In addition to the preceding reasons, some others must be added, based partly on the statements of other Catholic doctors, who, however, posit such a quantity intermediate between substance and quality. For a certain Doctor, whom I think reputable, says it; for I have no desire to detract anything from the omnipotence of God since He may be able to do more than we are able to think or understand, unless I may see that an evident contradiction follows. For that Doctor, namely, Scotus, says in Book IV. of the Sentences, Distinction X., Question IV., that the infinite power of God might be able to preserve sacramentally the body of Christ under the species of bread without this, that it could have being locally and circumscriptively in heaven or elsewhere. Therefore, let it be posited that the body of Christ may be sacramentally under the species and that it may cease to be in heaven locally and that it may begin to be nowhere locally and circumscriptively. When this has been done, I ask, whether this quantity, which was before distinct from substance and quality, remains or does not remain but is corrupted. It can not be said that that quantity is destroyed; for according to those writers in the same place an absolute is not altered by virtue of a variation of respective, and consequently an absolute thing is not destroyed by virtue of a variation of respective. But according to the same writers ‘ubi’ is not in heaven except as a respect. Therefore, it is not necessary to posit that some absolute thing may really be destroyed by virtue of this, that the body of Christ ceases to be in heaven locally. Therefore, every absolute thing, which was before, remains, and so that quantity remains; since, therefore, according to them that substance is a quantum through that quantity, as a body is white through whiteness.
As it is impossible and involves a contradiction, that any body may be informed by the whiteness inhering in it and yet that it may not be white; so it is impossible that that substance may be informed by that quantity inhering in it, unless it be a quantum. Therefore, it would be necessary to say this, that that body of Christ would truly and really be a quantum by that quantity, if the prior case is posited.
But that this ought not to be conceded, I am convinced, first, thus: that, which does not have part separate from part, is not a quantum. But, if the prior case is posited, the substance of the body of Christ does not have part separate from part; for, if so, then that body would coexist with the species of bread. It follows that distinct parts of a body coexists with distinct parts of that species.
It is the proof of consequence; for, if parts of the body of Christ are separate locally, I take those two parts, say, A and B. Then I ask concerning A, whether it coexists with the whole host and with each part, or whether it coexists with any one part and not another. If you say that it coexists with the whole host and with each part; for the same reason B coexists with the whole host and with each part; and through position the body of Christ is not elsewhere than under the species of bread. Therefore, with whatever one part coexists, with the same another part also coexists, and consequently they are not distinct locally. But if you say that A coexists with one part of the host and not with another, B would then also coexist with a second part and not with the former, and so distinct parts of the body of Christ would coexist with distinct parts of the species of bread, which is false; since from that it would follow that not the whole body of Christ would be in each part of the host; on the contrary the whole body of Christ would be in no part of the host. It would also follow that the body of Christ would be in a place circumscriptively, all of which are false. Therefore, it remains that, if that case is posited, the body of Christ would nowhere have part separate from part in situation, nor would it have part outside of part, and consequently could not be a quantum, which is the thesis.
But they suggest one response to that and similar arguments, when they say that position, which is a difference of quantity, necessarily is in a quantum or is in a quantum continuous and permanent; and it is necessary for that to be saved in a thesis, namely, which speaks of the order of the parts in a whole.
For it is not well understood that something is a measurable quantum, but that it may be to designate in a whole the order of this part in relation to another according to the intervening quantity. But position, which is posited by certain persons, adds another category. For, if the order of the parts in a whole is presupposed, it further posits an order of parts in relation to place or to parts of a place or locality. This is certain, that parts are coextended with parts, as a whole is said at first to be commensurate with the whole place, in which it has its ‘ubi,’ so that ‘position’ as a category presupposes ‘position’ as a difference of quantity and specifies ‘ubi.’ And it is possible for God to separate this position from a quantity remaining in the first position not only through the negation of ‘ubi,’ as He would be able to make some body outside of the universe, and then it could not have this second position; for it would not have some thing continuous with whose parts the parts contained would be commensurate. But even if a terminus is posited to that which is present, a commensuration or coextension might be able to be made with another body of Christ. It would be possible for God to save a quantum and the coexistence of it in relation to another quantum; and yet without this coexistence of the parts of one in relation to the parts of another which this second position says.