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MATTHEW 28:13 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
Matt 28:12Matt 28:14
“Saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept.”
The fabricated story — his disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep — is the first recorded counter-narrative to the resurrection. Its logical problems are immediately apparent: sleeping guards cannot testify to what happened while they slept; soldiers who slept on duty faced severe Roman punishment; and Matthew's entire narrative has made clear that the disciples were in hiding, not planning a tomb raid. But the story is not designed to be logically airtight — it is designed to be emotionally satisfying to those who want an alternative to the resurrection. The stolen-body hypothesis has recurred in various forms throughout church history precisely because it provides a naturalistic explanation for the empty tomb without requiring the resurrection. Matthew includes it to show that the empty tomb was never disputed — only explained differently.

Church Fathers on Matthew 28:13

Of the signs which were shewn around Christ, some were common to the whole world, as the darkness; some peculiar to the watch, as the wonderful apparition of Angels, and the earthquake, which were wrought for the soldiers' sake, that they might be stunned with amazement, and bear testimony to the truth. For when truth is proclaimed by its adversaries, it adds to its brightness.

Chrysostom · 4th century · Hom. xc

Simple minds, and unlearned country-folk, often make manifest without guile the truth of a matter, as the thing is; but on the other hand, a crafty wickedness studies how to recommend falsehood by glosing words.

Rabanus Maurus · 9th century

Thus the Chief Priests, who ought to have been by this turned to penitence, and to seek Jesus risen, persevere in their wickedness, and convert the money which was given for the use of the Temple to the purchase of a lie, as before they had given thirty pieces of silver to the traitor Judas.

Jerome · 4th century
Read all 12 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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Matthew 28:13 — Community Reflections | HolyStudy