The only begotten Word of God ascended in the heavens with His flesh united to him, and this was a new sight in the heavens. The multitude of holy angels was astounded seeing the King of Glory and the Lord of Hosts in the form like unto us. And they said, “Who is this that comes from Edom (that is, from earth) in crimsoned garments, from Bosor?” But Bosor is interpreted flesh or anguish and affliction. Then the angels asked this, “What are these wounds in the middle of Your Hands?” And He said to them, “With these I was wounded in the house of my beloved. For just as to Thomas, who doubted and did so very much in accordance with the economy of salvation after the Resurrection from the dead, He showed His Hands and in them the marks of the nails, and ordered Thomas to feel the opening in His side so, also, after He was in heaven, He assured the holy angels that His beloved Israel was justly cast out and utterly lost from their friendship. For this reason, He showed His garment stained with blood and the wounds in His Hands, not because He had wounds incapable of being cast aside, for, when he rose from the dead, he put off corruption and with it all that is from it, but, as I said, “in order that through the Church there be made known to the principalities and the powers in the heavens the manifold wisdom of God according to His eternal plan which He accomplished in Christ (Eph 3:10, 11).
Cyril of Alexandria, Letters, 1–50, ed. Thomas P. Halton, trans. John I. McEnerney, vol. 76, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1987), 177–178.
