Saying, Teacher, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up children unto his brother.
All Commentaries on Matthew 22:24 Go To Matthew 22
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Watch him answering these like a deft teacher. For though they deceitfully came to him, yet their question was one of ignorance. Therefore he does not say to them, “You hypocrites.” To avoid censure for the fact that the seven brothers had one wife, they refer to Moses’ authority. However, I believe that their whole story was just a fiction. For the third would not have taken her when he saw the two bridegrooms dead, or if the third, yet not the fourth or the fifth; and if even these, much more the sixth or the seventh would not have come to the woman but have shrunk from her. For such is the custom of the Jews. If they now still have this resistance, how much more did they have it then? They often avoided marrying under these circumstances, even when the law was constraining them. The Gospel of Matthew, Homily
