Commonweal

[Paphnutius]

Here is Aquinas stating that the accidents to do not inhere in any subject. Some background is required fromt he previous questions so that one may fully grasp all the already defined positionts, but this deals with the author's rejection of accidents being able to be suspended without a subject. I highlighted what I think was the important point of this question. [quote]Objection 1. It seems that the accidents do not remain in this sacrament without a subject, because there ought not to be anything disorderly or deceitful in this sacrament of truth. But for accidents to be without a subject is contrary to the order which God established in nature; and furthermore it seems to savor of deceit, since accidents are naturally the signs of the nature of the subject. Therefore the accidents are not without a subject in this sacrament.

Objection 2. Further, not even by miracle can the definition of a thing be severed from it, or the definition of another thing be applied to it; for instance, that, while man remains a man, he can be an irrational animal. For it would follow that contradictories can exist at the one time: for the "definition of a thing is what its name expresses," as is said in Metaph. iv. But it belongs to the definition of an accident for it to be in a subject, while the definition of substance is that it must subsist of itself, and not in another. Therefore it cannot come to pass, even by miracle, that the accidents exist without a subject in this sacrament.

Objection 3. Further, an accident is individuated by its subject. If therefore the accidents remain in this sacrament without a subject, they will not be individual, but general, which is clearly false, because thus they would not be sensible, but merely intelligible.

Objection 4. Further, the accidents after the consecration of this sacrament do not obtain any composition. But before the consecration they were not composed either of matter and form, nor of existence [quo est] and essence [quod est]. Therefore, even after consecration they are not composite in either of these ways. But this is unreasonable, for thus they would be simpler than angels, whereas at the same time these accidents are perceptible to the senses. Therefore, in this sacrament the accidents do not remain without a subject.

On the contrary, Gregory says in an Easter Homily (Lanfranc, De Corp. et Sang. Dom. xx) that "the sacramental species are the names of those things which were there before, namely, of the bread and wine." Therefore since the substance of the bread and the wine does not remain, it seems that these species remain without a subject.

I answer that, The species of the bread and wine, which are perceived by our senses to remain in this sacrament after consecration, are not subjected in the substance of the bread and wine, for that does not remain, as stated above (75, 2); nor in the substantial form, for that does not remain (75, 6), and if it did remain, "it could not be a subject," as Boethius declares (De Trin. i). Furthermore it is manifest that these accidents are not subjected in the substance of Christ's body and blood, because the substance of the human body cannot in any way be affected by such accidents; nor is it possible for Christ's glorious and impassible body to be altered so as to receive these qualities.

Now there are some who say that they are in the surrounding atmosphere as in a subject. But even this cannot be: in the first place, because atmosphere is not susceptive of such accidents. Secondly, because these accidents are not where the atmosphere is, nay more, the atmosphere is displaced by the motion of these species. Thirdly, because accidents do not pass from subject to subject, so that the same identical accident which was first in one subject be afterwards in another; because an accident is individuated by the subject; hence it cannot come to pass for an accident remaining identically the same to be at one time in one subject, and at another time in another. Fourthly, since the atmosphere is not deprived of its own accidents, it would have at the one time its own accidents and others foreign to it. Nor can it be maintained that this is done miraculously in virtue of the consecration, because the words of consecration do not signify this, and they effect only what they signify.

Therefore it follows that the accidents continue in this sacrament without a subject. [b]This can be done by Divine power: for since an effect depends more upon the first cause than on the second, God Who is the first cause both of substance and accident, can by His unlimited power preserve an accident in existence when the substance is withdrawn whereby it was preserved in existence as by its proper cause, just as without natural causes He can produce other effects of natural causes, even as He formed a human body in the Virgin's womb, "without the seed of man" (Hymn for Christmas, First Vespers). [/b]

Reply to Objection 1. There is nothing to hinder the common law of nature from ordaining a thing, the contrary of which is nevertheless ordained by a special privilege of grace, as is evident in the raising of the dead, and in the restoring of sight to the blind: even thus in human affairs, to some individuals some things are granted by special privilege which are outside the common law. And so, even though it be according to the common law of nature for an accident to be in a subject, still for a special reason, according to the order of grace, the accidents exist in this sacrament without a subject, on account of the reasons given above (75] , 5).

Reply to Objection 2. Since being is not a genus, then being cannot be of itself the essence of either substance or accident. Consequently, the definition of substance is not--"a being of itself without a subject," nor is the definition of accident--"a being in a subject"; but it belongs to the quiddity or essence of substance "to have existence not in a subject"; while it belongs to the quiddity or essence of accident "to have existence in a subject." But in this sacrament it is not in virtue of their essence that accidents are not in a subject, but through the Divine power sustaining them; and consequently they do not cease to be accidents, because neither is the definition of accident withdrawn from them, nor does the definition of substance apply to them.

Reply to Objection 3. These accidents acquired individual being in the substance of the bread and wine; and when this substance is changed into the body and blood of Christ, they remain in that individuated being which they possessed before, hence they are individual and sensible.

Reply to Objection 4. These accidents had no being of their own nor other accidents, so long as the substance of the bread and wine remained; but their subjects had "such" being through them, just as snow is "white" through whiteness. [b]But after the consecration the accidents which remain have being; hence they are compounded of existence and essence, as was said of the angels, in I, 50, 2, ad 3; and besides they have composition of quantitative parts. [/b][/quote]I say we stick with this answer.

[daugher-of-Mary]

You're my hero! *tip o' the biretta to ya!* :

[Paphnutius]

I found just the answer to this question!!!![quote]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.

[/quote] Found [url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05573a.htm#3"]here at our friends at New Advent[/url]

[journeyman]

I've read this three times and I still don't think I understand.

from a purely practical standpoint - would a person with a wheat allergy have a reasonable basis for concern when consuming a consecrated host - I think the answer, based on

[quote]But after the consecration the accidents which remain have being; hence they are compounded of existence and essence, as was said of the angels, in I, 50, 2, ad 3; and besides they have composition of quantitative parts.
[/quote]

would be yes - since wheatness is an "accident in being" or a "characteristic quality"

am I close?

[Paphnutius]

[quote name='journeyman' date='Jan 16 2006, 06:36 PM']would be yes - since wheatness is an "accident in being" or a "characteristic quality"[right][snapback]858201[/snapback][/right]
[/quote]
Essentially yes I believe. Wheat would be considered an accident as far as I know.