G. M. Mackie.
FAMILY
FAMILY
FAMILY.-
1. Jesus as the member of a family.
2. Teaching of Jesus on the family.
(a) Marriage.
(6) Position of women.
(c) Filial obedience.
(d) The family and the Kingdom of God.
1. Whatever be the force of the phrase ' the brethren of the Lord ' (see article s.v. ), it is evident that Jesus took His place as a member of a human family in the fulle.st sense of the word. Such was the impression of His fellow-townsmen who saw Him in His daily life. The reticence of the Gospels about the childhood of Christ is in itself an indica- tion that there was nothing which so dittered from the ordinary family life of a Jewish household as to create a special tradition about His early years. It was not till a later age had forgotten the com- pleteness with which the Lord identified Himself with human conditions that there appeared the painful attempts of the Apocryphal Gospels to break the sUence of their Canonical prototypes. In the one authentic account of any event in the boyhood of Jesus (Lk 2^'"°'). received perhaps from the Virgin herself (see Ramsay, Was Chnst born at BetlUehem / ch. iv. ), He is seen to be as others ' among their kinsfolk and acquaintance.' For the rest we only know that ' the moral perfections of God were being translated into those unosten- tatious virtues which constitute the dignity and the happiness of a human home ' (Dale, Laws of Christ for Common Life, xi.).
When we come to the history of the Ministry, two stages can be discerned in the change which came over the relations between Jesus and His earthly kinsfolk. (1) The calling of the first dis- ciples, narrated in Jn 1, did not lead at once to the withdrawal of the Lord from His family. His mother was present with Him at the marriage at Cana, and after that event He went down with her and His brethren to Capernaum and made a short stay there (Jn 2'2, of. Mt 4'3-M). (2) But when the Apostolic band was complete and the work of training them began in earnest, then He sub- ordinated the claims of His family to the higher claims of His mission, and no longer lived con- tinually in the home of His youth. Immediately after the final choice of the Twelve occurred the incident near Capernaum, when those from His house (oi Trap' airov) went out to stop Him from preaching, under the impression that He was mad ; shortly afterwards His mother and His brethren try to call Him away, apparently for a similar reason (Mk 3-'). From this it may be gathered that they were now living at Capernaum. From Mk 6' it has been mistakenly concluded that they were still living at Nazareth, but the verse plainly draws a distinction between them and His sisters (named, ace. to Epiphan. H(Er. Ixxviii. 9, Salome and Mary), who, either because they were married, or for some other reason, had settled down in their native to^vn. Some have supposed that when the Lord left His family He dwelt in a house of His own in Capernaum. The Gospel of St. Matthew, it is true, speaks in a vague way of 'tlte house' (910.28 131.36 i726)_ ijut g, comparisou of, e.g., 9>» with the corresponding passage in Lk S^' shows that it is not a house of Jesus which is meant. After leaving the family home, when He entered into a city, He depended on the hospitality of His friends, "it was this literal homelessness which drew from Him the saying recorded in Mt 8-" II Lk 9™ ; for it is unnecessary to give these words, with Augustine and others, a figurative sense. It is not possible to discover the precise moment at which they were uttered, as the two Evangelists give them in difterent connexions, but they must belong to the period when the total failure of His kindred to understand His mission had made it impossible vol.. 1,-37
for Him to dwell with them any longer. The position given to them by St. Luke is the more probable. According to him, they were pronounced as the Ministry was entering upon its last stage (cf. Lk 9=1). • Now in Jn 1'-'' the Lord's ' brethren ' are found arguing with Hun as if He still lived with them. The incident there alluded to took place just before the Feast of Tabernacles in the second year of the Ministry. From this we may accept the conclusion suggested by St. Luke s order, that the Lord's home was closed against Him towards the end of the Ministry, rather than near its beginning, as the position given to the saying in St. Matthew might imply. Perhaps it is not without significance that in the next chapter of St. Luke is introduced another home, that of Lazarus and his sisters at Bethany, in which the Lord was an honoured guest.
The reconciliation which the Lord's Passion won for all mankind was first reflected among His own kinsmen after the flesh. We cannot suppose that His mother had ever been parted from Him in any absolute sense, and after His resurrection His brethren also cast in their lot with those who believed in Him. According to the tradition which St. Paul received, the Lord Himself ap- peared to James (1 Co 15'). This moment was probably but the last in a series during which the surrender to the clahiis of Jesus had been steadily replacing previous unbelief. Such at least was the interpretation of later days, when the story was told that beneath the Cross (or even at the Last Supper, ace. to the version of Jerome, de Vir. Illus., quoting tlie Gospel of the Hebrews) James swore that he would neither eat bread nor drink wine till the Lord rose from the dead. With his conversion came that of the other brethren, and they with the Virgin are found at the opening of the Acts (1") among those who were waiting for the fulfilment of the promise of the Spirit. Thus the earthly family of Christ fittingly finds its place in the foundations of His spiritual family.