Agere Sequitur Esse

Matter of Christ’s Body

The foregoing exposition clearly indicates the way the formation of Christ’s body ought to have taken place. God could, indeed, have fashioned Christ’s body from the dust of the earth or from any other matter, in the way He fashioned the body of our first parent. But this would not have been in keeping with the restoration of man, which is the reason why the Son of God assumed flesh, as we have pointed out. The nature of the human race, which was derived from the first parent and which was to be healed, would not have been so well restored to its pristine honor if the victor over the devil and the conqueror of death, under which the human race was held captive because of the sin of the first father, had taken His body from some other source. The works of God are perfect, and what He means to restore He brings to perfection. He even adds more than had been taken away: through Christ the grace of God has abounded more than the offense of Adam, as the Apostle teaches in Romans 5:15, 20. Hence it was fitting that the Son of God should assume a body from the nature propagated by Adam.

Moreover, the mystery of the Incarnation becomes profitable to men by faith. Unless men believed that He who appeared in the guise of a man was the Son of God, they would not follow Him as the author of salvation. This was the case with the Jews, who drew upon themselves damnation rather than salvation from the mystery of the Incarnation, because of their unbelief. In order, therefore, that this ineffable mystery might more readily be believed, the Son of God disposed all things in such a way as to show that He was a true man. This would not have seemed to be so if He had taken His bodily nature from some other source than from human nature. Fittingly, therefore, He assumed a body stemming from the first parent.

Furthermore, the Son of God, made man, brought salvation to the human race, not only by conferring the remedy of grace, but also by giving an example that cannot be ignored. Doubts may be raised about the teaching and the life of any other man because of a defect in his human knowledge and his mastery of truth. But what the Son of God teaches is believed without hesitation to be true and what He does is accepted without misgiving as good. In Him we ought to have an example of the glory we hope for and of the virtue whereby we may merit it. In both instances the example would have been less telling if He had taken His bodily nature from another source than that from which the rest of men receive theirs. Otherwise, if we tried to persuade a man that he should endure sufferings as Christ endured them, and that he should hope to rise as Christ rose, he could allege as an excuse the different condition of his body. Therefore, to give greater effectiveness to His example, Christ ought to have assumed His bodily nature from no other source than from the nature that comes down from the first parent.

Reference

St. Thomas Aquinas. (1265-1274). Compendium Theologiae: Matter of Christ’s Body, trans. by Cyril Vollert. St. Louis & London: B. Herder Book Co., 1947