Article II: On the Desition and Conversion of Bread and Wine

S. Th. III, q. 75, a. 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8.

241. Thesis. By the words of consecration 1. the whole substance of bread and wine ceases, and 2. the whole substance of bread is converted into the body, and the whole substance of wine into the blood of Christ; by which conversion Christ becomes present. - The proposition is of faith as to each part, from the Fourth Lateran Council, c. 1; and from Trent, sess. 13, c. 4 and can. 2, against the Protestants, who universally all reject conversion.

That conversion has most aptly been called transubstantiation,¹ i.e., the change of the whole and of the substance alone into the whole and the substance alone, and by the Council of Trent it is defined: the wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of bread into the body and of the whole substance of wine into the blood of Christ, only the species of bread and wine remaining (can. 2).

¹ Stephen of Baugé, bishop of Autun (+ 1139-40), seems to have been the first who wrote to be transubstantiated; Roland Bandinelli (Alexander III) has transubstantiation; which word was recognized by the Fourth Lateran Council. By St. Thomas (a. 4) it is said that by its proper name it can be called transubstantiation.

It is proved 1. From the Scriptures: a) The word this indicates the substance immediately contained under these accidents; therefore if the substance of bread remained, the accidents would necessarily indicate their own proper substance and the sense of the form would be: this bread is My body, which sense is false.

Nor should you say that by metonymy the container is often exhibited for the contained, as if someone, designating the chalice, were to say: this is wine; for it can be said thus if something by common use is destined for containing something else, but when Christ spoke, bread was not destined for containing His body. Just as no one says concerning bread containing gold: this is gold, but here (adverbially) is gold, so if bread had remained, Christ ought to have said not: This, but: Here.

b) Moreover the substance of bread does not cease either by annihilation, or by another action (for example resolution into matter) diverse from that by which Christ becomes present: for the words effect only that which they signify; but they signify nothing except the action by which Christ becomes present; therefore bread must cease by the same action on account of the presence of Christ. But an action by which one thing ceases and another comes is the conversion of one into the other. Therefore the substance of bread ceases by conversion into Christ.

2. From Tradition, which is established from the most ancient Liturgies, the Fathers, the Councils Lateran IV, Lyons II in the declaration of faith of the Greeks, Constance, Florence in the decree for the Armenians, Trent; and from the decrees of the Supreme Pontiffs, namely the profession of faith imposed on Berengarius in the Second Roman Council, and the dogmatic bull Auctorem Fidei against the Synod of Pistoia, issued by Pius VI, by which under n. 29 there is condemned the doctrine that transubstantiation is a merely scholastic question; besides from the doctrine of the oriental sects separated from the Church already in the first centuries.

This dogma was not always enunciated in the same way:

1. In the beginning, in the first three centuries they teach it only implicitly and equivalently: namely, that the Eucharist is not common bread and drink, but is the body and blood of Christ. Thus Ignatius, Ad Smyrn. VII, 1; Justin, Apol. I, 66; Irenaeus, Adv. haer. IV, 17; V, 2.

2. From the fourth century it is explicitly preached: a) as to the term from which, they say that it is no longer bread and wine. Thus Cyril of Jerusalem, cat. XXIII, 7, and Ephrem, De Fide, hymn 1; b) as to the term to which, they say that bread becomes and is made the body of the Lord. Thus Ephrem, l.c. and hymn De sacerdotio; book De Sacr. IV, c. 4; Augustine, serm. 227; c) as to the action of conversion, they teach that the matter is transmuted into the body of the Lord, that there is transelementation, transformation, conversion. Thus Chrysostom, hom. 1 De prod. Iud., n. 6; Gregory of Nyssa, Or. cat., c. 37; Ambrose, De Fide IV, c. 10; book De Sacr. IV, c. 4 and 5; Theodore of Mopsuestia, on Matt. XXVI, 26; Cyril of Alexandria, on Matt. XXVI, 27; on Luke XXII, 19; Caesarius of Arles, hom. 5 De Paschate; John Damascene, De Fide orth. IV, c. 13.

3. They explain the dogma from analogies with natural or miraculous conversions. Thus Cyril of Jerusalem, c. XXII, 2; Gregory of Nyssa, Or. cat., c. 37; Ambrose, De myst. 19; book De Sacr. IV, c. 4.

3. By reason: Christ cannot become substantially present in the sacrament, except a) through an action which really changes Him, either substantially, which would be creation or reproduction; or accidentally, by producing in Him an accident, namely a new where, which would be adduction or introduction under the species; - or b) through an action which really changes another, and this would be the conversion of another into Christ. But Christ does not become present through production, because He is not produced nor does He acquire being which He already has; nor through adduction, because His glorious body is impassible and immutable; which things are proved more below. Therefore through conversion.

242. Condemned doctrines. - From the aforesaid it follows:

1. That the body of Christ is not only joined locally to bread, - or included in it (sacramental union) as water in a vessel, - or united sacramentally to it insofar as it is in, under, and with the bread, because where the Word is, there it is, which works in the reception of the bread while it is received, as Luther said (consubstantiation): even if it were not repugnant for the body of Christ to be wherever the Word is, nevertheless in these there is no conversion.

2. That Christ did not personally assume bread and wine, as Osiander taught (impanation): for it would not be a conversion of the true name, nor the fleshy body formed from the Virgin, nor blood; for assumed wine is not blood.

3. That bread is not converted into the body of Christ insofar as it would cease to be in itself and therefore to be a substance, but would be in another as in a subject and would be sustained by the body of Christ as by a subject, which was condemned in Bayma (Holy Office, July 7, 1875), - or would be informed by the rational or sensitive soul of Christ, which was reproved in Rosmini (prop. 29 condemned by the Holy Office, December 14, 1887):² for this would not be this singular conversion, nor of the whole substance, nor of bread into the true body born of the Virgin and offered on the cross.

² Descartes had already somewhat gone before these, but he did not openly propose the opinion.

243. The nature of transubstantiation. - Conversion is the passage of one thing into another, according to some aspect of being, either substantial or accidental; hence for it there is required:

1. A twofold term: one from which, which ceases; another to which, which comes. If the term from which is lacking, there is creation from nothing; if the term to which is lacking, there is annihilation. In the Eucharist the term from which is the substance of bread and wine, the term to which the substance of the body and blood of Christ.

2. That there be an intrinsic nexus between the desition of one and the succession of the other, so that the desition of one is ordered to the succession of the other and this succession requires the desition of the prior. Mere concomitance or succession does not suffice, or a merely extrinsic nexus from the will of God alone, by which one thing would cease at the same time and place as another would begin: for then there would be two actions accompanying each other per accidens, of which one would have to be called annihilation, the other creation; but it is necessary that these happen by the same action and be connected from the nature of the thing, so that the very action by which one thing ceases is also the action by which the other comes to be, in other words, so that the recession of one is the accession of the other. Hence in the Eucharist there is not, as Scotus and the Nominalists said, an annihilation whose term is nothing: for bread does not cease into nothing, but so that it may be something else, namely, the body of Christ; it does not cease by cessation of divine conservation, but by the positive action itself by which the body of Christ is placed (cf. bull of Pius VI, Auctorem fidei, prop. 29).

3. In natural conversions it is further required that there be some third thing common to each term, which is the subject of the conversion: for a creature does not act except presupposing a subject which it changes, or matter which it transforms. But if God makes a conversion, this is not proved necessary, because He reaches being not only according to some aspect or form, but according to every aspect, and therefore He can convert totally, so that this whole being becomes that whole being. Yet in the Eucharist common accidents remain, not indeed as an element and subject of conversion: for this conversion is of substance alone into substance; but as a condition without which Christ would not become present.

These things are perfectly verified in the opinion of the Great Scholastics, especially St. Thomas,³ which asserts a true and formal conversion, namely, one simple action by which God, as author of being, immediately changes whatever of entity is in the substance of bread into that which is of entity in the substance of the body of Christ (matter into matter, form into form), so that that which now is bread is the body of Christ, and the preexisting body of Christ⁴ is that which was bread. By this action the body of Christ is in no way changed intrinsically, but only bread into Christ; nor is bread annihilated, but by the action of divine omnipotence whatever of being is in bread ceases into the preexisting and unchanged body of Christ. For this reason it can truly be said: from bread the body of Christ comes to be.

³ Thus also Alexander of Hales, St. Albert the Great, St. Bonaventure, Aegidius Romanus, Dionysius the Carthusian, Cajetan, John of St. Thomas, Nugno Cabezudo, Billot, Hugon, Van Noort, de la Taille. Worth reading is Cachia, De Natura transsubstantiationis iuxta S. Thomam et Scotum.

⁴ If it did not preexist, there would not be conversion, because it would come to be from nothing of the subject.

We cannot understand this well, but we admit it because it is nothing except a more explicit enunciation, without any addition, of the revealed mystery defined in the Council of Trent; and the aforesaid exposition alone seems conformable to the manner of speaking of the Councils.

244. Opinions not to be approved. - To explain the action of transubstantiation, besides the mode set forth, a threefold opinion is chiefly given:

The first holds that the body of Christ is brought to. This was proposed by several already in the time of St. Thomas, who refutes it, a. 2, and it is usually attributed to Scotus. - But adduction happens through local motion; whence in this explanation it would follow a) that Christ would cease to be in heaven, b) that He would pass through all intermediate places, c) that He would not be in diverse places: for nothing is moved to diverse places at the same time.

The second is Suarez's, which holds that the body of Christ is reproduced. Thus also Lessius, Franzelin, indeed in some way Billuart. - But a) it is not understood that He is produced from nothing of Himself and acquires that being which already exists: but if new being is not given to Him, there would not be production, and there would already be no reason why Christ would become present; but if it is given, present would not be that body of Christ previously existing which was offered on the cross. Besides b) the same being according to one substantial being could be conserved, live, will good, etc., and at the same time according to another being be annihilated, die, will evil, etc., which seems contradictory.

The third is that of Cardinal de Lugo, whom Sylvius Maurus, Lahousse, Desan follow: it holds that the body of Christ is not so much brought to but rather introduced or constituted under the species, because He receives a new where, which according to him is a special accident intrinsic to being, by which it becomes present to this or that part of imaginary space. - But a) to be located here or there, just as to be clothed, does not seem to be an intrinsic accident, but an extrinsic relation to the dimensions of other bodies; b) multilocation seems impossible: for one being is in itself and undivided; but by multilocation it is divided from itself and separated by the distances of places; c) substantial conversion cannot be terminated at accidental being alone: where; namely, an accident cannot have the force of multiplying substance; nor can Eucharistic conversion be exercised concerning the very body of Christ, which, since it is impassible, cannot be converted according to itself.

Besides: 1. In the aforesaid opinions it is not verified that by one and the same action Christ becomes present and bread ceases; whence they affirm the conversion of bread and deny annihilation in name, but in reality admit one action by which Christ becomes present, and another similar to annihilation by which bread ceases.

2. Then the action is immediately concerned with Christ, while every conversion is immediately concerned with that which is converted.

3. Finally, since Christ could be reproduced or brought to even if bread remained, the conversion of bread would not be necessary for the presence of Christ, nor would conversion as such be wonderful, but that other action which could be the same, even if bread remained; which seems to be against the manner of speaking of the Councils.

245. Corollaries. - 1. In natural conversions the composite passes into the composite, but matter does not pass into matter, nor form into form: for a natural agent cannot reach the principles of being according to themselves. But here both the whole is converted into the whole, and the parts are converted, because the matter of bread becomes the matter of the body of Christ and the form of bread becomes the form of the body of Christ.

2. That conversion happens in an instant: 1. because the term to which is substance and therefore does not admit of more and less: for something cannot be more or less the body of Christ; 2. because there is no subject of conversion which is successively prepared; 3. because it happens by infinite power, which operates by command alone.