John 20:1-18

ADDITIONAL NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

Vv. 1-18.

1. The other women who are represented in the Synoptics as going with Mary Magdalene to the sepulchre are not mentioned here, and the appearance to all the women which is spoken of by Matthew, Matthew 28:9-10, is omitted by John. The former difference between John and the others may be explained, with Weiss, on the ground that John introduces the story only with reference to the message which Mary alone carried to Peter and himself; or it may be explained by supposing, with Luthardt and others, that she hastened in going to the grave more rapidly than the others who had started with her, and thus arrived alone before them. The latter difference may, not improbably, be due to a mingling together in the narrative of Matthew of what happened to the other women (the appearance of the angel, etc.) with what happened to Mary alone (the appearance of Jesus); or there may have been an appearance to the other women on their return from the sepulchre, and after Mary had left them, which was altogether different from the appearance to Mary herself. The sameness of the words represented by Matthew as addressed by Jesus to the women (John 20:10), with those addressed to them by the angel (John 20:7), may point towards the former supposition as the correct one. In any case, there is no insuperable difficulty in reconciling the different Gospels here. The word οἴδαμεν (John 20:2), as Weiss holds, in opposition to Meyer, may fairly be taken as indicating that Mary had others with her at the tomb or as she went towards it.

2. The story of Peter and John, as also that of Mary, bears the evidence of its truthfulness, both in the striking character of its details, which would scarcely have been thought of by a later writer, and its accordance in some of these details with the peculiarities of the persons in question, as presented before us elsewhere. 3. The belief which “the disciple whom Jesus loved” is said to have had in consequence of what he saw in the tomb, is not to be understood as simply a belief in the fact that Jesus had risen from the dead, but in accordance with the use of the verb throughout this Gospel a belief in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. He attained a belief, at this time and in view of what he saw, which was beyond what he had had before, a belief which included an understanding that He must rise from the dead, and thus that He was, by a new manifestation, proved to be the Divine Logos.

4. The failure of Mary to recognize Jesus at first is to be explained in part, perhaps, by some peculiarity in dress, etc.; but, in part, by the fact that she did not think of His appearance before her alive, and in a bodily form, as a possibility. It is noticeable that Jesus was, in several instances, not immediately recognized by those to whom He appeared.

5. The best explanation of the difficult expression μή μου ἅπτου, with what follows it in John 20:17, is, in the view of the writer of this note, that which takes ἅπτου in the sense of cling to. Jesus bids her not to cling to Him as if He were now to be in a new communion with her and His other disciples, such as He had promised before His death, but to go and tell His disciples that this was to come afterwards, through and after His ascension. This is substantially the view of Godet, and it meets the demands of the words which follow as they are connected with this expression.

6. The story of Mary Magdalene, as here given, bears, in its first part (John 20:1-2), wholly towards the faith of the two disciples; in its second part, it is evidently designed to present a proof of the resurrection of Jesus as tending to show that He is the Son of God. Testimony and experience come together, once more, in this place, and the author moves steadily towards the end which he has in view (John 20:30-31). The incidents are selected and related, not for their own sake, but with a view to the great purpose of the book. But there is a new stage in the development here, which is evidently beyond what is found in the earlier Chapter s. The chronological progress, the progress in the testimony and proof, and the progress in faith, are seen to be united throughout the book in a very remarkable way. This union, in itself, bears witness that the whole narrative came from the author's own life and experience.