II. To the Initial Arguments

52. To the arguments:

[To the first] - To the first [n.3] I say that the rib did not belong to the truth of nature in Adam, because he had enough ribs besides it (as to what commonly belongs to a man). But that rib was given to him as superfluous for his supposit, but necessary for the intention of nature - just the way semen is in a male, not as something of the nature of the supposit, but for the sake of generation of another supposit is it in him as in a vessel; hence it is not animated by his soul. So was it with that rib.

53. But if it be altogether imagined that the rib was simply necessary for Adam as an integral part, I reply: what follows is that he [God] made up the flesh for it, that is, in place of it he formed another rib.

54. I believe the first response to be truer, but if the second be granted then the transferred rib will not rise again in Adam but another one will.

55. As to the second [n.4]: I believe that there never was, nor will there be until the end of the world, anything that belongs equally to the truth of human nature in two supposits; and therefore it will rise again precisely in the single supposit where it more belonged to its truth - more, I say, because more pure in him or because a part of him is more of the intention of nature.

56. But if it be simply contended that it was simply and equally of the nature of both supposits, I say it will rise again in him in whom it was first animated. And Augustine says this (Enchiridion 23.88), and it is in Lombard’s text (Sent. IV d.44 ch.1 n.1), “[Earthly matter] returns to the soul which initially animated it so a man might come to be.” And this is reasonable, because it is after first animation that the flesh of an individual man is made, and consequently, although it be afterwards taken over by someone else, its first relation to this matter is not lost.

57. But if he in whom the flesh belonged secondarily to the truth of his nature - if he had other parts sufficient for his due quantity, parts that belonged to his body through nutrition in successive stages of his life, then from them will a body of due quantity be repaired, because the parts were animated by his soul and had a more essential order to his soul - setting aside what will rise again in someone else, because this had a more essential relation to the other soul than to his. But if, beside what will rise again in someone else, the nourishable parts (which it successively had) do not suffice for the due quantity of this body, the Omnipotent God will supply them whence he will.

58. [To the third] - As to the third [n.5], if it were possible for exactly the same semen to be in two persons, and consequently for the same semen to belong primarily to the truth of nature in two supposits (which however I believe never was in fact nor will be), it will rise again in the first one of them.

59. [To the fourth] - To the next [n.6] I say that there is not the same reasoning for whole and for part, because the restoration of the same whole is what is first intended in the resurrection, and not the restoration of the same part, especially the part that is not a principal one, one without whose identity the whole cannot be the same.

60. And if you argue about a principal part whose unity is required for the unity of the whole, I say the like about this part as I said about the whole, that homogeneous parts sufficient for its due quantity will rise again in an organic part - and in this way, that if the homogeneous parts belonged equally, both in purity and in the intention of nature, to the truth of another part, then those homogeneous parts will rise again in the organic part that belonged first to the truth of its nature (I mean first in time). But if, in the case of some other part, they belonged more principally to the truth of that part’s nature in the second of the above ways [sc. in nature’s intention], then they will rise again in that other part.