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BRETHREN OF THE LORD.—Jesus was Mary’s first-born (Luk_2:7), and she subsequently (according to the view accepted in the present article) bore to Joseph four sons, James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon, and several daughters (Mat_13:55-56 = Mar_6:3). During His ministry the Lord’s brethren did not believe in Him. They sneered at Him (Joh_7:3-5), and once they concluded that He was mad, and wished to arrest Him and convey Him away from Capernaum (Mar_3:21; Mar_3:31). After the Resurrection, however, convinced by so tremendous a demonstration, they joined the company of the believers (Act_1:14).
In early days, partly at least in the interests of the notion of Mary’s perpetual virginity, two theories were promulgated in regard to the ‘Brethren of the Lord.’ (a) They were supposed to be sons of Joseph by a former marriage, having thus no blood-relationship with Jesus. So Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Epiphanius. (b) They were held to be His cousins, sons of Mary, the wife of Alphœus (Mat_27:56 = Mar_15:40); ‘brother’ here implying merely kinship, as Abraham calls himself and his nephew Lot ‘brethren’ (Gen_13:8), and Laban calls Jacob, his sister’s son, his ‘brother’ (Gen_29:16). So Jerome and Augustine. That Mary, the wife of Alphæus and mother of James the Little, was a sister of Mary the mother of Jesus, is an inference from Joh_19:25, where it is supposed that only three women are mentioned: (1) His mother, (2) His mother’s sister, viz., Mary, the wife of Clopas (= Alphæus), and (3) Mary Magdalene. But there are probably four: (1) His mother, (2) her sister Salome, the mother of the sons of Zebedee (cf. Mt. = Mk.), (3) Mary, the wife of Clopas, and (4) Mary Magdalene. It is very unlikely that two sisters should have been named Mary; and moreover, James, the son of Alphæus, was an Apostle (Mat_10:3 = Mar_3:18 = Luk_6:15), and none of the Lord’s brethren was an Apostle in His life-time (cf. Act_1:13-14).
David Smith.