Thomas Aquinas, Compendium of Theology

As we stated above, Christ anticipated the general resurrection in order that His resurrection might bolster up our hope of our own resurrection. To foster our hope of resurrection, Christ's resurrection and the qualities of His risen nature had to be made known by suitable proofs. He manifested His resurrection, not to all alike, in the way that He manifested His human nature and His passion, but only "to witnesses preordained by God" (Acts 10:41), namely, the disciples whom He had selected to bring about man's salvation. For the state of resurrection, as was mentioned above, belongs to the glory of the comprehensor, and knowledge of this is not due to all, but only to such as make themselves worthy. To the witnesses He had chosen Christ revealed both the fact of His resurrection and the glory of His risen nature.

He made known the fact of His resurrection by showing that He, the very one who had died, rose again both in His nature and in His suppositum. As regards nature, He showed that He had a true human body when He offered Himself to be touched and seen by the disciples, to whom He said: "Handle and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see Me to have" (Luke 24:39). He gave further evidence of the same by performing actions that belong to human nature, eating and drinking with His disciples, and often conversing with them and walking about. These are the actions of a living man. Of course such eating was not dictated by necessity. The incorruptible bodies of the risen will have no further need of food, for there occurs in them no deterioration that has to be repaired by nourishment. Hence the food consumed by Christ did not become nourishment for His body but was dissolved into pre-existing matter. Yet He proved that He was a true man by the very fact that He ate and drank.

As regards His suppositum, Christ showed that He was the same person who had died, by displaying to His disciples the marks of His death on His body, namely, the scars of His wounds. In John 20:27 He says to Thomas: "Put in thy finger hither and see My hands; and bring hither thy hand and put it into My side." And in Luke 24:39 He says: "See My hands and feet, that it is I Myself." It was by divine dispensation that He kept the scars of His wounds in His body, so that the truth of the resurrection might be demonstrated by them; for complete integrity is the proper condition of the incorruptible risen body, although we may say that in the case of the martyrs some indications of the wounds they bore will appear with a certain splendor, in testimony of their virtue. Christ further showed that He was the same suppositum by His manner of speech and by other familiar actions whereby men are recognized. Thus the disciples knew Him "in the breaking of bread" (Luke 24:35). Also, He openly showed Himself to them in Galilee, where He was accustomed to converse with them.

Christ manifested the glory of His risen nature when He came among them, "the doors being shut" (John 20:26), and when "He vanished out of their sight" (Luke 24:31). For the glory of risen man gives him the power to be seen in glorious vision when he wishes, or not to be seen when he so wishes. The reason why Christ demonstrated the truth of His resurrection and the glory of His risen body by so many proofs, was the difficulty that faith in the resurrection presents. If He had displayed the extraordinary condition of His glorified body in its full splendor, He would have engendered prejudice against faith in the resurrection: the very immensity of its glory would have excluded belief that it was the same nature. Further, He manifested the truth not only by visible signs, but also by proofs appealing to the intellect, as when "He opened their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures" (Luke 24:45), and showed that according to the writings of the prophets He was to rise again.