Father Maas’ Commentary on Matthew 28:5-16

Note: this commentary was published in 1898. Throughout his commentary Father Maas makes frequent references to commentators, mostly patristic and medieval, but occasionally he quotes scholars contemporaneous to him, along with a few Orthodox and Protestants; he almost always abbreviates their names. Whenever possible I have un-abbreviated the names.

Mt 28:8 And they went out quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy, running to tell his disciples.

And they went out quickly.] [3] The action of the holy women. This passage supposes that the holy women had entered the sepulchre. Here we meet another apparent contradiction between the reports of the evangelists: Mk. 16:8 says: “But they going out fled from the sepulchre; for trembling and fear had seized them; and they said nothing to any man, for they were afraid.” Luke 24:9 agrees with the gospel of Matthew: “And going back from the sepulchre, they told all these things to the eleven and to the rest.” Various endeavors have been made to reconcile these apparent discrepancies: Euthymius, Cajetan, Salmeron, Tirin. Lam, Calmet, patr. Fillion, Grotius, Hammond, Kuinoel, etc. think that the holy women said nothing of the angel’s message to any of those they met on their way to the apostles; but this explanation appears forced and unnatural. We must also reject the explanation that the holy women said nothing to the two angels that had spoken to them [Augustine, De cons, evang. iii. 24; Bede,  Faber], or that they said nothing to the Roman soldiers whom they saw lying prostrate on the ground [Augustine, Dionysius the Carthusian]. It seems most natural that the holy women should have kept silent about their experience till they heard the report of Peter, John, and Magdalen, so that the second gospel tells us what happened immediately on their return to the city, while the first and the third gospel relate in general what happened during the day. Peter is informed by a woman of the resurrection, as he had been led by a woman to deny his Master.

Mt 28:9 And behold, Jesus met them, saying: All hail. But they came up and took hold of his feet and adored him.
Mt 28:10 Then Jesus said to them: Fear not. Go, tell my brethren that they go into Galilee. There they shall see me.

And behold Jesus met them.] d. Jesus appears to the holy women. It is not likely that our Lord appeared to the women immediately on their leaving the sepulchre after the apparition of the angel. If this had been the case, the two disciples on their way to Emmaus would have known of it, as they knew of the apparition of an angel [Lk. 24:23]; again, it would be hard to explain the words of Mark 16:8, according to which the women did not tell the disciples immediately on returning to Jerusalem. Most probably, then, it was when the holy women went out again to the sepulchre at a later period, or when they were together on another errand, that Jesus manifested himself to them. The love of the women recognizes the Master at once, just as happened in the case of St. John [Jn. 21:7]. Our Lord, on his part, bids them to fear not, but deliver the angel’s message to the disciples, whom he now calls his “brethren,” in spite of their desertion in his last hour [cf. Heb. 2:11 f.; Rom. 8:29]. In his mortal life he had called them only friends. According to Hilary, Bede, Jerome, Euthymius Jesus here shows that the curse brought on us through the instrumentality of the first woman has been broken, and at the same time he royally rewards those that had sorrowed for him most bitterly [cf. Zech. 12:10].

It may not be out of place to add here a general survey of our Lord’s apparitions: The first gospel mentions only the apparition to the holy women and that in Galilee; the second gospel mentions the apparition to Mary Magdalen, to the two disciples on their way to Emmaus, and to the disciples on Sunday evening; the third gospel mentions an apparition to Peter, to the disciples on their way to Emmaus, to the disciples on Sunday evening, and implies another immediately before the ascension; the fourth gospel mentions the apparition to Mary Magdalen, to the disciples on Sunday evening, to the disciples together with Thomas, to the disciples on the Sea of Galilee; finally, 1 Cor. 15:5–7 mentions the apparition to Peter, to the eleven on Sunday evening, to the disciples on the mountain of Galilee, to James, to the apostles, and finally to Paul. Besides, there is an almost uniform tradition that our Lord appeared also to his Blessed Mother [cf. Ambrose, Sedul., Anselm, Rupertus, Bonaventure Baron. Benedict XIV, etc.]; however, Est. Jansenius, do not admit this.

The following seems to us the most probable order of apparitions: 1. to his Blessed Mother; 2. to Mary Magdalen; 3. to the holy women; 4. to Peter; 5. to the disciples going to Emmaus; 6. to the apostles except Thomas; 7. to the apostles including Thomas; 8. to the disciples on the Sea of Galilee; 9. to the five hundred on the mountain in Galilee; 10. to the disciples in Jerusalem; 11. to the disciples on Mount Olivet; 12. to the apostle Paul; 13. the time of the apparition to James certainly preceded that to Paul, but its place among the other apparitions cannot be determined.
Mt 28:11 Who when they were departed, behold, some of the guards came into the city and told the chief priests all things that had been done.
Mt 28:12 And they being assembled together with the ancients, taking counsel, gave a great sum of money to the soldiers,
Mt 28:13 Saying: Say you, His disciples came by night and stole him away when we were asleep.
Mt 28:14 And if the governor shall hear of this, we will persuade him and secure you.
Mt 28:15 So they taking the money, did as they were taught: and this word was spread abroad among the Jews even unto this day.

Who when they were departed.] [2] The obstinacy of the Jews. This whole incident is peculiar to the first gospel, since it harmonizes especially with its scope. That the soldiers should have remained in the place hidden behind the hedges [Lapide] cannot be inferred from the words of the gospel; it merely states the simultaneity between the departure of the holy women and the return of the guard to the city. “Some of the guards” are probably the two or four soldiers that happened to be on actual duty at the time of the miraculous events. They “told the chief priests” what had occurred because they had been given to the chief priests by the Roman governor. The anxiety of the priests was the greater because it was owing to their own interference that the occurrences had such official witnesses whose veracity could not be doubted. The hurried and secret meeting of priests and elders was hardly a full assembly of the Sanhedrin; haste was of imperative necessity, since the empty sepulchre would soon become the common topic of conversation in Jerusalem. The corruption of the soldiers was the more easy because the case in question was not a specifically. Roman business, but concerned the Jews alone. Besides, the Romans of that period were not free from corruption: cf. Sallust. Jugurtha, 8; 35; Cicero, De offic. ii. 21. The “great sum” of money is according to the Greek text “money sufficient” to render the soldiers obedient to the wishes of the Jews. The weakness of the testimony of sleeping witnesses was not considered by the priests; they probably intended to say that the sleeping soldiers, finding the sepulchre empty, had concluded that the body of our Lord had been stolen; but even in this form, the words of the soldiers are an “a priori” assumption. The Sanhedrists promise that they “will persuade” the governor that either the soldiers’ report is true, or that they ought to remain unpunished; this they promise in case the governor “shall hear of this” by way of rumor and report [Maldonado, Schanz, Fillion, Polzl, Knabenbauer], not by way of judicial investigation [Cajetan, Lam. Keil, Weiss]. The Jews, therefore, endeavor to suppress the truth of Christ’s resurrection by payment of money, just as they had bought the traitor’s services with money. The spread of the lie is reported by Justin, in Dialogue with Tryph. 17, 108; Tertullian in To the Heathen, i. 14; and in Against  Marcion, iii. 23; Eus. in Jes. xviii. 1. The internal evidence advanced by rationalistic writers against the truthfulness of this passage is simply overwhelmed by the internal evidence for its veracity.