James the Just the Brother of Jesus
Saint James the Just (Hebrew: Ya’akov or Jacob), died 62 CE, also known as James of Jerusalem, James Adelphotheos, James, the Brother of the Lord [1], was an important figure in Early Christianity. He is also generally identified by Roman Catholics with James, son of Alphaeus and James the Less. According to Christian tradition, he was the first Bishop of Jerusalem, the author of the Epistle of James in the New Testament, the first of the Seventy of Luke 10:1–20, and originator of the Apostolic Decree of Acts 15:19-29. Paul of Tarsus in Galatians 2:9 (KJV) characterized James as such: “…James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars…” He is described in the New Testament as a “brother of the Lord” and in the Liturgy of St James as “the brother of God” (Adelphotheos) [2]
Who was James, The brother of Jesus? The evidence from the New Testament and citations of some early church fathers, that James is the brother of Jesus, is compelling. Due to the rising tide of asceticism in the emerging Catholic Church [3] , the initial myth of the virgin birth evolved and expanded into the myth of Mary’s perpetual virginity. Thus the position of James, as the full brother of Jesus, became unacceptable theologically. Both the eastern (which ultimately became the Orthodox Church) and the western churches (which became the Roman Catholic Church) proposed various explanations to get out of this difficulty.
- The Position of the Eastern Orthodox Church: The Epiphanian View
- The Position of the Roman Catholic Church: The Hieronymian View
James is a very common name in the New Testament. The name appeared more than forty times in it and could designate as many as seven different people :
- At least three persons connected to the twelve apostles were named James
- James son of Zebedee (Mark 3:17; Matthew 10:2), one of the twelve
- James son of Alphaeus (Mark 3:18, Matthew 10:3), one of the twelve
- James father of Judas (not Judas Iscariot), one of the twelve (Luke 6:16; Acts:1:13 )
- James the Less, mentioned only with connection with him being the son of one Mary, which may or may not be Mary, mother of Jesus. (Mark 15:40, 16:1)
- The author who calls himself this name in the epistle of James (James 1:1)
- The name of the brother of the author of the epistle of Jude (Jude 1:1)
- James, the brother of the Jesus (Mark 6:3; Matthew 13:55; Acts 12:17, 15:13, 21:18; Galatians 1:19, 2:9, 12; I Corinthians 15:7)
It is possible that some of these designations may be referring to the same persons. We will leave that for consideration later. For the moment, it is important to note that the two most important Jameses in the list are the first, the son of Zebedee, and the last, the brother of Jesus. These two were definitely presented in the New Testament as two separate persons. The reason for this is as follows:
About the time King Herod laid violent hands upon some who belonged to the church. He had James the brother of John, killed with the sword. (Acts 12:1-2)
The only James we know who was a “brother of John” was James, son of Zebedee. Thus we can conclude that the first James in our list was dead before the Jerusalem council given in chapter 15. When Luke narrated the story of the Jerusalem council, it was “James” who made the final ruling on the situation with Gentile believers. (Acts 15:13-21) Although it was not made explicit in Acts who this James was, Paul’s epistle to the Galatians provides the clarification. This is how James was introduced in Galatians:
Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days; but I did not see any other apostle except James, the Lord’s brother. [Galatians 1:18]
Later on, when Paul was narrating the story of the Jerusalem council, he mentioned James again, without any further qualification:
…and when James and Cephas and John, who were acknowledged pillars, recognized the grace that had been given to me… [Galatians 2:9]
It is obvious that Paul meant this to be the same James he met in Jerusalem earlier. [See note (a)] Thus, we can conclude that the James narrated in Acts after the murder of James, son of Zebedee, was James, the brother of Jesus. Note also that Paul did not qualify what he meant by the word brother. Indeed the most natural reading is that he was referring to James as the full biological brother of Jesus. [4] He never used the word to refer to Peter (or Cephas as Paul liked to call him) or to the apostles. We have seen this in Galatians 1:18. Another example can be found in 1 Corinthians:
Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? [1 Corinthians 9:5]
Incidentally the last passage refers to brothers in plural, meaning that Jesus had more than one brother. Indeed, this information is corroborated by the tradition in the gospels:
Then his [Jesus'] mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him. “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” [Mark 3:31-32 (also Matthew 12:46-50; Luke 8:19-21)]
Further on, their names are also given. This episode took place in Jesus’ hometown where people who knew him and his family were hearing him preach for the first time. Astonished, they asked:
Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us? Mark 6: 3 (also Matthew 13:55-56)]
The evidence of some early church fathers corroborates this strongly.
- Eusebius (c260-340) in his book The History of the Church (2:23:3-18) quoted a second century Christian, Hegesippus (c110-180), on the martyrdom on James. In it Hegesippus plainly called James “the Lord’s brother”.
- Tertullian (c160-c225) in his work Against Marcion (4:19), argued for a literal interpretation of Matthew 12:46-50; that the mother and brothers waiting for Jesus were actually his mother and his brothers.[5]
Thus we can conclude that a straightforward, natural, interpretation of the evidence of the New Testament and very early Christian tradition is that James was the brother of Jesus and he was Jesus’ brother in the full biological sense. [See note (b)]
Notes List
Note (a) – In four references to the name in his epistles, Paul did not differentiate the two James. Strong indication that one and the same person, James, the brother of Jesus, was meant in all cases. (I Corinthians 15:7, Galatians 1:19, 2:9, 2:12)
Note (b) - We have already shown elsewhere that the virgin birth is a myth. A Roman Christian called Helvidius (fl c.380) originally gave many of the arguments above. Helvidius was concerned about the rising tide of asceticism and the glorification of virginity over marriage that was taking hold of Rome. He wrote a short work that, while accepting the virginal conception of Jesus, denied that Mary was perpetually a virgin. The position that James was a brother of Jesus (whether half [if one accepts the dogma of the virgin birth] or full brothers) is normally known in scholarly circles as the Helvidian view. Jerome (c342-420) wrote a polemical work against the Helvidius’ views in 383 called Against Helvidius. Jerome’s position was embraced by the Catholic Church and held as dogma for more than 1,600 years. We will look at Jerome’s argument later. In a bizarre twist of fate, it is the Helvidian view that is now taking hold of Catholic theologians. For instance, the Catholic theologian J.P. Meier, concluded in the first volume of his work on Jesus, A Marginal Jew, Vol I (p331) that “from a purely philological and historical point of view, the most probable opinion is that the brothers and sisters of Jesus were his siblings.”
Note (c) - The text of the Protoevangelium and well as the chapter and verses are taken from The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden, Meridian Books, New York 1974. (We have slightly updated the archaic English.) Other editions of this may have different chapter and verse references
Bibliographical Notes
[1] James as well as Jude, Simon and Joses — are mentioned in Matthew 13:55, Mark 6:3, and referred to in Acts 12:17. James alone is mentioned as a brother of Jesus by Paul in Epistle to the Galatians 1:19.
[2] Schaff Philip. chapter 4, § 27.
[3] By catholic, We do not mean the Roman Catholic Church. The term catholic means universal and was the term used by the early church fathers to refer to the movement that eventually became mainstream, orthodox Christianity.
[4] Chilton & Neusner op cit: p11-12
[5] Kelly, Jerome: p104-107