From the Gospel of John, chapter 20, it plainly stands that Christ, risen from the dead, appeared a second time to the apostles, and rebuked the unbelief of Thomas: 'Be not,' He said, 'unbelieving, but believing. Blessed are they who have not seen, and have believed' (John 20:27, 29). But Maximus is to be reconciled with this, who in this sermon commends the faith of Thomas and his devotion toward Christ, and says that he touched His wounds not in order that he himself might believe, but that he might turn away from all doubt concerning Christ's return to life. Yet if the evangelical narrative be weighed, Christ presented Himself to be known as glorious and risen by Thomas in one way, when with the doors closed He stood before the apostles and announced peace to them;
...and when he moved his hand to his side, he offered his wounds to be handled. Thomas therefore, as soon as he beheld Christ raised again in the midst of the apostles, believed him to be a living man, and, being instructed concerning his divinity, did not doubt it; and the Saviour himself bore witness to his faith, saying: 'Because you have seen me, Thomas, you have believed.' But afterward he touched and felt the members of Christ, and worshipping he cried out: 'My Lord and my God.' The first sight of Christ had already made Thomas faithful, and the readiness of his faith is commended by Maximus; but as to his having also touched the wounds of the Redeemer and burst forth into those words, 'My Lord and my God,' Maximus says: he wrought this for us, that he might touch what he was seeing;
so that if perchance some unbeliever should say that his eyes had then been deceived in the sight of Christ, he could not yet say that his hands had likewise been frustrated in touching that same one. The like concerning the doubting Thomas is found in Gregory the Great, Homily 26 on the Gospels: 'This did not happen by chance, but by divine dispensation. For the heavenly clemency wrought in a wondrous way, that the doubting disciple, while he handled the wounds of the flesh in his Master, might heal in us the wounds of unbelief.' And Augustine, Tractate 121, teaches that Thomas saw in the risen Christ, and touched, a man, but that, with doubt removed concerning the bodily resurrection of Christ, he uttered the confession which he already held concerning his divinity:
Now Thomas was seeing and touching a man, and confessing God, whom he neither saw nor touched; but through that which he saw and touched, with doubt now removed he already believed that other thing; whence there follows: 'Thomas answered and said to him: My Lord and my God.' But that we may assign this sermon to St. Maximus, three Subalpine codices move us, namely the Turin codex, that of St. Dalmatius, and that of the monastery formerly of Appania. In the Turin codex it is inscribed: 'Likewise also concerning the Pasch and concerning blessed Thomas, Sermon VII.' The Benedictine monks of the congregation of St. Maur placed this sermon in the appendix, among the sermons of Augustine of the second class, No. 161. Upon comparing the text which we had copied out from the codex of the abbey of St.
Dalmatius, where it stands with the title: 'Likewise concerning the Pasch, Sermon X, and concerning blessed Thomas,' with that printed in the said appendix among St. Augustine's sermons, No. 162, page 203 of the Antwerp edition of 1700, its variation will be evident. We said on the previous Lord's Day that blessed Thomas, in order to confirm all believers by his own example, handled the members of the Lord's body after the resurrection; and that, in order to drive away the uncertainty of all concerning the resurrection of Christ the Lord, he wished to examine the scars of his wounds. But the blessed apostle did not do this for his own sake alone; rather, what he then did the more inquisitively benefited all. Indeed, when he exercised his solicitude in searching the whole body of Christ, he confirmed the faith of all.
For who could still doubt that the Saviour returned from the dead, whom Thomas not only saw but whose members he also handled, examining each of the wounds as well? Therefore, however small a man's faith may be, however weak the Christian may be in understanding, he can never compare his own solicitude to Thomas's inquiry; and thus, after acknowledgment and conversion, no one would have dared to ask, no one to seek out, that he might even by touch search out Christ in Christ himself, nor, in the very man whom he saw, examine the human body still more curiously, and by injurious handling prove that resurrection which He had borne for us.
Blessed Thomas therefore, since he was holy, faithful, and just, anxiously sought out all these things—not because he doubted concerning his resurrection, but that he might turn away all suspicion from all men. For to confirm his own faith it had been enough for him to have seen that body which he already knew before. But he wrought it for us, that he might touch what he saw; so that if perchance some unbeliever should say that his eyes had then been deceived in the sight of Christ, he could not say that his hands had likewise been frustrated in touching that same one. For in the manifestation of the resurrection one may indeed doubt about sight, which nevertheless he cannot do about touch. For by the testimony of touch itself the truth stands firm, that the Saviour returned from the dead.
If then Christ our hope has risen, who, brethren, would not believe that he too shall rise? If we believe that He returned from the dead, why shall we doubt that we too are to rise? since the blessed Apostle says: 'For if the dead do not rise, neither has Christ risen' (1 Cor. 15). Since therefore Christ has risen, the dead too shall be raised up; because the Lord has risen, the little servants also shall live again. For He himself, as the same Apostle has it, is 'the firstborn from the dead.' The firstborn from the dead indeed, because He first of all rose from the nether world; and we trust that with Him we too shall one day rise.
For we ought to place all our hope in the glory of the resurrection which is to come, and rather to hope of the Lord in the life to come. Rightly then the blessed Apostle said: 'The hope that is seen is not hope' (Rom. 8). Let us hope therefore in eternal life. (Here a leaf is missing.) Your holiness, brethren, retains the earlier discourse, in which we wrote that St. Thomas the apostle, to confirm the faith of all, handled the members of the Lord's body after the resurrection, and, to repel the doubt of all, wished to examine the scars of his wounds. For the blessed apostle did not do this for his own sake alone, but what he did for himself profited all. For when he exercised his solicitude, he confirmed the faith of all.
For who from this would doubt that the Saviour returned from the dead, whose presence after the nether world the eye recognized, the hand handled, the finger searched out? However then a man be of little faith, however weak of understanding the Christian be, he could never have made his own solicitude equal to Thomas's inquiry. For never after recognition, association, and conversation would he have dared to ask that he might even by touch search out Christ in Christ, and in the very man whom he beheld inquire into the body of a man, and prove His resurrection not so much by the glory of miracles as by the injury of the passion. Thomas therefore, since he was holy, faithful, and just, anxiously sought out all these things:
not because he himself doubted anything, but that he might exclude all suspicion of unbelief. For it had sufficed for his own faith to have seen him whom he knew: but he wrought it for us, that he might touch him whom he saw; so that if perchance we should say that his eyes had been deceived, we could not say that his hands had been frustrated. For in the manifestation of the resurrection one may waver about sight, but about touch there can be no doubt. For it stands firm by the testimony of the truth itself that the Saviour returned from the dead. Who would not place his hope in Christ? Who would not set his faith in the Lord, so that as He returned from the nether world, he himself may rise from the dead? The blessed Apostle says: 'For if the dead do not rise, neither has Christ risen' (1 Cor. 15).
Because therefore Christ rose, the dead too shall be raised up: because the Lord rose again, the little servants also shall live again. For He himself, as the Apostle says, is the firstborn from the dead. For as among those above He is the firstborn among many brethren, so also from the nether world He is the firstborn from the departed. Now one is called firstborn from this, that he is begotten first before the others who are to follow, having brought forth his birth out of the darkness of hell into the light of the resurrection. For a birth it must be called, where by a certain exchange the soul dies to the laws of Tartarus, that it may be reborn to the renewed use of the body. For the nativity of resurrection among those above is a kind of death for those below. Whence death itself in a manner suffers death, while a multitude of the departed is withdrawn from it into life.
For as the blessed Apostle says: 'The last enemy, death, shall be destroyed' (ibid.). And again: 'Death is swallowed up in victory' (ibid.). When therefore death is consumed in victory, it is destroyed by a certain slaughter of its own failing. And it suffers failing when its power is emptied by the rising again of all. But let us see what it is that he says, that death has been consumed in victory. Death has plainly been consumed in its own victory, since, while subjecting Christ to the laws of hell, it overwhelmed itself when it conquered Him. For in that very thing in which it possessed Him whom it believed it had overcome, it was conquered by Him when He rose again. We ought therefore to place our whole faith in the glory of the resurrection, and rather to hope of the Lord in the life to come.
For thus the blessed Apostle says: 'The hope that is seen is not hope' (Rom. 8). In the life to come, therefore, let us hope in the Lord—a hope that is solid and everlasting: that we may be not more wretched than all men, but better; through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns unto the ages of ages. Amen.