I know the “brethren” of Jesus were the sons of Mary the wife of Cleophas, but I am confused by the language saying that Jesus had brothers and sisters, and the reasoning that there were no terms for “cousin,” when Luke 1:36 states that Elizabeth was Mary’s “cousin.” I’m not having a crisis of faith or anything like that, just curious what the answers are to this.
Perpetual Virginity – The Adelphoi of Jesus
Objection 1: The Bible says that Jesus had brothers. Matthew 13:55 says: ‘Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brethren James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us?’"
The key to Matthew 13:55 is understanding the Greek word for “brethren” (
adelphoi) and its feminine counterpart (
adelphe). If the Greek words used in this passage connote only siblings, then the Catholic dogma of Mary’s perpetual virginity is false.
However, the word
adelphoi has a much broader meaning. It may refer to male relatives that one is not a descendant of and that are not descendant from one (such as a blood brother, step-brother, nephew, uncle, cousin, etc.) or non-relatives such as neighbors, fellow workers, co-religionists, and friends.
Because of this broad usage, we can be sure that the 120 “brothers” in Acts 1:15 did not have the same mother. Neither did Lot and his uncle Abraham, who were called “brothers” (Gen. 11:26-28, 29:15).
The reason relatives were called brothers or sisters was because in Hebrew, there was no word for cousin, nephew, or uncle. So the person was referred to as simply a “brother.” Linguistically, this was far easier than calling the person the son of a mother’s sister. Since the New Testament was written in a dialect of Greek that was heavily influenced by the Semitic culture, many of the Hebrew idioms (like “brother” having multiple meanings) intrude into the Greek text. So, the fact that Jesus had
adelphoi does not mean that Mary had other children.
Objection 2: But there was a Greek word for cousin, anepsios. If the brothers of the Lord were really his cousins, why wasn’t that word used?"
It is a misconception that Catholics teach that the brothers were actually cousins. In fact, we can’t tell if any of the “brothers” were cousins. All the Church affirms is that they were not children of Mary. They could have been children of Joseph from a prior marriage. But the specific word for cousin (
anepsios) probably would not have been used in Matthew 13:55 unless all the “brothers” were cousins. If even one of them was not a cousin, the more general term “
adelphoi” covers the situation. Even if all of them were cousins, the term “brother” could still be used by Matthew to appropriately describe them.
These things were taken for granted by the early Christians, who were familiar with the biblical languages and who knew that Mary was a lifelong virgin. In A.D. 380, Helvidius proposed that Mary had other children because of the “brothers” in Matthew 13:55. He was rebutted by Jerome, who was arguably the greatest biblical scholar of the day. The Protestant reformer John Calvin seconded Jerome: “Helvidius has shown himself too ignorant, in saying that Mary had several sons, because mention is made in some passages to the brothers of Christ” [quoted by Bernard Leeming, **Protestants and Our Lady, 9]
. Martin Luther agreed with Calvin that Mary was always a virgin, as did Ulrich Zwingli: “I esteem immensely the Mother of God, the ever chaste, immaculate Virgin Mary” [E. Stakemeier, **De Mariologia et Oecumenismo, K. Balic, ed., 456].
