Summa III q.5 a.1–2: Did the Son of God Take a True, Earthly Body? (with notes on the Compendium of Theology)

Orientation #

“So up to question five, I guess, that’s where we left off.” He reads the prologue of question 4 to place today’s question (the parts of human nature) and says the order in which the parts were assumed “will be probably the following question, question six.” Verified sources: the class treats Summa III, q. 5, aa. 1 and 2, with an opening stretch inferred to lie between q. 4, a. 6 and q. 5, a. 1 (the Compendium digression).

The class, in order #

1. Opening aside from the Compendium: ad se and “in itself” understood negatively (“nothing is really towards itself”) #

Point: an expression from the Compendium’s Trinitarian part — what is common to Father, Son and Holy Spirit is ad se, while the Father is only ad Filium, the Son only ad Patrem, the Spirit to Father and Son — must be read negatively.

• He was reading the Compendium alongside the Enchiridion Symbolorum on the internet [ed.: likely Denzinger] and reproducing pages on a machine that left them “fuzzy.”
• Ad se stands for the absolute, “but understood negatively, because nothing is really towards itself”: it means not towards another.
• Parallel: accident is defined as what exists in another as in a subject; then substance is said to exist “in itself.” But Aristotle shows in the fourth book of the Natural Hearing that nothing is really in itself; so “in itself” means “not in another.” Hence Thomas’s definition of substance: res cui convenit esse non in alio — “a thing to which it belongs to be not in another.”

2. Compendium: how Christ’s death and resurrection cause our redemption (“Christ is no longer able to merit”) #

Point: the Compendium says things “a little different” from the Summa, and one mind delights in that.

• Scope: the Compendium goes as far as the Incarnation and the things Christ did; no sacraments, unlike the two Summas.
• With Paul, Christ’s death frees us from sinfulness and represents separation from the mortal part of us; the resurrection raises soul and body.
• Death causes remission of sins in three ways: (1) as instrument of his divinity, (2) as exemplar, (3) by merit.
• Resurrection causes our resurrection in only the first two ways — not by merit, “because Christ is no longer able to merit”: he is now a comprehensor, not a viator, no more than the saints can merit.
• Christ as primogenitus of those rising (Paul): Thomas unfolds “first” through Aristotle’s senses of before — first in time, first as cause before effect, first in dignity, since he rises more glorious than we. He calls this “beautiful.”
• Structure of the Compendium: written for his companion who wanted something short to carry; divided, like the Naples catechetical instructions and Augustine’s Enchiridion, into faith, hope, charity. Faith complete; hope begun (really a commentary on the Our Father) but unfinished; charity never reached.
• Aside: his son Mark sent him an account of a chief abortionist in a communist Eastern European country who dreamt of a field of children running from him and a monk who told him he was doing wrong — “Who are you?” “Thomas Aquinas.” “Thomas is in proximity to our terrible situation.”

3. Where we are: the prologues of questions 4 and 5 (“the taking on of the parts of human nature”) #

Point: locate today’s question in Thomas’s division.

• Q. 4 prologue: on the side of what was taken on, first the things assumed (human nature and its parts), then things assumed with them (perfections and defects, e.g. mortal flesh). The first is threefold: human nature itself (q. 4), its parts (q. 5, today), the order of assumption (q. 6).
• Q. 5’s four articles, each answering a historical denial: (1) a true body — against Manichaeans “or somebody”; (2) an earthly body of flesh and blood; (3) a soul — some said “the Word was made flesh” mentions no soul, the Word standing in place of the soul; (4) an understanding — some conceded an animal soul but put the Word in place of the intellect; intellectum can also mean the understanding soul. “All these things Thomas is going to belabor.”

4. Article 1, objections and sed contra: a true body? (“in the likeness of man”) #

• Obj. 1: Philippians 2:7, “made in the likeness of man”; what is in truth is not said by likeness. His reply-in-advance: on that reading he would have no true body either, “because I’m like you — two arms, two legs.”
• Obj. 2: Leo (the Great, he supposes), sermon on the Nativity: the assumption neither consumed the lower nature nor lessened the higher; but God’s dignity is to be altogether separate from body.
• Obj. 3: signs should correspond to things signified; Old Testament appearances (Isaiah 6, “I saw the Lord sitting on his throne”) were imaginary visions; so Christ’s appearance was only imaginary — what the Manichaeans among others said: fictitious.
• Sed contra: Augustine, Eighty-three Questions: if Christ’s body was a phantasm, Christ deceived (fefellit, from fallere — a student and he hunt for it in Cassell’s; it lists “to fail, be disappointed,” “but that maybe is not medieval”); but Christ is truth itself; so his body was not a phantasm.

5. Article 1, body: authority first, then three reasons (“he rests upon authority”) #

Point (Alan’s answer): Thomas answers by authority, “the strongest argument in theology,” then shows it reasonable.

• Authority: the book De ecclesiasticis dogmatibus — the Son was born not in thought only (putative), having an imaginary body, but a true body. His footnote reads “inter opuscula Augustini”; he cannot find it in Augustine’s works online; a student says it refers to Gennadius; another edition gives the reference, to be looked up.
• Three reasons, which he flags will recur in a. 2:
  1. From human nature, to which a true body belongs; given (previous question) that assuming human nature was suitable, he assumed a true body. “Same thing for the soul.”
  2. From the things done in the mystery: a fictitious body means no true death, nothing the evangelists narrate done in truth, hence no true salvation — “the effect be proportioned to the cause.”
  3. From the dignity of the assuming person, who is truth itself: no fiction befits his work. Christ himself excludes the error (Luke 24): when the disciples thought they saw a spirit, he did not say “I am only a phantasm” but offered himself to be touched — “a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see me have.”

6. Article 1, replies (“emptied himself”) #

• Ad 1: the likeness is that of all who truly have human nature, like in species; Paul adds “obedient unto death, the death of the cross,” impossible for an imaginative likeness. Aside: phantasm is the Greek word for imagery; cf. “fancy” — “a guy you fancy her” — imagination is involved in love.
• Ad 2: Augustine, De fide ad Petrum — “he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,” but did not lose the fullness of the form of God. He did not become the form of a body, which would drag him down, repugnant to divine simplicity: that would be assumption into unity of nature (impossible; the divine nature cannot be put together with something to form a new thing). Saving the distinction of natures, he assumed it into unity of person. “Very strong way Scripture speaks” — an example of humility.
• Ad 3 (the objection “was kind of weak”): a figure corresponds in likeness, not in the truth of the thing; if alike in everything it would no longer be a sign but the thing — his case: if the Paschal Lamb were really a human being it wouldn’t be a sign anymore. Damascene cited by Thomas (aside: today is the feast of John of Damascus — “it must be the same guy”). Colossians 2: the Old Testament things are shadows of future things, “the body, however, of Christ” — a shadow represents the body without being one; “some things cast a shadow before them.”

7. Article 2, objections and sed contra: a heavenly body? (“always find a text to misunderstand”) #

Point: the article arises from the ancient belief that heavenly bodies are a different, immortal kind of body, plus a misread text. Those who held it said Mary was not really his mother; he passed through her “like a canal.”

• Obj. 1: 1 Cor 15, “the first man of the earth, earthly; the second man from heaven, heavenly”; Adam was of earth as to body (Genesis 2), so Christ was from heaven as to body. “Y’all convinced?”
• Obj. 2: same chapter, “flesh and blood will not possess the kingdom of God”; the kingdom is chiefly in Christ. “Even more convincing — two powerful arguments.”
• Obj. 3: the best is to be attributed to God; the noblest body is the heavenly, thought immortal.
• Sed contra: Luke 24 again; flesh and bones are from the lower elements (earth, air, fire, water), not the matter of heavenly bodies.

8. Article 2, body: the same three reasons (“it requires a determined matter”) #

1. Truth of human nature: not saved if the body were imaginary (Manichaeans — matter is evil, so he couldn’t take it on, hence mere appearance) nor if celestial (Valentinus). Since the form of man is a natural thing it requires a determined matter, flesh and bones, which enter the definition of man — “the philosopher in the seventh book of wisdom” [ed.: Metaphysics VII], where Aristotle refutes Plato.
   • Illustration from the books on the soul: soul is to body as form to matter, or as an art to its tools. Against the Pythagoreans (a man’s soul into a dog, or vice versa), Aristotle says it is as if one art entered the tools of another. His example: his brother-in-law’s carpentry and his wife’s sewing — give him a needle and thread to build a house, give her a hammer and nail to put a dress together. “One art cannot enter into the tools of another art.”
   • Likewise Aristotle in the Politics: not any form of government can be realized in any people; this form fits these people — form and matter.
2. Truth of what Christ did: the heavenly body (old theory) cannot undergo anything, is incorruptible — “proved in the first book about the universe” [ed.: De caelo I]; so he would not truly have hungered, thirsted, suffered or died.
3. Divine truth: showing himself as fleshly and earthly while having a celestial body would be a false showing. Again De ecclesiasticis dogmatibus: born taking flesh from the Virgin’s body, not bringing it from heaven.

9. Article 2, replies (“the corruption of flesh and blood”) #

• Ad 1 — a text “more full than sometimes”: Christ is said to come down from heaven in two ways. (a) By his divine nature: not ceasing to be in heaven, but beginning to be in the lowest things in a new way, as man — John 3, “no one goes up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man,” who is still in heaven as God. (b) By reason of the body: not that its substance came from heaven (it came from the Blessed Virgin) but that it was formed by a heavenly power, the Holy Spirit. Augustine to Orosius, expounding this very authority: “I call Christ celestial because he was not conceived from human seed” [ed.: transcript garbled: “human what see”]; Hilary, De Trinitate, expounds it the same way. “These two great minds” give the second explanation. Aside: “probably more things you can misunderstand than understand.”
• Ad 2: “flesh and blood” is taken not for their substance but for their corruption. Not an invented sense: Scripture itself speaks of the flesh warring against the spirit, i.e. corrupt flesh — and Christ’s flesh did not war against his spirit. Parallels: Falstaff (he corrects “Lear”) asks pity because he is “more flesh than other men,” hence frail; his brother Mark, marrying late, “going the way of all flesh.” That corruption was in Christ not as guilt but for a time as punishability — hunger, thirst — to fulfil our redemption.
• Ad 3: it pertains to God’s greatest glory that an infirm, earthly body was promoted to such sublimity — the Transfiguration on the mountain, an anticipation of resurrection glory. At the Council of Ephesus, Theophilus’s words are read: the best workers are praised not for precious materials only but for showing their art by taking up vile clay and dissolute earth. His case: a cook who out of humble leftovers produces a more marvellous meal than you or I from good raw materials; so the highest artist, the Word, “managed to do his art in clay.” “An interesting way of answering.”
• Asides: Chesterton — the genius of femininity is making something marvellous out of small things others throw away (birthdays, leftover chicken and roast). Closing joke about serving two different wines with a meal of leftovers: “you live it up.”

His words #

• ad se / ad Filium / ad Patrem: the absolute vs. the relations; ad se to be read negatively, “not towards another.”
• Natural Hearing [ed.: Physics], book four: nothing is really in itself.
• res cui convenit esse non in alio: Thomas’s definition of substance, “a thing to which it belongs to be not in another.”
• comprehensor / viator: one who has arrived vs. one on the way; only the viator can merit.
• primogenitus: firstborn of those rising; “first” in time, in causality, in dignity.
• Enchiridion: Augustine’s, divided by faith, hope, charity; also the Enchiridion Symbolorum on the internet.
• intellectum: understanding, or the understanding soul.
• fefellit (fallere): “deceived” (Augustine’s argument); dictionary sense “to fail, be disappointed” perhaps not medieval.
• putative: “in thought only,” of the imaginary body.
• phantasm: Greek word for imagery; cf. “fancy.”
• unity of nature vs. unity of person: the assumption is into the second, never the first.
• “the seventh book of wisdom” [ed.: Metaphysics VII]; “the first book about the universe” [ed.: De caelo I].
• flesh and blood: for corruption of flesh, not its substance (Scripture’s own usage: flesh warring against spirit).
• guilt vs. punishability (culpa / poena [ed.]): Christ had the latter for a time, not the former.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 4 prologue (read to locate q. 5); q. 5 prologue; q. 5, a. 1 (objections, sed contra, body, replies); q. 5, a. 2 (objections, sed contra, body, replies).
• Thomas, Compendium theologiae: the ad se passage on the Trinity; the causality of Christ’s death and resurrection; Christ as primogenitus (passages paraphrased from memory).
• Philippians 2:7; Isaiah 6; Luke 24 (“a spirit does not have flesh and bones”); 1 Corinthians 15 (two texts); Genesis 2; John 3; Colossians 2 (“shadows of future things”).

Mentioned

• Aristotle, Natural Hearing (Physics) IV; Metaphysics VII (“seventh book of wisdom”); On the Soul (three books; art and tools, against the Pythagoreans); Politics (forms of government and peoples); De caelo I (“about the universe”); the senses of “before.”
• Augustine, Eighty-three Questions; Enchiridion; De fide ad Petrum (as cited by Thomas); to Orosius.
• De ecclesiasticis dogmatibus (footnote “inter opuscula Augustini”; Gennadius, per a student).
• Leo (the Great), sermon on the Nativity; John Damascene; Hilary, De Trinitate; Council of Ephesus, words of Theophilus.
• Thomas, catechetical instructions at Naples.
• Shakespeare, Falstaff (“more flesh than other men”); Chesterton on femininity.

His questions #

• Is anything really “towards itself” (ad se) or “in itself”? No; both are negations — not towards another, not in another (Physics IV; res cui convenit esse non in alio).
• Why is Christ’s resurrection not a meritorious cause of ours, as his death was? Because after rising he is a comprehensor, not a viator; he can no longer merit, any more than the saints.
• In what sense is Christ “firstborn” of those rising? First in time, first as cause before effect, first in dignity (rising more glorious).
• What does Thomas do in response (a. 1)? (to Alan) He rests on authority — De ecclesiasticis dogmatibus — then gives three reasons.
• If Christ had only the likeness of man, wouldn’t I lack a true body too? Yes — “I’m like you, two arms, two legs”; likeness here is likeness in species.
• Would the Paschal Lamb still be a sign if it were really a human being? No; a figure corresponds in likeness, not in the truth of the thing.
• How then is the second man “from heaven” (1 Cor 15)? By his divine nature, which began to be below in a new way; and by his body being formed by a heavenly power, the Holy Spirit (Augustine, Hilary).
• Are we inventing the sense “flesh = corruption” just to escape the objection? No; Scripture itself speaks of the flesh warring against the spirit.
• Shouldn’t the best (a heavenly body) be attributed to God? God’s greater glory is to raise clay to sublimity, as the best worker shows his art in vile material (Theophilus at Ephesus; the cook with leftovers).