3. The empty tomb.—All four agree that in the morning (at dawn, at sun rising, very early, when it was yet dark) of the first day of the week the tomb was found empty by those who went to visit it.
4. Visitors to the tomb.—Matthew mentions "Mary Magdalene and the other Mary;" Mark, "Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome;" Luke, "Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other Galilean women," and afterwards, on the report of the women, Peter; John, "Mary Magdalene" only, and afterwards, on her report, himself (John) and Simon Peter, Mary Magdalene returning after them.
5. Appearances at the tomb.—(a.) The great earthquake and the awful appearance of the angel to the watch—"countenance like lightning, raiment white as snow;" and the effect on the startled soldiers, who swooned away "as dead men," as also the subsequent report of the watch and their acceptance of a bribe (large money) from the chief priests to publish a falsehood and confess that they—Roman soldiers—had slept at their post, are mentioned by Matthew alone. Matthew does not name his informant, whether it was a chief priest or one of the soldiers who betrayed his own and his comrades' infamy.
(b.) The stone securing the tomb was rolled away. So all four affirm. This was one object of the angel's visit. Jesus rose from the dead, but the angel's assistance was necessary to open the tomb.
(c.) Matthew asserts that the angel sat on the stone, outside the tomb. Mark, that he appeared as a young man sitting within the tomb, on the right side, clothed in a long, white garment. Luke has "two men" in glittering garments, who made themselves manifest as the perplexed women were gazing at the empty tomb. John states that Mary Magdalene, on her second visit, saw two angels, one sitting at the head the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. When, according to Luke, Peter visited the tomb, or according to John, when Mary Magdalene in the first instance, and then Peter and John, on hearing her report, went there, no such marvellous angelic being was manifest. The appearance was to perplexed and timid women. Wherein did they differ from other weak women, that their testimony received at second hand should be held trustworthy? Supposing, for instance, that it had been the young man with the linen garment about his naked body (Mark xiv. 51, 52), seated within the tomb, would not their excited imaginations have transformed him into a messenger from heaven?
6. Announcements of the angels at the tomb.—(a.) Matthew's dread angel announced to the women that Jesus had risen from the dead, directed them to go at once and inform his disciples that "he goeth before you into Galilee, there shall ye see him." Trembling and joyful they ran away at once to bring "his disciples word."
(6.) Mark's white-clad young man made the same announcement of Jesus preceding his disciples to Galilee; but instead of obeying the angel's direction as to informing the disciples, "they went out quickly and fled from the sepulchre, for they trembled and were amazed, neither said they anything to any man, for they were afraid."
(c.) Luke's two bright-clad men announced that Jesus was risen, as he had told them while yet in Galilee. "They remembered his words, and returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest." There is no mention here of Jesus going before his disciples into Galilee.
(d.) John's two angels asked Mary Magdalene, "Woman, why weepest thou?" She replied, "Because they have taken away my lord, and I know not where they have laid him." Here, wholly ignorant that he was alive, stood beside the tomb one of the very women to whom Matthew, Mark, and Luke's angels announced that Jesus was risen from the dead. If Matthew's account be true, both he and John were present when the women told the disciples that Jesus was risen, and gave them the direction to go to Galilee; and yet John narrates this circumstance, one quite at variance with Matthew's angel's announcement to the women.
7. Effect on the disciples of the first announcement of the resurrection.—(a.) Matthew states that "then" (on the report of the women) "the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them."