Question Two
Whether the corrupted human body can rise, be vivified, and return numerically the same
It is asked whether this earthen vessel - the human body, capable of being perfected by the soul - after it has been corrupted and reduced to ashes, will rise again and be brought back to life.
In answering, it must be said that many philosophers who maintained the immortality of souls could in no way believe in the vivification of bodies and their resurrection as numerically the same, as Augustine says in Book XII of The City of God, chapter 4. They fortified themselves with arguments, authorities, and examples.
Their first argument is as follows. A natural agent acts only through motion or change. But an interrupted motion and change cannot return numerically the same, for the interruption of a motion and its repetition are incompatible with its continuity and unity, as is evident in the being of the generation of a human being and the being of that same human being when resurrected. Therefore its terminus cannot return numerically the same.
Scotus sets down this argument in Book IV, distinction 43. Master Giles of Rome also does so in his commentary on Book V of the Physics, where the Philosopher gives the example of health continued in the morning but interrupted at midday; he says that it is not numerically the same when restored in the evening.
The second argument proceeds as follows. A thing always acts through some form, for the principle of every operation is some form, according to Book I of On the Heavens. Fire acts through heat; an artisan, however, through the form in his mind. But a corrupted thing has lost that which could be the principle of action. It therefore cannot return: not from itself, since nothing can generate itself and lead itself from potency to act; nor from another, because the thing thus generated would be not only the same in species as the generator, but numerically the same. This argument is Saint Thomas’s in Book IV of Against the Gentiles.
The third argument proceeds as follows. God cannot make past things not to have been past, for God is deprived of this alone, as the Philosopher says in Book VI of the Ethics, from the thought of Agathon: “To make unborn the things which have been done.” Therefore God cannot raise corrupted, past, and dissolved bodies, because he would make not only past things not to have been past, but would make them present.
The same is now proved by authorities. First, it is said in Ecclesiastes 3: “The destruction of human beings and of beasts is one, and the condition of each is equal.” But beasts will not rise; therefore human beings will not rise either.
And Job 14 says: “When a human being has fallen asleep, he will not rise until heaven is altered.” But heaven will never be altered, since it is incorruptible. Therefore, and so forth.
The Philosopher in Book VIII of the Metaphysics denies that wine returned immediately from vinegar into wine is the same either numerically or in species, for first there must be a resolution into common matter.
And Avicenna says in Book III of his Metaphysics that what has been annihilated does not return. But the forms of human bodies are ultimately annihilated, because nothing of them remains except in prime matter. Therefore, and so forth.
Again, it is said in the Post-Predicaments: “There is no return from privation to habit.” According to Scotus, this is understood of a privation following upon a form, not of one preceding a form.
And Pliny says in Book VII, chapter 55, of the Natural History: “The resurrection of bodies is a certain vanity, as is also the device concerning the preservation and revival of human bodies promised by Democritus, who did not himself return to life. And what madness it is that life and death should be repeated!” Thus he speaks.
The point is also evident from an example. Certain nations eat human flesh and are nourished by this food alone. Therefore this flesh will rise in the person whom it nourished and not in the person who was eaten. Therefore at least the resurrection of bodies will not be universal, as Christians say. Thus Thomas, Book IV of Against the Gentiles, chapter 18.
That certain nations eat human flesh is evident from Jerome Against Jovinian, who says: “Why should I speak of the other nations, when, as a young man, I myself saw in Gaul the Scots, a British people, eating human flesh? Although they find herds of swine, cattle, and livestock throughout the forests, they are accustomed to cut off the buttocks of shepherds and the breasts of women and to regard these alone as the delicacies of foods. And the Massagetae and Derbices regard those who die from illness as most wretched; but when their parents and relatives have come to old age, they slaughter and devour them, saying that it is more proper for them to be consumed by themselves than by worms.” Thus Jerome.
But to the contrary stands Innocent III in chapter 1 of the decretal On the Supreme Trinity and the Catholic Faith, where he says: “All will rise with their own bodies which they now bear, so that all may receive according to their own works, whether those works were good or evil.” The same is maintained in many other places of both Testaments and by the faithful sacred doctors.
For the answer it must be known that many among both the ancients and the moderns, Christians in name alone, fell away from the faith because they attended only to the principles of philosophy. Philosophy is founded upon the power of nature, which cannot restore numerically the same thing once it has been corrupted entirely.
For first, it is written in Acts 17 that when Paul preached the resurrection at Athens, certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers said: “What does this sower of words and announcer of new demons intend?” And they led him to the Areopagus. When he again preached the resurrection before King Agrippa, Festus, the greatest philosopher, said with a loud voice: “Are you mad, Paul? Much learning has turned you to madness.” This is in chapter 26 of that book.
The Sadducees also, who did not believe in the resurrection, entered the contest with Christ, setting forth the story of the woman who had seven husbands, Luke 20.
Similarly, Philetus and Hymenaeus denied the resurrection for the same reason, as Paul says in 2 Timothy 2. When the text of John 5 was brought against them - “The hour comes, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live” - they answered that it was understood of the spiritual resurrection of souls in baptism, in faith and obedience. They said that we bring this resurrection about now when, in baptism, we renounce the devil and his pomps and adhere to Christ through faith.
But if it were argued against them as Paul argues in Corinthians 5, saying, “If there is no resurrection of the dead, neither did Christ therefore rise,” they answered that Christ, through a special grace which he alone possessed by reason of his divinity, raised himself from the dead, numerically the same and by his own power. His divinity was never separated from his body in the sepulcher, nor from his soul in limbo, nor from the blood which was then shed upon the cross and upon the earth and taken up again in the resurrection. This can belong to no one other than Christ. Therefore they concede resurrection in Christ but not in others.
When I said here that the divinity was never separated from the body, soul, and blood, this is to be understood according to the hypostatic union. It was indeed separated according to the integral union of the nature by which the soul is united to the body, as Saint Thomas explains in Part III, question 52.
Origen similarly, as Jerome adduces in his letter to Pammachius against John, bishop of Jerusalem, denied the resurrection of bodies on account of Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 15: “Flesh and blood will not possess the kingdom of God.” For if, Origen says, the same bones, flesh, blood, face, and members, and the particles of the entire body, are to rise on the final day, as simple persons and philosarces - that is, lovers of flesh - say, it follows that we shall have to eat, drink, digest, take wives, and procreate children; otherwise these powers would be there in vain.
Marcion, Apelles, Valentinus, and Manes likewise attributed salvation only to souls. They wholly denied the resurrection of the body, that is, of the flesh, conceding it to be only putative and phantastical. They say in vain that we shall rise according to the example of the Lord, since, according to them, the Lord himself also rose in a phantasm; and not only did his resurrection, but even his birth, appear putatively rather than actually occur.
John and Rufinus also say that when the soul, at God’s command, has abandoned this foul and perishable little body, human bodies will return to the ancient substances of their matter: flesh into earth, breath into air, water into moisture, and heat into the ether. For each thing is resolved into those things from which it is composed, according to Book VI of the Physics. They say, however, that the same bodies never return to their former species, nor can they be entirely the same as they were.
They offer the following example. If you pour a sextarius of milk or wine into the sea and then wish to separate again the wine or milk which you poured, you will not be able to do so, although the wine and milk which you poured have not perished. In the same way, they say that the substance of flesh and blood does not indeed perish in the original matters, but can never return to its former species.
Therefore, they say, our bodies will not then recover their former use, so that flesh, bones, blood, and members rise; so that we need a barber for our nails; so that lusts flow out; or so that the lower parts emit excrement. Instead, we shall have another, ethereal and special body. It will not be subject to touch, the eye will not see it, it will not be burdened by weight, and it will be changed according to the variety of places in which it is to be.
These are nearly all the errors of the heretics amid such great diversity concerning the resurrection of bodies. But now the true and Catholic teaching concerning the regeneration of bodies which have fallen into ashes must be set down from Sacred Scripture and the faithful doctors, and then the objections written above will be answered.
For clarity, the following universal conclusion is set down according to the theologians in Book IV of the Sentences, distinctions 47 and 43: all human beings in the world - past, present, and future, good and evil, of whatever sect, state, condition, and age they may have been - will rise on the final day with their own bodies and will render an account of their own deeds.
This conclusion will be proved by arguments, authorities, and examples.
The first argument is taken from the condition of the rational soul. For a form which subsists per se and is ordained to beatitude is perfected through its own potency and through beatitude. But since the human soul is form and act, it has a relation to a potency, or to the body of which it is the act, according to Book II of On the Soul. Therefore it would be necessary to say that the soul, although immortal and incorruptible, remains forever imperfect. This must not be said, because not only does nature abhor the imperfect, but much more does the author of nature, by whose power perfect being is conferred upon every nature. Therefore it is necessary to maintain, since each thing naturally tends toward its perfection, that through the resurrection the soul is again united to its own body, which it perfects.
This argument is confirmed insofar as the soul is ordained to beatitude. It is impossible for any thing to be frustrated of its end even according to nature, for neither God nor nature makes anything in vain, according to Book I of On the Heavens and Book II of On the Soul. But the rational soul is ordained to the attainment of perfect beatitude, which it cannot attain without the body, just as it cannot possess perfect being without it. Therefore, if we wish to preserve the perfection of the rational soul, it is necessary to maintain the resurrection of the body.
Because of this argument almost all the philosophers maintained that souls would return into some bodies, whether rational or irrational, as was adduced above. But Augustine in Book X of The City of God and Jerome say that it is not right that souls which have sinned in certain bodies should be tormented in others, nor does it belong to a just judge that some bodies should have poured out their blood for Christ and other bodies be crowned. Rather, the souls of the just will return to those bodies by whose use and ministry they acquired virtues and knowledge and were raised up toward God. The souls of the evil will return to those bodies with which and in which they sinned, as Augustine says in the place cited above.
The second argument is taken from just divine recompense. It belongs to divine justice to render to each person not only his deserts, but also to render them where and in that in which he merited or demerited. Although merit and sin are principally ascribed to the soul, insofar as free choice and grace - which are principally the cause of merit - consist in it, nevertheless a good or evil act is imputed to the human being alone. For actions belong to supposits, according to Book II of On the Soul. Therefore the whole human being is to be judged or rewarded. But a whole human being is said to exist when the essential parts, namely soul and body, are joined. Therefore, and so forth.
The fact that the soul precedes the body in the reward of paradise or the punishment of hell is because it also precedes the body in merit or sin. For the acts of the soul precede the acts of the body both in time and in worth, as Thomas says in Part I-II, question 7, article 1.
The third argument is taken from the nature of unnatural violence. Violent things cannot be perpetual, according to Book I of On the Heavens. But the separation of the body from the soul is violent, because it is contrary to the natural inclination of the soul. For according to the Philosopher, the soul is naturally inclined to perfect the body with respect to first act, which is the act of the imperfect in relation to the perfect, though not with respect to second act, which is the act of the perfect in relation to some second perfection; for this second inclination is not violent, as Scotus says in Book IV. It follows, therefore, that this violence will at some time be ended, when the soul will again form the body.
From these points it can also be deduced that what fell will rise numerically the same. For it is necessary that the same thing arrive at the end for which it was made and ordained. But the whole human being was made and ordained for beatitude and the final end. Therefore it is necessary that the same whole human being, in soul and body, arrive at that end.
Again, that whose principles are numerically the same is itself numerically the same in its entirety. But in the resurrected person the principles are numerically the same, because the matter of bodies always remains numerically the same, and the soul is likewise the same because it is incorruptible - at least according to those who maintain the unity of the substantial form. Therefore the same human being who fell will rise.
The authorities must now be set down. First, Plato, as Augustine reports in Book XIII, said that after the completed revolution of the outermost sphere, or starry heaven, which takes thirty-six thousand years - for in one hundred years the starry heaven is moved one degree - all the parts of the world will be brought back into being numerically the same, since the same effects follow from the same causes. Hence Plato was said to be going to lecture again and again at Athens, in the same schools and to the same students, after innumerable ages, just as before, at long intervals throughout innumerable ages, he had lectured in that same place and to those same students.
And Plotinus, as Augustine reports in Book XXII of The City of God, chapter 27, said: “Souls cannot be without bodies forever. Therefore, after any long period of time, they will return to bodies.”
And Tertullian says in chapter 47 of the Apologetic: “It is therefore much more worthy of belief that a human being will return from a human being, each for each so that the same quality of soul may be restored to the same condition, because the reason for restoration is the appointment of judgment. It is therefore necessary that the very same person who had existed be presented, so that he may receive from God the judgment of good or contrary merit.” Thus he speaks.
Virgil also says in Book VI:
When all these have rolled the wheel through a thousand years,
God summons them in a great host to the river Lethe,
Forgetful, so that they may revisit the vault above
And begin once more to wish to return to bodies.
Again, Job says in chapter 19: “I know that my redeemer lives” - namely, with me through faith - “and on the final day I shall rise from the earth,” and so forth. Concerning this passage Jerome says in his letter to Paulinus that, to be silent about the others, Job prophesies the resurrection of bodies in such a way that no one has written about it more manifestly or clearly than he.
Third, the same conclusion is commended by examples. Plants which appear dead in the winter revive in the spring as the sun approaches and are clothed with leaves, flowers, and fruits.
Lions are at first born as though deprived of life, but afterwards revive at the roaring of their parents. When a bear is born, it does not generate a living animal but a mass of generated flesh; the female, by licking it, brings it to the form of a true animal.
When the phoenix has reached old age after five hundred years, it constructs a nest or pyre from dry and aromatic woods together with other materials, and voluntarily casts itself into it when it has been kindled either by itself or by the heat of the sun. Once burned, it is reduced to ash, from which a little worm emerges and is afterwards transformed once more into the old phoenix. If the same soul which had been in the first phoenix were in this one, then the phoenix would be as though raised anew numerically the same.
The worms from which silk is made also lie dead throughout the year, but afterwards in spring they revive through the temperate heat of women or men.
The physician Aesculapius reports that once, when he had come upon two serpents fighting each other and one had killed the other, the surviving serpent brought a certain herb, placed it upon the mouth of the dead serpent, and revived it. Having noted the herb, Aesculapius raised three dead persons: namely, the son of King Minos, Hippolytus the son of Theseus, and another person. Hence Ovid says in Book XV of the Metamorphoses…
Nor would life have been restored except by the powerful medicine of Apollo’s offspring,
A life which afterwards, by strong herbs
And Paeonian aid, he received while Dis was indignant.
If, therefore, nature and art can give life, as is evident from the things said above, how much more will divine power be able again to form bodies which have been dissolved and reduced to ashes? It alone kills and gives life, leads down to the underworld and leads back, as the Psalm says.
Now we answer the arguments. To them all Scotus says in Book IV of the Sentences that, although works of nature which have been interrupted cannot return numerically the same through the motion and change of the agent, nevertheless through divine power - which does not act according to the order of natural generation - the entire human being in his wholeness can again be brought to life numerically the same.
Scotus adds, and rightly, that the impossibility of a return numerically the same does not arise from the things that have been made, since the same passive or obediential potency is present in them. It arises instead from the finite natural agent and from the mode of vivifying, since nature as an agent always operates through motion and change.
Thomas, however, together with Master Peter of Tarentaise, says in Book IV that the resurrection of bodies will be partly natural and partly miraculous. Three things concur in it. The first will be the reformation of the bodies; the second, the conjunction of souls and bodies; the third, the inseparability of that conjunction. The first of these is contrary to nature, that is, contrary to the course of nature, and is from God alone. The second is from nature, I say according to the terminus: not effectively, but dispositively. The third is above nature.
And therefore, since in the resurrection of bodies there is more of miracle than of nature, it is necessary to say simply that the resurrection is miraculous and not natural. It is called natural only in this respect: in that resurrection the gathering of the dust, the voice of the trumpet, and things of this kind occur in time - though an imperceptible time - through local motion and the ministry of angels. This will occur naturally. The reformation of the bodies and the conjunction of the essential parts, however, will occur in an instant and by divine power. Through this the answer to the arguments is evident.
Concerning the authorities of all the philosophers, it is said that they are under stood with respect to natural agents of finite power and according to the order of natural generation, but not with respect to God, his power, and his potency, to which nothing is impossible.
Concerning Solomon it is said that he speaks there as the Preacher assuming the person of the foolish.
Concerning Job it is also said that after the judgment heaven will be altered with respect to its efficiency, influence, and motion, but not with respect to its substance.
Concerning the Philosopher and Avicenna it is said that they speak naturally and with respect to the finite power of nature itself.
But just as Pliny thought perversely about the immortality of souls, so he also held damnably that bodies do not rise.
To the example of those who were fed upon human flesh, Thomas replies in Book IV of Against the Gentiles, chapter 81, saying that if eaten flesh was necessary for completing the due quantity of the eater, or for the perfection of specifically human nature - for example, if it became organic members - it will then rise in the eater. But if the flesh belonged to the perfection of the individual, it will then rise in the one generated. Hence Adam’s rib will rise in Eve, and seed will rise in the one generated and not in the generator.
But if someone was nourished upon human flesh alone, that which he drew from his generating parents will rise in the eater, and what is lacking will be supplied by the omnipotence of the Creator.
Hence Augustine says in Book XXII of The City of God: “Far be it that, for bodies to be raised and restored to life, the omnipotence of the Creator should be unable to recall all the things which any beast or fire has consumed, or which have collapsed into dust and ash, or have been dissolved into moisture or exhaled into the air. Far be it that any recess or secret place of nature should receive something withdrawn from our senses in such a way that it either escapes the knowledge of the Creator of all things or flees his power.” Thus he speaks.
To what the Epicureans, Stoics, and Festus the philosopher said to the Apostle Paul in Acts, the answer is evident from the things said above. To the Sadducees Christ replied in Luke 20 that in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage.
To the other claim, that of Philetus and Hymenaeus, Thomas replies in Book IV of Against the Gentiles, in the place cited above, that Christ foretold both resurrections. He foretold the spiritual resurrection when he said: “Amen, amen, I say to you, the hour comes, and now is, when the dead,” and so forth. He foretold the bodily resurrection when he said: “The hour comes in which all who are in the tombs will hear the voice of the Son of God.” Souls are not in tombs, but bodies are.
To the passage on which Origen relied, “Flesh and blood will not possess the kingdom of God,” it is said that “flesh” is there taken for a person living carnally, who will not possess the kingdom of God, as Thomas says in his commentary on Paul.
And although the sensitive powers of glorified bodies will possess their act and object, as will be adduced below, it will not on that account be necessary for them to eat and drink; it is sufficient that they possess judgment concerning flavors. Nor will there be children there, because there will be no marriages there, as has been said.
What Marcion and Apelles say, that Christ rose in a phantasm, is false. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as Christ showed himself to possess in the final chapter of Luke.
As to what John and Rufinus say: we concede the resolution of bodies into those things from which they were composed. But their claim that those bodies cannot return numerically the same by the power of God must be denied.
Finally, as to what they say - that if the resurrection occurs, our former bodies will recover their use, insofar as it will be necessary for the humors, namely blood, choler, phlegm, melancholy, sweat, urine, and seed, to rise; that it will also be necessary for lusts to flow out, nails to be cut, excrement to be emitted, and so forth - it is answered that in a human being there is a twofold humor.
One humor is superfluous to the body itself, such as sweat, urine, excrement, seed which is emitted through the act of generation, and milk through the act of the nutritive power. No humor of this kind will rise, because these humors do not belong to the perfection of the person rising.
Another humor is not superfluous to the individual himself but is ordained to perfection, such as blood and the other three humors. These will rise. For after the resurrection the individual parts of the body will be stabilized in their own forms, as is said in Book I of the Sentences.
Nails and hair, however, will rise not as things principally intended, but secondarily, insofar as the soul uses them for the preservation of the principal members - namely, the feet, head, and hands.
Nor will it be necessary after the judgment to cut the nails, and so forth, because all these things now occur through the motion of the first mobile. That motion will then cease, not naturally, as some say, but by the divine will. Just as it is now moved through the influence of the intelligence which moves it, so at that time its motion will cease at God’s command through the intelligence ceasing to move it.