Emmaus-Nicopolis

Emmaus in the Christian Tradition

“Emmaus, whence came Cleophas in Luke’s Gospel. The same is now Nicopolis, a famous city of Palestine.”

Eusebius, the Bishop of Caesarea, Onomasticon, written between 295-312 AD.

(Translation: The Onomasticon, Greville Freeman-Grenville, trans., Jerusalem, 2003).

What is more, this is now the third day since these things occurred. Even some of our women have startled us by what they told us. They were at the tomb early this morning and didn’t find his body there, so they came back and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who were saying that he was alive. Then some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said. However, they didn’t see him.’

Then Jesus told them, ‘O, how foolish you are! How slow you are to believe everything the prophets said! The Messiah had to suffer these things and then enter his glory, didn’t he?’ Then, beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them all the passages of Scripture about himself. As they came near the village where the two men were headed, Jesus acted as though he were going farther. But they strongly urged him, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the daylight is nearly gone.’ So he went in to stay with them. While he was at the table with them, he took the bread, blessed it, broke it in pieces, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they knew who he was. And he vanished from them. Then they asked each other, ‘Our hearts kept burning within us as he was talking to us on the road and explaining the Scriptures to us, didn’t they?’ They got up right away, went back to Jerusalem, and found the eleven disciples and their companions all together. They kept saying, ‘The Lord has really risen and has appeared to Simon!’ Then the two men began to tell what had happened on the road and how they had recognized him when he broke the bread in pieces.”

(translation: International Standard Version)

The Risen Jesus appears at Emmaus:

Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, Book 5 (written in 375-380 AD):

"…But when the first day of the week dawned He arose from the dead, and fulfilled those things which before His passion He foretold to us, saying: ‘The Son of man must continue in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.’ And when He was risen from the dead, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, then to Cleophas in the way, and after that to us His disciples, who had fled away for fear of the Jews, but privately were very inquisitive about Him. But these things are also written in the Gospel ."

(Translated by Irah Chase, N.Y., 1848, p. 121. )

St. Jerome, To Pammachius Against John of Jerusalem (written ca. 398 AD)

"And, simple ones, be not deceived by the resurrection of our Lord, because He showed His side and His hands, stood on the shore, went for a walk with Cleophas, and said that He had flesh and bones. That body, because it was not born of the seed of man and the pleasure of the flesh, has its peculiar prerogatives. He ate and drank after His resurrection, and appeared in clothing, and allowed Himself to be touched, that He might make His doubting Apostles believe in His resurrection. But still He does not fail to manifest the nature of an aerial and spiritual body. For He enters when the doors are shut, and in the breaking of bread vanishes out of sight. Does it follow then that after our resurrection we shall eat and drink, and perform the offices of nature? If so, what becomes of the promise, ‘The mortal must put on immortality.’ [1 Corinthians 15:53]. […] As He showed them real hands and a real side, so He really ate with His disciples; really walked with Cleophas; conversed with men with a real tongue; really reclined at supper; with real hands took bread, blessed and broke it, and was offering it to them. And as for His suddenly vanishing out of their sight, that is the power of God, not of a shadowy phantom. […] And how was it, you will say, that they did not recognize Him on the road if He had the same body which He had before? Let me recall what Scripture says: ‘Their eyes were holden, that they might not know Him.’ And again, ‘Their eyes were opened, and they knew Him.’ Was He one person when He was not known, and another when He was known? He was surely one and the same. Whether, therefore, they knew Him, or not, depended on their sight; it did not depend upon Him Who was seen; and yet it did depend on Him in this sense, that He held their eyes that they might not know Him. Lastly, that you may see that the mistake which held them was not to be attributed to the Lord’s body, but to the fact that their eyes were closed, we are told: ‘Their eyes were opened, and they knew Him.’ ”

(translation: Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, volume 6, N. Y., 1912, pp. 437-443. )

Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 645 (published in 1992)

"By means of touch and the sharing of a meal, the risen Jesus establishes direct contact with his disciples. He invites them in this way to recognize that he is not a ghost and above all to verify that the risen body in which he appears to them is the same body that had been tortured and crucified, for it still bears the traces of his Passion. Yet at the same time this authentic, real body possesses the new properties of a glorious body: not limited by space and time but able to be present how and when he wills; for Christ's humanity can no longer be confined to earth, and belongs henceforth only to the Father's divine realm. For this reason too the risen Jesus enjoys the sovereign freedom of appearing as he wishes: in the guise of a gardener or in other forms familiar to his disciples, precisely to awaken their faith. "

Eusebius of Caesarea, Church history, Book III, ch. 11 (written ca. 324 AD):

"After the martyrdom of James and the capture of Jerusalem, which immediately followed, the report is, that those of the apostles and the disciples of our Lord that were yet surviving, came together from all parts with those that were related to our Lord according to the flesh. […] These consulted together, to determine whom it was proper to pronounce worthy of being the successor of James. They all unanimously declared Simon the son of Cleophas, of whom mention is made in the sacred volume, as worthy of the episcopal seat there. They say, he was the cousin german of our Saviour, for Hegesippus asserts that Cleophas was the brother of Joseph ."

(The Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius Pamphilus, translated by Isaac Boyle, Michigan, 1955, p.99 )

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on Luke, ch. 24 (written in the first half of the 5^th c.):

"You must know that these two disciples belonged to the number of the seventy, and that Cleophas’ companion was Simon - not Peter or the one of Cana - but another Simon, of the seventy ."

(A Commentary upon the Gospel according to S. Luke by S. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria,

translated by R. Payne Smith, Part II, Oxford, 1859, p. 726)

Cleophas who received Jesus at his home at Emmaus later died as a martyr:

Ado, the archbishop of Vienne in Lotharingia, Martyrology (written in the 9^th c. AD):

"September 25, Nativity [Anniversary of Martyrdom] of Cleophas, one of the 70 disciples of Christ. The Lord appeared to him after his Resurrection while he was walking with another disciple towards the village of Emmaus, which is called Nicopolis nowadays. According to tradition, in the same town and in the same house, where Cleophas had received the Lord as a pilgrim at his table, he was killed by his compatriots for his confession of the One whom he had recognized at the breaking of the bread. There also he is buried in glorious memory. "

(PL CXXIII, 193, the translation is ours.)

Armenian synaxarium, Sahmi 21 (October 30)

"The holy Apostle Cleophas was a relative of Christ. [...] He was the first to see the risen Lord, when Christ appeared to him and his friends on the way to Emmaus and walked with them, as Luke says. Cleophas was the first to share a meal with the Lord after His Resurrection, eating and drinking with Him. He also received the Holy Spirit and the grace of doing miracles and speaking in tongues. He preached over the country and converted many people to Christ. He died as a martyr ... "

(PO XV, Paris, 1927, pp. 398-399, the translation is ours.)