Then the disciples went away again unto their own home
All Commentaries on John 20:10 Go To John 20
Cyril of Alexandria
AD 444
The wise disciples, after having gathered sufficiently satisfactory evidence of the Resurrection of our Saviour, being in travail, as it were, with their confirmed and unshaken faith, and by comparison of events as they had actually occurred with the prophetic utterances of Holy Scripture, went back home, and hastened, as is likely, to see their fellow-workers, to recount to them the miracle, and afterwards to consider the course to be pursued. And we shall not err if we think that they had another object in so acting. For while the passion of the Jews was at its height, and the rulers were thirsting eagerly for the blood of every man who marvelled at the teaching of the Saviour, and admitted His Divine and ineffable power and glory, but most of all for the blood of the holy disciples themselves, they had good reason for shrinking from encountering them, and left the sepulchre before it was quite light, as they could not have done so without risk, if seen in the daytime, the sun's rays revealing them to all beholders. We are far from saying that unmanly cowardice was the motive of their cautious flight. Rather should we suppose that the knowledge of what was expedient for them was instilled in the minds of the Saints by Christ, Who did not permit these who were destined to be lights and teachers of the world to run untimely risks. For it was necessary that the truth of His saying should be seen, which He spake concerning them to the Father in heaven. Holy Father, keep them, He says, in Thy Name which Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, even as We are One. While I was with them, I kept them in Thy Name which Thou hast given Me: and I guarded them, and not one of them perished, but the son of perdition. The disciples therefore retired, thinking they ought to await the time when they should speak openly. And this they did in obedience to the Saviour's words. For He charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, as it is written, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which they had heard of Him: for John indeed baptised with water, but they shall be baptised with the Holy Ghost not many days hence; an event which we find actually came to pass in the days of the Holy Pentecost, when there appeared unto them tongues parting asunder, like as of fire; and it sat upon each one of them. For then were they invested with a spirit of the greatest courage and endurance, and, high exalted above the frailty of their fellow men, boldly encountered the madness of the Jews, and thought their plotting against them worthy of no account. The wise disciples, then, concealed themselves from the motive of expediency, as I said just now, while Mary, in her love of Christ free from all fear and not much suspecting the wrath of the Jews, sat on the watch persistently, and, affected after the manner of women, wept abundantly, and continually wiped away the tears that kept falling from her eyes, mourning not only because the Lord was dead, but also because she thought He had been taken away from the sepulchre.
