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MATTHEW 28:15 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
Matt 28:14Matt 28:16
“So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.”
So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this day — Matthew's aside confirms that the stolen-body narrative was still the standard Jewish counter-explanation for the empty tomb at the time of his writing, likely in the 70s or 80s. The persistence of the counter-narrative actually confirms the empty tomb: no one denied that the tomb was empty, only Jesus' followers claimed the reason why. The soldiers' obedience to the religious authorities mirrors Judas's earlier agreement: both men were paid to betray the truth about Jesus, and both accounts end with the simple notation that they did as they were paid to do. The money that purchased the betrayal and the money that purchased the suppression are bookends of human complicity in the attempt to stop what God was doing.

Church Fathers on Matthew 28:15

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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