Note 122 — Chapter IV · DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS.

In Luke, Jesus joins the two disciples who are on their way from Jerusalem to the neighbouring village of Emmaus (ἐγγίσας συνεπορεύετο αὐτοῖς); they do not recognize him on the way, a circumstance which Luke attributes to a subjective hindrance produced in them by a higher influence (οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ αὐτῶν ἐκρατοῦντο, τοῦ μὴ ἐπιγνῶναι αὐτὸν), and only Mark, who compresses this event into few words, to an objective alteration of his form (ἐν ἑτέρᾳ μορφῇ). On the way Jesus converses with the two disciples, after their arrival in the village complies with their invitation to accompany them to their lodging, sits down to table with them, and proceeds according to his wont to break and distribute bread. In this moment the miraculous spell is withdrawn from the eyes of the disciples, and they know him:122 but in the same moment he becomes invisible to them (ἄφαντος ἐγένετο ἀπ’ αὐτῶν). Just as suddenly as he here vanished, he appears to have shown himself immediately after in the assembly of the disciples, when it is said that he all at once stood in the midst of them (ἔστη ἐν μέσῳ αὐτῶν), and they, terrified at the sight, supposed that they saw a spirit. To dispel this alarming idea, Jesus showed them his hands and feet, and invited them to touch him, that by feeling his flesh and bones then might convince themselves that he was no spectre; he also caused a piece of broiled fish and of honeycomb to be brought to him, and ate it in their presence. The appearance to Simon is in Luke described by the expression ὤφθη; Paul in the first Epistle to the Corinthians uses the same verb for all the Christophanies there enumerated, and Luke in the Acts comprises all the appearances of the risen Jesus during the forty days under the expressions ὀπτανόμενος (i. 3) and ἐμφανῆ γενέσθαι (x. 40). In the same manner Mark describes the appearance to Mary Magdalene by ἐφάνη, and those to the disciples on the way to Emmaus and to the eleven by ἐφανερώθη. John describes the appearance at the sea of Tiberias by ἐφανὲρωσεν ἑαυτὸν, and to all the Christophanies narrated by him he applies the word ἐφανερώθη. Mark and Luke add, as the close of the earthly life of the risen Jesus, that he was taken away from before the eyes of the disciples, and (by a cloud, according to Acts i. 9) carried up to heaven.