HistoricalChristian.Faith

The raising of the saints at the crucifixion (Matthew 27:51–53)

Type: supporting argument (off-timeline) · Assessment: contested — that the "saints which slept" who rose at the cross are OT righteous released from Sheol, a firstfruits with the risen Christ carries a meaning the patristic mainstream affirms (Hilary, Jerome, Chrysostom, Gregory, Aquinas), and it coheres with the descent; but the verse times their emergence to Christ's own resurrection (he is the firstborn), so the Holy-Saturday harrowing-release is an inference the text does not state, and the episode's historicity — uniquely Matthean and steeped in OT apocalyptic resurrection imagery — is genuinely disputed, read as a theological sign by interpreters ancient (Origen) and modern (Brown, Licona) and as literal history by others

Related arguments: the descent — see also descent to the dead · the creed clause · relocation of Paradise · content of the proclamation · excised descent-prophecy · forerunner in Hades

The claim

At the moment of Christ's death, Matthew alone records a cluster of portents: "the veil of the temple was rent … and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many" (Matt 27:51–53). The afterlife-arc reading takes vv. 52–53 as a piece of the harrowing: the "saints which slept" are Old-Testament righteous, held in Sheol, who are released when Christ breaks the bonds of death — a firstfruits raised with the risen Christ, narrative confirmation that the descent emptied the holding-place of the righteous dead. The verse thus becomes the gospel's own evidence for the descent to the dead.

Who advances it

The reading is voiced in the afterlife-arc exposition that seeded this doctrine, but it is no modern novelty: it is the patristic mainstream. The Fathers read vv. 52–53 in two overlapping registers — as a firstfruits and sign of the general resurrection (Chrysostom, Gregory the Great, Aquinas) and as a witness to the descent's freeing of the dead (Ignatius, Hilary, Jerome, Theophylact). Doug Wilson presses the verse to a sharper, separable end — as proof that Paradise itself was relocated: the OT saints "were transferred when Paradise was moved (Matt. 27:52)" (weighed on the relocation-of-Paradise argument).8

The evidence for

The reading rests on the text's own resurrection-shaped language and on a broad patristic tradition:1

  1. The text reads as a firstfruits of resurrection. "The saints which slept arose … and appeared unto many" deliberately echoes the OT resurrection-hope — Ezekiel's "I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves" (Ezek 37:12–13), Daniel's "many of them that sleep in the dust … shall awake" (Dan 12:2), Isaiah's "thy dead men shall live" (Isa 26:19) — and Paul calls the risen Christ "the firstfruits of them that slept" (1 Cor 15:20). A company of "saints" raised at his death-and-rising fits a firstfruits sign of the harvest to come.
  2. Ignatius of Antioch (c. 107) gives the earliest link of the descent to a raising of the OT righteous: the prophets, Christ's disciples who "in the Spirit did wait for Him as their Teacher," were at his coming "raised … from the dead."2
  3. Hilary of Poitiers (c. 360) ties the raising directly to the harrowing: "Graves were opened, for the gates of death had been unlocked. And a number of the bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep arose. Dispelling the shadows of death and illuminating the darkness of hell, Christ destroyed the spoils of death itself at the resurrection of the saints."3
  4. Jerome (c. 398) makes the connection explicit in his commentary on Ephesians: Christ descended to "the lower parts of the earth, hell … so that He might lead with Him to the heavens the souls of the saints who were being held captive there. Hence, after His resurrection, many bodies of the righteous were seen in the holy city (Matthew 27:52–53)."4
  5. John Chrysostom (c. 390) reads it as "a sign of the future resurrection," raised by Christ's voice while "His body continuing up there, on the cross"; they "appear, even to many, in the city" precisely so that "what was done might not be accounted to be an imagination."5
  6. Gregory the Great (c. 590) makes them the pledge that the members follow the Head: Christ "alone died at that time, and yet He by no means rose again alone. For it is written: 'Many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep arose' … If therefore we are members of our Redeemer, let us presume in ourselves what is established to have taken place in the Head."6
  7. Aquinas, Theophylact, and Remigius carry the firstfruits reading into the medieval consensus. Aquinas: they "rose not to die again, because they rose for the manifestation of the resurrection of Christ … therefore they rose as being about to enter heaven with Christ." Theophylact: "the raising of the dead which occurred at the Lord's crucifixion also revealed the freeing of the souls in hades." Remigius: "they who rose from the dead at the Lord's resurrection, ascended also into heaven together with Him."7

Adversarial assessment

What holds. As a reading of what Matthew means by the sign, the firstfruits interpretation is well-grounded and is the patristic mainstream. The raised saints function as a downpayment of the general resurrection and as evidence that Christ's death-and-rising broke death's hold — the meaning Chrysostom, Gregory, Theophylact, and Aquinas all draw — and that coheres tightly with the descent to the dead. The harrowing-resonance (Hilary, Jerome) is a natural, ancient way to read the opened graves.

What is overstated or imprecise.9

  1. The verse times the raising to Christ's own resurrection, not to Holy Saturday. The saints "came out of the graves after his resurrection" (v. 53), and the Fathers are emphatic that, though the tombs opened at his death, they "did not rise again before the Lord rose, that He might be the firstborn of the resurrection from the dead" (Jerome; so too Aquinas, who notes v. 53 is stated "by anticipation"). So this is strictly a firstfruits of Christ's Easter rising; folding it into a Holy-Saturday harrowing-release of Sheol is a theological inference, not what the passage times.
  2. "OT saints released from Sheol" over-specifies the text. Matthew says only "saints which slept" — recently-dead holy people of Jerusalem fit the words as well as the patriarchs do. The identification with the OT righteous held in the limbus patrum is the patristic gloss, attractive but unstated; it is borrowed from the separate descent-to-the-dead and Abraham's-bosom claims rather than read off Matthew 27.
  3. The historicity is genuinely contested. The episode is uniquely Matthean — absent from Mark, Luke, John, and every early non-canonical Passion account — and is woven from OT apocalyptic resurrection imagery (Ezek 37; Dan 12:2; Isa 26:19; Zech 14:4–5). A respectable line therefore reads vv. 52–53 as a Matthean theological/apocalyptic sign rather than a chronicle: ancient allegorists already spiritualized it (Origen — the graves are "the bodies of sinful souls … dead to God," raised by grace; a figurative layer surfaces in Jerome and in Theophylact, who doubts the never-died-again view), and modern interpreters from Raymond Brown (an apocalyptic dramatization built on Ezek 37) to Michael Licona (a "poetic device" / apocalyptic imagery — a reading that cost him posts in the 2011 inerrancy dispute) take it as symbol. The counter-case is also real — vv. 51–53 form a single kai-chain bound to the literal death and resurrection, and the raised-and-"appeared-unto-many" pattern mirrors the apostolic resurrection testimony (1 Cor 15:5–8) — so neither side commands the field.
  4. Even the firstfruits picture is underdetermined. The tradition never settled whether the raised died again (so Theophylact, "it is evident that they again died") or ascended with Christ never to die (Remigius, Aquinas). "A firstfruits with the risen Christ" is thus a less definite picture than it sounds.

Assessment

Contested. The meaning the reading carries — the raised saints as a firstfruits and sign of Christ's victory over death, and a witness to the descent's freeing of the dead — is well-grounded in the patristic mainstream (Hilary, Jerome, Chrysostom, Gregory, Aquinas, Theophylact) and coheres with the descent-to-the-dead argument. Two things keep it short of "sound." First, the verse itself times the saints' emergence to Christ's own resurrection and makes him the firstborn from the dead, so the Holy-Saturday release of OT saints from Sheol is an inference the text does not state, and "OT righteous from the limbus" over-specifies Matthew's bare "saints which slept." Second, the historicity of the episode is genuinely disputed: uniquely Matthean and saturated with OT apocalyptic resurrection imagery, it is read as a theological sign by interpreters ancient (Origen) and modern (Brown, Licona) and as literal history by the patristic mainstream and conservative defenders — strong arguments on each side, no clear winner.

Sources

  1. Matthew 27:51–53 (KJV) — "the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many," historicalchristian.faith; Ezekiel 37:12–13 ("I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves"), historicalchristian.faith; Daniel 12:2 ("many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake"), historicalchristian.faith; Isaiah 26:19, historicalchristian.faith; 1 Corinthians 15:20 ("the firstfruits of them that slept"), historicalchristian.faith. ↩

  2. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Magnesians, ch. 9 — "He whom they rightly waited for, being come, raised them from the dead," historicalchristian.faith. ↩

  3. Hilary of Poitiers, Commentary on Matthew 33.7 — "Graves were opened, for the gates of death had been unlocked … Dispelling the shadows of death and illuminating the darkness of hell, Christ destroyed the spoils of death itself at the resurrection of the saints," archive.org (tr. D. H. Williams, FOTC 125). Cf. the parallel excerpt in the Catena Aurea on Matthew 27, historicalchristian.faith. ↩

  4. Jerome, Commentary on Ephesians 2 (on Eph 4:9) — Christ descended to "hell … so that He might lead with Him to the heavens the souls of the saints who were being held captive there. Hence, after His resurrection, many bodies of the righteous were seen in the holy city," catholiclibrary.org; Commentary on Matthew 4 (on 27:52–53) — "they did not rise before the Lord rose, so that he would be the firstborn of the resurrection from the dead," historicalchristian.faith. ↩

  5. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 88 — "a sign of the future resurrection … in order that what was done might not be accounted to be an imagination, they appear, even to many, in the city," historicalchristian.faith. ↩

  6. Gregory the Great, Forty Gospel Homilies, Homily 21 — "He alone died at that time, and yet He by no means rose again alone … If therefore we are members of our Redeemer, let us presume in ourselves what is established to have taken place in the Head," historicalchristian.faith. ↩

  7. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Matthew 27 — "they rose not to die again … therefore they rose as being about to enter heaven with Christ," historicalchristian.faith; Theophylact of Ohrid, Commentary on Matthew 27:52–53 — "the raising of the dead … also revealed the freeing of the souls in hades … it is evident that they again died," historicalchristian.faith; Remigius, in the Catena Aurea on Matthew 27 — "they … ascended also into heaven together with Him," historicalchristian.faith. ↩

  8. Doug Wilson, "The Apostles Creed 11: He Descended Into Hades" — "all the saints in the Old Testament who had died and gone to Abraham's bosom were transferred when Paradise was moved (Matt. 27:52). And by the time of Paul, Paradise was up (2 Cor. 12:4)," dougwils.com. Weighed as the relocation thesis on the relocation-of-Paradise argument. ↩

  9. Figurative/allegorical reading: Origen, in the Catena Aurea on Matthew 27 — "The graves are the bodies of sinful souls, that is, souls dead to God; but when by God's grace these souls have been raised …," historicalchristian.faith. Modern apocalyptic-sign reading: Raymond E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah (Doubleday, 1994), 2:1118–1140 (vv. 51b–53 as an apocalyptic resurrection scene drawn from Ezek 37); Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (IVP Academic, 2010), 548–553 (a "poetic device" / apocalyptic imagery) — the proposal that sparked the 2011 inerrancy controversy. For the two-views framing and the grammatical (single-kai-chain) and 1 Cor 15-parallel counter-arguments, see "Resurrected Saints and Matthew's Weirdest Passage," The Gospel Coalition. ↩