§ 1.
Nothing can be more exquisitely precise than St. John's way of describing an incident to which St. Mark (xvi. 9) only refers; viz. our Lord's appearance to Mary Magdalene,—the first of His appearances after His Resurrection. The reason is discoverable for every word the Evangelist uses:—its form and collocation. Both St. Luke (xxiv. 3) and previously St. Mark (xvi. 5) expressly stated that the women who visited the Sepulchre on the first Easter morning, 'after they had entered in' (εισελθουσαι), saw the Angels. St John explains that at that time Mary was not with them. She had separated herself from their company;—had gone in quest of Simon Peter and 'the other disciple.' When the women, their visit ended, had in turn departed from the Sepulchre, she was left in the garden alone. 'Mary was standing [with her face] towards the sepulchre weeping,—outside[173].'
All this, singular to relate, was completely misunderstood by the critics of the two first centuries. Not only did they identify the incident recorded in St. John xx. 11, 12 with St. Mark xv. 5 and St. Luke xxiv. 3, 4, from which, as we have seen, the first-named Evangelist is careful to distinguish it;—not only did they further identify both places with St. Matt, xxviii. 2, 3[174], from which they are clearly separate;—but they considered themselves at liberty to tamper with the inspired text in order to bring it into harmony with their own convictions. Some of them accordingly altered προς το μνημειον into προς τω μνημειω (which is just as ambiguous in Greek as 'at the sepulchre' in English[175]), and εξω they boldly erased. It is thus that Codex A exhibits the text. But in fact this depravation must have begun at a very remote period and prevailed to an extraordinary extent: for it disfigures the best copies of the Old Latin, (the Syriac being doubtful): a memorable circumstance truly, and in a high degree suggestive. Codex B, to be sure, reads 'ειστηκει προς τω μνημειω, εξω κλαιουσα,—merely transposing (with many other authorities) the last two words. But then Codex B substitutes ελθουσαι for εισελθουσαι in St. Mark xvi. 5, in order that the second Evangelist may not seem to contradict St. Matt, xxviii. 2, 3. So that, according to this view of the matter, the Angelic appearance was outside the sepulchre[176]. Codex [Symbol: Aleph], on the contrary, is thorough. Not content with omitting εξω,—(as in the next verse it leaves out δυο, in order to prevent St. John xx. 12 from seeming to contradict St. Matt. xxviii. 2, 3, and St. Mark xvi. 5),—it stands alone in reading ΕΝ τω μνημειω. (C and D are lost here.) When will men learn that these 'old uncials' are ignes fatui,—not beacon lights; and admit that the texts which they exhibit are not only inconsistent but corrupt?
There is no reason for distrusting the received reading of the present place in any particular. True, that most of the uncials and many of the cursives read προς τω μνημειω: but so did neither Chrysostom[177] nor Cyril[178] read the place. And if the Evangelist himself had so written, is it credible that a majority of the copies would have forsaken the easier and more obvious, in order to exhibit the less usual and even slightly difficult expression? Many, by writing προς τω μνημειω, betray themselves; for they retain a sure token that the accusative ought to end the sentence. I am not concerned however just now to discuss these matters of detail. I am only bent on illustrating how fatal to the purity of the Text of the Gospels has been the desire of critics, who did not understand those divine compositions, to bring them into enforced agreement with one another. The sectional system of Eusebius, I suspect, is not so much the cause as the consequence of the ancient and inveterate misapprehensions which prevailed in respect of the history of the Resurrection. It is time however to proceed.