A Study on the “Brothers” of Jesus in the New Testament
And the Lord said to me: This gate shall be shut; it shall not be opened, and no man shall pass through it, because the Lord the God of Israel hath entered in by it (cf. Ezek 44:1-2).
Our Protestant brethren say that Mary did not remain a virgin, but that she had other children. They cite the Gospels that speak of “the brothers of Jesus” (Mt 13:56 and Mk 3:31). If Jesus had brothers, then, they say, Mary had other children. They also think that he took unto him his wife (Mt 1:25) means that Joseph had relations with Mary. And that calling Jesus firstborn (Mt 1:25) means the first-born among other children. They interpret before they came together (Mt 1:18) as if the word “come together” meant to have relations. Finally, our brethren say that he knew her not till she brought forth (Mt 1:25), as if, after giving birth to Jesus, Mary and Joseph had relations.
But what is the biblical evidence?
a) The word “brother” has many meanings in the Bible.
“The Greek word for brother is ADELPHOS and for sister ADELPHE. Certainly these words can also refer to spiritual brothers and sisters, as the terms are used in the Christian church, or to relatives as close as cousins” (1).
In the OT the word “brother” is used in place of “cousins”: And Moses called Misael and Elisaphan, the sons of Oziel, the uncle of Aaron, and said to them: Go and take away your brethren from before the sanctuary, and carry them without the camp (Lev 10:4). In Genesis, Abram (Abraham) says to Lot: we are brethren (13:8). Lot was his nephew (Gen 11:27; 12:5). In the Second Book of Samuel the word “brother” is used to indicate members of the same race and the same people: you are my brethren (2 Sam 19:12; cf. Ex 2:11). David also assembled the sons of Aaron… and their brethren, a hundred and twenty… Of the sons of Merari… and their brethren, two hundred and twenty (1 Chr 15:4-6; see the following verses and 2 Kings 10:13-14 as well). Rebecca is called “sister” by her mother (Gen 24:55-60). Moses calls the sons of Aaron’s uncle the brethren of the sons of Aaron (Lev 10:1-6). They are called brethren because they are priests (1 Chr 24:30-31).
In the NT we read: So also shall my heavenly Father do to you, if you forgive not every one his brother from your hearts (Mt 18:35). Jesus saith to her: Do not touch me, for I am not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren, and say to them… (Jn 20:17-18). Then Jesus said to them: Fear not; go, tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, there they shall see me (Mt 28:7-10). A “brother” is everyone who believes and obeys: Whosoever shall do the will of my Father, that is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister (Mt 12:46-50). Philip is called the brother of Herod Antipas although he was his half-brother. (The Philip of Lk 3:1 is not the same as the one in Lk 3:19.)
Why this ambiguity? Because Hebrew and Aramaic (the language of Christ and His disciples) do not contain a specific word for “cousin.” They used “brother” or “the son of my father’s sister.” But instead of the latter, it was easier to say “brother.” The authors of the NT were accustomed to doing the same. When they spoke in Greek they did the same as those who translated the great scroll (the Seventy). In the translation of the Septuagint the Hebrew word for brother or relative was rendered as ADELPHOS, which in Greek means “brother.” Although Greek has a word for cousin, ANEPSIOS, the translators of the Septuagint preferred to use ADELPHOS. That is why more investigation is needed to know what “brothers of Jesus” means.
We cannot take the word “brother” literally as “blood brother,” because this word refers to two persons who have the same parents, but Jesus had no mortal father; rather He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. If the four brothers were His blood brothers, they would have the same father as Jesus. The four “brothers” would truly be “half-brothers,” which is not what the Bible calls them.
b) The Bible says that the brothers of Jesus are James (Santiago in the Dios Habla Hoy Bible), Joseph, Simon, and Jude (Mt 13:55). But looking at other places in the Bible we see that these men had another blood father, while the father of Jesus was Joseph the carpenter. In the first three lists of the names of the women who go to the tomb, and in the fourth with the names of the women at the foot of the cross, we notice that the mother of James and Joseph is another Mary:
Mt 27:56: Mary Magdalen, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.
Mk 15:40: Mary Magdalen, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joseph, and Salome. (See 16:1)
Jn 19:25: Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen.
Note that James and Joseph, “the brothers of Jesus” in Mt 13:56, were the sons of Mary the wife of Cleophas (2), possibly a relative of Mary the mother of Jesus and wife of Joseph. Mary the mother of Jesus did not go to the Tomb.
In his epistle the Apostle writes: Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James (Jude 1). If James and Jude were brothers of Jesus, being themselves “brothers also” (Acts 1:13), why does Jude say only “servant of Jesus Christ” and not add “brother” of Him, as he does with his brother James?
According to the historian Hegesippus, Simon was the son of “Mary (wife) of Cleophas” (Eusebius of Caesarea, Hist. Eccl. III 2, 32).
c) Luke 2:41 shows us the family of Nazareth: Now his parents went every year to Jerusalem. Verse 51 speaks of only one son: And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them. It gives us no indication that there were other brothers.
d) In John (19:26-27), Jesus asked John to take care of Mary. If He had had other brothers it would not have been necessary (nor lawful) for John to do so. Some brethren say that He did have other brothers, but that He asked this of John because John was a believer, while they would not believe in Jesus until He rose again (Acts 1:13). But if Jesus knew that they were going to believe in Him after the resurrection, why not entrust her to “His brothers,” even if they took three days to become believers?
e) Mark says: Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joseph, and Jude, and Simon? (Mk 6:3). Likewise Mt 13:53. It does not say “one of the sons of Mary.” The Bible never speaks of “the sons of Mary” but of “the brothers of Jesus.” It is always in the singular when it speaks of her Son. (Nor does it say “son of Mary, mother of James, Joseph, Jude and Simon.”) Luke says: thou shalt bring forth A son (Lk 1:31).
f) Every time in the Bible that an angel announces to a woman that she will conceive in a miraculous manner (through barrenness, old age, virginity), this is always the only son that the woman has.
In Genesis God worked a miracle with Sarah, and her son Isaac is her only son (Gen 18:10).
God worked another miracle with the wife of Manoah; from her was born Samson, her only son (Judg 13:3). Here it is interesting to compare the words of the angel with those that Gabriel said to Mary: thou shalt conceive and bring forth a son.
In Luke 1:13 another miracle, this time with the parents of John the Baptist. It is the same with Mary. The pattern is not broken. There is only one son (3).
g) When Gabriel told Mary that she would be the mother of Jesus, she raised as an objection: I know not man (Lk 1:34), although she was betrothed to Joseph. Here, the word “to know” is equivalent to intimate relations, including the sexual. Only when the angel assures her that: the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee; and therefore also the Holy which shall be born…, does Mary consent to fulfill the will of God (Lk 1:35). The strange manner in which Mary responded (v. 34) indicates that she had thought of remaining a virgin. Her Son Jesus would speak of not having relations as something that some did for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven (Mt 19:12). If not, how are we to understand her answer of “not knowing” a man and yet being betrothed to one, knowing that after marrying she could have relations and thus have a child? (4)
It is worth mentioning that Origen, Clement of Alexandria, and Justin Martyr mention the Protoevangelium or refer to incidents concerning the birth of Jesus in the same way. Johannes Quasten says that “The principal aim of this work is to prove the perpetual and inviolate virginity of Mary before, in, and after the birth” (Patrology I, B.A.C., Spain, 1991, p. 127).
The world-renowned Bible expert Ignace de la Potterie says that it is not that Mary made a conscious resolve to remain a virgin, but that it is an “orientation and a profound inclination to live virginally, a deep desire for virginity that Mary experiences and lives existentially, but which has not yet been able to take the form of a resolution” (p. 59). De la Potterie says that this intention comes from having been prepared by God and from being “full of grace” (5).
Mr. de la Potterie makes a comparison between what Mary says, I know not man (Lk 1:34) (equivalent to saying “I am a virgin”), which he says “has no parallel in all the Bible,” and the vow of Jephthah in Judges 11:39. (See v. 39: she had never known man) and they had not known the company of man (Judg 21:12). De la Potterie says that these are expressed in the past, whereas Mary speaks in the present: I know not. Since Mary was betrothed to a man, it means that she wished to remain a virgin. For him (and he cites other scholars to support his position) this is the best way to explain what Mary says to the angel.
h) God gave the sign to the people so that they might recognize who the Messiah would be: a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel (Is 7:14). The way people would identify that Jesus is the Messiah is that His mother would be a virgin who would give birth. If Mary had had several children, that is, had lost her virginity, what guarantee did the Jews have years later to believe that Jesus Christ was the Messiah, the son of the virgin? For they could suppose that the story of her having conceived by the Holy Spirit was false. Hence the sign. If Mary had only one son, it would be easier to believe that she was the virgin prophesied by Isaiah. And if she remained intact, without having relations with Joseph, the Jews could not deny that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, unless Jesus were not her son. It is like the sign the shepherds sought to recognize Jesus: And this shall be a sign unto you: You shall find the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger (Lk 2:12). If Joseph and Mary had wrapped Him in blankets and laid Him in a bed, the sign would have been lost.
i) When the Gospels speak to us of “the brothers” of Jesus, they always appear as older than Jesus in age, for they take the liberty of advising Him: and his brethren said to him: Pass from hence, and go into Judea, that thy disciples also may see thy works which thou dost (Jn 7:3), and of rebuking Him: And when his friends had heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him (Mk 3:21). But if Jesus was the firstborn, this would have gone against Jewish and Eastern custom. It was permitted only to older brothers, and not the other way around. The elder advised and commanded the younger. (See Gen 37:21-22).
When Jesus was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem to bring Him to the temple. The Jews were already accustomed to bringing their children in order to accustom them. Luke says that His parents went every year (Lk 2:41). If Mary had had more children she should have stayed to care for them, since they would have been small, and the woman was not obliged to go up to Jerusalem:
“According to Lk 2:7 Jesus was the firstborn of Mary. Now, according to the same Luke (2:41-52), Mary takes part in the Passover pilgrimage, which would not be readily understandable if she had had small children, whom she would have had to leave for fourteen days. If Mary had had the children after this pilgrimage, at the beginning of the public life of Jesus, they would have been scarcely twenty years old and could never have shown (least of all in Eastern ways) so free an attitude, almost of guardianship, toward their elder brother, as is described for us in Mk 3:21, 31-35 and Jn 7:2-5” (Diccionario de Teología Bíblica by Bauer, Herder Publishing, p. 448).
j) In the book of Acts we read: All these were persevering with one mind in prayer with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren (Acts 1:14). Here Luke says only that Mary was the mother of Jesus, and separates her from the brethren. Why did he not say “with Mary the mother of Jesus and his brethren” instead of “and with his brethren”? (The Greek is clear in this sense (6)).
k) It is common in the Bible, when it presents a genealogy of an important person, to mention the whole family, but Luke speaks only of one son of Joseph: And Jesus himself was beginning about the age of thirty years; being (as it was supposed) the son of Joseph, who was of Heli… (Lk 3:23).
l) In an article titled Virginity after Childbirth: The Meaning of the Fact by A. Sierra we find another argument that I am going to quote, even though it is somewhat long, so as not to lose its meaning:
“… I believe that in this respect [remaining a virgin] a passage of Philo of Alexandria (A.D. 45) is illuminating. Strictly speaking, he still belongs to the OT; nevertheless, the reflection we are going to quote from his writings anticipates the times of the NT… Discoursing on Judah, Philo says that he is the perfect fruit… (De Somniis I, 37). In Hebrew, indeed, Judah means ‘to confess (praise) the Lord’ (De Plantatione, 134); as such, he is thanksgiving in person (De Somniis I, 37; Legum Allegoriae III, 26, 146). And there is no doubt, Philo comments, that when the soul comes to celebrate God and acknowledge Him as the creator of all, it cannot express anything better (Legum Allegoriae, 95). This is the greatest thing for a creature.
“Behold why Leah, as Scripture says, after having begotten Judah, her fourth son, ceased from bearing children (Gen 29:35). The reason is evident. Judah, which means to praise God, is the summit of perfection. To celebrate the Father of all things is the best and most perfect of the fruits that ever came forth from the womb of one with child (De Plantatione, 135).
“That is why Leah gives birth no more. She did not know to what else she could turn, having reached the supreme limit of perfection (ibid.). After that birth, Leah put an end, or rather, set a term, to her offspring. Indeed—so Philo thinks—she perceived that the organs of her generative power had become dry and barren, because in her had blossomed the perfect fruit, Judah, thanksgiving (De Somniis I, 37).
“Let us now try to make the christological transposition of this Philonian page, and ask ourselves: why did Mary bear in her womb no other offspring than Christ? Certainly not because generation has some indefinable impurity about it, but because she received in her womb that Son who, being God, was the ESCHATON, the perfection, the absolute. Upon becoming the living dwelling of the incarnate Word, Mary truly (to use Philo’s words) no longer knew to what to turn, having reached the summit of perfection. Like the jars of Cana, so the womb of Mary was filled to the brim with the incarnation (Jn 2:7). Said without metaphors: if communion with God is the supreme purpose of creation and of the covenant (cf. Jn 17:21-24), could the Virgin desire anything more, anything better, a ‘still,’ an ‘after’ in other children? Certainly not. By virtue of the divine motherhood, indeed, she was so filled with God in body and spirit that her existence fully attained its expectations as a creature. That Son (His person, His work, the service offered to Him through faith) was Everything for Mary, as the Father was for Jesus” (7).
m) Although apocryphal, the book The Ascension of Isaiah (11:2-17), from the first half of the second century, speaks of Mary remaining a virgin. This shows that this teaching was believed very early.
n) Some Bible scholars argue that if the “brothers” of Jesus had been sons of Mary, the way of naming them according to Jewish custom would have been: <<Here are your mother and the sons of your mother>>. This was the correct way of expressing it, and not saying <<here are your brothers>>.
o) The author Francisco Sampedro comments that: “In some texts it appears separated, <<Mary the mother of Jesus and his brethren>> (Acts 1:14), and <<son of Mary and the brother of James, Joseph, Jude and Simon>> (Mk 6:3). The relationship of Mary with Jesus and the relationship of Mary with the others appears as different” (see Pentecostales, 1989, pp. 117-118).
p) The Protestant reformer John Calvin defended the perpetual virginity of Mary with great force. Commenting on the passage of Mt 13:55ff, he affirms that the brothers of Jesus are not other sons of Mary, but all his relatives: “To maintain the opposite is to give proof of ignorance, of foolish subtleties and of abuse of Scripture.”
q) Recently an article was published by the famous Bible scholar Jerome Murphy-O’Connor in which he writes: “I would say that the brothers of Jesus were older. I have suggested that they were sons of Joseph from an earlier marriage [before that of Mary]. This is confirmed by the fact that Jesus was known as the son of Mary. A young man was known by his mother’s name ONLY WHEN THERE WAS MORE THAN ONE WIFE OF THE SAME FATHER. The early Christians were no fools. How could they think that Mary was a perpetual virgin if, in fact, she had six children after Jesus?” (in U.S. Catholic, Dec. 1996, p. 8).
r) We bring next an excellent argument on the biblical understanding in the time of Jesus regarding the subject. It is taken from the Association of Hebrew Catholics: (8)
The perpetual virginity of Mary from the Jewish point of view
Since ancient biblical days adultery carried with it a sense of profanation, so that a woman who had had contact with another man — even by force — could no longer be with her husband (Gen 49:4; 2 Sam 20:3; 16:21-22; Book of Jubilees 33:6-9; Epstein, The Marriage Law in the Talmud, p. 51). The Deuteronomic code teaches that a woman who is divorced from her husband and who marries another man cannot return to her former husband (Deut 24:4). As the Lord said through the prophet Jeremiah: If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and marry another man, shall he return to her any more? Shall not that land be polluted and defiled? Another translation: “If a man puts away his wife and she goes from him and becomes the wife of another man, should he return to her? Should not his land (his wife’s own body) be greatly defiled?” (Jer 3:1; see the Targum on Deut 24:1-4). In rabbinic law a woman who has committed adultery is “corrupted” and cannot continue to be her husband’s wife, but must divorce (9). Moreover, any intimate contact of the wife with a man, Jew or Gentile, potent or impotent, natural or unnatural, compels divorce (10).
BETROTHED: In Jewish Law a man betrothed to a woman was considered legally married to her. The word for betrothed in Hebrew is Kiddush, a word derived from the Hebrew word Kadash, which means “holy,” “consecrated,” “set apart.” Because through betrothal (as in Mt 1:18; Lk 1:27), or marriage, a woman becomes the property of her husband, forbidden to others.
The Oral Law of Kiddushin (Marriage and Betrothals) states: “The husband, by marrying the young woman, sets her apart from all as if she were consecrated to the temple (Corban) and beyond the reach of all others” (Kiddushin 2b, Babylonian Talmud).
We know from the Gospel of Matthew 1:14 that Joseph, the husband of Mary, was a just man, a devout Jew, faithful to the law. Having noticed that Mary was with child and that he, her betrothed, had had nothing to do with her pregnancy, Joseph could either publicly condemn her and hand her over to be put to death for adultery (Deut 22:22-29), or reject her privately.
He made his decision when an angel appeared to him in a dream, saying: Joseph, son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her, is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son: and thou shalt call his name JESUS. For he shall save his people from their sins (Mt 1:20-21). The angel does not use the phrase for marital union: “to go in unto her” (as in Gen 30:3, 4 and 16) or “to come together” (Mt 1:18), but merely a word meaning to lead her to his house as his wife (paralambano gunaika) but not cohabiting with her.
When the angel revealed to him that Mary was truly the spouse of the Holy Spirit, Joseph could bring Mary, his betrothed, to his house as his wife, but he could never have sexual intercourse with her, because according to the Law, she would be forbidden to him forever.
SPOUSE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT: We must also take into consideration that when Mary learned from the archangel Gabriel: thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name JESUS (Lk 1:31), he also added that this would come about because The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee; and therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God (Lk 1:35).
To put it in these terms, the archangel declared to Mary that God would enter into a marital relationship with her, causing her to conceive His Son in her womb. To “overshadow a woman with his power (reshuth)” (Targum on Deut 21:4) was a euphemism for “to have a marital relationship with her.”
Likewise, “to overshadow” (Lk 1:35) by spreading one’s “wing” or “mantle” over a woman was another euphemism for marital relations. Thus, the rabbis commented (Midrash Genesis Rabbah 39.7; Midrash Ruth Rabbah 3.9) that Ruth was correct in her words when she asked Boaz to have marital relations with her by saying to him “I am Ruth thy handmaid: spread thy coverlet over thy servant” (literally, “wing”: kanaph) “for thou art a near kinsman” (Ruth 3:9).
Tallith, another Aramaic-Hebrew word for mantle, is derived from tellal = shadow. Thus, “to spread one’s mantle (tallith) over a woman” means to cohabit with her (Kiddushin 18b; see also Mekhilta on Exodus 21:8). Did not God say to His spouse Israel: For I am your husband (Jer 3:14) and he will be your Lord and your husband (Is 54:5); I was a husband to them, saith the Lord (Jer 31:32)? And what is more intimate than what God said to His spouse?: I caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field: and thou didst increase and grow great, and advancedst, and camest to woman’s ornaments: thy breasts were fashioned, and thy hair grew: and thou wast naked, and full of confusion. And I passed by thee, and saw thee: and behold thy time was the time of lovers: and I spread my garment over thee, and covered thy ignominy. And I swore to thee, and I entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God: and thou becamest mine (Ezek 16:7-8).
MARY FORBIDDEN TO JOSEPH: Having been informed in a dream by an angel about her pregnancy, and perhaps afterward by Mary about the words that the archangel Gabriel had spoken to her at the Annunciation, Joseph knew that God had chosen him as husband for Mary. She was now forbidden to him for life, and for the sake of the Child and of Mary, he could only live with her in an absolutely chaste relationship.
Living in celibacy within marriage was not unknown in the Jewish tradition. It is said that Moses, who was married, remained chaste for the rest of his life after the order given to abstain from sexual relations (Ex 9:15). In preparation, the seventy elders later abstained from their wives after their calling, and so did Eldad and Medad, when the spirit of prophecy fell upon them; indeed, it was said that the prophets became celibate after the word of God was communicated to them (11).
CELIBACY ACCORDING TO TRADITION: Elijah and Elisha were celibate their whole lives (12). When, for the sake of the Torah (i.e., its profound study), a rabbi abstained from having relations with his wife, this was permissible, because he was then cohabiting with the Shekinah (the “Divine Presence”) in the Torah (13).
It is well known that the rabbis spoke concerning the obligation of men to marry and to procreate: “He who abstains from procreation is considered as though he had shed blood” (14). According to Yebamoth 62b, B.T., a man is only half a man without a woman, citing Gen 5:2 where it says: He created them male and female; and blessed them: and called their name Adam (lit. “Man”), in the day when they were created.
Nevertheless, if a person is faithful to the study of the Torah (i.e., devotes all his time to it), like Simeon ben Azzai, his refusal to marry may be condoned” (Shulchan Aruch EH 1:4). The wise rabbi Simeon ben Azzai (before the second century A.D.) was extraordinary in his learning. “With the passing of Ben Azzai, diligent sages passed from the earth” (Sotah 9:15). He never married and was celibate his whole life so as not to be distracted from his studies, and because he considered the Torah his wife, into which he put his whole soul (Yebamoth 63b). He was an outstanding sage (Kiddushin 20a, B.T.), also known for his holiness (Berakoth 57b, B.T.).
The Jewish tradition also mentions the celibate Zenu’im (lit. “the chaste”), to whom the secret of the Name of God was entrusted, so as to preserve the Holy Name in “perfect purity” (15).
Those with the hope of a divine revelation consequently abstained from having sexual relations and were strict in matters of purity (Enoch 83:2; Rev 14:2-5). Philo (Apologia pro Iudaeis IX, 14-17), Josephus (Antiquities XVIII, 21) and Hippolytus (Philosophumena IX, IV, 28A) wrote about the celibacy of the Jewish Essenes hundreds of years before the discovery of their settlement at Qumran, near the Dead Sea.
Philo Judaeus (c. 20 B.C.–A.D. 50), a Jewish philosopher, described Jewish women who were virgins who had kept themselves chaste not by force, like some Greek priestesses, but of their own will out of their ardent desire for Wisdom. “Longing for Wisdom for their brethren, they despised the pleasures of the flesh and desired no offspring, but those children which only the soul that is dear to God can bring forth” (Philo, De Vita Contemplativa 68; see also Philo, De Abrahamo 100).
For “the chaste are rewarded by receiving illumination from the hidden heavenly light” (Zohar II, 229b-230a). For “if the understanding is secure and intact, free from the oppression of iniquities or passions… it will be able to gaze clearly upon all that is worthy of contemplation” (Philo, De Sobrietate 1.5). And conversely, “the understanding of the lustful man is blind and cannot see those things that are worth seeing… things worthy to be seen, which are marvelous to perceive and desirable” (Philo, Quaestiones in Genesim IV.245).
JOSEPH AS CELIBATE GUARDIAN: As recipient of the great revelation that what was conceived in the womb of Mary was of the Holy Spirit, and that the Child to be born was destined to save His people from their sins, surely Joseph therefore knew that he was called to care for Mary and her Son, the Messiah, for the rest of his life, this being why the angel told him to take Mary as his wife.
We can reasonably assume that Mary now shared with him everything the archangel Gabriel had told her. Nothing less than a Person, the Son of God (Lk 1:35), was to be entrusted to his care under the shelter of his humble home, now the Holy of Holies. Jewish tradition mentions that, although people were to abstain from having relations with their wives only for the three days preceding the revelation of Mount Sinai (Ex 19:15), Moses chose to remain chaste for the rest of his life with the full approval of God. The rabbis explained that this was because Moses knew that he was appointed to communicate personally with God, not only on Mount Sinai, but in general throughout forty years of dwelling in the desert. For this reason, Moses remained “separated from woman,” abiding in the holiness of separation in order to be at God’s service at all times; they cited God’s command to Moses in Deuteronomy 5:28 (Midrash Exodus Rabbah 19:3 and 46:3).
Again, we can be sure that Joseph remained celibate his whole life because throughout his married years, he was daily in communication with and at the service of Jesus, the Word of God incarnate.
The other arguments of our brethren
“Firstborn” does not mean only the first-born among other children, but to occupy a special place: chosen, consecrated. A woman who dies giving birth to her first child, that child is said to be the firstborn even though he has no siblings. Psalm 89 says that David (the last of eight sons) is called firstborn by God: And I will make him my firstborn, high above the kings of the earth (Ps 89:27-28). In Genesis Jacob received the blessings of the birthright (Gen 25:31-34), although he was born after Esau (Gen 25:25-26). Ephraim is called “firstborn” in Jeremiah 31:9, being the second son of Joseph (Gen 41:52). Jesus is the firstborn of the dead (Rev 1:5), but not the first to die. He occupies a special place because He is the faithful witness unto death.
And thou shalt say to Pharaoh: Thus saith the Lord: Israel is my son, my firstborn (Ex 4:22). Called “Firstborn,” Jesus is the “Alpha and Omega,” the First and the Last. There is no other. This is what Col 1:15-16 means when it calls Him so.
Israel is not the first people God created, but it is the people consecrated by Him. In Zechariah 12:10 we see that the same person is called “firstborn” and “only-begotten.”
In the Biblical Antiquities of Pseudo-Philo (first century A.D.), the daughter of Jephthah is called both firstborn and only-begotten (39:11). And an epitaph (dated January 28, 5 B.C.), discovered in 1922 in the Jewish necropolis of Tell el-Yehudieh, has the deceased girl (Arsinoe) say: “But fate, in the pangs of childbirth of my firstborn son, brought me to the end of my life.” Although this young mother died in her first childbirth, her son is likewise called firstborn.
We must not forget that the title “firstborn” to designate Jesus has another symbolic sense. He is called the firstborn of all creation (Col 1:15) and of all the dead (Col 1:18).
He knew her not till she brought forth does not mean that Joseph had relations with Mary afterward. Until is not equivalent to saying “but afterward, yes…”, because in 2 Samuel we read: And Michol the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death (6:23). It does not mean that after her death she had children! The Lord said to my Lord: Sit thou at my right hand: until I make thy enemies thy footstool (Ps 110:1). This Psalm, which prophesies of Jesus (Acts 2:34-35), does not mean that Jesus does not continue seated at the right hand of the Father (Acts 7:55) after He has put his enemies as a footstool for his feet.
In Genesis 28:15 we read: Behold I will be thy keeper whithersoever thou goest, and will bring thee back into this land: neither will I leave thee, till I shall have accomplished all that I have said. Certainly God did not leave Jacob afterward. Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world (Mt 28:20). But will Jesus not be with us afterward? For other examples see Deut 34:6.
When the evangelist says that Joseph knew her not till she had brought forth a son, he affirms that Joseph had no relations with Mary while the Lord was not yet born. But he is not affirming that after Mary gave birth, Joseph had relations with her. What Luke says is that Jesus was born without the intervention of Joseph.
We are left with “he took unto him his wife” (16). But with all the proofs we saw above and by reading the context, we know that this concerns Joseph accepting Mary as his wife because he understood that Mary was with child of the Holy Spirit after the angel explained it to him.
If Mary had James as her son, how is it that the Fathers of the Church believed that Mary remained a virgin if her son James was bishop of Jerusalem? No one claimed to be a descendant of the family of Joseph and Mary. No one in the following years after her assumption went about saying that he was a blood brother or nephew of Jesus.
From all that has been said, we conclude that Mary had no other children. In fact, in the Primitive Church, the first person to formulate the idea that the brothers of Jesus were blood brothers was Helvidius (A.D. 380). For four centuries Christians did not think so. When Helvidius wrote that, he was strongly criticized. Perhaps it is not normal for a married couple to live without relations, but neither is it normal for their son to be God Incarnate!
What did the Primitive Church say?
The first testimony to the perpetual virginity of Mary comes from the apocryphal book Protoevangelium of James, around A.D. 150.
Hilary of Poitiers (A.D. 354): Commentary on Matthew 1:4
Athanasius (358-362): Treatise against the Arians, 2:70. “Mary remained and is ever-virgin.”
Justin Martyr: Dialogue with Trypho calls Mary “the virgin” and draws a parallel with Eve, the mother of humanity.
Epiphanius of Salamis (374): Ancoratus and Panarion (antidote against the errors of the heretics) 78:6.
Why does the Catholic Church maintain the perpetual virginity of Mary? Because the Bible teaches it and because the Church has always taught it. She has always been called “virgin.” If Mary did not remain a virgin, why call her so after the birth of Jesus? We do not go on calling a married man “bachelor.” The Primitive Church spoke of Mary as “the Virgin” precisely because it believed that she lived and died so. When this teaching was later questioned, they added “ever” (AEIPARTHENOS), as in the Creed of Epiphanius (A.D. 374) and the Second Council of Constantinople (553). See the Fathers of the Church Augustine, Jerome, Cyril of Alexandria. The Protestant reformers speak of “Mary ever Virgin.”
Origen affirmed:
“…that body which was chosen to render a service to the Word, and concerning which it is said: The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee (Lk 1:35), knew no union with man, since the Holy Spirit had descended upon it and it had been overshadowed by the power from on high. I hold reasonably that the first-fruits of purity and chastity among men is Jesus, and that among women it is Mary. For it would not be in keeping with piety to attribute to any other person than her the first-fruits of virginity” (Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, 10:17).
“Indeed, according to those who think rightly about him, no other is a son of Mary but Jesus…” (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 1:4).
Author: Fr. Daniel Gagnon
NOTES:
1. From the evangelical book Los Evangélicos, Los Católicos y la Virgen María, by Stephen Benko, a famous Protestant theologian. Casa Bautista de Publicaciones. USA, 1981, 1993. p. 18. This book, although it treats Mary in greater depth, still remains largely on the superficial level compared with Catholic authors who treat this subject. The failure to treat topics fully could be interpreted as prejudice.
2. James is called the son of Alphaeus in Mt 10:3, which seems to say that either he is another James or that Mary was the wife of Cleophas (CLOPAS in Greek) and of Alphaeus. But it is the same person, because the name Alphaeus in Aramaic is translated Cleopas (Cleophas) in Greek, as Saul in Hebrew is the same as the Apostle Paul in Greek. Other examples: Matthew-Levi, Thaddeus-Jude.
3. Hannah (1 Sam 2:21) does not fall into this biblical pattern because no angel appeared to her: And the Lord visited Anna, and she conceived.
4. The Protoevangelium of James 10:1 (no later than 120-140 A.D.) says that Mary belonged to the institution of the weaving virgins of the Temple, of which several first-century Jewish documents speak, such as Apoc. of Baruch 10:9; Pesiqta Rabbati 26:6 (Diccionario de Mariología, p. 1257). “Would it be extraordinary that Joseph practiced continence being the husband of Mary? By no means, for in the time of Jesus numerous Jews, desiring to prepare themselves better for the coming of the Savior, went to live in what were like monasteries in secluded places, and observed chastity. We might even think that Joseph let himself be influenced by this religious current… The Essenes… and it was he who helped Mary to affirm herself in a commitment to virginity…” (Nueva Biblia Latinoamericana, Ediciones Paulinas and Verbo Divino, Spain, 1972, p. 8). Mary would have been consecrated to the Lord like Samuel (1 Sam 2:21-22) and Anna, who departed not from the temple, by fastings and prayers serving night and day (Lk 2:36-37). According to the Protoevangelium, the widower Joseph was chosen to be her protector who would respect her vow of virginity. Acts 21:9 mentions virgins in the Primitive Church.
5. In María en el Misterio de la Alianza, Edit. B.A.C., 1988, p. 59.
6. Nuevo Testamento Interlineal Griego-Español, Francisco Lacueva, Editorial CLIE, Spain, 1984.
7. Nuevo Diccionario de Mariología (Edic. Paulinas, 1988, pp. 2015-2016).
8. Dr. Anthony Opisso, The Association of Hebrew Catholics, P.O. Box 798, 12528 Highland, NY
9. Deut., ed. M. Friedman (1864) 270, p. 122b; Numbers, ed. M. Friedman (1915) 7, p. 4a and 19, p. 66.
10. Sotah 26b; Yebamoth 55a, b, 87b; Kethuboth 9a, Babylonian Talmud; Kethuboth 25a; Sotah 27a; Yad, Sotah 2:2, Jerusalem Talmud.
11. Midrash Exodus Rabbah 19; 46:3; Sifre on Numbers 99 sec. 11; Sifre Zutta 81-82, 203-204; Aboth de Rabbi Nathan 9, 39; Tanchuma III, 46; Tanchuma Zaw 13; 3 Petirot Moshe 72; Shabbath 87a; Pesachim 87b, Babylonian Talmud.
12. Zohar Hadash 2:1; Midrash Mishlei 30, 105; Pirke Rabbi Eliezer 33.
13. Zohar re Gen 1:27; 13:3 and Psalm 85:14 in the Discourse of Rabbi Phineas to the Rabbis Jose, Judah and Hiya.
14. Rabbi Eliezer in Yebamoth 63b, Babylonian Talmud; see also Shulchan Aruch (Code of Jewish Law) section Even ha-Ezer 1:1, 3, 4.
15. Kiddushin 71a; Midrash Mishlei (Ecclesiastes) Rabbah 3:11; Yer. Yoma 39a, 40a.
16. The brethren of the “Light of the World” church have tried to convince Catholics that Psalm 69 prefigures Jesus and, therefore, that verse eight proves that Mary had many children: I am become a stranger to my brethren, and an alien to the sons of my mother. Mary is prefigured. But the Catholic Church says that although a few verses are quoted in the NT, this psalm cannot be messianic nor prefigure Jesus (see The Catholic Study Bible, Oxford Univ. Press, 1990, p. 690). If it were a prefiguration of Him, it would say that Jesus was a sinner: and my sins are not hidden from thee (v. 5)!
Author: Fr. Daniel Gagnon
