Tractatus de apostasia

XXX INTRODUCTION.
identified with the bread, 'impanated'; still less, become an accident
(pp. io3— 110). The same objection as before noticed recurs: is the
world Christ's Body? Wyclif considers it prudent to believe Scripture
and go no farther. Perhaps, after the Judgment, all things will be
Christ — figuratively. As for bilocation, he denies its possibility; the
same thing cannot be in two places at once. St. Ambrose could not
have been at St. Martin's funeral and at Milan at the same time.
Can the soul be at once in several places? It is doubtful; at any
rate, matter cannot. True, great doctors have thought differently; but
they have also contradicted one another. Wyclif's rule is to reject
any proposition, not only when manifestly absurd, but when not
proved by reason or revelation to be true. For that second reason,
he would deny that the soul can exist in two places at once (pp. 110
to i 1 5). But, it is objected, is implies identity between subject and
predicate. Anything then would be identically Christ, since everything
is Christ figuratively. Wyclif answers, admitting generic but denying
numerical identity; the latter would be a = a, so that there can be no
possible difference between the two. But Baptist is Elias, in so far as he
represents him: no farther. The lowest degree of this identity
is that
given by natural signs, as smoke signifying fire; the next, by a supernatural
institution, as the Paschal Lamb; the highest, by the miraculous
coexistence of the thing signified; which is the Eucharist (pp. i i 5—
1 18).
I confess I do not see how, in Wyclif's theory, this coexistence is
miraculous; but the unanimous language of the early Fathers whom he
so much esteems, seems to have determined him to bring in a miracle.
Ch. X. A fresh debate commences here, on the essence or
quiddity of the Sacrament; with, however, few points
that have not
been touched upon already. The exceptions are: I st the statement that
when an accident is the subject of other accidents, it necessarily
becomes a substance (p. 121); which Wyclif might have developed into
a much better and stronger argument; and, 2 nd the answer to an
objection taken from St. Thomas, concerning the Eucharistic fast. If
the bread remains, how can a priest say two Ma'sses in one day,
since he must say the second fasting? The difficulty is so weak that
it is surprising Aquinas should have made use of it; but Wyclif
avails himself of the occasion to say boldly that the great point is
to fast from sin (pp. 1 23 — 124).