C. Doubts and their Solution

36. But there are some doubts about this:

For it seems that when Christ’s body was united with the Word it would, without any other miracle, have been preserved from all corruption, for his assumption of the body was of the sort that what was assumed would never be dismissed (according to Damascene, 4.1); therefore it could not have been the case that, while the union of the body with the Word lasted, any part of the flesh would have flowed away and been corrupted, because then what was assumed would have been dismissed; indeed, if its parts did flow away then this seems to have been because of a miracle; therefore it was a miracle that Christ died rather than something natural.

37. Second, because if the parts did flow away then there was restoration of a new part, and that not without a new miracle, because the new part is not united by the old miracle just as the old part is not united by a new miracle; therefore by another miracle.

38. I say to these doubts [nn.36-37] that, after the miracle that the glory of Christ’s soul did not redound to his body, there was necessity that the parts of the body should flow away through sweatings and other consumptions; for, when active and passive powers are naturally brought close to each other, consumption must happen if one of the powers dominates the other; but the nutritive power was not able to restore from the food what was lost by their mutual action; and so there was a necessity for a flowing away of parts and for corruption.

39. To the first argument [n.36], when it is said that ‘what was once assumed was never dismissed’, this is true of the principal parts of a man’s body that come together for man’s perfection (of this sort are the heterogeneous parts, as heart, head, and hands); but some other parts were dismissed, as suppose he cut his nails or shaved his hair, and so on about parts of flesh and other things; indeed the whole under the idea of ‘whole’ was dismissed, because the whole as integrated with its parts was not always united, as was plain above [d.2 n.95]; yet the principal parts were always united, and it is about them that Damascene speaks.

40. To the second [n.37], when it says that then another part was added and united by a new miracle, I say that it was not by a new miracle but by the old one. Here one must note that just as the generative power has to generate something distinct in being and place and separate, so the nutritive power has to generate something the same and united, for nutrition is the generative addition of one thing to another through identity and unity with that other. And I say that the generation of a new part - united to the body - which the body used to have was something merely natural, and the fact that flesh newly generated would be part of the pre-existing body is something natural to both. But the fact that a part be united to the Word was a miracle but not a new one; rather it was done by the old one, because every part of the whole, and everything which is actually part of it, is united by the miracle whereby the whole body was first united to the Word. Nevertheless the natural power did something preparatory for the old miracle, because it brought it about that something was actually part of the body that before was not part of it; but once the old miracle has been performed, that part is united to the Word by the union of the whole, and it is caused by the Word and by the whole Trinity.