Bellarmine · De Controversiis · On the Sacrament of the Eucharist · Book III: On the Truth of the Body of the Lord, from Reason
Chapter 16: The Error of John of Paris Is Refuted
Our translation, from the Latin of the Opera Omnia (Paris: Vivès, 1870–74), vol. IV, De Sacramento Eucharistiae, Book III: On the Truth of the Body of the Lord in the Eucharist (from Reason). The Latin source text is public domain; this English rendering is released with the site. Scripture quotations follow Bellarmine's Vulgate citations, rendered in Douay-Rheims wording where he quotes exactly. Click “Show the Latin” for the original (raw OCR of the scan; scanning errors remain — the scan itself is the authority).
The sixth error, of John of Paris, is refuted by the same arguments by which the preceding error of Rupert was; and besides it has another greater disadvantage, that it will have the bread to be immediately assumed by the body of the Lord. For many, not without cause, doubt whether it can come about that a creature should hypostatically assume a creature. And moreover the body of the Lord in Christ lacks its own personality; how then will it be able to communicate to others what it does not have in itself?
But neither does this error obtain what it desires, namely that it may be truly said, The bread is a body, and we not be compelled to admit that the bread is God. For even with that assumption of the bread by the Word by the mediation of the body of Christ being posited, the proposition The bread is a body is not true: since body, as it is here taken, is a certain part of human nature, and therefore cannot be predicated either of the whole or of the other co-assumed part. For just as we do not say, God is the body of Christ, nor, The Divinity is the body of Christ, but only, God is man; so it could not be said, The bread is the body of Christ, or, The essence of the bread is the body of Christ, although they subsisted in the same suppositum. In the way too that we do not say, The finger is the hand, or, The ring is the finger; although the finger subsists in the body by the mediation of the hand, and the ring is on the hand by the mediation of the finger. And moreover, that assumption being posited, it will be able to be said altogether truly that the bread is God, and God is bread; which is the other disadvantage that that John desired to avoid. For although the bread be assumed by the Word by the mediation of the body of Christ alone, yet, because the Word is indivisible, that bread is assumed by the whole Word and subsists in the whole Word, exactly as if it were assumed by the mediation of the whole humanity of Christ; wherefore it will truly be said that God the Word is bread. Nor does the likeness of the Ethiopian stand in the way: for if the whiteness which is in the teeth of the Ethiopian existed, by the mediation of the teeth, in the whole body, the whole Ethiopian would be called white. See more in Durandus, Book 4, distinction 10, question 1.
Show the Latin (Vives edition, OCR)
CAPUT XVI. Reffellitur error Joannis Pansiensis. \ Sextus error Joannis Parisiensis iisdem ar¬ gumentis refellitur, quibus error praecedens Ituperti : et praeterea habet aliud majus in¬ commodum, quod vult panem immediate assu¬ mi a corporeDomini. Mulli enimnon sine cau¬ sa dubitant an possit fieri, ut creatura crea¬ turam hypostatice assumat. Et praeterea cor¬ pus Domini in Christo caret propria personali¬ tate ; quomodo igitur poterit aliis communi¬ care, quod in se non habet? Sed nec obtinet iste error, quod cupit, nimirum, ut possit dici vere : Panis est cor¬ pus, et non cogamur admittere, panem esse Deum. Nam adhuc posita illa assumptione panis a Vpybo mediante corpore Christi, non est vera propositio, Panis est corpus: siqui¬ dem corpus, ut hic sumitur, est pars quaedam naturae humanae, et proinde non potest prae¬ dicari, vel de toto, vel de altera parte coas- sumpta. Sicut enim non dicimus : Deus est corpus Christi , nec Divinitas est corpus Christi, sed solum, Deus est homo / ita non posset dici, Panis est corpus Christi, vel essentia panis est corpus Christi ; licet in eodem supposito subsisterent. Quo¬ modo etiam non dicimus, Digitus est manus, vel annulus est digitus ; licet digitus mediante manu in corpore subsistat, et annulus me¬ diante digito sit in manu. Et praeterea posita illa assumptione, poterit omnino vere dici, panis est Deus, et Deus est panis; quod est alterum incommodum, quod Joanncs ille vi¬ tare cupiebat. Nam licet panis a Ycrbo assu¬ matur mediante solo corpore Christi: tamen quia Yerbum indivisibile est, a toto Yerbo assumitur, et in toto Verbo subsistit ille panis, perinde plane, ac si mediante tota humanitate Christi assumeretur ; quare vere dicetur Deus Verbum esse panis. Nec similitudo fEthiopis repugnat : nam si candor, qui est in dentibus yEthiopis, mediantibus dentibus in toto cor¬ pore existeret, totus JEthiops diceretur can¬ didus. Yide plura apud Durandum in iv. dist. 10. qusest. i.