Happy Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady.
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? BROTHERS OF JESUS ? ? AND CHILDREN OF MARY ? A non-Catholic reading the Bible often discovers that Jesus had brothers. Using private interpretation, he presumes this means that Mary had other children. This contradicts Catholic Dogma on the Virginity of Mary and generally puts Our Lady on the same level as an ordinary woman, excepting a momentary grace when she conceived Jesus. It is a weapon of choice against the Catholic Church which puts Mary, the Mother of Jesus, on a pedestal.
Thus, we ask the question here: Did Jesus have brothers and sisters? Did Our Lady have other children? There can be no doubt about it, Jesus had no physical blood brothers, and neither did Mary have any other biological children, nor did Joseph, her spouse, have any to his name.
What the Gospel says. When Jesus began his public ministry, Jesus was thirty years old, or very nearly, and he was
believed to be the son of Joseph, a carpenter of Nazareth. The people of his country exclaimed:
Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joseph, and Jude, and Simon? are not also his sisters here with us? And they were scandalized in regard of him. Mk. 6:3.
Here four brothers are attributed to Jesus, and sisters too. But later in the same Gospel, St. Mark declares after the death of Jesus:
...
And Mary Magdalen, and Mary the mother of Joseph, beheld where He was laid. And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalen, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought sweet spices, that coming, they might anoint Jesus. Mk. 15:14-16:1
Already it is evident here, that Mary the mother of Joseph, and Mary the mother of James, are not His Mother, as the Evangelist would certainly have mentioned her by name. This hints at another solution.
The Solution to the problem The solution to this pack of brothers and sisters is quite simple. Jesus' "brothers and sisters" were cousins and near relatives, whom the custom of the country permitted, and the Aramaic language then spoken in Judaea often required, to be included in these terms.
In his excellent dissertation on the "
Brothers of the Lord", Father Lagrange remarks that the expression "
Brethren of the Lord", which was accepted by primitive Christianity as indicating a particular group, is the Greek translation of an Aramaic expression. Now, in Aramaic, as in Hebrew, the word brother (aha)
certainly means
not only brother in the strict sense, the son of one's own father and mother, but also half-brother, the son of one's father or mother, and even a near relative, first cousin, or nephew. Abraham said to Lot: "
Since we are brothers " (Gen. 13: 8), but Lot was his nephew. And Laban said to Jacob: "
For we are brothers " (Gen. 14: 14-16), whereas Jacob was his nephew. Eleazar and Cis were brethren. Eleazar left only daughters and they were married to the sons of Cis, "
their brethren" (I Paral. [Chronicles], 23: 21-22); in this instance the "
brothers " are first cousins. Again, after the deaths of Nadab and Abihu, Moses said to the sons of Oziel: "lift up the bodies of your brethren " (Levit. 10: 4), i.e. of your cousins. We can find many other examples.
It must be noted that since neither Hebrew nor Aramaic possessed the word for cousin, the term brother had to be used in many cases; and brother was absolutely indispensable for indicating a group of cousins of different origin. It is therefore certain that if Jesus had cousins, and especially if they were not born of the same mother, they could not, in Aramaic, be called anything but his "
brothers ". Of course, "
brothers " could mean both actual brothers and cousins, but this is of no great interest in this matter, because if the word brothers can include cousins there is no longer any proof for the contention that the brothers of Jesus were truly his brothers.
As a matter of fact, all the texts essentially suggest that Mary had no other child. Even Loisy, a modernist, acknowledges that
"the common feeling of Catholic exegetes (who see in Mary's words in Lk., I: 34, her intention of keeping perpetual virginity) cannot be considered arbitrary. No passage of the Gospel or of the Acts contradicts it; for if there is question of the brothers of Jesus, they are never presented as sons of Mary, and it is to be noted that never is one in particular, not even James, cited as brother of the Lord": Les Evangiles Synoptiques, Ceffonds, 1907, I, pp. 290, 291.
Throughout the whole Indo-European world the members of a religious and social unity with a family basis are "
brothers ". Later the Greeks would differentiate uterine brothers by a special word " αδελΦοι " but elsewhere this differentiation was either very slow in coming or did not exist at all.
We might add that, if Jesus had brothers among the Apostles, why did He leave Our Lady to the care of St. John who was not one of his supposed brothers? "Behold thy mother" Jn. 19:27. This does not make sense.
More objections answered. Some might object: "
Jesus is called in Holy Scripture the firstborn son of Mary, so she must have had other children, Joseph is called her husband, etc. To this Catholic scholars simply reply:
St. Jerome assures us, that St. Joseph always preserved his virginal chastity. It is "of faith" that nothing contrary thereto ever took place with his chaste spouse, the blessed Virgin Mary. St. Joseph was given her by heaven to be the protector of her chastity, to secure her from calumnies in the birth of the Son of God, to assist her in her flight into Egypt, etc. We cannot sufficiently admire the modest reserve of both parties.
Before they came together... From the words, "
before they came together, she was found with child, of the Holy Ghost, " Helvidius and other heretics have started objections, which have been answered long ago by St. Jerome. He shows in many examples from Scripture, that the words
before and
until do not signify what happened afterwards; for that point is left indefinite, but only what was done before, or not done. Thus when it is said, "
Sit thou at my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool", Ps. 109, by no means signifies, that after the subjection of his enemies, the Son of God is no longer to sit at the right hand of his Father. In common conversation, when we say that a man died before he reached his 30th year, we do not mean that he afterwards attained it. Or, should we say that Helvidius died before he did penance, we cannot mean that he afterwards did penance. The same conclusion should be deduced from the words, "
before they came together. " If we should say, that such a man was cured before he went to a physician, the natural inference would be, that he did not go to a physician at all.
"
till she brought forth her firstborn son”
St. Matthew states "A
nd he (Joseph) knew her (Mary) not till she brought forth her first born son " Mt 1:25. From these words Helvidius also impiously inferred that the blessed Virgin Mary had other children besides Christ; but St. Jerome shows, by various examples, that this expression of the Evangelist was a manner of speaking usual among the Hebrews, to denote by the word until, only what is done, without any regard to the future. Thus it is said, Genesis 8: 6 and 7, that Noah sent forth a raven, which went forth, and did not return till the waters were dried up on the earth. That is, did not return any more. Also Isaias 46: 4, God says: "I am till you grow old. " Who dare infer that God should then cease to be: Also in the first book of Machabees 5: 54, "
And they went up to mount Sion with joy and gladness, and offered h0Ɩ0cαųsts, because not one of them was slain till they had returned in peace. " That is, not one was slain before or after they had returned.
St. Jerome also proves by Scripture examples, that an only begotten son, was also called firstborn, or first begotten: because according to the law, the firstborn males were to be consecrated to God; "
Sanctify unto me, saith the Lord, every firstborn that openeth the womb among the children of Israel, etc. " Ex. 13: 2. Thus also in the language of Scripture, the word first-begotten does not mean after whom others were born, but before whom no one was born, whether there were further issue or not. And the reason is, because the law required that a sacrifice should be offered for the firstborn, and that he should be redeemed very soon after his birth; nor did it allow the parents to wait and see if any other son should be born.
Thus the Dogma of the perpetual Virginity of Our Blessed Mother is safeguarded and her special place our Salvation established.
The End.
From a Canadian SSPX Bulletin June 2009
Topic: ? Brothers of Jesus ?...Children of Mary? SSPX Bulletin 2009 (Read 111 times)