e perpetual virginity of the
Blessed Virgin; it helps to explain the attitude of unbelief recorded
in the Gospels of Christ's brethren, and at the same time requires no
distortion of the literalness of the passages in which they are
mentioned. There is hardly sufficient evidence to show that first
cousins were ever called "brethren." But it would have been quite
natural for those who called St. Joseph "the father of Jesus" to call
St. Joseph's sons "the brothers of Jesus." And again, the supposition
that the Blessed Virgin had no other son, seems strongly supported by
the fact that at the crucifixion our Lord commended her to His beloved
disciple, and not to one of St. Joseph's family.

{225}

This theory of St. Epiphanius is much older than the 4th century. It
is sometimes urged against it that Origen derived it from the
Apocryphal Gospels of the 2nd century, and that its popularity in the
Church was owing to Origen's influence. But though the Apocryphal
Gospels often contained fictions, we cannot argue that everything in
them is fictitious. The tradition agrees with the words of Scripture,
and gains support from some fragments of Hegesippus, a cultured
Palestinian Christian, born about A.D. 100. He states directly that
Symeon, the second bishop of Jerusalem, was the _cousin_ of our Lord,
because son of Clopas who was the brother of Joseph. He also calls
James "the brother of the Lord," and in another passage speaks of Jude
as "called brother" of the Lord. He therefore plainly distinguishes
the cousins from the so-called "brethren." We then get the following
genealogy:--

Jacob
|
+--------------------+--------------------+
| |
Joseph == Mary Clopas (or Alphaeus)
| | |
| | +------+------+
+-- James JESUS | | |
+-- Joses James Joses Symeon
+-- Jude (the Little)
+-- Simon
+-- Sisters

We conclude, therefore, that St. James was the son of St. Joseph.

The writer of the Epistle frequently colours his sentences with words
from the Old Testament, and assumes a knowledge of it among his
readers. He makes no allusion to the Gentiles. He writes in a ton