Soldados, Ángeles Y Mujeres: el episodio de la Tumba Vacía en el cristianismo de los siglos I y II

Abstract

The narration of the Passion of the Christ was an apologetic tool essential for the ?rst christians because it provided them with a soteriologist perspective and, also, re?ected the political and social experiences of the writing communities. The episodes of Jesus’ arrest and death were accounts clearly meant for polemics not only with externals, jews and gentiles, but also with other Christian ?owings. On the basis of this notion we propose to analyse the episode of Jesus’ women disciples in front of the empty sepulchre from a historic perspective which will explain the changes that have taken place as a result of the positions and interests of the different writers. To do this, we will move around a time span which goes from the middle of the decade of the 70’s in Ist century up to the end of IInd century. We will begin the analysis with the Gospel of Mark, the ?rst testimony of the episode of the empty tomb. This episode is considered a novelty which comes from the Christian-helenistic circle of Antioch, since Paul did not seem to have known about it in his letters. Then we will proceed to consider the versions proposed by the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, John, the Epistula Apostolorum and the Gospel of Peter. As a closing element and also to provide a ?nal balance we will turn to the opinion of the pagan critic Celsus.