a mere temporary wavering and uncertainty. The case of Peter (Matt. xvi. 23), and that of Thomas (John xx. 25), are by no means parallel. The whole attitude of the brothers. of Christ, as viewed by Christ and described by John, is entirely inconsistent with that of an apostle. It is an attitude, not of enemies, it is true, but of doubtful, dissatisfied friends, who assume an air of superiority, and presume to suggest to him a worldly and ostentatious policy. After the resurrection they are especially mentioned among the believers, but as a distinct class, with Mary, next the apostles.

All these considerations strongly urge the conclusion that the brothers of Christ were real brothers, according to the flesh, i.e. either later sons of Mary and Joseph, or sons of Joseph by a former marriage (more of this below), unless there are very serious difficulties in the way which make this conclusion either critically or morally or religiously impossible.

Let us now approach these difficulties:

8. There are serious but no insurmountable objections to the conclusion just stated.

(a) The first objection is the identity in name of three of these brothers with three of the apostles, viz. James, Simon, and Jude. But it should be remembered that these were among the most common Jewish names. Josephus mentions no less than twenty-one Simons, seventeen Joses, and sixteen Judes. Why could there not be two or three persons of the same name in the apostolic church? We have, at all events, two Jameses and two Simons and two Judes among the twelve apostles. This difficulty is more than counterbalanced by the opposite difficulty of two sisters with the

same name.

(b) The second objection, likewise of a critical and excgetical character, is derived from Gal. i. 19, "But other of

1 Dr. Lango in his Article on James, in Herzog's Encyclopadic, Vol. VI. p. 412, calls this die Unhaltbarkeit einer dreinamigen Doppelgängerlinic in dem apostolischen Kreise, and afterwards cino unerhörte zwei bis vierfache Doppelgängerci.

the apostles saw I none, save (ei un) James the Lord's brother." Here James, who was one of the brothers of Jesus, seems to be included among the apostles; and this must have been James of Alphaeus, or James the Less.1 But the passage bears the exactly opposite interpretation, if after εἰ μή we supply simply εἶδον and not εἶδον τὸν ἀπόστο λov, viz. " I saw none other of the apostles besides Peter (vs. 18), but only (I saw) James, the Lord's brother." This interpretation is very old,2 and is defended by some of the highest grammatical authorities of our age.3 We think, with Meyer, that James is here distinguished from the twelve to whom Peter belonged, and yet at the same time numbered with the apostles in a wider sense of the term. In other words, he is represented as a man who, on account of his close natural relationship to Christ and his weight of character and piety, enjoyed an apostolic dignity and authority among the strict Jewish Christians. He was the acknowledged head and leader of this branch, and the first bishop of Jerusalem, where he permanently resided and died, while the apostles proper were not fixed in a particular diocese, but travelling missionaries, with the whole world for their field of labor. That this was precisely the position of James, is evident from various passages in the Acts, in the Epistle to the Galatians, from Josephus, Hegesippus, and the traditions of the Eastern church.5

(c.) The third objection is of a moral character, and derived from the consideration that Christ on the cross could

1 So Schneckenburger on the Epistle of James, and all the commentators on Galatians who adopt the cousin-hypothesis, also Ellicott ad Gal. i. 19, who, however, does not enter into a discussion of the general question.

2 Victorinus, in his Commentary in loc., says: "Paul disclaims James as an apostle, saying that he saw no other apostle besides Peter, but only James." 3 Winer, Grammatik (6th ed.), p. 557, (§ 67, sub. 1); who quotes, for a similar use of el μn, Acts xxvii. 22 and Rev. xxi. 27.

In his Commentary on Gal. i. 19; Fritzsche, Commentary in Matthew, p. 482, who translates alium apostolum non vidi, sed vidi Jacobum; Bleek (in Studien und Kritiken for 1836 p. 1059), and, as to the inference drawn, also Meyer and Hilgenfeld ad Gal. i. 19.

Б This subject is fully discussed in the author's book on James.

not have commended his mother to the care of John if she had other sons (John xix. 26, 27). "But why," we may ask, with Andrews,1 "if James and Judas were apostles and his cousins, sons of her sister, and long inmates of her family, and it was a question of kinship, did he not commend her to their care?" The difficulty, then, remains, and must be solved on other grounds. The brothers of Jesus at that time, as appears from John vii., were not yet full believers in Christ, although they must have been converted soon after the resurrection (Acts i. 14). Moreover John was the most intimate bosom friend of the Saviour, who could better sympathize with Mary and comfort her in this peculiar trial than any human being. If the modern interpretation of John xix. 25 be correct, as it probably is, Salome (not Mary, wife of Clopas) was a sister of Christ's mother, consequently John his cousin. But we would not urge this as an additional reason of the commendation, which must be based on a deeper spiritual affinity and sympathy.

(d.) The fourth objection is religious and dogmatical, arising from the pious or superstitious belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary, and the apparent impropriety of the birth of any later descendants of the house of David after the birth of the Messiah. The perpetual virginity of the mother of our Saviour is an article of faith in the Greek and Roman church; it is taught also in a few of the older Protestant symbols, and held to this day by many evangelical divines. Bishop Pearson says that the church of God in all ages has maintained that Mary continued in the same virginity.3 Olshausen takes the same view, and Lange, though the latter only as far as offspring is concerned. Dr. Jos. Addison Alexander, a Presbyterian, who will not be accused of

1 The Life of our Lord upon the Earth, p. 115.

2 The Articles of Smalkald, Pars I. Art. IV. (p. 303, ed. Hase): Et Maria pura, sancta, semper virgine. The Form of Concord, p. 767: Unde et vere OFOTÓKOS, Dei genetrix est, et tamen virgo mansit. Even Zwingli shared in this view, Commentary in Matthew i. 18, 25, and the Helvetic Confession speaks of Jesus as natus et Maria semper virgine.

Exposition of the Creed, Art. III.

any sympathy with Romanism, says, with apparent approbation: "Multitudes of Protestant divines and others, independently of all creeds and confessions, have believed, or rather felt, that the selection of a woman to be the mother of the Lord, carries with it, as a necessary implication, that no others could sustain the same relation to her; and that the selection of a virgin still more necessarily implied that she was to continue so; for if there be nothing in the birth of younger children inconsistent with her maternal relation to the Saviour, why should there be any such repugnance in the birth of older children likewise? ..... The same feeling which revolts from one hypothesis in some, revolts from both hypotheses in both."

A doctrine or feeling so old and widely spread must be treated with proper regard and delicacy. But it should be observed:

In the first place, that these doctrinal objections hold only against the view that the brothers of Christ were younger children of Mary, not against the other alternative left, that they were older children of Joseph by a former marriage.

Secondly, the virginity of Mary can be made an article of faith only as far as it is connected with the mystery of the supernatural conception and the absolute freedom of Christ from hereditary as well as actual sin. But neither his, nor her honor require the perpetual virginity after his birth, unless there be something impure and unholy in the marriage relation itself. The latter we cannot admit, since God instituted marriage in the state of innocence in paradisc, and Paul compares it to the most sacred relation exist ing the union of Christ with his church.

Thirdly, the apostles and evangelists, who are certainly much safer guides in all matters of faith and religious

1 Commentary on Matthew xiii. 56, pp. 383 and 384, and in the same language, Commentary on Mark vi. 3. Dr. Alexander does not decide one way or the other (though leaning to the cousin-theory), and thinks that the differenco of taste and sensibility on this subject is likely to continue to affect the interpre tation until the question has received some new and unequivocal solution.

feeling than even Fathers and reformers, seem to have had no such feeling of repugnance to a real marriage between Joseph and Mary, since they not only frequently mention brothers and sisters of Christ, without any intimation of an unusual or indefinite sense of the word, but Matthew and Luke (ii. 7) call Christ the first-born son of Mary, and Matthew moreover says (i. 25), that Joseph knew not Mary, i. e. did not cohabit with her as man and wife, till she had brought forth her first-born son. We admit that neither #pwπρωτ TÓTOKOS пor ews are conclusive in favor of subsequent cohabitation and offspring, but they naturally look that way, especially in a retrospective historical narrative, and in connection with the subsequent frequent mention of brothers and sisters of Christ by the same writers. At all events, we are warranted to say that those terms could not have been used by the evangelists if they had regarded legitimate cohabitation as essentially profane, or in any way degrading to Joseph and his mother. The Old Testament, it is well known, nowhere sustains the ascetic Romish views on the superior merits of celibacy and represents children as the greatest blessing, and sterility as a curse or misfortune.

Finally, it may be regarded as another proof of the true and full humanity and the condescending love of our Saviour, if he shared the common trials of family life in all its forms, and moved, a brother among brothers and sisters, that "he might be touched with a feeling of our infirmities." This last consideration, however, has its full weight if we adopt Dr. Lange's modification of the cousin-hypothesis, viz. the formal adoption of Christ's cousins into the holy family.

9. It remains to be seen whether the cousin-theory is more free from difficulties. This theory is very old and goes back, not only to Jerome, as is generally stated, but even to Papias, at the beginning of the second century,' probably also

In a remarkable fragment on the four Marys (ap Routh, Reliquiac Sacrae et Cod. MSS. 2397): 1. Maria, mater Domini. 2. Maria, Cleophae sive Alphaei uxor, quae fuit mater Jacobi Episcopi et Apostoli, et Simonis, et Thadei [Judao Jacobi]. et cujusdam Joseph. 3. Maria Salome, uxor Zebedei, mater Joannis VOL. XXI. No. 84.

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