Chapter XXIX.
Just as, therefore, the Lord truly took on flesh, and truly suffered, and truly rose again, and truly showed his hands and side to the disciples (John 20:14; Luke 24:40); so too he truly ate, truly walked with his feet, and truly spoke with all the apostles and with Cleopas, and truly reclined with them at the dinner, and with his true hands he took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them. But what suddenly disappeared from their eyes was of divine power, not a shadow or a phantom; otherwise, both before his passion, when they held him and brought him out of Nazareth to throw him down from the brow of the hill (Luke 4:29) on which their city was built, he passed through the middle of them, that is, he slipped out of their hands. Or did he not have flesh, who made a whip from a cord, and expelled all his enemies and persecutors from the temple? (John 2:15; John 20:26) Where all the power of His divinity shone forth. But that which, after the resurrection, He entered through closed doors to the disciples, was of the same power as that which disappeared from His eyes. For people of this world say that Apollonius the magician, when he stood before the emperor Domitian in the council chamber, suddenly disappeared (Philost. Lemn. lib. VIII, cap. 2; Lactan. de Instit. l. V, c. 3). However, we say these things not because we compare the Lord Christ, filled with a demonic magician, but to refute the madness of heretics. Therefore, what a magician is allowed to do, if, however, it is true, the Lord is not allowed to do? Lynceus, as the stories go, could see through walls: the Lord, with the doors closed, unless it was a ghost, could not enter. He certainly walked on the sea with a steady step before the resurrection, and he demonstrated this to the Apostle Peter, who, walking on the water with faith, began to sink later due to his lack of faith, unless the right hand of the Lord had held him up quickly. The eagles and vultures sense the foreign corpses: Will the Savior not see his apostles unless he opens the doors? Lastly, I would like you to tell me, what is greater than to balance such a great size of land on three fingers (Isaiah XL, 12), and to hover over uncertain waters; or to pass through a closed creature to reach God? You give to the Creator what is greater, and you accuse Him of what is lesser. Peter the apostle, as it has already been said, walked on water (Matthew XIV, 36), and the soft waves did not yield to his heavy and solid body unless he had hesitated for a little while. And yet you accuse God, why He entered through closed doors? So a little doubt therefore entered Peter's faith, and immediately his body recognized its nature; so that we may know that it was not his body walking on the water, but his faith.