ul, which is the subject of the character of order: hence a man
does not lose his priestly order by death, and much less does Christ,
who is the fount of the entire priesthood.
_______________________

FIFTH ARTICLE [III, Q. 50, Art. 5]

Whether Christ's Was Identically the Same Body Living and Dead?

Objection 1: It would seem that Christ's was not identically the same
body living and dead. For Christ truly died just as other men do. But
the body of everyone else is not simply identically the same, dead
and living, because there is an essential difference between them.
Therefore neither is the body of Christ identically the same, dead
and living.

Obj. 2: Further, according to the Philosopher (Metaph. v, text. 12),
things specifically diverse are also numerically diverse. But
Christ's body, living and dead, was specifically diverse: because the
eye or flesh of the dead is only called so equivocally, as is evident
from the Philosopher (De Anima ii, text. 9; _Metaph._ vii). Therefore
Christ's body was not simply identically the same, living and dead.

Obj. 3: Further, death is a kind of corruption. But what is corrupted
by substantial corruption after being corrupted, exists no longer,
since corruption is change from being to non-being. Therefore,
Christ's body, after it was dead, did not remain identically the
same, because death is a substantial corruption.

_On the contrary,_ Athanasius says (Epist. ad Epict.): "In that body
which was circumcised and carried, which ate, and toiled, and was
nailed on the tree, there was the impassible and incorporeal Word of
God: the same was laid in the tomb." But Christ's living body was
circumcised and nailed on the tree; and Christ's dead body was laid
in the tomb. Therefore it was the same body living and dead.

_I answer that,_ The expression "simply" can be taken in two senses.
In the first instance by taking "simply" to be the same as
"absolutely"; thus "that is said simply which is said without
addition," as the Philosopher put it (Topic. ii): and in this way the
dead and living body of Christ was simply identically the same: since
a thing is said to be "simply" identically the same from the identity
of the subject. But Christ's body living and dead was identical in
its suppositum because alive and dead it had none other besides the
Word of God, as was stated above (A. 2). And it is in this sense that
Athanasius is speaking in the passage quoted.

In another way "sim