Dist. 8, Part 2, 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/8/q/bon-sent-IV-d8-p2-a1-q1
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### Article I. *On the form of the word in the Sacrament of the eucharist.*
### Question I. *On the form of the word over the bread.*

As regards, then, the form over the bread, which is: *This is my body*, the first inquiry concerns the subject, namely the pronoun.

1. For since *this* is a pronoun and not a relative, it is demonstrative, because otherwise it would be a casual word, as Priscian says: if therefore it demonstrates, it does so either to the intellect or to the sense. If to the intellect, then I ask: what? Nothing can be said except the true body of Christ: therefore the sense is, "my body is my body"; but this seems to be nothing, because it states no account

of operating. If to the sense: then the sense is, "the bread is my body"; but this is simply false: therefore it can be taken in neither way.

2. Likewise, a pronoun conveys a demonstration, this not as conceived but as exercised; but a demonstration is not exercised except concerning that which actually is at the time of utterance: therefore if, when the pronoun is uttered, there is nothing there but bread; bread therefore is demonstrated: therefore the same as before.

3. Likewise, «the rule is that a term suppositing with a present-tense verb that has no power of ampliation supposits for that which actually is»; but actually there is nothing there but bread: therefore it supposits for bread. But the predicate does not belong to it: therefore the locution is false.

There is also an inquiry concerning the composition, namely concerning this verb *is*.

4. And since that form is an operative form, it seems that an operative verb ought to be placed there; but this verb is a non-practical verb (*apracticon*), that is, outside operation: therefore it ought in no way to be placed there.

5. Likewise, by this word Christ confected, and the priest intends to confect, just as God created by the uncreated Word: therefore if at the utterance of this word it is done at once, that word is imperious: therefore it seems that an imperative verb should rather be used, so that it would be said thus, "let my body come to be," just as in creation it is not said *it is made*, but *let there be light*.

6. Likewise, subject and predicate state incompossible forms; but the substantive verb of present tense states a simultaneity of the forms of predicate and subject: therefore it ought not to be said in the present *this is*, but *this will be*.

There is also an inquiry concerning this predicate, *my body*.

7. For it seems that it ought rather to be said *flesh*, because flesh is more fitting to feeding, whence in the sixth chapter of John: *My flesh is truly food.*

8. Likewise, if those words are uttered by the one confecting, since the one confecting speaks of Christ as of a third person, it ought not to be said *my* (*meum*), but *Christ's*. — Should you say that Christ gave power to these words, just as he gave power in his name to expel demons, when he said: *In my name they shall cast out demons*, in the last chapter of Mark; and yet those casting them out said: *In the name of Christ*.

9. Likewise, since concerning the form of the other Sacraments there are acts pertaining to the intention and use, or to the one consecrating: therefore it seems that what precedes, *Take and eat*, and what follows, *Do this in remembrance of me*, belongs to the form.

It is asked, therefore, what precisely the form is; and why it is not placed in a word expressing the act of the minister.

### Conclusion

> Fitting is the form by which the bread is consecrated.

**I respond:** It must be said that concerning this there has been a manifold opinion.

For some say that the priest speaks those words not as his own but as Christ's, whence they are held materially; nor then is there any need to ask what is demonstrated there by the pronoun, or what is copulated by the verb. — But it is not enough to say this: first indeed, because, even though the words are uttered in the person of another, not on that account are they held wholly materially, but significatively, since they are recited in that sense in which he spoke. Moreover, we can likewise inquire according as they were uttered by Christ.

Others say that the words are held significatively; but the locution does not have truth for the time in which

it is uttered, but for the time in which it was uttered, as this locution: *I drink*, is not true for the time of utterance, but for the time conjoined to it. — But this discourse does not solve it: because either bread is demonstrated there, or the body of Christ. If bread, the locution is true at no time; if the body of Christ, it is true at every time.

Others say that the locution is held significatively, and is true even for the time in which it is uttered; but nothing is demonstrated there to the sense, but to the intellect — to the intellect, I say, not as like in like, as when it is said, *this herb grows in my garden*, but as the signified in the sign, so that the sense is: *This*, that is, what is signified through this, is my body. And this signification of the locution is true, even if nothing were to come about; but again, because to the true signification there has been added by divine institution a most efficacious power, further that locution, both from the Lord's institution and from the priest's intention, is conversive, so that the sense is: what is signified through that which is to be converted into my body is my body. — And this opinion is more probable than the foregoing; yet still it does not fully satisfy. For if, as Augustine says, the word must come to the element so that the Sacrament may be made; the element is not signified there, but rather that which is converted into the body: the body of Christ therefore is not demonstrated, but the substance of bread under the accidents, which can be beheld by the eyes. And this indeed is true, especially since the intention of the one confecting is borne upon the bread, that it may be converted into the body, and demonstrates that upon which his intention is borne.

And therefore it must be noted that this locution is singular among all locutions; for others are indicative of truth or existence, but this one does the very thing that it figures. Hence it is an operative word, and operative not by a successive operation, but by an instantaneous one; and operative not of some new or non-existent thing, but its term is a being actually complete and not changed; and it is indeed terminated at it as it is the sign of another, that is, of the mystical body of Christ; and it does all this by the power of the uncreated Word, with the minister joined to it, doing nothing about the matter.

From these six conditions the reason of all that is said in this form is evident, if one looks closely. For because the discourse, conversive and transitive or ordered to transubstantiation, is operative; and the operation is about the substance of bread: therefore the pronoun demonstrates the substance of bread under the accidents, which can be beheld by the eyes, and that which is converted is touched, through the subject, as that into which, through the predicate. — But because the term of the operation is an actual being, not innovated: therefore the verb of being, not of coming-to-be, must be placed there, so that it may be signified that the conversion is without change of the term, namely in that which is. — Because it is sudden, therefore the coming-to-be and the having-been-made are simultaneous, therefore the present verb is instantaneous and not future; and such is the present of this verb *is*, therefore it is better said *is* than *will be*. — But because the operation is terminated at the true body of Christ as the sign of the mystical, in which there is a diversity of operations: therefore *body* is said, not *flesh*, because "body" is common to the whole heterogeneous and homogeneous, whereas "flesh" states the homogeneous. — But because this is operated by the power of the uncreated Word as joined and inasmuch as joined, therefore it says *my*; for the priest speaks in the person of Christ: therefore for Christ he says *my*. — But because the minister operates nothing about the matter nor changes it: therefore there is nothing more belonging to the form; for indeed, if the minister neither touch nor break, provided that he intend and say the words, it is confected; it is not so in baptism.

To 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. From these all the objections are evident, with this one exception only, namely concerning the truth of the locution. For how is the locution true, if the substance of bread is demonstrated, since this is always false: "the bread is the body of Christ," since they are incompossible forms? And if you should say that this verb *is* does not there state inherence, but rather conversion; then therefore according to this an imperative verb would rather be fitting.

And therefore it must be noted that just as in the eternal Word, the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, there is

truth and omnipotence; so in his word, uttered from the very mouth of Christ, there is truth and efficacy, so that such a word may befit the Sacraments of the new law; therefore he had to speak thus a word enunciative of truth, just as he is truth itself, and through this indicative. And because it would not be true by a simple enunciation; lest he be false, he joined efficacy to the word by his own mouth. — And because he commanded others to do and to say; and he himself does not bid anyone to be false: therefore in the mouth of those to whom he gave the command, he gave efficacy to the word. And so this verb *is* in this locution signifies not identity nor simultaneity, but this to be the body — that is, at the utterance of this word this whole to pass over into the body. Hence that locution in the mouth of another than in the mouth of the priest is false, because it neither converts nor transubstantiates this into that; nor is it true by identity. — And this sense, although it is proper to this locution, and likewise to the form of the blood, nevertheless is not alien from reason, the conditions assigned above being weighed.

From these the other objections are evident. Nor let it seem unfitting to say that this verb *is* does not state identity, but rather conversion in this locution, which is not only significative but also operative. Yet the verb of being had rather to be placed than that of operating, because it was more fitting to the form, so that there might be efficacy together with the enunciation of truth, and at the same time the immutability of the term might be noted together with the conversion.