Except that Aquinas appears to invert the standard use of substance vs accidence in his novel formulation. In Greek philosophical parlance, substance was what something continued to be in essence, even though the actual constituents changed. Accidence describes those changing constituents.
For example, you are composed of billions of cells. They change constantly, but you are still recognized as you. So, loosely, your cells are the accidence, the changeable thing flowing through you, and your nature of being you, the constant, is the substance.
Aquinas inverts the changeability factor, by making the substance that which changes, whilst taking the accidence, the flow of change, and making it that which stays the same. The whole thing is a horribly convoluted mess.
Before Aquinas tried to infuse it with Aristotelian respectability, it appears the first person to propose it in terms of the radical realism of the modern view was the 9th Century monk Radbertus. See http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc4.i.xi.xxi.html So the doctrine, in it’s fully articulated form, was a novelty, and as a result Radbertus was hard pressed to explain how his new view was consistent with Augustine’s clear treatment of the Eucharist as a sign and not the thing signified. Obviously, he eventually won enough adherents to bring it mainstream.
But no, the whole doctrine as rendered by Radbertus through Aquinas through Trent is really incoherent. I think a great many Protestants simply reject the unnecessary addition of complexity and take Christ at His word that the purpose of the Lord’s Supper was primarily as a memorial. If He had intended it to be used primarily as a direct means of ingesting the corporeal Christ to obtain salvation, He would have said so. But in the institution of the service, He never said that. He said “do this in remembrance” of Him. So that is the primary, instituted reason. And THAT is coherent, as it reconciles well with the metaphorical presentation in John 6, as well as preserving the locus of salvation in the entire Gospel narrative, not in corporeal consumption of Christ, but in believing in His teaching and His crucified and risen person.
Peace,
SR
“except that Aquinas appears to invert...”
Aquinas inverts nothing. Aquinas explains John 6:53 etc. literally.
How odd that we are symbolic until the literal actual meaning of the BIBLE...the body of Christ is real food.
Get with the literal meaning, stop with the explanations, and accept the straight Truth.