He is risen indeed

It doesn't feel like it on this frozen morn, especially to us in the Catholic tradition; but today we commemorate the bodily resurrection of our Lord Jesus. [I suppose for our Greek brethren, it feels even less like a Palm Sunday.]

That our Lord came to Earth, died, and rose again forms the core of any good Neolithic belief-system. Christianity is no different. Mark's Gospel cuts out before it gets this far (unless you count John 21 as the rest of Mark 16); and Matthew's Gospel... well, let's not get into that. I wish here to bring in three witnesses to the same event: Luke, John 20, and... Ignatius.

We've considered Ignatius earlier as one who may or may not have read the Gospel of Matthew. It turns out that Ignatius had a parallel to Luke as well. In his letter to Smyrna, Ignatius argues for the physical resurrection - instead of just asserting it, as 2 John v. 7. Ignatius knows his physical resurrection from "the Gospel", which may or may not be a written text.

"To the Smyrnaeans" is a written text. It writes of events under Pontius Pilate and Herod the tetrarch, in its incipit. And here is what is written for chapter 3:

When, for instance, He came to those who were with Peter, He said to them, Lay hold, handle Me, and see that I am not an incorporeal spirit [Gk. daimonion asomaton]. And immediately they touched Him, and believed, being convinced both by His flesh and spirit [Gk. pneuma]. For this cause also they despised death, and were found its conquerors. And after his resurrection He ate and drank with them, as being possessed of flesh, although spiritually He was united to the Father.

Ignatius is assured that you also hold the same opinions, in Smyrna.

Usually this account is considered as from Luke. Luke knows the younger Herod as tetrarch where Mark thinks he is king. John 1-20 (characteristically) implies that Peter did not deserve a visit from Jesus; this visit happens also-implicitly Luke 24:34-6 (explicitly Matthew, and John 21). Jesus' challenge for all to touch his body is Luke 24:39, where in John 20:27 this is to Thomas only. That Jesus ate with the soon-to-be-apostles is Luke 24:41 (and John 21:15). [UPDATE 10 Sept. 2022] And Luke's whole point was the migration of the Divine pneuma from Jerusalem to Rome, at some violence to the Pauline Canon.

Ignatius has a few details not in Luke. We can start with daimonion asomaton, a non-Lukan term ... and non-Ignatian except for this letter. Ignatius doesn't mention the fulfilment of prophecy (nor the Ascension) as Luke does - or as will Justin in Apology 50 and in Trypho 53 (+63, for the Ascension). Only in Ignatius and, for Thomas alone, in John do Jesus' disciples take the man up on his offer to touch him. Also, by pneuma, Ignatius can mean "spirit"; but to convince the disciples corporeally, more likely is that they had felt Jesus' literal breath - a detail in John 20. In no Gospel narrative does post-resurrection Jesus drink, but Peter recollects as much in retrospect Acts 10:41 (> Justin Trypho 51).

One can, therefore, argue equally that Ignatius relies here upon a tradition from which John and Luke both drew. Pier F Beatrice in 2006 (doi 10.1163/156853606777065323) argued that Ignatius was quoting a "Gospel according to the Hebrews" - from an early translation from its original Aramaic. Jerome would later re-translate the whole thing into Greek and Latin but, it seems, did not have these copied.

ONE MORE 5/2 - I wonder also if Matthew had some knowledge of this event. In Matthew 28:8 Jesus tells the women to inform the disciples. In v. 9, he met "them" - the women again, or the disciples? - to tell them, "tell my brothers to meet me in Galilee". There, v. 17, they pay him homage "but some doubted". This doubting isn't detailed. So: intertextual strain. Mark 16 and John 21 cannot account for this. It's either Luke or that other source mentioned here.