Thus, in our own day, we see many who voluntarily shut their eyes, and spread the clouds of their doubt, in order to darken the clear light of the Gospel. We see also many light spirits, who fly about in idle speculations, and never find, throughout their whole life, a permanent abode.
John Calvin, John 20, and Jewish Emissaries
Calvin writes:
It may be thought strange, however, that he does not produce more competent witnesses; for he begins with a woman; but thus the saying is fulfilled, that God chooseth what is weak, and foolish, and contemptible in the world, that he may bring to nought the wisdom, and excellence, and glory, of the flesh.
That women were treated as irrelevant and unreliable in the first century context is a historical fact, and indeed, John has this idea in mind when detailing that women were the first at the empty tomb. As I have noted before, women become the new emissaries of the new world. In this sense, they become the new angelic beings. John is saying that the weak has become the strong. Again, all very conspiratorial. The women are undercover in the old creation, and when the stone is removed, they become open agents of the resurrected Lord.
The Most Important Article of our Faith
As the resurrection of Christ is the most important article of our faith, and without it the hope of eternal life is extinguished, for this reason the Evangelists are the more careful to prove it, as John here collects many proofs, in order to assure us that Christ is risen from the dead.
–John Calvin, Commentary on John 20