Dist. 12, Part 1, Art. 1, Q. 3
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/12/q/bon-sent-IV-d12-p1-a1-q3
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### Question III. *Whether it is true that the accidents are there without a subject.*

Thirdly it is asked whether it is true that the accidents are there without a subject. And that they are not, seems to be the case:

1. Because *to move* and *to operate* belongs to a substance, which is *a this-something*; but those accidents have *to move* and *to operate*: therefore they are in a substance.

2. Likewise, no accident is extended except in matter, because every form is of itself simple; but it is evident that those accidents have extension and can have a greater one: therefore they are in matter.

3. Likewise, a miracle does not take away operation; but whiteness is incorporated light: therefore, when the bodily matter ceases, pure light remains: therefore whiteness ought of itself to move sight.

**On the contrary:** 1. Every accident that is in some subject denominates it either *simply* or *in a certain respect*; but those species do not do this, because they denominate neither the bread nor the body of Christ nor the air: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, natural accidents do not follow upon matter according to its *essence*, but only according to its *being* as under a completive form, nor is matter otherwise the subject of accidents; but the matter is not there under the form of bread — this is evident — but under the substantial form of flesh; but such properties are not apt to be in the flesh of Christ: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, whenever in some change an accident is preserved according to the *being* which it has in the subject, it must needs be common to that which is changed and to that into which it is changed, as, if fire comes to be from air, the hot remains; but the bread is converted into the body of

Christ, and color and savor and odor are not common to both: therefore either they do not remain, or they do not remain in a subject; but they remain: therefore they are without a subject.

> **Conclusion.** In the Eucharist the accidents are without a subject, not in the surrounding air.

**I respond:** Some have wished to say that those species were in the surrounding air. — But that is manifestly false, both on account of this, that the accidents do not denominate the surrounding air; and also because it is impossible for an accident to pass over into [another] subject; if therefore they were in the bread, they cannot be in the air. And again, when the air is moved, they would be transferred from one place to another. Likewise, they fill a place and expel the air; but no thing-in-place is related to its place as to its subject, and no accident expels its own proper subject.

On account of these and similar considerations the masters commonly hold that the accidents are there without a subject.

1. To the objection from operations, it must be said that some operations there are *natural*, some *above nature*, some *partly so, partly so*, and therefore nothing can be concluded from the operations; but which operations there are natural will be made clear below. Yet, just as it is a miracle that the accidents *are* without a subject, so it is a miracle that they *operate* of themselves.

2. To the objection from extension, it must be said that quantity, speaking *formally*, has extension from the nature of its own genus; whence, when quantity is preserved, so also is extension; but nevertheless it has [extension] *causally* from substance, and therefore, because the *being* of quantity and its nature arise from substance. But the divine power brings it about that there be quantity truly and without substance; and in doing this it is necessary that extension be preserved without matter; and this belongs to miracle, not to nature.

3. To the objection from whiteness, that it is incorporated light, it can be answered in two ways: first, that it is not in *act*, but in *potency*; and therefore, even when the body has ceased, it remains still in potency. — Secondly, because the body does not *altogether* cease, but rather, although the substance ceases, the dimension, surface, and termination remain, and therefore whiteness [remains] according to that act alone which it had before.