[6117] St. John xix. 2-16.
[6118] vv. 17-24.
[6119] The first impression left is, of course, that the brothers' of Jesus were not yet, at least in the full sense, believers. But this does not by any means necessarily follow, since both the presence of John under the Cross, and even his outward circumstances, might point him out as the most fit custodian of the Virgin-Mother. At the same time it seems the more likely supposition, that the brothers of Jesus were converted by the appearance to James of the Risen One (1 Cor. xv. 7).
[6120] St. John xix. 25-27.
[6121] This view is now generally adopted.
[6122] St. Matt. xxvii. 55.
[6123] St. Mark xv. 40, 41.
[6124] There is, of course, the difficulty that Judas (Lebbæus) and Simon Zelotes are not here mentioned as her sons. But they may have been her stepheons, or there may have other reasons for the omission. Judas of James' could scarcely have been the son of James, and Simon is expressly mentioned by Hegesippus as the son of Clopas.
[6125] St. Mark.
[6126] St. Matthew.
[6127] Hegesippus in Euseb. H.E. iii. 11 and iv. 22.
[6128] Alphæus and Clopas are the same name. The first occurs in the Babylon Talmud as Ilphai, or Ilpha ({hebrew}), as in R. haSh. 17 b, and often; the other in the Jerusalem Talmud as Chilphai ({hebrew}), as for ex. in Jer. B. Kama 7 a.
[6129] I regard the Simon Zelotes of the list of Apostles as the Simon son of Clopas, or Alphæus, of Hegesippus - first, because of his position in the lists of the Apostles along with the two other sons of Alphæus; secondly, because, as there were only two prominent Simons in the N.T. (the brother of the Lord, and Zelotes), and Hegesippus mentions him as the son of Clopas, it follows that the Simon son of Clopas was Simon Zelotes. Levi Matthew was, indeed, also a son of Alphæus, but we regard this as another Clopas than the husband of Mary.
[6130] Incongruous though the interruption be, we cannot help noticing that the introduction of such a scene seems inconsistent with the whole theory of an Ephesian authorship of the Fourth Gospel. On the other hand, it displays evidence of the true human interest of an actor in the scene.
[6131] Nothing is really known of the later history of the Blessed Virgin.
[6132] St. John xix. 28.
[6133] I do not think the testimony of Phlegon, as quoted by Eusebius, is available (see the discussion in Wieseler's Synopse, p. 387, note 1). Still, if the astronomical calculations of Ideler and Wurm are correct, the eclipse' recorded by Phlegon [whether eclipse' in the scientific sense, or darkness,'] would have taken place in the very year of our Lord's death, A.D. 29, but, as they reckon, on November 24. I do not posses the special knowledge requisite to verify these calculations; but that it is described by Phlegon as an eclipse' - which this could not have been - does not necessarily invalidate the argument, since he might have used the term inaccurately. It is in this sense that St. Luke (xxiii. 45) uses the verb - that is, if we adopt the amended reading. What Nebe writes on this subject (vol. ii. p. 301), and the illustrations of the popular use of the word from Pliny and Plutarch, deserve the most serious consideration. But, I repeat, I cannot attach weight in this argument to such testimonies, nor yet to the sayings of Origen, Tertullian, &c., nor to the Acta Pilati (the ecclesiastical testimonies are discussed by Nebe, u. s. p. 299).
[6134] St. Matt. xxvii. 51.
[6135] There are frequent notices in classical writers of eclipses preceding disastrous events or the death of great men, such as of Cæsar (Nebe, u. s. p. 300). But these were, if correctly related, eclipses in the true sense, and, as such, natural events, having in no way a supernatural bearing, and hence in no sense analogous to this darkness' at the Crucifixion.