Page:Philochristus, Abbott, 1878.djvu/395

Rh heard. For James had taken an oath that he would neither eat nor drink until he had seen Jesus risen from the dead. Therefore on the night after the vision of angels which had been seen by the women, James was in the house at Bethany with Simon Peter and John, and the table was spread for supper; but James would not eat. Then suddenly Jesus was seen sitting in the midst of them, breaking bread and blessing it, and bidding James to partake thereof. But, as I have said, Jesus appeared to us at other times and in other places, and not merely in the breaking of bread; and sometimes in visions without a voice, but at other times in a voice without any vision, and sometimes also, as it has been reported unto me, by signs and tokens (without either voice or vision), and even in the guise of strangers; and all this for the space of little less than a year, insomuch that, if any one should adventure to set forth all the manifestations of Jesus, and the time and place and manner of each, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Therefore passing over these, I will relate how Jesus appeared in Galilee, on a certain mountain, to more than five hundred of the brethren at one time.

It was on this wise. A year, or not much less, had passed away since the rising of Jesus from the dead; and we were still tarrying in Galilee, and the Passover was at hand. Now during that year the number of the disciples had been increasing, but not much; for we had not at that time been moved to proclaim the Resurrection of Jesus. But as the Passover drew nigh, Jesus began to manifest himself less often to us; and he made known to us by the mouth of Peter and of other of the disciples that the time was at hand when he should ascend up to heaven. Then there arose a questioning among us whether we should go