Gospel Reading:Mark 12:18-27
And Sad′ducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection; and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife, but leaves no child, the man must take the wife, and raise up children for his brother.
There were seven brothers; the first took a wife, and when he died left no children; and the second took her, and died, leaving no children; and the third likewise; and the seven left no children. Last of all the woman also died. In the resurrection whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as wife.”
Jesus said to them, “Is not this why you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong.”
What do the Fathers say?
St THEOPHYLACT. Comments on this passage:
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 show that no resurrection should take place, or had taken place; 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.
Jesus said to them, “Is not this why you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God?
As if He had said, You understand not what sort of a resurrection the Scriptures announce; for you believe that there will be a restoration of our bodies, such as they are now, but it shall not be so.
For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven; as if He had said, There will be a certain heavenly and angelic restoration to life, when there shall be no more decay, and we shall remain unchanged; and for this reason marriage shall cease. For marriage now exists on account of our decay, that we may be carried on by succession of our race, and not fail; but then we shall be as the Angels, who need no succession by marriage, and never come to an end.
He adds, And as regards the dead, they rise, have you not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spoke to him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?
As if He had said, The God of the living, wherefore He adds, He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; for He did not say, I have been, but I am, as if they had been present. But some one perhaps will say, that God spake this only of the soul of Abraham, not of his body; to which I answer, that Abraham implies both, that is, soul and body, so that He also is the God of the body, and the body lives with God, that is, in God’s ordinance.
Sources:
Bible readings from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Second Catholic Edition, copyright © 2006 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Quotes of the Fathers from Thomas Aquinas’ Catena Aurea Translated by St John Henry Newman
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