Dist. 21, Art. 2, Q. 2
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/3/d/21/q/bon-sent-III-d21-a2-q2
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### Question II. *Whether by that separation the flesh of Christ was dead, or whether after it it had life.*

Secondly it is asked whether by that separation the flesh was dead, or whether after it it had life. And that it had life seems [to be the case].

1. Everything that is united to life lives by participation; but the flesh of Christ after the separation was united to life itself, namely to the Word of God: therefore it was vivified by it. If you say that this is true of created life, not of uncreated life; *the objection to the contrary [is]:* uncreated life is more powerful in vivifying than created life, since it is itself the *fountain of life*: if therefore the soul cannot be united to any body without giving it life, much more does it seem that not even a divine person can be united to flesh without bestowing life upon it.

2. Likewise, it was impossible for the *soul* of Christ to be united to the Word without receiving life from it: therefore if in its own way the *flesh* was capable of being vivified, it was impossible for it to be united to the Word without receiving life from it.

3. Likewise, a living substance is nobler than a non-living substance; but no flesh was nobler than the flesh of Christ, even after the separation of the soul: therefore if life is found in other flesh, it is necessary that the flesh of Christ should live, even with the soul separated.

4. Likewise, that flesh could not see corruption, therefore it was necessary that it be quickened by something; but only by the Deity: therefore [the Deity] quickened it just as the soul did. But the soul, by quickening it, gave it life: therefore by like reasoning that flesh lived through the Divinity flowing into it.

**On the contrary:**
1. In the Creed it is said that Christ "was dead and buried"; but this is said only by reason of the flesh: therefore the flesh of Christ was dead, the soul having been separated.

2. Likewise, all life is from something informing; but the flesh after the separation of the soul was not united to anything vivifying [it] in the manner of a form: therefore after the separation of the soul the flesh did not have life.

3. Likewise, everything that lives has some use of life, such as making use of nourishment, or sense, or motion, or intellect; but the flesh of Christ had none of these after the separation of the soul: therefore it was not living.

4. Likewise, nothing living is raised up or rises again, because resuscitation and resurrection belong only to what is dead; but the flesh of Christ rose again and was raised up: therefore after the separation of the soul it did not have life.

### Conclusion.

> The flesh of Christ, after the separation from the soul, was truly dead.

**I respond:** It must be said that without doubt the flesh of Christ after the separation of the soul was dead; for it lacked the use and completion of life. For a corporeal thing is not apt to be vivified except by some spiritual form, completing it and proportioned to it. Since therefore in that very separation of the soul the flesh of Christ lacked a form of this kind, it was therefore truly dead; and although it had the Divinity united [to it], nevertheless it was not vivified by it, not on account of a defect on the part of the *vivifying [principle],* but on account of the disproportion on the part of the *vivifiable.* — The reasons therefore which are brought forward to this side are to be conceded.

**To the arguments to the contrary:**
1. To that which is first objected on the contrary, that what is united to life lives; the response is already clear. For this holds true when [a thing] is united to it as the perfectible to its perfection; but the flesh is not so united to the person of the Word: and therefore the case is not the same with the soul and with the divine person.

2. To that which is objected, that the soul could not be united to the Word itself without being vivified by it, therefore neither [could] the flesh; it must be said that the case is not the same, for the reason that the soul itself, since it is the image of God and is apt to be borne immediately into God, "is capable of him and able to be a partaker [of him]"; and thus immediately it has from him and in him to live through knowledge and love. But it is not so with the flesh: for it is not apt to know or to love God.

3. To that which is objected, that a living substance is nobler than a non-living substance; it must be said that this is true, all other things being equal; but the flesh of Christ, although it lacked life, was nevertheless united to the Divinity, and this indeed outweighs many other dignities. Moreover, when it is said that a living substance is nobler than a non-living substance; this is understood of a substance that lacks life *absolutely;* but the flesh of Christ did not lack life *absolutely,* but *for a time.* Hence, just as a captured and imprisoned son of a king is nobler than the son of a peasant established in his own liberty; so too it must be understood concerning the flesh of Christ, which for a short time lacked the completion of life, that afterward it might resume a most noble life.

4. To that which is objected, that that flesh could not be reduced to ashes; it must be said that the divine power was preserving it; but nevertheless that preservation was not a vivification nor an operation of life. For preservation and quickening, which is an operation of life, proceeds from a completive form, operating in the manner of nature; but that preservation, which was in the flesh of Christ, that it might not be corrupted, was from the divine power, operating above nature; and therefore that reasoning does not compel [its conclusion].

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