Article III: On the Remaining Accidents

246. Thesis. The species or accidents of bread and wine, after the consecration has been completed, remain, and indeed according to objective and real being.

The species of bread and wine are those accidents which are sensible, such as quantity, figure, color, taste, etc., and they imply relation to perception. After consecration, that these remain sensibly is established by the testimony of the senses and the doctrine of the Councils. Moreover those species are not purely intentional or mere appearances, as certain men said, insofar as by divine power either the same sensations would be produced in our senses,¹ or the same vibrations in the air or ether would be produced as bread and wine would produce,² but they are something objective and real.

¹ Thus Maignan, Saguens, and in some way Drouin and Wittasse.

² Thus Tongiorgi, Palmieri, also in some way Franzelin, whose explanations do not agree in all things.

The proposition is at least theologically certain, because the Councils Lateran IV, Constance, Florence, and Trent manifestly suppose it.

Although it is not explicitly defined, nevertheless in connection with the dogma it is enunciated in the Councils: a) for they oppose the whole substance of bread and wine which is converted to the species which remain, the obvious sense of which is: something objective which belonged to bread and wine passes over, and another objective thing which belonged to bread and wine does not pass over but remains and is the same as before; especially b) because at the time of the Councils by the name of species all understood something objective. Then c) in the Council of Constance the second proposition of Wycliffe was condemned: The accidents of bread do not remain without a subject; whence the contradictory is true, that they remain without a subject; but mere appearances are not rightly called accidents of bread, and are in a subject; therefore. - Nor should you say that the Council condemned the proposition according to the sense of Wycliffe, who understood that they do not remain without the subject of bread: for then there would be no difference from the first proposition, in which it is already condemned that the substance of bread and wine remains. Moreover contemporaries narrate that Wycliffe erred in three things, and that the fundamental error which gave origin to the others was that accidents do not remain without a subject even by the power of God; and furthermore that the Council wished to condemn those three errors in three propositions. Whence before the rise of Cartesian philosophy all theologians held the doctrine as certain.

247. The traditional doctrine is proved:

From Tradition, which is established from the doctrine of the Fathers, Councils, and Theologians, as has already been said.

The Fathers first express this implicitly, saying that the Eucharist is food or bread, and drink, but not common: Justin, Apol. I, 65; Irenaeus, Adv. haer. IV, 18; - they say that it consists of a twofold element: earthly, sensible, visible, i.e., the species, and heavenly, intelligible, invisible, namely Christ: Origen, hom. 13 on Ex., 34; Cyril of Jerusalem, cat. XXIII, n. 20; Chrysostom, hom. 82 on Matt. 4; Augustine, De Trin. III, 10; serm. 272; - they say that the visible element is the figure, antitype, likeness, sign of the body of Christ: Tertullian, Adv. Marc. IV, 40; Cyril of Jerusalem, cat. XXII, 9; XXIII, 20; Augustine, C. Adimant. XII, 3; Enarr. in Ps. III, 1; - they say that it is qualities, the permanent property of nature, indeed sensible nature, or that it remains as to appearances, as to phenomena, which they distinguish from that which it truly is: Cyril of Jerusalem, cat. XXII, 4 sq.; Gregory of Nyssa, Or. cat. 37; Cyril of Alexandria, on Luke XXII, 19; Gelasius (?), book De duabus naturis in Christo, 14; - indeed from their objective reality they argue against certain Monophysites: just as the accidents remain, so truly the body of Christ and His human nature remain in the incarnation, although some went to excess in this matter, verbally at least admitting the permanence of the substance of bread and wine.

From the words of institution. In order that the proposition be true: this is My body, it is required that the formal signification of the subject, this, remain unchanged, although the thing demonstrated is changed; but this signifies that which is under these accidents. But if the accidents under which the thing demonstrated is designated passed over, the signification of the subject would not remain unchanged. Therefore the accidents remain. - In other words: in order that this be My body, this must remain.

By reason: a) The Eucharist through the species is a sensible and visible sign; those species are said to be broken, separated, carried about, corrupted. But in the obvious sense all understand these things of some objective sensible thing, not of a modification in our senses or in surrounding objects.

b) God cannot be the author of deception. But if, when bread ceases, He were constantly and universally to procure the appearance of an object not existing, He would deceive; but if the accidents remain, there is no deception in the senses, because the accident which is the proper object of sense remains, while the intellect, whose proper object is substance, is preserved from deception through faith.

c) Indeed the permanence of the species seems to be an essentially required condition that Christ be really present. For no substance is present somewhere as contained under determinate dimensions except through relation to real dimensions and space; whence even if bread is converted into the body of Christ, this body would not become present where the bread is, except insofar as the dimensions of bread, which in space contained the substance of bread, remain and are now determined to containing the body of Christ, which therefore has a relation with them and with space.

In other words: in the accidents there is a real relation of containment which was terminated at the substance of bread; through conversion into the body of Christ the term of this relation is no longer bread but the body of Christ, which therefore without any change of itself becomes present under the species.

248.

248. Notice. - That the accidents remain is done reasonably by divine providence: 1. because it is not customary for men, but horrible, to eat the flesh of a man and drink blood; 2. lest this sacrament be derided by unbelievers if we were to eat the Lord under His proper species; 3. so that while we receive invisibly the body and blood of our Lord, this may profit unto the merit of faith (a. 5).