figuration, but
otherwise than in a glorified body. For the clarity of the soul
overflows into a glorified body, by way of a permanent quality
affecting the body. Hence bodily refulgence is not miraculous in a
glorified body. But in Christ's transfiguration clarity overflowed
from His Godhead and from His soul into His body, not as an immanent
quality affecting His very body, but rather after the manner of a
transient passion, as when the air is lit up by the sun. Consequently
the refulgence, which appeared in Christ's body then, was miraculous:
just as was the fact of His walking on the waves of the sea. Hence
Dionysius says (Ep. ad Cai. iv): "Christ excelled man in doing that
which is proper to man: this is shown in His supernatural conception
of a virgin and in the unstable waters bearing the weight of material
and earthly feet."

Wherefore we must not say, as Hugh of St. Victor [*Innocent III, De
Myst. Miss. iv] said, that Christ assumed the gift of clarity in the
transfiguration, of agility in walking on the sea, and of subtlety in
coming forth from the Virgin's closed womb: because the gifts are
immanent qualities of a glorified body. _On the contrary,_ whatever
pertained to the gifts, that He had miraculously. The same is to be
said, as to the soul, of the vision in which Paul saw God in a
rapture, as we have stated in the Second Part (II-II, Q. 175, A. 3,
ad 2).

Reply Obj. 1: The words quoted prove, not that the clarity of Christ
was not that of glory, but that it was not the clarity of a glorified
body, since Christ's body was not as yet immortal. And just as it was
by dispensation that in Christ the glory of the soul should not
overflow into the body so was it possible that by dispensation it
might overflow as to the gift of clarity and not as to that of
impassibility.

Reply Obj. 2: This clarity is said to have been imaginary, not as
though it were not really the clarity of glory, but because it was a
kind of image representing that perfection of glory, in virtue of
which the body will be glorious.

Reply Obj. 3: Just as the clarity which was in Christ's body was a
representation of His body's future clarity, so the clarity which was
in His garments signified the future clarity of the saints, which
will be surpassed by that of Christ, just as the brightness of the
snow is surpassed by that of the sun. Hence Gregory says (Moral.
xxxii) that Christ's garments became resplendent, "because in the
height o