Chapter 177 — That the bodies of the damned, although passible, will nevertheless be incorruptible

Nevertheless, it should be known that although the bodies of the damned will be capable of suffering, they will yet not be subject to corruption, even though this may seem to disagree with present experience, according to which heightened suffering tends to deteriorate substance. In spite of this, there are two reasons why suffering that lasts forever will not corrupt the bodies undergoing it.

First, when the movement of the heavens ceases, as we said above, all transformation of nature must come to a stop. Nothing will be capable of alteration by alteration of its nature, but only by alteration of the soul. In speaking of an alteration of nature, I mean, for instance, a change from hot to cold in a thing, or any other such variation in the natural being of qualities. And by alteration of the soul I mean when a thing receives a quality not according to the quality’s natural mode of being, but according to its spiritual mode of being; for example, the pupil of the eye does not receive the form of a color such that it is colored itself, but such that it perceives color. In this way the bodies of the damned will suffer from fire or from some other material agent, not that they may be transformed into the likeness or quality of fire, but that they may experience the distinguishing characteristics of its qualities. And this experience will be painful, because such distinguishing characteristics are opposed to the harmony in which the pleasure of sense consists. Yet the action of hellfire will not cause corruption, because spiritual reception of forms does not modify bodily nature, except perhaps indirectly.

The second reason is on the side of the soul, in whose perpetual duration the body will be forced, by divine power, to share. The condemned person’s soul, insofar as it is the form and nature of such a body, will confer never-ending existence on the latter. But because of its imperfection, the soul will not bestow on the body immunity from suffering. Consequently, the bodies of the damned will suffer forever, but will not undergo dissolution.