Page:Philochristus, Abbott, 1878.djvu/214

206 so Jesus perceived that he also should have more strength to help us after his death than before his death. But touching the manner of his rising again, and the time of it, and whether he should appear in his own shape (as he did indeed), or in some other shape (as did Elias in the shape of John the Baptist), concerning all this, what was revealed unto him I know not; the Lord only knoweth. But that he should of a certainty rise again from the dead, this was without doubt revealed unto him; and, as I conceive, about this time.

For this cause, because he perceived that by the giving of his body and blood to die for men, his spirit would pass into his disciples (even as the spirit of John the son of Zachariah had passed into the disciples of John), for this cause, I say, he spake at this time (as he did also afterwards), saying that he would give himself to be the food of men, even the Bread of Life. For his spirit was a spirit of sonship to God, and of brotherhood to men; and except the world should receive this spirit into itself, the world could not be quickened, and the nations of the earth could not pass into the family or kingdom of God.

From this time also he began to be very careful, even to disquietude, concerning us his disciples, what should be our estate when he should have departed from us; and he desired to impart to us this Bread of Life that we also in turn might impart it to the multitude. Moreover he would fain exercise us already in imparting this Bread of Life, yea, before he had passed away; to the end that, by beginning in his presence, we might learn by degrees to be steadfast in the ministering of the Bread even though he were absent from us. And for this he found occasion not many days afterwards. For about the tenth day before the Passover, Jesus being still on the other side of the lake (but I had been sent with Judas on an errand to