Single Question. Whether Christ’s Body would have Putrefied if his Resurrection had not been Hastened

Bonaventure, 3 Sent. d.21 q. 2, a.1
Scotus, 3 Sent. d.21 q.1
Thomas, ST IIIa q.51 a.3
Richard of St. Victor, 3 Sent. d.21 q.2
Durandus, 3 Sent. d.21 q.2

1. About the twenty first distinction the question asked is whether Christ’s body would have putrefied if his resurrection had not been hastened.

2. That it would have: nature does not begin a motion that it cannot bring to an end (from Metaphysics 2 and Physics 5); but the end of man’s corruption is the reduction of the corpse to ashes; therefore since Christ was dead, his body would have been reduced to ashes. There is also a confirmation that, according to Damascene (3.19), Christ assumed man’s penal defects and not the defects of guilt.

3. On the contrary: in Psalm 15 it is said: ‘You will not suffer your holy one to see corruption’.

To the Question

4. I reply by saying that a future effect, which has sufficient, particular, natural causes that are not impeded, is simply and truly declared to come about; but if its particular causes are impeded by a simply higher cause, it will not come about, though it might come about in a certain respect. An example: King Hezekiah [Isaiah 38] was due to die from his sickness according to particular causes, and so Isaiah declared his death to him; but, because of his tears and prayers God impeded the particular causes for 15 years; therefore the effect of his death did not come about until the 15th year.

5. Next to the issue at hand: since Christ’s body was mixed of the elements it had sufficient, natural, particular, intrinsic causes of corruption, as the four active and passive and extrinsic qualities by which it was able to suffer and be corrupted, as by hot and cold and other things of that sort. These causes, however, were impeded by a higher cause, namely by God, who suspended their action miraculously and supernaturally so that they had no power for such effect of corruption. This much is well said and I concede it.

6. Next it is said further that this suspension of the action of the causes was not done by a new miracle but by the old miracle, namely by the same miracle by which the body was united hypostatically with the Word; and so not by a new miracle, because the Word did not assume the body on the third day by a new miracle. This is proved from the example given above from Isaiah [n.4]. For God foresaw the tears of Hezekiah from eternity, and willed the result not by a new suspension of the causes but by an eternal one.

7. But against this I argue that the whole humanity was, like the body, united to the Word, and yet the humanity was truly corrupted in death; therefore the body was not preserved from being reduced to ashes by the union without another, new miracle.

8. I say, therefore, that just as the particular causes were impeded supernaturally after Christ’s death and not before his death, for at that time the body was being preserved by the soul by which it was animated; so one must say that then (after death) the body was depending on God by a special dependence, as on a special conserving cause; and it was a real dependence; and so there was a new, real relation on the part of the body, but on the part of the divine will there was a new relation of reason; and so there was a new miracle there; and I say the same about the case of Hezekiah in its own way, as is plain if one considers it.

To the Argument

9. To the principal argument to the contrary [n.2] I say that nature was not able to bring the motion to an end because it was supernaturally impeded.

10. To the confirmation [n.2] I say that there was need for Christ to assume only the penal, non-culpable, defects that were in some way necessary for us for salvation; but the corruption of the body was not one of them, but rather to the contrary, because corruption would have impeded faith in the resurrection, etc.