3. James, the brother ov the Lord (o aSt\(p<)c Toii Kvpiov [Gal. i, 19]). Whether this .James is iden- tical with the son of Alphreus is a question which Dr. Neander pronounces to be the most difficult in the apos- tolic history; it may be well, therefore, to consider more particidarly under this head the arguments that have been urged in support of the negative. We read in Matt, xiii, 55, " Is not his mother called j\Iary, and his brethren James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?" and in Mark vi, 3, " Is not this the carpenter, the son of Slary, and brother of James and Joses, and of Juda and Simon'? and are not his sisters here with us?" Those critics who suiipose tlie terms of affinity in these and parallel passages to be used in the laxcr sense of near relations, have remarked that in IVIark xv, 40 mention is made of " Mary, the mother of James the Less and of Joses;" and that in Johp xix, 25 it is said " there stood by the cross of .lesus his mothcE and his mother's sister, Jlary, the wife of Cleophas, and ^lary ^Magdalene;" they therefore infer that the wife of Cleophas is the same as the sister of the mother of Jesus, and consequently that James (supposing Cleophas and Alphieus to be the same name, the former according to the Hebrew, the latter accord- ing to the Greek orthography) was nfyst cousin of our Lord, and on that account termed his brother, and that
JAMES
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JAMES
the other indivicUials called the brethren of Jesus stood in the same relation. It is also urged that in the Acts, after the death of James, the son of Zcbedee, we read only of one James ; and, moreover, that it is improbable that our Lord would have committed his mother to the care of the beloved disei|)le had there been sons of Jo- seph living, whether the offspring of Mary or of a for- mer marriage. Against this view it has been alleged that in several early Christian writers, James, the broth- er of the Lord, is distinguished from the sou of Alplueus, that the identity of the names Aliihanis and C'lcophas is somewhat uncertain, and that it is doubtful whether the words "his mother's sister," in John xix, 25, are to be considered in apposition with those immediately follow- ing— "Marv, the wife of Cleophas," or intended to desig- nate a ditfereut individual, since it is highly improba- ble that two sisters should have had the same name. Wieseler {Siudien uml Kritiken, 1840, iii, 648) maintains that not three, but four persons are mentioned in this passage ; and that, since in Matt, xxvii, 56, and Mark XV, 40, besides Mary of Magdala, and Mary, the mother of James and Joses, Salome also (or the mother of the sons of Zebedee) is named as present at the Crucifixion, it foUows that she must have been the sister of our Lord's mother. But, even allowing that the sons of Al- phcBus were related to our Lord, the narrative in the Evangelists and the Acts presents some reasons for sus- pecting that they were not the persons dcscrilii'il as " the brethren of Jesus." (1.) The brethren of.Ksus are asso- ciated with his mother in a manner tliat strongly indi- cates their standing in the filial relation to her (]Matt. xii, 46; Mark iii, 31; Lukeviii, 19; Matt, xiii, 56, where " sisters" are also mentioned) ; they appear constantly together as forming one family (John ii, 12): ''After this he went down to Capernaum, he, and his mother, and his brethren, and his disciples" (Kuinoel, Commptit. in Matt, xii, 46). (2.) It is explicitly stated that at a period posterior to the appointment of the twelve apos- tles, among whom we find " the son of Alphiieus," " nei- their did his brethren believe in him" (John vii, 5 ; Llicke's Comment.). Attempts, indeed, have been made by Grotius and Lardner to dilute the force of this lan- guage, as if it meant merely that their faith was imper- fect or wavering — " that they did not believe as they should ;" but the language of Jesus is decisive : " My time is not yet come, but your time is always ready; the world cannot hate you, but me it hateth" (compare this with John xv, 18, 19 : " If the world hate you," etc.). As to the supposition that what is aflirmed in John's Gospel might apply to only some of his brethren, it is evident that, admitting the identity, only one Ijrother of Jesus would be left out of the " company of the apos- tles." (3.) Luke's language in Acts i, 13, 14, is opposed to the identity in question ; for, after enumerating the apostles, among whom, as usual, is " James, the sou of AlphiBus," he adds, " they all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women, and Mary, the mother of .Jesus, and with his brethren." From this passage, however, we learn that by this time his breth- ren had received him as the JSIessiah. That after the death of the son of Zebedee we find only one James mentioned, may easily be accoimted for on the ground that probably only one, " the brother of the Lord," re- mained at Jerusalem ; and, under such circumstances, the silence of the historian respecting the son of Alph.-c- us is not more strange than respecting several of the other apostles, whose names never occur after the cata- logue in i, 13. Paul's language in Gal. i, 19 has been adduced to prove the identity of the Lord's brother with the sou of Alphffius by its rankuig him among the apos- tles, but others contend that it is bj' no means decisive (Winer, Grammatilc, 4th edit., p. 517 ; Neander, Ilktory of the Plantinrj, etc., ii, 5 [Engl, translation]). Dr. Nie- meyer {Charakteristik der Bibel, i, 399 [HaUe, 1830]) enumerates not less than five persons of this name, bj^ distinguishing the son of Alphseus from James the Less, and assuming that the James last mentioned in Acts i.