flesh even after the Resurrection. 2 And when He came to
To THE SMYRNAEANS
9gI also really raised Himself from the dead." It is not as some unbelievers say, who maintain that His suffering was a makebelieve." In reality, it is they that are make-believes: and, as their notion, so their end: they will be bodiless and ghostlike shapes! **
3. For myself, I know and believe that He was in the flesh even after the Resurrection.
2 And when He came to Peter and Peter's companions, He said to them: " Here; feel me and see that I am not a bodiless ghost." ** Immediately they touched Him and, through this contact with His Flesh and Spirit, believed. For the same reason they despised death and, in fact, proved stronger than death. 3 Again, after the Resurrection, He ate and drank with them" like a being of flesh and blood, though spiritually ** one with the Father.
4, I am urging these things on you, beloved, although I know that you are of the same mind. I am cautioning you betimes, however, against wild beasts in human form, whom you ought not only not to receive, but, if possible, even avoid meeting. Only pray for them, if somehow they may change their mind **—a difficult thing! But that is in the power of Jesus Christ, our true Life. 2 Surely, if those things were done by Our Lord as a mere make-believe, then I in my chains, too, am a make-believe! Why, moreover, did I surrender myself to death, to fire, to the sword, to wild beasts?
Well, to be near the sword is to be near God; to be in the claws of wild beasts is to be in the hands of God. Only let it be done in the name of Jesus Christ! To suffer with Him
I endure all things,** if He, who became perfect man,"* gives me the strength."
5. Some disown Him through ignorance, or, rather, were disowned by Him, being advocates of death rather than the