Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew

Matthew 28:1–10

¹After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to visit the tomb. ²And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and rolled back the stone and sat on it. ³Its appearance was like lightning, and its garment was white as snow. ⁴At the sight of him, the guards were struck with terror and became as if dead. ⁵And the angel, addressing the women, said: «Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. ⁶He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where the Lord was laid., ⁷»And go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead. Look, he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, as I have told you.” ⁸Immediately they came out of the tomb with fear and great joy, and they ran to tell the disciples. ⁹And behold, Jesus stood before them and said to them, «Greetings.» And they came up and kissed his feet, and worshiped him. ¹⁰Then Jesus said to them, «Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.»

After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. Suddenly there was a great earthquake. An angel of the Lord descended from heaven, came and rolled back the stone, and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were as white as snow. The guards were terrified and trembled like dead men. The angel said to the women, «Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, «He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you to Galilee. There you will see him.» Now I have told you.» "Quickly, they left the tomb, filled with both fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, 'Greetings!' They came up to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, 'Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee. There they will see me.'"«

Returning to Galilee: the Risen One goes before you and remakes your life from the beginning.

How the announcement of Easter transforms not only death into victory, but every ordinary life into a land of encounter with the Living One

This Easter morning, as recounted by Matthew, is not a beautiful story to contemplate from afar. It is a summons. The angel does not say, "Stay here and meditate." He says: Go quickly, announce it, and meet him in Galilee. The Risen One does not summon his disciples to a temple or before a theological tribunal; he sends them back to where it all began—to concrete life, to the ordinary, to the nets and dusty roads. This article is for anyone seeking more than doctrinal certainties: for those who want to encounter the Living One in their own Galilee.

We will begin by reading the text within its Matthean context to understand its true meaning. Then we will analyze the three dramatic movements of the narrative: the cosmic rupture, the angelic announcement, and the encounter with Christ. Next, we will explore three major theological themes: the resurrection as fulfillment, Galilee as a theology of return, and women as the first witnesses. We will draw concrete applications for spiritual life, dialogue with tradition, and a proposal for liturgical prayer. Finally, we will address contemporary objections with honesty and nuance.

The text and its context: reading Matthew on the morning of the first day

To understand Matthew 28:1-10, one must feel the weight of what precedes it. Chapter 27 closes on an image of total failure: a sealed tomb, a stone rolled away, guards on duty. The religious institution did everything to ensure that death was final, that the page was turned. The chief priests and Pharisees even asked Pilate for a special guard, saying: «"This imposter said, 'After three days, I will rise again.'"‘ (Mt 27, 63). So they locked everything down — but precisely, by quoting the prophecy, they inadvertently testified that it existed.

It is in this context of administered death and imposed silence that chapter 28 opens. The Greek expression opsè de sabbatôn — often translated as "after the Sabbath" — more precisely refers to the end of the Sabbath, at the moment when the light of the first day of the week breaks. In Hebrew and in Jewish thought, this "first day" (Yom RishonThis resonates with the origins of creation in Genesis 1. Matthew is not naive: he knows that his Jewish and Judeo-Christian readers hear this echo. The resurrection is a new creation. The "first day of the week" is not a calendrical detail; it is a cosmological declaration.

The two Maries arrive to look at the tomb. Matthew does not say that they come to anoint (it is Mark and Luke who emphasize the spices); they come to look. In Greek: theôrein, To contemplate, to observe attentively. These women are witnesses, not just mourners. They have already been mentioned at the foot of the cross (Mt 27:55-56) and at the burial (Mt 27:61). Matthew places them within a continuous testimony: they saw death, they will see the resurrection.

The Gospel of Matthew was composed, according to most exegetes, between 80 and 90 AD, probably in a Syrian context, for a predominantly Judeo-Christian community engaged in dialogue with the nations. This explains certain distinctive emphases: the emphasis on the fulfillment of Scripture, the theme of the New Law, and the final universal mission (Mt 28:16-20). Our passage is thus the prelude to the great sending forth on mission. What happens at the tomb on Easter morning is the condition for the possibility of the universal Church.

Finally, a word about the guards. Matthew is the only evangelist to mention this Roman guard and to recount its reaction. They became like dead — a striking irony: those charged with guarding a dead man themselves experience something devastating. The resurrection does not kill; but it turns the forces of death back upon themselves. This is an initial image of the Easter victory: death is caught in its own trap.

Three movements for a dawn

The text of Matthew 28:1-10 is organized into three perfectly constructed dramatic movements, and it is this narrative architecture that carries the theology.

First movement: the cosmic rupture (v. 2-4). An earthquake, a descending angel, a stone rolled away, petrified guards. Matthew had already used the earthquake as a theological sign: at Jesus' death on the cross, "the earth shook, the rocks split" (Mt 27:51). The Paschal earthquake thus echoes the earthquake of Calvary. It is not death that has the final cosmic word; it is the resurrection. The angel roll the stone Not to let Jesus out—the Risen One doesn't need that—but to let the witnesses in. The stone is removed for us, not for him.

The angel is described with iconic precision: appearance of lightning, garment white as snow. These two images refer to the world of theophany, of divine manifestation. In Daniel 7, the Ancient of Days is clothed in garments as white as snow. In the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:2), the face of Jesus shines like the sun. The angel is thus clothed in divine glory, and his presence is already an announcement: something transcendent has just taken place here.

Second movement: the announcement and the sending (vv. 5-7). The angel addresses the women with a decisive formula: «"You, have no fear."» The humeis — YOU in Greek — is emphatic. Unlike the guards who are paralyzed, the women are about to be freed. Fear is a recurring motif in scenes of theophany; but here it is immediately transformed into a mission. The angel knows what they are looking for (Jesus the Crucified) and affirms three things in succession: he is not here; he has risen; and he is going before you into Galilee.

This threefold affirmation forms the kerygmatic heart of the Easter proclamation. «"He's not here."» is an apophasis—a necessary negation to open up space. The empty tomb is not proof of resurrection (one can always object to the theft of the body), but it is a sign that prepares the way for the encounter. The «"He has risen again."» is in the passive voice in Greek (êgerthê) : he was relieved, by God. This is the so-called divine passive — God is the agent. Finally, «"He is going ahead of you to Galilee"» is a promise of a future encounter.

Third movement: the encounter with Christ (vv. 8-10). The women run off—filled with both fear and great joy. This union of opposites is theologically dense: fear before the sacred, joy before salvation. They do not choose between the two; they carry both simultaneously. This is the experience of the numinous in Rudolf Otto's sense—the mysterium tremendum and fascinans.

And then Jesus himself came to meet them. Chairete — «Hail» — is the ordinary Greek greeting, but here it sounds like the first word of new life. The risen Christ does not appear in an inner vision or a mystical trance: he comes meeting them on the road. It's palpable — the women, him grab the feet. And he repeats the angel's words: «Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers.»

This word brothers is crucial in Matthew. Jesus had said: «"Whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, my sister, my mother."» (Mt 12:50). After the Passion, after the betrayal, after the flight of all the disciples—Jesus still calls them brothers. Resurrection does not erase human weakness, but it opens a space for forgiveness and new beginnings.

The resurrection as fulfillment: God keeps his word

The angel said to the women: «"He has risen, just as he said he would."» This small clarification — as he had said — is the golden thread that binds together all of Matthean theology. Jesus had announced his resurrection three times in the Gospel (Mt 16:21; 17:23; 20:19). These announcements had initially disconcerted the disciples, then been forgotten in the shock of the Passion. But God does not forget. The resurrection is first and foremost the fulfillment of a promise.

This has enormous implications for our relationship with the Word of God. Matthew structures his entire Gospel around the theme of fulfillment: «"This happened so that what the prophet had said might be fulfilled."» There are more than a dozen of these formulas. But the ultimate accomplishment is this: the Son of God conquers death. Everything the prophets had sung of—the victory of the Covenant, the faithfulness of YHWH, the life offered beyond Sheol—all of this finds its focal point here.

Psalm 16 had sung: «"You shall not let your faithful one see corruption"» (Psalm 16:10), a verse quoted by Peter in his Pentecost sermon (Acts 2:27). Isaiah had spoken of the Suffering Servant who will have posterity and prolong its days (Isaiah 53:10). The prophet Hosea, with a mysterious and beautiful formula, had announced: «"After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up."» (Hos 6:2). These texts were not mechanical predictions, but they expressed a deep conviction: death does not have the last word on those who surrender to God.

For us today, this means something very concrete: when God says something, he does it. Our prayers that seem to go unanswered, our hopes that appear buried under heavy stones—Easter tells us that stones can be rolled away. Not by our strength, not by our merit, but by the initiative of God who descends, like the angel in the story, and acts where we least expected anything.

There is a lesson in spiritual pedagogy in this "as he had said." Faith is not blind; it rests on words already spoken, on faithfulness already lived. Abraham believed. against all hope (Romans 4:18), but he believed based on the promise he had received. The women at the tomb could have said, «But that seems impossible.» The angel reminded them that they already had the elements of the answer—Jesus had said it. The Word always precedes the encounter.

Galilee as a theology of return: it awaits you where it all began.

«"He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him."» This phrase, repeated twice in our passage (by the angel and by Jesus himself), is not simply geographical information. It is a theology of place and return.

Galilee, in the Gospel of Matthew, is the place of beginnings. It is there that Jesus began his ministry (Mt 4:12). It is there that he called his first disciples by the lake (Mt 4:18-22). It is there that he preached the Beatitudes on the mountain (Mt 5-7). It is there that crowds followed him, that the sick were healed, that storms were calmed. Galilee is the place of vocation, of calling, of initial grace.

By asking the disciples to return to Galilee, the Risen Lord is asking them to return to their origin—not to remain frozen there, but to rediscover the living One who had called them. It is an invitation to the conversion in the etymological sense: conversion, turning around, returning to the source. When we are lost, we start again from the last place where we still knew where we were going.

This motif of Galilee has an extraordinary pastoral resonance. Each of us has a personal Galilee: a moment, a place, a relationship where God first touched us, called us, seized us. Perhaps a retreat, a decisive reading, a conversation that changed everything. Perhaps a moment of prayer where the Living One made himself undeniably present. With time, difficulties, sins, and betrayals—as with the disciples—we can drift away from this inner Galilee, forget it, shroud it in doubt.

Easter says: return to your Galilee. The Risen One goes before you. He is already there where you need to find Him. proagein — «Precede» — is a strong verb. The Good Shepherd precedes his sheep (Jn 10:4). Jesus does not ask you to build the path alone; he invites you to join him where he has already arrived.

There is also an ecclesial dimension to this return to Galilee. Matthew closes his Gospel with the Eleven who go up the mountain in Galilee (Mt 28:16), and it is there that they receive the great missionary commission. Galilee is not a refuge to withdraw from the world; it is the place of the transformative encounter that sends them out into the world. They return to the source not to settle there, but to be sent out with greater strength.

Women as the first witnesses: a silent revolution

In all the Gospels—John, Luke, Mark, and Matthew—women are the first to find the empty tomb and receive the message of the resurrection. This fact, universally attested in the earliest Christian tradition, is theologically and historically remarkable.

In the Judeo-Hellenistic world of the first century, women's testimony had very limited legal weight. The historian Flavius Josephus explicitly states that women and slaves were not admitted as witnesses because of their perceived weakness of character. If the early community had invented the Passover narrative from scratch, it would have chosen male witnesses to ensure its conviction. The fact that all the independent traditions—Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, and the pre-Pauline tradition of 1 Corinthians 15 (even though Paul does not mention women)—converge on the primacy of women is a strong indication of historical authenticity.

Matthew emphasizes two names: Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary." These two women are also mentioned at the foot of the cross and at the burial. They form a continuous chain of witness throughout the Passion and Resurrection. They are not ecstatic visionaries indulging in dreams; they are women who watched, who saw, who waited, and who now run to spread the news.

Contemporary feminist theology is right to emphasize that the early Church—and Matthew in particular—recognized women as the first and true messengers of the Resurrection. The Church has often obscured this fact; but the text itself does not lie. Mary Magdalene will be called by Augustine apostola apostolorum — the apostle to the apostles. This is not a pious metaphor; it is the logical consequence of the Gospel text.

For spiritual and ecclesial life today, this theme suggests a serious question: whose testimony do we still refuse to hear? Who are those in our communities whose voice is marginalized, whose testimony about the Living One is received with condescension? Easter opens our eyes. The Risen One reveals himself to those who seek, who persevere, who look even when all seems lost.

Easter in the five spheres of life

Resurrection is not a dogma to be filed away in a catechism; it is a reality that transforms all dimensions of existence.

In the inner and spiritual life. The angel said: «"Have no fear."» How many of our spiritual blockages stem from fear? Fear of not being loved by God, fear of our own sin, fear that death will have the last word over our loved ones or ourselves. Easter is a direct invitation to let go of this fear. Not to deny it—women themselves tremble — but not to let it rule. Easter joy is not the absence of fear; it is the victory of joy over fear.

In relationships and the community. Jesus calls the disciples his brothers after they abandoned him. This gesture is the concrete definition of forgiveness: not erasing the betrayal, but rebuilding the relationship. In our families, our parishes, our friendships—how many relationships are frozen in unrolled tombstones? Easter offers a model of reconciliation: returning to Galilee with the other, rediscovering the place of that first fraternity.

In relation to work and commitments. The Galilee of the disciples was the lake, the fishing nets, the daily grind. The Risen Lord waited there, not to take them out of their ordinary lives, but to transfigure them. Our Galilee is our office, our workshop, our kitchen, our classroom. The Living One goes before us there. Easter faith is not an escape from the world; it is the conviction that the ordinary world is the place of encounter with the Risen Lord.

Facing hardship and grief. The two Marys were coming look at the sepulchre. They were not fleeing from death; they were facing it. The Christian faith does not eliminate grief; it helps us navigate it differently. Easter does not say, "It's not a big deal." It says, "Death does not have the last word." For anyone experiencing grief, serious illness, or loss—this distinction is crucial. It is not about minimizing the pain, but about infusing it with a grounded hope.

In missionary work. «"Go ahead, make your announcement."» The Easter kerygma is inseparable from the sending forth. One cannot receive the Easter proclamation for oneself alone. Women run To spread the news. This urgency — the same as Paul's when he said: «"Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!"» (1 Cor 9:16) — is a constitutive dimension of Christian life. Not aggressive evangelism, but joyful, living, embodied witness.

Echoes in tradition: from Scripture to the Fathers, to the present day

The resurrection of Jesus did not appear in a vacuum; it is part of a thousand-year-old tradition of hope and reflection.

In the Old Testament, bodily resurrection is an idea that gradually emerges. The prophet Ezekiel sees dry bones come together and live again (Ezekiel 37)—an image of the national restoration of Israel that would become a trope of individual resurrection. The book of Daniel explicitly states: «Many of those who sleep in the dusty ground will awaken, some to eternal life.» (Dn 12, 2). The Maccabees die confessing the resurrection of the body (2 M 7). These texts show that in the first century, the resurrection was a lively hope in Pharisaic Judaism — which explains both the rapid adherence of some Pharisees to Christianity, and the scandal caused to the Sadducees who denied any resurrection.

Among the Fathers, Ignatius of Antioch (early 2nd century) was one of the first to articulate the link between bodily resurrection and the Eucharist: he calls the Eucharistic bread Pharmakon Athanasias, «the remedy of immortality.» For him, the Eucharist is the sacramental anticipation of the resurrection. Justin Martyr insists, against the Docetists, on the bodily reality of the resurrection: if the body does not rise again, the entire soteriology collapses. Tertullian will even go so far as to write From resurrection carnis to defend the resurrection of the body against all forms of spiritualism that would tend to dissolve it.

Augustine, in The City of God, develops an eschatological vision of the resurrection as the restoration and glorification of creation. For him, the resurrection of Jesus is the causa et exemplum — the cause and the model — of the universal resurrection. Thomas Aquinas will take this up again in the Summa Theologica, distinguishing the resurrection as efficient cause (efficient cause of our future resurrection) and as formal cause (exemplary form of what we will be).

In contemporary theology, Karl Barth insisted that the resurrection is not a compensatory myth but a historical event sui generis — unique in its kind, which transcends the ordinary categories of history without negating them. Hans Urs von Balthasar developed a Paschal theology centered on the triduum — Friday, Saturday, Sunday — like the three acts of the same mystery of death and life. And Hans Küng, in To be a Christian, reminds us that faith in the resurrection is not primarily an affirmation about the afterlife, but about God: to confess the resurrection is to confess a God who keeps his promises to the very end.

Lectio divina

Descending into the tomb to rise again to life

Meditating on this text lends itself to a lectio divina in five stages, inspired by monastic tradition but accessible to all.

First step: reading (lectio). Read the text aloud, slowly, once. Identify the word or phrase that stands out: "he precedes you," "have no fear," "they ran"... Don't analyze it yet. Just receive it.

Second step: to meditate (meditatio). Ask yourself: where is my tomb right now? What is the rolled-away stone I'm waiting for? What part of my life is still closed, guarded, sealed? Stay for a few minutes with this question without forcing an answer.

Third step: to pray (oratio). Address to God the specific request that arose from meditation. Not a general prayer, but a precise, personal one. Use the angel's words if necessary: «"Lord, help me to be without fear. Show me where you await me in Galilee."»

Fourth stage: contemplate (contemplatio). Be silent. Let God speak — or remain silent. Contemplation is not a technique for obtaining consolation; it is the act of standing before the Living One with empty hands.

Fifth step: to act (actio). Easter sends forth. After contemplation, ask yourself: what concrete action does this text call me to take today? Write a letter to someone I'm estranged from? Renew an abandoned commitment? Share my faith with someone who is searching? Journey to my own personal Galilee?

This cycle can be practiced in twenty minutes or a full hour. It can be done alone or in a group. The essential thing is that it leads to encounter, not a simple accumulation of information.

Current challenges

Every confession of Easter faith today faces serious intellectual and existential challenges. To avoid them would be dishonest; to confront them is an act of love toward sincere seekers.

Challenge 1: The historical problem. «"No bodily resurrection can be scientifically verified. It is a mythological belief."»

The honest answer is twofold. On the one hand, the resurrection is not an ordinary event observable under a microscope; it belongs to the realm of divine action that transcends the categories of natural history. But on the other hand, it has... effects Verifiable historical facts include the empty tomb (which even opponents of early Christianity indirectly acknowledged, accusing the disciples of stealing the body—cf. Matthew 28:13-15), the multiple and independent testimonies of the apparitions, and above all, the radical transformation of the disciples—from terrified fugitives to joyful martyrs. This psychological and existential reversal demands an explanation. The best available explanation remains that given by the disciples themselves: they had encountered the Living One.

Challenge 2: The problem of suffering. «"If God can raise the dead, why does he let so many people die in suffering, without miracles?"»

This is Job's question reformulated. The resurrection is not a magical answer to suffering; it is the promise that suffering is not the final word. Christ himself went through Gethsemane and Golgotha before Easter. He was not spared; he was accompanied into the abyss, and the abyss was transformed from within. This is not comforting in the sense of easy consolation—but it is profound in the sense of absolute divine solidarity. The God of Easter is not above death; he has passed through it.

Challenge 3: The problem of religious pluralism. «"All religious traditions have their stories of life after death. Christianity has no exclusive claim to this."»

It is true that most human traditions express a hope of survival. But the Christian resurrection is specific: it is not the survival of a disembodied soul, nor reincarnation in another body, nor dissolution into an absolute. It is the victory of a singular person—Jesus of Nazareth—over death, in his entire humanity, body included. And it is universally oriented: «"He is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep."» (1 Cor 15, 20). This specificity deserves to be clearly affirmed, not with contempt for other traditions, but with the conviction that the truth can be spoken in a distinctive way without being exclusive in the sense of condemning other paths.

Prayer: Entering into the joy of Easter morning

Lord Jesus, risen from the dead,

On this Easter morning, which we seek to understand and inhabit, we come to you as the two Marys came to the tomb: with fear in our hearts and a longing to see you. We did not always know how to express this expectation. Sometimes we believed that everything was sealed—our lives, our relationships, our hopes buried under stones too heavy for us.

And behold, you roll away the stone. Not through our merit, not because of our faithfulness—for we have forsaken you, we have fled, we have fallen asleep in the Garden of Olives of our lives. But you roll away the stone because you are faithful. Because you had said so. Because your word cannot return to you without having accomplished that for which you sent it.

You tell us: Do not be afraid. We hear this word like a balm on the fears we dare not name: the fear of death, yes, but also the fear of loving, the fear of failing, the fear of being seen as we truly are. You know our names as you knew the name of Mary in the garden. You call us where we are most vulnerable, most authentic.

You send us to Galilee. Lord, show us our Galilee. Show us the place in our ordinary lives where you are already waiting for us—in our offices and kitchens, in our sleepless nights and our plans, in our conversations and our silences. You go before us. This means that you are never absent from where we go; you have gone there before us with your grace.

We ask you for the grace to run, like the women, even though we still tremble. To bring the news to our brothers and sisters, even when we don't quite know how to say it. Make us witnesses of the Living One—not perfect witnesses, but true witnesses, carrying within us both fear and great joy.

Resurrect within us all that is dead: extinguished enthusiasms, colded charity, abandoned prayers, buried hopes. You said it: you are rising. Do it in us today, on this first day of the week, which is also the first day of our new life.

And when we encounter those who doubt, those who weep, those who no longer dare to believe—grant us the grace to let you come to them through us. You who are Life, make us alive for them.

Amen.

And you, what is your Galilee?

Together we explored the passage from Matthew 28:1-10, examining its historical, theological, spiritual, and existential dimensions. What emerges is not a collection of abstract doctrines, but a very concrete invitation: the Risen Christ goes before you somewhere in your life.

The empty tomb is not an end in itself. It is the sign that points forward, towards the encounter. He is not here — Look for him elsewhere, look for him where he calls you. The angel, Jesus himself, the women's race, everything in this story converges towards one movement: Go, run, announce, find him.

The resurrection changes our relationship to time: the future is no longer just a threat or an uncertainty, but a territory that the Risen One has already inhabited. It changes our relationship to others: our brothers and sisters, even traitors and cowards, are called brothers through Christ. It changes our relationship to our own history: our personal Galilees — those moments and places where we were first called — are promises of encounter, not useless nostalgia.

Easter is not just one Sunday a year. It is a way of being in the world: living like someone who knows that death does not win, that fear does not have the last word, and that the Living One always precedes us.

So, what is your Galilee? Where is it calling you today?

Seven Easter acts for this week

• Identify a "gravestone" in your life — a closed situation that you have stopped hoping to see change — and explicitly entrust it to God in a short daily prayer.
• Reread Matthew 28:1-10 each morning of the week, noting down a different word each day that speaks to you and reflecting on why.
• Write a letter or send a message to someone you're cold or estranged from—without waiting for them to make the first move, like Christ who went at the meeting women.
• Rediscover your "Galilee": the precise moment in your life when God first touched you, and spend twenty minutes remembering it with gratitude, journaling if that's your style.
• Sharing a dimension of your Easter faith with someone in your circle who does not believe or who doubts — not to convince, but simply to bear witness to what you have received.
• Celebrating the Eucharist or a community liturgy with awareness: the resurrection is there, made present, in the shared bread and wine.
• To carry out a concrete act of charity in memory of the women who have ran Easter faith does not remain still; it runs towards others.

References

Primary Sources

— The Jerusalem Bible, complete edition, Cerf, 2000 (Mt 28, 1-10; Dn 12, 2; Ez 37; Hos 6, 2; Ps 16, 10; Is 53, 10; 1 Co 15, 20; Rm 4, 18).

— Matthew 27-28 in the Greek New Testament (UBS5/NA28) for the original Greek terms (êgerthê, proagein, theôrein, chair).

— Augustine of Hippo, De civitate Dei, book XXII, chapters 19-21 (bodily resurrection and eschatology).

— Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIIa pars, q. 53-56 (resurrection of Christ: cause and model).

Secondary sources

— Raymond E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah, Doubleday, 1994 — exhaustive historical-critical analysis of the Passion and Resurrection in the four gospels.

— NT Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, Fortress Press, 2003 — historical and theological defense of bodily resurrection, essential from an apologetic point of view.

— Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Passover of the Son (excerpt from) Mysterium Paschale), Lethielleux, 1981 — a contemplative approach to triduum Pascal as a Trinitarian mystery.

— Rudolf Otto, The Sacred, Payot, 1929 (The Holy, 1917) — concept of mysterium tremendum and fascinans, key to understanding the experience of women at the tomb.

— François Bovon, The Gospel according to Saint Luke (commentary, Geneva, Labor et Fides) — for the synoptic comparison of the resurrection narratives and the study of the women witnesses.

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