John 19:41 Commentary

 John 19:41 reads as follows:

At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid.--John 19:41

Ἦν δὲ ἐν τῷ τόπῳ ὅπου ἐσταυρώθη κῆπος, καὶ ἐν τῷ κήπῳ μνημεῖον καινόν, ἐν ᾧ οὐδέπω οὐδεὶς ἐτέθη. --John 19:41 (Byzantine Text)

ἦν δὲ ἐν τῷ τόπῳ ὅπου ἐσταυρώθη κῆπος, καὶ ἐν τῷ κήπῳ μνημεῖον καινόν, ἐν ᾧ οὐδέπω οὐδεὶς ἦν τεθειμένος· --John 19:41 (Alexandria/Westcott and Hort)

St. John here emphasizes that Christ was placed in a tomb in a garden. This is clearly another call back to the Garden of Eden, the paradise of God, it also ties in with Christ praying in a garden the night before, His parable, His words to the good thief.

First, Genesis 2:

And the LORD God planted a garden eastward [or beforehand], in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed.--Genesis 2:8

וַיִּטַּע יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים, גַּן-בְּעֵדֶן--מִקֶּדֶם; וַיָּשֶׂם שָׁם, אֶת-הָאָדָם אֲשֶׁר יָצָר.--Genesis 2:8 (Masoretic text)

 And the Lord God planted an orchard in Edem toward the east and there he put the man whom he had formed.--Genesis 2:8 New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS)

καὶ ἐφύτευσεν κύριος ὁ θεὸς παράδεισον ἐν Εδεμ κατὰ ἀνατολὰς καὶ ἔθετο ἐκεῖ τὸν ἄνθρωπον ὃν ἔπλασεν --Genesis 2:8 LXX

καὶ ἐφύτευσε κύριος ὁ θεὸς κῆπον ἐν Ἐδὲμ ἀπὸ ἀρχῆθεν--Genesis 2:8 Greek of Aquila quoted by Origen

 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden from old.--Genesis 2:8 translation of Greek of Aquila quoted by Origen

John 19 simply uses the word garden while LXX Genesis uses paradise/orchard, perhaps John knew it would be going too far to use the word paradise, he certainly used in the Revelation:

He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise [παραδείσῳ] of God.--Revelation 2:7

ὁ ἔχων οὖς ἀκουσάτω τί τὸ πνεῦμα λέγει ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις. τῷ νικῶντι δώσω αὐτῷ φαγεῖν ἐκ τοῦ ξύλου τῆς ζωῆς, ὅ ἐστιν ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ τοῦ θεοῦ.--Revelation 2:7 [most texts except Byzantine majority]

I am unsure which word St John read in Genesis 2:8 for garden, either way both παράδεισον and κῆπον  were seen as valid.

St Cyril of Alexandria comments on John 19:41 where Christ is placed in tomb in a garden never used by a man:

The writer of the Gospel says that this sepulchre in the garden was a new one; this fact signifying to us, as it were, by a type and figure, that Christ's death is the harbinger and pioneer of our entry into Paradise. For He entered as a Forerunner for us. What other signification than this can be intended by the carrying over of the Body of Jesus in the garden? And by the newness of the sepulchre is meant the untrodden and strange pathway whereby we return from death unto life, and the renewing of our souls, that Christ has invented for us, whereby we baffle corruption. For henceforth, by the death of Christ, death for us has been transformed, in a manner, into sleep, with like power and functions. For we are alive unto God, and shall live for evermore, |648 to the Scriptures. Therefore, also, the blessed Paul, in a variety of places, calls those asleep who have died in Christ. For in the times of old the dread presence of death held human nature in awe. For death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression; and we bore the image of the earthy in his likeness, and underwent the death that was inflicted by the Divine curse. But when the Second Adam appeared among us, the Divine Man from heaven, and, contending for the salvation of the world, purchased by His death the life of all men, and, destroying the power of corruption, rose again to life, we were transformed into His Image, and undergo, as it were, a different kind of death, that does not dissolve us in eternal corruption, but casts upon us a slumber which is laden with fair hope, after the Likeness of Him Who has made this new path for us, that is, Christ.

And if any one choose to give an additional meaning to the saying that the sepulchre was a new one, and that no man had been lain therein, be it so. He says, then, we may suppose, that the sepulchre was new, and that no one had been ever laid therein, that no one might be thought to have arisen from the sleep of death save Jesus only--CYRIL, Archbishop of Alexandria, ON THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN: Book XII

Notice the word for placed is used in both Genesis and John 19.

The same Sy Cyril says:

And since we have touched on things connected with Paradise, I am truly astonished at the truth of the types. In Paradise was the Fall, and in a Garden was our Salvation. From the Tree came sin, and until the Tree sin lasted. In the evening, when the Lord walked in the Garden, they hid themselves (Genesis 3:8); and in the evening the robber is brought by the Lord into Paradise--St Cyril of Alexandria, Catechetical Lecture 13

He contrasts paradise and the garden, then the two trees and finally mentions in the evening man hid from God in paradise while at the cross in the evening God brings man into paradise.

 And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.--Luke 23:43

Interestly Afraates the Persian sage writing in Syriac records it as:

And to one of those who were crucified with Him, who believed on him He swore:— You shall be with Me today in the garden Eden.--St Aphraates, Demonstration 22 (Of Death and the Latter Times)

In the same Lecture St Cyril draws on Songs of Solomon 5:1 as relating to the Cross:

I came to my garden, my sister, my bride, I gathered my myrrh with my spice, I ate my honeycomb with my honey, I drank my wine with my milk. Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love!--Songs of Solomon 5:1

I have come who feed My sheep among the lilies Song of Songs 6:3, I have come to feed them in the gardens. I have found a sheep that was lost Luke 15:5-6, but I lay it on My shoulders; for he believes, since he himself has said, I have gone astray like a lost sheep ; Lord, remember me when You come in Your kingdom.

Of this garden I sang of old to My spouse in the Canticles, and spoke to her thus. I have come into My garden, My sister, My spouse Song of Songs 5:1; (now in the place where He was crucified was a garden John 19:41;) and what takest Thou thence? I have gathered My myrrh; having drunk wine mingled with myrrh, and vinegar, after receiving which, He said, It is finished---St Cyril of Alexandria, Catechetical Lecture 13

St Jerome sees the unused tomb as being in line with Christ being the son of a perpetual virgin mother:

Christ Himself is a virgin; and His mother is also a virgin; yea, though she is His mother, she is a virgin still. For Jesus has entered in through the closed doors, John 20:19 and in His sepulchre — a new one hewn out of the hardest rock — no man is laid either before Him or after Him. John 19:41 Mary is a garden enclosed...a fountain sealed, Song of Songs 4:12 and from that fountain flows, according to Joel, the river which waters the torrent bed either of cords or of thorns; of cords being those of the sins by which we were beforetime bound, Proverbs 5:22 the thorns those which choked the seed the goodman of the house had sown. Matthew 13:7 She is the east gate, spoken of by the prophet Ezekiel, always shut and always shining, and either concealing or revealing the Holy of Holies; and through her the Sun of Righteousness, Malachi 4:2 our high priest after the order of Melchizedek, Hebrews 5:10 goes in and out. Let my critics explain to me how Jesus can have entered in through closed doors when He allowed His hands and His side to be handled, and showed that He had bones and flesh, thus proving that His was a true body and no mere phantom of one, and I will explain how the holy Mary can be at once a mother and a virgin.--St Jerome, Letter 48, To Pammachius

Likely St Jerome derived this from St John Chrysostom before him:

As in the womb of the Virgin Mary no one was conceived before Him, and no one after Him, so in this sepulchre there was no one buried before Him, and no one after Him.--St John Chrysostom, Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 120  https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1701120.htm

St Ephraim the Syrian comments:

His tomb and his garden are a symbol of Eden, in which Adam died a hidden death. For [Adam] fled and hid among the trees, and entered and was concealed as within a tomb. The living buried one, who was resurrected in a garden, raised up him who fell in a garden. From the garden’s tomb to the garden’s wedding feast, he made him enter in glory.--St Ephrem the Syrian, Hymn on the Crucifixion: 13

to be continued