Why Christ told Magdalene not to touch Him—and what it means for us
The Risen Christ acts with a curious reserve towards St Mary Magdalene, and in a way that contrasts with the other Holy Women and St Thomas.
The Risen Christ acts with a curious reserve towards St Mary Magdalene, and in a way that contrasts with the other Holy Women and St Thomas.
Editor’s Notes
In this Part, Fr. Coleridge tells us…
How Christ's words to Magdalene reveal the shift from earthly to glorified relations
That reverence must replace familiarity as the saints are drawn into the life of heaven
Why even Magdalene's love had to be purified of natural clinging to His flesh.
He shows us that the risen Christ gently weans His saints from sense to sacrament.
Easter Day
The Passage of Our Lord to the Father—Chapter XIV
St. Matt. xxviii. 2-15; St. Mark xvi. 2-13; St. Luke xxiv. 1-43; St. John xx. 1-29.
Story of the Gospels, § 173-177
Burns and Oates, London, 1892
Why Christ told Magdalene not to touch Him—and what it means for us
Why Christ appeared to the Holy Women before the Apostles
What the risen Christ did when he met all the Apostles together
‘Do not touch Me’
A difficulty has been found in the words used by our Lord to the blessed Magdalene, for He bids her not to touch Him, and gives as the reason that He is not as yet risen to His Father. This is contrasted with His dealings with the other holy women in another manifestation, whom He allowed to embrace His feet. But our Lord’s words were no doubt always absolutely true, and governed by an infinite wisdom which we may not be able to fathom, and it may be that the difficulty lies in our weakness in understanding the laws and conditions which belong to the spiritual state.
Our Lord was now in the state in which we all hope to be after the resurrection of our bodies and our entrance into eternal life. We do not know how far the conditions of His glorious existence may have been suspended for the sake of those to whom He was now, for a short time, manifesting Himself on earth before His Ascension. To Magdalene there was evidently no change of identity. But it hardly follows that there was no change, absolutely speaking. Still less that there was no more change to come.
The present stage, so to speak, was to last but a few weeks, and then He was to be permanently in the possession and use of His glorified existence. The present, then, was no time for the resumption of all those condescensions and loving familiarities which had belonged to the former life of our Lord as Man among those whom He loved and honoured upon earth. All these relations may have been meant to pass away and be naturally superseded by others more becoming the glorious state of eternity.
Passage from St. Paul
St. Paul has some wonderful words, in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, where he says:
‘If we have known Christ after the flesh, but now we know Him so no longer. If then any be in Christ, a new creature, the old things are passed away, behold all things are made new.’1
It may have been our Lord’s intention to break off quietly, on this the first occasion on which the opportunity came—for this was His first manifestation to one of His most beloved saints after His Resurrection—the tender and more human ways in which He had been wont to show His regard to the saints, and to allow them to express their devotion to Him, which may perhaps have been sometimes less penetrated by the solemn reverence and dignity of the heavenly converse, to which Magdalene and the others were to be raised in the state which was to succeed.
After the Ascension, we find that this kind of comparative reserve on the part of our risen Saviour agreed very well with that to which it was the introduction in these forty days, which were to be succeeded by the new life to be led by the saints who remained on earth after the Ascension, Then, without a sign of repining, they resigned the visible intercourse which they enjoyed with Him after the Resurrection for the comparatively hard existence which they must have led during the remainder of their earthly exile, when, as our Lord told them, they might be inclined to long for His bodily presence, and yet were abundantly compensated by the new delights of His Sacramental Presence, and the spiritual life with Him in the Church.
Relics of St. Mary Magdalene
It is worthy of remark that where our Lord in His words to St. Mary Magdalene, says, ‘Touch Me not,’ He uses the Greek word, which seems more properly to include the notion of feeling as well as that of touching, as if it had been the following out of a natural human desire on her part to satisfy herself to the full as to the reality of His flesh. This seems to suggest a further reason for the prohibition conveyed in the words. The devout and learned commentator, Father Cornelius à Lapide, tells us that an old author of the fifteenth century mentions that the skull of St. Mary Magdalene was, and we believe is still, shown where her relics are kept, and that the bone is bare, except on the place on which our Lord is believed to have left the marks of His fingers, touching her forehead, as the old tradition tells us.
A tradition of this kind is not likely to have been mentioned in the Gospel of St. John, but the omission is no proof of its fictitious character. Traditions of this kind, however well founded, are just the kind of records which St. John would keep in the background, as involving a number of statements which the world, to whom the sacred writings were to be committed, would invariably have received with scorn and derision. They remind us of the parting admonition of the Apostle, that if all the things which our Lord did had been written, the world itself would not have ‘contained’ the things which would have been written.
The gracious dealings of our Lord with the others of these holy women are next to be mentioned, the party of whom Mary Magdalene formed a member either in going to the sepulchre originally, or later, on the Sunday morning, is mentioned by St. Luke, as failing like her to find the Body of which they were in search.
Note to Chapter XIV
It may illustrate the remarks made above on the saying of our Lord to St. Mary Magdalene—the famous Noli me tangere if we refer to two passages in the Epistles De Virginitate, appearing to be from the authorship of St. Clement of Rome, which were translated from the Syriac by the late very learned Belgian author Beelen, and published in Latin at Louvain in 1856. The author, at the beginning, tells those to whom he writes that he thinks well to tell them the ways of living observed by himself and those of the same calling in the parts from which he writes, that the others may imitate, if they think well.
‘They do not dwell with virgins, and have nothing in common with them, neither eating nor drinking with them, and not sleeping in the place where they sleep. Women do not wash their feet, nor anoint them, and they do not sleep in a place where an unmarried girl, or one consecrated to God, sleeps.’
Later on he gives more positive instructions.
‘But if it seems to be required that we pray with them, and give them something that may help them in the way of exhortation and edification, we call together the brethren, the holy Sisters and virgins who are there, and we invite them with all modesty and decency to share in the delightful banquet of the truth. Then those of us who are able to speak, give a sermon or exhortation in the words which God gives us.
‘After this we pray and give to one another the kiss of salutation, the men to the men. The women and virgins are bound to fold their hands in their raiment, and we also with modesty and reserve, and raising our eyes to heaven, and with all decency wrapping up our right hands in our raiment, then the women are allowed to approach us and give the kiss of peace to our right hand so folded up.’
The expression here used for the sacred virgins is said to be an equivalent of the words ‘daughter of the covenant,’ that is, a person vowed to God.
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Easter Day
Why Christ told Magdalene not to touch Him—and what it means for us
Why Christ appeared to the Holy Women before the Apostles
What the risen Christ did when he met all the Apostles together
Easter’s lasting gift: Confession and the power of absolution
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2 Cor. v. 16, 17.