Luke 24:36

And as they thus spoke, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and said unto them, Peace be unto you.
Read Chapter 24

Ambrose of Milan

AD 397
Then, the disciples being troubled, thought they saw a spirit. To show us the appearance of the resurrection, the Lord said, “Touch, and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see me to have.” He actually penetrated the closed and inaccessible room through the likeness of a bodily resurrection and not through a spiritual nature. They touch and handle a body, so we rise in the body. It is sown a natural body, but it rises a spiritual body. The one is fine; the other is crude, since it is still hard with the nature of earthly stains. Did not the Lord offer them to touch a body that retained the signs of the wounds and the marks of the scars? He not only strengthens faith but also kindles devotion, because he set his wounds accepted for our sake and refused to remove them, to show God the Father the costs of our freedom. The Father seats such a One at his right hand, embracing the trophies of our salvation. –.

Ambrose of Milan

AD 397
Persuaded by so many examples of virtue, we believe that Peter could not have doubted. It is also clear that John believed when he saw the Savior. He had already believed when he saw the tomb empty of its body. Why then does Luke say that they were troubled? First, the saying of a majority includes the opinion of the few. Second, although Peter had believed the resurrection, he could be troubled when he saw that the Lord appeared unexpectedly in his body in a room where the doors were bolted and the walls solid. Luke pursued details historically. One contemplated the end, and the other the course of events. By saying, “Then he opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures,” he also declares that the disciples believed.

Ambrose of Milan

AD 397
Therefore I think itmost natural that our Lord indeed instructed His disciples, that they should see Him in Galilee, but that He first presents Himself as they remained still in the assembly through fear. But afterwards when their hearts were strengthened, the eleven set out for Galilee. Or there is no difficulty in supposing that they should be reported to have been fewer in the assembly, and a larger number on the mountain. But persuaded by the example of their virtues, we can not believe that Peter and John could have doubted. Why then does Luke relate them to have been affrighted. First of all because the declaration of the greater part includes the opinion of the few. Secondly, because although Peter believed in the resurrection, yet he might be amazed when the doors being closed Jesus suddenly presents Himself with his body. Let us then consider how it happens that the Apostles according to John believed and rejoiced, according to Luke are reproved as unbelieving. John indeed see...

Augustine of Hippo

AD 430
While they were still flustered for joy, they were rejoicing and doubting at the same time. They were seeing and touching, and scarcely believing. What a tremendous favor grace has done us! We have neither seen nor touched, and we have believed. While they were still flustered for joy, he said, “Have you got here anything to eat? Certainly you can believe that I am alive and well if I join you in a meal.” They offered him what they had: a portion of grilled fish. Grilled fish means martyrdom, faith proved by fire. Why is it only a portion? Paul says, “If I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” Imagine a complete body of martyrs. Some suffer because of love, while others suffer out of pride. Remove the pride portion, offer the love portion. That is the food for Christ. Give Christ his portion. Christ loves the martyrs who suffered out of love. ..

Augustine of Hippo

AD 430
This manifestation of our Lord after His resurrection, John also relates. But when John says that the Apostle Thomas was not with the rest, while according to Luke, the two disciples on their return to Jerusalem found the eleven gathered together, we must understand undoubtedly that Thomas departed from them, before our Lord appeared to them as they spoke these things. For Luke gives occasion in his narrative, that it may be understood that Thomas first went out from them when the rest were saying these things, and that our Lord entered afterwards. Unless some one should say that the eleven were not those who were then called Apostles, but that these were eleven disciples out of the large number of disciples. But since Luke has added, And those that were with them, he has surely made it sufficiently evident that those called the eleven were the same as those who were called Apostles, with whom the rest were. But that which was said by the Angel, that is the Lord, must betaken prophetic...

Bede

AD 735
We must also see that when the Savior appeared to his disciples, he immediately imposed on them the joys of peace. He repeated that same thing that is a part of the celebrated glory of immortality that he gave as a special pledge of salvation and life when he was about to go to his passion and death. “Peace I leave to you. My peace I give you.” The angels seen soon after he was born also proclaimed the grace of this favor to the shepherds, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will.” Certainly the entire divinely arranged plan of our Redeemer’s coming in the flesh is the reconciliation of the world. For this purpose, he became incarnate, suffered and was raised from the dead. He did this to lead us, who had incurred God’s anger by sinning, back to God’s peace by his act of reconciliation. The prophet correctly gave him the names “Father of the world to come” and “Prince of Peace.” The apostle also wrote about him to those from among th...

Bede

AD 735
First, we must note and diligently remember that the Lord condescended to stand in the middle of his disciples who were speaking around him and to reveal his presence in a vision of himself. This is what he promised elsewhere to all the faithful, saying, “Where there are two or three gathered together in my name, there am I in their midst.” In order to strengthen the steadfastness of our faith, which the presence of the divine benevolence always brings, he wished sometimes to show this by the presence of a physical vision of himself. Although we are lying far below the apostles’ feet, in our case we must trust that this same thing happens to us by his mercy. He is in our midst as often as we come together and gather in his name. His name is Jesus, that is, “Savior.” When we come together to speak about receiving our eternal salvation, it is undoubtedly true that we are gathered in the name of Jesus. It is not permissible to doubt that he is present among us as we are talking about the ...

Bede

AD 735
The disciples had known Christ to be really man, having been so long a time with Him; but after that He was dead, they do not believe that the real flesh could rise again from the grave on the third day. They think then that they see the spirit which He gave up at His passion. Therefore it follows, But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. This mistake of the Apostles was the heresy of the Manicheans. What thoughts indeed but such as were false and dangerous. For Christ had lost the fruit of His passion, had He not been the Truth of the resurrection; just as if a good husbandmen should say, What I have planted there, I shall find, that is, the faith which descends into the heart, because it is from above. But those thoughts did not descend from above, but ascended from below into the heart like worthless plants.

Cornelius a Lapide

AD 1637
And as they thus spake, Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them. In their midst, says Euthymius, that He might be seen of all, like as a shepherd stands in the midst of his scattered sheep to gather them again together around him. Ezek. xxxiv12. "Peace be unto you." This was the ordinary salutation of the Hebrews , who under the name of peace included prosperity, health, and every other blessing.
< 1 min9/20

Cyril of Alexandria

AD 444
To produce in them a more firmly settled faith in his resurrection, he asked for something to eat. They brought a piece of broiled fish, which he took and ate in the presence of them all. He did this only to show them that the one risen from the dead was the same one who ate and drank with them during the whole previous period of time when he talked with them as a man, according to the prophet’s voice. He intended them to perceive that the human body certainly does need sustenance of this kind but a spirit does not…. The power of Christ surpasses human inquiry. It is not on the level of the understanding of ordinary events. He ate a piece of fish because of the resurrection. The natural consequences of eating by no means followed in the case of Christ, as the unbeliever might object, knowing that whatsoever enters the mouth must necessarily come out into the drain. The believer will not admit these quibbles into his mind but leaves the matter to the power of God. Commentary on Luke, Ch...

Cyril of Alexandria

AD 444
To convince them firmly and absolutely that he is the same one who suffered, he immediately shows that being God by nature, he knows what is hidden. The tumultuous thoughts within them do not escape him. He said, “Why are you troubled?” This is a very clear proof that the one they see before them is not some other person. He is the same one whom they saw suffering death upon the cross and laid in the tomb, even the one who sees mind and heart and from whom nothing that is in us is hid. He gives this to them as a sign: his knowledge of the tumult of thoughts that was within them. In another way, he proves that death is conquered and that human nature has put off corruption in him. He shows his hands, his feet and the holes of the nails. He permits them to touch him and in every way convince themselves that the very body that suffered was risen. Let no one quibble at the resurrection. Although you hear the sacred Scripture say that the human body is sown a physical body but raised a spir...

Cyril of Alexandria

AD 444
Here then was a most evident sign that He whom they now see was none other but the same whom they had seen dead on the cross, and lain in the sepulcher, who knew every thing that was in man. Now our Lord testifying that death was overcome, and human nature had now in Christ put on in corruption, first shows them His hands and His feet, and the print of the nails; as it follows, Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.
< 1 min12/20

Eusebius of Caesarea

AD 339
For the two Evangelists, that is, Luke and John, write that He appeared to the eleven alone in Jerusalem, but those two disciples told not only the eleven, but all the disciples and brethren, that both the angel and the Savior had commanded them to hasten to Galilee; of whom also Paul made mention, saying, Afterwards he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at once. But the truer explanation is, that at first indeed while they remained in secret at Jerusalem, He appeared once or twice for their comfort, but that in Galilee not in the assembly, or once or twice, but with great power, He made a manifestation of Himself, strewing Himself living to them after His Passion with many signs, as Luke testifies in the Acts.

Greek Expositor

AD 1000
Nor was it a violation of His promise, but rather a mercifully hastened fulfillment on account of the cowardice of the disciples.
< 1 min14/20

Gregory The Dialogist

AD 604
For in that glory of the resurrection our body will notbe incapable of handling, and more subtle than the winds and the air, (as Eutychius said,) but while it is subtle indeed through the effect of spiritual power, it will be also capable of handling through the power of nature. It follows, And when he had thus spoken, he showed them his hands and his feet, on which indeed were clearly marked the prints of the nails. But according to John, He also showed them His side which had been pierced with the spear, that by manifesting the scar of His wounds He might heal the wound of their doubtfulness. But from this place the Gentiles are fond of raising up a calumny, as if He was not able to cure the wound inflicted on Him. To whom we must answer, that it is not probable that He who isproved to have done the greater should be unable to do the less. But for the sake of His sure purpose, He who destroyed death would not blot out the signs of death. First indeed, that Hemight thereby build up Hi...
3 mins15/20

Gregory the Theologian

AD 390
Let us then reverence the gift of peace, which Christ when He departed hence left to us. Peace both in name and reality is sweet, which also we have heard to be of God, as it is said, The peace of God; and that God is of it, as He is our peace. Peace is a blessing commended by all, but observed by few. What then is the cause? Perhaps the desire of dominion or riches, or the envy or hatred of our neighbor, or some one of those vices into which we see men fall who know not God. For peace is peculiarly of God, who binds all things together in one, to whom nothing so much belongs as the unity of nature, and a peaceful condition. It is borrowed indeed by angels and divine powers, which are peacefully disposed towards God and one another. It is diffused through the whole creation, whose glory is tranquillity. But inus it abides in our souls indeed by the following and imparting of the virtues, in our bodies bythe harmony of our members and organs, of which the one is called beauty, the other...

Ignatius of Antioch

AD 108
I myself am convinced and believe that he was in the flesh even after the resurrection. When he came to Peter and his friends, he said to them, “Take hold of me. Touch me, and see that I am not a bodiless ghost.” They immediately touched him. They were convinced, clutching his body and his very breath. For this reason, they despised death itself and proved its victors. After the resurrection, he also ate and drank with them as a real human being, although in spirit he was united with the Father. –.
< 1 min17/20

John of Damascus

AD 749
After his resurrection from the dead, he put aside all his passions: ruin, hunger and thirst, sleep and fatigue, and the like. Although he did taste food after his resurrection, it was not in obedience to any law of nature. He did not feel hunger, but at the appointed time, he confirmed the truth of the resurrection by showing that the flesh which had suffered and that which had risen were the same.
< 1 min18/20

Leo of Rome

AD 461
The resurrection of the Lord was truly the resurrection of a real body, because no other person was raised than he who had been crucified and died. What else was accomplished during that interval of forty days than to make our faith entire and clear of all darkness? For a while, he spoke with his disciples and remained with them, ate with them and allowed himself to be felt with careful and inquisitive touch by those who were under the influence of doubt. This was his purpose in going in to them when the doors were shut. He gave them the Holy Ghost by his breath. After giving them the light of intelligence, he opened the secrets of holy Scripture. In his same person, he showed them the wound in the side, the prints of the nails and all the fresh tokens of the passion. He said, “See my hands and feet. It is I myself. Handle me and see. A spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have.” He did all this so that we might acknowledge that the properties of the divine and the h...

Theophilus of Antioch

AD 184
The Lord then standing in the midst of the disciples, first with His accustomed salutation of &#8220;peace,&#8221; allays their restlessness, showing that He is the same Master who delighted in the word wherewith He also fortified them, when He sent them to preach. Hence it follows, And he said to them, Peace be to you; I am he, fear not. Because by the word of peace the agitation in the minds of the Apostles was not allayed, He shows by another token that He is the Son of God, in that He knew the secrets of their hearts; for it follows, And he said to them, Why are you troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? . But Headds also another proof, namely, the handling of His hands and feet, when He says, Handle me and see, for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see me have. As if to say, You think me a spirit, that is to say, a ghost, as many of the dead are wont to be seen about their graves. But know you that a spirit has neither flesh nor bones, but I have flesh and bones...

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation - 2 Peter 1:20

App Store LogoPlay Store Logo