What Does Matthew 27:56 Mean?

(56) **Mary Magdalene.**—This is the first mention of the name in St. Matthew. The most natural explanation of it is that she came from the town of Magdala, or Magadan (the reading of the chief MSS.), not far from Tiberias, on the western side of the Sea of Galilee. The two prominent facts in her history prior to her connection with the Resurrection are, (1) that our Lord had cast “seven devils out of her” (Mark 16:9, Luke 8:2)—*i.e.,* had freed her from some specially aggravated form of demoniacal possession—and that she followed Him and ministered to Him of her substance. The question whether she was identical (1) with Mary the sister of Lazarus, or (2) with the “woman which was a sinner” of Luke 7:37, will be better discussed in the Notes on the latter passage. It may be enough to intimate here my conviction that there is not the shadow of any evidence for either identification. **Mary the mother of James and Joses.**—In St. Mark (Mark 15:40) she is described as the mother of “James the Less” (or, better, *the Little*) “and Joses,” the epithet distinguishing the former from James the son of Zebedee, and possibly also from James the son of Alphæus. She may, however, have been identical with the wife of Clopas (possibly another form of Alphæus) mentioned in John 19:25 as standing near the cross with the mother of the Lord, and, according to a natural construction of the words, described as her sister. In this case, the word “Little” would attach to the son of that sister. Whether the two names, which occur also in the list of the “brethren of the Lord” (Mark 6:3), indicate that she was the mother of those brethren, is a point which we have no evidence to settle. The presumption seems to me against it, as on this supposition the “brethren” would be identical with the three sons of Alphæus in the list of the Twelve, a view which we have seen reason to reject (see Note on Matthew 12:46). **The mother of Zebedee’s children.**—St. Mark (Mark 15:40) gives her name as Salome, and she, and not the wife of Clopas, may, on a perfectly tenable construction of John 19:25, have been identical with the sister of our Lord’s mother there mentioned. St. Luke notes the fact that with the women were those whom he describes as “all His acquaintance,” *i.e.,* friends and disciples of, or at that time in, Jerusalem (Luke 23:49).