Verses 22-23. And he said to them, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit." To whom you forgive sins, they will be forgiven: and to whom you hold, they hold on.5 But before Jesus Christ said: "For if I do not come, the Comforter will not come to you" (John 16:7); how does He now give the Holy Spirit to His disciples? He breathed, imparting to them the grace of receiving the Holy Spirit, making them capable of receiving Him, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit, not now, but when He descends." Or – by the Holy Spirit Jesus Christ here called the spiritual gift to forgive and not to forgive sins, which He then communicated to His disciples (and which is greater than the gift of miracles. When Jesus Christ said to the paralytic: "Thy sins are forgiven" (Matt. 9:2), the scribes said: "Who can forgive sins, but God alone" (Mk. 2:7)? If ye bind them on earth, they shall be bound in heaven: and if ye loose them on earth, they shall be loosed in heaven (Matt. 18:18), but then He only promised them, and now He has given them. Find in the seventh chapter of this Gospel the saying: "For the Holy Spirit is not with him, for Jesus is not glorified with him" (John 7:39) and read his explanation. Thus, Jesus Christ breathed as a source of grace-filled gifts – He breathed in order that we might know from this that He had previously breathed into Adam the breath of life. By holding understand the same as binding, unforgiveness. As the king, when appointing generals, so Jesus Christ, when sending disciples, invests them with power above all (Those who, out of fear of demons, have firmly established themselves on the height of Divine contemplation and have closed their external senses like doors, – they receive the Word of God that has imperceptibly come to them, which appears without striking their external senses, which communicates to them peace, i.e. freedom from passions, and the breath, i.e. the grace of the Holy Spirit, and which reveals its invisible action in external signs).

Verse 24. But Thomas, one of the two, the said Twin, was not with them when Jesus came.6 Probably, after the disciples had dispersed and, leaving the Teacher, had fled, Thomas had not yet seen them (Although Thomas was absent, yet through the brethren of his apostles he also became a partaker of the grace of the Holy Spirit communicated to them, as St. Cyril said. that only later, when he saw the hands and rib of the Savior and believed in the Resurrection, then he received the same grace, so that he would not be inferior to the rest of the apostles in any way).

Verse 25. And the disciples' friends said to him, "I have seen the Lord... 1 They said when Thomas had already come to them.

Verse 25... And he said to them, "If I do not see the wounds of nails in His hand, I will put my finger into the wounds of nails, and put my hand into His side, I have no faith.2 Just as to believe without any reasoning and as it happens to the light-minded, so to examine to the smallest detail and to test in measure is characteristic of the dull-witted. For this Thomas is blamed. While all the disciples, who were fully trustworthy, claimed to have seen the Lord, Thomas did not believe, not so much distrusting them as considering the Resurrection itself impossible. He himself wants to see the Lord; moreover, he wants to see wounds from nails. But Thomas's inquisitiveness does not stop there: he wants to put his finger in the wounds from the nails and his hand in the side of the Savior, so that it would not be a ghost. As we know, he heard from other disciples that the Savior only showed them His hands and side. And so Thomas considers the sense of touch to be more reliable than sight.

Verse 26. And in the days they were beaten inside His disciples, and Thomas with them... 3 inside the house where they gathered.

Verse 26... Jesus came by the closed door... 4 He came to persuade Thomas, who did not believe, because he did not despise even the one, though he be dull in comparison with the others. But why did Jesus Christ not convince Thomas when he made the above demands, but eight days later? Because, having been instructed during all this time by other disciples, Thomas could more easily be convinced.

Verse 26... And he stood in the midst of them, and said, Peace be unto you...,5 as he had said before. Again, Jesus Christ is doing the same thing that He did in Thomas' absence.

Verse 27. Then he said to Thomas, "Bring thy finger here, and see my hands: and bring thy hand, and put it in my side..." 6 Since Thomas did not say anything, Jesus Christ warns him and gives him what he wanted, showing that even when Thomas made these demands, He was both present and heard as God. That is why Jesus Christ uses even those very words.

Verse 27... And do not be unfaithful, but faithful. He says this in reproach of Thomas for the fact that he had previously objected to the disciples, not because he wanted to be more precise, but because he did not believe in the Resurrection.

Verse 28. And Thomas answered, and said unto him, My Lord and my God. Seeing the wounds of the nails on the hands of the Saviour and the wound of the spear on His side, Thomas immediately believed, not seeking to touch them. Some, however, assert that Thomas, having felt it, exclaimed: "My Lord and my God."

Verse 29. Jesus said to him, "For when thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."7 Peter and John believed in the Resurrection of the Lord even when they had not seen Him, but had only seen the grave clothes and the cloth that was on His head. The rest of the disciples also, after Peter had seen the risen Lord and proclaimed to them, although they had not seen Him themselves, nevertheless believed in the Resurrection. Thou hast found, says Luke, one-tenth, and those who are with them, saying, "Truly the Lord is risen, and hath appeared unto Simon" (Luke 24:33). (But why does the same Evangelist say that when Jesus Christ appeared to His disciples, they feared and feared what they were, and saw the spirit, etc., and also that even to those who did not believe for their joy and wondered, He said to them, "Do you have anything to eat here" (Luke 24:36 and 41)? that they did not believe that Jesus Christ had risen, but because they doubted whether Jesus Christ had appeared to them, and wanted to be more certain of it). The blessedness pronounced by Jesus Christ, who did not see and believed, extends also to those who believed through preaching. Therefore, if anyone says: "Blessed are they who lived in the time of Jesus Christ, and who have seen Him," let him remember that blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed. But how can an incorruptible body have traces of blows and be subject to touch? How?... This is supernatural and permitted by the Dispensation of God, since Jesus Christ both ate and drank only for the greater conviction of the disciples.

Verse 30. And many other signs did Jesus do before His disciples, which are not written in these books... 1 Of course, we are talking here about the signs that Jesus Christ performed after the Resurrection; wherefore the Evangelist added: before His disciples. Just as before the Resurrection many signs were needed in order for people to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, so after the Resurrection it was necessary to perform many of them in order for them to believe that He was risen. Or it is said here in general about those miracles that were performed by Jesus Christ before the Resurrection, and about those that were performed by Him after the Resurrection.

Verse 31. And this was written, that ye may believe that Jesus is Christ the Son of God... 2 It is not for ambition, says John, that we have written down all these things, for otherwise we would have written down many other things, but for the sole necessity, namely, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, foretold by the prophets.

Verse 31... And let them believe, life in His name,3 that is, through Him, since He Himself is life; The life of Imate, of course, is eternal.