ACC ~ John 20 v26

THE EUCHARISTIC ASSEMBLY

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: With good reason, then, are we accustomed to have sacred meetings in churches on the eighth day. And, to adopt the language of allegory, as the idea necessarily demands, we indeed close the doors, [1] but Christ still visits us and appears to us all, both invisibly as God and visibly in the body. He allows us to touch his holy flesh and gives it to us. For through the grace of God we are admitted to partake of the blessed Eucharist, receiving Christ into our hands, to the intent that we may firmly believe that he did in truth raise up the temple of his body. … Participation in the divine mysteries, in addition to filling us with divine blessedness, is a true confession and memorial of Christ’s dying and rising again for us and for our sake. Let us, therefore, after touching Christ’s body, avoid all unbelief in him as utter ruin and rather be found well grounded in the full assurance of faith. COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 12.1. [2]

[1] Closing the doors occurred in the ancient church service at the time of the eucharist.

[2] LF 48:684*.

WHY THE DELAY?

CHRYSOSTOM: And why does he not appear to him immediately, instead of “after eight days”? He does so in order that, in the meantime, being continually instructed by the disciples and hearing the same thing repeated, he might be inflamed with more eager desire and be more ready to believe for the future. But where did he learn that his side had been pierced? He heard it from the disciples. How then did he believe that but not believe the other story? Because the latter was very strange and wonderful. But observe the truthfulness of the disciples and how they hide no faults, either their own or others’, but record them with great veracity. Jesus again presents himself to them and does not wait to be asked by Thomas or to hear any such thing. Rather, before Thomas could even speak, Jesus prevented him and fulfilled his desire, showing that even when Thomas spoke those words to the disciples, he was present. For he used the same words, though in a reproachful manner, and added instruction for the future. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 87.1. [1]

[1] NPNF 1 14:327**.

ADMIT THE LIMITS OF YOUR SENSES TO UNDERSTAND

HILARY OF POITIERS: The Lord stoops to the level even of our feeble understanding. He works a miracle of his invisible power in order to satisfy the doubts of unbelieving minds. Explain, my critic, the ways of heaven—explain his action if you can. The disciples were in a closed room. They had met and held their assembly in secret since the passion of the Lord. The Lord presents himself to strengthen the faith of Thomas by meeting his challenge. He gives him his body to feel, his wounds to handle. He, indeed, who would be recognized as having suffered wounds must necessarily produce the body in which those wounds were received. I ask at what point in the walls of that closed house the Lord bodily entered. The apostle has recorded the circumstances with careful precision: “Jesus came when the doors were shut and stood in the midst.” Did he penetrate through bricks and mortar or through stout woodwork—substances whose very nature it is to bar progress? For there he stood in bodily presence; there was no suspicion of deceit. Let the eye of your mind follow his path as he enters. Let your intellectual vision accompany him as he passes into that closed dwelling. There is no breach in the walls; no door has been unbarred. Yet, see how he stands in the midst whose might no barrier can resist. You are a critic of things invisible; I ask you to explain a visible event. Everything remains firm as it was. No body is capable of insinuating itself through the interstices of wood and stone. The body of the Lord does not disperse itself, to come together again after a disappearance. Yet where does the one who is standing in their midst come from? Your senses and your words are powerless to account for it. The fact is certain, but it lies beyond the region of human explanation. If, as you say, our account of the divine birth is a lie, then prove that this account of the Lord’s entrance is a fiction. If we assume that an event did not happen, because we cannot discover how it was done, we make the limits of our understanding into the limits of reality. But the certainty of the evidence proves the falsehood of our contradiction. The Lord did stand in a closed house in the midst of the disciples; the Son was born of the Father. Deny not that he stood, because your puny wits cannot ascertain how he came there; renounce instead a disbelief in God the only-begotten and perfect Son of God the unbegotten and perfect Father that is based only on the incapacity of sense and speech to comprehend. ON THE TRINITY 3.20. [1]

[1] NPNF 2 9:67-68**.