EUCHARIST
582
EUCHARIST
be readily determined from the Council of Constance
(1414-1418). In its eiglith session, approved in 1418
by Martin V, this synod condemned the following arti-
cles of WycHf: (1) "Substantia panis materialis et
similiter substantia vini materialis remanent in Sacra-
mento altaris", i. e. the material substance of bread
and likewise the material svibstance of wine remain in
the Sacrament of the Altar; (2) "Accidentia panis
non manent sine suljjecto", i. e. the accidents of the
bread do not remain without a subject. The first of
tlicse articles contains an open denial of Transubstan-
tiation. 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
sliows that Wyclif Iiad directly opposed the Scholastic
doctrine of "accidents witliout a subject" as absurd
anti even heretical (cf. De Augustmis, De re sacramen-
tariii, Rome, 1S89, 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 dis-
tinct 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 suliject. Such, at least, was the opinion of
contemporary theologians regarding the matter; and
the Roman Catechism, referring to the above-men-
tioned canon of the Council of Trent, tersely explains:
"The accidents of bread and wine inhere in no sub-
stance, 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, ascrib-
ing to Divine omnipotence an immediate influence
upon the five senses, wherel^y a mere suliject ive im-
pression 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 meta-
pliysically united to their substance, it is clear, ac-
cording to his theory, that together with the conver-
sion of the substance of bread and wine, the accidents
must also be converted and thereby made to disap-
pear. 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 Tran-
substantiation. This physical, and not merely opti-
cal, continuance of the Eucharistic accidents was re-
peatedly insisted upon by the Fathers, and with such
excessive vigour that the notion of Transubstantiation
seemed to be in danger. Especially against the Mono-
physites, who liased on the Eucharistic conversion an
a pari argument in behalf of the supposed conversion
of the Humanity of Christ into His Divinity, did the
Katliers retort by concluding from the continuance of
the unconverted Eucharistic accidents to the uncon-
verted Human Nature of Christ. Both philosophical
and theological arguments were also advanced against
the Cartesians, as, for instance, the infallible testi-
mony of the senses, the necessity of the commune ter-
tium to complete the idea of Transubstantiation [see
above, (.'i)], the idea of the Sacrament of the .Vltar 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 "lireaking of bread"
{jraclio panis), which supposes the divisible reality of
the accidents, etc. For all these reasons, theologians
consider the physical reality of the accidents as an in-
controvertible truth, which cannot without temerity
be called in question.
As regards the philosophical possibility of the acci- dents existing without their substance, the older
school drew a fine distinction between modal and ab-
solute accidents. By the modal accidents were under-
stood such as could not, being mere modes, be sepa-
rated from their substance without involving a meta-
physical 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, .\ristotle himself
taught (Metaphys., \T, 3rd ed. of Bekker, p. 1029, a.
13), that quantity was not a corporeal substance, but
only a phenomenon of substance. Modern philoso-
phy, on the other hand, has endeavoured 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 de-
tails. The Catholic Church does not feel called upon
to follow up the ephemeral vagaries of these new phi-
losophical systems, but bases her doctrine on the ever-
lasting philosophy of sound reason, which rightly
distinguishes between the thing in itself and its char-
acteristic qualities (colour, form, size, etc.). Though
the " thing in itself " may ever 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 coloured,
beneath the form that which has form, i. e. the sub-
stratum 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 tilings signified by them are rightly
understood. What is particularly important regard-
ing material substances and their accidental qualities,
is the necessity of proceeding cautiously in this discus-
sion, 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 wuth St. Thomas Aquinas (III, Q. Ix.xvii) to prove the possibility of absolute ac- cidents on the principles of the Aristotelean-Scholastic hylomorphism, i. e. the system which teaches that the essential constitution of bodies consists in the sub- stantial union of inatcria prima and forma substantialis. Some theologians of to-day would seek to come to an understanding with modern science, which bases all natural processes upon the very fruitful tlieory of en- ergy, by trying with Leibniz to explain the Eucharis- tic accidentia sine subjecto according to the dynamism of natural philosophy. Assuming, according to this system, a real distinction between force and its mani- festations, 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 investiga- tion 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 rea- son, as Pantheism, Hylozoism, Monism, Absolute Idealism, Cartesianism, etc.
(b) The second problem arises from the Totality of
