“No,” said Clemens, “he differs greatly, and, as it appears to me, deliberately, intending to correct them. For example, Matthew represents certain women as taking hold of Christ’s feet, before He sends them to carry word to His ‘brethren.’ John says that Jesus said to Mary Magdalene, ‘Touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father,’ and then sends her to His ‘brethren.’ Luke says that Christ said to all the disciples, ‘Handle me,’ to shew that He was not a bodiless spirit. John says that an offer of this nature was made to Thomas, but mentions no such offer to any other disciple. Luke says that the disciples gave Jesus food and He ate. John says that Jesus gave food to the disciples. In all these points John appears to me to be nearer than Matthew and Luke to the truth. And sometimes I think that the touching of Christ’s body by the disciples in the Eucharist, that is to say, the touching of the bread and tasting of the wine in our sacred meal, has been taken by Luke (if not by Matthew) in a literal sense”—here Clemens agreed with Scaurus—“whereas John understood the meaning correctly. But at the same time I think that the Saviour may have been visibly present at the Eucharist, shewing the wounds in His body, though it was not a body that could be touched.” “Does it not seem to you,” I asked, “that this agrees better with Paul’s descriptions of the manifestations of Jesus after death?” “Yes,” said Clemens, “and in other respects John seems to me to be nearer the truth. For he apparently represents Christ as having ascended to the Father before He could be ‘touched,’ that is to say, before His spiritual body and blood could be imparted to the disciples. Moreover, whereas Matthew places before the Resurrection a tradition relating how Christ imparts to the disciples authority to bind and to loose i.e. to forgive sins, John places it afterwards. And John also describes Peter as plunging into the water and coming to Jesus after the Resurrection,—which seems to me a symbol of Peter passing through the waters of temptation to the Saviour whom he had denied. But Matthew places it before the Resurrection and takes it literally, as though Peter tried to walk on literal water and was nearly drowned, but for the Lord’s help.”