(Catholic perspective) Why was the Jesus body consumed at the Last Supper due to transsubstantiation was not mentioned to Thomas?

score:3

Accepted answer

No, one cannot change anything about Christ's body in the Holy Eucharist.

St. Thomas Aquinas addresses the question of "Whether Christ's body is in this sacrament changeably?" in Summa Theologica III q. 76 a. 6. By "changeably" ("movably"/mobiliter) he means not only locomotively (i.e., able to change from one position or place to another), but also that none of His body's accidents (properties, e.g., his color, stature, etc.) change. He writes (ibid. c., with a few of my modifications and parenthetical additions of the Latin):

When any thing is one, as to subject, and manifold in being, there is nothing to hinder it from being changed (moveri) in one respect, and yet to remain unchanged (immobile permanere) in another, just as it is one thing for a body to be white and another thing for it to be large; hence, it can be changed as to its whiteness and yet remain unchanged as to its magnitude. But in Christ, being in Himself (esse secundum se) and being under the sacrament (esse sub sacramento) are not the same thing, because when we say that He is under this sacrament, we express a kind of relationship to this sacrament. According to this being [i.e., according to His esse sub sacramento], then, Christ is not moved locally [i.e., from one position or place to another] of Himself, but only accidentally (per accidens, i.e., "not per se"), because Christ is not in this sacrament as in a place, as stated above (a. 5). But what is not in a place is not moved of itself locally, but only according to the motion of the subject in which it is.

In the same way neither is it moved (moveri) of itself according to the being which it has in this sacrament, nor by any other change (mutatione) whatever, as for instance, that it ceases to be under this sacrament: because whatever possesses unfailing existence of itself cannot be the principle of failing; but when something else fails, then it ceases to be in it; just as God, Whose existence is unfailing and immortal, ceases to be in some corruptible creature because such corruptible creature ceases to exist. And in this way, since Christ has unfailing and incorruptible being, He ceases to be under this sacrament, not because He ceases to be, nor yet by local movement of His own, as is clear from what has been said, but only by the fact that the sacramental species cease to exist.

Hence it is clear that Christ, strictly speaking is immovably (immobiliter or "unchangeably") in this sacrament.

More post

Search Posts

Related post