What St Matthew and St Mark convey in their Resurrection accounts
Why do each of the four Gospels present the Resurrection in different ways?
Why do each of the four Gospels present the Resurrection in different ways?
Editor’s Notes
We have previously published Fr Coleridge’s harmonisation of the Gospels’ account of the Resurrection narratives:
The WM Review also published a synthesis of these accounts, based on Fr Coleridge’s work, in one continuous text:
In the chapter following this treament, Fr Coleridge provides further explanation of why each Gospel treats of these matters in their particular ways – and the role of these accounts in the life of the Church.
In the first part of this new mini-series, we present Fr Coleridge’s account of Ss Matthew’s and Mark’s Gospels.
The Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord in the Four Gospels
The Life of our Life, Vol. II
Chapter XI
St. Matt. xxvii. 35–44; St. Mark xv. 24–32; St. Luke xxiii. 34–43; St. John xix. 13–27; Story of the Gospels, § 170.
Burns and Oates, London, 1876
Brevity of the Evangelists
Something has already been said as to the disappointing character of the Gospel records of the Resurrection of our Lord and of all that followed upon it—disappointing, that is, unless they are viewed in the true light. It would seem as if the Evangelists, at least the earlier two of them, had almost thought their work was over when they had finished the account of our Lord’s death and barely mentioned His Resurrection.
The last named mystery was the dogmatic foundation of all the hope of the Christian hereafter and of all his spiritual life here. The details seem dwarfed in the importance of the central truth. They speak of it as a truth which was so familiar to those to whom they addressed themselves as to dispense them from distinguishing times and places and circumstances.
So it is with people who talk or write about some great and all absorbing event of which they have been witnesses, and with which those to whom they speak or write are perfectly conversant. It is not difficult to harmonize the accounts of the several Evangelists, as has been shown in the preceding chapter.
The only difficulty comes from the abruptness and brevity of the writers on whom we depend, and the immense difference between ourselves and those for whom they at first wrote. This difficulty naturally decreases in proportion as the writers recede in point of time from the great event of which they are speaking. There is no abruptness of transition in the narrative of St. John, and less in that of St. Luke than in those of St. Matthew and St. Mark.
St Matthew and St Mark
St. Matthew and St. Mark may very well be taken together. St. Mark is here, as in many parts of his Gospel, a silent commentator and explainer of St. Matthew. The account in each may be divided into three very simple heads, and as we find the same order followed, more or less, even by the latest Evangelists, we may fairly consider that it is founded on the nature of the subject-matter.
First there is an account of the women going to the sepulchre, and receiving the message from the angel, that our Lord was not there, and that the disciples are to see Him in Galilee. Then there is the appearance of our Lord Himself to the eleven Apostles. Thirdly, there is a charge or commission given by our Lord concerning their future work in the world.
That is, the simplest elements of the Gospel statement as to the Resurrection come to these three: how the Apostles were first informed by others of the truth, how they knew it themselves, and the commission which their Risen Master gave them. Around these central and simple elements each Evangelist has grouped some other facts of his own, but these form, as it were, the skeleton of the Gospel narratives.
St Matthew’s account
St. Matthew and St. Mark name the same women in their respective accounts, except that St. Mark adds Salome to Mary Magdalene and Mary the Mother of James. Each of these Evangelists mentions them as watching the burial of our Lord on Friday. St. Matthew adds that on Saturday, towards the close of the day, the two Maries came to visit the sepulchre. St. Mark adds that on the evening of Saturday, after the Sabbath was over, they bought their spices and ointments for the pious work which they contemplated performing on the morrow.
But St. Matthew then leaves them. He passes abruptly from the Saturday night to the Sunday morning, and from the women preparing their spices to the sepulchre of our Lord and the guards around it, of whom he had just before been speaking. He mentions the earthquake after our Lord’s Resurrection, the angel rolling away the stone and sitting on it, and the terror of the guards.
All this of course took place before the women approached the sepulchre in the morning, though on account of his great abruptness and conciseness St. Matthew, if he were a modern writer, might be thought to lead us to understand that the women were present, unless he showed either by word or by a division in his work, that he was passing to a new subject.
He then tells us what the angel said to the women, whom he does not name, and who therefore must be supposed to be the same as those whom he has named before, or at least to have been a company including some of them. He makes no mention of their approach, or of their entering the sepulchre, but he tells us how they went out of it, and ran to tell the Apostles, and were met on their way by our Lord, Who sent them with the same message to the Apostles as that which they had received from the angel.
Then he tells us of the guard going into the city, and of the bribe given them by the Chief Priests. This is the first part of the history as he relates it, that is, this is what he tells us of the way in which the news of the Resurrection was sent to the Apostles. The second part consists of the apparition of our Lord to the eleven on the mountain in Galilee which He had appointed, which seems to have been the apparition to five hundred brethren and more of which St. Paul speaks.
St. Matthew then proceeds to the third part of the history, as to which he mentions the charge to go and teach all nations, baptizing them and instructing them in all that our Lord has commanded, and His promise to be with them all days even unto the consummation of the world.
St Mark’s account
St. Mark’s account must be considered as an independent narrative, which also silently comments on and explains St. Matthew.
As to the first part of the whole, he adds the name of Salome to that of the two Maries, when he speaks of the women who prepared ointments overnight. We may understand this, not as obliging us to think that all the three whom he mentions are the subjects of his narrative as it proceeds, but rather as intimating that what he there relates happened to some of them.
He omits all mention of the earthquake and the guard. He distinguishes, moreover, very carefully the time of the approach of the women to the sepulchre: it was very early, but the sun had risen. This makes it clear that the visit was comparatively late.
He mentions, in his picturesque love of details, the conversation of the holy women about rolling away the stone. He tells us they entered in and saw the angel, ‘a young man,’ sitting on the right, the side on which the slab of the Holy Sepulchre is. He mentions the message given to the women to carry to the Apostles, and then leaves them, saying that they fled from the sepulchre in trembling and fear, and told no one as they went.
Then he omits the appearance of our Lord to them, and, as if to restore her to her rights, he says that the first to whom our Lord appeared was Mary Magdalene, ‘early on the Sunday.’ It is clear that he substitutes this appearance to Mary Magdalene alone for that which St. Matthew has mentioned to the women together, among whom she may or may not have been—but, taking the whole evidence together, it may seem most likely that she was not.
St. Mark then mentions very shortly the appearance of our Lord to the two travellers to Emmaus, though he does not name the place. This is the first part of his narrative. The second consists of the visit of our Lord to the eleven while at meat when He upbraided them for their incredulity; and the third part is the charge to go and preach the Gospel to the whole creation, and the promise of miraculous signs by which the charge was accompanied.
The Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord in the Four Gospels
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