new body; all agreeing, that two bodies could not be together, τὸ γὰρ πλῆρες ἀδύνατον εἶναι δέξασθαι· εἰ δὲ δέξαιτο καὶ δύο, ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ ἐνδέχοιτο, καὶ ὁπόσα οὖν ἅμα εἶναι σώματα". All agreed that two bodies could not be together, and that the first body must be thrust forth by the intromission of the second.

Quæ, si non esset inane,

Non tam solicito motu privata carerent,
Quàm genita omninò nulla ratione fuissent;
Undique materies quoniam stipata quiesset1.

For the contrary says, that two bodies are one. For the proper dimensions of a quantitative body are length, breadth, and thickness: Now the extension of the body in these dimensions is measured by the place: for the place is nothing else, but the measuring and limiting of the thing so measured and limited by these measures and limitations of length, breadth, and thickness. Now if two bodies could be in one place, then they must both have one superficies, one length, one thickness; and then either the other hath none, or they are but one body and not two; or else, though they be two bodies, and have two superficies, yet these two superficies are but one: all which are contradictions. Bellarmine says, 'that to be co-extended to a place, is separable from a magnitude or body, because it is a thing that is extrinsical and consequent to the intrinsical extension of parts, and being later than it, is by Divine power separable.'-But this is as very a sophism as all the rest. For if whatever in nature is later than the substance, be separable from it, then fire may be without heat, or water' without moisture; a man can be without time;-for that also is in nature after his essence; and he may be without a faculty of will or understanding, or of affections, or of growing to his state, or being nourished: and then he will be a strange man, who will neither have the power of will or understanding, of desiring or avoiding, of nourishment or growth, or any thing, that can distinguish him from a beast, or a tree, or a stone. For these are all

& Arist. lib. iv. φυσικ, ἀκροάσε

b Lucret. lib. i. 342. Eichstadt, p. 17. 1 Σωμάτων γὰς ἰδιόν ἐστι τὸ ἐκτείνεσθαι. St. Basil. Seleuc. homil. in Θεοτοκ. * De Euch. lib. iii. c. 5. Sect. Secundò observandum.

Quod non possit alterum sine altero intelligi, quemadmodum neque aqua sine humectatione, neque ignis sine calore. Irenæus, lib. ii. c. 14.

later than the essence, for they are essential emanations from it. Thus also quantity can be separated from a substantial body, if every thing that is later than the form, can be separated from it. And therefore nothing of this can be avoided by saying, to fill a place is an act"; but these other instances. are faculties and powers, and, therefore, the act may better be impeded by Divine power, the thing remaining the same, than by the ablation of faculties. This, I say, cannot justify the trick. 1. Because 'to be extended into parts' is as much an act as 'to be in a place;' and yet that is inseparable from magnitude, and so confessed by Bellarmine. 2. To be in a place is not an act at all, any more than to be created, to be finite, to be limited; and it was never yet heard of, that ́esse locatum,' or 'esse in loco' was reducible to the predicament of action. 3. An act is no more separable than a faculty is, when the act is as essential as the faculty; now for a body to be in a place, is as essential to a body as it is for a man to have understanding; for this is confessed to be separable by Divine power, and the other cannot be more; it cannot be naturally. 4. If to be in a place be an act, it is no otherwise an act, than it is an act for a father actually to have a son, and, therefore, is no more separable this than that; and you may as well suppose a father and no child, as a body and no place. 5. It is a false proposition to say, that place is extrinsical to a quantitative body; and it relies upon the definition Aristotle gives of it in the fourth book of his physics, 'that place is the superficies of the ambient body;' which is as absurd in nature as any thing can be imagined; for then a stone, in the bottom of a river, did change his place (though it lie still) in every instant, because new water still washes it; and by this rule it is necessary (against Aristotle's great grounds) that some quantitative bodies should not be in a place, or else that quantitative bodies were categorimatically infinite. For either there is no end, but body incloses body for ever, or else the ultimate or utmost body is not inclosed by any thing,—and so cannot be in a place. To which add this; that if Epicurus's opinion were true, and that there were some spaces empty, which, at

Bellar. de Euch. lib. iii. c. 7. Sect. Ad secundum Petr.

Lib. 3. Euch. c. 5. Sect. Secund. obser.

Ibid. c. 7. Sect. Deinde etiam.

least by a Divine power, can become true, and he can take the air out from the inclosure of four walls; in this case, if you will suppose à man sitting in the midst of that room, either that man were in no place at all, which were infinitely absurd; or else (which indeed is true) circumscription or superficies were not the essence of a place. Place, therefore, is nothing but the space, to which quantitative bodies have essential relation and finition: that, where they consist, and by which they are not infinite: and this is the definition of place, which St. Austin gives in his fourth book Exposit. of Genes. ad literam, chap. viii.'

30. God can do what he please, and he can reverse the laws of his whole creation, because he can change or annihilate every creature; or alter the manners and essences'; but the question now is, what laws God hath already established, and whether or no essentials can be changed, the things remaining the same? that is, whether they can be the same, when they are not the same? He that says, God can give to a body all the essential properties of a spirit, says true, and confesses God's omnipotency; but he says also, that God can change a body from being a body, to become a spirit; but if he says, that remaining a body it can receive the essentials of a spirit, he does not confess God's omnipotency, but makes this article difficult to be believed, by making it not to work wisely, and possibly. God can do all things; but are they undone, when they are done? that is, are the things changed in their essentials, and yet remain the same? then how are they changed, and then what hath God done to them?

31. But as to the particular question. To suppose a body not co-extended to a place, is to suppose a man alive not co-existent to time; to be in no place, and to be in no time, being alike possible and this intrinsical extension of parts is as inseparable from the extrinsical, as an intrinsical duration is from time. Place and time being nothing but the essential manners of material complete substances, these cannot be supposed such, as they are, without time and place: because quantitative bodies, in their very formality, suppose that; for place without body in it, is but a notion in logic, but when it is a reality, it is a 'ubi,' and time is 'quando;'

P Paschasius Diaconus Eccles. Rom. A. D. 500. lib. i. de Spir. S. cap. 12.

and a body supposed abstractly from place, is not real but intentional, and in notion only, and is in the category of substance, but not of quantity. But it is a strange thing, that we are put to prove the very principles of nature, and first rudiments of art, which are so plain that they can be understood naturally, but by all devices of the world cannot be made dubitable.

32. But against all the evidence of essential and natural reason, some overtures of Scripture must be pretended. For that two bodies can be in one place appears, because Christ came from his mother's womb, it being closed; into the assembly of the apostles, "the doors being shut;" out of the grave, the stone not being rolled away; and ascended into heaven, through the solid orbs of all the firmament. Concerning the first and the last, the Scripture speaks nothing, neither can any man tell whether the orbs of heaven be solid or fluid, or which way Christ went in. But of the heavens opening' the Scripture sometimes makes mention. And the prophet David spake in the spirit, saying, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in."-The stone of the sepulchre was removed by an angel; so saith St. Matthew 9. But why should it be supposed the angel rolled it away after Christ was risen,—or if he did, why Christ did not remove it himself (who loosed all the bands of death, by which he was held), and there leave it when he was risen? or if he had passed through, and wrought a miracle, why it should not be told us, or why it should not remain as a testimony to the soldiers and Jews, and convince them the more, when they should see the body gone, and yet their seals unbroken? or if it were not, how we should come to fancy it was so, I understand not; neither is there ground for it. There is only remaining that we account concerning Jesus's entering into the assembly of the apostles, "the doors being shut:" To this I answer, that this infers not a penetration of bodies, or that two bodies can be in one place. 1. Because there are so many ways of effecting it without that impossibility. 2. The door might be made to yield to his Creator as easily as water, which is fluid, be made firm under his feet; for

St. Matth. xxviii. 2.

consistence or lability are not essential to wood and water': For water can naturally be made consistent, as when it is turned to ice; and wood, that can naturally be petrified, can, upon the efficiency of an equal agent, be made thin, or labile, or inconsistent. 3. This was done on the same day, in which the sea yielded to the children of Israel, that is, the seventh day after the passover, and we may allow it to be a miracle, though it be no more than that of the waters, that is, as these were made consistent for a time,

Suppositumque rotis solidum mare';

So the doors apt to yield to a solid body.

possint tamen omnia reddi

Mollia, quæ fiunt, aer, aqua, terra, vapores,

Quo pacto fiant, et quâ vi quomque gerantur.

4. How easy was it for Christ to pass his body through the pores of it and the natural apertures, if he were pleased to unite them, and thrust the matter into a greater consolidation? 5. Wood, being reduced to ashes, possesses but a little room; that is, the crass impenetrable parts are but few, the other apt for cession, which could easily be disposed by God, as he pleased. 6. The words in the text are nɛxλɛiσμévwv Tav Jugav, in the past tense; the gates or "doors having been shut;" but that they were shut in the instant of his entry, it says not; they might, if Christ had so pleased, have been insensibly opened, and shut in like manner again; and if the words be observed, it will appear that St. John" mentioned the shutting the doors in relation to the apostles' fear; not to Christ's entering: he intended not (so far as appears) to declare a miracle. 7. But if he had, there are ways enough for him to have entered strangely, though he had not entered impossibly. Vain, therefore, is the fancy of those men, who think a weak conjecture able to contest against a perfect, natural impossibility. For when a thing can be done without a penetration of dimensions, and yet by a power great enough

Γ 'Αμα γὰρ ὑπεξιέναι, ἀλλήλοις ἐνδέχεται, οὐδενὸς ὄντος διαστήματος χωριστοῦ παρὰ τὰ σώματα τὰ κινούμενα· καὶ τοῦτο δῆλον καὶ ἐν ταῖς τῶν συνεχῶν δίναις, ὥσπερ καὶ ἐν ταῖς τῶν ὑγρῶν. Arist. lib. 4. φύσιν. ἀκροασ. c. 8. Casaub. p. 223. C.

Juv. x. 176. Ruperti.

Lucret. i. 570. Eichstadt, p. 25.