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First Article:
It was fitting for Christ to die: (1) SO as to satisfy for us,
who were sentenced to death because of sin; (2) to show that He
truly assumed a human nature; for if, after conversing with men, He
had suddenly disappeared without dying, then all would have looked upon
Him as a phantom; (3) that by dying He might take away from us the
fear of death; (4) that He might give us the example of dying
spiritually to sin; (5) that by rising from the dead He might show
His power whereby He overcame death, and instill into us the hope of
rising again.
Second Article:
In Christ's death the divine nature was not separated from His
body. St. Thomas gives and explains the answer of tradition,
namely, that the divine nature remained hypostatically united with
Christ's body. What is bestowed through God's grace as something
that is by nature destined to be permanent, is never taken away without
sin, for "God's gifts are without repentance."[2252] Such
is the grace of adoption in the just person. But the grace of the
hypostatic union is much greater and more permanent in itself than the
grace of adoption, and Christ was absolutely impeccable.
Thus it is said of the Son of God that "He died and was
buried,"[2253] which befitted Him on the part of His body
before and after death. Not only His body was buried, but the Son
of God was buried, for, during the three days of His death, His
divine person was not separated from His dead body, nor even from His
blood, all of which was shed.
Third Article:
In Christ's death the divine nature was not separated from His
soul. The reason is that the soul is united with the Word of God
more immediately and more primarily than the body is. But in
Christ's death the divine nature was not separated from the body.
Therefore, a fortiori, it was not separated from the soul. Hence it
is predicated of the Son of God that His soul descended into hell.
Fourth Article:
It is erroneous to assert that Christ during the three days of death
was a man, because His soul was separated from His body and the human
nature ceased as such through the separation of the soul from the body.
Fifth Article:
Christ's body, living or dead, was absolutely and identically the
same, because anything is said to be absolutely and identically the
same which is the same in its suppositum. But Christ's body, either
living or dead, was the same in its suppositum, as is evident from
what was said. It was not, however, absolutely and totally the same
identical body, because the life that was lost by death belongs to the
essence of a living body. It is more probable that Christ's body
during the three days of death had its substantial form, but it had the
form of a human corpse, for matter cannot naturally be without a form.
Sixth Article:
Christ's death in becoming (in fier1), or His passion, was the
meritorious cause of our salvation. But Christ's death in fact
nowise caused our salvation by way of merit, because Christ, who was
then dead, was beyond the condition of meriting, for He was no longer
a wayfarer. However, Christ's dead flesh remained the instrument of
His divine nature with which it was united, and thus it could be the
efficient cause of our salvation.
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