Question Eleven
Whether the bodies of the damned, joined to their souls after the judgment, can subsist perpetually unconsumed in fire
It is asked whether the bodies of the damned, joined to their souls after the judgment, will be able to subsist perpetually unconsumed in fire.
To this it seems at first that a negative answer should be given. For, as the Philosopher says in Book VI of the Topics, every suffering that occurs casts down a substance more, and, if continued, at last consumes it.
But after the judgment the human body joined to the soul is not incorruptible by nature, as the celestial bodies are; nor through grace, as was the body of the first parents; nor through glory, as is the body of Christ and will be the bodies of the elect after their resurrection. Therefore it follows that it will at last be destroyed and corrupted by the fire.
It is answered that, concerning this, some have said that the bodies of the damned are not consumed because that burning is intentional and not real.
For an understanding of their words, it must be noted that between the sense of touch and the other senses there is this difference. In the four senses of sight, hearing, taste, and smell, there is no action except intentional action. For sound remains in the ear, and yet the sound does not really alter the ear. Similarly, in sight the species of color is received without the eye really becoming colored, and so with the other two senses.
In the sense of touch, however, both actions occur together, namely real and intentional action. For when an animal grows hot, heat remains really in the animal, and beyond this the soul conceives heat intentionally, as is found in Book II On the Soul. Nor could an animal really perceive the intention of heat unless it also received heat really.
Therefore those persons say that the bodies of the damned are not consumed by the fire because that fire acts upon them intentionally only, and not really. From this the corruption of their bodies is avoided, but their affliction is nevertheless not avoided, because pain is not a lesion but a sensation, that is, the sensitive perception of a lesion, according to Book II On the Soul.
But this is most false. For it would follow that someone felt a burning who in truth was not being burned. It would also follow that there was nothing there except the intention and imagination of excessive heat, and not the real burning of fire, as is apparent in the frenzied, to whom it seems that birds are flying in the air when nevertheless they are not flying. Thus that affliction would be apparent and not existent, which is heretical.
It must therefore be said that the action of heat upon the bodies of the damned is real and intentional, as was said concerning the sense of touch. For those bodies will really be burned. They will not sleep or be carried away in contemplation while they are being burned, but will perceive the lesion and burning, and so much more profoundly insofar as that fire acts as an instrument of divine justice, which requires that punishment correspond to fault and be proportioned to fault, as is said in Revelation 18.
And when it is asked how they are burned continually but are not consumed or corrupted, it is answered and said that the principal and first cause of this is divine power and justice.
For divine justice separates one action from another when according to nature one cannot exist without the other. It separates corruption from continuous burning, although according to nature everything that is burned for a long time is corrupted. This was also done in the bush that Moses saw, Exodus 3, and in the fiery furnace of the three boys, Daniel 3.
Another reason, as though assisting, can be natural: namely, the cessation of the motion of the heaven. When it has ceased, no action or suffering pertaining to the transmutation of nature will be able to exist in bodies.
And thus it is said in reply to the doubt that the cause of the incorruption of the bodies is not nature, grace, or glory, but divine power and the order of his justice, to which the cessation of the motion of heaven will also be obedient.
The authority for this is Gregory on Job 20: “He will pay for all the things he did. He will be tormented and will not be extinguished; he will die and will always live; he will be ended and will remain without end. For one whose life was dead in fault must always live as one dead in punishment.” Thus he.
As regards examples, it must be noted that there is no body that is not finally consumed by fire, although there are certain bodies that remain in fire for an hour or for a short time without lesion or corruption.
Hence Galen says that although a salamander can be in fire for some time, it nevertheless cannot finally continue there without corruption. The same is also evident of ebony.
Augustine, however, in Book XXI of The City of God, in order to explain how the bodies of the damned, though always burned and scorched, are never consumed, with the power of God operating sets down certain things found in nature which continue incorruptibly beneath fire.
First, thyine woods are neither consumed by worms, nor corrupted in water, nor, as is said, burned in fire.
The precious stone called Achades, when placed in fire, remains impassible and incorruptible in the fire. Hence, once kindled, it is extinguished neither by rains nor by winds, and while burning it is never consumed. Hence it is said that at Athens there was a shrine of Venus in which there were lamps made from the said stone, which were never extinguished by any intemperate weather.
Likewise, gold, however long it may be in fire, is neither harmed nor corrupted.
There is a certain kind of twig, Augustine says, like a certain root always burning and never coming to consumption.
The mountains of Etna in Sicily seethe with flames even to this day and continue intact.
In the legend of Saint Nicholas it is related concerning a certain fire that if you place your hand in it, you feel the affliction of its heat, but the hand does not suffer the corruption or destruction of burning.
The heart of a human being who has died by poison always withstands fire unconsumed, as the physicians say.
Charcoal is made imputrescible by the power of fire, so that it never putrefies in water.
Likewise, a brick, formerly soft and soluble, when baked in fire remains incorruptible in water perpetually.
Therefore, what nature attributes to the things said above, and what fire grants to charcoal and brick, much more can God give to the human body.
To the Philosopher’s argument, however, it is said that it is understood of a purely natural cause.
These things are from Thomas in Book IV, distinction 44, Scotus in the same place, and John of Biblia of Bologna in the Quodlibets.