5 arment (Wilkinson in Rawlinson'Sjfferorf.'ii. 113). OS. gives a description of it as worn in his time {Ant. UI. vii. 1. Cf. Kalisch on Ex 28*; Braun, De Vest. Sacerd. ffebr. 1680, lib. ii. cap. i. De e'DJDD Brachis Sacerdotum, with illustr. p. 450). A. R. S. Kennedy. BRETHREN OF THE LORD. — The phrase ' brother ' or ' brethren ' of the Lord is used several times in the NT of James and other persons. There has been much controversy as to the actual relationship implied, whether we are to understand ' brethren ' literally as meaning sons of the mother and reputed father of Jesus (the Hel vidian view), or sons of Joseph by a former marriage (the Epiphanian view), or sons of Clopas or Alphaeus, the nusband of a sister of the mother of Jesus (the Hieronymian view).
A . The passages bearing on the subject are Mt 1^, Lk 2' (birth), Jn 2"= (common household), Lk 4"-*' (preaching at Nazareth), Mk 3™*- *'*• (attempts of Mary and His brethren to restrain Jesus ; cf. Mt 12*', Lk S'"), Jn 7^-« (going up to the Feast of Tabernacles), Mt 27»«, SIk IS"- " 16', Lk 24'», Jn W-^"- (the crucifixion), Ac 1» Gal l'**-, 1 Co 9» (after the Resurrection).
I think that any one reading these passages, without any preconceived idea on the subject, would naturally draw the conclusion that Mary was the true wife of Joseph, and bore to him at least four sons (James, Joses, Judas, and Simon) and two daughters ; that the sons were not in- cluded among the twelve apostles, but were, on the contrary, disbelievers in the Messiahship of Christ, and inclined at one time to entertain doubts as to His sanity, though after His death they threw in their lot with His disciples. Setting aside the apocryphal books of the NT, the earliest refer- ence to this subject in the post-apostolic writers is found in Hegesippus (about a.d. 160). His testi- mony, preserved by Eusebius {HE iv. 22), is quite consistent with the conclusion to which we are led by the language of Scripture, while it is totally opposed to tne Hieronymian view. It is to the enect that ' after the martyrdom of James the Just on the same charge as the Lord, his paternal uncle's cliild, Synieon the son of Clopas, was next made Bishop of Jerus., being put forward by all as the second in succession, seeing tliat he was a cousin of the Lord.' Cf this with HE iii. 22, where Symeon is said to have succeeded the brother of the Lord as bishop, and c. 20, where Jude also is called brother of the Lord.
Tertullian {d. A.D. 220) is, however, the first who distinctly asserts that the ' brethren ' were uterine brothers of Jesus. Arguing against Marcion, who
had made use of the text, ' Who is my mother, and who my brother ? ' to prove that Christ was not really man, he says : Nos contrario dicimus, prima, non potuisse illi annuntiari quod mater et fratres ejus foris starent , , , si nulla illi mater et fratret null% fuissent. , . . At vere Tnater et fratres ejus foris stabant. . . . Tam proximas personas forii stare, extraneis inttis defixis ad sermones ejus . . . merito indignatus est. Transtulit sanguinis nomina in alios, quos magis proximos pro fde judicaret . . . in semet ipso docens, guipatrem aut matrem aut fratres prceponeret verba Dei, non esse dignum dis- cipulum (Adv. Marc. iv. 19). Similarly arguing from the same text against the Marcionite Apelles, he says ' the words are not inconsistent with the truth of His humanity. No one would have told Him that His mother and His brethren stood with- out, qui nan certus esset habere ilium matrem et fratres. . . . Omnes nascimur, et tam^n non omnes aut fratres habemus aut matrem. Adhuc potest et patrem magis habere quam matrem, et avunculos magis quam fratres. . . . Fratres Domini nan credi- derunt in ilium. . . . Mater aque non demanstratur adh(Esisse ei. . . . Hoc denique in loco apparet in- credulitas earum' {De Came Christi, 7). As Ter- tullian in these passages gives no hint that the brothers of Jesus stood to Him in any other relation than other men's brothers do to them, or that His relationship to them was not as real as that to His mother, so in other treatises he takes it for granted that Mary ceased to be a virgin after the birth of Christ (De Monogamia, 8) : Duct nobis antistites ChristiancB sanctitatis occurrunt, monogamia et continentia. Et Christum quidem virgo enixa est, semel nuptura post partum {'being about to defer her marriage union till after the birth of her son,' lit. ' being about to marry first after her delivery ') ut uterque titulus sanctitatis in Christi sen.su dispungeretur per matrem et virginem et univiram ; and in even plainer words {De Virg. Vel. 6), where he discusses tne meanin" of the salu- tation benedicta tu inter mulieres. ' Was she called mulier, and not virgo, because she was espoused ? We need not, at any rate, suppose a prophetic reference to her future state as a married woman ' : non enim poterat posteriorem jntilierem nominare, de qua Christus nasci non habebat, id est virum passam sed ilia (illam?) gum erat prm-iens, quce erat virgo ( ' for the angel could not be referring to the wife that was to be, for Christ was not to be born of a wife, i.e. of one who had kno^vn a hus- band ; but he referred to her who was before him, who was a virgin ').