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"Brethren of the Lord"
When Catholics call Mary the "Blessed Virgin,"
they mean she remained a virgin throughout her life. When Protestants refer
to Mary as "virgin," they mean she was a virgin only until Jesus’ birth.
They believe that she and Joseph later had children whom Scripture refers
to as "the brethren of the Lord." The disagreement arises over biblical
verses that use the terms "brethren," "brother," and "sister."
There are about ten instances in the New Testament
where "brothers" and "sisters" of the Lord are mentioned (Matt. 12:46;
Matt. 13:55; Mark 3:31–34; Mark 6:3; Luke 8:19–20; John 2:12, 7:3, 5, 10;
Acts 1:14; 1 Cor. 9:5).
When trying to understand these verses, note that
the term "brother" (Greek: adelphos) has a wide meaning in the Bible.
It is not restricted to the literal meaning of a full brother or half-brother.
The same goes for "sister" (adelphe) and the plural form "brothers"
(adelphoi). The Old Testament shows that "brother" had a wide semantic
range of meaning and could refer to any male relative from whom you are
not descended (male relatives from whom you are descended are known as
"fathers") and who are not descended from you (your male descendants, regardless
of the number of generations removed, are your "sons"), as well as kinsmen
such as cousins, those who are members of the family by marriage or by
law rather than by blood, and even friends or mere political allies (2
Sam. 1:26; Amos 1:9).
Lot, for example, is called Abraham’s "brother"
(Gen. 14:14), even though, being the son of Haran, Abraham’s brother (Gen.
11:26–28), he was actually Abraham’s nephew. Similarly, Jacob is called
the "brother" of his uncle Laban (Gen. 29:15). Kish and Eleazar were the
sons of Mahli. Kish had sons of his own, but Eleazar had no sons, only
daughters, who married their "brethren," the sons of Kish. These "brethren"
were really their cousins (1 Chr. 23:21–22).
The terms "brothers," "brother," and "sister" did
not refer only to close relatives. Sometimes they meant kinsmen (Deut.
23:7; Neh. 5:7; Jer. 34:9), as in the reference to the forty-two "brethren"
of King Azariah (2 Kgs. 10:13–14).
No Word for Cousin
Because neither Hebrew nor Aramaic (the language
spoken by Christ and his disciples) had a special word meaning "cousin,"
speakers of those languages could use either the word for "brother" or a circumlocution,
such as "the son of my uncle." But circumlocutions are clumsy,
so the Jews often used "brother."
The writers of the New Testament were brought up
using the Aramaic equivalent of "brothers" to mean both cousins and sons
of the same father—plus other relatives and even non-relatives. When they
wrote in Greek, they did the same thing the translators of the Septuagint
did. (The Septuagint was the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible; it was
translated by Hellenistic Jews a century or two before Christ’s birth and
was the version of the Bible from which most of the Old Testament quotations
found in the New Testament are taken.)
In the Septuagint the Hebrew word that includes
both brothers and cousins was translated as adelphos, which in Greek
usually has the narrow meaning that the English "brother" has. Unlike Hebrew
or Aramaic, Greek has a separate word for cousin, anepsios, but
the translators of the Septuagint used adelphos, even for true
cousins.
You might say they transliterated instead of translated,
importing the Jewish idiom into the Greek Bible. They took an exact equivalent
of the Hebrew word for "brother" and did not use adelphos in one
place (for sons of the same parents), and anepsios in another (for
cousins). This same usage was employed by the writers of the New Testament
and passed into English translations of the Bible. To determine what "brethren"
or "brother" or "sister" means in any one verse, we have to look at the
context. When we do that, we see that insuperable problems arise if we
assume that Mary had children other than Jesus.
When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told
her that she would conceive a son, she asked, "How can this be since I
have no relations with a man?" (Luke 1:34). From the Church’s earliest
days, as the Fathers interpreted this Bible passage, Mary’s question was
taken to mean that she had made a vow of lifelong virginity, even in marriage.
(This was not common, but neither was it unheard of.) If she had not taken
such a vow, the question would make no sense.
Mary knew how babies are made (otherwise she wouldn’t
have asked the question she did). If she had anticipated having children
in the normal way and did not intend to maintain a vow of virginity, she
would hardly have to ask "how" she was to have a child, since conceiving
a child in the "normal" way would be expected by a newlywed wife. Her question
makes sense only if there was an apparent (but not a real) conflict between
keeping a vow of virginity and acceding to the angel’s request. A careful
look at the New Testament shows that Mary kept her vow of virginity and
never had any children other than Jesus.
When Jesus was found in the Temple at age twelve,
the context suggests that he was the only son of Mary and Joseph. There
is no hint in this episode of any other children in the family (Luke 2:41–51).
Jesus grew up in Nazareth, and the people of Nazareth referred to him as
"the son of Mary" (Mark 6:3), not as "a son of Mary." In fact, others in the Gospels are
never referred to as Mary’s sons, not even when they are called Jesus’
"brethren." If they were in fact her sons, this would be strange usage.
Also, the attitude taken by the "brethren of the
Lord" implies they are his elders. In ancient and, particularly, in Eastern
societies (remember, Palestine is in Asia), older sons gave advice to younger,
but younger seldom gave advice to older—it was considered disrespectful
to do so. But we find Jesus’ "brethren" saying to him that Galilee was
no place for him and that he should go to Judea so he could make a name
for himself (John 7:3–4).
Another time, they sought to restrain him for his
own benefit: "And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him,
for people were saying, ‘He is beside himself’" (Mark 3:21). This kind
of behavior could make sense for ancient Jews only if the "brethren" were
older than Jesus, but that alone eliminates them as his biological brothers,
since Jesus was Mary’s "first-born" son (Luke 2:7).
Consider what happened at the foot of the cross.
When he was dying, Jesus entrusted his mother to the apostle John (John
19:26–27). The Gospels mention four of his "brethren": James, Joseph, Simon,
and Jude. It is hard to imagine why Jesus would have disregarded family
ties and made this provision for his mother if these four were also her
sons.
Fundamentalist Arguments
Fundamentalists insist that "brethren of the Lord"
must be interpreted in the strict sense. They most commonly make two arguments
based on Matthew 1:25: "[A]nd he did not know her until (Greek: heos,
also translated into English as "till") she brought forth her firstborn
son." They first argue that the natural inference from "till" is that Joseph
and Mary afterward lived together as husband and wife, in the usual sense,
and had several children. Otherwise, why would Jesus be called "first-born"?
Doesn’t that mean there must have been at least a "second-born," perhaps
a "third-born," and so on? But they are using a narrow, modern meaning
of "until," instead of the meaning it had when the Bible was written. In
the Bible, it means only that some action did not happen up to a certain
point; it does not imply that the action did happen later, which is the
modern sense of the term. In fact, if the modern sense is forced on the
Bible, some ridiculous meanings result.
Consider this line: "Michal the daughter of Saul
had no children till the day of her death" (2 Sam. 6:23). Are we to assume
she had children after her death?
There is also the burial of Moses. The book of
Deuteronomy says that no one knew the location of his grave "until this
present day" (Deut. 34:6, Knox). But we know that no one has known since
that day either.
The examples could be multiplied, but you get the
idea—nothing can be proved from the use of the word "till" in Matthew 1:25.
Recent translations give a better sense of the verse: "He had no relations
with her at any time before she bore a son" (New American Bible);
"He had not known her when she bore a son" (Knox).
Fundamentalists claim Jesus could not be Mary’s
"first-born" unless there were other children that followed him. But this
shows ignorance of the way the ancient Jews used the term. For them it
meant the child that opened the womb (Ex. 13:2; Num. 3:12). Under the Mosaic
Law, it was the "first-born" son that was to be sanctified (Ex. 34:20).
Did this mean the parents had to wait until a second son was born before
they could call their first the "first-born"? Hardly. The first male child
of a marriage was termed the "first-born" even if he turned out to be the
only child of the marriage.
The Holy Family
Fundamentalists say it would have been repugnant
for Mary and Joseph to enter a marriage and remain celibate. They call
such marriages "unnatural" arrangements. Certainly they were unusual, but
not as unusual as having the Son of God in one’s family, and not nearly
as unusual as having a virgin give birth to a child. The Holy Family was
neither an average family nor should we expect its members to act as would
members of an average family.
The circumstances demanded sacrifice by Mary and
Joseph. This was a special family, set aside for the nurturing of the Son
of God. No greater dignity could be given to marriage than that.
Backing up the testimony of Scripture regarding
Mary’s perpetual virginity is the testimony of the early Christian Church.
Consider the controversy between Jerome and Helvidius, writing around 380.
Helvidius first brought up the notion that the "brothers of the Lord" were
children born to Mary and Joseph after Jesus’ birth. The great Scripture
scholar Jerome at first declined to comment on Helvidius’ remarks because
they were a "novel, wicked, and a daring affront to the faith of the whole
world." At length, though, Jerome’s friends convinced him to write a reply,
which turned out to be his treatise called On the Perpetual Virginity
of the Blessed Mary. He used not only the scriptural arguments given
above, but cited earlier Christian writers, such as Ignatius, Polycarp,
Irenaeus, and Justin Martyr. Helvidius was unable to come up with a reply,
and his theory remained in disrepute and was unheard of until more recent
times.
So, if it is established that the "brethren of
the Lord" were not Jesus’ brothers or half-brothers through Mary, who were
they?
Prior to the time of Jerome, the standard theory
was that they were Jesus’ "brothers" who were sons of Joseph though not
of Mary. According to this view, Joseph was a widower at the time he married
Mary. He had children from his first marriage (who would be older than
Jesus, explaining their attitude toward him). This is mentioned in a number
of early Christian writings. One work, known as the Proto-evangelium
of James (A.D. 125) records that Joseph was selected from a group of
widowers to serve as the husband/protector of Mary, who was a virgin consecrated
to God. When he was chosen, Joseph objected: "I have children, and I am
an old man, and she is a young girl" (4:9).
Today, the most commonly accepted view is that
they were Jesus’ cousins. Of the four "brethren" who are named in the Gospels,
consider, for the sake of argument, only James. Similar reasoning can be
used for the other three. We know that James the younger’s mother was named
Mary. Look at the descriptions of the women standing beneath the cross:
"among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph,
and the mother of the sons of Zebedee" (Matt. 27:56); "There were also
women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the
mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome" (Mark 15:40).
Then look at what John says: "But standing by the
cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife
of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene" (John 19:25). If we compare these parallel
accounts of the scene of the crucifixion, we see that the mother of James
and Joseph must be the wife of Clopas. So far, so good.
An argument against this, though, is that James
is elsewhere (Matt. 10:3) described as the son of Alphaeus, which would
mean this Mary, whoever she was, was the wife of both Clopas and Alphaeus.
But Alphaeus and Clopas are the same person, since the Aramaic name for
Alphaeus could be rendered in Greek either as Alphaeus or as Clopas. Another
possibility is that Alphaeus took a Greek name similar to his Jewish name,
the way that Saul took the name Paul.
So it’s probable that James the younger is the
son of Mary and Clopas. The second-century historian Hegesippus explains
that Clopas was the brother of Joseph, the foster-father of Jesus. James
would thus be Joseph’s nephew and a cousin of Jesus, who was Joseph’s putative
son.
This identification of the "brethren of the Lord"
as Jesus’ first cousins is open to legitimate question—they might even
be relatives more distantly removed—but our inability to determine for
certain their exact status strictly on the basis of the biblical evidence
(or lack of it, in this case) says nothing at all about the main point,
which is that the Bible demonstrates that they were not the Blessed Virgin
Mary’s children.
NIHIL OBSTAT:
I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004
IMPRIMATUR:
In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004
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Interested in reading more?
Documents:
Burial Box of St. James Found?
Bad Aramaic Made Easy
Interested in reading more about Mary and the Saints?
Check out these wonderful titles from the Mary and the Saints section of our online Catalogue
(links open in a new window):
Mary
Refuting the Attack on Mary, Father Mateo
Mary, the Second Eve, John Henry Newman
True Devotion To Mary, St. Louis De Montfort
Hail, Holy Queen: The Mother of God In The Word of God, Scott Hahn
Mary, Our Jewish Mother - Audio, Rosalind Moss
God's Plan of Salvation: Immaculately Conceived - Audio, Scott Hahn
Mary, the Mother of God - Video, Stephen Ray
Mary and The Saints - Video, Marcellino D'Ambrosio
Rosary
A Young Person's Guide To The Rosary And Confession, Catholic Answers
Saints
Relics, Joan Carroll Cruz
The Many Faces of Virtue, Donald Demarco
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