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to Hegesippus, although this may be disputed, and has the authority of the whole Latin church, and the older Protestant divines, who, however, paid very little attention to this question. But this theory did not obtain credit and currency without an undue weight of dogmatical considerations connected with the perpetual virginity of Mary and the superior sanctity of celibacy (as is very evident from Jerome's work against Helvidius). It has, moreover, to contend with all the facts presented under Nos. 1-7, which are as many arguments against it. And finally it has to call to its aid two assumptions, which are at least very doubtful, and give the theory an intricate and complicated character. These assumptions are:

(a.) That Mary, the mother of James and Joses (Matt. xxvii. 56; Mark xv. 40), was a sister of the virgin Mary, and that consequently her children were cousins of Jesus. But who ever heard of two sisters bearing the same name without any additional one by which to distinguish them? Then, the only passage on which the alleged relationship of the two Marys is based (John xix. 25), admits of a different and more probable explanation, by which the term "his mother's sister" is applied to Salome, who stood certainly under the cross (see Matt. xxvii. 56; Mark xv. 40), and could not well be passed by in silence by her own son, John; while he with his accustomed modesty and delicacy omitted her name, and intimated her presence by bringing out her relation to Mary.

(b.) That Clopas, or Cleophas, the husband of Mary, the

evangelistae et Jacobi. 4. Maria Magdalena. But Papias omits one, Mary of Bethany, and is well known to have been somewhat weak-minded, supersitious, and confused; although in a mere matter of fact his testimony may, nevertheless, be very valuable.

1 Calvin, for instance, regards the question as one of idle curiosity, in Matthew i. 25 Certe nemo unquam hac de re questionem movebit nisi curiosus; nemo vero pertinaciter insistet nisi contentiosus rixator.

This explanation was first clearly brought out by Wieseler (in the Studien und Kritiker for 1840, p. 648 seq.), and adopted by Meyer, Lange, and Alford. But the old Syriac Version already implied this interpretation by inserting a kal

supposed sister of the virgin Mary, is the same with Alphaeus, the father of James, the younger apostle of that name, who is called 'Ιάκωβος ὁ τοῦ ̓Αλφαίου (Matt. x. 3; Mark ii. 14, iii. 18; Luke vi. 15; Acts i. 13). But this, though not improbable, and supported by the testimony of Papias, is at least not certain. Besides, Matthew (or Levi) was also a son of Alphaeus (Mark ii. 14), and if 'Ioúdas 'Iakoẞou and Simeon, two of the twelve, were likewise among the brothers of Christ, we should have four apostles, of whom it is said in John vii. that they did not believe. Finally, Mary, it should be remembered, is called the mother of James and Joses only, but never the mother of Simon and Jude, the other two brothers of Jesus, and both of them supposed to have been apostles, which Joses was not. It is nowhere intimated that he had more sons than two, or any daughters at all, and even from her two sons, one Joses must be exempt from being a namesake, since Joseph, and not Joses, according to the correct reading (Matt. xiii. 55), is the second brother of Christ.

Dr. Lange, it is true, avoids some of these difficulties by giving up the sisterhood of the two Marys, and assuming in its place the brotherhood of Clopas, or Alphaeus, and Joseph1 as the basis for the cousinship of their sons, and calling to his aid the additional hypothesis of the early death of Alphaeus, and the adoption of his children into the holy family; but all this without a shadow of exegetical proof. The absence of all allusion in the Evangelists to Mary, the real and still living mother of these children, when they are collectively mentioned, is a surprising fact, which speaks as strongly against Lange's hypothesis as against the older and usual form of the cousin-theory.

10. We conclude, therefore, that the strict grammatical

before Mapía, and translating : " And there were standing near the cross of Jesus, his mother, and his mother's sister [Salome], and Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene."

1 Hegesippus, in Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. III. 11, compare IV. 22, asserts that Clopas was the brother of Joseph, but it does not appear whether he uses the term "brother" strictly, or for brother-in-law.

explanation of the term brothers and sisters of Christ, though not without difficulties, is still far more easy and natural than the explanation which makes them mere cousins.

But from the exegetical data of the New Testament we are still at liberty to choose between two views:

(a.) The brothers of Jesus were younger children of Joseph and Mary, and hence his uterine brothers, though, in fact, only half brothers, since he had no human father, and was conceived by the Holy Spirit overshadowing the blessed virgin. This view may be supported by the ews and the TрwтÓтоxоs in Matt. i. 25, and Luke ii. 7, and has been adopted by Tertullian, Helvidius, and many modern Protestant commentators of Germany, as Herder, Neander, Winer, Meyer, Wieseler, Rothe, Stier, and a few English divines, Alford (on Matt. xiii. 55), F. W. Farrar (in W. Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. I. p. 23), and, though not decidedly, by Andrews (Life of our Lord, p. 114). This view of the case is the most natural, and would probably be taken by a majority of commentators, if it were not for the scruples arising from the long and cherished doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary. Once clearly and fully established on the testimony of scripture and history, this theory would give a powerful polemical weapon into the hands of Protestants, and destroy by one fatal blow one of the strongest pillars of Romish Mariology and Mariolatry, and the ascetic overestimate of the state of celibacy. But the case is by no means so clear, at the present state of the controversy, that we can avail ourselves of this advantage; and Protestants themselves, as already remarked, differ in their views or feelings or tastes concerning the perpetual virginity of Mary.

(b.) The brothers of Jesus were older sons of Joseph from a former marriage, and thus, in the eyes of the law and before the world, though not by blood, brothers and sisters of Christ. This view has the doctrinal advantage of leaving the perpetual virginity of Mary untouched. It seems, moreover, to have been the oldest, and was held not only among

the Ebionites and in the pseudo-apostolical constitutions, but by several earlier Fathers, as Origin, Eusebius (who calls James of Jerusalem a "son of Joseph," but nowhere of Mary), Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Alexandria, Epiphanius, who even mentions the supposed order of births of the four sons and two daughters, Hilary, Ambrose, etc. It is equally consistent with the scripture data on the subject as the other alternative, and in some respects even more so. For it agrees better with the apparent difference of age between Joseph (who early disappears in the gospel history) and Mary, and especially with the patronizing and presumptuous air of the brothers of Christ, when they sought an interview with him at a particular crisis (Matt. xii. 46), and when they boldly dared to suggest to him a more expeditious and ostentatious Messianic policy (John vii. 3–10). This is at least more readily explained if they were older according to the flesh; while on the other theory some of them must have been almost too young to figure so prominently in the gospel history. It is true, they are nowhere called sons of Joseph; but neither are they called sons of Mary. The reason in both cases must be found in the fact that Christ is the great central figure in the Gospels, round which all

others move.

1 See the quotations in the author's book on James, p. 80 seq. Chrysostom may also be included in this class; at least he clearly separates the brothers of Christ from the apostles, for the reason that they were for a long time unbelievers (Hom. v. in Matthew).

ARTICLE IX.

NOTICES OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS.

ALGER'S HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE.'

We have perused this closely-printed, well-studied volume with mingled emotions of admiration and sadness admiration for the labor, the learning, the rhetorical talent, the eloquence here displayed; and sadness at the earnestness with which all have been prostituted, for the purpose of setting aside the revelation of God, and quenching the only light which can possibly guide us in our inquiries respecting the future world.

Mr. Alger divides his work into five parts. In the first, he presents the different theories which have been held as to the origin of the soul, and as to death; also the grounds of our belief in a future state, and theories respecting the soul's destination. In the second and third parts he sets forth the opinions which were entertained among various ancient nations, and by the writers of the Old and New Testaments, as to the state of the dead. Part fourth contains the views of the early Christian Fathers, and later Christians on the same subject. Part fifth is made up of historical and critical dissertations on a variety of connected topics: such as the transmigration of souls, the resurrection of the body, the doctrine of future punishment, the recognition of friends in the future life, etc.

In the second and third parts, which will naturally attract the chief attention, Mr. Alger presents the mythologies of the Druids, the Scandinavians, the Tuscans, the Egyptians, the Brahmans, the Persians, the Greeks and Romans, and the Mohammedans, respecting the future life; also the mythologies of the Hebrews and of the apostles on the same subject; for their views are equally mythological as those of the heathen.

The ancient Hebrews believed that departed souls went at once into , the under-world, where the righteous and the wicked dwelt together, and, for aught they knew, were to dwell forever. They had no prospect or hope of deliverance. Later down in the Hebrew state, the scribes learned from Zoroaster and the Persians that the under-world was divided into two compartments, the higher and the lower, the better and the worse; the former to be the abode of the righteous, and the latter of the wicked. These views, which generally prevailed among the Jews in the time of Christ, were accepted and inculcated by the apostles and primitive Christians ; with the additional idea, that the soul of Christ, at his death, went into the under-world, and proclaimed deliverance to "the spirits in prison;" a deliverance to be accomplished at the second appearing of Christ, which

1 A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life; with a complete Bibliography of the Subject. By William Rounseville Alger. Philadelphia: George W. Childs. 1864.

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