Jesus rises from the dead, and appears to the holy women. (Mark 16:1-8; Luke 24:1-12; John 20:1-10.) It is to be noted that there are great and important variations in the four (or, with St. Paul's, 1 Corinthians 15:1-58.
, the five) accounts of the events of the Resurrection, which have given welcome occasion to the sceptic to cast doubts upon the whole transaction. The divergences in the narratives are plainly to be ascribed to the facts that the writers did not depend upon one another, nor draw their accounts from one source; that each gives only an incomplete history, introducing those details with which he was familiar, or which it suited his plan to recount.
On all main points the agreement is perfect, and every difference could be easily reconciled, if we knew the whole of the circumstances and the exact sequence of each word and act during this momentous period.
Attempts at harmonizing the various accounts have been made with more or less success by writers from St. Augustine to the present time; but as they vary in many particulars, and have no authoritative basis, dependence cannot be placed upon them.
The narrative in St. Matthew is brief and imperfect, and we shall chiefly confine our remarks to the exposition of the actual text before us, without importing much matter from the other evangelists.