At length, &c. in the Latin text, taken according to the letter, is lastly, or last of all: but if we examine and compare the four gospels, this was not the last time that Christ appeared to his disciples after his resurrection. We can only then understand it of the last time mentioned by this evangelist. --- To the eleven. If this apparition (as it was the common opinion of St. Augustine) was made when St. Thomas was not with them, they were only then ten, without St. Thomas and Judas. The evangelist here calls them eleven, because the apostolical college (Judas being dead) consisted of no more than eleven. And this way of speaking may be justified by diverse examples: one instance may suffice. A meeting of the Jewish sanhedrim might be called the Council of the Seventy-two, though it many times happened that all the seventy-two were not there present. (Witham) --- Some think that this was the last apparition of Jesus Christ, after which he quitted the earth, and ascended into heaven. (Bible de Vence)

[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Novissime, Greek: usteron, posterius.

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