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introduce fresh difficulties by giving way to the license of conjecture.

To confine ourselves then to the three accounts which have the Relation of the three

greatest claim to a hearing. It will be seen that the hypothesis accounts. which I have called the Epiphanian holds a middle place between the remaining two. With the Helvidian it assigns an intelligible sense to the term 'brethren': with the Hieronymian it preserves the perpetual virginity of the Lord's mother. Whether or not, while uniting in itself the features which have recommended each of these to acceptance, it unites also their difficulties, will be considered in the sequel.

From a critical point of view however, apart from their bearing on Christian doctrine and feeling, the Helvidian and Epiphanian theories hang very closely together, while the Hieronymian stands apart. As well on account of this isolation, as also from the fact which I have hitherto assumed but which I shall endeavour to prove hereafter, that it was the latest born of the three, it will be convenient to consider the last-mentioned theory first.

St Jerome then states his view in the treatise against Helvidius Jerome's somewhat as follows:

The list of the Twelve Apostles contains two of the name of James, the son of Zebedee and the son of Alphæus. But elsewhere we read of a James the Lord's brother. What account are we to give of this last James? Either he was an Apostle or he was not. If an Apostle, he must be identified with the son of Alphæus, for the son of Zebedee was no longer living: if not an Apostle, then there were three persons bearing this name. But in this case how can a certain James be called 'the less,' a term which implies only one besides? And how moreover can we account for St Paul's language 'Other of the Apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother' (Gal. i. 19) Clearly therefore James the son of Alphæus and James the Lord's brother are the same person.

statement.

The son of Alphæus is the Lord's brother;

Among the the Vir

Now it is

gin's sister being his

And the Gospel narrative explains this identity. Lord's brethren occur the names of James and Joseph. stated elsewhere that Mary the mother of James the less and of mother.

Meaning of the term Brethren.

Jerome's theory

supplemented.

Alphæus the same with Clo

pas.

But again in St Mary of Cleophas This carries us a

Joseph (or Joses) was present at the crucifixion (Matt. xxvii. 56,
Mark xv. 40). This Mary therefore must have been the wife of
Alphæus, for Alphæus was the father of James.
John's narrative (xix. 25) the Virgin's sister
(Clopas)' is represented as standing by the cross.
step in advance. The last-mentioned Mary is to be identified with
the wife of Alphæus and mother of James. Thus James the Lord's
brother was in reality the Lord's cousin.

But, if His cousin, how is he called His brother? The following is the explanation. The term 'brethren' is used in four different senses in Holy Scripture: it denotes either (1) actual brotherhood or (2) common nationality, or (3) kinsmanship, or (4) friendship and sympathy. These different senses St Jerome expresses by the four words 'natura, gente, cognatione, affectu.' In the case of the Lord's brethren the third of these senses is to be adopted: brotherhood here denotes mere relationship, just as Abraham calls his nephew Lot brother (Gen. xiii. 8), and as Laban uses the same term of Jacob his sister's son (Gen. xxix. 15).

So far St Jerome, who started the theory. But, as worked out by other writers and as generally stated, it involves two particulars besides.

(i) The identity of Alphæus and Clopas. These two words, it is said, are different renderings of the same Aramaic name n oral (Chalphai), the form Clopas being peculiar to St John, the more completely grecized Alphæus taking its place in the other Evangelists. The Aramaic guttural Cheth, when the name was reproduced in Greek, might either be omitted as in Alphæus, or replaced by a κ (or x) as in Clopas. Just in the same way Aloysius and Ludovicus are recognised Latin representatives of the Frankish name Clovis (Clodovicus, Hludovicus, Hlouis)'.

This identification however, though it materially strengthens his theory, was unknown to Jerome himself. In the course of his argument he confesses plainly that he does not know why Mary is called Clopa, (or Cleophæ, as he writes it): it may be, he suggests,

1 This illustration is taken from Mill, p. 236.

after her father or from her family surname ('gentilitate familiae ') or for some other reason'. In his treatise on Hebrew names too he gives an account of the word Alphæus which is scarcely consistent with this identity. Neither have I found any traces of it in any of his other works, though he refers several times to the subject. In Augustine again, who adopts Jerome's hypothesis and his manner of stating it, it does not anywhere appear, so far as I know. It occurs first, I believe, in Chrysostom who incidentally speaks of James the Lord's brother as 'son of Clopas,' and after him in Theodoret who is more explicit (both on Gal. i. 19). To a Syrian Greek, who, even if he were unable to read the Peshito version, must at all events have known that Chalphai was the Aramaan rendering or rather the Aramæan original of 'Alpaîos, it might not unnaturally occur to graft this identification on the original theory of Jerome.

Lord's bro

of the

Twelve,

(ii) The identity of Judas the Apostle and Judas the Lord's Jude the brother. In St Luke's catalogues of the Twelve (Luke vi. 16, Acts ther one i 13) the name 'Judas of James' ('Iovdas 'lakúßov) occurs. Now we find a Judas also among the four brethren of the Lord (Matt. xiii. 55, Mark vi. 3); and the writer of the epistle, who was doubtless the Judas last mentioned, styles himself 'the brother of James' (Jude 1). This coincidence suggests that the ellipsis in 'Judas of James' should be supplied by brother as in the English version, not by son which would be the more obvious word. Thus Judas the Lord's brother, like James, is made one of the Twelve. I do not know when the Hieronymian theory received this fresh accession, but, though the gain is considerable in apparent strength at least, it does not appear, so far as I have noticed, to have occurred to Jerome himself.

And some have gone a step farther. We find not only a James and perhaps Siand a Judas among the Lord's brethren, but also a Symeon or mon also.

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Jerome himself

(i) claims no traditional sanction for his theory,

Simon. Now it is remarkable that these three names occur together in St Luke's list of the Twelve: James (the son) of Alphæus, Simon called Zelotes, and Judas (the brother) of James. In the lists of the other Evangelists too these three persons are kept together, though the order is different and Judas appears under another name, Lebbæus or Thaddeus. Can this have been a mere accident? Would the name of a stranger have been inserted by St Luke between two brothers? Is it not therefore highly probable that this Simon also was one of the Lord's brethren? And thus three out of the four are included among the Twelve'.

Without these additions the theory is incomplete; and indeed they have been so generally regarded as part of it, that advocates and opponents alike have forgotten or overlooked the fact that Jerome himself nowhere advances them. I shall then consider the theory as involving these two points; for indeed it would never have won its way to such general acceptance, unless presented in this complete form, where its chief recommendation is that it combines a great variety of facts and brings out many striking coincidences.

But before criticizing the theory itself, let me prepare the way by divesting it of all fictitious advantages and placing it in its true light. The two points to which attention may be directed, as having been generally overlooked, are these:

(1) Jerome claims no traditional support for his theory. This is a remarkable feature in his treatise against Helvidius. He argues the question solely on critical and theological grounds. His opponent had claimed the sanction of two older writers, Tertullian and Victorinus of Pettaw. Jerome in reply is obliged to concede him Tertullian, whose authority he invalidates as 'not a member of the Church,' but denies him Victorinus. Can it be doubted that if he could have produced any names on his own side he would only too gladly have done so? When for instance he is maintaining

1 It is found in Sophronius (?), who however confuses him with Jude; 'Simon Cananaeus cognomento Judas, frater Jacobi episcopi, qui et successit illi in episcopatum etc.'; Hieron. Op. 1. p.

958. Compare the pseudo-Hippolytus (1. App. p. 30, ed. Fabric.). Perhaps the earliest genuine writing in which it occurs is Isidor. Hispal. de Vit, et Ob. Sanct. c. 81. See Mill p. 248.

the virginity of the Lord's mother, a feature possessed by his theory in common with the Epiphanian, he is at no loss for authorities: Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenæus, Justin, and many other 'eloquent apostolic men' occur to him at once'. But in support of his own account of the relationship he cannot, or at least does not, name a single writer; he simply offers it as a critical deduction from the statements of Scripture. Again in his later writings, when he refers to the subject, his tone is the same: Some suppose them to have been sons of Joseph: it is my opinion, I have maintained in my book against Helvidius, that they were the children of Mary the Virgin's sister' And the whole tenor of patristic evidence, as I shall hope to show, is in accordance with this tone. No decisive instance can be produced of a writer holding Jerome's view, before it was propounded by Jerome himself.

does not hold it con. sistently,

(2) Jerome does not hold his theory staunchly and consistently. (ii) and The references to the subject in his works taken in chronological order will speak for themselves. The theory is first propounded, as we saw, in the treatise against Helvidius written about 383, when he was a young man. Even here his main point is the perpetual virginity of the Lord's mother, to which his own special solution is quite subordinate: he speaks of himself as not caring to fight hard ('contentiosum funem non traho') for the identity of Mary of Cleophas with Mary the mother of James and Joses, though this is the pivot of his theory. And, as time advances, he seems to hold to his hypothesis more and more loosely. In his commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (i. 19) written about 387 he speaks very vaguely: he remembers, he says, having when at Rome written a treatise on the subject, with which such as it is he ought to be satisfied ('qualiacunque sunt illa quae scripsimus his contenti esse debemus'); after which he goes on inconsistently

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