Dist. 10, Part 1
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/4/d/10/q/bon-sent-IV-d10-p1-littera
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### Chap. I. *On the heresy of those who say that the body of Christ is not on the altar except in a sign.*

There are also others who go beyond the madness of those preceding, who, measuring God's power according to the manner of natural things, more boldly and more dangerously contradict the truth, asserting that on the altar there is not the body of Christ or his blood, nor is the substance of bread or wine converted into the substance of flesh and blood; but that Christ so spoke: *This is my body,* as the Apostle said: *And the rock was Christ.* For they say that there is

the body of Christ there only in a Sacrament, that is, in a *sign,* and is eaten by us only in a sign. They take their occasion of erring from the words of the Truth, whence « the first heresy arose among the disciples of Christ. For when he said: *Unless one eats my flesh and drinks my blood, he shall not have eternal life;* they, not understanding, said: *This is a hard saying; who can hear it? and they went back.* When these had departed, he instructed the twelve who had remained: *It is the Spirit,* he says, *that gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.* Have you understood spiritually? They are spirit and life. Have you understood carnally? Even so they are spirit and life, but they are not so for you. Understand spiritually what I have spoken. It is not this body which you see that you are to eat, nor are you to drink that blood which they who crucify me will shed. I have committed to you a certain Sacrament; understood spiritually it will give you life; but the flesh profits nothing ».

There are also other things that furnish kindling for their madness. For Augustine says: « Until the world is ended, the Lord is above; yet even here the Truth, the Lord, is with us. For the body in which he rose must be in one place; but his truth is diffused everywhere ». Likewise: « One person is God and man, everywhere by that which is God, in heaven by that which is man ». Christ also says: *The poor you will always have with you, but me you will not always have.* These and other things the aforesaid heretics use in the assertion of their error. — All of which are to be taken from the same reasoning. For by these it is not denied that the true body of Christ is received by the faithful or is on the altar; but by these the Truth instructed the Apostles, and in them us, that his body is not torn apart in parts, as those disciples supposed who went back, but is whole; nor that he would hand over to us his body and blood visibly in human form, but invisibly under the form of bread and wine. Which sense Augustine confirms, saying: « The same body that was seen both is and is not eaten: itself invisibly, not itself visibly ». Likewise: « Although it is necessary that it be celebrated visibly, it is nevertheless necessary that it be understood invisibly ». Thus too it must be understood that the body of Christ is in one place, namely visibly in human form; yet his Truth, that is, his Divinity, is everywhere, and his truth also, that is, his true body, is on every altar, wherever it is celebrated. Thus too that saying is to be understood: *The poor you will always have with you, but me you will not always have,* namely according to the bodily presence by which he conversed with them. Likewise by that which is *man* he is in heaven,

visibly that is, but invisibly he is on the altar, because he does not appear in human form, but is covered by the form of bread and wine. Hence his flesh is also called invisible, which is truly on the altar; but because it does not appear in its own species, it is called invisible. For Augustine says: « This which we say, which we strive to prove in every way: that the sacrifice of the Church is effected by two things, consists of two things, the visible species of the elements and the invisible flesh and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ; the Sacrament and the reality of the Sacrament, that is, the body of Christ; just as the person of Christ consists and is constituted of God and man, since Christ is true God and man; for every thing contains in itself the nature and truth of those things out of which it is constituted. Now the sacrifice of the Church is effected by two things: the Sacrament and the reality of the Sacrament, that is, the body of Christ. Therefore it is the Sacrament and the reality of the Sacrament, that is, the body of Christ ». — Behold, he called the flesh of Christ invisible, because it is taken and handled covered by the form of bread. He said that the same body of Christ is the Sacrament and the reality; from which is confirmed what we said above. Then he adds what moves the reader more: « It is his flesh, he says, which we receive in the Sacrament covered under the form of bread; and his blood, which we drink under the species and savor of wine. The flesh, namely, is the Sacrament of the flesh, and the blood the Sacrament of the blood; by the flesh and blood, both invisible, intelligible, spiritual, is signified the body of Christ visible and palpable, full of grace and of divine Majesty ».

Attend to these things carefully, for here Augustine uses a certain trope, by which things that signify are wont to obtain the names of the things they signify. For here the visible species of bread is called by the name of flesh, and the visible species of wine by the name of blood. But the invisible and intelligible is called the flesh of Christ, because according to that species the flesh is not seen, but understood; so too the blood. The invisible flesh, therefore, is said to be the Sacrament of the visible flesh, because the species of bread, according to which that flesh is not seen, is the Sacrament of the visible flesh, because by the invisible flesh, that is, the species, according to which the flesh of Christ is not seen as flesh, is signified the body of Christ, which is visible and palpable, where it appears in its own form. So too it must be taken of the blood. Which sense Augustine confirms, opening up how the aforesaid things are to be understood — because he had spoken obscurely — consequently saying that bread is so called the body of Christ, since it is truly the Sacrament of the body of Christ which was set upon the cross; just as the immolation itself, which is done by the hands of the priest, is called the passion of Christ, not by the truth of the matter, but by the mystery of signifying, and as « the Sacrament of faith is called faith ».

### Part II.

Sufficient answer has been made to the heretics and to the objections of those who deny that the true body of Christ is on the altar, and that the bread is converted into the body, or the wine into the blood, by mystical consecration, saying: who would dare to eat his Lord? Who too would dare to say that the body of Christ is daily formed from matter or substance which was not the flesh of the Virgin?

### Chap. II. *On the testimonies of the saints, by which it is proved that the true body of Christ is on the altar.*

These and similar things do those men object, following the law of nature in the divine mystery; whose treachery the testimonies set forth below convict. For the Truth says: *Take, this is my body.* Likewise, Ambrose: « If the word of Elijah availed so much, that it brought down fire from heaven; will not the word of Christ avail so much, that it changes the substances? Of the works of the whole world it is read: *For he spoke, and they were made,* etc. Therefore the Word, that is, the Son, who was able to make out of nothing that which was not, can he not change the things that are into that which they were not? For it is no less to create than to change new natures upon things ». Likewise: « If we seek the order [of nature], the woman, joined with a man, was wont to generate. It is clear, therefore, that the Virgin generated beyond the order of nature; and this which we effect is the body from the Virgin. Why then do you here seek the order of nature in the body of Christ, since beyond nature is his very birth from the Virgin? » — Likewise: « Before the blessing another species is named, after the consecration the body is signified. Before consecration one thing is said, after consecration it is called blood. You say Amen, that is, it is true. What the word sounds, let the affection feel ». Likewise, Augustine: « In the species of bread and wine, which we see, we honor invisible realities, the flesh and the blood; nor do we weigh these two species in the same way as we weighed them before the consecration, since we faithfully confess that before the consecration there was bread and wine which nature formed; but after the consecration the flesh and blood of Christ, which the blessing consecrated ». Likewise, Ambrose: « The bread is on the altar customary before the sacred words; when consecration has come, of the bread is made the flesh of Christ. But how can that which is bread be the body of Christ? By consecration, which is done by the word of Christ ». Likewise: « If there is such power in the word of the Lord, that the things which were not began to be; how much more is it operative, that the things which were be, and be changed into something else? And so what was bread before the consecration is now the body of Christ after the consecration, because the word of Christ changes the creature; and so out of bread is made the body of Christ, and the wine with water put into the chalice becomes blood by the consecration of the heavenly word ». Likewise, Augustine: « Just as through the Holy Spirit true flesh is created without intercourse, so through the same, out of the substance of bread and wine, the same body of Christ and his blood is consecrated. The body of Christ is both truth and figure: truth, while the body and blood of Christ is effected by the power of the Spirit out of the substance of bread and wine; but figure is that which is sensed outwardly ». Likewise, Eusebius of Emesa: « The invisible priest by his word, by a secret power, changes the visible creatures into the substance of his body and blood ». — From these and many other things it is clear that the true body and blood of Christ are on the altar, indeed the whole Christ under each species, and that the substance of bread is converted into the body, and the substance of wine into the blood.

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