CONTRA GENTILES: BOOK FOUR: SALVATION - Chapter 64 SOLUTION OF THE OBJECTIONS MADE REGARDING PLACE

[1] Now, after we have considered these points about the mode of conversion, the way to solve the other arguments is opened up to us somewhat. For it has now been said that the place in which the sacrament is is ascribed to the body of Christ by reason of the measurements of the bread remaining after the conversion of the substance of the bread into the body of Christ. And in accord with this, that which is of Christ must be in the place mentioned so far as the essentials of the conversion mentioned require it.

[2] Consideration, then, must be given this: There is something in this sacrament by force of the conversion and something by natural accompaniment. Now, by force of the conversion there is in the sacrament that in which the conversion is directly terminated: so, under the appearances of bread there is the body of Christ into which the substance of the bread is converted, as is clear from the words of the consecration when one says: “This is My body”; in like manner under the appearance of wine there is the blood of Christ when one says: “This is the chalice of My blood,” and so forth. But by natural accompaniment all the other things are there in which the conversion is not terminated, but which are, nonetheless, really conjoined to that in which the conversion is terminated. For it is clear that the conversion of the bread is not terminated in the divinity of Christ, nor in His soul; nonetheless, under the appearance of bread the soul of Christ is there, and His divinity by reason of the union of each of these to the body of Christ.

[3] However, if in the three-day period of the death of Christ this sacrament had been celebrated, the soul of Christ would not have been under the appearance of bread, because it was not really united to His body; in the same way, there would not have been blood under the appearance of bread, nor body under the appearance of wine, by reason of the separation of each of these in death. But now, since the body of Christ in His nature is not without blood, His body and blood are contained under each appearance: under the appearance of bread the body is contained by force of conversion, the blood by natural accompaniment; under the appearance of wine the converse is true.

[4] The same points give a solution to the objection about the inequality of the body of Christ to the place of the bread. For the substance of the bread is directly converted into the substance of the body of Christ, but the dimensions of the body of Christ are in the sacrament by natural accompaniment, and not from force of conversion, since the dimensions of the bread remain. In this way, then, the body of Christ is not related to this place with its own dimensions as medium, so that the place need be equated to those dimensions, but His body is here with the persisting dimensions of the bread as medium, and to these the place is equated.

[5] Therein, also, the solution is open to what was objected to about the plurality of places. For the body of Christ in His own dimensions exists in one place only, but through the mediation of the dimensions of the bread passing into it its places are as many as there are places in which this sort of conversion is celebrated. For it is not divided into parts, but is entire in every single one; every consecrated bread is converted into the entire body of Christ.

Next - CONTRA GENTILES: BOOK FOUR: SALVATION - Chapter 65 SOLUTION OF THE OBJECTIONS REGARDING ACCIDENTS