And of some, that Elijah had appeared; and of others, that one of the old prophets was risen again.
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Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
One of the old prophets was risen again. As Enoch and Elias will rise again before the end of all things, to resist Antichrist. In like manner as Peter, Bishop and Martyr, the son of Urijah the prophet ( Jeremiah 26:20), was recalled to life by S. James the Apostle, and ordained first Bishop of Braga, six hundred years after his decease. S. Athanasius and others, cited by Bivarius.
Risen from the dead. Herod was perplexed and in suspense about the report, that it was John that was risen from the dead. From this it appears, that some of the Jews, and Herod himself, believed in some kind of metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls. Josephus says, (Antiquities lib. xviii, chap. 2.) that the Pharisees believed the soul to be immortal; and after death, to depart to some subterraneous places, where they received the recompense of good, or evil, according to their actions. There the souls of the wicked remain for ever, without the power of departing thence. The souls of the good sometimes returned, and entered other bodies. Herod probably thought that the soul of John the Baptist was united to that of Christ, in the same body, and was thence enabled to perform new and more extraordinary functions. Such were the reveries of some of the Rabbins; who, as St. Jerome remarks, abused the passages of the gospel we are now explaining, in support of this Pythagorean doctrine. ...
