Matthew 28:11–15

Verse 11. Some of the guards came into the city. It is probable they had retired a while to some place to consult what to say, and how to avoid being punished. The chief priests, after consulting upon the matter, ordered them to say, that when they were asleep, the disciples came and stole away Jesus’s body. This report was spread about every where. S. Augustin laughs at them for their blindness and folly, in bringing men in for witnesses of a fact, which they themselves own was done whilst they were asleep. Witham.—The poet, Sedulius, also is no less severe on these faithless guards:

Mentita est vox vana sibi; tamen ista figuram

Res habet egregiam, Judæis constat ademptum,

Quem nos devoto portamus pectore Christum.

Verse 12. Gave a great sum of money. These princes of the Jewish nation still persisting in their malice, refused to turn to their Creator by hearty repentance, and wished to persuade the world that Jesus was not risen, sacrificing that money to falsehood, which was given for the use of the temple. For as they offered Judas 30 pieces of silver to betray his Master, so now they offer a great sum of money to suppress a truth so useful and so necessary for man. S. Jerom.

Verse 13. It hence appears, that the chief priests themselves were fully convinced of the fact; for otherwise, they would not have bribed the soldiers to dissemble, but would have accused the soldiers before the president of a neglect of duty. Tirinus.—How was it possible for the timid and weak disciples, who dared not shew themselves in public, to come in defiance of an armed multitude to steal away the body! If these men dared not even to come forward in defence of their Master when alive, is it probable that these same men after his death would steal away his body? And could they, even allowing the possibility of conceiving the design, have removed the stone, which required a great number of hands to stir? Was not the mouth of the sepulchre also sealed? But whydi they not steal away the body the first night, before the guards were stationed? For it was on Saturday the priests petitioned for a guard. Why did they not also take the clothes, which Saint Peter saw lying in the sepulchre? Would not a delay in taking off the clothes, and the napkin that bound his head, have appeared dangerous? Would it not have exposed their lives, particularly as the body had been anointed, and some time would be requisite to remove the linen, which would adhere to the body? The means they take to make the miracle uncertain, render it utterly undeniable. For in protesting that the disciples stole it away, they confessed that the body was no longer in the sepulchre. The fear and doubts of the disciples, joined to the idle story of the soldiers, is an evident demonstration, that the account of the body being stolen away, is a gross calumny. Saint John Chrysostom hom. xc.—But let us again see how beautifully Sedulius paints the same in verse.

—— Fare improbe Custos,

Responde scelerata cohors, si Christus, ut audes

Dicere, concluso furtim prductus ab antro

Sopitos latuit, cujus jacet intus amictus?

Cujus ad exuvias sedet angelus? Anne beati

Corporis ablator velociùs esse putavit

Solvere contectum, quam devectare ligatum?

Cum mora sit furtis contraria. Cautiùs ergo

Cum Domino potuere magis sua lintea tolli.