Dist. 44, Part 1, Art. 2, Q. 1
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/4/d/44/q/bon-sent-IV-d44-p1-a2-q1
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### ARTICLE II. *What rises again in what.*

Consequently, as to the second article, it is asked, secondly, what rises again in what. And concerning this two things are asked.

First it is asked, what rises again in what with respect to the whole body.

Secondly, what [rises] in what with respect to each member.

### QUESTION I. *Whether flesh which is flesh in two men rises again as flesh in the first, or in the second.*

As to the first, then, it is asked—since flesh is flesh in two men—whether it rises again as flesh in the first, or in the second. And that [it rises] in the *first*, seems [to be the case].

1. Augustine, *On the City of God*, and it is had in the [Master's] text: « To that soul is restored, in a point of time, [the flesh] which it first animated, that from it a man might be made, might live, and might grow ».

2. Likewise, by *reason* it seems: for « a proper form is born to come to be in its proper matter »: therefore if this flesh is the proper matter of this soul, to which it was first united; therefore the soul always desires to be united to it: therefore if it cannot [be], its desire is frustrated. But this is unfitting: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, flesh from its union with the soul contracts a disposition or ordering to immortality: therefore if this flesh is united with this soul, it has again a necessity for union with it; and if this—since this necessity does not allow that this flesh be ordered to another soul: it is clear etc.

4. Likewise, if it is not necessary to rise again with the first: therefore if the whole flesh of a man is eaten, the soul will be deprived entirely of its body, and thus another body will be given to it: therefore there will be no resurrection for it, because resurrection is of the same [body] in number.

**On the contrary:** 1. The rib was in Adam and in Eve; I ask therefore: in which will it rise again? If in *Adam*: then, since the whole of Eve was made from it, nothing will rise again in Eve. If *not in Adam*; but the rib was first in Adam: therefore it will not rise again in that in which it *first* was.

2. Likewise, man is from the seed of the father, and Christ « from the most pure blood of the Virgin »: therefore if the seed ought to rise again in the father, and the blood in the Vir-  gin; then no begotten man would rise again, nor even Christ. But if this is not true: therefore flesh will rise again in that in which it is flesh *secondly*.

3. Likewise, suppose someone is nourished from human flesh, Augustine says that it returns to the first; suppose that he begets from it, it is agreed that if it then returns to the first, nothing will remain to the begotten; and this is unfitting. But if it does not return: therefore it is not necessary that it rise again in the first, but it can [rise] in the *second*.

4. Likewise, that it ought to rise again in the second, seems [true]: because a thing is denominated from the last and from its end — whence one stands by the last testament, which is at the death of the testator — therefore if this flesh was of this man finally and later: therefore it pertains more to him: therefore it ought to return to the second and last, not to the first.

### CONCLUSION.

> *The flesh which is in two—in one as in a beginning, in the other as in an individual and its whole—will rise again in the second; if it is in both according to matter, it will rise again in the first; but if in this one according to matter, in the other according to species, it will rise again in the second; but it is impossible that it be in several according to species.*

**I respond:** It must be said that flesh which is in two can be so in two ways: either so that it is in one as in a *beginning*, in the other as in an *individual and its whole*; or in both as in an *individual*. If it is in one as in a *beginning*, in the other as in an *individual and whole*, it will rise again in the second, because it was not, in the first, ordered to itself, but to the other, as the rib was in Adam, because ordered to the propagation of Eve; so the seed in the father, because ordered to the propagation of the son; so those bloods in the blessed Virgin, because they were ordered to the conception of Christ. — But if it is in both as in an *absolute whole*, this can be understood in three ways: either so that it is in both flesh according to *species*; or in both according to *matter*; or in one according to *species*, in the other according to *matter*. — Concerning the first there is controversy. For some say that the flesh of one according to species can become the flesh of another according to species, as for instance if a man is nourished from it and begets; and they say this because flesh is entirely changeable, like anything else, as is clear by experience. — And if you ask: in which will it rise again? they say, in that in which it has the greater and essential ordering, and God supplies the other with that [which is lacking], as for example, if from a small part of one body, as to flesh according to species, someone is begotten, this [flesh] will rise again in the begotten, and God will afterward supply in the other what is lost, just as in Adam He filled up the flesh in place of the rib.

Another position is that from flesh according to species another man can neither be nourished nor begotten, but only from flesh according to matter; and they give the reason for this from the side of its *actuality*, because this transubstantiation is a *conversion*, and *conversion* and change or transubstantiation is from a being [in act] into [a being] in *potency*; and because it is flesh according to species, therefore it is not possible for it to be converted into flesh according to species. — But since this has no stable foundation, because a wolf is nourished from the flesh of a wolf, and we see this in other animals of the same species; and again, flesh according to species can become *non-flesh*, and then it will be in potency: therefore they base their reasoning upon the appetite of the dust, which is implanted toward that form determinately and everlastingly, [an appetite] which does not allow that same flesh to be vivified by another immortal soul. And therefore they respond that this is impossible, that in the first there be flesh according to species of one and afterward become another's.

But the first position seems to be repugnant to the resurrection of the same body: because, if from one part of my flesh according to species there could come to be flesh of another according to species, by parity of reasoning also from another, and so from any [part]; and thus the soul would lose its whole flesh: how then is it true what Job says: *In my flesh I shall see God, my Savior?* — The second position does not have much strength, both because it seems unfitting to say that a man cannot be nourished from flesh according to species, since they are apt for nourishing, and beasts can be nourished from them. — Further, neither is this very stable, that in the human body there be something actually incorruptible, and, since it is dissoluble down to the elements, that there be in it an appetite impeding change.

Whence it can more soundly be said that, just as the resurrection comes about by divine power; so the ordering of the flesh to its soul is according to the divine decree and disposition, which, since it is inviolable, brings it about,  that [the conversion] of flesh according to species of one into flesh according to species of another man be impossible. Let us say therefore that for [flesh] to be in both according to species is altogether impossible, because then it would belong to the necessary constitution of both and would necessarily rise again in both; and this is impossible — this impossibility I do not say comes from the *power of the flesh* according to species of the man himself, because it is thus necessarily ordered to incorruption on account of the *appetite toward the first soul* — and therefore it cannot be the *principal matter* of the body of another soul, because, whether that appetite be there or not, it can be said without cavil that this comes from the divine ordination, which, just as it does not let the flesh of a man perish, so [does not let] its substance be confounded nor commingled. Whence just as divine providence was making Adam impassible from the exterior; so also it makes the flesh according to species of one inconvertible into the flesh according to species of another.

But if the flesh is in both according to *matter*, as when a man is nourished from the flesh of another according to matter; I say that it returns to the *first*, because it was ordered to both fittingly; and the subsequent ordering, since it is not stronger, does not dissolve the preceding one. — But if it is in one according to *species*, in the other according to *matter*; it rises again in that in which it was according to *species*, because it has toward that a more essential ordering, whether he be the first or the second. Whence if someone is nourished from the flesh of another according to species, such flesh returns to the first. But if he is begotten from flesh according to matter, since from those things which are according to species one cannot be begotten; I say that the flesh stands in the second, and God recompenses the first. And the reason for this is that it has a more essential ordering to the soul in the second.

From these things the objections are clear: because Augustine speaks in two cases, namely when in the first there was flesh according to species; and this is clear from his own word: « That from it a man might be made » etc., or also, when in two [men] it is according to matter.

To that, then, which is objected, that it ought to be denominated from the last; it must be said that a subsequent ordering does not dissolve a prior one, unless it be stronger; and because it is not stronger, the prior remains; especially when in the first there was flesh according to species, [which] had an essential ordering to the soul, because flesh according to species, vivified by this soul, had a necessary and indissoluble ordering to that soul; and therefore, just as a matrimony legitimately contracted with someone cannot be dissolved, if she contracts in fact with another; so neither [can] the flesh lose its ordering to the first flesh. But what flesh according to species is, this has its place in the second book, where it is treated whether anything passes over into the truth of human nature, and let distinction thirty be consulted.