Note 158 — Chapter III · RETIREMENT TO THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, ARREST, TRIAL, CONDEMNATION AND CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS.

The two first Evangelists do not tell us that any one of the twelve was present at the crucifixion of Jesus: they mention merely several Galilean women, three of whom they particularize: namely, Mary Magdalene; Mary the mother of James the Less and of Joses; and, as the third, according to Matthew, the mother of the sons of Zebedee, according to Mark, Salome, both which designations are commonly understood to relate to the same person (Matt. v. 55 f.; Mark v. 40 f.): according to these Evangelists the twelve appear not yet to have reassembled after their flight on the arrest of Jesus.158 In Luke, on the contrary, among all his acquaintance, πάντες οἱ γνωστοὶ αὐτοῦ, whom he represents as beholding the crucifixion (v. 49) the twelve would seem to be included: but the fourth gospel expressly singles out from among the disciples the one whom Jesus loved, i.e. John, as present, and among the women, together with Mary Magdalene and the wife of Cleopas, names instead of the mother of James and John, the mother of Jesus himself. Moreover, while according to all the other accounts the acquaintances of Jesus stood afar off, μακρόθεν, according to the fourth gospel John and the mother of Jesus must have been in the closest proximity to the cross, since it represents Jesus as addressing them from the cross, and appointing John to be his substitute in the filial relation to his mother (v. 25 ff.). Olshausen believes that he can remove the contradiction which exists between the synoptical statement and the presupposition of the fourth gospel as to the position of the friends of Jesus, by the conjecture that at first they did indeed stand at a distance, but that subsequently some approached near to the cross: it is to be observed, however, in opposition to this, that the synoptists mention that position of the adherents of Jesus just at the close of the scene of crucifixion and death, immediately before the taking down from the cross, and thus presuppose that they had retained this position until the end of the scene; a state of the case which cannot but be held entirely consistent with the alarm which filled the minds of the disciples during those days, and still more with feminine timidity. If the heroism of a nearer approach might perhaps be expected from maternal tenderness: still, the total silence of the synoptists, as the interpreters of the common evangelical tradition, renders the historical reality of that particular doubtful. The synoptists cannot have known anything of the presence of the mother of Jesus at the cross, otherwise they would have mentioned her as the chief person, before all the other women; nor does anything appear to have been known of a more intimate relation between her and John: at least in the Acts (i. 12 f.) the mother of Jesus is supposed to be with the twelve in general, his brothers, and the women of the society. It is at least not so easy to understand how the memory of that affecting presence and remarkable relation could be lost, as to conceive how the idea of them might originate in the circle from which the fourth gospel proceeded. If this circle be imagined as one in which the Apostle John enjoyed peculiar veneration, on which account our gospel drew him out of the trio of the more confidential associates of Jesus, and isolated him as the beloved disciple: it will appear that nothing could be more strikingly adapted to confirm this relation than the statement that Jesus bequeathed, as it were, the dearest legacy, his mother (in reference to whom, as well as to the alleged beloved disciple, it must have been a natural question, whether she had left the side of Jesus in this last trial), to John, and thus placed this disciple in his stead,—made him vicarius Christi.