A Podcast Exploring the Wit and Weirdness of Medieval Texts

MDT Ep. 43: Concerning the Resurrection of Cannibals

Today we plunge into some hard-core scholasticism, as we hear Thomas Aquinas wrestle with the thorny question: “If all dead bodies are resurrected at the Last Judgment, what happens to the bodies of cannibals, whose bodies are made up of the flesh of those they have eaten, who also need to be resurrected?” We also wrap up with a reflection on George Romero and the zombie apocalypse.
Today’s Text:
  • Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologia, Supplement, Q. 80, Art. 4. Available at http://www.newadvent.org/summa/5080.htm#article4, which reproduces the text of the Second and Revised Edition, 1920, literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province.
References:
  • Bynum, Caroline Walker. Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion. Zone Books, 1992.
  • Murphy, James Jerome. Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: A History of Rhetorical Theory from Saint Augustine to the Renaissance, University of California Press, 1974.

Image: Detail from Manuscrito Valenciennes BM MS 320, f. 45.

2 Comments

  1. DSJ

    Take a shot every time Thomas Aquina says ‘truth of human nature’!

  2. Sophie Stieger

    Thank you for that wonderful episode!

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