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5. ἀδελφὴν γυναῖκα περιάγειν. The ordinary interpretation of this passage is (1) that St Paul here asserts his right, if he pleased, to take with him a wife who was a member of the Christian body, and to have her maintained at the expense of the community. The word sister, like the words brother, brethren, is equivalent to ‘member of the Christian Church’ in Rom 16:1; Jam 2:15; 2Jn 1:13 (perhaps) and ch. 1Co 7:15 of this Epistle. This privilege was claimed by the other Apostles with a view, as Stanley suggests, of obtaining access to the women, who in the East usually dwelt apart. But there is (2) another interpretation which would translate the word here rendered wife by woman (as in the margin of our version), and suppose that the tie which connected St Paul with the Christian woman he claimed to ‘lead about’ with him was nothing but that of their common Christianity. In support of this view Luk 8:2-3, is quoted. This opinion can be traced back as far as Tertullian in the second century. But it is most improbable that in a society so corrupt as the heathen society of that age everywhere was, the Apostles of Christ would have run so serious a risk of misconstruction as would have been involved in such a practice. The conduct of Simon Magus, who led about with him a woman of scandalous character, the misinterpretations so common in the Apostolic age of the innocent affection of the Christians for each other, and of their nightly meetings, shew how necessary prudence was in those times. Besides, this interpretation misses the point of the argument, which was, that the original twelve Apostles claimed the right to throw not only their own maintenance, but that of their wives, upon the Church. The various readings found in this passage would seem to have been introduced to support the view that a wife could not here be intended.
οἱ ἀδελφοὶ τοῦ κυρίου. These have been regarded (1) as the children of Joseph and Mary, (2) the children of Joseph by a former wife, (3) as the kinsmen of our Lord, the word brother having been used in Hebrew to denote any near relation. See Gen 13:8; Gen 29:12; Lev 10:4. The question has been hotly debated. (1) or (2) seem of course to suit the more obvious meaning of the word ἀδελφοί; but in support of (3) we find from Scripture and ecclesiastical history that the names of our Lord’s brethren James and Joses and Simon and Judas were also the names of the sons of Alphaeus, who were our Lord’s cousins. See Mat 13:55; Mat 27:56; Luk 24:10; Joh 19:25. Also Mat 10:3; Mar 3:18; Luk 6:16; and Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. III. 11, 32. See Bp Lightfoot on the Epistle to the Galatians, Dissertation II. Also Dean Plumptre on St James, in the present series, Introduction pp. 12–18.