The disciples themselves could not believe it.  Some of them declared that Pilate and his spies best knew what had become of the corpse.  Others, on the contrary, were stirred by an unparalleled exaltation of spirit, by some divine energy which filled their minds with appallingly clear visions of the latter days.

It happened about this time that two of the disciples walked out towards Emmaus.  They were sad, and spoke of the incomprehensible misfortune that had befallen them.  A stranger joined them, and asked why they were so melancholy.

“We belong to His followers,” they replied.

When He said nothing, as if He had not understood, they asked whether He was quite a stranger in Jerusalem, and did not know what had happened these last days?

“What has occurred?” He asked.

Surely He must have heard of Jesus, the Prophet who had done such great deeds, and preached a new and wonderful Word of God:  Of the Heavenly Father full of love, of the Kingdom of Heaven in one’s own heart, and of eternal life.  It was as if God Himself had assumed human shape in the person of this Prophet in order to set them an example of perfect life.  And that Divine Man had just been executed in Jerusalem.  Since that event they had felt utterly forsaken.  That was why they were sad.  He had, indeed, promised that He would rise after death as a pledge for His tidings of the resurrection of man and eternal life.  But the three days were now up.  A story was going about that two women had seen Him that morning with the wounds made by the nails.  But until they could themselves lay their hands on those wounds, they would not believe it; no.  He must needs be like the rest of the dead.

Then the stranger said:  “If the Risen Man does not appear to you as He appeared to the women, it is because your faith is too weak.  If you do not believe in Him, you surely know from the prophecies how God’s messenger must suffer and die, because only through that gate can eternal glory be reached.”

With such conversation they reached Emmaus, where the two disciples were to visit a friend.  The stranger, they imagined, was going farther, but they liked Him, and so invited Him to go to the house with them:  “Sir, stay with us; the day draws in, it will soon be evening.”

So He went with them.  When they sat at supper, and the stranger took some bread, one whispered to the other:  “Look how He breaks the bread!  It is not our Jesus?”

But when in joy unspeakable they went to embrace Him, they saw that they were alone.

This is what the two disciples related, and no one was more glad to believe it than Schobal, the dealer; he now asked three hundred gold pieces for the coat of the man who had risen from the dead.

Thomas was less sure of the Resurrection.  “Why should He rise?” asked the disciple.  “Did He come to earth for the sake of this bodily life?  Did He not rest everything on the spiritual life?  The true Jesus Christ was to be with us in the spirit.”