You’re adept enough in theology and in the culture of the Jewish people in those days to know that “brother” was the word also for extended family and cousins.
True…it comes down to what was likely meant by the usage…just b/c it could mean “cousin”, doesn’t mean that we should conclude that it meant “cousin” in every instance
Let me ask you this, to be holistic—have you read any evidence in the early Church at all or for the next 1000 years from any theologian worth a darn any evidence that Christ had brothers?
yep Tertullian…you might have heard of him. Before Athanasius came along, Tertullian helped shape our trinitarian understandings. Here is something I have already posted elsewhere on these forums:
*They found it easier to esteem him a prophet, some great one no doubt, but one in any case who had been born. Even if there had been reason to tempt him by investigating his nativity, any other means would have been more in keeping with such temptation than the mention of those relations whom, in spite of having been born, he might by that time have lost. Tell me, does everybody who has been born, have a mother still living? Does everybody who has been born, have brothers born to him as well? Vs Marcion 4:19 *
**here Tertullian designates the brethern of Jesus to be Mary’s sons…now if you want to interpret Tertullian’s wording to mean that he believed Mary had sons by way of the pre-existing children of Joseph, it’s possible, though more than he explicitly says and unlikely given what else he said. **
*But let Apelles, as well as Marcion, hear from me what was the reason behind the reply which for the moment denied mother and brethren. Our Lord’s brethren did not believe in him: this also is included in the Gospel as it was published before Marcion’s day. His mother likewise is not shown to have adhered to him, though Martha and other Marys are often mentioned as being in his company. At this juncture their unbelief at last comes into the open. When Jesus was teaching the way of life, when he was preaching the Kingdom of God, when he was occupied in healing infirmities and sicknesses, though strangers were intent upon him these near relations were absent…‘Who is my mother, and who are my brethren?’? When Christ was preaching God and giving proof of him, was fulfilling the Law and the Prophets, and was dispelling the darkness of long ages past, was it without justification that he used this expression to castigate the unbelief of those who stood without, or at least to expose their unseasonableness in calling him back from his work?
On the Flesh of Christ 7*
** here Tertullian indicates a lack of evidence of Mary’s adherence to Jesus, thereby questioning her faithfulnesss to the Lord at the time of John 7:5…Why do venerators say God ensured to perpetual virginity of Mary? Isn’t a main reason to emphasize her absolute purity…something entirely at odds with questioning her faithfulnesss to the Lord? Do you really think that Tertullian would call into question Mary’s faithfulness and still hold to her virginty after Christ’s birth? **
*She who bare (really) bare; and although she was a virgin when she conceived, she was a wife when she brought forth her son. Now, as a wife, she was under the very law of opening the womb, wherein it was quite immaterial whether the birth of the male was by virtue of a husband’s co-operation or not; it was the same sex that opened her womb. Indeed, hers is the womb on account of which it is written of others also: Every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord.
On the Flesh of Christ 23*
** Here Tertullian declares his belief in Mary’s virginity at conception and indicates that the birth process opened her womb…no virginity through the birth process…**
*Turning now to the law, which is properly ours— that is, to the Gospel— by what kind of examples are we met, until we come to definite dogmas? Behold, there immediately present themselves to us, on the threshold as it were, the two priestesses of Christian sanctity, Monogamy and Continence: one modest, in Zechariah the priest; one absolute, in John the forerunner: one appeasing God; one preaching Christ: one proclaiming a perfect priest;…For who was more worthily to perform the initiatory rite on the body of the Lord, than flesh similar in kind to that which conceived and gave birth to that (body)? And indeed it was a virgin, about to marry once for all after her delivery, who gave birth to Christ, in order that each title of sanctity might be fulfilled in Christ’s parentage, by means of a mother who was both virgin, and wife of one husband.
On Monagamy 8 *
Here Tertullian sounds as if he is putting forward a view similar to Helvidius’s (as described by Jerome)…namely that Mary held both of the titles of sanctity by being both the virgin and the wife (a wife being a non-virgin, as being under the very law of opening the womb).
The foregoing should make it clear that Tertullian accepted Mary’s virginity at conception and rejected the idea that Mary remained a virgin through the birth process. It should also leave little doubt that Tertullian did not believe in Mary’s continued virginity after the birth of Christ. So what is it that you think?..You want to claim that Mary’s perpetual virginity (before, during and after the birth) is a 2000 year old teaching of the Church, yet somehow, either Tertullian was a) not aware of that teaching or b) thought it was not apostolic and should be rejected? Do you disregard his voice b/c he was a Montanist heretic? Why? Did the Montanists reject other apostolic teachings? Jerome highly praised Tertullian. Cyprian and Augustine were greatly influenced by him.
) and I think intellectual honesty will lead you to the traditional view.
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