Dist. 11, Part 2, Art. 2, Q. 2
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-p2-a2-q2
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### Question II. *What kind of body Christ gave to the disciples in the Supper.*

Secondly, it is asked concerning the manner in which Christ consecrated as regards the inward content; and it is asked what kind of body he gave to the disciples in the Supper. And it seems [to be] impassible and immortal.

1. Matthew the seventeenth: *He was transfigured before them*; the Gloss: "That body which he had by nature he gave to his disciples in the Supper, not mortal, not passible."

2. Likewise, *by reason* it seems so: because all passible flesh is convertible: therefore if he gave a passible body, it was convertible into those eating; which is unfitting.

3. Likewise, to every passible thing a passion can be inflicted, and everything to which a passion can be inflicted is harmed by the strong contact of an agent: if therefore Christ under the form of bread was passible, then he could be harmed by the striking of the teeth and by chewing.

4. Likewise, if [it was] passible and mortal — suppose it were reserved during the three days; then it would die; and if so, the soul would not be there: therefore not even a complete Sacrament. Since, then, this is not to be posited, it is clear that it would not die: therefore, etc.

5. Likewise, suppose someone had consecrated during the three days, it is clear that the words would have the same power; but by the power of the words the whole Christ is there in that mode: therefore the whole Christ would be there: therefore he would be at once *living* and *dead*, *living* under the Sacrament, *dead* outside [it]: therefore by parity of reasoning [he would be] *immortal* under the Sacrament, *mortal* outside.

6. Likewise, that this is no unfitting thing, it seems: because, if some body were in many places, it could be at once moved and at rest, and at once moved and not moved: therefore by the same reasoning [it could] at once suffer and not suffer, die and not die: therefore, etc.

**On the contrary:**
1. On the First [Epistle] to the Corinthians, the eleventh [chapter], the Gloss says: "It is wont to be asked, what kind of body the Lord gave to his disciples"; and it answers: "Such as it was, because passible and mortal."

2. Likewise, if he gave [a body] impassible and immortal; whereas he had in himself [a body] passible and mortal: therefore he gave [it] otherwise in the sign than in himself: therefore there was a fiction there.

3. Likewise, if [it was] immortal — suppose it were reserved, it would be at once living and dead: therefore it would at once live and not live; and if so, two contradictorily opposite things would be at once true of the same thing; which can neither be believed nor understood.

4. Likewise, when it is said: *This is my body*, the bread only is converted into the body; but the soul is there only by concomitance: therefore if during the three days it had been consecrated when the soul was separated [from the body]: therefore likewise, if it were reserved: therefore [it is] passible and mortal.

> **Conclusion.** The body of Christ given to the disciples in the Supper was, under the species, passible and mortal, but it was there impassibly.

**I respond:** Concerning this there is a twofold opinion: one of master Hugh and of his followers, that Christ gave his body immortal and impassible under the Sacrament. And it is not unfitting that it should have the one and the other mode of being *in habit* and *in act*. *In habit* indeed it was mortal, but from some cause it took on immortality for a time; just as [it took on] subtlety in his nativity, agility on the sea, clarity on the mountain, so [it took on] immortality under the Sacrament. Nor is there a true contradiction there, because the body of Christ, from the fact that it is in many places, has opposite properties, such as *to carry* and *to be carried*, *to be at rest* and *to be moved*; so *to suffer* and *not to suffer*. For in this respect it takes on the character of a *universal*, although it is truly a *singular*. And according to the opinion of these [men], if it had been reserved, it would not have died in the pyx. — But because this opinion posits that contradictories are said at once of the same thing, insofar as it is the same; and this is not necessary to posit in this Sacrament: therefore it is less reasonable.

Therefore there is another opinion of the Master and of Innocent and their followers, that "he gave such a body to the disciples as he had." For although the body of Christ be at once, by the power of the Sacrament, in many places, nevertheless it has the same absolute properties, as one in number. And therefore, for the understanding of the objections to the contrary, it must be said that the property which belongs to the body of Christ is twofold: a certain one *absolute*, a certain one *related to place*. The absolute property, which belongs to the body of Christ as it is in one place, since it is one, nevertheless belongs [to it] as in all [places]. But the property related to place, since it is in diverse places, even if it belongs to it in one place, it need not [belong to it] in all. Hence it need not [be the case] — if the body of Christ be in many places — that if it is moved in one, it be moved in another. Likewise it need not [be the case] that, if someone strikes it in one place, that he likewise strikes [it] in another, because such an operation regards the local presence of the agent. So likewise it need not [be the case] that, if it is seen in one place, it be seen in another, because this regards the presence of the visible thing.

It is to be granted, therefore, that Christ had a passible and mortal body under the Sacrament, but nevertheless a passion could not be inflicted on it there, however much a man might strike. Hence it must be said that under those species it was passible, but it was there impassibly. — Hence, speaking of the passion inflicted, if it be asked whether it could suffer there; this is to be distinguished: for either this [word] *there* determines the *act*, or the composition understood with respect to the subject. If it determines the *act*; it is false, because the sense is that under the Sacrament a passion could be inflicted on it; and this is false, because, just as it could not be perceived there, so neither could a passion be inflicted on it. But if it determines the *composition understood with respect to the subject*; thus the statement is true, and the sense is: *the thing existing there* could suffer; because, if a passion be inflicted on it in another place, it would feel the passion even there and would die. Hence if that body had been reserved, it would have had wounds under the Sacrament, just as outside [it]; but nevertheless a passion would not be inflicted on it under such a mode of existing. On account of this the masters say that the thing existing there was passible with a passion inflicted on it elsewhere, yet it was [so] impassibly. — And if Hugh the master understood this, he has the truth; but then that application concerning the *endowments* [of the glorified body] is not valid. For if the *endowments* mean certain *qualities*, I do not see how the body would not be altered, at least for a time. But it is clear that, when he gave the Sacrament, his body had *in act* and *in habit* the property of passibility: therefore it did not have the opposite; nevertheless it had another *mode* of existing in another [place], which mode raised it above *having position*, and through this above the possibility of being perceived, as it was there, or of being touched. Hence although it was passible, nevertheless it could never be felt there; likewise neither could a passion be inflicted there.

1. 2. From this the objections are clear, because the Gloss says that he gave [a body] immortal and impassible, because there a passion or death could not be inflicted on it, yet elsewhere [it] thus [could]. — Likewise the next [objection] is clear, why it could not be converted there, because the passible [body] was not there.

3. Likewise the third is clear, because a passion could be inflicted on it, but not according to every state, as for instance according to that [state] according to which it is insensible.

4. 5. 6. To that which is asked, if it had been reserved during the three days; it must be said that it would be dead under the species; and likewise, if someone were to consecrate, there would be there only a dead body. — As to what is objected, that then it would be imperfect, etc.; it must be said that the Sacrament would be *perfect in efficacy*, because the body was united to the Divinity, perfect in *signification*, but nevertheless *not in containment*. And the reason of this is that the imperfection was in the thing signified itself, because the body was dead. — Likewise it must be said that not the soul [is there] *by the power of the words*, but on account of the *conjunction*. Hence because during the three days it was not conjoined, therefore it would not be there, not on account of the power of the words, which would now be greater, but on account of another state of the body; but the sacramental words are ordered to converting into a body such as it was according to the state at the utterance of the words.

But could Christ have brought it about, if the body was dead under the Sacrament, that the soul, going out from the body hanging on the cross, should enter the body under the Sacrament, and thus it be at once living and dead? It must be said that to do this would be nothing other than to return whence it had gone out; whence this would be to vivify his [own] body, because it is altogether one; and therefore there is there a bad imagination, because one imagines the body of Christ to be unique [in the way that] diverse bodies [are distinct], and that one be both perfect and living, and the other not. But this ought not to be understood [so], because there is only one body.