Response to Jerome's Response to Helvidius - Part 17

  Jerome wrote a response to Helvidius regarding the virginity of Mary.  This post is the seventeenth in a series of responses to what Jerome wrote.

Jerome wrote:

Innumerable instances of the same kind are to be found in the sacred books. But, to be brief, I will return to the last of the four classes of brethren, those, namely, who are brethren by affection, and these again fall into two divisions, those of the spiritual and those of the general relationship. I say spiritual because all of us Christians are called brethren, as in the verse, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.” And in another psalm the Saviour says, “I will declare thy name unto my brethren.” And elsewhere, “Go unto my brethren and say to them.” I say also general, because we are all children of one Father, there is a like bond of brotherhood between us all. “Tell these who hate you,” says the prophet, “ye are our brethren.” And the Apostle writing to the Corinthians: “If any man that is named brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner: with such a one no, not to eat.” I now ask to which class you consider the Lord’s brethren in the Gospel must be assigned. They are brethren by nature, you say. But Scripture does not say so; it calls them neither sons of Mary, nor of Joseph. Shall we say they are brethren by race? But it is absurd to suppose that a few Jews were called His brethren when all Jews of the time might upon this principle have borne the title. Were they brethren by virtue of close intimacy and the union of heart and mind? If that were so, who were more truly His brethren than the apostles who received His private instruction and were called by Him His mother and His brethren? Again, if all men, as such, were His brethren, it would have been foolish to deliver a special message, “Behold, thy brethren seek thee,” for all men alike were entitled to the name. The only alternative is to adopt the previous explanation and understand them to be called brethren in virtue of the bond of kindred, not of love and sympathy, nor by prerogative of race, nor yet by nature. Just as Lot was called Abraham’s brother, and Jacob Laban’s, just as the daughters of Zelophehad received a lot among their brethren, just as Abraham himself had to wife Sarah his sister, for he says, “She is indeed my sister, on the father’s side, not on the mother’s,” that is to say, she was the daughter of his brother, not of his sister. Otherwise, what are we to say of Abraham, a just man, taking to wife the daughter of his own father? Scripture, in relating the history of the men of early times, does not outrage our ears by speaking of the enormity in express terms, but prefers to leave it to be inferred by the reader: and God afterwards gives to the prohibition the sanction of the law, and threatens, “He who takes his sister, born of his father, or of his mother, and beholds her nakedness, hath commited abomination, he shall be utterly destroyed. He hath uncovered his sister’s nakedness, he shall bear his sin.”  

As this section is long, I will again break it into chunks and respond piecemeal.

1) "Innumerable instances of the same kind are to be found in the sacred books. But, to be brief, I will return to the last of the four classes of brethren, those, namely, who are brethren by affection, and these again fall into two divisions, those of the spiritual and those of the general relationship."

Of course, these "brethren by affection" in themselves have nothing to do with the Jews use of "brothers" and "sisters" to describe Jesus' family members.  Jerome is not wrong about this point, but it is a red herring.

Likewise, I once again take the opportunity to praise Jerome for his appeal to Scripture.

2) "I say spiritual because all of us Christians are called brethren, as in the verse, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.” And in another psalm the Saviour says, “I will declare thy name unto my brethren.” And elsewhere, “Go unto my brethren and say to them.” I say also general, because we are all children of one Father, there is a like bond of brotherhood between us all. “Tell these who hate you,” says the prophet, “ye are our brethren.” And the Apostle writing to the Corinthians: “If any man that is named brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner: with such a one no, not to eat.”" 

Interestingly, I'm not sure whether "I will declare thy name unto my brethren" (Psalm 22:22) must be interpreted in a sense other than physical brothers in the ordinary sense.  Nevertheless, given the immediate parallel to the congregation in the next part of the same verse, I don't think this would be the most clear proof.

3) "I now ask to which class you consider the Lord’s brethren in the Gospel must be assigned. They are brethren by nature, you say." 

Yes and no.  Yes, they are brothers of the same mother.  No, they are not full biological siblings, because Joseph is only Jesus' father adoptively and presumptively, not biologically, as Scripture makes exceedingly clear.

4) "But Scripture does not say so; it calls them neither sons of Mary, nor of Joseph."

Even setting aside the verses that mention a Mary, the mother of James and Joses, still Scripture does present them as the family of Jesus in verses that mention Joseph and Mary.  If we set aside the disputed verses about Mary, there are no others that explicitly use the phrase "son of Joseph" or the like.  Nevertheless, these brothers accompany Mary in many places in the gospels.

5) "Shall we say they are brethren by race? But it is absurd to suppose that a few Jews were called His brethren when all Jews of the time might upon this principle have borne the title."

Agreed that such an option is absurd.

6) "Were they brethren by virtue of close intimacy and the union of heart and mind? If that were so, who were more truly His brethren than the apostles who received His private instruction and were called by Him His mother and His brethren? Again, if all men, as such, were His brethren, it would have been foolish to deliver a special message, “Behold, thy brethren seek thee,” for all men alike were entitled to the name." 

Agreed as well that this is not a legitimate option.

7) "The only alternative is to adopt the previous explanation and understand them to be called brethren in virtue of the bond of kindred, not of love and sympathy, nor by prerogative of race, nor yet by nature. Just as Lot was called Abraham’s brother, and Jacob Laban’s, just as the daughters of Zelophehad received a lot among their brethren, just as Abraham himself had to wife Sarah his sister, for he says, “She is indeed my sister, on the father’s side, not on the mother’s,” that is to say, she was the daughter of his brother, not of his sister. Otherwise, what are we to say of Abraham, a just man, taking to wife the daughter of his own father? Scripture, in relating the history of the men of early times, does not outrage our ears by speaking of the enormity in express terms, but prefers to leave it to be inferred by the reader: and God afterwards gives to the prohibition the sanction of the law, and threatens, “He who takes his sister, born of his father, or of his mother, and beholds her nakedness, hath commited abomination, he shall be utterly destroyed. He hath uncovered his sister’s nakedness, he shall bear his sin.”

Interestingly, we do indeed think that Abraham's wife Sarah was his half-sister.  But nevertheless, while this broader sense of "brother" or "sister" as referring to cousins is not automatically ruled out in the same way as the other two, it is still (a) subject to the same "Scripture does not say so" argument and (b) less well supported by the context. 

-TurretinFan