Mark 12:18 — Community Reflections

MARK 12:18 — KING JAMES VERSION 0

“Then come unto him the Sadducees, which say there is no resurrection; and they asked him, saying,”

Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question — the Sadducees enter the controversy sequence. They accepted only the Pentateuch as authoritative and rejected the pharisaic and popular belief in resurrection (which they saw as lacking clear Pentateuchal support). Their question is designed to demonstrate the absurdity of resurrection belief through a case study that makes resurrection logically unworkable.

Church Fathers on Mark 12:18

A certain heretical sect of the Jews called Sadducees denied the resurrection, and said that there was neither angel nor spirit. These then coming to Jesus, craftily proposed to Him a certain tale, in order to shew that no resurrection should take place, or had taken place; and therefore there is added, 'And they asked Him, saying, Master.' And in this tale they lay down that seven men had married one woman, in order to make men draw back from belief in the resurrection.
Theophylact · 11th century

And fitly do they frame such a fable in order to prove the madness of those who assert the resurrection of the body. Such a thing however might really have happened at some time or other among them.
Bede · 8th century

But in a mystical sense: what can this woman, leaving no seed to seven brothers, and last of all dying, mean except the Jewish synagogue, deserted by the seven-fold Spirit, which filled those seven patriarchs, who did not leave to her the seed of Abraham, that is, Jesus Christ?
Pseudo-Jerome · 5th century

Read all 11 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain

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