Whether Christ's Body Rose Again Entire?
Objection 1: It would seem that Christ's body did not rise entire.
For flesh and blood belong to the integrity of the body: whereas
Christ seems not to have had both, for it is written (1 Cor. 15:50):
"Flesh and blood can not possess the kingdom of God." But Christ rose
in the glory of the kingdom of God. Therefore it seems that He did
not have flesh and blood.
Obj. 2: Further, blood is one of the four humors. Consequently, if
Christ had blood, with equal reason He also had the other humors,
from which corruption is caused in animal bodies. It would follow,
then, that Christ's body was corruptible, which is unseemly.
Therefore Christ did not have flesh and blood.
Obj. 3: Further, the body of Christ which rose, ascended to heaven.
But some of His blood is kept as relics in various churches.
Therefore Christ's body did not rise with the integrity of all its
parts.
_On the contrary,_ our Lord said (Luke 24:39) while addressing His
disciples after the Resurrection: "A spirit hath not flesh and bones
as you see Me to have."
_I answer that,_ As stated above (A. 2), Christ's body in the
Resurrection was "of the same nature, but differed in glory."
Accordingly, whatever goes with the nature of a human body, was
entirely in the body of Christ when He rose again. Now it is clear
that flesh, bones, blood, and other such things, are of the very
nature of the human body. Consequently, all these things were in
Christ's body when He rose again; and this also integrally, without
any diminution; otherwise it would not have been a complete
resurrection, if whatever was lost by death had not been restored.
Hence our Lord assured His faithful ones by saying (Matt. 10:30):
"The very hairs of your head are all numbered": and (Luke 21:18): "A
hair of your head shall not perish."
But to say that Christ's body had neither flesh, nor bones, nor the
other natural parts of a human body, belongs to the error of
Eutyches, Bishop of Constantinople, who maintained that "our body in
that glory of the resurrection will be impalpable, and more subtle
than wind and air: and that our Lord, after the hearts of the
disciples who handled Him were confirmed, brought back to subtlety
whatever could be handled in Him" [*St. Gregory, Moral. in Job
14:56]. Now Gregory condemns this in the same book, because Christ's
body was not changed after the Resurrection, according to Rom. 6:9:
"Christ rising from the dead, dieth now no more." Accordingly, the
very man who had said these things, himself retracted them at his
death. For, if it be unbecoming for Christ to take a body of another
nature in His conception, a heavenly one for instance, as Valentine
asserted, it is much more unbecoming for Him at His Resurrection to
resume a body of another nature, because in His Resurrection He
resumed unto an everlasting life, the body which in His conception He
had assumed to a mortal life.
Reply Obj. 1: Flesh and blood are not to be taken there for the
nature of flesh and blood, but, either for the guilt of flesh and
blood, as Gregory says [*St. Gregory, Moral. in Job 14:56], or else
for the corruption of flesh and blood: because, as Augustine says (Ad
Consent., De Resur. Carn.), "there will be neither corruption there,
nor mortality of flesh and blood." Therefore flesh according to its
substance possesses the kingdom of God, according to Luke 24:39: "A
spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see Me to have." But flesh,
if understood as to its corruption, will not possess it; hence it is
straightway added in the words of the Apostle: "Neither shall
corruption possess incorruption."
Reply Obj. 2: As Augustine says in the same book: "Perchance by
reason of the blood some keener critic will press us and say; If the
blood was" in the body of Christ when He rose, "why not the rheum?"
that is, the phlegm; "why not also the yellow gall?" that is, the
gall proper; "and why not the black gall?" that is, the bile, "with
which four humors the body is tempered, as medical science bears
witness. But whatever anyone may add, let him take heed not to add
corruption, lest he corrupt the health and purity of his own faith;
because Divine power is equal to taking away such qualities as it
wills from the visible and tractable body, while allowing others to
remain, so that there be no defilement," i.e. of corruption, "though
the features be there; motion without weariness, the power to eat,
without need of food."
Reply Obj. 3: All the blood which flowed from Christ's body,
belonging as it does to the integrity of human nature, rose again
with His body: and the same reason holds good for all the particles
which belong to the truth and integrity of human nature. But the
blood preserved as relics in some churches did not flow from Christ's
side, but is said to have flowed from some maltreated image of Christ.
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