In this post I will be referencing the late Protestant scholar J. B. Lightfoot’s monumental work on the early church’s view of the blessed Mother’s virginity. All bold and capital emphasis will be mine.
Lightfoot did a careful, painstaking analysis of the early Christians writings, examining the extant sources from the first century and up unto the fifth century AD, in order to see what the fathers, theologians, apologists and writers believed about Mary’s perpetual virginity.
Lightfoot concluded that the predominant view, one held by the vast majority of Christians, was that Mary remained a perpetual virgin and that the so-called brothers of Christ were in fact the sons of Joseph from a previous marriage.
Lightfoot notes:
In the early ages of the Church two conflicting opinions were held regarding the relationship of those who in the Gospels and Apostolic Epistles are termed ‘the brethren of the Lord.’ On the one hand it was maintained that no blood relationship existed; that these brethren were in fact sons of Joseph by a former wife, before he espoused the Virgin; and that they are therefore called the Lord’s brethren only in the same way in which Joseph is called His father, having really no claim to this title but being so designated by an exceptional use of the term adapted to the exceptional fact of the miraculous incarnation. On the other hand certain persons argued that the obvious meaning of the term was the correct meaning, and that these brethren were the Lord’s brethren as truly as Mary was the Lord’s mother, being her sons by her husband Joseph. The former of these views was held BY THE VAST MAJORITY of orthodox believers and by not a few heretics; the latter was the opinion of a father of the Church HERE AND THERE to whom it occurred as the natural inference from the language of Scripture, as Tertullian for instance, and of certain sects and individuals who set themselves against the incipient worship of the Virgin or the one-sided asceticism of the day, and to whom therefore it was a very serviceable weapon of controversy.
Such was the state of opinion, when towards the close of the fourth century Jerome struck out a novel hypothesis. One Helvidius, who lived in Rome, had attacked the prevailing view of the superiority of virgin over married life, and in doing so had laid great stress on the example of the Lord’s mother who had borne children to her husband. In or about the year 383 Jerome, then a young man, at the instigation of ‘the brethren’ wrote a treatise in reply to Helvidius, in which he put forward his own view1. He maintained that the Lord’s brethren were His cousins after the flesh, being sons of Mary the wife of Alphæus and sister of the Virgin. Thus, as he boasted, he asserted the virginity not of Mary only but of Joseph also. These three accounts are all of sufficient importance either from their real merits or from their wide popularity to deserve consideration, and I shall therefore investigate their several claims. As it will be convenient to have some short mode of designation, I shall call them respectively the Epiphanian, the Helvidian, and the Hieronymian theories, from the names of their most zealous advocates in the controversies of the fourth century when the question was most warmly debated. (Dissertations on the Apostolic Age , “The Brethren of the Lord”, pp. 3-5)
Lightfoot addressed two common objections against the Epiphanian view, the belief that Jesus’ brothers were really the sons of Joseph from his first wife:
Two objections however are brought against both these theories, which the Hieronymian escapes.
(1) They both, it is objected, assume the existence of two pairs of cousins bearing the same names, James and Joseph the sons of Alphæus, and James and Joseph the Lord’s brothers. If moreover we accept the statement of Hegesippus1 that James was succeeded in the bishopric of Jerusalem by Symeon son of Clopas, and also admit the identification of Clopas with Alphæus, we get a third name Symeon or Simeon common to the two families. Let us see what this objection really amounts to. It will be seen that the cousinhood of these persons is represented as a cousinhood on the mothers’ side, and that it depends on three assumptions:
(1) The identification of James the son of Alphæus in the list of the Twelve with James the Little the son of Mary:
(2) The identification of ‘Mary of Clopas’ in St John with Mary the mother of James and Joses in the other Evangelists:
(3) The correctness of the received punctuation of John xix. 25, which makes ‘Mary of Clopas’ the Virgin’s sister. If any one of these be rejected, this cousinhood falls to the ground. Yet of these three assumptions the second alone can safely be pronounced more likely than not’ (though we are expressly told that ‘ many other women ‘ were present), for it avoids the unnecessary multiplication of Maries. The first must be considered highly doubtful, seeing that James was a very common name ; while the third is most improbable, for it gives two sisters both called Mary—a difficulty far surpassing that of supposing two or even three cousins bearing the same On the other hand, if, admitting the second identification and supplying the ellipsis in ‘ Mary of Clopas’ by ‘wife’, ‘we combine with it the statement of Hegesippus1 that Clopas the father of Symeon was brother of Joseph, we get three cousins, James, Joses, and Symeon, on their fathers’ side. Yet this result again must be considered on the whole improbable. probable. I see no reason indeed for doubting the testimony of Hegesippus, who was perhaps born during the lifetime of this Symeon, and is likely to have been well informed. But the chances are against the other hypotheses, on which it depends, being both of them correct. The identification of Clopas and Alphæus will still remain an open question2.
But, whether they were cousins or not, does the fact of two families having two or three names in common constitute any real difficulty? Is not this a frequent occurrence among ourselves? It must be remembered too that the Jewish names in ordinary use at this time were very few, and that these three, James, Joses, and Symeon, were among the most common, being consecrated in the affections of the Jews from patriarchal times. In the list of the Twelve the name of James appears twice, Symeon twice. In the New Testament no less than twelve persons bear the name of Symeon or Simon, and nearly as many that of Joseph or Joses1. In the index to Josephus may be counted nineteen Josephs, and twentyfive Simons1. And moreover is not the difficulty, if difficulty there be, diminished rather than increased on the supposition of the cousinhood of these two families? The name of a common ancestor or a common relative naturally repeats itself in households connected with each other.
And from this point of view it is worthy of notice that the names in question actually occur in the genealogies of our Lord. Joseph’s father is Jacob or James in St Matthew (i. 15, 16); and in St Luke’s table, exclusively of our Lord’s reputed father, the name Joseph or Joses occurs twice at least in a list of thirty-four direct ancestors. the mother (2) When a certain Mary is described as ‘ the mother of (2) ‘Mary James, ‘ is it not highly probable that the person intended of James. should be the most celebrated of the name-James the Just, the bishop of Jerusalem, the Lord’s brother? This objection to both the Epiphanian and Helvidian theories is at first sight not without force, but it will not bear examination. Why, we may ask, if the best known of all the Jameses were intended here, should it be necessary in some passages to add the name of a brother Joses also, who was a person of no special mark in the Church (Matt. xxvii. 56, Mark xv. 40)? Why again in others should this Mary be designated ‘the mother of Joses’ alone (Mark xv. 47), the name of his more famous brother being suppressed? In only two passages is she called simply ‘ the mother of James’; in Mark xvi. 1, where it is explained by the fuller description which has gone before the mother of James and Joses’ (xv. 40); and in Luke xxiv. 10, where no such explanation can be given. It would seem then that this Mary and this James, though not the most famous of their respective names and therefore not at once distinguishable when mentioned alone, were yet sufficiently well known to be discriminated from others, when their names appeared in conjunction.
The objections then which may be brought against both compared. these theories in common are not very serious; and up to this point in the investigation they present equal claims to acceptance. The next step will be to compare them together, in order to decide which of the two must yield to the other.
1. The Epiphanian view assumes that the Lord’s brethren had really no relationship with Him; and so far the Helvidian has the advantage. But this advantage is rather seeming than real. It is very natural that those who called Joseph His father should call Joseph’s sons His brethren. And it must be remembered that this designation is given to Joseph not only by strangers from whom at all events the mystery of the Incarnation was veiled, but by the Lord’s mother herself who knew all (Luke ii. 48). Even the Evangelist himself, about whose belief in the miraculous conception of Christ there can be no doubt, allows himself to speak of Joseph and Mary as ‘His father and mother’ and ‘ His parents ‘. Nor again is it any argument in favour of the Helvidian account as compared with the Epiphanian, that the Lord’s brethren are found in company of Mary rather than of Joseph. Joseph appears in the evangelical history for the last time when Jesus is twelve years old (Luke ii. 43); during the Lord’s ministry he is never once seen, though Mary comes forward again and again. There can be little doubt therefore that he had died meanwhile.
2. Certain expressions in the evangelical narratives are (2) Virgin said to imply that Mary bore other children besides the Lord, and it is even asserted that no unprejudiced person could interpret them otherwise. The justice of this charge may be fairly questioned. The context in each case seems to suggest another explanation of these expressions, which does not decide anything one way or the other. St Matthew writes that Joseph ‘ knew not ‘ his wife ’till (heos hou) she brought forth a son’ (i. 25)’; while St Luke speaks of her bringing forth ‘her firstborn son’ (ii. 7). St Matthew’s expression however, ’till she brought forth,’ as appears from the context, is intended simply to show that Jesus was not begotten in the course of nature; and thus, while it denies any previous intercourse with her husband, it neither asserts nor implies any subsequent intercourse. Again, the prominent idea conveyed by the term ‘firstborn’ to a Jew would be not the birth of other children, but the special consecration of this one. The typical reference in fact is foremost in the mind of St Luke, as he himself explains it, ‘Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord’ (ii. 23). Thus ‘ firstborn’ does not necessarily suggest ‘ later-born,’ any more than ‘son’ suggests ‘daughter.’ The two words together describe the condition under which in obedience to the law a child was consecrated to God. The ‘firstborn son’ is in fact the Evangelist’s equivalent for the ‘male that openeth the womb.’ It may indeed be fairly urged that, if the Evangelists had considered the perpetual virginity of the Lord’s mother a matter of such paramount importance as it was held to be in the fourth and following centuries, they would have avoided expressions which are at least ambiguous and might be taken to imply the contrary; but these expressions are not in themselves fatal to such a belief. Whether in itself the sentiment on which this belief was founded be true or false, is a fit subject of enquiry; nor can the present question be considered altogether without reference to it. If it be true, then the Epiphanian theory has an advantage over the Helvidian, as respecting or at least not disregarding it; if false, then it may be thought to have suggested that theory, as it certainly did the Hieronymian, and to this extent the theory itself must lie under suspicion. Into this enquiry however it will not be necessary to enter. Only let me say that it is not altogether correct to represent this belief as suggested solely by the false asceticism of the early Church which exalted virginity at the expense of married life. It appears in fact to be due quite as much to another sentiment which the fathers fantastically expressed by a comparison between the conception and the burial of our Lord. As after death His body was placed in a sepulchre ‘wherein never man before was laid,’ so it seemed fitting that the womb consecrated by His presence should not thenceforth have borne any offspring of man. It may be added also, that the Epiphanian view prevailed especially in Palestine where there was less disposition than elsewhere to depreciate married life, and prevailed too at a time when extreme ascetic views had not yet mastered the Church at large.
3. But one objection has been hurled at the Helvidian theory with great force, and as it seems to me with fatal effect, which is powerless against the Epiphanian1. Our Lord in His dying moments commended His mother to the keeping of St John; ‘Woman, behold thy son.’ The injunction was forthwith obeyed, and ‘from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home’ (John xix. 26, 27). Yet according to the Helvidian view she had no less than four sons besides daughters living at the time. Is it conceivable that our Lord would thus have snapped asunder the most sacred ties of natural affection? The difficulty is not met by the fact that her own sons were still unbelievers. This fact would scarcely have been allowed to override the paramount duties of filial piety. But even when so explained, what does this hypothesis require us to believe? Though within a few days a special appearance is vouchsafed to one of these brethren, who is destined to rule the mother Church of Jerusalem, and all alike are converted to the faith of Christ; yet she, their mother, living in the same city and joining with them in a common worship (Acts i. 14), is consigned to the care of a stranger of whose house she becomes henceforth the inmate. (Ibid., pp. 18-24)
Lightfoot then went on to list the positions held by the church fathers, apologists and writers of the first four hundred years:
Thus it would appear that, taking the scriptural notices alone, the Hieronymian account must be abandoned; while of the remaining two the balance of the argument is against the Helvidian and in favour of the Epiphanian. To what extent the last-mentioned theory can plead the prestige of tradition, will be seen from the following catena of references to the fathers and other early Christian writings’…
2. The GOSPEL ACCORDING TO PETER was highly esteemed Gospel of by the Docetæ of the second century. Towards the close of that century, Serapion, bishop of Antioch, found it in circulation at Rhossus a Cilician town, and at first tolerated it: but finding on examination that, though it had much in common with the Gospels recognised by the Catholic Church, there were sentiments in it favourable to the heretical views that were secretly gaining ground there, he forbad its use. In the fragment of Serapion preserved by Eusebius (H. E. vi. 12) ², from which our information is derived, he speaks of this apocryphal work as if it had been long in circulation, so that its date must be about the middle of the second century at the latest, and probably somewhat earlier. To this gospel Origen refers, as stating that the Lord’s brethren were Joseph’s sons by a former wife and thus maintaining the virginity of the Lord’s mother³.
3. PROTEVANGELIUM JACOBI, a purely fictitious but very and other early narrative, dating probably not later than the middle of the second century, represents Joseph as an old man when the Virgin was espoused to him, having sons of his own (§ 9, ed. Tisch. p. 18) but no daughters (§ 17, p. 31), and James the writer of the account apparently as grown up at the time of Herod’s death (§ 25, p. 48). Following in this track, subsequent apocryphal narratives give a similar account with various modifications, in some cases naming Joseph’s daughters or his wife. Such are the Pseudo-Matthæi Evang. (§ 32, ed. Tisch. p. 104), Evang. de Nativ. Mar. (§ 8, ib. p. 111), Historia Joseph. (§ 2, ib. p. 116), Evang. Thoma (§ 16, p. 147), Evang. Infant. Arab. (§ 35, p. 191), besides the apocryphal Gospels mentioned by Jerome (Comm. in Matth. T. VII. p. 86) which were different from any now extant ‘. Doubtless these accounts, so far as they step beyond the incidents narrated in the Canonical Gospels, are pure fabrications, but the fabrications would scarcely have taken this form, if the Hieronymian view of the Lord’s brethren had been received or even known when they were written. It is to these sources that Jerome refers when he taunts the holders of the Epiphanian view with following ‘deliramenta apocryphorum.’
4. The EARLIEST VERSIONS, with the exception of the Old Latin and Memphitic which translate the Greek literally and preserve the same ambiguities, give renderings of certain passages bearing on the subject, which are opposed to the Hieronymian view. The CURETONIAN SYRIAC translates Mapía ‘lakúẞou (Luke xxiv. 10) ‘ Mary the daughter of James.’ The PESHITO in John xix. 25 has, ‘His mother and His mother’s sister and Mary of Cleopha and Mary Magdalene ‘; and in Luke vi. 16, Acts i. 13, it renders ‘Judas son of James. ‘ One of the old Egyptian versions again, the THEBAIC, in John xix. 25 gives ‘ Mary daughter of Clopas, ‘ and in Luke vi. 16, Acts i. 13 ‘Judas son of James.’
5. The CLEMENTINE HOMILIES, written, it would appear, not late in the second century to support a peculiar phase of writings. Ebionism, speak of James as being ‘called the brother of the Lord’ (ὁ λεχθεὶς ἀδελφὸς τοῦ Κυρίου, xi. 35), an expression which has been variously interpreted as favouring all three hypotheses (see Blom, p. 88: Schliemann Clement. pp. 8, 213), and is indecisive in itself. It is more important to observe that in the Epistle of Clement prefixed to this work and belonging to the same cycle of writings James is styled not Apostle, but Bishop of Bishops, and seems to be distinguished from and in some respects exalted above the Twelve…
7. HEGESIPPUS ( about 160), a Hebrew Christian of Palestine, writes as follows: ‘After the martyrdom of James the Just on the same charge as the Lord, his paternal uncle’s child Symeon the son of Clopas is next made bishop, who was put forward by all as the second in succession, being cousin of the Lord’ (μετὰ τὸ μαρτυρῆσαι Ἰάκωβον τὸν δίκαιον ὡς καὶ ὁ Κύριος ἐπὶ τῷ αὐτῷ λόγῳ, πάλιν ὁ ἐκ τοῦ θείου αὐτοῦ Συμεων ὁ τοῦ Κλωπᾶ καθίσταται ἐπίσκοπος, ὃν προέθεντο πάντες ὄντα ἀνεψιὸν τοῦ Κυρίου δεύτερον , Euseb. Η. Ε. iv. 22). If the passage be correctly rendered thus (and this rendering alone seems intelligible ‘), Hegesippus distinguishes between the relationships of James the Lord’s brother and Symeon His cousin. So again, referring apparently to this passage, he in another fragment (Euseb. H. E. iii. 32) speaks of the child of the Lord’s paternal uncle, the aforesaid Symeon son of Clopas ‘ (ó ék θείου τοῦ Κυρίου ὁ προειρημένος Συμεων υἱὸς Κλωπά), to which Eusebius adds, ‘ for Hegesippus relates that Clopas was the brother of Joseph.’ Thus in Hegesippus Symeon is never once called the Lord’s brother, while James is always so designated. And this argument powerful in itself is materially strengthened by the fact that, where Hegesippus has occasion to mention Jude, he too like James is styled ‘the Lord’s brother ‘; ‘There still survived members of the Lord’s family (hoi apo genous tou Kyriou) grandsons of Judas who was called His brother according to the flesh (τοῦ κατὰ σάρκα λεγομένου αὐτοῦ ἀδελφοῦ); Euseb. H. E. iii. 20. In this passage the word ‘called’ seems to me to point to the Epiphanian rather than the Helvidian view, the brotherhood of these brethren, like the fatherhood of Joseph, being reputed but not real. In yet another passage (Euseb. H. E. ii. 23) Hegesippus relates that ‘the Church was committed in conjunction with the Apostles’ to the charge of (διαδέχεται τὴν ἐκκλησίαν μετὰ τῶν ἀποστόλων) the Lord’s brother James, who has been entitled Just by all from the Lord’s time to our own day; for many bore the name of James.’ From this last passage however no inference can be safely drawn; for, supposing the term ‘ Apostles ‘ to be here restricted to the Twelve, the expression meta ton apostolon may distinguish St James not from but among the Apostles; as in Acts v. 29, ‘Peter and the Apostles answered.’
Thus the testimony of Hegesippus seems distinctly opposed to the Hieronymian view, while of the other two it favours the Epiphanian rather than the Helvidian. If any doubt still remains, the fact that both Eusebius and Epiphanius, who derived their information mainly from Hegesippus, gave this account of the Lord’s brethren materially strengthens the position. The testimony of an early Palestinian writer who made it his business to collect such traditions is of the utmost importance. lian.
8. TERTULLIAN’S authority was appealed to by Helvidius, and Jerome is content to reply that he was not a member of the Church (‘de Tertulliano nihil amplius dico quam ecclesiae hominem non fuisse,’ adv. Helvid. § 17). It is generally assumed in consequence that Tertullian held the Lord’s brethren to be sons of Joseph and Mary. This assumption, though probable, is not absolutely certain. The point at issue in this passage is not the particular opinion of Helvidius respecting the Lord’s brethren, but the virginity of the Lord’s mother. Accordingly in reply Jerome alleges on his own side the authority of others’, whose testimony certainly did not go beyond this one point and had no reference to the relationship of the Lord’s brethren. Thus too the more distinct passages in the extant writings of Tertullian relate to the virginity only (de Carn. Christ. c. 23 and passim, de Monog. c. 8). Elsewhere however, though he does not directly state it, his argument seems to imply that the Lord’s brethren were His brothers in the same sense in which Mary was His mother (adv. Marc. iv. 19, de Carn. Christ. 7). It is therefore highly probable that he held the Helvidian view. Such an admission from one who was so strenuous an advocate of asceticism is worthy of notice.
9. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA (about A.D. 200) in a passage of the Hypotyposeis preserved in a Latin translation by Cassiodorus (the authorship has been questioned but without sufficient reason) puts forward the Epiphanian solution; ‘Jude, who wrote the Catholic Epistle, being one of the sons of Joseph and [ the Lord’s] brother, a man of deep piety, though he was aware of his relationship to the Lord, nevertheless did not say he was His brother; but what said he? Jude the servant of Jesus Christ, because He was his Lord, but brother of James; for this is true; he was his brother, being Joseph’s [son] ” (ed. Potter, p. 1007). This statement is explicit. On the other hand, owing to an extract preserved in Eusebius, his authority is generally claimed for the Hieronymian view; ‘Clement,’ says Eusebius, ‘in the sixth book of the Hypotyposeis gives the following account: Peter and James and John, he tells us, after Eusebius. the resurrection of the Saviour were not ambitious of honour, though the preference shown them by the Lord might have entitled them to it, but chose James the Just Bishop of Jerusalem. The same writer too in the seventh book of the same treatise gives this account also of him (James the Lord’s brother); The Lord after the resurrection delivered the gnosis to James the Just² and John and Peter. These delivered it to the rest of the Apostles; and the rest of the Apostles to the seventy, of whom Barnabas was one. Now there are two Jameses, one the Just who was thrown down from the pinnacle (of the temple) and beaten to death with a club by a fuller, and another who was beheaded’ (H. E. ii. 1). This passage however proves nothing. Clement says that there were two of the name of James, but he neither states nor implies that there were two only. His sole object was to distinguish the son of Zebedee from the Lord’s brother; and the son of Alphæus, of whom he knew nothing and could tell nothing, did not occur to his mind when he penned this sentence. There is in this passage nothing which contradicts the Latin extract; though indeed in a writer so uncritical in his historical notices ‘ such a contradiction would not be surprising’.
10. ORIGEN († A.D. 253) declares himself very distinctly in favour of the Epiphanian view, stating that the brethren were sons of Joseph by a deceased wife³. Elsewhere indeed he says that St Paul ‘calls this James the Lord’s brother, not so much on account of his kinsmanship or their companionship together, as on account of his character and language,’ but this is not inconsistent with the explicit statement already referred to.
In one passage he writes at some length on the subject; ‘ Some persons, on the ground of a tradition in the Gospel according to Peter, as it is entitled, or the Book of James (i.e. the Protevangelium), say that the brothers of Jesus were Joseph’s sons by a former wife to whom he was married before Mary. Those who hold this view wish to preserve the honour of Mary in virginity throughout… And I think it reasonable that as Jesus was the first-fruit of purity and chastity among men, so Mary was among women: for it is not seemly to ascribe the first – fruit of virginity to any other woman but her ‘ (in Matt. xiii. 55, III. p. 462)’. This passage shows not only that Origen himself favoured the Epiphanian view which elsewhere he has directly maintained, but that he was wholly unaware of the Hieronymian, the only alternative which presented itself being the denial of the perpetual virginity2…
12. VICTORINUS PETAVIONENSIS (about 300) was claimed by Helvidius as a witness in his own favour. Jerome denied this and put in a counter claim. It may perhaps be inferred from this circumstance that Victorinus did little more than repeat the statements of the evangelists respecting the Lord’s brethren (adv. Helvid. 17).
13. EUSEBIUS OF CESAREA († about 340) distinguished James the Lord’s brother from the Twelve, representing him as a supernumerary apostle like St Paul (Comm. in Isai. in Montfaucon’s Coll. Nov. Patr. II. p. 422; Hist. Eccl. i. 12; comp. vii. 19). Accordingly in another passage he explains that this James ‘ was called the Lord’s brother, because Joseph was His reputed father‘ (Hist. Eccl. ii. 1) ¹…
15. HILARY OF POITIERS (+† 368) denounces those who ‘claim authority for their opinion (against the virginity of the Lord’s mother) from the fact of its being recorded that our Lord had several brothers‘; and adds, yet if these had been sons of Mary and not rather sons of Joseph, the offspring of a former marriage, she would never at the time of the passion have been transferred to the Apostle John to be his mother‘ (Comm. in Matth. i. 1, p. 671 , ed. Bened. ). Thus he not only adopts the Epiphanian solution, but shows himself entirely ignorant of the Hieronymian…
17. The AMBROSIAN HILARY (about 375) Gal. i. 19 as follows; ‘The Lord is called the brother of James and the rest in the same way in which He is also designated the son of Joseph. For some in a fit of madness impiously assert and contend that these were true brothers of the Lord, being sons of Mary, allowing at the same time that Joseph, though not His true father, was so-called nevertheless. For if these were His true brothers, then Joseph will be His true father; for he who called Joseph His father also called James and the rest His brothers.’ Thus his testimony entirely coincides with that of his greater namesake. He sees only the alternative of denying the perpetual virginity as Helvidius did, or accepting the solution of the Protevangelium; and he unhesitatingly adopts the latter.
18. BASIL THE GREAT († 379), while allowing that the perpetual virginity is not a necessary article of belief, yet adheres to it himself since the lovers of Christ cannot endure to hear that the mother of God ever ceased to be a virgin‘ (Hom. in Sanct. Christ. Gen. II. p. 600, ed. Garn.)’. As immediately afterwards he refers, in support of his view, to some apocryphal work which related that Zacharias was slain by the Jews for testifying to the virginity of the mother of Jesus (a story which closely resembles the narrative of his death in the Protevang. §§ 23, 24), it may perhaps be inferred that he accepted that account of the Lord’s brethren which ran through these apocryphal gospels.
19. His brother GREGORY NYSSEN († after 394) certainly adopted the Epiphanian account. At the same time he takes up the very untenable position that the ‘ Mary who is designated in the other Evangelists (besides St John) the mother of James and Joses is the mother of God and none else?,’ being so called because she undertook the education of these her stepsons; and he supposes also that this James is called ‘the little’ by St Mark to distinguish him from James the son of Alphaus who was ‘great,’ because he was in the number of the Twelve Apostles, which the Lord’s brother was not (in Christ. Resurr. ii. Op. III. pp. 412, 413, ed. Paris, 1638).
20. The ANTIDICOMARIANITES, an obscure Arabian sect in Antidicomarian in the latter half of the fourth century, maintained that the Lord’s mother bore children to her husband Joseph. These opinions seem to have produced a reaction, or to have been themselves reactionary, for we read about the same time of a sect called Collyridians, likewise in Arabia, who going to the opposite extreme paid divine honours to the Virgin (Epiphan. Haeres. lxxviii, lxxix)¹.
21. EPIPHANIUS a native of Palestine became bishop of Constantia in Cyprus in the year 367. Not very long before Jerome wrote in defence of the perpetual virginity of the Lord’s mother against the Helvidians at Rome, Epiphanius came forward as the champion of the same cause against the Antidicomarianites. He denounced them in an elaborate pastoral letter, in which he explains his views at length, and which he has thought fit to incorporate in his subsequently written treatise against Heresies (pp. 1034-1057, ed. Petav.). He moreover discusses the subject incidentally in other parts of his great work (pp. 115, 119, 432, 636), and it is clear that he had devoted much time and attention to it. His account coincides with that of the apocryphal gospels. Joseph, he states, was eighty years old or more when the Virgin was espoused to him; by his former wife he had six children, four sons and two daughters, the names of the daughters were Mary and Salome, for which names by the way he alleges the authority of Scripture p. 1041); his sons, St James especially, were called the Lord’s brethren because they were brought up with Jesus; the mother of the Lord remained for ever a virgin; as the lioness is said to exhaust her fertility in the production of a single offspring (see Herod. iii. 108), so she who bore the Lion of Judah could not in the nature of things become a mother a second time (pp. 1044, 1045). These particulars with many other besides he gives, quoting as his authority ‘ the tradition of the Jews’ (p. 1039). It is to be observed moreover that, though he thus treats of the subject several times and at great length, he never once alludes to the Hieronymian account; and yet I can scarcely doubt that one who so highly extolled celibacy would have hailed with delight a solution which, as Jerome boasted, saved the virginity not of Mary only but of Joseph also, for whose honour Epiphanius shows himself very jealous (pp. 1040, 1046, 1047).
22. Somewhere about the year 380 HELVIDIUS, who resided in Rome, published a treatise in which he maintained that the Lord’s brethren were sons of Joseph and Mary. He seems to have succeeded in convincing a considerable number of persons, for contemporary writers speak of the Helvidians as a party. These views were moreover advocated by BONOSUS, bishop of Sardica in Illyria, about the same time, and apparently also by JOVINIANUS a monk probably of Milan. The former was condemned by a synod assembled at Capua (A.D. 392), and the latter by synods held at Rome and at Milan (about A.D. 390; see Hefele Conciliengesch. II. pp. 47, 48)¹.
In earlier times this account of the Lord’s brethren, so far as it was the badge of a party, seems to have been held in conjunction with Ebionite views respecting the conception and person of Christ1. For, though not necessarily affecting the belief in the miraculous Incarnation, it was yet a natural accompaniment of the denial thereof. The motive of these latter impugners of the perpetual virginity was very different. They endeavoured to stem the current which had set strongly in the direction of celibacy; and, if their theory was faulty, they still deserve the sympathy due to men who in defiance of public opinion refused to bow their necks to an extravagant and tyrannous superstition. summed up.
We have thus arrived at the point of time when Jerome’s answer to Helvidius created a new epoch in the history of this controversy. And the following inferences are, if I mistake not, fairly deducible from the evidence produced. First: there is not the slightest indication that the Hieronymian solution ever occurred to any individual or sect or church, until it was put forward by Jerome himself. If it had been otherwise, writers like Origen, the two Hilaries, and Epiphanius, who discuss the question, could not have failed to notice it. Secondly: the Epiphanian account has the highest claims to the sanction of tradition, whether the value of this sanction be great or small. Thirdly this solution seems especially to represent the Palestinian view.
In the year 382 (or 383) Jerome published his treatise; and the effect of it is visible at once.
AMBROSE in the year 392 wrote a work De Institutione Virginis, in which he especially refutes the impugners of the perpetual virginity of the Lord’s mother. In a passage which is perhaps intentionally obscure he speaks to this effect: The term brothers has a wide application; it is used of members of the same family, the same race, the same country. Witness the Lord’s own words I will declare thy name to my brethren (Ps. xxii. 22). St Paul too says: I could wish to be accursed for my brethren (Rom. ix. 3). Doubtless they might be called brothers as sons of Joseph, not of Mary. And if any one will go into the question carefully, he will find this to be the true account. For myself I do not intend to enter upon this question: it is of no importance to decide what particular relationship is implied; it is sufficient for my purpose that the term “brethren ” is used in an extended sense (i.e. of others besides sons of the same mother)’. From this I infer that St Ambrose had heard of, though possibly not read, Jerome’s tract, in which he discourses on the wide meaning of the term : that, if he had read it, he did not feel inclined to abandon the view with which he was familiar in favour of the novel hypothesis put forward by Jerome : and lastly, that seeing the importance of cooperation against a common enemy he was anxious not to raise dissensions among the champions of the perpetual virginity by the discussion of details.
PELAGIUS, who commented on St Paul a few years after Jerome, adopts his theory and even his language, unless his text has been tampered with here (Gal. i. 19).
At the same time Jerome’s hypothesis found a much more weighty advocate in ST AUGUSTINE. In his commentary on the Galatians indeed (i. 19), written about 394 while he was still a presbyter, he offers the alternative of the Hieronymian and Epiphanian accounts. But in his later works he consistently maintains the view put forward by Jerome in the treatise against Helvidius (In Jöh. Evang. x, III. 2. p. 368, ib. xxviii, III. 2. p. 508; Enarr. in Ps. cxxvii, IV. 2. p. 1443; Contr. Faust. xxii. 35, VIII. p. 383; comp. Quaest. XVII in Matth., III. 2. p. 285). Church.
Thus supported, it won its way to general acceptance in the Latin Church; and the WESTERN SERVICES recognise only one James besides the son of Zebedee, thus identifying the Lord’s brother with the son of Alphæus. stom.
In the East also it met with a certain amount of success, but this was only temporary. CHRYSOSTOM wrote both before and after Jerome’s treatise had become generally known, and his expositions of the New Testament mark a period of transition. In his Homilies on the earlier books he takes the Epiphanian view: St James, he says, was at one time an unbeliever with the rest of the Lord’s brethren (on Matth. i. 25, VII. p. 77; John vii. 5, VIII. p. 284; see also on 1 Cor. ix. 4, x. p. 181 E); the resurrection was the turning-point in their career; they were called the Lord’s brethren, as Joseph himself was reputed the husband of Mary (on Matth. i. 25, 1. c.). Hitherto he betrays no knowledge of the Hieronymian account. But in his exposition of the Epistle to the Galatians (i. 19) he not only speaks of James the Lord’s brother as if he were an apostle (which proves nothing), but also calls him the son of Clopas¹. Thus he would appear meanwhile to have accepted the hypothesis of Jerome and to have completed it by the identification of Clopas with Alphæus. And THEODORET, who for the most part closely follows Chrysostom, distinctly repudiates the older view: ‘He was not, as some have supposed, a son of Joseph, the offspring of a former marriage, but was son of Clopas and cousin of the Lord; for his mother was the sister of the Lord’s mother.’
But with these exceptions the Epiphanian view maintained its ground in the East. It is found again in CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA for instance (Glaphyr. in Gen. lib. vii. p. 221), and seems to have been held by later Greek writers almost, if not quite, universally. In THEOPHYLACT indeed (on Matth. xiii. 55, Gal. i. 19) we find an attempt to unite the two accounts. James, argues the writer, was the Lord’s reputed brother as the son of Joseph and the Lord’s cousin as the son of Clopas; the one was his natural, and the other his legal father; Clopas having died childless, Joseph had raised up seed to his brother by his widow according to the law of the levirate. This novel suggestion however found but little favour, and the Eastern Churches continued to distinguish between James the Lord’s brother and James the son of Alphæus. The GREEK, SYRIAN, and COPTIC CALENDARS assign a separate day to each. (Ibid., 24-44)
So there you have it. The great bulk of early Christians affirmed Mary’s perpetual virginity, and only disagreed about whether the Lord’s brothers and sisters were relatives of his (Hieoronymian view), or Joseph’s children from the previous marriage (Epiphanian view, which was held by the vast majority of believers). Very few held to the position that these were the biological offspring of Mary (Helvidian view), and those that did so were heretics (i.e., Tertullian [Montanist heresy], Helvidius [Arian heresy]).
FURTHER READING
Church Fathers on Mary’s Perpetual Virginity
What the Early Church Believed: The Perpetual Virginity of Mary
“The Greek ‘heos hou’ in Matthew 1:25 disproves Mary’s Perpetual Virginity”?
THE REFORMERS ON MARY’S PERPETUAL VIRGINITY
FRANCIS TURRETIN ON THE PERPETUAL VIRGINITY OF MARY
EARLY CHURCH ON MARY AS THE NEW AND GREATER EVE
NOTES FOR PERPETUAL VIRGINITY DEBATE
PROTESTANT SCHOLARSHIP ON LUKE 1:26-56 AND MARY AS GOD’S ARK
Mary’s Purity and Sinlessness in the Church Fathers
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