suppose that He was the son of the Holy Ghost according to the flesh.
The sacraments are valid even when dispensed by wicked ministers. This was an important point
in Church doctrine. Very many priests lived in mortal sin, and pious people feared that such
priests could not administer the sacraments. This was awkward; no one could know if he was
really married, or if he had received valid absolution. It led to heresy and schism, since the
puritanically minded sought to establish a separate priesthood of more impeccable virtue. The
Church, in consequence, was obliged to assert with great emphasis that sin in a priest did not
incapacitate him for the performance of his functions.
One of the last questions discussed is the resurrection of the body. Here, as elsewhere, Aquinas
states very fairly the arguments that have been brought against orthodox position. One of these, at
first sight, offers great difficulties. What is to happen, asks the Saint, to a man who never,
throughout his life, ate anything but human flesh, and whose parents did likewise? It would seem
unfair to his victims that they should be deprived of their bodies at the last day as a consequence
of his greed; yet, if not, what will be left to make up his body; I am happy to say that this
difficulty, which might at first sight seem insuperable, is triumphantly met. The identity of the
body, Saint Thomas points out, is not dependent on the persistence of the same material particles;
during life, by the processes of eating and digesting, the matter composing the body undergoes
perpetual change. The cannibal may, therefore, receive the same body at the resurrection, even if it
is not composed of the same matter as was in his body when he died. With this comforting
thought we may end our abstract of the Summa contra Gentiles.
In its general outlines, the philosophy of Aquinas agrees with that of Aristotle, and will be
accepted or rejected by a reader in the measure in which he accepts or rejects the philosophy of the
Stagyrite. The originality of Aquinas is shown in his adaptation of Aristotle to Christian dogma,
with a minimum of alteration. In his day he was considered a bold innovator; even after his death
many of his doctrines were condemned by the universities of Paris and Oxford. He was even more
remarkable for systematizing than for originality. Even if every one of his doctrines were
mistaken, the Summa would remain an imposing intellectual edifice. When he wishes to refute
some