eover Christ had this not
only from the condition of His glorified body, but also from the
power of His Godhead, by which power it may happen that even bodies
not glorified are miraculously unseen: as was by a miracle bestowed
on the blessed Bartholomew, that "if he wished he could be seen, and
not be seen if he did not wish it" [*Apocryphal Historia Apost. viii,
2]. Christ, then, is said to have vanished from the eyes of the
disciples, not as though He were corrupted or dissolved into
invisible elements; but because He ceased, of His own will, to be
seen by them, either while He was present or while He was departing
by the gift of agility.

Reply Obj. 3: As Severianus [*Peter Chrysologus: Serm. lxxxii] says
in a sermon for Easter: "Let no one suppose that Christ changed His
features at the Resurrection." This is to be understood of the
outline of His members; since there was nothing out of keeping or
deformed in the body of Christ which was conceived of the Holy Ghost,
that had to be righted at the Resurrection. Nevertheless He received
the glory of clarity in the Resurrection: accordingly the same writer
adds: "but the semblance is changed, when, ceasing to be mortal, it
becomes immortal; so that it acquired the glory of countenance,
without losing the substance of the countenance." Yet He did not come
to those disciples in glorified appearance; but, as it lay in His
power for His body to be seen or not, so it was within His power to
present to the eyes of the beholders His form either glorified or not
glorified, or partly glorified and partly not, or in any fashion
whatsoever. Still it requires but a slight difference for anyone to
seem to appear another shape.
_______________________

SECOND ARTICLE [III, Q. 54, Art. 2]

Whether Christ's Body Rose Glorified?

[*Some editions give this article as the third, following the order
of the introduction to the question. But it is evident from the first
sentence of the body of A. 3 (A. 2 in the aforesaid editions), that
the order of the Leonine edition is correct.]

Objection 1: It seems that Christ's body did not rise glorified. For
glorified bodies shine, according to Matt. 13:43: "Then shall the
just shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." But shining
bodies are seen under the aspect of light, but not of color.
Therefore, since Christ's body was beheld under the aspect of color,
as it had been hitherto, it seems that it was not a glorified one.

Obj. 2: