Summa Contra Gentiles--Books 1, 2 3 & 4, by Thomas Aquinas

That's French for "the ancient system," as in the ancient system of feudal privileges and the exercise of autocratic power over the peasants. The ancien regime never goes away, like vampires and dinosaur bones they are always hidden in the earth, exercising a mysterious influence. It is not paranoia to believe that the elites scheme against the common man. Inform yourself about their schemes here.

Re: Summa Contra Gentiles--Books 1, 2 3 & 4, by Thomas Aquin

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Part 10 of 13

Chapter 64: SOLUTION OF THE OBJECTIONS MADE REGARDING PLACE

[1] Now, after we have considered these points about the mode of conversion, the way to solve the other arguments is opened up to us somewhat. For it has now been said that the place in which the sacrament is is ascribed to the body of Christ by reason of the measurements of the bread remaining after the conversion of the substance of the bread into the body of Christ. And in accord with this, that which is of Christ must be in the place mentioned so far as the essentials of the conversion mentioned require it.

[2] Consideration, then, must be given this: There is something in this sacrament by force of the conversion and something by natural accompaniment. Now, by force of the conversion there is in the sacrament that in which the conversion is directly terminated: so, under the appearances of bread there is the body of Christ into which the substance of the bread is converted, as is clear from the words of the consecration when one says: “This is My body”; in like manner under the appearance of wine there is the blood of Christ when one says: “This is the chalice of My blood,” and so forth. But by natural accompaniment all the other things are there in which the conversion is not terminated, but which are, nonetheless, really conjoined to that in which the conversion is terminated. For it is clear that the conversion of the bread is not terminated in the divinity of Christ, nor in His soul; nonetheless, under the appearance of bread the soul of Christ is there, and His divinity by reason of the union of each of these to the body of Christ.

[3] However, if in the three-day period of the death of Christ this sacrament had been celebrated, the soul of Christ would not have been under the appearance of bread, because it was not really united to His body; in the same way, there would not have been blood under the appearance of bread, nor body under the appearance of wine, by reason of the separation of each of these in death. But now, since the body of Christ in His nature is not without blood, His body and blood are contained under each appearance: under the appearance of bread the body is contained by force of conversion, the blood by natural accompaniment; under the appearance of wine the converse is true.

[4] The same points give a solution to the objection about the inequality of the body of Christ to the place of the bread. For the substance of the bread is directly converted into the substance of the body of Christ, but the dimensions of the body of Christ are in the sacrament by natural accompaniment, and not from force of conversion, since the dimensions of the bread remain. In this way, then, the body of Christ is not related to this place with its own dimensions as medium, so that the place need be equated to those dimensions, but His body is here with the persisting dimensions of the bread as medium, and to these the place is equated.

[5] Therein, also, the solution is open to what was objected to about the plurality of places. For the body of Christ in His own dimensions exists in one place only, but through the mediation of the dimensions of the bread passing into it its places are as many as there are places in which this sort of conversion is celebrated. For it is not divided into parts, but is entire in every single one; every consecrated bread is converted into the entire body of Christ.

Chapter 65: SOLUTION OF THE OBJECTIONS REGARDING ACCIDENTS

[1] Thus, then, with the difficulty solved arising from place, one ought to look into the one which seems to arise from the accidents which remain. For it cannot be denied that the accidents of bread and wine remain, since the senses infallibly point this out.

[2] Neither the body of Christ nor His blood is: affected by these accidents, because without changing Him this could not be; nor has He the capacity for such accidents. Much the same can he said of the substance of the air. Hence, one concludes that they are without a subject. Nevertheless, they are without a subject in the manner mentioned: namely, that only the quantity tending to measure subsists without a subject,.and this supplies a subject to the other accidents.

[3] Neither is it impossible that by the divine power an accident can subsist without a subject. For one ought to make the same judgment about the creation of things and about their conservation in being. The divine power, of course, can produce the effects of any second causes whatever without the second causes themselves; so it was able to form a man without seed, and to cure a fever without the operation of nature. And this happens by reason of the infinity of His power, and be, cause He grants to all second causes their power to act. Wherefore, also, He can conserve the effects of second causes in being without the second causes. And in this way in this sacrament He conserves an accident in being, even after the removal of the substance which was conserving it. And this, indeed, can especially be said of the quantities tending to measure; these even the Platonists held to subsist of themselves, for this reason: They are separated in the understanding. But it is clear that God can do more in operation than the intellect can in apprehension.

[4] Of course, the quantity tending to measure has among the remaining accidents this property: that it is in itself individuated. And the reason is this: Position, which is “the order of parts in the whole,” is essentially included in this quantity, for quantity is “that which has position.” But wherever a diversity of parts of the same species is understood, individuation is necessarily understood, for things which are of the same species are not multiplied except in the individual; accordingly many whitenesses cannot be apprehended except as they are in different subjects, but many lines can be apprehended, even if they are considered in themselves. For diversity of site which is in the line of itself is sufficient for the plurality of lines. And because only the quantity tending to measure has in its essentials a possible source of the multiplication of individuals in the same species, the first root of this kind of multiplication seems to be from measurement, because even in the genus of substance the multiplication is made according to the division of matter. And this could not even be understood save by the consideration of matter under measurements, for with the quantity gone all substance is indivisible, as is clear from the Philosopher in Physics I [2].

[5] It is, of course, manifest that in the other genera of accidents, individuals are multiplied in the same species on the part of the subject. And thus one is left to conclude: Since we hold that in this sacrament the measurements subsist of themselves and that the other accidents are founded on these as on a subject, we need not say that accidents of this kind are not individuated; for there persists in the measurements themselves the root of individuation.

Chapter 66: SOLUTION OF THE OBJECTIONS REGARDING ACTION AND PASSION

[1] After the consideration of these points, one should consider those belonging to the fourth difficulty. And concerning these there is, indeed, something which can be dealt with easily; something else, however, offers a greater difficulty.

[2] The fact that in this sacrament the same actions appear which previously appeared in the substance of the bread and wine (they change the senses in the same way, let us say; they even in the same way alter the surrounding air, or anything else, by odor or color) now seems fitting enough from what has been set down. For we said that in this sacrament the accidents of the bread and wine persist. And among these are the sensible qualities which are the principles of actions of this sort.

[3] Again, concerning some passions (those, for instance, which take place in alterations of accidents of this kind), the difficulty which occurs is not so great, if the premises be granted. For, since it was premised that the other accidents are based on the measurements as on a subject, the alteration of the other accidents can be considered in the same way with respect to this subject as they would be if the substance were there; for example, if the wine had been warmed and became cold, or if it should change its flavor, or something of this kind.

[4] But a very great difficulty appears regarding the generation and corruption which seems to take place in this sacrament. For if one were to use this sacramental food in large quantity he could be sustained, and by the wine even made drunk, as the Apostle has it: "One indeed is hungry and another is drunk" (1 Cor. 11:21). And these things could not take place unless, from this sacrament, flesh and blood were generated, for nourishment is converted into the substance of the one nourished. Some may, of course, say that a man is not nourished by this sacramental food, but only invigorated and refreshed, as when one is invigorated by the fragrance of wine. But this invigoration can happen for an hour; it does not, of course, suffice to sustain a man if he remains long without food. But a trial would readily show that a man can be sustained for a long time by the sacramental food.

[5] It also seems a wonder why they should deny that a man can be nourished by this sacramental food, refusing to this sacrament the possible conversion into flesh and blood, when it appears to the senses that by putrefaction or combustion it is turned into another substance; namely, dust and ashes.

[6] And this, indeed, seems nonetheless difficult, since it does not seem possible to make a substance out of accidents; nor is it right to believe that the substance of Christ's body—which is not capable of suffering—be converted into another substance.

[7] However, if one wishes to say that as the bread is miraculously converted into the body of Christ, so the accidents are converted miraculously into substance: first, indeed, this does not seem suitable for a miracle, the putrefaction of this sacrament, or its dissolution by combustion; and then that putrefaction and combustion are found taking place in this sacrament in the usual order of nature, which is not usually the case in things done miraculously.

[8] To remove this hesitation a certain famous position was invented, which is held by many. They hold thus: When this sacrament happens to be converted into flesh or blood by nutrition, or into ashes by combustion or putrefaction, the accidents are not converted into substance; nor is the substance of the body of Christ converted; but by a divine miracle the substance of the bread which was there previously returns, and from it are generated the things into which we find the sacrament converted.

[9] But this, to be sure, simply cannot stand. For we have shown above that the substance of the bread is converted into the substance of the body of Christ. But that which is converted into another cannot return unless, conversely, that other be reconverted into it. If, therefore, the substance of the bread returns, it follows that the substance of the body of Christ is reconverted into bread. And this is absurd. What is more, if the substance of the bread returns, it must return either while the appearances of bread persist or when the appearances of bread are already destroyed. In fact, while the appearances of bread persist, the substance of the bread cannot return, because, as long as the appearances remain, thereunder remains the substance of the body of Christ; it would follow, therefore, that simultaneously present there would be both the substance of the bread and the substance of the body of Christ. In like manner, also, if the appearances of the bread are corrupted, the substance of the bread cannot return-for this reason: The substance of the bread is not without its own appearances; and for this reason, as well: When the appearances of the bread are destroyed, another substance has already been generated, and it was for the generation of this second substance that (so they were holding) the substance of the bread should return.

[10] Therefore, it seems better to say that in the consecration itself, just as the substance of the bread is miraculously converted into the body of Christ so this is miraculously conferred on the accidents: that they subsist which is proper to substance, and, as a consequence, are able to do and to suffer the things which the substance could do and suffer if the substance were present. And so, without a new miracle, they are able to inebriate and to nourish, to be burned and to rot, in the same way and order they would if the substance of the bread and wine were present.

Chapter 67: SOLUTION OF THE OBJECTIONS REGARDING FRACTION

[1] It remains to speculate on the points which belong to the fifth difficulty. It is manifest, of course, from the aforesaid that we can set down as subject of the breaking the dimensions subsisting of themselves. For all that, when dimensions of this kind are broken, the substance of the body of Christ is not broken, because the whole body of Christ remains under every portion.

[2] Now, to be sure, although this appears difficult, it has an explanation in accord with the things premised. For we said above that the body of Christ is in this sacrament in His substance by force of the sacrament, but the dimensions of the body of Christ are there by their natural accompaniment to the substance; the situation here is contrary to the one in which a body is naturally in a place, for the natural body is in place with those dimensions mediating by which it is measured in the place.

[3] But something substantial is related to that in which it is in one way, and something quantified is related in another way. For the quantified whole is in some whole so that the whole is not in the part, but the part is in the part as the whole is in the whole. Hence, too, a natural body is thus in the whole place a whole which is not whole in every part of the place, but the parts of the body are fitted to the parts of the place. This is because it is in the place by -the mediating dimensions. Of course, if a substantial thing is whole in some whole, it is also whole in every part thereof. So, the whole nature and species of water is in every part of water, and the whole soul is in every part of the body.

[4] Since, then, the body of Christ is in the sacrament by reason of His substance into which the substance of the bread—the dimensions thereof remaining—has been converted, as the whole species of bread was in every part of its dimensions, so the entire body of Christ is in every part of the same dimensions. Therefore, that breaking or division does not touch on the body of Christ so as to be in it as in a subject, but the subject thereof is the persisting dimensions of the bread or wine; so also we called those dimensions the subject of the other accidents therein persisting.

Chapter 68: SOLUTION OF THE AUTHORITY INTRODUCED

[1] With these difficulties removed, then, it is clear that what ecclesiastical tradition holds about the sacrament of the altar contains nothing impossible for God, who can do all things.

[2] Neither is there anything contrary to the teaching of the Church in the word which our Lord spoke to His disciples, who seemed scandalized by His teaching: “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:64). For by these words He did not give them to understand this: in this sacrament His true flesh was not being given to the faithful to eat, but that it is not given to be eaten in an ordinary manner, with the result that, like earthly foods it might be received as macerated in its own appearances. He gave them to understand that it is received in a certain spiritual fashion, apart from the manner of earthly carnal foods.

Chapter 69: ON THE KIND OF BREAD AND WINE THAT ARE TO BE USED IN THIS SACRAMENT

[1] Now, because, as was said above, this sacrament is accomplished with bread and wine, those conditions necessarily must be observed to, accomplish this sacrament therefrom which belong to the essentials of bread and wine. But one calls wine only that liquid which is pressed from grapes, and one calls bread, properly speaking, only that which is made from grain wheat. But other so-called breads, for lack of wheat bread and to supplement it, have come into use; in a like way, other liquids have come into use with wine. Hence, neither from some other bread nor from some other wine could this sacrament be accomplished, especially not if the mixture of foreign matter with bread or wine be so considerable that the species is lost.

[2] However, if things happen to this sort of bread and wine which do not touch the essentials of bread and wine, manifestly one may pass these things over, and truly accomplish the sacrament. Wherefore, since to be leavened or unleavened is not essential to bread-rather, whichever of the two is the case, the species of bread is preserved-the sacrament can be accomplished from either of the two breads. This is the reason why different churches have different customs in this matter, but each of the two can be in harmony with the significance of the sacrament. For, as Gregory puts it in his Register: “The Roman Church offers unleavened bread because our Lord took on flesh without any mixture. But the rest of the Churches offer leavened bread, since the Word of God was clothed with flesh, and is true God and true man, just as the leaven is mixed with the paste.”

[3] Nonetheless, there is greater harmony with the purity of the mystical body, that is, the Church, of which there is also a figure in this sacrament, in the use of unleavened bread; as the Apostle has it: “Christ our pasch is sacrificed. Therefore let us feast... with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor. 5:7-8).

[4] Thus does one exclude the error of certain Greeks, who deny that this sacrament can be celebrated with unleavened bread. And this is even clearly destroyed by the Gospel’s authority, for we read in Matthew (26:17), in Mark (14:12), and in Luke (22:7) that on the first day of the unleavened bread our Lord ate the pasch with His disciples, and at that time instituted this sacrament. Now, since it was not permitted by the Law that from the first day of the unleavened bread anything leavened be found in the homes of the Jews (which is clear from Exodus 12:15), and since our Lord as long as He was in the world kept the Law, clearly He converted unleavened bread into His body and gave it to His disciples to receive. It is stupid, then, to attack in the use of the Latin Churches what our Lord observed in the very institution of this sacrament.

[5] For all that, one must acknowledge that some say He anticipated the day of the unleavened bread with His passion so near, and, then, used leavened bread. Indeed, to support this they rely on two things. First, there is what John (13:1) says, that “before the festival day of the pasch” our Lord celebrated the feast with His disciples, and at this feast consecrated His body, as the Apostle tells us (1 Cor. 11:23). Hence, it seems that Christ celebrated the feast before the day of the unleavened bread, and so, in the consecration of His body, used leavened bread. Also, they want to confirm this by what is found in John (18:28): that on the Friday on which Christ was crucified the Jews did not enter the pretorium. of Pilate, “that they might not be defiled but might eat the pasch.” But the pasch is called the unleavened bread. Therefore, they conclude that the feast had been celebrated before the unleavened bread.

[6] Now, to this one answers that, as the Lord commands in Exodus 12, “the feast of the unleavened bread was celebrated for seven days, and of these the first day was especially holy and solemn among the others, and it was the fifteenth day of the month.” But, since among the Jews the solemnities used to begin on the preceding evening, they therefore on the evening of the fourteenth day began to eat the unleavened bread and they ate it for seven days following. And, therefore, we read in the same chapter (Ex. 12:18-19): “The first month, the fourteenth day of the month in the evening you shall eat unleavened bread until the one and twenties day of the month in the evening. Seven days there shall not be found any leaven in your houses.” And on the same fourteenth day in the evening they used to sacrifice the paschal lamb. Therefore, the first day of the unleavened bread is the way the three Evangelists—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—name the fourteenth day of the month, because in the evening they used to eat the unleavened bread, and then “they sacrificed the pasch,” that is, “the paschal lamb”; and this, according to John, was before the festival day of the pasch,” that is, the day before the fifteenth day of the month which was the most solemn day of all, and on this day the Jews wanted to eat the pasch, that is, “the unleavened paschal bread,” not, of course, the paschal lamb. And thus, since no discord exists among the Evangelists, it is plain that Christ consecrated His body from unleavened bread at the feast. Hence it becomes clear that the Church of the Latins reasonably uses unleavened bread in this sacrament.

Chapter 70: ON THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE, AND, FIRST, THAT MEN AFTER RECEIVING SACRAMENTAL GRACE ARE ABLE TO SIN

[1] Now, although grace is bestowed upon men by the aforesaid sacraments, they are not, for all that, rendered incapable of sin.

[2] For gratuitous gifts are received in the soul as habitual dispositions; it is not always, then, that a man acts according to those gifts. Nothing stops him who has a habit from acting in accord with the habit or against it; thus, a grammarian can in accord with grammar speak rightly, or even against grammar speak awkwardly. It is also like this with the habits of the moral virtues, for one who has the habit of justice can also act against justice. This is the case because the use of habits in us depends on the will, but the will is related to each of two opposites. Manifestly, then, he who receives gratuitous gifts can sin by acting against grace.

[3] What is more, there can be no impeccability in a man unless there is immutability of will. But immutability of will does not become man except so far as he attains his ultimate end. For what renders the will immutable is its complete fulfillment, so that it has no way to turn away from that on which it is made firm. But the fulfillment of will is not proportioned to a man except as attaining his ultimate end, for, as long as something remains to be desired, the will has not been fulfilled. Thus, then, impeccability is not proper for a man before he arrives at the ultimate end. And this, to be sure, is not given man in the grace which is bestowed in the sacraments, because the sacraments are for man’s assistance along the road to the end. Therefore, no one is rendered impeccable from the grace received in the sacraments.

[4] Furthermore, every sin comes about from a kind of ignorance. Thus, the Philosopher says that “every evil man is ignorant”; and we read in Proverbs (14:22): “They err that work evil.” Therefore, then, a man can be secure from sin in the will, only when his intellect is secure from ignorance and from error. But, manifestly, a man is not rendered immune from every ignorance and error by the grace received in the sacraments; for such is a man whose intellect is beholding that truth which is the certitude of all truths; and this very beholding is the ultimate end of man, as was shown in Book III. It is not, then, by the grace of the sacraments that man is rendered impeccable.

[5] Again, to that change in a man which accords with malice and virtue much is contributed by that change which accords with the soul’s passions. For by a reason curbing and ordering the soul’s passions a man becomes virtuous or is preserved in virtue, but by a reason following the passions a man becomes vicious. So long, then, as a man can be altered in the soul’s passions, he can also be altered in vice and virtue. But alteration in the soul’s passions is not taken away by the grace conferred in the sacraments; it persists in a man as long as the soul is united to the body, which is capable of passion. Manifestly, then, the sacramental grace does not render a man impeccable.

[6] There is more. It seems superfluous to warn those not to sin who cannot sin. But in the evangelical and apostolic teaching the faithful are so admonished, although they have already received the grace of the Holy Spirit through the sacraments, for we read in Hebrews (12:15): “Looking diligently, lest any man be wanting to the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up do hinder”; and in Ephesians (4:30): “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby you are sealed”; and again: “He that thinks himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. io=). Even the Apostle himself says of himself: “I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway” (1 Cor. 9:27). Therefore, men are not rendered impeccable by the grace received in the sacraments.

[7] This excludes the error of certain heretics who say that man, after he has received the grace of the Spirit, is unable to sin, and that, if he sins, he never had the grace of the Holy Spirit.

[8] They take, however, as a prop for their error the saying of 1 Corinthians (13:8): “Charity never falls away.” And 1 John (3:6, 9) says: “Whosoever abides in Him sins not; and whosoever sins has not seen Him nor known Him.” And later on, more expressly: “Whosoever is born of God commits not sin; for His seed abides in him, and he cannot sin use he is born of God.”

[9] But for establishing their proposition these texts are not effective. For one does not say: “charity never falls away” on the ground that he who has charity does not sometimes lose it, since the Apocalypse (2:4) says: “I have somewhat against you because you hast left your first charity.” But “charity never falls away” was said because, when all other gifts of the Holy Spirit (which essentially contain some imperfection—the spirit of prophecy, for example, and this kind of thing) “shall be made void... when that which is perfect is come” (1 Cor. 13:8, 10), then in that state of perfection charity shall abide.

[10] But the remarks taken from the Epistle of John are said for this reason: The gifts of the Holy Spirit by which a man is adopted or born again as a son of God have of themselves power enough to be able to preserve a man without sin, and a man cannot sin who lives by those gifts. He can, for all that, act against them, and sin by departing from them. For “whosoever is born of God... cannot sin” was said just as though one should say that “the hot cannot cool.” What is hot, nevertheless, can be made cool, and then it will make cool. Or it was said as though one should say that “the just man does no unjust things”; namely, in so far as he is just.

Chapter 71: THAT A MAN SINNING AFTER THE GRACE OF THE SACRAMENTS CAN BE CONVERTED BY GRACE

[1] However, from what has been said it further appears that a man falling into sin after receiving sacramental grace can once more be restored to grace.

[2] For, as we showed, so long as we live here the will is mutable in the matter of vice and virtue. Therefore, as one can sin after grace is received, so also from sin, it seems, one can return to virtue.

[3] Manifestly, again, good is more powerful than evil: for “evil acts only in the power of the good,” as was shown above in Book III. If, then, the will of man is turned away from the state of grace by sin, much more can grace call him back from sin.

[4] Immobility of will, furthermore, is not proper to anyone so long as he is on the way. But, so long as man lives here, he is on the way which tends towards the ultimate end. He does not, then, have a will unmovable in evil, so that he is not able to return to the good by divine grace.

[5] There is more. Manifestly, a man who committed sins before he received grace in the sacraments is delivered from those sins by the grace of the sacraments, for the Apostle says: “Neither fornicators nor idolaters, nor adulterers,” and so forth, “shall possess the kingdom of God. And such some of you were; but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you am justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:9-11). Manifestly, also, the grace bestowed in the sacrament does not diminish, but increases, nature’s good. Yet this belongs to the good of nature, that it can be led back from sin into the state of justice, for the capacity for good is a kind of good. If, then, sin takes place after grace is received, man can still be led back to the state of justice.

[6] If those, moreover, who sin after baptism cannot return to grace, their hope of salvation is entirely lost. But despair is the way to sinning freely, for the Apostle speaks of some who “despairing have given themselves up to lasciviousness, unto the working of all uncleanness, unto covetousness” (Eph. 4:19). This is, then, a very dangerous position which leads men to so great a cesspool of vices.

[7] There is more. We showed above that the grace received in the sacraments does not make a man unable to sin. Therefore, if one who sins after receiving grace in the sacraments could not return to the state of justice, it would be dangerous to receive the sacraments. And this is obviously unsuitable. Therefore, to those who sin after receiving the sacraments the return to justice is not denied.

[8] This also is confirmed by the authority of sacred Scripture, for we read in John: “My little children, these things I write to you, that you may not sin. But if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the just. And He is the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:1-2). And these very words were clearly being set forth to the faithful already reborn. Paul also writes about the Corinthian fornicator: “To him who is such a one, this rebuke is sufficient which is given by many: so that on the contrary you should rather forgive him and comfort him.” And later he says: “I am glad: not because you were made sorrowful, but because you were made sorrowful unto penance” (2 Cor. 2:6-7; 7:9). We also read in Jeremiah (3:1): “You prostituted yourself to many lovers; nevertheless, return to Me, says the Lord”; and in his Lamentations (5:21): “Convert us, O Lord, and we shall be converted: renew our days, as from the beginning.” And from all these one sees that if the faithful fall after receiving grace, there is open to them a second time a way back to salvation.

[9] In this way, of course, one excludes the error of the Novatians, who used to deny forgiveness to those who sinned after baptism.

[10] Now, they used to set down as the occasion of their error the saying in Hebrews (6:4-6): “It is impossible for those who were once illuminated, have tasted also the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, have moreover tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, and are fallen away: to be renewed again to penance.”

[11] But the sense in which the Apostle said this is apparent from what is immediately added: “Crucifying again to themselves the Son of God and making Him a mockery.” Therefore, the reason why those who have fallen after receiving grace cannot be renewed again to penance is that the Son of God must not be crucified again. One, therefore, denies to them that renewal again to penance in which a man is crucified along with Christ. And this indeed is in baptism, for we read: “All we who are baptized in Christ Jesus are baptized in His death” (Rom. 6:3). Therefore, as Christ must not be crucified once again, so he who sins after baptism must not be baptized again. Nonetheless, he can be converted to grace once again by penance. Hence, the Apostle did not say it was impossible that those once fallen should again be recalled or converted to penance, but impossible that they be “renewed”—which one usually attributes to baptism—as in Titus (3:5): “According to His mercy, He saved us, by the laver of regeneration and renovation of the Holy Spirit.”

Chapter 72: ON THE NECESSITY OF PENANCE AND OF ITS PARTS

[1] From this, then, it is evident that if a man sins after baptism, he cannot have the remedy against his sin in baptism. And since the abundance of the divine mercy and the effectiveness of Christ’s grace do not suffer him to be dismissed without a remedy, there was established another sacramental remedy by which sins are washed away. And this is the sacrament of penance, which is spiritual healing of a sort. For just as those who receive a natural life by generation can, if they incur some disease which is contrary to the perfection of life, be cured of their disease: not, indeed, so as to be born a second time, but healed by a kind of alteration; so baptism, which is a spiritual regeneration, is not given a second time against sins committed after baptism, but they are healed by penance which is a kind of spiritual alteration.

[2] Let this, however, be considered: bodily healing is at times wholly from within, as when one is cured by the power of nature alone. But there are times when one is cured from within and from without simultaneously, for example, when the operation of nature is helped by the external benefit of medicine. But it never happens that one is cured entirely from without, for he still has within himself the principles of life, and from these the healing is somehow caused within him. But spiritual healing, it happens, cannot be brought about entirely from within, for we showed in Book III that man cannot be delivered from fault except by the help of grace. In like fashion, also, neither can his spiritual cure be entirely from an external thing; for the soundness of his mind would not be restored unless ordered movements of will were caused in man. Therefore, the spiritual health in the sacrament of penance must proceed both from something internal and from something external.

[3] This comes about in this way. For a man to be perfectly cured of a bodily disease, he necessarily must be freed from all the inconveniences which the disease involves. Thus, then, even the spiritual cure of penance would not be perfected unless a man were relieved of all the damages into which he has been led by sin. Now, the first damage which man sustains from sin is the disordering of the mind; in that man is turned away from the incommutable good—namely, God—and is turned toward sin. But the second damage is that he incurs the guilt of punishment, for, as was shown in Book III, God the most just ruler requires a punishment for every fault. The third damage is a certain weakening of the natural good, in that man by sinning is rendered more prone toward sinning and more reluctant toward doing well.

[4] Therefore, the first thing required in penance is the ordering of the mind; namely, that the mind be turned toward God, and turned away from sin, grieving at its commission, and proposing not to commit it; and this belongs essentially to contrition.

[5] But this reordering of the mind cannot be without grace, for our mind cannot duly be turned toward God without charity, but one cannot have charity without grace, as is clear from what was said in Book III. Thus, then, by contrition the offense to God is removed and one is also freed from that guilt of eternal punishment which cannot be simultaneously with grace and charity; for there is no eternal punishment except by separation from God, and by grace and charity man is united with Him. Therefore, this reordering of the mind, which consists of contrition, proceeds from within, that is, from the free will with the help of divine grace.

[6] Since, however, it was established above that the merit of Christ suffering for the human race works for the expiation of all sins, if a man is to be healed of sin his mind must necessarily cleave not only to God, but also to the mediator of God and men, Jesus Christ, in whom rests the remission of all sins. For spiritual health consists in the turning of the mind to God, and, to be sure, we cannot achieve this health except through the physician of our souls, Jesus Christ, “who shall save His people from their sins” (Mat. 1:21). Indeed, His merit is sufficient to take away all sins altogether, for it is He “‘who takes away the sins of the world” as John (1:29) says. Nonetheless, not all achieve perfectly the effect of remission; each achieves it in the measure in which he is conjoined with Christ suffering for sins.

[7] Our conjunction, then, with Christ in baptism is not in accord with our operation (from within, so to say), because nothing generates itself in being, but it is from Christ, who “regenerated us unto a lively hope” (1 Peter 1:3); therefore, the remission of sins in baptism is made in accord with the power of Christ conjoining us perfectly and entirely with Himself, so as not only to take away every impurity of sin, but also to free us entirely from every guilt of punishment; except incidentally, perhaps, in the case of those who do not get the effect of the sacrament because they approach with a false attitude.

[8] In the later spiritual healing we are conjoined to Christ in accord with our own operation informed by divine grace. Hence, we do not always entirely, nor do we all equally, achieve the effect of remission by this conjunction. For there can be a turning of the mind toward God, and to the merit of Christ, and to the hatred of sin which is so vehement that a man perfectly achieves the remission of sin, not only with regard to wiping out the fault, but even with regard to remission of the entire punishment. But this does not always happen. Hence, after the fault is taken away by contrition and the guilt of eternal punishment is relieved (as was said), there sometimes persists an obligation to some punishment to maintain the justice of God which requires that fault be ordered by punishment.

[9] Since, however, to undergo punishment for a fault calls for a kind of judgment, the penitent who has committed himself to Christ for healing must look to Christ’s judgment for fixing the punishment; and this, indeed, Christ does through His ministers, just as He does in the other sacraments. But no one can judge of faults which he does not know. It was necessary, then, that confession be instituted, the second part of this sacrament, so to say, in order to make the fault of the penitent known to the minister of Christ.

[10] The minister, therefore, to whom confession is made must have judiciary power representing Christ, “who was appointed to be judge of the living and the dead” (Acts 10:42). For judiciary power two things are required: namely, the authority to know about the fault, and the power to absolve or condemn. And these two are called the “two keys of the Church,” namely, the knowledge to discern and the power to bind and loose which our Lord committed to Peter as Matthew (16:19) has it: “I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” He is not understood to have committed these to Peter so that he alone might have them, but so that they might through him be passed on to others; otherwise, sufficient provision for the salvation of the faithful would not have been made.

[11] Of course, keys of this kind have their effectiveness from the suffering of Christ by which, we know, Christ opened for us the door of the kingdom of heaven. Accordingly, just as without baptism, in which the suffering of Christ works, there cannot be salvation for men—whether the baptism be really received, or desired to the purpose “when necessity, but not contempt, excludes the sacrament”—so for those sinning after baptism there can be no salvation unless they submit themselves to the keys of the Church, whether it be by actually confessing and undergoing the judgment of the ministers of the Church, or at least having this as a purpose to be fulfilled at the opportune time; because, as Peter says: “There is no other name given to men whereby we must be saved except by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 4:10-12).

[12] In this way one avoids the error of some who held that a man can achieve forgiveness of sins without confession and without the purpose of confessing, and that the prelates of the Church can dispense one from the obligation of confessing. For the prelates of the Church are unable “to make vain the keys of the Church” in which their entire power consists, and they cannot bring it about that one achieve the remission of his sins apart from a sacrament which has power from the passion of Christ. This belongs only to Christ, who established the sacraments and is their author. Thus, then, as there can be no dispensation from the prelates of the Church allowing one to be saved without baptism, neither can there be one allowing a man to achieve the remission of his sins without confession and absolution.

[13] Nonetheless, there is this consideration. Baptism has some effectiveness for the remission of sins even before it is actually received, while one has the purpose of receiving it. We grant that afterwards—when it is actually received—it bestows a fuller effect both in the achievement of grace and in the remission of fault. Sometimes, too, grace is bestowed in the very reception of baptism and a fault is remitted for which previously there was no remission. And thus the keys of the Church have effectiveness in one before he actually submits himself to them, provided that he has the purpose of submitting himself to them; nevertheless, he achieves fuller grace and forgiveness when he actually submits himself to the keys by confessing and receiving absolution; and nothing prevents our thinking that sometimes a grace is conferred by the power of the keys on one who has confessed, in the course of the absolution itself, and that by this grace his fault is dismissed.

[14] Therefore, since even in the very confession and absolution a fuller effect of grace and remission is bestowed on him who—by reason of his good purpose—had previously obtained both, manifestly the minister of the Church, absolving by the power of the keys, dismisses. something of the temporal punishment for which the penitent remains in debt after contrition. He does, however, oblige the penitent to the balance by his command. And this fulfillment of the obligation is called satisfaction, which is the third part of penance. By this a man is entirely freed from the guilt of punishment when he pays the penalty which he owed; further, the weakness of the natural good is cured when a man abstains from bad things and accustoms himself to good ones: by subjecting his spirit to God in prayer, or by taming his flesh by fasting to make it subject to the spirit, and in external things by uniting himself by giving alms to the neighbors from whom his fault had separated him.

[15] Thus, clearly, then, the minister of the Church exercises a certain judgment in the use of the keys. But judgment is not granted to one unless it be judgment on those who are his subjects. Hence, it is manifest that it is not any priest at all who can absolve any man at all from sin—as some falsify it; he can absolve only one over whom he has received power.

Chapter 73: ON THE SACRAMENT OF EXTREME UNCTION

[1] Now, the body is the instrument of the soul, and an instrument is for the use of the principal agent: therefore, the disposition of the instrument necessarily must be such as becomes the principal agent. Hence, the body is disposed in harmony with the soul. Therefore, from the infirmity of the soul which is sin infirmity sometimes flows into the body, when the divine judgment so disposes. To be sure, this bodily infirmity is at times useful for the soundness of the soul: so far as a man bears bodily infirmity humbly and patiently, and so far as it is reckoned as satisfying punishment for him. At times, also, it tends to hinder spiritual health: so far as bodily infirmity hinders the virtues. Therefore, it was suitable to employ some spiritual medicine against sin, in accord with the fact that bodily infirmity flows out of sin; indeed, this spiritual medicine cures the bodily infirmity at times, namely, when this is helpful to salvation. And for this a sacrament was established-extreme unction, about which James (5:14-15) says: “Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priests of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall heal the sick man.”

[2] Nor is the power of this sacrament prejudiced if at times the sick on whom it is conferred are not wholly cured of this bodily infirmity, for the restoration of bodily health—even in those who receive the sacrament worthily—sometimes is not useful for salvation. And they do not, for all that, receive it in vain, although bodily health may not follow on it. For, since this sacrament is set against bodily infirmity so far as this follows on sin, this sacrament manifestly was established against the other consequences of sin, which are proneness to evil and difficulty in good, and it is set so much the more as the soul’s infirmities of this sort are closer neighbors to sin than bodily infirmity is. Indeed, spiritual infirmities of this sort are to be cured by penance, in that the works of virtue which the penitent performs when he makes satisfaction withdraw him from evils and incline him to good. But, since man, whether due to negligence, or to the changing occupations of life, or even to the shortness of time, or to something else of the sort, does not perfectly heal within himself the weaknesses mentioned, a healthful provision for him is made by this sacrament: it completes the healing aforesaid, and it delivers him from the guilt of temporal punishment; as a result, nothing remains in him when the soul leaves the body which can obstruct the soul in the perception of glory. And therefore James adds: “And the Lord shall raise him up.” Perhaps, also, a man has neither awareness nor memory of all the sins which he has committed, so that they may be washed away individual by penance. There are also those daily sins without which one does not lead this present life. And from these a man ought to be cleansed at his departure by this sacrament, so that nothing be found in him which would clash with the perception of glory. And therefore James adds: “If he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him.”

[3] Hence, it is clear that this sacrament is the last, that it somehow tends to consummate the entire spiritual healing, and that in it a man is, as it were, prepared for the perception of glory. For this reason also it is named extreme unction.

[4] From this it is apparent that this sacrament is not to be given to anyone at all who is sick, but only to those who seem in their weakness to be approaching the end. Nevertheless, if they get well, the sacrament can be conferred on them again if they return to a similar situation. For the anointing in this sacrament involves no consecration, as does the anointing in confirmation, or the washing in baptism, and certain other anointings which are never repeated—simply because the consecration always remains, so long as the thing consecrated endures, because of the effectiveness of the divine power which consecrates. But the anointing of this sacrament is-ordered toward healing, and healing medicine ought to be repeated as often as the weakness is repeated.

[5] We grant that some are in a state close to death even without infirmity—this is clear in the case of those condemned to death—and they nevertheless would need the spiritual effects of this sacrament, but it is not to be given unless such a one is sick, since it is given under the appearance of bodily medicine, which is fitting only for one who has been weakened in the body. For in the sacraments the character of the sign must be maintained. Therefore, just as baptism requires that washing be used on a body, so this sacrament requires that medicine be applied for bodily weakness. Hence, also, oil is the special matter of this sacrament, because it has effectiveness for bodily healing by alleviating pain; just as water which cleans the body is the matter of the sacrament in which spiritual cleansing takes place.

[6] Therein one also sees that, just as bodily medicine must be applied at the source of the infirmity, so this anointing is used on those parts of the body from which the weakness of sin proceeds: such are the organs of the senses, and the hands and feet by which the works of sin are carried On, and—in accord with the custom of some—the loins in which the libidinous force is strong.

[7] But, since sins are forgiven by this sacrament, and no sin, of course, is forgiven except by grace, manifestly grace is conferred in this sacrament.

[8] Now, when things bestow enlightening grace on the mind, their use is proper only to priests, for their order tends to enlighten, as Dionysius says. Neither does this sacrament require a bishop, since this sacrament does not confer a state of excellence, as is the case with those whose minister is a bishop.

[9] Nonetheless, since this sacrament has a perfect cure as its effect, and an abundance of grace is required in it, it becomes this sacrament to have many priests present, and to have the prayer of the whole Church help in the effect. Hence, James says: “Let him bring in the priests of the Church... and the prayer of faith shall save the sick man.” If, nonetheless, only one priest is present, it is understood that he fulfills this sacrament in the power of the entire Church whose minister he is, and which, in person, he represents.

[10] Of course, the effect of this sacrament is obstructed by pretense in the receiver, just as can be the case with the other sacraments.

Chapter 74: ON THE SACRAMENT OF ORDERS

[1] It is, of course, clear from what has been said that in all the sacraments dealt with a spiritual grace is conferred in a mystery of visible things. But every action ought to be proportioned to its agent. Therefore, the sacraments mentioned must be dispensed by visible men who have spiritual power. For angels are not competent to dispense the sacraments; this belongs to men clothed in visible flesh. Hence, the Apostle says: “Every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in the things that appertain to God” (Heb. 5:1).

[2] This argument can be derived in another way. The institution and the power of the sacraments has its beginning in Christ. For the Apostle says of Him: “Christ loved the Church and delivered Himself up for it: that He might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life” (Eph. 5:75-26). It is also clear that Christ gave the sacrament of His body and blood at the Last Supper, and ordered it to be frequented; and these are the principal sacraments. Therefore, since Christ was about to withdraw His bodily presence from the Church, it was necessary that Christ should establish other ministers in His place who would dispense the sacraments to the faithful; in the Apostle’s words: “Let a man so account of us as ministers of Christ and dispensers of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor. 4:1). And so He committed the consecration of His body and blood to the disciples, saying: “Do this in commemoration of Me” (Luke 2:19); the same received the power of forgiving sins, in the words of John (20:2.3): “Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them”; the same also were given the duty of teaching and baptizing, when He said: “Going, therefore, teach ye all nations, baptizing them” (Mat. 28:19). But a minister is compared to his lord as an instrument to its principal agent, for, as an instrument is moved by the agent for making something, so the minister is moved by his lord’s command to accomplish something. Of course, the instrument must be proportionate to the agent. Hence, the ministers of Christ must be in conformity with Him. But Christ, as the Lord, by His very own authority and power wrought our salvation, in that He was God and man: so far as He was man, in order to suffer for our redemption; and, so far as He was God, to make His suffering salutary for us. Therefore, the ministers of Christ must not only be men, but must participate somehow in His divinity through some spiritual power, for an instrument shares in the power of its principal agent. Now, it is this power that the Apostle calls “the power which the Lord bath given me unto edification and not unto destruction” (2 Cor. 13:10).

[3] One must not say, of course, that power of this sort was given by Christ to His disciples in such a way as not to flow on through them to others; it was given “for building up the Church,” in the Apostle’s phrase. So long, then, must this power be perpetuated as it is necessary to build up the Church. But this is necessary from the death of the disciples of Christ to the very end of the world. Therefore, the spiritual power was given to the disciples of Christ so as to pass on from them to others. Hence, also, our Lord used to address His disciples in the person of other believers. Thus, we have in Mark (13:37): “What I say to you, I say to all”; and in Matthew (28:20) our Lord said to the disciples: “Behold, I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world.” [4] This spiritual power from Christ, then, flows into the ministers of the Church; the spiritual effects on us, of course, derived from Christ, are fulfilled under certain sensible signs, js is clear from the foregoing; therefore, this spiritual power also had to be passed on to men under certain sensible signs. But fixed forms of words and determined acts are of this sort: the imposition of hands, for example, the anointing, and the offering of the book or the chalice, or of something of this sort which belongs to the execution of the spiritual power. But, whenever something spiritual is transferred under a bodily sign, we call it a sacrament. Clearly, then, in conferring the spiritual power, a certain sacrament is enacted which is called the sacrament of orders.

[5] Now, this belongs to the divine liberality: that, if the power for some operation is conferred on one, there be conferred also those things without which this operation cannot suitably be exercised. But the administration of the sacraments to which the spiritual power is ordered is not suitably done unless one be helped to it by divine grace. Accordingly, grace is bestowed in this sacrament as it is in the other sacraments.

[6] Now, the power of orders is established for the dispensation of the sacraments. But among the sacraments that which is most noble and tends most to complete the others is the sacrament of the Eucharist as is clear from what has been said. Therefore, the power of orders must be weighed chiefly by reference to this sacrament, for “everything is denominated from its end.”

[7] It seems, of course, to be the same power which grants a perfection, and which prepares matter for the reception of that perfection. just so, fire has the power both to pass its form on to another, and to dispose that other for the reception of the form. Since, then, the power of orders is extended to performing the sacrament of the body of Christ and handing it on to believers, the same power must extend itself to this: making the believers ready for this sacrament and in harmony with its reception. But a believer is made ready for the reception of this sacrament and in harmony with it by his freedom from sin; otherwise, he cannot be united spiritually with that Christ to whom he is sacramentally conjoined by the reception of this sacrament. Therefore, the power of orders must extend itself to, the remission of sins by the dispensation of those sacraments which are ordered to the remission of sins; baptism and penance are of this kind, as is clear from what has been said. Hence, as was said, our Lord’s disciples, to whom He committed the consecration of His body, were also given the power to forgive sins. This, indeed, is the power we understand by the “keys” about which our Lord said to Peter: “I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven” (Mat. 16:19). For to every man heaven is closed or is opened by this: he is subject to sin, or he is cleansed from sin; hence, too, the use of these keys is called “to bind and to loose”, namely, from sins. It was of these, indeed, keys that we spoke above.
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Re: Summa Contra Gentiles--Books 1, 2 3 & 4, by Thomas Aquin

Postby admin » Wed Mar 21, 2018 10:18 pm

Part 11 of 13

Chapter 75: ON THE DISTINCTION OF ORDERS

[1] Let us now take this into consideration: The power ordered to some principal effect by nature has under it inferior powers which serve it. This is especially clear in the arts, for the are which introduces into a thing its artificial form is served by the are which prepares the material; in turn, the one which introduces the form serves the are to which the end of the artificial thing belongs; the one in turn ordered to a further end serves the one ordered to the ultimate end. just so, the are of the, wood-cutter serves that of the ship-builder, and the latter that of navigation, and this in turn the are of economy, or of warfare, or something of this sort, since the navigator’s are can be ordered to different ends. Since, then, the power of orders is principally ordered to consecrating the body of Christ and dispensing it to the faithful, and to cleansing the faithful from their sins, there must be some principal order whose power extends principally to this; this is the order of the priesthood; and there must be other orders which serve this one by preparing the material, and these are the ministerial orders. Now, since the priestly power, as was said, is extended to two things-namely, the consecration of the body of Christ and making the faithful ready for the Eucharist by absolution from their sins—the lesser orders must serve the priestly power either in both of these things, or else in one or the other. And, manifestly, an order is superior among the inferior orders by just as much as it serves the superior order in many things or in some worthier one.

[2] Therefore, the lowest orders serve the priestly order merely in the preparation of the people: doorkeepers, by actually keeping unbelievers out of the gathering of believers; readers, by instructing catechumens in the rudiments of the faith—hence, the Old Testament Scripture is assigned them for reading, exorcists, however, by cleansing those who are already instructed, but to some extent are obstructed by the devil from the reception of the sacraments.

[3] The superior orders serve the priestly order both in the preparation of the people and in the consummation of the sacrament. Acolytes have supervision over vessels which are not sacred and in which the material of the sacrament is prepared; hence, the cruets are handed to them during their ordination. Subdeacons, however, have supervision over sacred vessels and the disposal of material not yet consecrated. But deacons, beyond this, have supervision over consecrated material in that they dispense the blood of Christ to the faithful. Accordingly, these three orders—the priesthood, the diaconate, and the subdiaconate—are called sacred orders because they receive a ministry over something sacred. The superior orders serve also in the preparation of the people. Hence, deacons are entrusted with the Gospel teaching to present it to the people, and subdeacons with the apostolic teaching; acolytes are entrusted with the performance in each of the two cases with what belongs to the solemnity of the teaching, namely, that they carry the lights and administer tasks of this kind.

Chapter 76: ON THE EPISCOPAL POWER AND THAT THEREIN ONE IS THE HIGHEST

[1] Now, the bestowal of all of these orders accompanies some sacrament, as was said, and the sacraments of the Church require some ministers for their dispensing; there must, therefore, be a superior power in the Church with a higher ministry which dispenses the sacrament of orders. And this is the episcopal power, which, although it does not exceed the power of the priest in the consecration of the body of Christ, does exceed the priestly power in what touches the faithful. For the priestly power itself flows from the episcopal power, and anything particularly difficult to be performed for the faithful is reserved to the bishops; by their authority, even priests are empowered to do that which is committed to them to be done. Hence, even in the tasks which priests perform they employ things consecrated by bishops; thus, in the Eucharistic consecration they use a chalice, an altar, and a pall consecrated by the bishop. Clearly, then, the chief direction of the faithful belongs to the dignity of the bishops.

[2] But this, too, is clear: Although people are set apart according to differing dioceses and states, yet, as the Church is one, so must the Christian people be one. Therefore, as for the specific congregation of one Church one bishop is called for who is the head of that Church; so for the entire Christian people there must be one who is head of the entire Church.

[3] Then, too, the unity of the Church requires that all the faithful agree as to the faith. But about matters of faith it happens that questions arise. A diversity of pronouncements, of course, would divide the Church, if it were not preserved in unity by the pronouncement of one. Therefore, the unity of the Church demands that there be one who is at the head of the entire Church. But, manifestly, in its necessities Christ has not failed the Church which He loved and for which He shed His blood, since even of the synagogue the Lord says: ‘What is there that I ought to do more to My vineyard that I have not done to it?” (Isa. 5:4). Therefore, one must not doubt that by Christ’s ordering there is one who is at the head of the entire Church.

[4] No one should doubt, furthermore, that the government of the Church has been established in the best way, since He has disposed it by whom “kings reign, and lawmakers decree just things” (Prov. 8:15). But the best government of a multitude is rule by one, and this is clear from the purpose of government, which is peace; for peace and the unity of his subjects are the purpose of the one who rules, and one is a better constituted cause of unity than many. Clearly, then, the government of the Church has been so disposed that one is at the head of the entire Church.

[5] The militant Church, moreover, derives from the triumphant Church by exemplarity, hence, John in the Apocalypse (21:2) saw “Jerusalem coming down out of heaven”; and Moses was told to make everything “according to the pattern that was shown you in the mount” (Ex. 25:40; 26:30). But in the triumphant Church one presides, the one who presides over the entire universe—namely, God—for we read in the Apocalypse (21:3): “They shall be His people and God Himself with them shall be their God.” Therefore, in the militant Church, also, there is one who presides over things universally.

[6] Hence it is that we read in Hosea (1:11): “The children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together; and they shall appoint themselves one head.” And our Lord says: “There shall be one fold and one shepherd” (John 10:16).

[7] But let one say that the one head and one shepherd is Christ, who is one spouse of one Church; his answer does not suffice. For, clearly, Christ Himself perfects all the sacraments of th Church: it is He who baptizes; it is He who forgives sins; it is He, the true priest, who offered Himself on the altar of the cross, and by whose power His body is daily consecrated on the altar—nevertheless, because He was not going to be with all the faithful in bodily presence, He chose ministers to dispense the things just mentioned to the faithful, as was said above. By the same reasoning, then, when He was going to withdraw His bodily presence from the Church, He had to commit it to one who would in His place have the care of the universal Church. Hence it is that He said to Peter before His ascension: “Feed My sheep” (John 21:17); and before His passion: “You being once converted confirm your brethren” (Luke 22:32); and to him alone did He promise: “I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven” (Mat. 16:19), in order to show that the power of the keys was to flow through him to others to preserve the unity of the Church.

[8] But it cannot be said that, although He gave Peter this dignity, it does not flow on to others. For, clearly, Christ established the Church so that it was to endure to the end of the world; in the words of Isaiah (9:7): “He shall sit upon the throne of David and upon His kingdom to establish and strengthen it with judgment and with justice from henceforth and forever.” It is clear that He so established therein those who were then in the ministry that their power was to be passed on to others even to the end of time; especially so, since He Himself says: “Behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world” (Mat. 28:20).

[9] By this, of course, we exclude the presumptuous error of some who attempt to withdraw themselves from the obedience and the rule of Peter by not recognizing in his successor, the Roman Pontiff, the pastor of the universal Church.

Chapter 77: THAT THE SACRAMENTS CAN BE DISPENSED BY EVIL MINISTERS

[1] From what we have Premised it is clear that the ministers of the Church, when they receive their orders, receive a certain power for dispensing the sacraments.

[2] But what is acquired by a thing through consecration persists in that thing forever; hence, nothing consecrated is consecrated a second time. Therefore, the power of their orders persists in the ministers of the Church perpetually. Therefore, it is not taken away by sin. Therefore, even sinners and evil men, provided they have orders, are able to confer the sacraments of the Church.

[3] Then, too, nothing has power over that which exceeds its capacities unless the power be received from some other source. This is clear in natural as well as in civil matters: Water cannot heat unless it receives the power of beating from fire, nor can a bailiff coerce citizens unless he receives power from a king. But the things accomplished in sacraments exceed human capacity, as the foregoing made clear. Therefore, no man can dispense the sacraments, no matter how good he is, unless he receives the power to dispense them. Now, goodness is in man the opposite of malice and sin. Therefore, one who has received the power to dispense the sacraments is not blocked by sin from dispensing them.

[4] A man, furthermore, is called good or bad in accord with virtue or vice, which are habits of a sort. Habit differs from power in this way: By a power we are able to do something, but by a habit we are not rendered able or unable to make something, but ready or unready in doing well or badly what we are able to do. Habit, therefore, neither gives us an ability nor removes one, rather, by habit we acquire this: to do something well or badly. Therefore, a man’s being good or bad does not make him able or unable to dispense the sacraments, but suitable or unsuitable for dispensing them well.

[5] Morever, that which acts by the power of another likens the thing modified not to itself, but to the principal agent. For a house is riot made like the instrument which a builder uses; it is made like his art. The ministers of the Church do not perform the sacraments in their own power, but in the power of Christ, of whom John (1:33) says: “He it is who baptizes.” Hence, also, ministers are said to act as instruments, for a minister is an “animate tool.” Therefore, the malice of the ministers does not block the faithful from achieving in the sacraments the salvation which is from Christ.

[6] There is more. The goodness or malice of another man cannot be judged by man; this is God’s alone, who scans the secrets of the heart. If, then, the malice of the minister could block the effect of the sacrament, a man could not have a sure confidence about his salvation, and his conscience would not remain free from sin. It seems awkward, also, that one put the hope of his salvation in the goodness of a mere man, for Jeremiah (17:5) says: “Cursed be the man that trusts in man.” But, if a man were not to hope for the achievement of his salvation through the sacraments—except through those conferred by a good minister—he would appear to put the hope of his salvation to some extent in a man. That we may, therefore, put the hope of our salvation in Christ, who is God and man, we must confess that the sacraments are for salvation by the power of Christ, whether they are good ministers or bad ministers who confer them.

[7] This is apparent as well from the fact that our Lord teaches us to obey even bad prelates, whose works we must not imitate. For He says: “The Scribes and the Pharisees sit on the chair of Moses. All things, therefore, that they say to you, observe and do. But according to their works, do not do” (Mat. 23:2-3). But there is much more reason to obey people who have received a ministry from Christ than there was to obey “the chair of Moses.” Therefore, one must obey even bad ministers. And this would not be the case unless the power of their orders persisted in them-which is the reason one obeys them. Even bad men, therefore, have the power of dispensing the sacraments.

18] In this way one excludes the error of some who say that all good men have the power of dispensing the sacraments and no bad men have it.

Chapter 78: ON THE SACRAMENT OF MATRIMONY

[1] Now, we grant that by the sacraments men are restored to grace; nonetheless, they are not immediately restored to immortality. We have given the reason for this. But things which are corruptible cannot be perpetuated except by generation. Since, then, the people of the faithful had to be perpetuated unto the end of the world, this had to be done by generation, by which, also, the human species is perpetuated.

[2] But let us consider this: When something is ordered to different ends there must be differing principles directing it to the end, for the end is proportioned to the agent. Human generation, of course, is ordered to many things; namely, to the perpetuity of the species and to the perpetuity of some political good—the perpetuity of a people in some state for example. It is also ordered to the perpetuity of the Church, which consists in the collection of the faithful. Accordingly, generation of this kind must be subject to a diversity of directions. Therefore, so far as it is ordered to the good of nature, which is the perpetuity of the species, it is directed to the end by nature inclining to this end; thus, one calls it a duty of nature. But, so far as generation is ordered to a political good, it is subject to the ordering of civil law. Then, so far as it is ordered to the good of the Church, it must be subject to the government of the Church. But things which are dispensed to the people by the ministers of the Church are called sacraments. Matrimony, then, in that it consists in the union of a husband and wife purposing to generate and educate offspring for the worship of God, is a sacrament of the Church; hence, also, a certain blessing on those marrying is given by the ministers of the Church.

13] And as in the other sacraments by the thing done outwardly a sign is made of a spiritual thing, so, too, in this sacrament by the union of husband and wife a sign of the union of Christ and the Church is made; in the Apostle’s words: “This is a great sacrament, but I speak in Christ and in the church” (Eph. 5:32).

[4] And because the sacraments effect that of which they are made signs, one must believe that in this sacrament a grace is conferred on those marrying, and that by this grace they are included in the union of Christ and the Church, which is most especially necessary to them, that in this way in fleshly and earthly things they may purpose not to be disunited from Christ and the Church.

[5] Since, then, the union of husband and wife gives a sign of the union of Christ and the Church, that which makes the sign must correspond to that whose sign it is. Now, the union of Christ and the Church is a union of one to one to be held forever. For there is one Church, as the Canticle (6:8) says: “One is My dove, My perfect one.” And Christ will never be separated from His Church, for He Himself says: “Behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world” (Mat. 28:20); and, further: “we shall be always with the Lord” (1 Thes. 4:16), as the Apostle says. Necessarily, then, matrimony as a sacrament of the Church is a union of one man to one woman to be held indivisibly, and this is included in the faithfulness by which the man and wife are bound to one another.

[6] Thus, then, there are three goods of matrimony as a sacrament of the Church: namely, offspring to be accepted and educated for the worship of God; fidelity by which one man is bound to one wife; and the sacrament—and, in accord with this—there is indivisibility in the marriage union, in so far as it is a sacrament of the union of Christ and the Church.

[7] Now, all the other things one ought to consider in matrimony we have dealt with in Book III.

Chapter 79: THAT THROUGH CHRIST THE RESURRECTION OF BODIES IS TO COME

[1] Now, we have shown above that we have been freed by Christ from what we incurred by the sin of the first man; and, when the first man sinned, not only was the sin itself passed on to us, but also, death, which is the punishment of sin, in the Apostle’s words: “By one man sin entered into this world and by sin death” (Rom. 5:12). Therefore, it necessarily is by Christ that we are freed from each of these; namely, from the fault and from death. Accordingly, the Apostle says in the same place: “If by one man’s offence death reigned through vie; much more they who receive abundance... of the gift and of justice shall reign in life through one, Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:37).

[2] Therefore, in order to make each of these clear to us in Himself, He chose both to die and to rise. He chose to die, indeed, to cleanse us from sin; hence, the Apostle says: “As it is appointed unto men once to die, so also Christ was offered once to exhaust the sins of many” (Heb. 9:77-2.8). But He chose to rise to free us from death; hence, the Apostle says: “Christ is risen from the dead, the firstfruits of them that sleep. For by a man came death and by a man the resurrection of the dead” (1 Cor. 15:20-21).

[3] It is, then, the effect of the death of Christ in regard to the remission of sin which we achieve in the sacraments, for, it has already been said, the sacraments work in the power of the passion of Christ.

[4] But the effect of the resurrection of Christ in regard to our liberation from death we shall achieve at the end of the world, when we shall all rise by the power of Christ. Hence, the Apostle says: “If Christ be preached that He arose again from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there be no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen again. And if Christ be not risen again then is our preaching vain and our faith is vain (1 Cor. 15:12`14). It is, then, a necessary tenet of faith to believe that there will be a resurrection of the dead.

[5] There are, however, some who are perverse in their understanding of this and they do not believe in the future resurrection of bodies, but attempt to ascribe what we read about the resurrection in the Scriptures to a spiritual resurrection in which some arise from the death of sin by grace.

[6] But this error is rejected by the Apostle himself, he says: “But shun profane and vain babblings: for they grow much towards ungodliness, And their speech spreads like a canker: of whom are Hymenaeus and Pbilebus: who have erred from the truth of the faith, saying that the resurrection is past already” (2 Tim. 2:16-18). And this was not understandable except of a spiritual resurrection. It is, therefore, contrary to the truth of the faith to accept a spiritual resurrection and deny a bodily one.

[7] There is more. It is clear from what the Apostle says to the Corinthians that the words cited are to be understood of a bodily resurrection. For, after a bit, he adds, “It is sown a natural body, it shall rise a spiritual body,” wherein, manifestly, the body’s resurrection is touched on; and a little later he adds: “This corruptible must put on incorruption; and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Cor. 15:44, 53). But the corruptible and the mortal mean the body. Therefore, it is the body that will rise.

[8] Moreover, our Lord promises both resurrections, for He says: “Amen, Amen, I say unto you that the hour comes and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live.” And this seems to pertain to the spiritual resurrection of souls, which even then was beginning to be completed, when some were cleaving to Christ in faith. But, later, it is the bodily resurrection He expresses, saying: “The hour is coming, when all who are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God” (John 5:25, 28). For, clearly, souls are not in the graves, but bodies. Therefore, this predicts the bodily resurrection.

[9] The bodily resurrection was also expressly foretold by Job. For he says: “I know that my Redeemer lives, and on the last day I shall rise out of the earth, and shall be clothed again with my skin, and in my flesh I shall see my God” (Job 19:75-76).

[10] Moreover, to establish that there will be a resurrection of the flesh there is an evident supporting argument which is based on the points made earlier. For we showed in Book II that the souls of men are immortal. They persist, then, after their bodies, released from their bodies. It is also clear from what was said in Book II that the soul is naturally united to the body, for in its essence it is the form of the body. It, then, contrary to the nature of the soul to be without the body. But nothing which is contrary to nature can be perpetual. Perpetually, then, the soul will not be without the body. Since, then, it persists perpetually, it must once again be united to the body; and this is to rise again. Therefore, the immortality of souls seems to demand a future resurrection of bodies.

[11] Furthermore, there was shown in Book III the natural desire of man to tend to happiness. But ultimate happiness is the perfection of the happy one. Therefore, anyone to whom some perfection is wanting does not yet have perfect happiness, because his desire is not entirely at rest, for every imperfect thing naturally desires to achieve its perfection. But the soul separated from the body is in a way imperfect, as is every part existing outside of its whole, for the soul is naturally a part of human nature. Therefore, man cannot achieve his ultimate happiness unless the soul be once again united to the body, especially since it was shown that in this life man cannot arrive at his ultimate happiness.

[12] Moreover, as was shown in Book III, by divine providence sinners deserve punishment, and those who do well a reward. But in this life men, composed of soul and body, sin or act rightly. Therefore, in both the soul and the body men deserve reward or punishment. But that in this life they cannot achieve the reward of ultimate happiness is clear from the points made in Book III. And time after time sins are not punished in this life; rather, in fact, as we read in Job (21:7) here “the wicked live, are advanced, and are strengthened with riches.” Necessarily,. then, we must assert a repeated union of the soul with the body, so that man can be rewarded and punished in the body as well as in ths soul.

Chapter 80: OBJECTIONS AGAINST THE RESURRECTION

[1] There are, of course, some things which seem to be opposed to faith in the resurrection. Thus: in no natural thing does one find that which has been corrupted returning to being with numerical identity; neither does it seem possible to go back again from privation of a thing to possessing it. Accordingly, since things which are corrupted cannot be repeated with an identity in number, nature intends that the thing which is corrupted be preserved with an identity in species by generation. Since, then, man is corrupted by death, and the very body of man resolved even into the primary elements, it does not seem possible for a man with identity in number to be restored to life.

[7] Again, numerical identity is impossible to a thing if one of its essential principles cannot be numerically identical, for, if an essential principle is varied, that essence of the thing is varied by which the thing, as it is, is also one. But what is returned altogether to nothingness cannot be taken up again with numerical identity; this will be the creation of a new thing rather than the restoration of an identical thing. But there seem to be several of the essential principles of man returning to nothingness by his death. And first, to be sure, his very corporeity and the form of the compound, since the body is manifestly dissolved. Then, too, a part of the sensitive soul, and the nutritive, which cannot he without bodily organs, seem lost. Further, of course, there seems to return to nothingness the humanity itself-which is said to be the form of the whole—once the soul is separated from the body. It seems, then, impossible that man should rise again being identical in number.

[3] Furthermore, what is not continuous seems not to he numerically identical. And this is manifest not only in sizes and motions, but even in qualities and forms, for if, after healing, a man becomes sick and is healed again, the health which returns will not be the same in number. Now, clearly, man’s being is taken away by death, since corruption is a change from being to non-being. It is, then, impossible that man’s being be repeated with numerical identity. Then, neither will the man be the same in number, for things which are the same in number are the same in being.

[4] If, furthermore, a man’s identical body is restored to life, by equal reasoning whatever was in the man’s body ought to be returned to the same man. But on this something extremely unseemly follows—not only by reason of the beard and the nails and the hair which are openly removed by daily trimming, but also by reason of other parts of the body which are covertly resolved by the action of the natural heat—and if these all are restored to the man rising again, an unseemly enormity will rise with him. It seems, then, that man will not rise after death.

[5] There is more. It happens, occasionally, that some men feed on human flesh, and they are nourished on this nutriment only, and those so nourished generate sons. Therefore, the same flesh is found in many men. But it is not possible that it should rise in many. And the resurrection does not seem otherwise to be universal and entire if there is not restored to every man what he has had here.

[6] Again, that which is common to all those existing in a species seems to he natural to that species. But the resurrection of man is not natural, for there is not a natural power of man which suffices to do this. Therefore, not all men will rise in common.

[7] Furthermore, if by Christ we are freed from fault and from death, which is the effect of sin, it seems that those alone ought to be freed who had a share in the mysteries of Christ by which they would be freed from sin. But this is not true of all men. Therefore, not all men will rise, it seems.

Chapter 81: SOLUTION OF THE OBJECTIONS MENTIONED

[1] Now, toward a solution of these difficulties this consideration is required: God, as was said, above, when He established human nature, granted the human body something over and above that which was its due in its natural principles: a kind of incorruptibility, namely, by which it was suitably adapted to its form, with the result that, as the life of the soul is perpetual, so the body could live perpetually by the soul.

[2] And this sort of incorruptibility, although not, of course, natural in its. active principle, was somehow natural in its order to the end; namely, as matter would be ordered to its natural form, which is the end of the matter.

[3] When the soul, then, outside the order of its nature, was turned away from God, that disposition was lost which had been divinely bestowed on the soul’s body to make it proportionally responsive to the soul; and death followed. Death, therefore, is something added as an accident, so to say, to man through sin, if one considers the establishment of human nature.

[4] . But this accident was taken away by Christ, who by the merit of His passion our “death by dying did destroy.” From this, then, it follows that by the divine power which gave the body incorruption the body may once again be restored from death to life.

[5] In this way, then, one must answer the first argument that the power of nature fails the divine power, as the power of an instrument fails the principal agent. Granted, then, that the operation of nature cannot bring it about that a corrupted body be restored to life, the divine power can bring it about. The reason nature is unable to do this is that nature always operates by a form. But what has a form, already is. When it was corrupted, of course, it lost the form which was able to be the principle of the action. Hence, by natures operation, what was corrupted cannot be restored with a numerical identity. But the divine power which produced things in being operates by nature in such wise that it can without nature produce natures effect, as was previously shown. Hence since the divine power remains the same even when things are corrupted, it can restore the corrupted to integrity.

[6] What is stated in the second objection, however, cannot be an obstacle to man’s ability to rise with numerical identity. For none of man’s essential principles yields entirely to nothingness in death, for the rational soul which is man’s form remains after death, as was shown above; the matter, also, which was subject to such a form remains in the same dimensions which made it able to be the individual matter. Therefore, by conjunction to a soul numerically the same the man will be restored to matter numerically the same.

[7] Corporeity, however, can be taken in two ways. In one way, it can be taken as the substantial form of a body as it is located in the genus of substance. Thus, the corporeity of any body is nothing else but its substantial form; in accord with this it is fixed in genus and species, and to this the bodily thing owes its having three dimensions. For there are not different substantial forms in one and the same thing, by one of which it is placed in the supreme genus—substance, say; by another in its proximate genus—body or animal, say; and by another in its species—say man or horse. Since, if the first form were to make the being substance, the following forms would be accruing to that which already is actually a definite something (hoc aliquid), and subsisting in nature; thus, the later forms would not make a definite something, but would be in the subject which is a definite something as accidental forms. Therefore, corporeity, as the substantial form in man, cannot be other than the rational soul, which requires in its own matter the possession of three dimensions, for the soul is the act of a body. Another way of taking corporeity is as an accidental form; in accord with this one says a body is in the genus of quantity. And corporeity thus is nothing other than the three dimensions which constitute the character of body. Therefore, although this corporeity yields to nothingness when the human body is corrupted, it cannot, for all that, be an obstacle to the body’s rising with numerical identity; the reason is that corporeity taken in the first way does not yield to nothingness, but remains the same.

[8] In the same fashion, also, the form of a compound can be taken in two ways. In one way it is so taken that by form of a compound one understands the substantial form of the compound body. And thus, since there is not in man any other substantial form than the rational soul, as was shown, one will not be able to say that the form of the compound, as it is the substantial form, yields to nothingness when man dies. Taken in a second way, a form of the compound is called that certain quality which is composed and balanced from the mixture of the simple qualities, and stands to the substantial form of the compound body as the simple quality stands to the substantial form of the simple body. Hence, although the form of the compounding when thus stated yields to nothingness, this is not prejudicial to the unity of the body arising.

[9] Thus, also, must one speak of the nutritive part and the sensitive part. For, if by sensitive part and nutritive part one understands those very capacities which are the natural properties of the soul, or, better, of the composite, then, when the body is corrupted, they are corrupted; nonetheless, this is no obstacle to the unity of the one arising. But, if by the parts mentioned the very substance of the sensitive and nutritive soul is understood, each of those parts is identified with the rational soul. For there are not three souls in man, but only one, as was shown in Book II.

[10] But, in speaking of humanity, one should not understand it as a kind of form coming forth from the union of the form to the matter, as though it were, really other than each of the two, because, since by the form the matter is made this actual something, as De anima II [ 1] says, that third form following would be not substantial, but accidental. Of course, some say that the form of the part is the same as the form of the whole: it is called form of the part in that it makes the matter actual being, but it is called form of the whole in that it completes the species essentially. In this way, humanity is not really other than the rational soul. Hence, clearly, when the body is corrupted it does not yield to nothingness. But humanity is the essence of man. The essence of a thing, of course, is, what the definition signifies; and the definition of a natural thing does not signify the form alone, but the form and the ,matter. Therefore, necessarily, humanity signifies something composite of matter and form, just as “man” does. Differently, nevertheless; for “humanity” signifies the essential principles of the species, both formal and material, prescinding from the individual principles. Humanity is used so far as one is a man; one is not a man by reason of having the individual principles, but only by having the essential principles of the species. Humanity, therefore, signifies only the essential principles of the species. Hence, it is signified in the way in which a part is signified. “Man” truly signifies the essential principles of the species, but does not exclude the individuating principles from .its signification, for he is called man who has humanity, and this does not shut out the ability to have other things. For this reason, man is signified as a whole is, for it signifies the essential principles actually, but the individuating principles potentially. “Socrates,” however, signifies each set of principles actually, just as the genus contains the difference in potency, but the species contains it actually. Hence, it is clear that man returns numerically the same both by reason of the permanence of the rational soul and by reason of the unity of matter.

[11] However, what is said in the third argument—that being is not one because it is not continuous—rests on a false foundation. For, clearly, the being of matter and form is one; matter has no actual being except by form. Nonetheless, in this respect the rational soul differs from other forms. For there is no being of other forms except in their concrete union with matter, since they exceed matter neither in being nor in operation. But the rational soul plainly exceeds matter in its operation, for it has an operation in which no bodily organ takes part; namely, the act of understanding. Hence, its being, also, is not merely in its concrete union with matter. Its being, therefore, which is that of the composite, remains in the soul even when the body is dissolved; when the body is restored in the resurrection, it is returned to the same being which persisted in the soul.

[12] The fourth objection, also, fails to remove the unity of the one who rises. For what is no obstacle to a man’s numerical unity while he continues to live manifestly cannot be an obstacle to the unity of one who rises. But in the body of man, so long as he is alive, it is not with respect to matter that he has the same parts, but with respect to his species. In respect to matter, of course, the parts are in flux, but this is not an obstacle to his being numerically one from the beginning of his life to the end of it. An example of this can be taken from fire: While it continues to bum, it is called numerically one because its species persists, yet wood is consumed and -new wood is applied. It is also like this in the human body, for the form and species of its single parts remain continuously through a whole life; the matter of the parts is not only resolved by the action of the natural heat, but is replenished anew by nourishment. Man is not, therefore, numerically different according to his different ages, although not everything which is in him materially in one state is also there in another. In this way, then, this is not a requirement of man’s arising with numerical identity: that he should assume again whatever has been in him during the whole time of his life; but he need assume from that matter only what suffices to complete the quantity due, and that especially must be resumed which was more perfectly consistent with the form and species of humanity. But, if something was wanting to the fulfillment of the quantity due, either because one was overtaken by death before nature could bring him to the quantity due or because mutilation perhaps deprived him of so-me member, the divine power will supply this from another source. This, however, will be no obstacle to the unity of the body of the one rising, for even the work of nature adds to what a boy has from some other source to bring him to his perfect quantity. And this addition does not make him numerically other, for the man is the same in number whether he is boy or adult.

[13] From this it is clear, also, that there is no obstacle to faith in the resurrection—even in the fact that some men eat human flesh, as the fifth objection was maintaining. For it is not necessary, as has just been shown, that whatever has been in man materially rise in him; further, if something is lacking, it can be supplied by the power of God. Therefore, the flesh consumed will rise in him in whom it was first perfected by the rational soul. But in the second man, if he ate not only human flesh, but other food as well, only that will rise in him which came to him materially from the other food, and which will be necessary to restore the quantity due his body. But if he ate human flesh only, what rises in him will be that which he drew from those who generated him, and what is wanting will be supplied by the Creator’s omnipotence. But let it be that the parents, too, have eaten only human flesh, and that as a result their seed—which is the superfluity of nourishment—has been generated from the flesh of others; the seed, indeed, will rise in him who was generated from the seed, and in its place there will be supplied in him whose flesh was eaten something from another source. For in the resurrection this situation will obtain: If something was materially present in many men, it will rise in him to whose perfection it belonged more intimately. Accordingly, if something was in one man as the radical seed from which he was generated, and in another as the superfluity of nourishment, it will rise in him who was generated therefrom as from seed. If something was in one as pertinent to the perfection of the individual, but in another as assigned to the perfection of the species, it will rise in him to whom it belonged as perfection of the individual. Accordingly, seed will arise in the begotten, not in his generator; the rib of Adam will arise in Eve, not in Adam in whom it was present as in a principle of nature. But, if something was in both in the same degree of perfection, it will rise in him in whom it was the first time.

[14] Now, however, what is said in the sixth objection can be answered from what has been said. Resurrection is natural if one considers its purpose, for it is natural that the soul be united to the body. But the principle of resurrection is not natural. It is caused by the divine power alone.

[15] Nor must one deny that there will be a resurrection of all, although not all cleave to Christ by faith, and are not imbued with His mysteries. For the Son of God assumed human nature to restore it. Therefore, what is a defect of nature will be restored in all, and so all will return from)death to life. But the failure of the person will not be restored except in those who have adhered to Christ; either by their own act, believing in Him; or at least through the sacrament of faith.

Chapter 82: THAT MEN WILL RISE IMMORTAL

[1] From this it is clear, also, that in the resurrection to come men will not so rise that they are to die again.

[2] For the necessity of dying is a deficiency brought upon human nature by sin. But Christ, by the merit of His passion, repaired the deficiencies of nature which sin had brought upon nature. For, as the Apostle says: “Not as the offence, so also the gift. For if by the offence many died, much more the grace of God, and the gift, by the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, has abounded unto many” (Rom. 5:15). From this one gathers that the merit of ‘Christ is more effective for removing death than the sin of Adam for introducing it. Therefore, those who will rise by the merit of Christ, freed from death, will suffer death no more.

[3] Furthermore, that which is to last forever has not been destroyed. Therefore, if the men who rise will still die again so that death lasts forever, in the death of Christ death has by no means been destroyed. But it is destroyed: right now in its cause, as the Lord had foretold in Hosea (13:14): “O death, I will be your death”; at the end it will be actually destroyed, according to the word: “The enemy death shall be destroyed last” (1 Cor. 15:26). One must, then, hold with the faith of the Church that those who rise will not die again.

[4] An effect, moreover, is likened to its cause. But the resurrection of Christ is the cause of the future resurrection, as was said. But Christ so rose from the dead as to die no longer, in the Apostle’s words: “Christ rising again from the dead dies now no more” (Rom. 6:9). Therefore, men will so rise as to die no longer.

[5] Moreover, if the men who rise are to die a second time, they will either rise again from that second death or they will not. If they do not rise, they will remain forever as separated souls-and this is awkward, as was said above In fact, to avoid this awkwardness, they were held to rise the first time; in other words, if after the second death they are not going to rise, there will be no argument for their rising after the first death. On the other hand, if after the second death they do rise again, they will either rise to die again or they will not. If they are not to die again, the same reasoning will have to hold for the first resurrection. But, if they are to die again, the alternation of death and life in the same subject goes on to infinity-and this seems awkward, for the intention of God ought to have a determinate term. But the successive alternation of life and death is a kind of changing back and forth, so to say, and this cannot be an end, for it is essentially contrary to motion that it be an end; every motion tends toward another.

[6] There is more. In action, the intention of an inferior nature bears on perpetuity. For every action of an inferior nature is ordered to generation, and its very end is safeguarding the perpetual being of the species; wherefore, nature does not intend this individual as ultimate end, but the conservation in him of the species. And nature has this end, in that it acts by the power of God who is the first root of perpetuity. Hence, even the end of generation is held by the Philosopher [De gen. et corr. II, 10] to be this: that the generated share in the divine being by perpetuity. All the more, then, does the action of God Himself tend to something perpetual. But the resurrection is not ordered to the perpetuity of the species, for this could be safeguarded by generation. It must, then, be ordered to the perpetuity of the individual: but not in the soul alone, for the soul already had perpetuity before the resurrection; therefore, in the composite. Man rising, therefore, will live forever.

[7] Again, the soul and body appear to be related in a different order in the first generation of man and in his resurrection. Now, in the first generation the creation of the soul follows the generation of the body, for, when the bodily matter is prepared by the power of the separated seed, God infuses the soul by an act of creation. But in the resurrection the body is adapted to the pre-existing soul. Of course, that first life which man acquires by generation follows the condition of the corruptible body in this: man is deprived of that life by death. Then, the life which man acquires by resurrection will be perpetual according to the condition of the incorruptible soul.

[8] Again, if life and death succeed one another to infinity in the same subject, the alternation of life and death will in species be a kind of circular motion. But every circular motion in generable and corruptible things is caused by the first circular motion of the incorruptible bodies. For the first circular motion is found in local motion, and in its likeness is transferred to other motions. The alternation of death and life, therefore, will be caused by a celestial body. And this cannot be, because the restoration of a dead body to life is beyond the capacities of an action of nature. Therefore, that there is such alternation of life and death cannot be asserted, and, consequently, that the bodies which rise may die.

[9] Furthermore, whenever things succeed one another in the same subject they have a fixed measure of their duration in time. Everything of this kind is subject to the celestial motion on which time follows. But the separated soul is not subject to the celestial, for it exceeds the whole of bodily nature Therefore, an alternation of its separation from the body and union to it is not subject to celestial motion. Therefore, there is no circular motion in the alternation of death and life such as that which follows if those who rise are to die again. They will rise, then, never again to die.

[10] Hence, we read in Isaiah (25:8): “The Lord shall cast death down headlong forever”; and in the Apocalypse (21:4): “Death shall be no more.”

[11] Thus, of course, one avoids the error of certain ancient Gentiles, who used to hold that “the same periods and events of time are repeated; as if, for example, the philosopher Plato having taught at the school in Athens which is called the Academy, so numberless ages before, at long but certain intervals, this same Plato and the same school, and the same disciples existed, and so also are to be repeated during the endless cycles yet to come”; so Augustine describes the position in the City of God. To this position, so he himself tells us in the same place, some like to refer the words of Ecclesiastes (1:9-10): “What is it that has been? The same thing that shall be. What is it that has been done? The same thing that shall be done. Nothing under the sun is new, neither is any man able to say: Behold this is new: for it has already gone before in the ages that were before us.” This is not, indeed, to be understood as though things numerically the same are repeated through various generations, but things similar in species. So Augustine explains in the same place. And Aristotle at the end of De generatione [II, 11], taught the same thing, speaking against the group mentioned.
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Re: Summa Contra Gentiles--Books 1, 2 3 & 4, by Thomas Aquin

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Part 12 of 13

Chapter 83: THAT AMONG THE RISEN THERE WILL BE NO USE OF FOOD OR SEXUAL LOVE

[1] From what has been set down it follows that among those who rise there will be no use of sexual activity or of food.

[2] For, when the corruptible life is taken away, those things must be taken away which serve the corruptible life. But clearly, the use of food serves the corruptible life, for we take

food to avoid the corruption which can follow on the consumption of natural moisture. At present, moreover, the use of food is necessary for growth; after the resurrection there will be no growth in men, since all will rise in their due quantity, as has been made clear. In the same way, the intimate union of man and woman serves the corruptible life, for it is ordered to that generation by which what cannot be perpetually preserved in the individual is preserved in the species. Now, it was shown that the life of those who rise will be incorruptible. Therefore, among those who rise there will be use neither for food nor for sexual activity.

[3] Again, the life of those who rise will not be less ordered than the present life, but better ordered. For man will reach that life only through God’s action, but he leads this life with nature co-operating. In this life the use of food is ordered to an end, for one takes food to convert it into the body by digestion. If, then, there is to be food at that time, it will be for the purpose of converting it into the body. Therefore, since nothing will be resolved from the body, because it will be an incorruptible body, we will have to say that everything converted into the body from nourishment must be devoted to its growth. However, man will rise in his due quantify, as was said above. Therefore, he will achieve a size beyond moderation, for an immoderate size is that which exceeds the quantity due.

[4] The man who rises, furthermore, will live forever. Therefore, either he will use food always, or not always but during a fixed time. But let him use food always: since the food will be converted into a body in which no dissolution takes place, it necessarily will cause an increase in some dimension and we will have to say that the body of the man who rises will be increased to infinity. And this cannot be, because increase is a natural motion and the intention of a natural moving power is never infinity, but is always something fixed. For, as the De anima [II, 4] says, “in everything established by nature there is a term of size and increase.” If the man who rises will not always use food, but will always live, one must grant a time in which he does not use food. Accordingly, this must be done from the beginning. Therefore, the man who rises will not use food.

[5] But if he will not use food, it follows that neither will he have sexual union for which the separation of the seed is required. Of course, the seed will not be separable from the body of the one who rises, nor from his substance. There is this reason: It is contrary to the seed in its essentials, for it would be seed as corrupted and as withdrawing from nature, and so it could not be the principle of a natural action, which the Philosopher makes clear in his De generatione animalium [I, 18]. And there is this reason as well: Out of the substance of those existing incorruptible bodies nothing will be able to be resolved. Finally, the seed cannot be the superfluity of nutriment if those who rise do not use food, as was shown. Therefore, among those who rise there will be no sexual union.

[6] Again, sexual union is ordered to generation. If, then, after the resurrection there is to be sexual union, it follows—unless it is to be in vain—that there will be human generation then just as there is now. Therefore, there will be many men after the resurrection who were not before the resurrection. In vain, then, does the resurrection effect this great difference: that all who have the same nature receive life at the same time.

[7] And again, if after the resurrection there is to be human generation, those who are generated will either be once again corrupted or they will be incorruptible and immortal. But, if they are to be incorruptible and immortal, the awkward consequences are many. First, indeed, one will have to hold that those men are born without original sin, since the necessity of dying is a punishment that follows on original sin. This is contrary to the Apostle’s word: “By one man came sin to all and by sin death” (Rom. 5:12). Next, it follows that not all would require the redemption which is from Christ, and so Christ will not be the bead of all men. And this is contrary to the Apostle’s teaching: “As in Adam all die so also in Christ all will live again” (1 Cor. 15:22). There would also be this awkward result: Men whose generation is the same would not have the same term of generation, for by generation from seed they achieve a corruptible life now, but then they would achieve an immortal one. Allow, on the other hand, that the men who will then be born will be corruptible and will die: if they do not rise again, it will follow that their souls will remain forever separated from their bodies. And this is awkward, since they are of the same species as the souls of the men who do rise. But if they, too, are to rise, their resurrection has to be waited for, by the others, that all who share the same nature may simultaneously receive that benefit of resurrection which is proper to the restoration of that nature (as is clear from what has been said). And, what is more, there does not seem to be a reason for waiting for the simultaneous resurrection of some, if one does not wait for the resurrection of all.

[8] Again, if the men who rise will use sexual union and generate, this will always take place or it will not always take place. If it always takes place, the multiplication of men will go on to infinity. The intention of the generating nature after the resurrection cannot be for any other end than the multiplication of men; it will not be for the conservation of the species by generation, since men are going to live incorruptibly. It will follow, therefore, that the intention of the generating nature is infinity; and this is impossible. But, if they do not generate always, but only for a fixed time, they will not generate after that time. For this reason one should attribute to them right from the start no use of sexual union and no generation.

[9] Now, let one say that in those who rise there will be eating and sexual union, not for the preservation and growth of the body, nor for the preservation of the species and multiplication of men, but simply for the pleasure which there is in these acts, so that no pleasure will be lacking in man’s final reward: in many ways, indeed, is it clear that such is an awkward position.

[10] The first reason is this: The life of those who rise will be better ordered than our life, as was said above. But in the present life it is a disordered and vicious thing to use food and sexual union for mere pleasure and not for the necessity of sustaining life and begetting offspring. And this is reasonable, for the pleasures which are in the activities mentioned are not the ends of those activities. It is, rather, the converse, for nature ordered the pleasure of those acts for this reason: lest the animals, in view of the labor, desist from those acts necessary to nature, which is what would happen if they were not stimulated by pleasure. Therefore, the order is reversed and inharmonious if those operations are carried out merely for pleasure. By no means, therefore, will such a thing be found among those who rise; their life is held to be one of perfect order.

[11] The life of the risen, moreover, is ordered to the preservation of perfect beatitude. But the beatitude and felicity of man do not consist in bodily pleasures, and such am the pleasures of eating and of sexual union as was shown. in Book III. One should not, therefore, hold that there are pleasures of this kind in the life of those who rise.

[12] Furthermore, the acts of the virtues are ordered to beatitude as to an end. If, then, in the state of beatitude to come there be the pleasures of eating and sexual love, as constituents, so to say, of this beatitude, it would follow that in the intention of those who perform virtuous acts the pleasures mentioned are somehow or other present. And this excludes temperance by essence, for it is contrary to the essence of temperance that one abstain now from pleasures to become able to enjoy them the more later on. This would, therefore render all chastity wanton, and all abstinence gluttonous. But allow that the pleasures mentioned are to be, and are, nonetheless, not to be as constituents, so to say, of beatitude, so that they are in the intentions of those who act virtuously: even this cannot be. For whatever is, is for another or for itself. But the pleasures mentioned are not for another; they are not for the actions ordered to the end of nature, as was already shown. It follows, then, that they are for themselves. But everything like this is either beatitude or a part of beatitude. Therefore, if the pleasures mentioned are to be in the life of those who rise, it must be that they belong to its beatitude.

And this cannot be, as was shown.” There is, then, no way for pleasures of this kind to be in the future life.

[13] There is more. It seems ridiculous to search for. bodily pleasures which the brute animals share with us there where the loftiest pleasures which we share with the angels are expected—the pleasures in the vision of God which will be common to us and the angels, as was shown in Book III. Unless, perhaps, someone wants to say that the beatitude of the angels is imperfect because the angels lack the pleasures of the brutes—which is completely absurd. Pertinent to this is our Lord’s saying in Matthew (22:30), that “in the resurrection they shall neither marry nor be married, but shall be as the angels of God.”

[14] By this, of course, one avoids the error of the Jews and of the Saracens, who hold that in the resurrection men will have use for food and sexual pleasure as they do now. And even certain Christian heretics have followed them; they hold that there will be on earth for a thousand years an earthly kingdom of Christ, and in that space of time “they assert that those who rise again shall enjoy the leisure of immoderate carnal banquets, furnished with an amount of meat and drink such as not only to shock the feeling of the temperate, but even to surpass the measure of credulity itself, such assertions can be believed only by the carnal. Those who do believe them are called by the spiritual Chiliasts, a Greek word, which we may literally reproduce by the name Millenarians”; so Augustine says in the City of God [XX, 7, 1].

[15] Some points, however, seem to favor this opinion. First, indeed, there is this: Before his sin Adam had an immortal life; nevertheless, eating and sexual love were in his power while in that state, for before his sin he was told: “Increase and~multiply” and “Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat” (Gen. 1:28; 2:16).

[16] Again, one reads of Christ Himself that He ate and drank after His resurrection. For Luke (24:43) says that “when He had eaten before them, taking the remains, He gaw to them.” And in Acts (10:40-41) Peter says: “Him,” namely Jesus, “God raised up the third day, and gave Him to be made manifest, not to all the people but to witnesses preordained by God, even to us, who did eat and drink with Him after He arose again from the dead.”

[17] There are also some authorities which seem to promise men the use of food in the state of which we speak. For Isaiah (25:6, 8) says: “The Lord of hosts shall make unto all people in this mountain a feast of fat things full of marrow, of wine purified from the lees.” And we are to understand this of the state of those who rise, as is clear from the addition: “He shall cast death down for ever: And the Lord God shall wipe away tears from every face.” Isaiah (65:13, 17) also says: “Behold my servants shall eat, and you shall be hungry; behold, my servants shall drink, and you shall be thirsty.” And that this refers to the future life is clear from the addition: “Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth,” and so forth. Our Lord also says: “I will not drink from henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that day when I shall drink it with you new in the kingdom of My Father” (Matt. 26:29); and He says in Luke (22:29-30): “I dispose to you as My Father hath disposed to Me, a kingdom; that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom.” And we read in the Apocalypse (22:4) that “on both sides of the river” which will be in the City of the Blessed, there will be “the tree of life bearing twelve fruits.” It also says: “I saw... the souls of them that were beheaded for the testimony of Jesus... and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years” (Apoc. 20:4-5). From all of which the opinion of the heretics mentioned seems to be confirmed.

[18] But the solution of these points is not difficult. The first objection, about Adam, is not effective. For Adam did have a certain personal perfection, but human nature was not yet perfected when the human race was not yet multiplied. Adam, therefore, was established in the kind of perfection which suited the first source of the entire human race. Accordingly, he had to generate for the multiplication of the human race, and consequently had to take food. But the perfection of those who rise will be at a time when human nature is arriving at the fullness of its perfection and the number of the elect is already complete. Accordingly, generation will have no place, and neither will the use of food. For this reason the immortality and incorruption of those who rise will be of one kind; those which were in Adam were of another. For those who rise will be immortal and incorruptible in such wise that they cannot die; nor can any dissolution take place within their bodies. Adam, however, was immortal thus: he could not die if he did not sin; and be could die if he did sin. And the preservation of his immortality could take place not by the exclusion of dissolution within the body; rather, it could be helped by preventing loss of the natural moisture through the assumption of food, lest his body arrive at corruption.

[19] With regard to Christ, however, we ought to say that He ate after the resurrection not out of necessity, but to establish the truth of His resurrection. Hence, that food of His was not changed into flesh, but returned to the prior material state. But there will be no such reason for eating in the general resurrection.

[20] Now, as for the authorities which appear to promise the use of food after the resurrection: one must understand them spiritually. For divine Scripture proposes intelligible things to us in the likeness of sensible things, “so that the soul from what it knows may learn to love the things it knows not.” And in this fashion the pleasure of contemplation of wisdom and the assumption of the intelligible truth into our intellect is customarily indicated in sacred Scripture as the use of food; the saying of Proverbs (9:2, 4-5), for example, about wisdom: “She has mingled her wine and set forth her table... And to the unwise she said: Come, eat my bread and drink the wine I have mingled for you”; and Sirach (15:3): “With the bread of life and understanding, she shall feed him, and give him the water of wholesome wisdom to drink.” And of the same wisdom we read in Proverbs (3:18): “She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her: and he who retains her is blessed.” Therefore, the authorities mentioned above do not require us to say that those who rise will make use of food.

[21] Of course, the words of our Lord in Matthew (26:29) can be understood in another sense. Thus, they can refer to the fact that He ate with His disciples after His resurrection and actually drank new wine, that is, “newly” namely not out of necessity, but as proof of His resurrection. He then says “in the kingdom of My Father” because in the resurrection of Christ there is a demonstrable beginning of the kingdom of immortality.

[22] Now, the saying of the Apocalypse (22:2) about “the thousand years” and the “first resurrection of the martyrs” must be understood of that first resurrection of souls from their sins, of which the Apostle says: “Arise from the dead and Christ shall enlighten you” (Eph. 5:14). And by the thousand years one understands the whole time of the Church in which the martyrs as well as the other saints reign with Christ, both in the present Church which is called the kingdom of God, and also—as far as souls are concerned—in the heavenly country: for “the thousand” means perfection, since it is the cube whose root is ten, which also usually signifies perfection.”

[23] Thus, then, it becomes clear that those who rise will not spend their time eating and drinking and in acts of sexual union.

[24] From this one can see, finally, that all the business of the active life—it seems ordered to the use of food, to sexual activity, to the other necessities of the corruptible life—will come to a halt. Therefore, only the occupation of the contemplative life will persist in the resurrection. This is the reason one reads in Luke (10:42) of Mary’s contemplation that she “has chosen the best part which shall not be taken away from her.” Hence, too, we read in Job (7:9-10): “He that shall go down to hell shall not come up. Nor shall be return any more into his house, neither shall his place know him any more.” In these words Job is denying the kind of resurrection some have asserted who said that after the resurrection a man will return to the kind of business he has now: to building houses, for example, and carrying on other duties of this kind.

Chapter 84: THAT THE BODIES OF THOSE WHO RISE WILL BE THE SAME IN NATURE

[1] For some, of course, the points mentioned have been an occasion of error about the conditions of those who rise. For there were some who held that, since a body composed of contraries seems necessarily subject to corruption, those who rise do not have bodies composed of contraries in this way.

[2] Some among these held that our bodies do not rise in a bodily nature, but are changed into spirit. They were moved by what the Apostle says: “It is sown a natural body; it shall rise a spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:44). But others were moved by the same words to say that our bodies in the resurrection would be subtle bodies, similar to the air and the winds. For air is called a “spiration”, so that airy things may be called “spiritual.” But others said that in the resurrection the souls will assume bodies: not earthly ones, to be sure, but heavenly. Their occasion is this word of the Apostle speaking of the resurrection: “There are bodies celestial and bodies terrestrial.” And all this seems supported by what the Apostle says in the same place: “Flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of Cod” (1 Cor. 15:40, 50). It thus appears that the bodies of those who rise will not have flesh and blood and, consequently, no other humors.

[3] But the error of these opinions is quite evident. For our resurrection will conform to the resurrection of Christ, as the Apostle has it: “He will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of His glory” (Phil. 3:21). After His resurrection, of course, Christ had a body one could touch, constituted of flesh and bones, because after His resurrection—so we read in Luke (24:39)—He said to the disciples: “Handle and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as you see me to have.” Therefore, when other men rise, they will have bodies one can handle, composed of flesh and bones.

[4] The soul is, furthermore, united to the body as form to matter. Of course, every form has its determined matter, for there must be proportion between act and potency. Since, therefore, the soul is the same in species, it appears that its matter must be the same in species. Therefore, the body will be the same in species after the resurrection as before. And so it has to consist of flesh and bones and other parts of this kind.

[5] Again, in the definition of a natural thing which signifies the essence of the species, one includes the matter; necessarily, then, whenever the matter is varied in species, the species of the natural thing is varied. But man is a natural thing. If, therefore, after the resurrection he is not to have a body consisting of flesh and bones and parts of this kind as he has now, he who rises will not belong to the same species, but will be called man only equivocally.

[6] There is, moreover, a greater differentiation between the soul of a man and a body of some other species than there is between one human body and that of another man. But no soul can be united in turn to the body of a second man, as was shown in Book II. Much less, then, will it be able in the resurrection to be united to a body of another species.

[7] There is more. For a man to rise with numerical identity there must also be numerical identity in his essential parts. Therefore, if the body of the man who rises is not to be composed of the flesh and bones which now compose it, the man who rises will not be numerically the same man.

[8] But all these false opinions are most clearly rejected by the words of Job (19:26-27) who says: “Once again I shall be clothed with my skin, and in my flesh I shall see my God. Whom I myself shall see and not another.”

[9] Of course, each of the opinions mentioned has its own awkward consequence.

[10] For to hold that a body changes into a spirit is altogether impossible. Things do not change into one another unless they have matter in common. But spiritual things and bodily things can have no communication by matter, because spiritual substances are entirely immaterial, as was shown in Book II. Therefore, it is impossible that the human body is changed into a spiritual substance.

[11] Again, if the human body is changed into a spiritual substance, it will be changed either into the same spiritual substance which the soul is or into some other. But, if it is into the soul itself, then after the resurrection there would be in a man only his soul, just as there was before the resurrection. Therefore, the condition of man would not be altered by the resurrection. But, if the body is to be changed into another spiritual substance, it will follow that from two spiritual substances some unit in nature is effected. And this is entirely impossible, for every spiritual substance subsists of itself.

[12] In like fashion, it is impossible that the body of man who rises be like air and kindred to winds.

[13] For the body of man and of any animal must have a determined figure both in the whole and in the parts. But a body which has a determinate figure must be terminable of itself, for figure is that which is comprised by a term or terms. Air, however, is not terminable in itself, but is terminated only by the term of something else. It is, therefore, not possible that the body of man when he rises be like the air or the winds.

[14] There is more. The body of man when he rises must have the capacity to touch, for without touch there is no animal. But that which rises must be animal if it is to be man. But an aerial body can have no capacity for touch, just as no simple body can, for the body in which the touch sensation takes place must be midway between the tangible qualities so as to be in potency to them, as the Philosopher prom in De anima [II, 11]. It is impossible, then, that the body of man who rises be like the air or the winds.

[15] From this it is also apparent that it will not be able to be a celestial body.

[16] For the body of manor of any animal must be receptive to tangible qualities, as was just said. But so to be is impossible for a celestial body which is not hot or cold, nor wet or dry, nor anything else of the sort, whether actually or potentially, as the Philosopher proves in De caelo [I, 3]. Therefore, the body of the man who rises will not be a celestial body.

[17] Celestial bodies, moreover, are incorruptible and cannot be changed from their natural disposition. But the figure due to them naturally is the spherical, as the Philosopher proves. It is not possible, then, for them to receive the figure which is naturally due to the human body. It is, then, impossible that the bodies of the risen be in nature those of celestial bodies.

Chapter 85: THAT THE BODIES OF THE RISEN WILL HAVE ANOTHER DISPOSITION

[1] Although the bodies of the risen are to be the same in species as our bodies are now, they will have a different disposition.

[2] First, to be sure, in this respect: All the bodies of those who rise, both the good and the evil, will be incorruptible.

[3] And the reason for this is threefold.

[4] One reason is taken from the very purpose of the resurrection. For both the good and the evil will rise for this: that in their very own bodies they may receive their reward or their punishment for the deeds they performed while they lived in the body. But the reward of the good, felicity, that is, will be everlasting; in like fashion, too, everlasting punishment is due to mortal sin. Each of these points was established in Book III. Necessarily, then, in each case an incorruptible body must be assumed.

[5] The second reason is taken from the formal cause of those who rise which is the soul. We said above that, lest the soul remain forever separated from the body after the resurrection, the soul will once again assume the body. Since, then, this reception of the body is provided for the perfection of the soul, it is suitable that the disposition of the body be proportioned to that of the soul. But the soul is incorruptible. Hence, the body restored to the soul will be incorruptible.

[6] The third reason can be found in the active cause of the resurrection. For God, who will restore the already corrupted bodies to life, will be able to grant this so much more firmly by preserving forever the life regained in them. And by way of example of this, when He chose He preserved even corruptible bodies from corruption unharmed, as He did the bodies of the three youths in the fiery furnace (see Daniel 3:93-94).

[7] Thus, then, must one understand the incorruptibility of the state to come: that this body, corruptible now,, will be made incorruptible by the divine power, so that the soul will have perfect dominion over the body in the course of vivifying the body; nor will this communication of life be subject to any obstacle at all. Hence, also, the Apostle says: “This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Cor. 15:53).

[8] Therefore, man when he rises will be immortal, not for this reason: he has assumed another body which is incorruptible (as the opinions mentioned held); but for this reason: This same body which now is corruptible will become incorruptible.

[9] One must, therefore, understand the Apostle’s saying”Flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God” (I Cor. 15:50)—in this way: that the corruption of flesh and blood will be taken away in the state of the resurrection, while the substance of flesh and blood nevertheless persists. Hence, he adds: “neither shall corruption possess incorruption.”

Chapter 86: ON THE QUALITY OF GLORIFIED BODIES

[1] Grant, of course, that in the resurrection the merit of Christ does remove the deficiency of nature commonly from all men—from both the good and the evil; nonetheless, a difference will persist between the good and the evil in respect to what is suitable to each group personally. Now, it is an essential of nature that the human soul is the form of the body which vivifies the body and preserves it in being, but by its personal acts the soul merits to be elevated to the glory of the divine vision or to be excluded from the order of that glory by reason of its sin. The body, then, will be commonly disposed in all men in harmony with the soul, with this result: The incorruptible form bestows an incorruptible being on the body in spite of its composition from contraries, because in respect to corruption the matter of the human body will be entirely subject to the human soul. But the glory and power of the soul elevated to the divine vision will add something more ample to the body united to itself. For this body will be entirely subject to the soul—the divine power will achieve this—not only in regard to its being, but also in regard to action, passion, movements, and bodily qualities.

[2] Therefore, just as the soul which enjoys the divine vision will be filled with a kind of spiritual lightsomeness, so by a certain overflow from the soul to the body, the body will in its own way put on the lightsomeness of glory. Hence, the Apostle says: “It is sown in dishonor. It shall rise in glory” (1 Cor. 15:43); for our body is dark now, but then it will be lightsome; as Matthew (13:43) has it: “The just shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”

[3] Moreover, the soul which will enjoy the divine vision, united to its ultimate end, will in all matters experience the fulfillment of desire. And since it is out of the soul’s desire that the body is moved, the consequence will be the body’s utter obedience to the spirit’s slightest wish. Hence, the bodies of the blessed when they rise are going to have agility. This is what the Apostle says in the same place: “It is sown in weakness, it shall rise in power.” For weakness is what we experience in a body found wanting in the strength to satisfy the desire of the soul in the movements and actions which the soul commands, and this weakness will be entirely taken away then, when. power is overflowing into the body from a soul united to God. For this reason, also, Wisdom (3:7) says that the just “shall run to and fro like sparks among the reeds”; this is not said because there is motion in them by reason of necessity—since they who have God want nothing—but as an indication of their power.

[4] Of course, just as the soul which enjoys God will have its desire fulfilled in the achievement of every good, so also will its desire be filled in the removal of every evil, for with the highest good no evil has a place. Therefore, the body perfected by the soul will be, proportionally to the soul, immune from every evil, both in regard to act and in regard to potency. This will be actually so, indeed, because there will not be in them any corruption, any deformity, any deficiency. It will be potentially so, however, because they will not be able to suffer anything which is harmful to them. For this reason they will be incapable of suffering. Nonetheless, this incapability of suffering will not cut them off from the modification essential to sense knowledge, for they will use their senses for pleasure in the measure in which this is not incompatible with their state of incorruption. It is, then, to show their incapacity for suffering that the Apostle says: “It is sown in corruption, it shall rise in incorruption” (1 Cor. 15:42).

[5] Furthermore, the soul which is enjoying God will cleave to Him most perfectly, and will in its own fashion share in His goodness to the highest degree; and thus will the body be perfectly within the soul’s dominion, and will share in what is the soul’s very own characteristics so far as possible, in the perspicuity of sense knowledge, in the ordering of bodily appetite, and in the all-round perfection of nature; for a thing is the more perfect in nature, the more its matter is dominated by its form. And for this reason the Apostle says: “It is sown a natural body, it shall rise a spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:44) The body of the risen will be spiritual, indeed, but not because it is a spirit—as some have badly understood the point—whether in the sense of a spiritual substance, or in the sense of air or wind; it will be spiritual because it will be entirely subject to the spirit. just so, the Apostle calls it now an “animal body,” not because it is a soul, but because it is subject to animal passions and requires nourishment.

[6] This, then, is clear from the points now made: Just as the soul of man will be elevated to the glory of heavenly spirits to see God in His essence, as was shown in Book III, so also will his body be raised up to the characteristics of heavenly bodies: it will be lightsome, incapable of suffering, without difficulty and labor in movement, and most perfectly perfected by its form. For this reason the Apostle speaks of the bodies of the risen as heavenly, referring not to their nature, but to their glory. Hence, after he had said that “there are bodies celestial and bodies terrestrial,” he added: “one is the glory of the celestial, and another of the terrestrial” (1 Cor. 15:40). just as, of course, the glory to which the human soul is exalted exceeds the natural power of the heavenly spirits, as was shown in Book III, so does the glory of the risen bodies exceed the natural perfection of the heavenly bodies so as to have a greater lightsomeness, a more stable incapacity for suffering, an easier agility, and a more perfect worthiness of nature.

Chapter 87: ON THE PLACE OF THE GLORIFIED BODIES

[1] Now, because place must be in proportion to that which is in place, there is this consequence: Since the bodies of the risen will achieve the characteristics of heavenly bodies, they, too, will have a place in the heavens, or, rather, “above all the heavens,” so as to be at once with Christ, whose power will lead them to this glory. The Apostle says of Him: “He ascended above all the heavens that He might fill all things” (Eph. 4:10).

[2] It seems frivolity, of course, to make an argument against this divine promise out of the natural position of the elements, alleging the impossibility of elevating the body of man, since it is earthly and by its nature holds the lowest place, to a place above the lighter elements. For, manifestly, by the power of the soul the body which it perfects need not follow the inclinations of the elements. For even now, by its power, so long as we live the soul holds the body together lest it be dissolved by the contrariety of the elements; and also by the power of the soul to move the body is raised high; and it will be raised the more fully, as the motive power will have the greater strength. But, manifestly, it will be then a soul of perfect power when it will be united to God by vision. Therefore, it ought not be looked on as difficult if the body be then preserved by the power of the soul immune from every corruption and be lifted up above every body whatever.

[3] Neither does this divine promise meet an impossibility in the assertion that celestial bodies are unbreakable so the glorious bodies may not be elevated above them. For the divine power will bring it about that the glorious bodies can be simultaneously where the other bodies are; an indication of this was given in the body of Christ when He came to the disciples, “the doors being shut” (John 20:26).

Chapter 88: ON THE SEX AND AGE OF THE RISEN

[1] One ought, nevertheless, not bold that among the bodies ,of the risen the feminine sex will be absent, as some have thought. For, since the resurrection is to restore the deficiencies of nature, nothing that belongs to the perfection of nature will be denied to the bodies of the risen. Of course, just as other bodily members belong to the integrity of the human body, so do those which serve for generation—not only in men but also in women. Therefore, in each of the cases members of this sort will rise.

[2] Neither is this opposed by the fact that there will be no use for those members, as was shown above. For, if for this reason such members are not to be in the risen, for an equal reason there would be no members which serve nutrition in the risen, because neither will there be use of food after the resurrection. Thus, then, a large portion of the members would be wanting in the body of the risen. They will, them, fore, have all the members of this sort, even though there be no use for them, to re-establish the integrity of the natural body. Hence, they will not be in vain.

[3] In like fashion, also, the frailty of the feminine sex is not in opposition to the perfection of the risen. For this frailty is not due to a shortcoming of nature, but to an intention of nature. And this very distinction of nature among human beings will point out the perfection of nature and the divine wisdom as well, which disposes all things in a certain order.

[4] Nor is this position forced on us by the words of the Apostle: “Until we all meet into the unity of faith, and of knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). For he did not say this because everyone in that meeting when the risen shall go forth “to meet Christ into the air” (1 Thes. 4:16) will have the male sex. He said it to point out the perfection of the Church and its power. For the whole Church when meeting Christ will be like a perfect man,—as is clear from the words which precede and follow.

[5] But all must rise in the age of Christ, which is that of youth, by reason of the perfection of nature which is found in that age alone. For the age of boyhood has not yet achieved the perfection of nature through increase; and by decrease old age has already withdrawn from that perfection.

Chapter 89: ON THE QUALITY OF THE RISEN BODIES AMONG THE DAMNED

[1] From these points one can, of course, reasonably consider what sort of condition there will be in the risen bodies of those to be damned.

[2] For those bodies, too, must be proportioned to the souls of those to be damned. Of course, the souls of the wicked have a good nature, indeed, since it is created by God, but they will have a disordered will which will be failing its very own end. Their bodies, then, so far as nature is concerned, will be restored to integrity; because, as one can see, they will rise in the perfection of age, without any members diminished, without any deficiency or corruption which the error or the weakness of nature has introduced. Hence, the Apostle says: “The dead shall rise again incorruptible” (1 Cor. 15-52); and clearly this ought to be understood of all, both the good and the evil, according to what precedes and follows in his text.

[3] But because in its will their soul will be turned away from God, and deprived of its own end, their bodies will not be spiritual, that is to say, entirely subject to the spirit; rather, by its affection their soul will be carnal.

[4] Nor will their bodies have agility obeying the soul, so to say, with no difficulty, rather, they will be burdensome and heavy, and in some way hard for the soul to carry, just as their very souls are tamed away from God by disobedience.

[5] They will also remain capable of suffering, as they now are, or even more so; in such wise, nonetheless, that they will indeed suffer affliction from sensible things; and, for all that, no corruption; just as their souls also will be wracked, frustrated entirely in their natural desire for beatitude.

[6] Their bodies also will be dense and darksome, just as their souls will be foreign to the light of divine knowledge. And this is what the Apostle says: “We shall all indeed rise again we shall not all be changed” (1 Cor. 15:51). For the good alone shall be changed for glory; it will be without glory that the bodies of the wicked shall rise.

[7] There is a chance, of course, that someone may see an impossibility in the fact that the bodies of the wicked are capable of suffering and, for all that, are not corruptible, because “every passion when intensified takes something away from substance.” For we see that a body, if it remains in a fire a long time, is finally consumed; and sorrow, if it be too intense, separates the soul from the body. But this entire process takes place on the basis of the transmutability of matter from form to form. But after the resurrection the human body will not be transmutable from form to form, in the case of the good or of the wicked; for in each class the body will be entirely perfected by the soul so far as its natural being is concerned. Thus, it will no longer be possible to remove this form from such a body, nor to introduce another form, when the divine power is subjecting the body entirely to the soul. Hence, also, that potency for every form which is in prime matter will be somehow bound by the power of the soul, lest it be able to be reduced to the act of another form. But, in regard to some conditions, the bodies of the damned will not be entirely subject to the soul; therefore, they will be sensibly afflicted by the contrariety of the sensibles. For they will be afflicted by bodily fire, so far as the quality of fire by its own excellence is the contrary of the equal balance and harmony that is connatural to the sensibility although it is unable to dissolve it. Nevertheless, such an affliction will not be able to separate the soul from the body, since the body necessarily must persist under the same form.

[8] Now, just as the bodies of the blessed, by reason of the newness of their glory, will be lifted above the heavenly bodies, so also the lowest place, one of darkness and punishment, will in proportion be set aside for the bodies of the damned. Hence the Psalmist says: “Let death come upon them and let them go down alive into hell” (Ps. 54:16). And the Apocalypse (20:9-10) says that “the devil who reduced them was cast into the pool of fire and brimstone where both the beast and the false prophet shall be tormented day and night for ever.”

Chapter 90: HOW INCORPOREAL SUBSTANCES MAY SUFFER FROM BODILY FIRE

[1] But a doubt can arise as to the manner in which the devil, who has no body, and the souls of the damned before the resurrection, can suffer from the bodily fire by which the bodies of the damned will suffer in hell. As our Lord says: “Depart from Me you cursed into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels” (Mat. 25:41).

[7] One must not, then, judge the matter thus: that non-bodily substances can suffer from bodily fire so that their nature is corrupted by fire, or altered, or in any other way at all transmuted, as our corruptible bodies do now suffer by fire; because non-bodily substances have no bodily matter so as to be able to be changed by bodily things, and they are not even receptive to sensible forms except intelligibly—such reception, of course, is not proper to punishment, but tends, instead, to perfect and to please.

[3] Neither can it be said that they suffer affliction from bodily fire by reason of any contrariety, as the bodies will suffer after the resurrection, because the non-bodily substances do not have organs of sense and do not use sense powers.

[4] Therefore, the non-bodily substances suffer from bodily fire in the manner of a certain bondage. For spirits are able to be bound by bodies: this can be by way of form, as the soul is bound to the human body to give it life; or it can be without being the form of a something, as the necromancers by the power of devils bind spirits by images or that sort of thing. Therefore,~,much Inore can the divine power bind the spirits to be damned by bodily fire. And this is to them the greater affliction: they know they are in bondage to the lowliest things as a punishment.

[5] It is also becoming that the damned spirits should be punished by bodily penalties. For the sin of every rational creature grows out of this: It is not subject to God in obedience. Punishment, of course, should answer to fault proportionally, with this result: that in its punishment the will suffer an affliction which is the contrary of that for whose love it sinned. Therefore, a befitting punishment to a sinning rational nature is this: to be subject somehow to the bondage of things which are its own inferiors, namely, bodily things.

[6] Again, the sin committed against God deserves not only the punishment of loss, but the punishment of sense, as we showed in Book III, for the punishment of sense answers to the fault in regard to the soul’s disordered turning toward a changeable good, as the punishment of loss answers to the fault in regard to its taming away from the unchangeable good. But the rational creature, and especially the human soul, sins by its disordered taming to bodily things. Therefore, its becoming punishment is affliction by bodily things.

[7] It furthermore, an afflicting punishment be due to sin, the one we call “the pain Of sense,” such punishment ought to come from that which can bring on affliction. But nothing brings on affliction except so far as it is the contrary of the will. But it is not contrary to the natural will of a rational nature that it be united to a spiritual substance. Say, rather, this is a pleasure to it, and belongs to its perfection, for it is a union of like to like and of intelligible to intellect, since every spiritual substance is intelligible in itself. But it is contrary to the natural will of a spiritual substance to be in subjection to a body from which in the order of its own nature it ought to be free. It is, then, fitting to punish a spiritual substance with bodily things.

[8] In consequence, this, too, is clear: Grant that one understands the bodily aspects of the rewards of the blessed mentioned in Scripture spiritually, as was said about the promise of food and drink, nonetheless, when Scripture threatens certain bodily punishments to sinners, these are to be understood in a bodily fashion and taken in their own meaning. For there is nothing suitable about rewarding a superior nature by the use of an inferior one-the reward, rather, is in the union to the superior—but a superior nature is suitably punished by being turned over to its inferiors.

[9] For all that, there is no reason why even some of the things we read in Scripture about the punishments of the damned expressed in bodily terms should not be understood in spiritual terms, and, as it were, figuratively. Such is the saying of Isaiah (66:24): “Their worm shall not die”: by worm can be understood that remorse of conscience by which the impious will also be tortured, for a bodily worm cannot eat away a spiritual substance, nor even the bodies of the damned, which will be incorruptible. Then, too, the “weeping” and “gnashing of teeth” (Mat. 8:12) cannot be understood of spiritual substances except metaphorically, although there is no reason not to accept them in a bodily sense in the bodies of the damned after the resurrection. For all that, this is not to understand weeping a loss of tears, for from those bodies there can be no loss, but there can be only the sorrow of the heart and the irritation of the eyes and the head which usually accompany weeping.

Chapter 91: THAT IMMEDIATELY AFTER THEIR SEPARATION FROM THE BODY THE SOULS WILL RECEIVE PUNISHMENT OR REWARD

[1] From these points, of course, we can gather that immediately after death the souls of men receive either punishment or reward according to their merits.

[2] For the separated souls are susceptible to punishment, not only to spiritual, but even to bodily, punishment, as has been shown. That they are susceptible to glory is manifest from the points treated in Book III. For the separation of the soul from the body makes it capable of the divine vision, and it was unable to arrive at this so long as it was united to the corruptible body. Now, in the vision of God consists man’s ultimate beatitude, which is the “reward of virtue.” But there would be no reason why punishment should differ from reward, in each of which the soul can share. Therefore, immediately after its separation from the body the man’s soul receives its reward or punishment “according as he bath done in the body (see 2 Cor. 5:10).

[3] In that life, too, there is the state of being paid or docked; hence, the comparison to “warfare” and “the days of the hireling,” as is clear in Job (7:1): “The life of man upon earth is a warfare, and his days are like the days of a hireling.” But, after the state of warfare and the labor of the hireling, the reward or punishment is straightway due those who have fought well or badly; hence, we read in Leviticus (19:13): `The wages of him that bath been hired by you shall not abide with you until the morning”; and in Joel (3:4): “I will very soon return you a recompense upon your own head.” Immediately after death, therefore, the souls receive either reward or punishment.

[4] There is, moreover, in the order of fault and merit a harmony with the order of punishment and reward. But merit and fault are fitted to the body only through the soul, since there is essentially no merit or demerit except so far as a thing is voluntary. Therefore, both reward and punishment flow suitably from the soul to the body, but it does not belong to the soul by reason of the body. There is, therefore, no reason in the infliction of punishment or bestowal of reward why the souls should wait for the resumption of their bodies; rather, it seems more fitting that, since the souls had priority in the fault or merit, they have priority also in being punished or rewarded.

[5] Then, too, the same providence of God owes rational creatures their reward or punishment which bestows on the natural things the perfections due them. But it happens this way in natural things: Everything immediately receives the perfection for which it has capacity unless there is an obstacle an the part of the one receiving or of the one giving the perfection. Therefore, since the souls immediately after they are separated from the body have a capacity for glory or punishment, they will straightway receive one or the other, and neither the reward of the good nor the punishment of the evil is put off until the souls take up their bodies again.

[6] Nonetheless, one must weigh the fact that in the case of the good there can be an obstacle to keep the souls from receiving their ultimate reward, which consists in the vision of God, right after their release from the body. To that vision no rational creature can be elevated unless it be thoroughly and entirely purified, since that vision exceeds the whole of the creatures natural powers. Hence, Wisdom (7:25) says of wisdom that “no defiled thing comes into her”; and Isaiah (55:8) says of “the holy way, the unclean shall not pass over it.” But by sin the soul is unclean in its disordered union to inferior things. To be sure, the soul is purified from this uncleanness in this life by penance and the other sacraments. as was said above, but it does at times happen that such purification is not entirely perfected in this life, one remains a debtor for the punishment, whether by reason of some negligence, or business, or even because a man is overtaken by death. Nevertheless, he I not entirely cut off from his”reward, because such things can happen without mortal sin, which alone takes away the charity to which the reward of eternal life is due. And this is clear from what was said in Book III. They must, then, be purged after this life before they achieve the final reward. This purgation, of course, is made by punishments, just as in this life their purgation would have been completed by punishments which satisfy the debt; otherwise, the negligent would be better off than the solicitous, if the punishment which they do not complete for their sins here need not be undergone in the future. Therefore, if the souls of the good have something capable of purgation in this world, they are held back from the achievement of their reward while they undergo cleansing punishments. And this is the reason we hold that there is a purgatory.

[7] This position, of course, is supported by the Apostle’s saying: “If any man’s work burn, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved yet so as by fire (1 Cor. 5: 15). There is also support in the universal custom of the Church which prays for the dead, such prayers would be useless, indeed, if one holds there is no purgatory after death. For the Church does not pray for those who are already at the goal of good or of evil, but for those who have not yet arrived at the goal.

[8] Now, the attainment immediately after death of -the punishment or of the reward if there be no obstacle is established by Scriptural authorities. For Job (21:3) says of the wicked: “They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment they go down to hell”; and Luke (16:22): “And the rich man ,died and he was buried in hell.” Hell, of course, is the place where souls are punished. The same point is clear about the good, for, as Luke (23:43) has it, our Lord hanging on the cross said to the thief: “This day you shall be with Me in paradise.” By paradise one understands the reward which is promised to the good, as in the Apocalypse (2:7): “To him that overcomes I will give to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of My God.”

[9] However, some do say that by “paradise” one understands not the ultimate reward which will be in heaven, as in Matthew (5:12): “Be glad and rejoice for your reward is very great in heaven,” but an equal reward upon earth. For “paradise seems to be an earthly place, from what Genesis (2:8) says: “The Lord God had planted a paradise of pleasure wherein He placed man whom He had formed.” But let a man consider rightly the words of sacred Scripture and he will find that the final recompense promised to the saints in heaven is given immediately after this life. For the Apostle, after he had spoken of the final glory, said: “That which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation works for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4: 17-18). Clearly, he is speaking of the final glory which is in heaven, and to show when and how this glory is had he adds: “For we know, if our earthly house of this habitation be dissolved, that we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in heaven” (2 Cor. 5: 1). By this he manifestly gives us to understand that when the body is dissolved the soul is led to an eternal and heavenly mansion which is nothing bbutt the enjoyment of divinity as the angels enjoy it in heaven.

[10] But someone may choose to contradict and to assert that the Apostle did not say that immediately on the dissolution of the body we are to have an eternal home in heaven in fact, but merely in hope, and at long last we are to have it in fact. Clearly, however, this is contrary to the Apostle’s intention, for, even while we live here, we are to have the heavenly mansion according to divine predestination; and we already have it in hope, as Romans (8:24) says: “For we are saved by hope.” Vainly, then, he added: “if our earthly house of this habitation be dissolved,” for it would have been enough to say: “We know that we have a building of God,” and so forth. The point is again and more expressly clear in the addition: “Knowing that while we are in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith and not by sight. But we are confident and have a good will to be absent rather from the body, and to be present to the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:6-8). But we should be willing in vain “to be absent from the body,” meaning “separated,” unless we were to be straightway present to the Lord. But we are not present except when we behold by sight, for as long as we walk by faith and not by sight “we are absent from the Lord,” as he says there. Straightway, therefore, when the holy soul is separated from the body, it sees God by sight. And this is the ultimate beatitude, as was shown in Book III. The same truth is also made manifest by the words of the same Apostle: “Having a desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ” (Phil. 1:23). Now, Christ is in heaven. Therefore, the Apostle was hoping that immediately after the dissolution of his body he would arrive in heaven.

[11] In this way one avoids the error of some of the Greeks, who deny purgatory and say that before the resurrection souls neither ascend into heaven nor descend into hell.
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Re: Summa Contra Gentiles--Books 1, 2 3 & 4, by Thomas Aquin

Postby admin » Wed Mar 21, 2018 10:21 pm

Part 13 of 13

Chapter 92: THAT THE SOULS OF THE SAINTS HAVE AFTER DEATH AN UNCHANGEABLE WILL IN THE GOOD

[1] From these points this is clear: souls immediately after their separation from the body become unchangeable in will, with the result that the will of man cannot further be changed, neither from good to evil, nor from evil to good.

[2] As long as the soul can be changed from good to evil or evil to good, it is in a state of struggle and warfare, for it must with solicitude resist evil lest it be conquered by evil, or it must try to be freed from it. Immediately after the soul is separated from the body it will not be in a state of warfare or struggle, but in a state of receiving reward or punishment, because it “has lawfully or unlawfully striven” (2 Tim. 2:5). For it was shown that reward or punishment follows immediately. No longer, then, is the soul able to be changed in its willing, whether from good to evil, or from evil to good.

[3] Then, too, in Book III it was shown that beatitude which consists in the vision of God is everlasting; and in like fashion we showed in the same Book that mortal sin deserves eternal punishment. But a soul cannot be blessed if its will is not going to be right—and it ceases to be right by being tamed away from the end—but it cannot simultaneously be turned away from the end and enjoying the end. Necessarily, then, the rectitude of the will in the blessed soul is everlasting; as a result, it cannot be changed from good to evil.

[4] The rational creature, furthermore, naturally desires to be happy; hence, it cannot wish not to be happy. For all that, its will can be deflected from Him in whom its true beatitude consists; this is the perversity of will. And this takes place because that in which there is the true beatitude is not grasped essentially as beatitude, but something else is, and toward this the disordered will is deflected as though to an end. For example, take the man who puts his end in bodily pleasures; he thinks they are the greatest good, and this is essential to his beatitude. But those who are already happy grasp that in which there truly is beatitude essentially as beatitude and as ultimate end; otherwise, there would be therein no quiet of the appetite and, in consequence, they would not be happy. Therefore, all those who are happy cannot turn their wills away from Him in whom the true happiness is. Therefore, they can have no perversity of will.

[5] Then, too, when what one has suffices him, he seeks nothing beyond it. But whoever is happy has what suffices him in the true beatitude; otherwise, his desire would not be fulfilled. Therefore, whoever is happy seeks nothing which does not belong to that in which true beatitude consists. But no one has a perverse will unless he wills something repugnant to Him in whom true beatitude consists. Therefore, there is no one of the blessed whose will can be changed to evil.

[6] There is more. Sin cannot take place in the will-without some sort of ignorance in the intellect, for we will nothing but the good whether true or apparent. For this reason Proverbs (14:27) says: “They err who work evil”; and in the Ethics the Philosopher says “every evil man is ignorant.” But the soul which is truly happy cannot be in ignorance at all, since in God it sees everything which belongs to its. perfection. Therefore, there is no way for it to have a bad will, especially since that vision of God is always actual, as was shown in Book III.

[7] Our intellect, again, can be in error about some conclusion before a resolution into the first principles is made; once the resolution into the principles is made, one has knowledge of the conclusions in which there can be no falsity. “But what the principle of demonstration is in speculative matters, so the end is in matters of appetite.” Therefore, as long as we do not achieve the ultimate end our will can be perverted, but not after it arrives at the enjoyment of the ultimate end which is desirable in itself, just as the first principles of demonstration are known in themselves.

[8] The good, furthermore, is precisely as good the lovable. Therefore, that which is grasped as the best is the most lovable. But a happy rational substance that sees God grasps Him as the best. Therefore, it loves Him the most. But this is an essential of love: the wills of those who love each other are in conformity. Therefore, the wills of the blessed are most in conformity with God, and this makes rightness of will, since the divine will is the first rule of all wills. Therefore, the wills of those who see God cannot be rendered perverse.

[9] Once more: So long as a thing is by nature changeable to another it does not have its ultimate end. Therefore, if the blessed soul can still be changed from good to evil, it is not yet in its ultimate end. And this is against the essentials of beatitude. It is clear, then, that the souls which immediately after death are beatified become immutable in their wills.

Chapter 93: THAT AFTER DEATH THE SOULS OF THE WICKED HAVE A WILL UNCHANGEABLE IN EVIL

[1] In the same way, also, the souls which immediately after death are made miserable in punishment become unchangeable in their wills.

[2] For we showed in Book III that mortal sin deserves everlasting punishment. But there would be no everlasting punishment of the souls of the damned if they were able to change their will for a better will; it would be unjust, indeed, if from the moment of their having a good will their punishment would be everlasting. Therefore, the will of the damned soul cannot be changed to good.

[3] There is more. The very disorder of the will is a kind of punishment and one of extreme affliction. The reason: So far as one has a disordered will he is displeased by whatever is done rightly, and the damned souls will be displeased because God’s will is fulfilled in all those who by sinning have sided against Him. Therefore, their disordered will shall never be taken away from them.

[4] The change of a will, furthermore, from sin to good takes place only by the grace of God, as what was said in Book III makes clear. But, just as the souls of the good are admitted to a perfect sharing in the divine goodness, so the souls of the damned are entirely excluded from grace. Therefore, they will not be able to change their will for the better.

[5] Then again: just as the good when living in the flesh make God the end of all their works and desires, so also the wicked do with some improper end which turns them away from God. But the separated souls of the good will cleave unchangeably to the good they have set before themselves in this life; namely, to God. Therefore, the souls of the wicked will cleave unchangeably to the end which they themselves have chosen. Therefore, as the will of the good will not be able to become evil, so the will of the evil will not be able to become good.

Chapter 94: ON THE IMMUTABILITY OF WILL IN SOULS DETAINED IN PURGATORY

[1] There are some souls, however, which do not attain beatitude immediately after separation, and for all that are not damned, such are those who carry with them something subject to purging, as was said; therefore, one ought to show that not even souls of this kind after separation from the body are able to be changed in their wills. Now, the blessed and the damned souls have an unchangeable will by reason of the end to which they adhered, as what was said makes clear; but the souls which carry with them something subject to purging do not differ in end from the blessed souls, for they depart in charity by which we cleave to God as to an end. Those very souls, then, will have an unchangeable will.

Chapter 95: ON THE IMMUTABILITY OF WILLS COMMONLY IN ALL SOULS AFTER THEIR SEPARATION FROM THE BODY

[1] That the unchangeable character of will follows from the end in all the separated souls can be made clear this way. [2] “For the end,” as was said, “acts in matters of appetite as the first principles of demonstration do in speculative matters.” Of course, principles of this kind are known naturally, and, should there be an error about principles like these, it would come from the corruption of nature. Hence, a man could not change from a true acceptance of these principles to a false one—or conversely—except by a change in his nature, for he who errs in the principles cannot be called back by something more certain, as a man is called back from his error about a conclusion. In the same way, one could not be led away from his acceptance of the principles by something more evident. Thus, then, it is with regard to the end, for every man has by nature a desire of the ultimate end.

[3] To be sure, it follows universally on rational nature to desire beatitude, but the desire of this thing or that thing under the aspect of beatitude and ultimate end arises from some special disposition of nature; hence, the Philosopher says that “as a man is, so also the end appears to him.” Therefore, if that disposition in which something is desired as ultimate end cannot he removed from the man, neither will his will be able to be changed in respect to desire of that end.

[4] Dispositions like these, of course, can be removed from us so long as the soul is united to -the body. For, that we desire a thing as the ultimate end sometimes happens from our being so disposed by a passion which quickly passes; hence, too, this desire of the end is easy to remove, as appears among the continent. Sometimes, however, we are disposed to the desire of a good end or a bad one by a habit, and that disposition is not easily taken away; hence, such a desire for an end persists rather strongly, as is clear among the temperate. For all that, an habitual disposition can be removed in this life.

[5] Thus, therefore, it is manifest that so long as the disposition persists in which a thing is desired as ultimate end, the desire of that end is not changeable, because the desire of the ultimate end is an extreme; hence, one cannot be called from desire of the ultimate end by something more desirable. The soul is, of course, in a mutable state so long as it is united to the body, but it will not be after it has been separated from the body. A disposition of the soul is changed incidentally with some change in the body, for, since it is at the service of the soul for its very own operations, the body was given to the soul by nature with this in view: that the soul existing within the body be perfected, be, as it were, moved toward its perfection. When it shall, then, be separated from the body it will not be in a state of motion toward the end, but in a state of rest in the end acquired. The soul’s will, therefore, will be immovable regarding a desire for the ultimate end.

[6] Now, on the ultimate end the entire goodness or wickedness of the will depends, for whatever goods one wills in an order toward a good end he wills well; whatever evil he wills in an order toward an evil end he wills badly. Therefore, there is not in the separated soul a will changeable from good to evil, although it is changeable from this object of will to that so long as the order to the same ultimate end is preserved.

[7] It is now apparent that such immutability is not in conflict with the power of free will whose act it is to choose, for choice is of the things for the end; choice is not of the ultimate end. Therefore, just as there is now no conflict with free will in the fact that with an immutable will we desire beatitude and fly from misery in general, so there will be no contrariety to free will in the fact that the will is unchangeably fixed upon some definite thing as upon an ultimate end. The reason: just as there now inheres in us unchangeably that common nature by which we desire beatitude in general, so then there will persist in us unchangeably that special disposition by which this thing or that is desired as ultimate end.

[8] On the other hand, the separate substances—namely, angels—are in the nature in which they are created closer neighbors to their ultimate perfection than human souls are, for they do not need to acquire knowledge from the senses nor to arrive at conclusions by reasoning from principles as souls do; rather, they are able by infused species to arrive straightway at the contemplation of truth. And therefore, just at the moment they adhered to the end which was due, or that which was not they persisted unchangeably therein.

[9] For all that, one should not think that the souls, after they take up their bodies again in the resurrection, lose the immutability of will; rather, they persevere therein, because, as was said above, the bodies in the resurrection will be disposed as the soul requires, but the souls will not be changed by means of the bodies.

Chapter 96: THE LAST JUDGMENT

[1] From the foregoing it is clear, then, that there is a twofold retribution for what a man does in life: one for the soul—and this he receives as soon as the soul has been separated from the body, but there will be another retribution when the bodies are assumed again—and some will receive bodies which are incapable of suffering and glorious; but others, bodies capable of suffering and ignoble. The first retribution is made to men singly and one by one, in that men die separately and one by one. But the second retribution will be made to all and at the same time in that all will rise at the same time. Every retribution, of course, wherein different decisions are rendered according to differing merits demands a judgment. Necessarily, therefore, the judgment is twofold: There is one, regarding the soul, in which separately and one by one punishment or reward is determined; there is another common one, however, regarding the soul and body-in it there will be determined for all at the same time what they have earned.

[2] And since by His humanity in which He suffered and rose again Christ earned for us both resurrection and eternal life, it is to Him that universal judgment belongs, in which those who rise are rewarded or punished. For this reason we read of Him in John (5:27): “He has given Him power to do judgment, because He is the Son of man.”

[3] A judgment, of course, ought to be proportional to the matters judged. And because the last judgment will be about the reward or punishment of visible bodies, it is suitable that it be carried on visibly. Hence, also, Christ will carry out that judgment in the form of humanity which all may be able to see, both the good and the wicked. The sight of His divinity, however, makes men blessed, as was shown in Book III. Accordingly, this will be visible only to the good. The judgment of the soul, of course, since it is about invisible things, is carried on invisibly.

[4] Granted, of course, that Christ has the authoritative act of judging in that last judgment nonetheless at the same time those will judge with Him—sitting with the judge, as it were—who adhered to Him more than others. These are the Apostles, of whom it was said: “You, who have followed Me, shall sit on twelve seats judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Mat. 19:2.8); and this promise is extended also to those who follow in the footprints of the Apostles.

Chapter 97: THE STATE OF THE WORLD AFTER THE JUDGMENT

[1] When, therefore, the last judgment is completed, human nature will be entirely established in its goal. However, since everything bodily is somehow for the sake of man (as was shown in Book III), at that time, also, the entire bodily creation will be changed—and suitably—to be in harmony with the state of the men who then will be. And because men will then be incorruptible, the state of generation and corruption will then be taken away from the whole bodily creation. And this is what the Apostle says: that “the creature also itself shall be delivered from the servitude of corruption, into the liberty of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8: 21).

[2] Now, generation and corruption in inferior bodies are caused by the movement of the heavens. Therefore, that generation and corruption may come to a stop in the inferior bodies, the movement of the heavens must also come to a stop. And on this account the Apocalypse (10:6) says “that time shall be no longer.”

[3] It ought not, of course, seem impossible that the movement of the heavens come to a stop. For the movement of the heavens is not natural in the way the movement of heavy and light bodies is—that is, they are inclined to movement by an interior active principle—but it is called natural in that the heavenly body has an aptitude for such movement; the principle of that motion, however, is an intellect, as was shown in Book III. The heaven is moved, therefore, as are things moved by a will. But a will moves for a purpose. Of course, the purpose of the motion of the heavens cannot be the very movement itself, for motion, since it always tends toward another, does not have the character of an ultimate end. Neither can one say that the end of the heavenly motion is this: the reducing of the heavenly body from potency to act in place where. This potency can never be entirely reduced to act, for, while the heavenly body is actually in one place where, it is in potency to another such, just as is the case of prime matter with respect to forms. Therefore, just as nature in generation does not have as end the reduction of matter from potency to act, but something consequent on this reduction—namely, that perpetuity in things by which they approach a divine likeness—so the end of heavenly motion is not the being reduced from potency to act, but something consequent on this reduction: namely, to be made like to God in the act of causing. But all things generable and corruptible caused by the motion of the heaven are somehow ordered to man as to an end, a s was shown in Book III. Therefore, the motion of the heaven is especially on account of the generation of men; in this it does most to accomplish a divine likeness in the act of causing, since man’s form—namely, the rational soul—is immediately created by God, as was shown in Book II. But the multiplication of souls to infinity cannot be an end, for infinity is contrary to the notion of end. Nothing awkward, then, ensues if we hold that, when a fixed number of men is filled out, the motion of the heavens ceases.

[4] Nonetheless, when the motion of the heavens and generation and corruption in the elements have come to a stop, their substance will continue to be by reason of the changelessness of the divine goodness, “for He created all things that they might be” (Wis. 1:14). Hence, the being of things which have an aptitude for perpetuity will remain in perpetuity. Both wholly and in part, of course, the heavenly bodies have the nature to be everlasting. The elements, however, have it wholly, but not in part, for in part they are corruptible. Man, of course, has it in part, but not wholly: for the rational soul is incorruptible; the composite, corruptible. These, then, which in any way at all have an aptitude for being everlasting will abide in their substance in that last state of the world, and God in His power will supply what is wanting in their own weakness.

[5] But the other animals, the plants, and the mixed bodies, those entirely corruptible both wholly and in part, will not remain at all in that state of incorruption. In this way, then, must the saying of the Apostle be understood: “The fashion of this world passes away” (1 Cor. 7:31), that this appearance of the world which now is will cease to be, but the substance will remain. Thus, also, is understood what Job (24:12) says: “Man, when he is fallen asleep, shall not rise again: till the heavens be broken” that is, until that disposition of the heaven ceases to be, that in which it is moved and causes motion in others.

[6] But since among the other elements fire is the most active, and tends to consume the corruptible, the consumption of the things which ought not remain in the future state will most suitably take place by fire. Hence, one holds in accord with the faith that at the last the world will be purified by fire, not from corruptible bodies alone, but from that infection which the place incurred by serving as the dwelling of sinners. And this is what is said in 2 Peter (3:7): “The heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto, fire against the day of judgment,” so that we may understand by “heavens” not the very firmament in which the stars are, whether fixed or wandering, but those heavens of air which are close to the earth.

[7] Since, then, the bodily creation will at the last be disposed in harmony with the state of man—since men, of course, will not only be freed from corruption but also clothed with glory, as what has been said makes clear—necessarily even the bodily creation will achieve a kind of resplendence in its own way.

[8] AND, HENCE, THE SAYING OF THE APOCALYPSE (21:l): “I SAW A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH.” AND ISAIAH (65:17-18): “BEHOLD I CREATE NEW HEAVENS, AND A NEW EARTH: AND THE FORMER THINGS SHALL NOT BE IN REMEMBRANCE AND THEY SHALL NOT COME UPON THE HEART. BUT YOU SHALL BE GLAD AND REJOICE FOREVER.” AMEN.
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