While rebellious Judaea strives to war down its own Creator, and lifts impious hands to the slaying of its own Author, it stole peace from the earth, dissolved the concord of things, and so broke the covenant of the elements, that it recalled the whole world to ancient chaos: in short, it puts the day to flight, invades the night, takes away light with darkness, heaven with things, makes the earth tremble, mingles the dead with the living, confounds those below and those above, and, order being scattered, left absolutely nothing peaceable, absolutely nothing friendly, to the injury of the Creator. Hence it is that Christ, returned from the lower world, in order to give peace back to things, cries out: 'Peace be to you.' 'While these things are being spoken,' he says, 'the disciples, Jesus stood in the midst of them, and says to them: Peace be to you.'
Well does He add 'to you,' because now the earth had stood firm, the day had returned, the sun had run its course again, and the frame of the world now held its order restored. But to the disciples war still remained, and the conflict of faith and faithlessness clashed within them sharply. The whirlwind of the Passion had not so shaken the earth as it had the heart of the disciples: and therefore the battle-lines of belief and unbelief were laying waste their minds with obstinate combat: hosts of thoughts pressed upon their minds, and by the sorties of despair and hope their breasts, though robust, were being broken.
Among the innumerable miracles of Christ's signs, and the manifold kinds of His passion, between the marks of His deity and the frailties of His flesh, between the losses of death and the gifts of life, the senses and minds of the disciples were carried to and fro: now their spirit was lifted up to heaven, now their souls were dashed down to earth; and with such a tempest raging in their inmost being, they could find no harbour of rest, no station of peace. Seeing this, Christ, the searcher of hearts, who commands the winds, rules the tempests, and by a single nod changes storms into calm, soon fills them with His own peace, saying: 'Peace be to you; it is I, fear not. I am that crucified One, dead, buried. It is I. Through Me God, through you man. It is I.'
Not a spirit in the figure of flesh, but the very Truth in flesh. 'It is I.' I am living from among the dead, from the lower world I am the One from above. 'It is I,' whom death fled, whom the infernal regions trembled at: hell confessed God, when it quaked with fear. Fear not, Peter, that you denied; that you fled, John; that you all deserted; that with your whole thoughts you judge unfaithfully concerning Me; that you still do not believe, though you see Me (Matt. 26; Mark 14). Fear not, it is I. I who called you by grace, chose you by pardon, upheld you by mercy, bore you by charity, and now receive you by goodness alone, because the Father knows not how to see faults when He receives back the Son, when affection takes back its own. 'Troubled,' he says, 'and terrified, they thought they saw a spirit.'
Why? Because the Lord had entered while the doors were shut. The disciples, therefore, cast down by the sleep of grief, granted to Christ not what divine power can do, but what human nature admits. They thought they saw a spirit (Luke 24). For the spirit of man passes through enclosed places in the womb, penetrates walls, so that with the body closed it may enter an enclosed body: thus the soul, when it gives the end to life, when it withdraws from the sweet companionship of the body, is not held back by the bars of houses, by worldly obstacles: a heavenly substance knows not how to be enclosed in earthly prisons, according to that saying: 'You know not whence the Spirit comes, or whither it goes' (John 3).
The disciples, therefore, when the Lord had entered after the resurrection with the doors shut, did not believe that He had brought back the solidity of His body, suspecting that only His soul had returned into a mere image of flesh, as bodily images are wont to appear to those who sleep. They thought, he says, they saw a spirit. Therefore, as we have said, in the disciples the wars of thoughts were not being calmed, but more and more the wars of thoughts were growing, and the tumult of their minds was increased by the very visions; and whence the faith of the resurrection was being asserted, thence was born the scruple of all hesitation. What had come was a reality; that He had entered with the doors shut, was not faith: it was not faith, but it was power;
it was not something human, but it was a man, so that there might be a true body in the power of the deity, not an empty appearance of flesh to the injury of the resurrection. Therefore, to suppress the conflicts of thoughts arising from this, Christ answered: 'Why are you troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts?' Well do they 'arise,' not descend: because human thoughts, weighed down by the burden of the flesh, strive to ascend to the lofty mystery of God, and in the very attempts are broken, fall, and are cast down to the earth, unless He shall help, who grants to man to ponder things divine. 'Why are you troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? See My hands and feet.' 'See,' this is to say, 'Be watchful.' Why? Because it is no dream that you see.
'See My hands and feet.' Because with your eyes weighed down you cannot yet look upon the head; see the wounds of the flesh, since you do not see the works of God; consider the marks of the enemies, since you have not yet considered the tokens of God; handle Me, that at least the hand may make faith, since the seeing eye is thus blinded: the eye does not see, let touch see; let your fingers enter the prints of the nails, let your hand search the depths of the wound, open the openings of the hands, furrow the side, renew the wounds, because I cannot deny to the disciples for faith what I did not deny to the enemies raging for My punishment;
handle, handle, and as arduous inquirers penetrate even to the bones, that at least the bones may build up the truth of the flesh, and that at least the preserved wounds may testify that I am the very One. I ask, why do you not believe that I have risen, I who under your own eyes raised innumerable dead? Unless perhaps the power which was present to others was lacking to Me, according to that voice which insulted Me as I hung upon the cross, saying: 'He saved others, Himself He cannot save: if He is the King of Israel, let Him come down from the cross, and we will believe Him' (Matt. 27).
And what is greater, to come down from the cross with the nails struck out, or to ascend from the lower world with death trodden down? Behold, I have both saved Myself, and, the bonds of hell being broken, I have ascended to the things above, and yet neither among you have I found faith in My deity. Or perhaps a three-day death denies the faith of believing? Did not My voice call Lazarus, four days dead and already stinking, from the lower world before your very eyes—did not My command recall him to life (John 11)? And if a four-day servant rises, why shall the three-day Lord not rise again? 'But while they still did not believe for joy, and marvelled.' Votive joys, even when they are granted, are scarcely believed; longed-for things, when they arrive, give amazement:
hence it is that the apostles marvel that the resurrection of Christ was swifter than they had hoped; and that they believe more slowly is not of faithlessness, but of love, for by searching thus they do not deny faith, but seek it; and while they attend more deeply, they long that what they behold be true. Brethren, the disciples slow to these things, stunned at such great matters—it was not fear of faithlessness, but the greatness of the cause that made them so; not to see things seen, not to know things known, not to believe things believed, is caused not by incredulity, but by the singular miracle. Brethren, toward mighty deeds nature is exceedingly infantile, which, unless it grow through God, cannot when mature grasp them, cannot when perfected perceive them. May God, therefore, grant that what through ourselves we cannot, He Himself may enable us to grasp through Himself, and to perceive.