The Apostolic Fathers

Epistle to the Smyrnaeans (Long Version)

13 chapters Read aloud, 14 min With the Greek text word study in 13 of 13 paragraphs
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Chapter 3: Christ had a body after His resurrection

And I know that He had a body not only when He was born and crucified, but I also know that He had one after His resurrection, and I believe He still does. When He came to those who were with Peter, He said to them, “Take hold, handle Me, and see that I am not a spirit without a body. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” And He says to Thomas, “Put your finger here into the print of the nails, and put your hand into My side;” and immediately they believed that He was Christ.

Therefore, Thomas also says to Him, “My Lord, and my God.” Because of this, they despised death, and not just hardships and beatings.

Furthermore, after He showed Himself to them, proving that He had truly risen and not just in appearance, He ate and drank with them for forty whole days. Then He, with His flesh, was taken up in their sight to Him who sent Him, and He will come again with that same flesh, accompanied by glory and power.

As the holy scriptures say, “This same Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you have seen Him go into heaven.” But if they say that He will come at the end of the world without a body, how shall those who pierced Him see Him, and when they recognize Him, mourn for themselves? For incorporeal beings have neither form nor figure, nor the appearance of an entity with shape, because their nature is inherently simple.