In answering the second question proposed, we must bear in mind one important point. The power of binding' and loosing' had been primarily committed to the Apostles, [6289] and exercised by them in connection with the Church. [6290] On the other hand, that of forgiving and retaining sins, in the sense explained, was primarily bestowed on the Church, and excercised by her through her representatives, the Apostles, and those to whom they committed rule. [6291] Although, therefore, the Lord on that night committed this power to His Church, it was in the person of her representatives and rulers. The Apostles alone could exercise legislative function, [6292] but the Church, has to the end of time the power of the keys.'
8. There had been absent from the circle of disciples on that Easter-Evening one of the Apostles, Thomas. Even when told of the marvellous events at that gathering, he refused to believe, unless he had personal and sensous evidence of the truth of the report. It can scarecly have been, that Thomas did not believe in the fact that Christ's Body had quitted the Tomb, or that He had really appeared. But he held fast by what we may term the Vision-hypothesis, or, in this case, rather the spectral theory. But until this Apostle also had come to conviction of the Resurrection in the only real sense - of the identical though glorified Corporeity of the Lord, and hence of the continuity of the past with the present and future, it was impossible to re-form the Apostlic Circle, or to renew the Apostolic commission, since its primal message was testimony concerning the Risen One. This, if we may so suggest, seems the reason why the Apostles still remain in Jerusalem, instead of hastening, as directed, to meet the Master in Galilee.
A quiet week had passed, during which - and this also may be for our twofold learning - the Apostles excluded not Thomas, [6293] nor yet Thomas withdrew from the Apostles. Once more the day of days had come - the Octave of the Feast. From that Easter-Day onwards the Church must, even without special institution, have celebrated the weekly-recurring memorial of His Resurrection, as that when He breathed on the Church the breath of a new life, and consecrated it to be His Representative. Thus, it was not only the memorial of His Resurrection, but the birthday of the Church, even as Pentatecost was her baptism day. On that Octave, then, the disciples were again gathered, under circumstances precisely similar to those of Easter, but now Thomas was also with them. Once more - and it is again specially marked: the doors being shut' [6294] - the Risen Saviour appeared in the midst of the disciples with the well-known salutation. He now offered to Thomas the demanded evidence; but it was no longer either needed or sought. With a full rush of feeling he yielded himself to the blessed conviction, which once formed, must immediately have passed into act of adoration: My Lord and my God!' The fullest confession this hitherto made, and which truly embraced the whole outcome of the new conviction concerning the reality of Christ's Resurrection. We remember how, under similar circumstances, Nathnael had been the first to utter fullest confession. [6295] We also remember the analogous reply of the Saviour. As then, so now, He pointed to the higher: to a faith which was not the outcome of sight, and therefore limited and bounded by sight, whether of the sense or of perception by the intellect. As one has finely remarked: This last and greatest of the Beatitudes is the pecuilar hertiage of the later Church' [6296] - and thus most aptly comes as the consecration gift of that Church.
9. The next scene presented to us is once again by the Lake of Galilee. The manifestation to Thomas, and, with it, the restoration of unity in the Aspostic Circle, had originally concluded the Gospel of St. John. [6297] But the report which had spread in the early Church, that Disciple whom Jesus loved was not to die, led him to add to his Gospel, by way of Appendix, and account of the events with which this expectancy had connected itself. It is most instructive to the critic, when challenged at every step to explain why one or another fact is not mentioned or mentioned only in one Gospel, to find that, but for the correction of a possible misapprehension in regard to the aged Apostle, the Fourth Gospel would have contained no reference to the manifestation of Christ in Galilee, nay, to the presence of the disciples there before the Ascension. Yet, for all that St. John had it in his mind. And should we not learn from this, that what appear to us strange omissions, which, when held by the side of the other Gospel-narratives, seem to involve discrepancies, may be capable of the most satisfactory explanation, if we only knew all the circumstance?