Scotus Academicus, Tomus quintus: De Creaturarum Corporalium et de Homine

Note 1. That it is certain by faith that the rational soul is the form of the human body, not assisting and merely moving it, as Plato willed; but informing it, and really united to it, as was defined in the Council of Vienne under Clement V in these words: Whosoever shall henceforth presume to assert, defend, or pertinaciously hold that the rational or intellectual soul is not the form of the human body in itself and essentially, let him be regarded as a heretic. Which sanction the third Lateran Council, under Leo X in his decree concerning the rational soul, restored, where he reproves both of the aforesaid opinions, and strikes with anathema those asserting the things reproved, in these words: With the approval of the sacred Council we damn and reprove all asserting that the intellectual soul is mortal, or that it is one in all men; and those turning these things into doubt; since it is not only true, and in itself, and essentially the form of the human body. — Reason also lends its aid: since man understands formally and properly, as Aristotle affirms, 10 Ethics, where he constitutes the happiness of man in actual understanding: but the happiness of man inheres in him formally. Moreover, the rational soul is essentially distinctive of man; for man differs essentially from beasts, not by the body, nor by the vegetative or sensitive grades, which are common to them: therefore by the rational soul: but that which is distinctive essentially inheres formally in that which it distinguishes: therefore, etc. Lastly, if it were only an assisting form, it would be to the body as the pilot to the ship, and the rider to the horse: therefore as the rider can depart from the horse, and the pilot from the ship, both persevering unharmed, so likewise the rational soul, if it were only an assisting form, could depart from the body, the latter persevering unharmed.

Note 2. That God for very many reasons conjoined the spiritual and immortal soul to a material and mortal body, of which the chief are: First, lest the soul should swell with the wind of pride, and on that account fall most easily into error, and incur the same loss with Lucifer and his hostile Angels. Second, God instituted this that He might make known His supreme wisdom, by instituting the greatest of all natural unions: for the greatest union ought to be between the lowest of the highest and the highest of the lowest: therefore since the soul is the lowest among spiritual substances holding the highest place among beings, and since the human body, by its marvelous fabric, holds the first place among bodies, therefore the union of both was congruous. Third, that the soul might profit toward merit of greater glory through good bodily works, namely of chastity, temperance, patience, etc.

Note 3. That the rational soul and the human body can be considered in a twofold manner: namely either absolutely, and according to the proper gifts of each; or respectively, and inasmuch as they are ordered to one another as matter to form, and form to matter. In the former manner the gifts of the body are opposed to the gifts of the soul: for those are material and corruptible: but these are spiritual, immortal, and indefectible; and therefore the body thus considered obtains no nobility from the proximity of the soul; nay it is altogether depressed, and in this comparison grows vile. But otherwise it happens, while they are considered in the latter manner, for there is the greatest nobility in the human body, in that from its congruous harmony it is apt and suitable to be united to a form so excellent, from which it obtains not only life and motion, but even dignity and pre-eminence, as will be proved

One Conclusion. — The highest nobility and pre-eminence of the human body is from its union with the rational soul.

Proof, from the threefold dignity which the human body obtains from the soul, according to the threefold state: namely of nature, of grace, and of glory. For first, by reason of its conjunction with the rational soul it excels all bodily things, as has been proved above: for if thou shouldst separate from it the rational soul, truly the human body, both in the operation of the senses, and in the length of life, and in virtue and strength, would far surpass the bodies of very many beasts, as was said above in Concl. 3 of the first Question of this Article. Therefore the whole natural dignity and pre-eminence of the human body above the other corporeal creatures is to be sought from its internal commerce with the rational soul. Which Tertullian, in the book De Resurrectione carnis, chap. 6, ponders in a most marvelous manner, where he gathers the dignity of the human body from its union with the rational soul; for there he thus addresses Marcion, the darkener of human flesh: Art thou not more diligent, O God, so that thou indeed engrave Scythian and Indian gems, and the shining grains of the red sea, not with lead, not with bronze, not with iron, not even with silver: but with gold most erect and moreover most laborious? Thou vinest therefore, and with most precious unguents, taking care of whatever things were previously congruous: accordingly with swords of well-tempered steel thou equalize the dignity of ravens: but God committed the shadow of His soul, the breath of His spirit, the work of His mouth to some most vile haft, and by placing it unworthily has surely damned it. But He placed it, or rather implanted it, and commingled it with flesh, with indeed such a concreteness, that it can be held uncertain whether the flesh carries about the soul, or the soul the flesh... but although it must rather be believed that the soul inheres and dominates, as nearer to God, this also overflows to the glory of the flesh, that it contains what is near to God, and affords the head of His domination. He subjoins, moreover, how also the body serves the soul for acquiring its natural gifts; For, he says, what use of nature, what fruit of the world, what savor of the elements, does she not enjoy and feed upon through the flesh? ... And the discourse is concerning the organ of the flesh, the arts through the flesh: the studies inborn through the flesh: the works, businesses, offices through the flesh. It belongs to the flesh to seem apt as a whole for the soul, etc. Hence whoever is the author of the book De Spiritu et anima, which is inserted among the works of St. Augustine, tom. 3, and is falsely attributed to him by not a few of the ancients, for in chap. 37 he cites Boethius, far later than Augustine; this author, I say, rightly says in chap. 11: When the soul is joined to the body, by which friendship no one hates his own flesh: for associated with it, although she be burdened by its association, yet by an ineffable condition she loves it, loves her companion, and therefore cannot be free: she is vehemently afflicted by its pains: she fears its destruction, who cannot die: she dreads its failure, who by nature cannot fail. She is fed by the contemplation of the eyes, delighted by sonorous hearings, gladdened by the sweetest odors, refreshed rapaciously by the tongue: and although she uses these things not at all, she is nevertheless afflicted with grave sorrow if they are withdrawn. By which it is evident how natural and how strict is the society and friendship of the rational soul with its body, and how great a dignity thence accrues to the human body.

Second: This same is evident from the order of grace, since sanctifying grace, informing the soul, represses the incentives of bodily vices; it orders its passions, and orders and composes all its motions not only toward reason, but even toward sanctity: in turn also the human body has conferred no little utility upon the rational soul. For no flesh, says Tertullian in the same place chap. 8, can attain salvation, unless it is in the flesh: therefore the flesh is the hinge of salvation; moreover when the soul is joined to God, it is the flesh itself which avails that the soul may be bound. But the flesh is washed, that the soul may be cleansed: the flesh is anointed, that the soul may be consecrated; the flesh is signed, that the soul also may be fortified: the flesh is overshadowed by the imposition of hands, that the soul may be enlightened by the spirit: the flesh feeds on the Body and Blood of Christ, that the soul may be fattened on God... Moreover, the sacrifices acceptable to God, I say the conflicts of the soul, fastings, and squalors, and dry foods, and the squalors of its proper office as appendices, the flesh restores from its own inconvenience. Virginity also, and chastity, and the modest dissimulation of matrimony in secret, and the single knowledge of it concerning the goods of the flesh, are odored to God, etc.

Thirdly, lastly, the dignity of the human body is evident from its union with the rational soul, in that through it it becomes capable of perceiving eternal beatitude: for, as Tertullian says in the same place, They cannot be separated in the reward whom God joins in their works. Therefore that union, says Alexander of Hales, qu. 81, member 3, which is of the soul with God through the conformity of the flesh, in a certain manner redounds to the very body. For it has, and the most perfect dignity in the genus of bodies, from this, that from that union which it has with the soul it has been rendered fit, that according to some part of itself, or of another genus of itself, it might be united to the Son of God in the unity of person: which union excels both that which is of nature and that which is of glory, which dignity the Son of God manifested through His Incarnation. Hence the union of the soul with the body was as it were a delineation of the future beatific union, and likewise of the hypostatic conjunction, which the Author De Spiritu et anima, chap. 14, elegantly explains: The first thing was marvelous, he says, that things so diverse and so divided from one another could be conjoined with one another. Nor less marvelous was it that God joined Himself to our mire, that God and mire might be united to one another: such sublimity, and such vileness: for nothing is more sublime than God, and nothing viler than mire... But if God was able to join so unequal a nature of flesh and soul to mutual federation and friendship, by no means was it previously impossible for the rational spirit, which has been humbled even to the fellowship of an earthly body, to exult together with the same body glorified, that it may be to it what flesh was to it, unto the fellowship of the blessed spirits who persevered in their purity, and to be raised to the participation of its glory: for to this end the Most High created it by charity alone, by no necessity, that He might make it a partaker of His beatitude.

This same truth St. Bernard inculcates with his wonted elegance and piety, Serm. 2 De Nativitate Domini, where he says that the supreme goodness and magnificence of God toward us cry out by a certain threefold pious work: of our first Creation, of our present Redemption, of our future Glorification... To consider the threefold conjunction in these three is a festival of things of most great work and of divine virtue: For in the first work of our condition God fashioned man from the mire of the earth, and breathed into his face the spirit of life. What an artificer, what a founder of things, to whose nod the mire of the earth and the spirit of life are thus glued to one another!.. Know, O man, thy dignity, acknowledge the glory of the human condition: for thou hast thy body in common with the world: for thus it befits him who has been constituted above the whole mass of this corporeal creature, and things like unto it in part: but thou hast also something more sublime, nor art thou altogether to be compared with the other creatures. Compacted and confederated in thee are flesh and soul: the one fashioned, the other inspired. The second conjunction he thus commends: The second conjunction is now made from three, that from it one might ascend to the Sacrament of the Trinity. The Word, which was in the beginning with God, and was God: the soul which was created from nothing, and before was not: flesh from the mass of corruption, without any corruption, segregated by divine artifice, such as no flesh ever was, coalesce in the unity of person by an indissoluble bond. Thou hast in these a threefold genus of power: that which was not, created: that which had perished, repaired: that which was above all things, made a little less than the Angels, etc. — Lastly, the third union he expresses thus: What shall be in the third union, who shall say? Neither hath the eye seen, nor the ear heard, nor hath it ascended into the heart of man, what God hath prepared for them that love him. That consummation will be when Christ shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father: and they shall be two no longer one in flesh, but in one spirit. For indeed if the Word adhering to flesh was made flesh, much more he who shall have adhered to God will be one spirit with him. And in this union indeed (namely of the Word with flesh) a middle humility is exhibited, and a humility too great: but in that which we look upon, toward which we sigh, there is laid up for us, if nevertheless for us, a perfected glorification, etc.

You will say. From the same St. Bernard, the dignity of the soul is far depressed by its union with the body: therefore so far is this union from contributing anything to the pre-eminence of the body, that rather it darkens it. The antecedent is proved from chap. 3 of the book De Conditione humanae conditionis: where he thus addresses the soul; O soul signed with the image of God, adorned with the similitude, espoused by faith, imbued with the spirit, redeemed by blood, deputed with the Angels, capable of beatitude, heir of goodness, partaker of reason, what hast thou to do with flesh, whence sufferest thou these things? On account of the flesh the sins of others are imputed to thee, and thy justices are reputed as the cloth of a menstruous woman: and thou thyself art reduced to nothing, and reputed as nothing and vain. Nothing else is the flesh (with which thy society is so great) except foam made of flesh, a fragile rest of comeliness: but trampled, it will be to be despised, a wretched and putrid cadaver, and the food of worms. For however it is honored, it is always flesh. If thou diligently considerest what goes forth through the mouth, and the nostrils, and the other passages of the body, thou hast never seen a viler dunghill. If thou wishest to enumerate its single miseries, since it is laden with sins, entangled with vices, itching with concupiscences, occupied with passions, polluted with illusions, ever prone to evil, and inclined to every vice, thou wilt find it full of all confusion and ignominy! On account of the flesh man has been made like unto vanity, because from that vice of concupiscence he has drawn, whereby he is held captive, and bent that he may love vanity, and work iniquity, etc.

I answer 1. That the aforesaid book, although most devout, is not St. Bernard's, but either Hugh of St. Victor's, or of some more modern Author. Secondly I say, with the Author, that it is to be understood of the body vitiated by original sin; but we speak of the pre-eminence of the human body according to its primary origin and formation, in which it was free from these defects; and therefore the aforesaid authority does not impede the truth of our Conclusion.