- 41 - the city to witness the spectacle of the Crucifixion and who had to pass close by the shattered tombs. “Here you have another of the many instances where, in the past, falsifications were introduced into the Sacred Texts for specific reasons. • The false doctrine that the earthly bodies of humans will be resurrected on some future day had been introduced. In order to sustain this doctrine with passages from the Bible, this particular passage, in addition to others, was distorted by altering the original text. In place of the words ‘The corpses of those who had passed away were cast forth’ were put the words ‘The bodies of the saints who had passed away were raised.’ • The word ‘saints’ had to be interpolated if only for the reason that it would never do to say that the bodies of the unsaintly had also been raised at the death of Christ. – But a still greater difficulty remained to be overcome in falsifying this passage, inasmuch as the Church holds that there could have been no resurrection of bodies prior to Christ's Resurrection. Christ was the first of the dead to arise. Hence, it was necessary to insert the sentence: ‘After his Resurrection they entered into the holy city and appeared to many.’ • Those who committed this falsification did not pause to consider that it had already been expressly stated that the bodies were raised on Good Friday, or three days before Christ’s Resurrection. Whether they appeared to the people of Jerusalem on that same day or on Easter Sunday in no way enters into the question. Besides, where did these bodies that allegedly had risen on Good Friday spend the intervening days? Where did they go after Easter Sunday? Did they return to their tombs, and, if not, where did they go? It is strange that the other three Evangelists say nothing of this resurrection of bodies on Good Friday. Of course, Matthew did not say anything of the kind either, as you have seen from my explanation.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjI1MzY3