it seems
unfitting for Christ to have ascended into heaven.

Obj. 4: Further, as Gregory says (Moral. xiv), Christ's body was in
no way changed after the Resurrection. But He did not ascend into
heaven immediately after rising again, for He said after the
Resurrection (John 20:17): "I am not yet ascended to My Father."
Therefore it seems that neither should He have ascended after forty
days.

_On the contrary,_ Are the words of our Lord (John 20:17): "I ascend
to My Father and to your Father."

_I answer that,_ The place ought to be in keeping with what is
contained therein. Now by His Resurrection Christ entered upon an
immortal and incorruptible life. But whereas our dwelling-place is
one of generation and corruption, the heavenly place is one of
incorruption. And consequently it was not fitting that Christ should
remain upon earth after the Resurrection; but it was fitting that He
should ascend to heaven.

Reply Obj. 1: That which is best and possesses its good without
movement is God Himself, because He is utterly unchangeable,
according to Malachi 3:6: "I am the Lord, and I change not." But
every creature is changeable in some respect, as is evident from
Augustine (Gen. ad lit. viii). And since the nature assumed by the
Son of God remained a creature, as is clear from what was said above
(Q. 2, A. 7; Q. 16, AA. 8, 10; Q. 20, A. 1), it is not unbecoming
if some movement be attributed to it.

Reply Obj. 2: By ascending into heaven Christ acquired no addition to
His essential glory either in body or in soul: nevertheless He did
acquire something as to the fittingness of place, which pertains to
the well-being of glory: not that His body acquired anything from a
heavenly body by way of perfection or preservation; but merely out of
a certain fittingness. Now this in a measure belonged to His glory;
and He had a certain kind of joy from such fittingness, not indeed
that He then began to derive joy from it when He ascended into
heaven, but that He rejoiced thereat in a new way, as at a thing
completed. Hence, on Ps. 15:11: "At Thy right hand are delights even
unto the end," the gloss says: "I shall delight in sitting nigh to
Thee, when I shall be taken away from the sight of men."

Reply Obj. 3: Although Christ's bodily presence was withdrawn from
the faithful by the Ascension, still the presence of His Godhead is
ever with the faithful, as He Himself says (Matt. 28:20): "Behold, I
am with you all days, even to