Book of the Bee

Historical scan page 128

IOO THE BOOK OF THE BEE. Matthew says 1. Eighthly, upon the sea of Tiberias, as John says2. The reason that Simon Peter did not recognise Him was because he had denied Him, and was ashamed to look upon Him; but John, because of his frank intimacy with our Lord, immediately that he saw Him, knew Him. Ninthly, when He was taken up to heaven from the Mount of Olives, as Mark and Luke say3. Tenthly, to the five hundred at once, who had risen from the dead, as Paul says 4. After His Ascension, He appeared to Paul on the way to Damascus, when He blinded his eyes5; and also to Stephen, the martyr and deacon, when he was stoned 6. CHAPTER XLVIk OF THE ASCENSION OF OUR LORD TO HEAVEN. After our Redeemer had risen from the grave, and had gone about in the world forty days, He appeared to His disciples ten times, and ate and drank with them by the side of the Sea of Tiberias. At this point the heathen say to us, that if our Lord really ate and drank after His resurrection, there will certainly be eating and drinking after (our) resurrection ; but if He did not really eat and drink, then all the actions of Christ are mere phantasms. To these we make answer, that this world is a world of need for food ; therefore He ate and drank, that it might not be thought He was a phantom ; and because many who have risen from the dead have eaten and drunk in (this) world until they departed and died, as, for example, the dead (child) whom Elisha raised, and the dead whom our Lord raised. Our Lord did not eat after His resurrection because He needed food, but only to make certain His humanity: for, behold8, He once remained in the desert forty days 1 Matt, xxviii. 16-20. 2 John xxi. 1-24. 3 Mark xvi. 19; Luke xxiv. 50, 53. 4 ‘ After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once ; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep/ 1 Cor. xv. 6. 6 Acts ix. 3-9 ; 1 Cor. xv. 8. 6 Acts vii. 55-60. 7 In the Oxford MS. see fob 177 b. 8 In the Oxford MS. there follows here a long discussion on the divine and human natures of Christ, in the middle of which (fol. 178 b) is a Syriac passage in which the names of Athanasius and Gregory are mentioned. The view there maintained is that Christ is God and man in the unity of one Person.