Simon of Bethpage

• Thomas brooded at home of

189:4.1As we ap­proach the time of the res­ur­rec­tion of Je­sus on this early Sun­day morn­ing, it should be re­called that the ten apos­tles were so­journ­ing at the home of Eli­jah and Mary Mark, where they were asleep in the up­per cham­ber, rest­ing on the very couches whereon they re­clined dur­ing the last sup­per with their Mas­ter. This Sun­day morn­ing they were all there as­sem­bled ex­cept Thomas. Thomas was with them for a few min­utes late Sat­ur­day night when they first got to­gether, but the sight of the apos­tles, cou­pled with the thought of what had hap­pened to Je­sus, was too much for him. He looked his as­so­ciates over and im­me­di­ately left the room, go­ing to the home of Si­mon in Beth­page, where he thought to grieve over his trou­bles in soli­tude. The apos­tles all suf­fered, not so much from doubt and de­spair as from fear, grief, and shame.

• Thomas brooded at home of

191:0.13The Mas­ter put off the first mor­ontia ap­pear­ance to the apos­tles for a num­ber of rea­sons. First, he wanted them to have time, af­ter they heard of his res­ur­rec­tion, to think well over what he had told them about his death and res­ur­rec­tion when he was still with them in the flesh. The Mas­ter wanted Pe­ter to wres­tle through with some of his pe­cu­liar dif­fi­cul­ties be­fore he man­i­fested him­self to them all. In the sec­ond place, he de­sired that Thomas should be with them at the time of his first ap­pear­ance. John Mark lo­cated Thomas at the home of Si­mon in Beth­page early this Sun­day morn­ing, bring­ing word to that ef­fect to the apos­tles about eleven o’clock. Any time dur­ing this day Thomas would have gone back to them if Na­than­iel or any two of the other apos­tles had gone for him. He re­ally wanted to re­turn, but hav­ing left as he did the evening be­fore, he was too proud to go back of his own ac­cord so soon. By the next day he was so de­pressed that it re­quired al­most a week for him to make up his mind to re­turn. The apos­tles waited for him, and he waited for his breth­ren to seek him out and ask him to come back to them. Thomas thus re­mained away from his as­so­ciates un­til the next Sat­ur­day evening, when, af­ter dark­ness had come on, Pe­ter and John went over to Beth­page and brought him back with them. And this is also the rea­son why they did not go at once to Gal­i­lee af­ter Je­sus first ap­peared to them; they would not go with­out Thomas.

• Thomas brooded at home of

191:5.1Thomas spent a lone­some week alone with him­self in the hills around about Oli­vet. Dur­ing this time he saw only those at Si­mon’s house and John Mark. It was about nine o’clock on Sat­ur­day, April 15, when the two apos­tles found him and took him back with them to their ren­dezvous at the Mark home. The next day Thomas lis­tened to the telling of the sto­ries of the Mas­ter’s var­i­ous ap­pear­ances, but he stead­fastly re­fused to be­lieve. He main­tained that Pe­ter had en­thused them into think­ing they had seen the Mas­ter. Na­than­iel rea­soned with him, but it did no good. There was an emo­tional stub­born­ness as­so­ci­ated with his cus­tom­ary doubt­ful­ness, and this state of mind, cou­pled with his cha­grin at hav­ing run away from them, con­spired to cre­ate a sit­u­a­tion of iso­la­tion which even Thomas him­self did not fully un­der­stand. He had with­drawn from his fel­lows, he had gone his own way, and now, even when he was back among them, he un­con­sciously tended to as­sume an at­ti­tude of dis­agree­ment. He was slow to sur­ren­der; he dis­liked to give in. With­out in­tend­ing it, he re­ally en­joyed the at­ten­tion paid him; he de­rived un­con­scious sat­is­fac­tion from the ef­forts of all his fel­lows to con­vince and con­vert him. He had missed them for a full week, and he ob­tained con­sid­er­able plea­sure from their per­sis­tent at­ten­tions.