generated from the accidents of the Eucharist, that the substantial form of the thing newly generated from them is received subjectively in determinate dimensions alone, and not in any matter; but that such dimensions are converted by divine power into quantified matter, which is the subject of such a form and a part of the newly generated composite; as is clear in In IV, d. XII, q. 1, a. 2, q. 4; and Tertia, q. LXXVII, a. 5, ad 3. For in the instant of the generation of the new substance, new matter arrives, not bare, but under a new quantity, namely through the conversion of the dimensions of the sacrament into the quantified substance itself; and consequently through the corruption or cessation of the dimensions, which in every respect take the place of matter and underlie all the transmutations prior to the production of the substantial form.

2. But although St. Thomas says in the aforementioned places that this way is probable, he nevertheless says in the Tertia Pars ¹⁰ that another way is more probable, and this he seems also to hold in this place: namely, that the sacramental dimension itself is the subject of the substantial form of the thing that is generated from it. For it is given, he says in the Tertia Pars, in the consecration itself miraculously to the dimensive quantity of the bread and wine to be the primary subject of subsequent forms, which is proper to matter. And therefore, as a consequence, everything that pertains to matter is given to it. Therefore, whatever could be generated from the matter of bread if it existed can all be generated from the dimensive quantity itself, not indeed by a new miracle, but by the force of the miracle already wrought.

Likewise, answering the first argument, how something can be generated from dimensions when matter is not there, he says that, although matter from which something may be generated is not there, quantity nevertheless supplies the place of matter.

Answering also the second, how substance can be generated from the species when they are accidents, he says that they are indeed accidents, but nevertheless have the act and power of substance.

From which it is plainly evident that he intends, not that new matter arrives in the generation of a substance from the sacramental species in which the substantial form of the generated thing is received, but that quantity itself is in place of matter, and that such a substantial form is received in it as in its primary subject, divine power giving this to it in the consecration.

3. Now, that he also follows this way in this place is clear, first because he says that in the consecration itself it is miraculously conferred upon the accidents that they subsist, which is proper to substance, and consequently that they can do and suffer all things that substance could do and suffer if it were present. But it is agreed that the substance of bread, if it were present, would be corrupted into another substance in such a way that its matter would be the subject of the substantial form of the thing generated from it. Therefore, the same must similarly be said of quantity. — Secondly, because he wills that substance be generated from the accidents themselves without a new miracle: since it is generated in the customary manner and order of nature, which does not happen in miraculous works. But it is agreed that the creation of new matter, or the conversion of dimension into matter, would not be without a new miracle.

4. To that which is adduced from In IV Sent., ¹¹ it can be said that he there follows an opinion that could also be probably maintained. Or it can be said that he does not hold that absolutely, but under a disjunction: as is clear at the end of the body of the article, where he says that either, while the selfsame numerically determinate quantity remains, matter arrives on account of the natural concomitance of form to matter; or to dimension itself the nature of matter will be given by divine power on account of its proximity to it. And then according to the sense of this second part of the disjunctive we can interpret what he says in the solutions to the arguments. For when he says, to the third, that the dimensions become one thing, namely dimensioned matter, the sense is not that they, ceasing to be, are converted into dimensioned matter; but because it, having the nature and property of matter, becomes dimensioned with the terminated dimensions of the substance that is generated; just as, when air is converted into fire, the matter of air becomes fire insofar as it, remaining the same, receives the form of fire. When he also says, to the fourth, that the return of the substance, or the creation of matter, or the conversion of dimensions into matter, is miraculous: by the conversion of dimensions into matter he does not understand the cessation of the dimensions and the succession of matter in their place; but the change of it ¹² into the property of matter, insofar as it, remaining the same, miraculously received the power and property of matter in the consecration.

5. Furthermore, as to what is adduced from the Tertia Pars, ¹³ where he seems to intend that the dimensive quantity of the bread passes into substance and dimension: this is not to be understood as if quantity itself, ceasing, is converted into substance; but because it, remaining and retaining the power of substance, receives the substantial form and the dimension consequent upon it, according as it is received in matter, or in that which holds the place of matter. For thus matter is said to pass into some dimensioned substance.

VI. Following this way, therefore, it is said to the first argument of Scotus ¹⁴ that substantial form, according to the course of nature, is determined to substantial matter; but miraculously it is also determined to quantity as to its proper receptive subject, insofar as by divine power quantity has the power and property of substantial matter. — Now I do not understand this as if the reception itself of substantial form in such quantity is miraculous; but because it is miraculous that quantity subsists per se and has the property of matter. Yet the reception itself of substantial form in quantity made in such a miraculous manner is natural, that supposition having been made: as seems to be of the mind of St. Thomas in the aforementioned places. ¹⁵

To the second, it is said that substantial form cannot be educed from quantity left to its nature alone. But it can well be educed from quantity having by divine power the power and property of matter; and it is in it potentially, as in that which takes the place of a proper potential subject.

To the third, the consequence is denied. First, because since univocal things are those whose definition is one, ¹⁶ and the definition of a thing is taken from its form, where things have the same form according to species, they are called univocal. — Secondly, because since quantity of this kind has every property of substantial matter, both those things that are constituted from natural matter and those that are constituted from such quantity affected by dispositions fitting for such a species can be said to have the same matter.

To the fourth, it is said that such fire would not be mathematical. Because it would not be constituted from quantity as it is quantity, but as it has the power and property of substance. — Nor would it be unfitting that it should thus proceed in some generations and corruptions until the end of the world.

To the fifth, it is said that that case is not possible: because the whole matter of the nourished person never ceases to be in him, but something of it always remains. Hence, if someone had been nourished until the end of his life on sacramental species, he would rise again composed of substantial form and matter, having nevertheless some part of matter that would not be true and natural matter, but quantity having the power and property of matter. — Or it must be said that God would then supply in the resurrection whatever of matter was lacking in this respect, as in another matter St. Thomas says below ¹⁷ and in In IV Sent., d. XLIV.

2. It must be observed, however, because mention was made above ¹⁸ of indeterminate dimensions, ¹⁹ that we do not admit terminated dimensions coeternal with matter, as the Commentator seemed to maintain; ²⁰ but that the same dimension can be called indeterminate if it is considered without determination to this or that boundary, namely figure or degree; and it can be called determinate insofar as it has a determinate degree and a determinate figure. When, therefore, it was said that in the generation of a substance from the sacramental species the substantial form of the generated thing is received in subsisting dimensions, this is understood of them as they are indeterminate, because it is agreed that in the generated substance, for example a worm, quantity does not have the same figure and termination that it had before.

3. If anyone, however, should wish to hold that the first way ²¹ is of the mind of St. Thomas also in this place and in the Tertia Pars, ²² he could say that in the consecration it is miraculously given to dimensive quantity that it can do whatever matter could do, insofar as it is given to it that it can be converted into matter, or rather that it is converted into matter by God whenever something is to be generated from it, and this indeed does not take place by an entirely new miracle, but by the force of the first miracle; and that St. Thomas's statement is understood in this way.