their coming forth from the tomb. The first who rose from the dead to die no more was Christ ; he had however companions. After His resurrection, that of the saints also took place ; but it is recorded that their egress from the tombs, and their ingress into the Holy City, occurred after His resurrection ; because those many persons, to whom the saints appeared, knew the time of their ingress and appearance, but had not seen their actual resurrection. The silence of St Paul, in 1 Cor. xv. 23, does not prove, as Artemonius has inferred, ad Tnit. Ev. Joh. p. 571, that the bodies of the saints came forth from the tombs without their souls, and that their souls afterwards ascended to heaven without their bodies. — IvEpac/V^ffav, appeared) singly to individuals, or several at once, to more than one. An instance of real apparition.
54. TrjpoZvrss, watching) In their turn. — d,Xt)6us, truly) This refers antithetically to ver. 40, 43. — ©eoD T/ic, Son of God) He had said that He was so, and they acknowledge the truth of His assertion from the signs.1
56. 'H TOU 'laxufiw xai 'Iw<r5j /ijjrjjp, the mother of James and Joses) When St Matthew wrote, the sons were better known than their mother ; wherefore she was denominated from them.
57. "Oj xai alrbg, x.r.X., tcho also himself, etc.) As well as those pious women. — l^aS^rsutfe, was a disciple) and was anxious to make disciples.2
58. 'Hr?j<raro, begged) Then the power of the Prastor was great over the bodies of those who had been executed ; cf. in Mark xv. 45, sdup^ffaro, he gave as a gift. Buxtorf in his Lexic. Talm. fol. xix. 62, says, "For this cause, perchance, did Joseph of Arimathea beg that the body of Christ might be given to him, lest it should be committed to the public sepulchre of cri-
1 Ver. 55. dx-o TV; Tet.'hi'hu.ix;, from Galilee) The journey (of Jesus and His followers} from Galilee towards Jerusalem [His last journey], recorded in Luke ix. 51, is the one here meant. What great things these women, equally with the apostles, saw and heard in so short a space of time I These women already make up for His being deserted by the apostles. — Harm., p. 578. They were the steady attendants of Jesus in His life and death. Therefore no part of the Gospel history is destitute of eye-witnesses. — V. g.
2 Beng. takes \ftmtvrtvn here not only" in the intransitive sense, H e was a disciple, but in the transitive sense, He made, or wished to make disciples, as in ch. xxviii. 19 ; Acts xiv. 21. — ED.