To solve the difficulties of this verse the following supposition has been suggested : (1) That the two clauses "his mother's sister" and "Marj^ of Clopas" are not in apposition, and that John meant to designate four per- sons as present, namely, the mother of Jesus ; her sister, to whom he does not assign any name ; Mary of Clopas ; and Mary Magdalene ( Lange). It has been further sug- gested that this sister's name was Salome, wife of Zebe- dee (Wieseler). This is avoiding, not solving a diffi- culty. John could not have expressed himself as he does had he meant more than three persons. It has been suggested (2) that the word dStX^r] is not here to be taken in its strict sense, but rather in the laxcr ac- ceptation, which it clearly does bear in other places. Mary, wife of Clopas, it has been said, was not the sister, but the cousin of Mary the Virgin (see Wordsworth, Gi\ Test., Preface to the Epistle of St. James). There is nothing in this suggestion which is objectionable, or wliich can be disproved. But it is hardly consistent with the terms of close relationship assigned to the con- nected members of the holy family. See Brethren OF OUR Lord. By many, therefore, it has been con- tended (3) that the two Marys were literally sisters- german. " That it is far from impossible for two sisters to have the same name may be seen by any one who will cast his ej-e over Betham's Genealogical Tables. To name no others, his eye will at once light on a pair of Antonias anil a pair of Octavias, the daughters of the same father, and in one case of different mothers, in the other of the same mother. If it be objected that these are merely gentilic names, another table will give two Cleopatras. It is cjuite possible, too, that the same cause which operates at present in Spain may have been at work formerly in Judrea. MiRiAjr, the sister of IMoses, may have been the holy woman after whom Jewish mothers called their daughters, just as Spanish mothers not unfrequently give the name of jMarv to their chil- dren, male and female alike, in honor of Mary the Vir- gin. (Maria, Maria-Pia, and Maria-Immacolata, are the first names of three of the sisters of the late king of the Two Sicilies.) This is on the hypothesis that the two names are identical, but, on a close examination of the Greek text, we find that it is possible that this was not the case. i\Iary the Virgin is Mapici^i ; her sister is Mopi'o. It is more than possible that these names are the Greek representatives of two forms which the antique C'^'I'a had then taken; and as in pronunciation the emphasis would have been tin-own on the last sylla- ble in Mnpia/x, while the final letter in Mapia would have been almost unheard, there would, upon this hy- pothesis, have been a greater difference in the sisters' names than there is between Jlary and Jlaria among ourselves. The ordinary explanation that Mapta/x is the Hebraic form, and Mapta the Greek form, and that the difference is in the use of the evangelists, not in the
name itself, seems scarcely adequate : for why should the evangelists invariably employ the Hebraic form when writing of Mary the Virgin, and the Greek form when ^rating about all the other Marj-s in the Gospel history? It is true that this distinction is not con- stantly observed in the readings of the Codex Vatica- nus, the Codex Ephraemi, and a few other MSS. ; but there is sufficient agreement in the majority of the cod- ices to determine the usage. That it is possible for a name to develop into several kindred forms, and for these forms to be considered sufficiently distinct appellations for two or more brothers or sisters, is evidenced by our daily experience" (Smith). " We find that the high- priest Onias III had a brother also named Onias, who eventually succeeded him in his office. under the adopt- ed name of Menelaus. We have the authority of the earliest traditions for the opinion that our Lord's mother had at least one sister called Mary. Indeed, it is an old opinion that Anna, the mother of the Virgin Mary, had three daughters of that name by different husbands ; and Dr. Routh, in his Reliquia Sacra, gives us from Pa- pias, the scholar of John {ex Cod MS. Bill. Bodl. 2397), the following enumeration of four Marys of the N. T. : 1. Maria, Mater Domini ; 2. Maria, Cleopha; sive Alphsei uxor, quffi fiut mater .Tacobi Episcopi et Apostoli, et Si- monis, et Thadrei, et cujusdam Joseph ; 3. Maria Salome, uxor Zebedaji, mater Johannis evangelistffi et Jacobi ; 4. Maria Magdalene. It is further stated, in this fragment of Papias, that both Mary, the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Salome, were aunts of our Lord, and consequently sisters of the Virgin Mary" (Kitto). Finally, most in- terpreters, regarding all the above positions as untena- ble, or, at least, improbable, suppose (4) that the two IMarys were sisters-in-law by virtue of having married brothers, i. e. Joseph and Alphreus or Clopas, and after- wards, perhaps by a Levirate marriage, having become the wives of the same husband, namely, Joseph the sur- vivor. See ALPtt.Eus.