not Christ who showed Himself to them. Malignant wound! Let the remedies for these scars come forth. “Why are ye troubled, and why do thoughts ascend into your hearts? See My hands and My feet,” where I was fixed with the nails. “Handle and see.” But ye see, and yet do not see. “Handle and see.” What? “That a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. When He had thus spoken,” so it is written, “He showed them His hands and His feet.”3559 3. “And while they were yet in hesitation, and wondered for joy.”3560 Now there was joy already, and yet hesitation continued. For a thing incredible had taken place, yet taken place it had. Is it at this day a thing incredible, that the Body of the Lord rose again from the sepulchre? The whole cleansed world3561 has believed it; whoso has not believed it, has remained in his uncleanness. Yet at that time it was incredible: and persuasion was addressed not to the eyes only, but to the hands also, that by the bodily senses faith might descend into their heart, and that faith so descending into their heart might be preached throughout the world to them who neither saw nor touched, and yet without doubting believed. “Have ye,” saith He, “anything to eat?” How much doeth the good Builder still to build up the edifice of faith? He did not hunger, yet He asked to eat. And He ate by an act of His power, not through necessity. So then let the disciples acknowledge the verity of His body, which the world has acknowledged at their preaching. 4. If haply there be any heretics who still in their hearts maintain that Christ exhibited Himself to sight, but that Christ’s was not very flesh; let them now lay aside that error, and 457 let the Gospel persuade them. We do but blame them for entertaining this conceit: He will damn them if they shall persevere in it. Who art thou who dost not believe that a body laid in the sepulchre could rise again? If thou art a Manichee, who dost not believe that He was crucified either, because thou dost not believe that He was even born, thou declarest that all that He showed was false. He showed what was false, and dost thou speak the truth? Thou dost not lie with thy mouth, and did He lie in His body? Lo thou dost suppose that He ap- peared unto the eyes of men what He really was not, that He was a spirit, not flesh. Hear Him: He loves thee, let Him not condemn thee. Hear Him speaking: lo, He speaks to thee, thou unhappy one, He speaks to thee, “Why art thou troubled, and why do thoughts ascend into thine heart?” “See,” saith He, “My hands and My feet. Handle and see, because a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see Me have.” This spake the Truth, and did He deceive? It was a body then, it was flesh; that which had been buried, appeared. Let doubting perish, and meet praise ensue. 3559 Luke xxiv. 38–40. 3560 Luke xxiv. 41. 3561 Totus hoc credidit mundus, qui non credidit remansit immundus. 950 On the words of the Gospel, Luke xxiv. 36, ‘He himself stood in the midst…