JOHN 20:13 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
“And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.”
They said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping?' Jesus also said, 'Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?' — the angels' question (repeated by Jesus) inverts Mary's focus from loss to seeking. The term 'woman' (gyne) recalls the Cana wedding and the cross (John 2:4; 19:26), marking a pattern of Jesus' Johannine addresses. The doubled question emphasizes that grief must transform into active quest for encounter.
Church Fathers on John 20:13
Mary Magdalene, who had been the sinner in the city, and who had washed out the spots of her sins by her tears, whose soul burned with love, did not retire from the sepulcher when the others did: Then the disciples went away again to their own home.
i.e. To the place where they were lodging, and from which they had ran to the sepulcher. But though the men returned, the stronger love of the woman fixed her to the spot. But Mary stood without at the sepulcher weeping.
Be not astonished that Mary wept for love at the sepulcher, and Peter did not; for the female sex is naturally tender, and inclined to weep.
Read all 38 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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