Philosophical/Theological Discussion

The principal aim of speculative theology with regard to the Eucharist, should be to discuss philosophically, and seek a logical solution of, three apparent contradictions, namely:

• the continued existence of the Eucharistic Species, or the outward appearances of bread and wine, without their natural underlying subject (accidentia sine subjecto);

• the spatially uncircumscribed, spiritual mode of existence of Christ's Eucharistic Body (existentia corporis ad modum spiritus);

• the simultaneous existence of Christ in heaven and in many places on earth (multilocatio).

(a) The study of the first problem, viz. whether or not the accidents of bread and wine continue their existence without their proper substance, must be based upon the clearly established truth of Transubstantiation, in consequence of which the entire substance of the bread and the entire substance of the wine are converted respectively into the Body and Blood of Christ in such a way that "only the appearances of bread and wine remain" (Council of Trent, Sess. XIII, can. ii: manentibus dumtaxat speciebus panis et vini). Accordingly, the continuance of the appearances without the substance of bread and wine as their connatural substratum is just the reverse of Transubstantiation. If it be further asked, whether these appearances have any subject at all in which they inhere, we must answer with St. Thomas Aquinas (III:77:1), that the idea is to be rejected as unbecoming, as though the Body of Christ, in addition to its own accidents, should also assume those of bread and wine. The most that may be said is, that from the Eucharistic Body proceeds a miraculous sustaining power, which supports the appearances bereft of their natural substances and preserves them from collapse. The position of the Church in this regard may be readily determined from the Council of Constance (1414-1418). In its eighth session, approved in 1418 by Martin V, this synod condemned the following articles of Wyclif:

• "Substantia panis materialis et similiter substantia vini materialis remanent in Sacramento altaris", i.e. the material substance of bread and likewise the material substance of wine remain in the Sacrament of the Altar;

• "Accidentia panis non manent sine subjecto", i.e. the accidents of the bread do not remain without a subject.

The first of these articles contains an open denial of Transubstantiation. The second, so far as the text is concerned, might be considered as merely a different wording of the first, were it not that the history of the council shows that Wyclif had directly opposed the Scholastic doctrine of "accidents without a subject" as absurd and even heretical (cf, De Augustinis, De re sacramentariâ, Rome, 1889, II, 573 sqq.), Hence it was the intention of the council to condemn the second article, not merely as a conclusion of the first, but as a distinct and independent proposition; wherefore we may gather the Church's teaching on the subject from the contradictory proposition; "Accidentia panis manent sine subjecto," i.e. the accidents of bread do remain without a subject. Such, at least, was the opinion of contemporary theologians regarding the matter; and the Roman Catechism, referring to the above-mentioned canon of the Council of Trent, tersely, explains: "The accidents of bread and wine inhere in no substance, but continue existing by themselves." This being the case, some theologians in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, who inclined to Cartesianism, as E, Maignan, Drouin, and Vitasse, displayed but little theological penetration when they asserted that the Eucharistic appearances were optical illusions, phantasmagoria, and make-believe accidents, ascribing to Divine omnipotence an immediate influence upon the five senses, whereby a mere subjective impression of what seemed to be the accidents of bread and wine was created. Since Descartes (d. 1650) places the essence of corporeal substance in its actual extension and recognizes only modal accidents metaphysically united to their substance, it is clear, according to his theory, that together with the conversion of the substance of bread and wine, the accidents must also be converted and thereby made to disappear. If the eye nevertheless seems to behold bread and wine, this is to be attributed to an optical illusion alone. But it is clear at first blush, that no doubt can be entertained as to the physical reality, or in fact, as to the identity of the accidents before and after Transubstantiation, This physical, and not merely optical, continuance of the Eucharistic accidents was repeatedly insisted upon by the Fathers, and with such excessive rigor that the notion of Transubstantiation seemed to be in danger. Especially against the Monophysites, who based on the Eucharistic conversion an a pari argument in behalf of the supposed conversion of the Humanity of Christ into His Divinity, did the Fathers retort by concluding from the continuance of the unconverted Eucharistic accidents to the unconverted Human Nature of Christ. Both philosophical and theological arguments were also advanced against the Cartesians, as, for instance, the infallible testimony of the senses, the necessity of the commune tertium to complete the idea of Transubstantiation [see above, (3)], the idea of the Sacrament of the Altar as the visible sign of Christ's invisible Body, the physical signification of Communion as a real partaking of food and drink the striking expression "breaking of bread" (fractio panis), which supposes the divisible reality of the accidents, etc. For all these reasons, theologians consider the physical reality of the accidents as an incontrovertible truth, which cannot without temerity be called in question.

As regards the philosophical possibility of the accidents existing without their substance, the older school drew a fine distinction between modal and absolute accidents, By the modal accidents were understood such as could not, being mere modes, be separated from their substance without involving a metaphysical contradiction, e.g. the form and motion of a body. Those accidents were designated absolute, whose objective reality was adequately distinct from the reality of their substance, in such a way that no intrinsic repugnance was involved in their separability, as, e.g., the quantity of a body. Aristotle, himself taught (Metaphys., VI, 3rd ed. of Bekker, p. 1029, a. 13), that quantity was not a corporeal substance, but only a phenomenon of substance. Modern philosophy, on the other hand, has endeavored since the time of John Locke, to reject altogether from the realm of ideas the concept of substance as something imaginary, and to rest satisfied with qualities alone as the excitants of sensation, a view of the material world which the so-called psychology of association and actuality is trying to carry out in its various details. The Catholic Church does not feel called upon to follow up the ephemeral vagaries of these new philosophical systems, but bases her doctrine on the everlasting philosophy of sound reason, which rightly distinguishes between the thing in itself and its characteristic qualities (color, form, size, etc.). Though the "thing in itself" may even remain imperceptible to the senses and therefore be designated in the language of Kant as a noumenon, or in the language of Spencer, the Unknowable, yet we cannot escape the necessity of seeking beneath the appearances the thing which appears, beneath the colour that which is colored beneath the form that which has form, i.e. the substratum or subject which sustains the phenomena. The older philosophy designated the appearances by the name of accidents, the subject of the appearances, by that of substance. It matters little what the terms are, provided the things signified by them are rightly understood. What is particularly important regarding material substances and their accidental qualities, is the necessity of proceeding cautiously in this discussion, since in the domain of natural philosophy the greatest uncertainty reigns even at the present day concerning the nature of matter, one system pulling down what another has reared, as is proved in the latest theories of atomism and energy, of ions and electrons.

The old theology tried with St. Thomas Aquinas (III:77) to prove the possibility of absolute accidents on the principles of the Aristotelean-Scholastic hylomorphism, i.e. the system which teaches that the essential constitution of bodies consists in the substantial union of materia prima and forma substantialis. Some theologians of today would seek to come to an understanding with modern science, which bases all natural processes upon the very fruitful theory of energy, by trying with Leibniz to explain the Eucharistic accidentia sine subjecto according to the dynamism of natural philosophy. Assuming, according to this system, a real distinction between force and its manifestations, between energy and its effects, it may be seen that under the influence of the First Cause the energy (substance) necessary for the essence of bread is withdrawn by virtue of conversion, while the effects of energy (accidents) in a miraculous manner continue. For the rest it may be said, that it is far from the Church's intention to restrict the Catholic's investigation regarding the doctrine of the Blessed Sacrament to any particular view of natural philosophy or even to require him to establish its truth on the principles of medieval physics; all that the Church demands is, that those theories of material substances be rejected which not only contradict the teaching of the Church, but also are repugnant to experience and sound reason, as Pantheism, Hylozoism, Monism, Absolute Idealism, Cartesianism, etc.

(b) The second problem arises from the Totality of Presence, which means that Christ in His entirety is present in the whole of the Host and in each smallest part thereof, as the spiritual soul is present in the human body [see above, (2)]. The difficulty reaches its climax when we consider that there is no question here of the Soul or the Divinity of Christ, but of His Body, which, with its head, trunk, and members, has assumed a mode of existence spiritual and independent of space, a mode of existence, indeed, concerning which neither experience nor any system of philosophy can have the least inkling. That the idea of conversion of corporeal matter into a spirit can in no way be entertained, is clear from the material substance of the Eucharistic Body itself. Even the above-mentioned separability of quantity from substance gives us no clue to the solution, since according to the best founded opinions not only the substance of Christ's Body, but by His own wise arrangement, its corporeal quantity, i.e. its full size, with its complete organization of integral members and limbs, is present within the diminutive limits of the Host and in each portion thereof. Later theologians (as Rossignol, Legrand) resorted to the unseemly explanation, according to which Christ is present in diminished form and stature, a sort of miniature body; while others (as Oswald, Fernandez, Casajoana) assumed with no better sense of fitness the mutual compenetration of the members of Christ's Body to within the narrow compass of the point of a pin. The vagaries of the Cartesians, however, went beyond all bounds. Descartes had already, in a letter to P. Mesland (ed. Emery, Paris, 1811), expressed the opinion, that the identity of Christ's Eucharistic with His Heavenly Body was preserved by the identity of His Soul, which animated all the Eucharistic Bodies. On this basis, the geometrician Varignon suggested a true multiplication of the Eucharistic Bodies upon earth, which were supposed to be most faithful, though greatly reduced, miniature copies of the prototype, the Heavenly Body of Christ. Nor does the modern theory of n-dimensions throw any light upon the subject; for the Body of Christ is not invisible or impalpable to us because it occupies the fourth dimension, but because it transcends and is wholly independent of space. Such a mode of existence, it is clear, does not come within the scope of physics and mechanics, but belongs to a higher, supernatural order, even as does the Resurrection from the sealed tomb, the passing in and out through closed doors, the Transfiguration of the future glorified risen Body. What explanation may, then, be given of the fact?

The simplest treatment of the subject was that offered by the Schoolmen, especially St. Thomas (III:76:4), They reduced the mode of being to the mode of becoming, i.e. they traced back the mode of existence peculiar to the Eucharistic Body to the Transubstantiation; for a thing has to so "be" as it was in "becoming", Since ex vi verborum the immediate result is the presence of the Body of Christ, its quantity, present merely per concomitantiam, must follow the mode of existence peculiar to its substance, and, like the latter, must exist without division and extension, i.e. entirely in the whole Host and entirely in each part thereof. In other words, the Body of Christ is present in the sacrament, not after the manner of "quantity" (per modum quantitatis), but of "substance" (per modum substantiæ), Later Scholasticism (Bellarmine, Francisco Suárez, Billuart, and others) tried to improve upon this explanation along other lines by distinguishing between internal and external quantity. By internal quantity (quantitas interna seu in actu primo) is understood that entity, by virtue of which a corporeal substance merely possesses "aptitudinal extension", i.e. the "capability" of being extended in tri-dimensional space. External quantity, on the other hand (quantitas externa seu in actu secundo), is the same entity, but in so far as it follows its natural tendency to occupy space and actually extends itself in the three dimensions. While aptitudinal extension or internal quantity is so bound up with the essences of bodies that its separability from them involves a metaphysical contradiction, external quantity is, on the other hand, only a natural consequence and effect, which can be so suspended and withheld by the First Cause, that the corporeal substance, retaining its internal quantity, does not extend itself into space. At all events, however plausibly reason may seem to explain the matter, it is nevertheless face to face with a great mystery.

(c) The third and last question has to do with the multilocation of Christ in heaven and upon thousands of altars throughout the world. Since in the natural order of events each body is restricted to one position in space (unilocatio), so that before the law proof of an alibi immediately frees a person from the suspicion of crime, multilocation without further question belongs to the supernatural order. First of all, no intrinsic repugnance can be shown in the concept of multilocation. For if the objection be raised, that no being can exist separated from itself or show forth local distances between its various selves, the sophism is readily detected; for multilocation does not multiply the individual object, but only its external relation to and presence in space. Philosophy distinguishes two modes of presence in creatures:

• the circumscriptive, and

• the definitive.

The first, the only mode of presence proper to bodies, is that by virtue of which an object is confined to a determinate portion of space in such wise that its various parts (atoms, molecules, electrons) also occupy their corresponding positions in that space. The second mode of presence, that properly belonging to a spiritual being, requires the substance of a thing to exist in its entirety in the whole of the space, as well as whole and entire in each part of that space. The latter is the soul's mode of presence in the human body. The distinction made between these two modes of presence is important, inasmuch as in the Eucharist both kinds are found in combination. For, in the first place, there is verified a continuous definitive multilocation, called also replication, which consists in this, that the Body of Christ is totally present in each part of the continuous and as yet unbroken Host and also totally present throughout the whole Host, just as the human soul is present in the body. And precisely this latter analogy from nature gives us an insight into the possibility of the Eucharistic miracle. For if, as has been seen above, Divine omnipotence can in a supernatural manner impart to a body such a spiritual, unextended, spatially uncircumscribed mode of presence, which is natural to the soul as regards the human body, one may well surmise the possibility of Christ's Eucharistic Body being present in its entirety in the whole Host, and whole and entire in each part thereof.

There is, moreover, the discontinuous multilocation, whereby Christ is present not only in one Host, but in numberless separate Hosts, whether in the ciborium or upon all the altars throughout the world. The intrinsic possibility of discontinuous multilocation seems to be based upon the non-repugnance of continuous multilocation. For the chief difficulty of the latter appears to be that the same Christ is present in two different parts, A and B, of the continuous Host, it being immaterial whether we consider the distant parts A and B joined by the continuous line AB or not. The marvel does not substantially increase, if by reason of the breaking of the Host, the two parts A and B are now completely separated from each other. Nor does it matter how great the distance between the parts may be. Whether or not the fragments of a Host are distant one inch or a thousand miles from one another is altogether immaterial in this consideration; we need not wonder, then, if Catholics adore their Eucharistic Lord at one and the same time in New York, London, and Paris. Finally, mention must be made of mixed multilocation, since Christ with His natural dimensions reigns in heaven, whence he does not depart, and at the same time dwells with His Sacramental Presence in numberless places throughout the world. This third case would be in perfect accordance with the two foregoing, were we per impossible permitted to imagine that Christ were present under the appearances of bread exactly as He is in heaven and that He had relinquished His natural mode of existence. This, however, would be but one more marvel of God's omnipotence. Hence no contradiction is noticeable in the fact, that Christ retains His natural dimensional relations in heaven and at the same time takes up His abode upon the altars of earth.

There is, furthermore, a fourth kind of multilocation, which, however, has not been realized in the Eucharist, but would be, if Christ's Body were present in its natural mode of existence both in heaven and on earth. Such a miracle might be assumed to have occurred in the conversion of St. Paul before the gates of Damascus, when Christ in person said to him: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" So too the bilocation of saints, sometimes read of in the pages of hagiography, as, e.g., in the case of St. Alphonsus Liguori, cannot be arbitrarily cast aside as untrustworthy. The Thomists and some later theologians, it is true, reject this kind of multilocation as intrinsically impossible and declare bilocation to be nothing more than an "apparition" without corporeal presence. But Cardinal De Lugo is of opinion, and justly so, that to deny its possibility might reflect unfavorably upon the Eucharistic multilocation itself. If there were question of the vagaries of many Nominalists, as, e.g., that a bilocated person could be living in Paris and at the same time dying in London, hating in Paris and at the same time loving in London, the impossibility would be as plain as day, since an individual, remaining such as he is, cannot be the subject of contrary propositions, since they exclude one another. The case assumes a different aspect, when wholly external contrary propositions, relating to position in space, are used in reference to the bilocated individual. In such a bilocation, which leaves the principle of contradiction intact, it would be hard to discover an intrinsic impossibility.

APA citation. Pohle, J. (1909). The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved October 22, 2014 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05573a.htm

MLA citation. Pohle, Joseph. "The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 5. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. 22 Oct. 2014 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05573a.htm>.

Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Charles Sweeney, SJ.

Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. May 1, 1909. Remy Lafort, Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.

Contact information. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is webmaster at newadvent.org. Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.