Dist. 11, Part 1, Art. 1, Q. 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/11/q/bon-sent-IV-d11-p1-a1-q1
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### Article Unique. *On transubstantiation.*
### Question I. *Whether in the sacrament of the Eucharist there is a true conversion of bread into the body of Christ.*

Concerning the first [point], one proceeds thus, and that there is a true conversion of bread into the body of Christ seems to be the case:

1. *First*, by the form itself: because, when it is said: *This is my body*, either the Truth speaks falsely, or he converts the bread into [his] body; but he did not speak falsely: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, this same thing is proved by the authority of the Doctors, namely by the authority of Ambrose and Eusebius and Augustine and Damascene: the bread and wine pass supernaturally into [his] body and blood.

3. Likewise, it seems so by reason, because it is established and true that the body of Christ is according to truth on the altar; and before it was not: therefore by some change either of itself or of another. Not of itself, since it is immutable. Not of another except the bread: therefore etc. If you say that the body of Christ is changeable with respect to place, since this is a change of a complete being, and this [change] is in the body of Christ; *on the contrary*: everything that is changed with respect to place, if it approaches one [place], departs from another; therefore accordingly Christ departs from heaven. Moreover, nothing that is changed with respect to place tends at the same time to diverse differences of position; but the body of Christ is consecrated at the same time at Rome and at Paris: therefore if the body of Christ is moved to Rome, then not to Paris: therefore etc.

**On the contrary:** 1. Gregory says, and it is found in the text: «*Who of the faithful could have doubt that, in the hour of the immolation, the heavens are opened, and the highest things are joined with the lowest?*»: but these things would not happen if anything were converted into the body of Christ, nay rather it seems, according to Gregory, that [the body] descends: therefore there is no conversion there.

2. Likewise, Damascene: «*Because it is the custom for men to eat bread and drink wine, he joined the Divinity to them and made them the Sacrament of his body and blood*». If he joined the Divinity to them, then they are preserved in their own nature: therefore they are not converted into another thing.

3. Likewise, it seems so by reason: because, if anything is converted into the body of Christ, it is either what *is*, or what *is not*. If [it is converted] from what is not, then the body comes to be anew: therefore several bodies at the same time. If from what is; but whenever something is converted into what is, it is increased: therefore the body of Christ by consecration or conversion becomes greater.

4. Likewise, in no other Sacrament is the element converted into that which it signifies, but it suffices for it to be present: therefore it seems that it ought to be similarly in this Sacrament.

5. Likewise, miracles are not to be posited where it can equally well be done without a miracle: but the body of Christ, since it is glorious, can be together with the bread, and it will do the same as if the bread were converted; which cannot be without a miracle: therefore etc.

6. Likewise, food is converted into no body except one that needs refreshment; but the body of Christ is not such: therefore etc. If you say that it does not absorb [the bread] as earth [absorbs water], but as a ray [absorbs] water, namely not by need, but by power; *on the contrary*: a ray does not convert water into itself: therefore neither [does] Christ [convert] bread into his body.

> **Conclusion.** In the Sacrament of the Eucharist there is a conversion of bread into the body of Christ, not into a part, but into the whole.

**I respond:** As the Master says, the position of certain men was the opinion that there is no conversion there, but that at the invocation of the words, without conversion, it comes about by divine power that the body of Christ is there. — But this position is contrary to the *authority* of the Saints and to *reason*. To reason indeed, because it takes away the *truth*, the *congruity*, and the *usefulness* of the Sacrament: the truth, because it thereby posits a falsehood in the form; it also posits a change with respect to the substance of Christ, as was proved in the objection. It takes away *congruity*, because, when the bread remains there, it is not on that account leading into another thing, as [it is] when the accidents alone remain, which depend [on something] and cannot stand by themselves. [It takes away] the *usefulness* also, because, while it seeks possibility and reason, it diminishes the merit of faith.

On account of this, therefore, this position is to be rejected and has no defender among the doctors; nay, the Church commonly holds that there is there a conversion of bread into the body of Christ, not, I say, into a part of the body, but into the whole.

1. 2. To that, therefore, which is objected first concerning the word of Gregory, it must be said that that saying is figurative, and the heavens are said to be opened because the divine goodness then bestows on us abundantly the heavenly bread. And the highest and lowest things are said to be joined on account of the presence of the body of Christ. And again, it is said to be carried down by the hands of the Angels with respect to the devotion of the one offering, who sends his sacrifice and prayer into heaven, which it pertains to the Angels to present to the Lord; but this will be made clear in the literal [comments]. — But what Damascene says must be understood with respect to the containing of the visible species, or in the account of the conversion of the substance of the bread: because the bread is converted into the body united to the Divinity, and the species after the conversion contain it, and so the Divinity is said to be joined to both.

3. To the other [objection] the response is clear: because the whole is converted into the whole, therefore it neither becomes new nor becomes greater; but that [objection] would hold if it were converted in part.

4. To that which is objected concerning the other Sacraments, the response is likewise clear, that it is not similar: because

this is greater with respect to the thing contained. Moreover, in the others the thing [signified] is grace, which is created; but the body of Christ is not created then in the Sacrament.

5. To that which is objected concerning a miracle, [the response] is likewise clear: because the miracle is posited here on account of the truth of the Sacrament and its congruity and also its usefulness, as has been seen.

6. To the last [objection] which is raised concerning food and the thing fed, it must be said that the bread is not converted into the body of Christ as food into the thing fed; nor is the body of Christ converted into itself, but God converts [it], so that where there was bread, which is bodily food, there is the body of Christ, not by a transmutation made in the body, but by [the bread], previously existing, passing into it in the bread.