Dist. 9, 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/9/q/bon-sent-IV-d9-a1-q3
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### Question III. *What it is to eat sacramentally.*

Thirdly it is asked what it is *to eat sacramentally*, or in what sense someone is said to eat sacramentally; and it is asked whether bodily action alone suffices. And that it does, it seems:

1. By a likeness: for one who is immersed, the form of the sacrament of baptism being preserved, if he have nothing resisting, is baptized sacramentally: therefore it seems likewise that he eats sacramentally who receives the Sacrament itself bodily.

2. Likewise, spiritual mastication and incorporation of the thing alone makes eating spiritual: therefore it seems that the tasting or mastication of the species alone makes eating sacramental.

3. Likewise, the least disposition that can be had toward this Sacrament is unformed faith; but without this one can eat sacramentally: therefore it seems that bodily action alone suffices. Proof of the minor: a heretical priest can consecrate, as will be seen below; but to consecrate is no less than to receive sacramentally: therefore a heretic can receive sacramentally: therefore without an act of faith one can eat sacramentally: therefore by bodily action alone.

4. Likewise, whatever things are inseparably united, as long as they exist, are separated in no act: therefore those who take and eat the one, also the other; but the species truly contain the body of Christ: therefore he who eats the species eats the body of Christ. But he does not from this eat spiritually: therefore at least sacramentally.

**On the contrary:**
1. For a sacramental act intention is required, as was proved above, and if someone were to say the words and not intend to consecrate, he would not consecrate: therefore he who eats, if he does not intend, does not eat sacramentally.

2. Likewise, faith is the foundation of all the Sacraments, most of all of this one, since in the form of this it is said: *Mystery of faith* etc.: therefore if someone tastes and does not believe, he does not receive sacramentally.

3. Likewise, two things belong to the integrity of the Sacrament, namely signification and sanctification: therefore in order that some character of the Sacrament be preserved, it is necessary that one of these be found; but for him who does not believe, the Sacrament neither signifies nor confers the efficacy of sanctification: therefore such a one in no way eats.

4. Likewise, if bodily mastication alone sufficed, then a mouse and an Angel, having assumed a body, and an ignorant man would receive sacramentally; each of which is unfitting: it remains, therefore, that it does not suffice.

The question, therefore, is what is required.

> **Conclusion.** Sacramental eating is to eat the Sacrament with the intention of taking it as a Sacrament.

**I respond:** It must be said that *to eat sacramentally* is to eat the Sacrament and as a Sacrament.

For since to eat sacramentally is a disposition of the act of eating, therefore in order that the act be *sacramental*, it is necessary that it regard the Sacrament itself as a Sacrament. Now for someone to eat the Sacrament by eating the species, two things are required, namely the existence of the food and its natural suitability to the one fed. The first is required, because, if the confecting of the Sacrament has not preceded, eating cannot follow. The second is required, because this food is granted to men alone; whence as man alone is baptized, so the body of Christ is eaten sacramentally by man alone; and as man alone receives the Sacrament of baptism, so man alone receives the Sacrament of the eucharist. — But for him to eat it *as a Sacrament*, *intention* is necessary and the *regulating* of the intention either according to the faith which is in *himself*, or according to the faith which is in *another*. *Intention*, I say, is necessary; for if someone went to table and intended to refresh the body, and someone offered him the Sacrament as common bread, and he intended wholly to take bodily food; no one would say that he had eaten sacramentally. — It is also necessary that that intention be *directed* either according to the faith which is in *himself*, or in *another*, because either it is fitting that he believe that under that species something spiritual lies hidden, which he intends to take; or it is fitting that he at least intend to take what he reckons others to believe, although he himself does not believe. Hence I believe that if some heretic intends to receive what he reckons the Church to believe to be the body of Christ, although he does not believe it, he eats sacramentally; because, although his intention is not joined to nor attains the thing of the Sacrament through his own faith, it nevertheless attains it by the mediation of another's faith. Hence he eats sacramentally, although he does not so attain as one who believes by his own faith.

And so it is clear in what sense one is said to eat sacramentally, namely because the Sacrament first truly exists, and he who eats intends to take it as a Sacrament; whether because he believes it to be a true Sacrament, or because he reckons others to believe it.

To that which is objected, that bodily eating alone suffices; it must be said that it is false, as the arguments to the opposite show, indeed four things are required, as has been touched on.

1. To that which is objected concerning immersion, it must be said that it does not suffice in an adult, as was said before, unless there be present an intention regulated by faith either in oneself or in another; so in the case at hand.

2. To that which is objected concerning spiritual eating, it must be said that it is not alike: because in the act of faith and charity the spiritual thing is always attained, and so the spiritual thing is not frustrated. But when someone eats bodily, it can be that he does not attain anything which lies spiritually beneath, neither in intellect nor in affection, neither by himself nor by another; and so he does not eat it as a Sacrament. And so that is clear.

3. To that which is objected concerning unformed faith, it must be said that it is false, because the cognition of reckoning is less than that of faith, and it is less to intend to do what another does than to intend what he believes; and because there is some disposition, therefore in some way it is sacramental eating, although not so fully.

4. To that which is objected concerning inseparability, it must be said that they are inseparable as to position, yet they are not inseparable as to act. For one can strike and pierce and break the species, and yet do nothing toward the thing; so also with eating. And since the Sacrament expresses a relation to the thing, nothing is said to attain sacramentally unless it also attain the thing; and this can be, as has been seen: and therefore it does not suffice merely to eat the species for sacramental eating, unless one attain the thing through an intention regulated by some kind of cognition, namely either of reckoning, or of unformed faith, or of formed faith, or even of certain knowledge, as in Christ.

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