Читать книгу The Life of Jesus Critically Examined - David Friedrich Strauss - Страница 56

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Our Gospels, in the true spirit of the ancient legend, find it unbecoming to allow the mother of Jesus, so long as she bore the heavenly germ, to be approached or profaned by an earthly husband. Consequently Luke (ii. 5) represents the connexion between Joseph and Mary, prior to the birth of Jesus, as a betrothment merely. And, as it is stated respecting the father of Plato, after his wife had become pregnant by Apollo: ὅθεν καθαρὰν γάμου φυλάξαι ἕως τῆς ἀποκυήσεως,86 so likewise it is remarked of Joseph in Matthew (i. 25): καὶ οὐκ ἐγίνωσκεν αὐτὴν (τὴν γυναῖκα αὑτοῦ) ἕως οὖ ἔτεκε τὸν υἱὸν αὑτῆς τὸν πρωτότοκον. In each of these kindred passages the Greek word ἕως (till) must evidently receive the same interpretation. Now in the first quotation the meaning is incontestably this:—that till the time of Plato’s birth his father abstained from intercourse with his wife, but subsequently assumed his conjugal rights, since we hear of Plato’s brothers. In reference, therefore, to the parents of Jesus, the ἕως cannot have a different signification; in each case it indicates precisely the same limitation. So again the expression πρωτότοκος (firstborn) used in reference to Jesus in both the Gospels (Matt. i. 25, Luke ii. 7) supposes that Mary had other children, for as Lucian says: εἰ μὲν πρῶτος, οὐ μόνος· εἰ δὲ μόνος, οὐ πρῶτος.87 Even in the same Gospels (Matt. xiii. 55, [144]Luke viii. 19) mention is made of ἀδελφοῖς Ἰησοῦ (the brothers of Jesus). In the words of Fritzsche: Lubentissime post Jesu natales Mariam concessit Matthæus (Luke does the same) uxorem Josepho, in hoc uno occupatus, ne quis ante Jesu primordia mutuâ venere usos suspicaretur. But this did not continue to satisfy the orthodox; as the veneration for Mary rose even higher, she who had once become fruitful by divine agency was not subsequently to be profaned by the common relations of life.88 The opinion that Mary after the birth of Jesus became the wife of Joseph, was early ranked among the heresies,89 and the orthodox Fathers sought every means to escape from it and to combat it. They contended that according to the exegetical interpretation of ἕως οὗ, it sometimes affirmed or denied a thing, not merely up to a certain limit, but beyond that limitation and for ever; and that the words of Matthew οὐκ ἐγίνωσκεν αὐτὴν ἕως οὗ ἔτεκε κ.τ.λ. excluded a matrimonial connexion between Joseph and Mary for all time.90 In like manner it was asserted of the term πρωτότοκος, that it did not necessarily include the subsequent birth of other children, but that it merely excluded any previous birth.91 But in order to banish the thought of a matrimonial connexion between Mary and Joseph, not only grammatically but physiologically, they represented Joseph as a very old man, under whom Mary was placed for control and protection only; and the brothers of Jesus mentioned in the New Testament they regarded as the children of Joseph by a former marriage.92 But this was not all; soon it was insisted not only that Mary never became the wife of Joseph, but that in giving birth to Jesus she did not lose her virginity.93 But even the conservation of Mary’s virginity did not long continue to satisfy: perpetual virginity was likewise required on the part of Joseph. It was not enough that he had no connexion with Mary; it was also necessary that his entire life should be one of celibacy. Accordingly, though Epiphanius allows that Joseph had sons by a former marriage, Jerome rejects the supposition as an impious and audacious invention; and from that time the brothers of Jesus were degraded to the rank of cousins.94

Some modern theologians agree with the Fathers of the Church in maintaining that no matrimonial connexion subsisted at any time between Joseph and Mary, and believe themselves able to explain the gospel expressions which appear to assert the contrary. In reference to the term firstborn, Olshausen contends that it signifies an only son: no less than the eldest of several. Paulus allows that here he is right, and Clemen95 and Fritzsche seek in vain to demonstrate the impossibility of this signification. For when it is said in Ex. xiii. 2, ‏קַדֶּשׁ־לִי כָל־בְּכוֹל פֶּטֶר כָּל־רֶחֶם‎ (πρωτότοκον πρωτογενὲς LXX.) it was not merely a firstborn followed by others subsequently born, who was sanctified to Jehovah, but the fruit of the body of that mother of whom no [145]other child had previously been born. Therefore the term πρωτότοκος must of necessity bear also this signification. Truly however we must confess with Winer96 and others, on the other side, that if a narrator who was acquainted with the whole sequel of the history used that expression, we should be tempted to understand it in its primitive sense; since had the author intended to exclude other children, he would rather have employed the word μονογενὴς, or would have connected it with πρωτότοκος. If this be not quite decisive, the reasoning of Fritzsche in reference to the ἕως οὗ, κ.τ.λ., is more convincing. He rejects the citations adduced in support of the interpretation of the Fathers of the Church, proving that this expression according to its primitive signification affirms only to a given limit, and beyond that limit supposes the logical opposite of the affirmation to take place; a signification which it loses only when the context shows clearly that the opposite is impossible in the nature of things.97 For example, when it is said οὐκ ἐγίνωσκεν αὐτὴν, ἕως οὗ ἀπέθανεν, it is self-evident that the negation, during the time elapsed till death—cannot be transformed after death into an affirmation; but when it is said, as in Matthew, οὐκ ἐ. ἀ. ἕως οὗ ἔτεκεν, the giving birth to the divine fruit opposes no impossibility to the establishment of the conjugal relations; on the contrary it renders it possible, i.e. suitable98 for them now to take place.

Olshausen, impelled by the same doctrinal motives which influenced the Fathers, is led in this instance to contradict both the evidence of grammar and of logic. He thinks that Joseph, without wishing to impair the sanctity of marriage, must have concluded after the experiences he had had (?) that his marriage with Mary had another object than the production of children; besides it was but natural (?) in the last descendant of the house of David, and of that particular branch from which the Messiah should come forth, to terminate her race in this last and eternal offshoot.

A curious ladder may be formed of these different beliefs and superstitions in relation to the connexion between Mary and Joseph.

1. Contemporaries of Jesus and composers of the genealogies: Joseph and Mary man and wife—Jesus the offspring of their marriage.

2. The age and authors of our histories of the birth of Jesus: Mary and Joseph betrothed only; Joseph having no participation in the conception of the child, and previous to his birth no conjugal connexion with Mary.

3. Olshausen and others: subsequent to the birth of Jesus, Joseph, though then the husband of Mary, relinquishes his matrimonial rights.

4. Epiphanius, Protevangelium Jacobi and others: Joseph a decrepit old man, no longer to be thought of as a husband: the children attributed to him are of a former marriage. More especially it is not as a bride and wife that he receives Mary; he takes her merely under his guardianship.

5. Protevang., Chrysostom and others: Mary’s virginity was not only not destroyed by any subsequent births of children by Joseph, it was not in the slightest degree impaired by the birth of Jesus.

6. Jerome: not Mary only but Joseph also observed an absolute virginity, and the pretended brothers of Jesus were not his sons but merely cousins to Jesus. [146]

The opinion that the ἀδελφοὶ (brothers) and ἀδελφαὶ Ἰησοῦ (sisters of Jesus) mentioned in the New Testament, were merely half brothers or indeed cousins, appears in its origin, as shown above, together with the notion that no matrimonial connexion ever subsisted between Joseph and Mary, as the mere invention of superstition, a circumstance highly prejudicial to such an opinion. It is however no less true that purely exegetical grounds exist, in virtue of which theologians who were free from prejudice have decided, that the opinion that Jesus actually had brothers is untenable.99 Had we merely the following passages—Matt. xiii. 55, Mark vi. 3, where the people of Nazareth, astonished at the wisdom of their countryman, in order to mark his well known origin, immediately after having spoken of τέκτων (the carpenter) his father, and his mother Mary, mention by name his ἀδελφοὺς (brothers) James, Joses, Simon, and Judas, together with his sisters whose names are not given100; again Matt. xii. 46, Luke viii. 19, when his mother and his brethren come to Jesus; John ii. 12, where Jesus journeys with his mother and his brethren to Capernaum; Acts i. 14, where they are mentioned in immediate connexion with his mother—if we had these passages only, we could not for a moment hesitate to recognize here real brothers of Jesus at least on the mother’s side, children of Joseph and Mary; not only on account of the proper signification of the word ἀδελφὸς, but also in consequence of its continual conjunction with Mary and Joseph. Even the passages—John vii. 5, in which it is remarked that his brethren did not believe on Jesus, and Mark iii. 21, compared with 31, where, according to the most probable explanation, the brothers of Jesus with his mother went out to lay hold of him as one beside himself—furnish no adequate grounds for relinquishing the proper signification of ἀδελφὸς. Many theologians have interpreted ἀδελφοὺς Ἰησοῦ in the last cited passage half brothers, sons of Joseph by a former marriage, alleging that the real brothers of Jesus must have believed on him, but this is a mere assumption. The difficulty seems greater when we read in John xix. 26 f. that Jesus, on the cross, enjoined John to be a son to his mother; an injunction it is not easy to regard as suitable under the supposition that Mary had other children, except indeed these were half-brothers and unfriendly to Jesus. Nevertheless we can imagine the existence both of external circumstances and of individual feelings which might have influenced Jesus to confide his mother to John rather than to his brothers. That these brothers appeared in company with his apostles after the ascension (Acts i. 14) is no proof that they must have believed on Jesus at the time of his death.

The real perplexity in the matter, however, originates in this: that besides the James and Joses spoken of as the brothers of Jesus, two men of the same name are mentioned as the sons of another Mary (Mark xv. 40, 47, xvi. 1, Matt. xxvii. 56), without doubt that Mary who is designated, John xix. 25, as the sister of the mother of Jesus, and the wife of Cleophas; so that we have a James and a Joses not only among the children of Mary the mother of Jesus, but again among her sister’s children. We meet with several others among those immediately connected with Jesus, whose names are identical. In the lists of the apostles (Matt. x. 2 ff., Luke vi. 14 ff.) we have two more of the name of James: that is four, the brother and cousin of Jesus included; two more of the name of Judas: that is three, the brother of Jesus included; two of the name of Simon, also making three with the brother of Jesus of the [147]same name. The question naturally arises, whether the same individual is not here taken as distinct persons? The suspicion is almost unavoidable in reference to James. As James the son of Alpheus is, in the list of the apostles, introduced after the son of Zebedee, as the second, perhaps the younger; and as James the cousin of Jesus is called ὁ μικρὸς (“the less”) Mark xv. 40; and since by comparing John xix. 25, we find that the latter is called the son of Cleophas, it is possible that the name Κλωπᾶς (Cleophas) given to the husband of Mary’s sister, and the name Ἀλφαῖος (Alpheus) given to the father of the apostle, may be only different forms of the Hebrew ‏חלפי‎. Thus would the second James enumerated among the apostles and the cousin of Jesus of that name be identical, and there would remain besides him only the son of Zebedee and the brother of Jesus. Now in the Acts (xv. 13) a James appears who takes a prominent part in the so-called apostolic council, and as, according to Acts xii. 2, the son of Zebedee had previously been put to death, and as in the foregoing portion of the book of the Acts no mention is made of any other James besides the son of Alpheus (i. 13), so this James, of whom (Acts xv. 13) no more precise description is given, can be no other than the son of Alpheus. But Paul speaks of a James (Gal. i. 19) the Lord’s brother, whom he saw at Jerusalem, and it is doubtless he of whom he speaks in connexion with Cephas and John as the στύλοι (pillars) of the church—for this is precisely in character with the (Apostle) James as he appeared at the apostolic council—so that this James may be considered as identical with the Lord’s brother, and the rather as the expression ἔτερον δὲ τῶν ἀποστόλων οὐκ εἶδον, εἰ μὴ Ἰάκωβον τὸν ἀδελφὸν τοῦ Κυρίου (but other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord’s brother. Gal. i. 19), makes it appear as if the Lord’s brother were reckoned among the apostles; with which also the ancient tradition which represents James the Just, a brother of Jesus, as the first head of the church at Jerusalem, agrees.101 But admitting the James of the Acts to be identical with the distinguished apostle of that name, then is he the son of Alpheus, and not the son of Joseph; consequently if he be at the same time ἀδελφὸς τοῦ Κυρίου, then ἀδελφὸς cannot signify a brother. Now if Alpheus and Cleophas are admitted to be the same individual, the husband of the sister of Mary the mother of Jesus, it is obvious that ἀδελφὸς, used to denote the relationship of his son to Jesus, must be taken in the signification, cousin. If, after this manner, James the Apostle the son of Alpheus be identified with the cousin, and the cousin be identified with the brother of Jesus of the same name, it is obvious that Ἰούδας Ἰακώβου in the catalogue of the Apostles in Luke (Luke vi. 16, Acts i. 13), must be translated brother of James (son of Alpheus); and this Apostle Jude must be held as identical with the Jude ἀδελφὸς Ἰησοῦ, that is, with the cousin of the Lord and son of Mary Cleophas (though the name of Jude is never mentioned in connexion with this Mary). If the Epistle of Jude in our canon be authentic, it is confirmatory of the above deduction, that the author (verse 1) designates himself as the ἀδελφὸς Ἰακώβου (brother of James). Some moreover have identified the Apostle Simon ὁ ζηλωτὴς or Κανανίτης (Zelotes or the Canaanite) with the Simon enumerated among the brothers of Jesus (Mark vi. 3), and who according to a tradition of the church succeeded James as head of the church at Jerusalem102; so that Joses alone appears without further designation or appellative.

If, accordingly, those spoken of as ἀδελφοὶ Ἰησοῦ were merely cousins, and three of these were apostles, it must excite surprise that not only in the Acts (i. 14), after an enumeration of the apostles, the brothers of Jesus are separately [148]particularized, but that also (1 Cor. ix. 5) they appear to be a class distinct from the apostles. Perhaps, also, the passage Gal. i. 19 ought to be understood as indicating that James, the Lord’s brother, was not an apostle.103 If, therefore, the ἀδελφοὶ Ἰησοῦ seem thus to be extruded from the number of the apostles, it is yet more difficult to regard them merely as the cousins of Jesus, since they appear in so many places immediately associated with the mother of Jesus, and in two or three passages only are two men bearing the same names mentioned in connexion with the other Mary, who accordingly would be their real mother. The Greek word ἀδελφὸς may indeed signify, in language which pretends not to precision, as well as the Hebrew ‏אה‎, a more distant relative; but as it is repeatedly used to express the relationship of these persons to Jesus, and is in no instance replaced by ἀνεψιὸς—a word which is not foreign to the New Testament language when the relationship of cousin is to be denoted (Col. iv. 10), it cannot well be taken in any other than its proper signification. Further, it need only be pointed out that the highest degree of uncertainty exists respecting not only the identity of the names Alpheus and Cleophas, upon which the identity of James the cousin of Jesus and of the Apostle James the Less rests, but also regarding the translation of Ἰούδας Ἰακώβου by the brother of James; and likewise respecting the assumed identity of the author of the last Catholic Epistle with the Apostle Jude.

Thus the web of this identification gives way at all points, and we are forced back to the position whence we set out; so that we have again real brothers of Jesus, also two cousins distinct from these brothers, though bearing the same names with two of them, besides some apostles of the same names with both brothers and cousins. To find two pairs of sons of the same names in a family is, indeed, not so uncommon as to become a source of objection. It is, however, remarkable that the same James who in the Epistle to the Galatians is designated ἀδελφὸς Κυρίου (the Lord’s brother), must unquestionably, according to the Acts of the Apostles, be regarded as the son of Alpheus; which he could not be if this expression signified a brother. So that there is perplexity on every side, which can be solved only (and then, indeed, but negatively and without historical result) by admitting the existence of obscurity and error on this point in the New Testament writers, and even in the very earliest Christian traditions; error which, in matters of involved relationships and family names, is far more easily fallen into than avoided.104

We have consequently no ground for denying that the mother of Jesus bore her husband several other children besides Jesus, younger, and perhaps also older; the latter, because the representation in the New Testament that Jesus was the first-born may belong no less to the mythus than the representation of the Fathers that he was an only son.