John, speaking of Mary Magdalene alone, says that having seen that the stone was taken away from the sepulchre, she went in haste (ran) to tell Peter and John. He says nothing of her having seen the angels, nor of her having entered the sepulchre at all. The other Evangelists, speaking of the women generally, relate that they entered the tomb, saw the angels and then returned into the city. On their way Jesus meets them. They recognize him; fall at and embrace his feet; and receive his charge to the disciples.—Was Mary Magdalene now with the other women? Or did she enter the city by another way? Or had she left the sepulchre before the rest?
It is evident that Mary Magdalene was not with the other women when Jesus thus met them. Her language to Peter and John forbids the supposition, that she had already seen the Lord: “They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.” She therefore must have entered the city by another path and gate; or else have left the sepulchre before the rest; or possibly both these positions may be true. She bore her tidings expressly to Peter and John, who would seem to have lodged by themselves in a different quarter of the city; while the other women went apparently to the rest of the disciples. But this supposition of a different route is essential, only in connection with the view, that she left the tomb with the other women. That, however, she actually departed from the sepulchre before her companions, would seem most probable; inasmuch as she speaks to Peter and John only of the absence of the Lord's body; says nothing in this connection of a vision of angels; and when, after returning again to the tomb, she sees the angels, it is evidently for the first time; and she repeats to them as the cause of her grief her complaint as to the disappearance of the body; John 20: 12, 13. She may have turned back from the tomb without entering it at all, so soon as she saw that it was open; inferring from the removal of the stone, that the sepulchre had been rifled. Or, she may first have entered with the rest, when, according to Luke, “they found not the body of the Lord Jesus,” and “were much perplexed thereabout,” before the angels became visible to them. The latter supposition seems best to meet the exigencies of the case.
“As the other women went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came, and held him by the feet, and worshipped him. Then Jesus said unto them, Be not afraid; go, tell my brethren, that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me.” The women had left the sepulchre “with fear and great joy” after the [pg 501] declaration of the angels that Christ was risen; or, as Mark has it, “they trembled and were amazed.” Jesus meets them with words of gentleness to quiet their terrors; “Be not afraid.” He permits them to approach, and embrace his feet, and testify their joy and homage. He reiterates to them the message of the angels to his “brethren,” the eleven disciples; see v. 16.
This appearance and interview is narrated only by Matthew; none of the other Evangelists give any hint of it. Matthew here stops short. Mark simply relates that the women fled from the tomb; “neither said they anything to any one, for they were afraid.” This of course can only mean, that they spoke of what they had thus seen to no one while on their way to the city; for the very charge of the angels, which they went to fulfil, was, that they should “go their way and tell his disciples;” v. 7. Luke narrates more fully, that “they returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, and to all the rest.—And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.” We may perhaps see in this language one reason why the other Evangelists have omitted to mention this appearance of our Lord. The disciples disbelieved the report of the women, that they had seen Jesus. In like manner they afterwards disbelieved the report of Mary Magdalene to the same effect; Mark 16: 11. They were ready, it would seem, to admit the testimony of the women to the absence of the body, and to the vision of angels; but not to the resurrection of Jesus and his appearance to them; Luke 24: 21-24. And afterwards, when the eleven had become convinced by the testimony of their own senses, those first two appearances to the women became of less importance and were less regarded. Hence the silence of three Evangelists as to the one; of two as to the other; and of Paul as to both; 1 Cor. 15: 5, 6.
§ 4. Peter and John visit the Sepulchre. Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene.
John 20: 3-18. Luke 24: 12. Mark 16: 9-11.
The full account of these two events is given solely by John. Matthew has not a word of either; Luke merely mentions, in general, that Peter, on the report of the women, went to the sepulchre; while Mark speaks only of our Lord's appearance to Mary Magdalene, which he seems to represent as his first appearance.
According to John's account, Peter and the beloved disciple, excited by the tidings of Mary Magdalene that the Lord's body had been taken away, hasten to the sepulchre. They run; John outruns Peter, comes first to the tomb, and stooping down, sees the grave-clothes lying, but he does not enter. The other women are no longer at the tomb; nor have the disciples met them on the way. Peter now comes up; he enters the the tomb, and sees the grave-clothes lying, and the napkin that was about his head not lying with the rest, but wrapped together in a place by itself. John too now enters the sepulchre; “and he saw and believed.”
What was it that John thus believed? The mere report of Mary Magdalene, that the body had been removed? So much he must have believed when he stooped down and looked into the sepulchre. For this, there was no need that he should enter the tomb. His belief must have been of something more and greater. The grave-clothes lying orderly in their place, and the napkin folded together by itself, made it evident that the sepulchre had not been rifled nor the body stolen by violent hands; for these garments and spices would have been of more value to thieves, than merely a naked corpse; at least, they would not have taken the trouble thus to fold them together. The same circumstances showed also that the body had not been removed by friends; for they would not thus have left the grave-clothes behind. All these considerations produce in the mind of John the germ of a belief that Jesus was risen from the dead. He believed because he saw; “for as yet they knew not the Scripture;” (v. 9). He now began more fully to recall and understand our Lord's repeated declaration, that he was to rise again on the third day;[314] a declaration on which the Jews had already acted in setting a watch.[315] In this way, the difficulty which is sometimes urged of an apparent want of connection between verses 8 and 9, disappears.
The two disciples went their way, “wondering in themselves at what was come to pass.” Mary Magdalene who had followed them back to the sepulchre, remained before it weeping. While she thus wept, she too, like John, stooped down and looked in, “and seeth two [pg 502] angels, in white, sitting, the one at the head and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.” To their inquiry why she wept, her reply was the same report which she had before borne to the two disciples: “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him,” v. 13. Of the angels we learn nothing further. The whole character of this representation seems to show clearly, that Mary had not before seen the angels; and also that she had not before been told, that Jesus was risen. We must otherwise regard her as having been in a most unaccountably obtuse and unbelieving frame of mind; the very contrary of which seems to have been the fact. If also she had before informed the two disciples of a vision of angels and of Christ's resurrection, it is difficult to see, why John should omit to mention this circumstance, so important and so personal to himself.