Whether Christ's Was Identically the Same Body Living and Dead?
Objection 1: It would seem that Christ's was not identically the same
body living and dead. For Christ truly died just as other men do. But
the body of everyone else is not simply identically the same, dead
and living, because there is an essential difference between them.
Therefore neither is the body of Christ identically the same, dead
and living.
Obj. 2: Further, according to the Philosopher (Metaph. v, text. 12),
things specifically diverse are also numerically diverse. But
Christ's body, living and dead, was specifically diverse: because the
eye or flesh of the dead is only called so equivocally, as is evident
from the Philosopher (De Anima ii, text. 9; _Metaph._ vii). Therefore
Christ's body was not simply identically the same, living and dead.
Obj. 3: Further, death is a kind of corruption. But what is corrupted
by substantial corruption after being corrupted, exists no longer,
since corruption is change from being to non-being. Therefore,
Christ's body, after it was dead, did not remain identically the
same, because death is a substantial corruption.
_On the contrary,_ Athanasius says (Epist. ad Epict.): "In that body
which was circumcised and carried, which ate, and toiled, and was
nailed on the tree, there was the impassible and incorporeal Word of
God: the same was laid in the tomb." But Christ's living body was
circumcised and nailed on the tree; and Christ's dead body was laid
in the tomb. Therefore it was the same body living and dead.
_I answer that,_ The expression "simply" can be taken in two senses.
In the first instance by taking "simply" to be the same as
"absolutely"; thus "that is said simply which is said without
addition," as the Philosopher put it (Topic. ii): and in this way the
dead and living body of Christ was simply identically the same: since
a thing is said to be "simply" identically the same from the identity
of the subject. But Christ's body living and dead was identical in
its suppositum because alive and dead it had none other besides the
Word of God, as was stated above (A. 2). And it is in this sense that
Athanasius is speaking in the passage quoted.
In another way "simply" is the same as "altogether" or "totally": in
which sense the body of Christ, dead and alive, was not "simply" the
same identically, because it was not "totally" the same, since life
is of the essence of a living body; for it is an essential and not an
accidental predicate: hence it follows that a body which ceases to be
living does not remain totally the same. Moreover, if it were to be
said that Christ's dead body did continue "totally" the same, it
would follow that it was not corrupted--I mean, by the corruption of
death: which is the heresy of the Gaianites, as Isidore says (Etym.
viii), and is to be found in the Decretals (xxiv, qu. iii). And
Damascene says (De Fide Orth. iii) that "the term 'corruption'
denotes two things: in one way it is the separation of the soul from
the body and other things of the sort; in another way, the complete
dissolving into elements. Consequently it is impious to say with
Julian and Gaian that the Lord's body was incorruptible after the
first manner of corruption before the resurrection: because Christ's
body would not be consubstantial with us, nor truly dead, nor would
we have been saved in very truth. But in the second way Christ's body
was incorrupt."
Reply Obj. 1: The dead body of everyone else does not continue united
to an abiding hypostasis, as Christ's dead body did; consequently the
dead body of everyone else is not the same "simply," but only in some
respect: because it is the same as to its matter, but not the same as
to its form. But Christ's body remains the same simply, on account of
the identity of the suppositum, as stated above.
Reply Obj. 2: Since a thing is said to be the same identically
according to suppositum, but the same specifically according to form:
wherever the suppositum subsists in only one nature, it follows of
necessity that when the unity of species is taken away the unity of
identity is also taken away. But the hypostasis of the Word of God
subsists in two natures; and consequently, although in others the
body does not remain the same according to the species of human
nature, still it continues identically the same in Christ according
to the suppositum of the Word of God.
Reply Obj. 3: Corruption and death do not belong to Christ by reason
of the suppositum, from which suppositum follows the unity of
identity; but by reason of the human nature, according to which is
found the difference of death and of life in Christ's body.
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