Today the blessed Evangelist has related that in the very hour of the cross the apostles were given over to their tables, gaping after banquets, occupied with feasts, forgetful of the Lord's Passion. 'As they sat at table,' it says, 'the eleven, the Lord appeared' (Mark 16). As they reclined at table—where? At the Lord's sepulchre, and forthwith at the servants' table? Is this the faith of servants? Is this the charity of disciples? Is this the ardour of Peter? Is this the love of John, taken from the very breast of Christ? Is this the affection won by so long a time, by such gifts, by such powers, that in the very moment of the Passion, while death was yet warm, while the burial was yet fresh, while the enemies exulted and all Judaea insulted, the disciples should dine with all the elegance of the couch and all the pleasure of those reclining?
For the dead Moses angels stand by (Jude 9), God himself takes care of his sepulchre: the camps of Judaea are halted, the journey is deferred, the harsh desert stay is prolonged, a mourning of thirty days is decreed, and by the long service of lamentation a servant's funeral is honoured (Deut. 34); and shall Christ, the one true Lord, Creator of things, Redeemer of all, after that tragic Passion, after death, and the death of the cross, on the third day not deserve the tears of his disciples? The earth trembles, hell is confounded, the rocks are rent, the tombs burst open, the sun flees, the day is buried, all becomes night—and shall the disciples alone, on the lofty couch, in one company, in complete leisure, secure in their delights, feast? And this, brethren, is how the Master himself, returned from the lower regions, found them:
'As the eleven, then, sat at table, the Lord appeared, and upbraided their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who had seen him risen' (Mark 16). To this, faithful Peter, most devoted Peter, what shall we say? 'As they sat at table.' Was it truly at dinner? Brethren, this was not to recline at a banquet, but to lie prostrate; nor was that a company of feasting, it was an assembly of grief; there the bread was not of joy, but of sorrow; there the cups were mingled with the gall of the cross, not with the sweetness of wine. 'They were,' it says, 'shut in for fear of the Jews' (John 20). If afraid, if shut in, surely not dining; and if not dining, that was not a house, but a prison; that was not a banqueting-couch, but a sepulchre:
then the whole penalty of the Lord's Passion had passed over to the disciples; and the lance of grief was fixed wholly not only in their sides, but in their hearts; then their hands and feet were held fast, nailed with the nails of sadness; then vinegar was given to them, then the gall of Jewish bitterness was offered them to drink; then the sun set for them, the day fled; then a most profound night possessed their minds and souls; then the most savage temptation of their thoughts dashed them upon the rocks of faithlessness, upon the shipwreck of faith; then despair, which is worse among all evils and in adversity always comes last, laid them low in funereal sepulchres. Whence, as we have said, the Lord found them not reclining, not feasting, but lying prostrate, but buried:
and therefore he upbraids their unbelief, because they had believed despair so far that they gave no credit to the resurrection foretold by the Lord, nor believed it when announced by servants; and left in themselves nothing of faith or of salvation, but, dead to the world, buried to the world, believed that one house was for them all now one sepulchre. Hence it is that the Lord, seeing that they had withdrawn themselves from the world, recalls them to the world, sends them back into the world, saying: 'Go into the whole world, preach the Gospel to every creature.' Come into the world, that you who think you all lie now in one dwelling, may suddenly see the whole world lie subject beneath you. 'Go into the whole world, preach the Gospel to every creature.'
This is to say: be a hope to all, you who were to yourselves a cause of despair; and prove then how great was your unbelief, when you shall see the world believe at your word, which could not believe at your sight; and know then how great was the hardness of your heart, when you shall perceive that, without having seen me, the most ferocious nations of the whole world confess me, whom you, set before your very eyes, denied. You shall see men divided across the earth, shut up in islands, hanging from cliffs, remote in the wilderness—the pretenders of the Magi, the cavillers of the Greeks, the learned of the Romans—seek by faith alone the faith which you sought with hand, with finger, in my furrowed wounds.
But because I send you as witnesses of my Passion, my death, my resurrection, I grant that you have searched these things out more deeply, provided that your hesitation may be a firm foundation to those who are to believe through you. 'He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.' Brethren, what the soul is to the body, that faith is to baptism: hence it is that he who is begotten from the font lives by faith: 'The just man,' it says, 'liveth by faith' (Rom. 1). Therefore everyone dies who is without faith. 'He that believeth.' Because the Trinity is one God, because in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit there is one whole majesty in full equality, because the Godhead is distinguished by the Trinity, yet not confounded in unity, but is one in Deity, threefold in persons; because God is the name of the Trinity;
because the Father and the Son are not to be reckoned by order, but to be esteemed by love; because the Holy Spirit is not to be held inferior, greater or less, nor as external to be held greater or less, since the Divinity knows nothing external; because Christ so became man that he remains what he is as God, so died that by his own death he might raise the dead of all ages from death; because he rose again not for himself, but for us; because he brought us to heaven when he raised himself to heaven; because he sits with the authority of a Judge, not for the repose of one wearied; because he shall come, not by change of place—he who is everywhere present to move—nor that he may hold his own world, who possesses the whole world, but that the world may now forever deserve the vision of its own Author.
Let man believe also the remission of sins, because the heavenly kingdom, though it be most vast, holds no sinner; nor let man despair on account of the greatness of his sins, for if there be anything which God cannot forgive, he is not almighty. Let him believe also the resurrection of the flesh, that it may be the same man who rises, that the same who sins may receive punishment, the same who labours the reward. Let him believe eternal life, lest the second death have any place. But that demons, that is, the ancient enemies, are put to flight from human bodies; that from one mouth is poured out a varied speech of tongues; that serpents, when touched through Christ, know not their own venoms; that those who drink poisoned cups can suffer no harm through Christ;
that the diseases of bodies are put to flight at the touch of one who preaches Christ—this, brethren, is the highest sign of belief. 'These signs,' it says, 'shall follow them that believe: in my name they shall cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues, they shall take up serpents, and if they shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands upon the sick, and they shall be well.' Man, therefore, be to yourself a physician through faith, lest you be forced to your own cost to submit to strange physicians, and to purchase dearly what you possess freely. Pray, brethren, that even in the present we may ever feel the medicine of faith, and that, set in the expectation of Christ, we may at his second coming glory in our conscience.