Thomas Confesses the Same Faith as Peter After the Resurrection

But I want to add one more testimony from an apostle for you, so that you may see how what came after the passion matched what went before it. The Lord appeared among his disciples when the doors were shut, wishing to make the reality of his body clear to the apostles, and the apostle Thomas felt his flesh, handled his side, and examined his wounds. What did he declare when he was convinced of the reality of the body shown to him? “My Lord,” he said, “and my God.” Did he say what you say, that this was a man and not God? Christ, and not the Godhead? He surely touched the body of his Lord, and he answered that his Lord was God. Did he make any separation between man and God? Or did he call that flesh Theotokos, to use your expression, meaning that which received the Godhead? Or did he, in the manner of your blasphemy, declare that the one he touched was to be honored, not for his own sake, but for the sake of the one who had been received into him? [a]

But perhaps God’s apostle knew nothing of that subtle separation of yours and had no experience of the fine distinctions of your judgment. He was, after all, an unlearned countryman, ignorant of the art of dialectic and of the methods of philosophical debate. The Lord’s teaching was more than enough for him, and he knew nothing at all except what he had learned from the Lord’s instruction! And so his words contain heavenly teaching; his faith is a lesson from God. He had never learned to separate the Lord from his body, as you do, and had no idea how to tear God apart from himself. He was holy, straightforward, and upright, full of innocence in the way he lived, of unmixed faith and pure knowledge. He had a simple understanding joined with good sense, a wisdom wholly free of evil, together with perfect simplicity. He knew nothing of corruption and was free of every heretical perversion, and as one who had felt in himself the force of God’s teaching, he held fast to everything he had learned. And so he, the countryman and ignorant fellow you imagine him to be, shuts you up with a short answer and demolishes your position with a few words.

What, then, did the apostle Thomas touch when he came near to handle his God? It was certainly Christ, beyond any doubt. But what did he cry out? “My Lord,” he said, “and my God.” Now separate Christ from God if you can, and change this saying if you are able. Use all the art of dialectic, all the shrewdness of this world, and that foolish wisdom that consists in wordy subtlety. Twist and turn in every direction, and pull in your horns. Do whatever you can with cleverness and skill. Say what you like and do what you like: you cannot possibly get out of this without confessing that what the apostle touched was God. And indeed, if the thing could possibly be done, you would perhaps want to alter the gospel story, so that we would not read that the apostle Thomas touched the Lord’s body, or that he called Christ Lord and God. But it is absolutely impossible to alter what is written in the gospel of God. For “heaven and earth will pass away,” but God’s words “will not pass away.” For look: even now the one who bore his witness then, the apostle Thomas, proclaims to you: “Jesus, whom I touched, is God. It is God whose limbs I handled. I did not feel something without a body, nor handle something that cannot be touched. I did not touch a spirit with my hand, so that anyone could believe I said of the spirit alone, ‘It is God.’ For ‘a spirit,’ as my Lord himself said, ‘does not have flesh and bones.’ I touched my Lord’s body. I handled flesh and bones. I put my fingers into the marks of the wounds, and I declared of Christ my Lord, whom I had handled, ‘My Lord and my God.’ For I do not know how to make a separation between Christ and God. I cannot insert blasphemous distinctions between Jesus and God, or tear my Lord apart from himself. Away from me, whoever thinks otherwise and whoever says anything different! I do not know Christ as anything other than God. This is the faith I held together with my fellow apostles. This I handed on to the churches. This I preached to the Gentiles. This I proclaim to you as well: Christ is God, Christ is God. A sound mind imagines nothing else; a sound faith says nothing else. The Godhead cannot be parted from itself. And since whatever is Christ is God, nothing can be found in God but God.”