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 BILOCATION

568

BINATION

(Paris, 1577). (8) "Locutiones GracBe" (Paris, 1578). (9) "Opuscula aliqua S. Joannis Chrysos- tomi" (Paris, 1581). (10) "S. Isidori PelusiotfE epis. libri tres" (Paris, 1585). (11) "S. Epiphanii opera" (Paris, 1612).

ZiEcELBAUER, Hist. tH III. O. .S. B. (.A.ugsburg. 1754), III, 353; IV, 90. 99, 107; Nicehox. Manoires. XXII. 187; Dom Fra.vcois, BibL geti. des ecrivains de iordrede S. BenoU (Bouil- ion. 1777), I, 126; Dupin, Nouv. Bibl. des auteurs ecd. (.Amster- dam. 1710), XVI, 123; HuET, De clar. interpr., 261; Gallia rhriiliana (Paris, 1720), II, 1296, 1421; N.\t.\lis .Alexander, Hisl. Ecd. (Venice, 1771), XVII, 335; P. G.. XXV, prol.

Thoil\s estreich.

Bilocation (Latin bU, twice, and locatio, place). I. The question whether the same finite being (es- peciallj a body) can be at once in two (bilocation) or more (replication, multilocation) totally different places grew out of the Catholic doctrine on the Eucharist, .\ccording to this Christ is truly, really, and substantially present in every consecrated Host wheresoever located. In the endeavour to connect this fact of faith with the other conceptions of the Catholic mind theologians make the. following distinc- tions: (1) The place of a body is the surface of the tody or todies immediately surrounding and in con- tact with tlio located body. (2) A physical tody is in place commensurably (circumscriptively) inas- much as the indi\'idual portions of its exterior sur- faces answer singly to the corresponding portions of the immediately en\-ironing surfaces of the body or bodies tliat constitute its place. (.3) .\ being is defin- itively in place when it is entire in every portion of the space it occupies. This is the mode of location proper to unembodied spirits and to the human soul in the organi-sm whereof it is the "substantial form", i. e. the actuating and vitalizing principle. A spirit cannot, of course, be in loco circumscriptively since, ha\nng no integrant parts, it cannot be in extensional contact with the surrounding dimensions. It may be said, therefore, to locate itself by its spiritual activity (will) and rather to occupy than to be occupied by place, and consequently to be virtually rather than formally in loco. Such a mode of location cannot be natural to a physical body. Whether it can be so absolutely, supernaturally, miraculously, by an inter- ference on the part of Omnipotence will be considered below. (4) A mixed mode of location would be that of a being which is circumscriptively in one place (as is Christ in heaven), and definitively (sacramentaUy) elsewhere (as is Christ in the consecrated Host).

II. That bilocation (multilocation) is physically impossible, that is. contrarj' to all the conditions of matter at present known to us, is the practically imaniraous teaching of Catholic philosophers in ac- cordance with universal experience and natural sci- ence. As to the absolute or metaphysical impossi- bility, that is, whether bilocation involves an intrinsic contradiction, so that by no exertion even of Omnipo- tence could the same bodj' be at once in wholly different places — to this question the foregoing dis- tinctions are pertinent. (1) Catholic philosophers maintain that there is no absolute impossibility in the same body being at once circumscriptively in one place and definitively elsewhere (mixed mode of lo- cation). The basis of tliis opinion is that local ex- tension is not essential to material substance. Tlie latter is and remains what it is wheresoever located. Local extension is consequent on a naturally univer- sal, but still not essentially necessary, property of material substance. It is the immediate resultant of the "iiuantitj'" inherent in a body's material com- position and consists in a contactual relation of the body with tlie circimianibicnt surfaces. Being a re- sultant or quasi effect of (juantity it may be sus- pended in its actualization; at least such suspension involves no ab.solute impossibility and may therefore be effected by Omnipotent agency. Should, there- fore, God choose to deprive a tody of its e.xtensional

relation to its place and thus, so to speak, delocalize the material substance, the latter would to quasi spir- itualized and would thus, besides its natural circum- scriptive location, be capable of receiving definitive and consequently multiple location; for in this ease the obstacle to bilocation, \'iz., actual local exten.sion, would have been removed. Replication does not in- volve multiplication of the tody's substance but only the multiplication of its local relations to other bodies. The existence of its substance in one place is con- tradicted only by non-existence in that same place, but says nothing per se about existence or non-ex- istence elsewhere. (2) If mixed replication involves no ab.solute contradiction, definitive replication a for- tiori does not. (3) Regarding the absolute possi- bility of a body being present circumscriptively in more than one place, St. Thomas, Vasquez, Silv. Maurus, and many others deny such possibility. The instances of bQocation narrated in fives of the saints can be explained, they hold, by phantasmal replica- tions or by aerial materializations. Scotus, Bellar- niine, Suarez, DeLugo, Franzehn, and many others defend the possibility of circumscriptive replication. Their arguments as well as the various subtle ques- tions and difficulties pertinent to the whole subject will be found in works cited below.

Balmes. Fundamental Philosophy (New York. 1S64); D.ALGAiRNS. The Holy Communion (London, 1S68); Faber, The Bl. Sacrament (Baltimore, 1855): Gotberlet, Die Meta-

£hysik (Munster, 1880): Nys, Cosmologie (Louvain, 1906); rA Farge. L'idee de continu (Paris, 1894): Pesch, Philosophic Nat. (Freibxirg, 1897); Ubraburu, Cosmologia (Valladolid, 1892).

F. P. Siegfried.

Bination, the offering up of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass t\\ice on the same day by the same celebrant.

It is believed by some (Magani, L'Antica Liturgia Romana, Pt. I, p. 296, Pt. II, p. 187) that even from Apostolic times private Masses were celebrated when- ever convenient. Be this as it may, it is certain that in the first years of Christianity public Masses were offered on Sundays only; later, on Wednesdays and Fridays also (Tertullian, De Oratione, xiv). To these three days Saturday was added, especially in the East (St. Basil, Ep., cclxxxix). St. Augustine, who died in 430, assures us (Ep. liv.) that while, in his time, Mass was celebrated only on Sundays in some places, in others on Saturdays and Sundays, it was nevertheless in many places customary to have the Holy Sacrifice daily (St. August.. Sermo Iviii, De Orat. Domin.), as in Africa (St. August., op. cit.), in Spain (Council of Toledo, year 400), in Northern Italy (St. Ambrose, Sermo xxv), in Constantinople (St. John Chrysos. in Ep. ad Ephesios), as well as elsewhere. The daily Mass became universal atout the close of the sixth century. Nay more, it was not long before priests began to celebrate the Holj' Sacrifice two, three, or more times daily, according to their o«"n de- sire, tUl the sacred canons (Gratian, De Consecr., dist. i, can. liii) put a limit to their devotion in this regard, and Alexander II (d. 1073) decreed that a priest should be content with sajang Mass once a day, unless it should be necessary to offer a second — never more — for the dead. Notwithstanding this legisla- tion, the practice continued of celebrating oftener on some of the greater feasts: thus on the first of January one Mass was said of the Octave of the Nativity of Christ, another in honour of the Blessed Virgin; three Masses were said by bishops on Holy Thursday, in one of which sinners were reconciled to the Church, a second for the Consecration of the OUs, and a third in keeping with the feast; two Masses were said on the Vigil of the Ascension, as well as on the feast itself; three Masses were cele- brated on Easter, and three also on the Nati\-ity of St. John Baptist. On the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul the pope said one Mass in the basilica of St. Peter and a second in that of St. Paul. Finally.