but wavers enough, 'Suffice it now to say that James was called the Lord's in his view, brother on account of his high character, his incomparable faith, and extraordinary wisdom: the other Apostles also are called brothers (John xx. 17; comp. Ps. xxii. 22), but he preeminently so, to whom the Lord at His departure had committed the sons of His mother (ie. the members of the Church of Jerusalem)'; with more to the same effect: and he concludes by showing that the term Apostle, so far from being confined to the Twelve, has a very wide use, adding that it was 'a monstrous error to identify this James with the Apostle the brother of John'. In his Catalogue of Illustrious Men (A.D. 392) and in his Commentary on St Matthew (A.D. 398) he adheres to his earlier opinion, referring in the passages already quoted to his treatise against Helvidius, and taunting those who considered the Lord's brethren to be the sons of Joseph by a former wife with 'following the ravings of the apocryphal writings and inventing a wretched creature (mulierculam) Melcha and seems or Escha by name. Yet after all in a still later work, the Epistle at length to aban- to Hedibia (about 406 or 407), enumerating the Maries of the Gospels he mentions Mary of Cleophas the maternal aunt of the Lord and Mary the mother of James and Joses as distinct persons, adding 'although others contend that the mother of James and don it. 1 'Quod autem exceptis duodecim quidam vocentur apostoli, illud in causa est, omnes qui Dominum viderant et eum postea praedicabant fuisse apostolos appellatos'; and then after giving instances (among others 1 Cor. xv. 7) he adds, 'Unde vehementer erravit qui arbitratus est Jacobum hunc de evangelio esse apostolum fratrem Johannis;... hic autem Jacobus episcopus Hierosoly. morum primus fuit cognomento Justus etc.' (VII. p. 396). These are just the arguments which would be brought by one maintaining the Epiphanian account. Altogether Jerome's language here is that of a man who has committed himself to a theory of which he has misgivings, and yet from which he is not bold enough to break loose. See p. 259, note 3. Sequentes deliramenta apocryphorum et quandam Melcham vel Escham mulierculam confingentes.'Comm. in Matth. 1. c. 'Nemo non videt,' says Blom, p. 116, 'illud nomen [wife, woman] esse mere fictitium, nec minus posterius [prius] [queen].' (Comp. Julius Africanus in Routh's Rel. Sacr. II. p. 233, 339.) If so, the work must have been the production of some Jewish Christian. But Escha is not a very exact representation of MWN (Ishah). On the other hand, making allowance for the uncertain vocalisation of the Hebrew, the two daughters of Haran (Gen. xi. 29) bear identically the same names: 'the father of Milcah (LXX Meλxá) and the father of Iscah (NƆD") LXX 'Ieoxá).' Doubtless these names were borrowed thence. Joses was His aunt'.' Yet this identification, of which he here speaks with such indifference, was the keystone of his own theory. Can it be that by his long residence in Bethlehem, having the Palestinian tradition brought more prominently before him, he first relaxed his hold of and finally relinquished his own hypothesis? If these positions are correct, the Hieronymian view has no claim to any traditional sanction-in other words, there is no reason to believe that time has obliterated any secondary evidence in its favour-and it must therefore be investigated on its own merits. And compact and plausible as it may seem at first sight, the Objections theory exposes, when examined, many vulnerable parts. to Jerome's theory. In the word (1) The instances alleged notwithstanding, the sense thus as- (1) Use of signed to 'brethren' seems to be unsupported by biblical usage. an affectionate and earnest appeal intended to move the sympathies of the hearer, a speaker might not unnaturally address a relation or a friend or even a fellow-countryman as his 'brother.' And even when speaking of such to a third person he might through warmth of feeling and under certain aspects so designate him. But it is scarcely conceivable that the cousins of any one should be commonly and indeed exclusively styled his 'brothers' by indifferent persons; still less, that one cousin in particular should be singled out and described in this loose way, 'James the Lord's brother.' tion of the brethren (2) But again: the Hieronymian theory when completed sup- (2) Relaposes two, if not three, of the Lord's brethren to be in the number Lord's of the Twelve. This is hardly reconcileable with the place they hold to the in the Evangelical narratives, where they appear sometimes as dis- Twelve, tinct from, sometimes as antagonistic to the Twelve. Only a short time before the crucifixion they are disbelievers in the Lord's divine mission (John vii. 5). Is it likely that St John would have made this unqualified statement, if it were true of one only or at most of two out of the four? Jerome sees the difficulty and meets it by saying that James was 'not one of those that disbelieved.' But what if Jude and Simon also belong to the Twelve? After the Lord's Ascension, it is true, His brethren appear in company with 1 Epist. cxx, 1. p. 826. Comp. Tischendorf's Evang. Apocr. p. 104. the Apostles, and apparently by this time their unbelief has been converted into faith. Yet even on this later occasion, though with the Twelve, they are distinguished from the Twelve; for the latter are described as assembling in prayer 'with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and [with] His brethren' (Acts i. 14). especially And scarcely more consistent is this theory with what we know of James and James and Jude in particular. James, as the resident bishop or pre Jude. (3) Their connexion with Jo seph and Mary. (4) James the less. siding elder of the mother Church, held a position hardly compatible with the world-wide duties which devolved on the Twelve. It was the essential feature of his office that he should be stationary; of theirs, that they should move about from place to place. If on the other hand he appears sometimes to be called an Apostle (though not one of the passages alleged is free from ambiguity), this term is by no means confined to the Twelve and might therefore be applied to him in its wider sense, as it is to Barnabas'. Again, Jude on his part seems to disclaim the title of an Apostle (ver. 17); and if so, he cannot have been one of the Twelve. (3) But again: the Lord's brethren are mentioned in the Gospels in connexion with Joseph His reputed father and Mary His mother, never once with Mary of Clopas (the assumed wife of Alphæus). It would surely have been otherwise, if the latter Mary were really their mother. (4) Jerome lays great stress on the epithet minor applied to James, as if it implied two only, and even those who impugn his theory seem generally to acquiesce in his rendering. But the Greek gives not 'James the Less' but 'James the little' (ò purpós). Is it not most natural then to explain this epithet of his height'? 'There were many of the name of James,' says Hegesippus, and the short stature of one of these might well serve as a distinguishing mark. This interpretation at all events must be regarded as more probable than explaining it either of his comparative youth or of inferior rank and influence. It will be remembered that there 1 See above, p. 95. As in Xen. Mem. 1. 4. 2 'ApiσTÓδημον τὸν μικρὸν ἐπικαλούμενον, refer ring to stature, as appears from Plato, Symp. 173 B; and in Arist. Ran. 708 Κλειγένης ὁ μικρός. is no Scriptural or early sanction for speaking of the son of Zebedee as 'James the Great.' mention of Twelve. (5) The manner in which Jude is mentioned in the lists of the (5) The Twelve is on this hypothesis full of perplexities. In the first place Jude in the it is necessary to translate 'Iakßov not 'the son' but 'the brother lists of the of James,' though the former is the obvious rendering and is supported by two of the earliest versions, the Peshito Syriac and the Thebaic, while two others, the Old Latin and Memphitic, leave the ellipsis unsupplied and thus preserve the ambiguity of the original. But again, if Judas were the brother of James, would not the Evangelist's words have run more naturally, 'James the son of Alphæus and Jude his brother,' or 'James and Jude the sons of Alphæus,' as in the case of the other pairs of brothers? Then again, if Simon Zelotes is not a brother of James, why is he inserted by St Luke between the two? If he also is a brother, why is the designation of brotherhood ('Iakúßov) attached to the name of Judas only? Moreover in the different lists of the three Evangelists the Apostle in question is designated in three different ways. In St Matthew (x. 3) he is called Lebbæus (at least according to a wellsupported reading); in St Mark (iii. 18) Thaddeus; and in St Luke 'Jude of James' St John again having occasion to mention him (xiv. 22) distinguishes him by a negative, 'Judas not Iscariot'.' Is 1 The perplexity is increased by the Curetonian Syriac, which for 'Ioúδας οὐχ ὁ Ισκαριώτης reads R302 Rakh, 'Judas Thomas,' i.e. 'Judas the Twin.' It seems therefore that the translator took the person intended by St John to be not the Judas Jacobi in the list of the Twelve, but the Thomas Didymus, for Thomas was commonly called Judas in the Syrian Church; e.g. Euseb. H. E. i. 13 'Ioúðas ὁ καὶ Θωμᾶς, and Acta Thomae : Ιούδα Θωμῷ τῷ καὶ Διδύμῳ (ed. Tisch. p. 190); see Assemani Bibl. Orient. I. pp. 100, 318, Cureton's Syriac Gospels p. li, Anc. Syr. Documents p. 33. As Thomas (Alduμos), 'the Twin,' is properly a surname, and this Apostle must have had some other name, there seems no reason for doubting this very The Thebaic version again for oux (6) Punctuation of 25. it possible, if he were the Lord's brother Judas, he would in all these places have escaped being so designated, when this designation would have fixed the person meant at once? The (6) Lastly; in order to maintain the Hieronymian theory it is Joh. xix. necessary to retain the common punctuation of John xix. 25, thus making 'Mary of Clopas' the Virgin's sister. But it is at least improbable that two sisters should have borne the same name. case of the Herodian family is scarcely parallel, for Herod was a family name, and it is unlikely that a humble Jewish household should have copied a practice which must lead to so much confusion. Here it is not unlikely that a tradition underlies the Peshito rendering which inserts a conjunction: 'His mother and his mother's sister, and Mary of Cleophas and Mary Magdalene'.' The Greek at all events admits, even if it does not favour, this interpretation, for the arrangement of names in couples has a parallel in the lists of the Apostles (e.g. Matt. x. 2-4). Jerome's hypothesis must be abandoned I have shown then, if I mistake not, that St Jerome pleaded no traditional authority for his theory, and that therefore the evidence in its favour is to be sought in Scripture alone. I have examined the Scriptural evidence, and the conclusion seems to be, that though this hypothesis, supplemented as it has been by subsequent writers, presents several striking coincidences which attract attention, yet it involves on the other hand a combination of difficulties-many of these arising out of the very elements in the 1 See Wieseler Die Söhne Zebedäi etc. p. 672. This writer identifies the sister of the Lord's mother (John xix. 25) with Salome (Mark xv. 40, xvi. 1), who again is generally identified with the mother of Zebedee's children (Matt. xxvii. 56); and thus James and John, the sons of Zebedee, are made cousins of our Lord. Compare the pseudo-Papias, p. 273, note; and see the various reading Ιωάννης for Ἰωσὴφ in the list of the Lord's brethren in Matt. xiii. 55. But as we are told that there were many other women present also (Mark IV. 41, comp. Luke xxiv. 10),—one of whom, Joanna, is mentioned by name both these identifications must be considered precarious. It would be strange that no hint should be given in the Gospels of the relationship of the sons of Zebedee to our Lord, if it existed. The Jerusalem Syriac lectionary gives the passage John xix. 25 not less than three times. In two of these places (pp. 387, 541, the exception being P. 445) a stop is put after His mother's sister,' thus separating the words from 'Mary of Cleophas' and suggesting by punctuation the same interpretation which the Peshito fixes by inserting a conjunction. |