“Now there were seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and dying left no seed.”
Mark 12:20 — Greek Interlinear
Church Fathers on Mark 12:20
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.
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.
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?