b. To the Second Objection

444. To the next [n.439], it is plain from this that neither do the elements have a right to be preserved from corruption, nor do the bodies of the damned, but they are preserved for affliction because of their past demerits; but the bodies [of the blessed], because of their past merits, do have the right, and this for the advantage of these bodies.

445. And accordingly it can be said to the authority of Augustine [nn.430, 438] that this health and vigor flow from the soul to the body, because there is a certain ordering in the body whereby vigor and health are preserved for it by God. And this ordering belongs to the body for thereby preserving what is animated by this sort of soul, which soul was the principle for meriting that such health is preserved for its body by God - so that to say ‘this incorruptibility flows from the soul to the body’ is nothing else than to say ‘this reward, which is preservation of health, is a reward of the body by mediation of the soul’, and this soul, as it was more principal in meriting, so is it more principally in nature rewarded.