The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 2 — Section 590

of the reme.rke.ble fissure in Golgotha., imprisoned the spirits of the dear!, and to whioh he had often noticed. have filled the air with ghostly visitants, Ver. 62.-The gre.vee (the sepulchrn) were who, e.fter Christ had risen, e.ppeared to opened. The earthque.ke tore away the linger in the holy city. Only in some stones that closed the mouths of many of such way," he adds, "can I account for the the adjacent tombs. This and the following singular e.nd wholly isolated allusion of fact are mentioned only by St. Matthew. Me.ttbew." Because a fa.et is mentioned by Me.ny bodies of the ee.ints whioh slept ( ,,.,;;., one evangelist only, it is not on this K<1Co,µ.11µ.l110111, who had fallen aBleep) arose. account incredible. St. Matthew was pr~ Matthew e.nticipates the time of the e.ctue.l bably an eye-witness of that which he ocourronce of the me.rvel, wllich took place, relates, e.ud might have been confuted by not at this moment, but after our Lord's his contemporaries, if be he.d stated what resurrection, who was " the firstfruits of was not true. An early witness to the fact them that slept" (see the next verse). is found in Ignatius, who, in Ida' Epistle to Who are mee.nt by "the saints " here is the Me.gnesians,' eh. ix., speaks of CLrist doubtful. The Jews probably would have when on earth raising the prophets from understood the term to apply to the worthies the dead. The whole me.tter ia mysterious of the Old Testament (comp. 2 Pet. iii. 4). e.nd beyond human ken; but we may well But the opening of the sepulchres in the believe that at this great crisis the Lor,l, neighbourhood of Jerusalem would not who is the Resurrection and the Life, he.ve liberated the bodies of many of those willed to exemplify his victory over death, who were buriecl far away. The persons e.nd to make manifest the resurrection of signified must be those who in life had the body, and this be did by relee.siug looked for the hope of Israel, and had seen some saintly souls from Hades, e.nd clothing in Christ that hope fulfilled; they were them with the forms in which they bad such as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arima- formerly lirnd, and permitting them to threa, true believers, who are called saints show themselves thus to those who knew in the New Testament. How did these and loved them. Of the future life of bodies arise? or how were they raised up? these resuscitated saints we know notlling, They were not mere phe.ntoms, unaubatantie.l and will not presumptuously venture to visitants from the spirit-world, for they inquire. When they have demonstrated were in some sense corporeal. That they that the sting we.a now ta.ken from deati,, w11re not resuscitated corpses, as Lazarus, that the power of tbe grave was broken, that Jairus'e daughter, e.nd the son of the widow, men shall rue age.in with their bodies and who lived for a time a second life, seems be known and recognized, they pa.ea out of plain from the expression applied to them eight into the unseen world, and we can in the next verse, that " they appeared follow them no further. unto me.ny," i.e. to persons who had known Ver. 53.-Came out of (lE•;\.Bovres) the them while living. Some have thought graves after his resurrection. The mascu- that in them wus anticipated the general line participle, not agreeing with "bodies" resurrection, that, delhered from Hades (uwµ.a,,.a), denotes the personality of the e.nd united to their bodies, they died no bodies of the saints, the.t these a.rose perfect more, but at the Ascension accompanied in soul and body. They could not rise Christ into heaven. Scripture says nothing before Christ rose. "Christ the firstiruite, of all this, nor ho.ve we any reason to o.fterwardl! they the.t are Christ's." E" aid suppose tlmt any human body, save that of and others have understood "after bis our blessed Lord (medimval legends add resurrection" to mee.n "after he raised that of the Virgin Mary), has yet entered them from the dee.d." But the le.ngu,\ge the highest heaven (see Heh. xi. 39, 40). is against such an interpretation, and there Anotber opinion is that these were not oan be no reasonable doubt that the wordl! strictly resurrections, but bodily appee.rances refer to Christ's own re;;urrection. If it of saiuts like those of Moses und Elias at the be contended that the word used, f-y,puu, is Transfiguration; but it is a straining of active in sense, we may reply the.t, granting le.nguage to me.ke the evangelist deHoribe this, it merely emphasizes Cllrist's voluntary such visitations as bodies arising from open action in raising himself. As we.a said sepulchres. Farrar tries to elude the diffi- above, St. Matthew e.nticipe.tea the regulo.r culty by a supposition, as baseless as it is sequence of events in order to complete at dishonouring to the eve.ngelist's strict and one view his acoounts of tile portents that simple veracity. He writes, "An earth- attended the death and resurrection ol que.ke shook the earth an,! split the rooks, Christ. The holy city. Jeruaaltm, llll in and as it rolled away fro1u their places the oh. iv. 5. Tile guilty Jerusalem is •till the grce.t stones whioh closed and covered the holy oity, 11s rete.ining the temple, with its cavern sepulohree of the Jews, BO it seemed services, the ministry, the Scriptures. Some t.o tl•o imnginntiona or many to have dis- would unrlor~tand the heavenly Jerusalem,  596 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. [oe. xxvn.1-66,