1. Family Relations
Jesus at the opening of the Gospels,
those of Matthew and Luke, demon
strate the descent of Joseph, not Mary,
from David; but the very incompleteness of the
lists lends support to
the theory that
Mary's descent
from David was presupposed as an accepted fact
by the evangelists. Her descent from the priestly
tribe of Levi may be supported by the fact that
Elisabeth, wife of the priest Zacharias, is called her
cousin in
Luke i. 36,
though this need not refer to
any closer connection than one arising from a mar
riage between a priestly ancestor of Elisabeth's
with a descendant of David. Thus a
double gene
alogy of Jesus, from David through Joseph, and
from the sacerdotal family through his mother,
might be shown. The question of ~ her maternal
relationship.to Jesus on the one hand and to the
"brethren of the Lord" on the other is a less
difficult one. The designation of Jesus as her
"first-born son"
(
Luke ii. 7)
and the statement as
to her relations with Joseph
(
Matt. i. 25,
of. i. 13)
seem to point to
the conclusion that the persons
called in the Gospels and in
Acts i. 14
the brethren
of the Lord were the younger sons of Joseph and
Mary. For various reasons the theory of Jerome
that they were cousins, and that of Epiphanius that
they were children of Joseph by a former
marriage,
are untenable. The unprejudiced reader of the
New Testament can not avoid the view represented
in antiquity by Helvidius and stamped as heresy
after Jerome and Ambrose, that they were the
children of Joseph and Mary, while Jesus was the
son of Mary in a miraculous manner, by the Holy
Ghost. The latter assertion rests upon distinct
passages of Scripture
(
Matt. i. 18-25;
Luke i: 26
38, ii. 7-l4), whereas the rationalist and Ebionite
view that he also was the son of Joseph and Mary
finds no support either in the Gospels or elsewhere
in the New Testament. The fundamental fact of
a supernatural birth was evidently unquestioned
by Paul. This is plain from passages like
I Cor. xv. 47;
II Cor. viii. 9;
Phil. ii. 9,
l0,and especially
Gal. iv. 4,
where the mention of Christ's birth simply
"of a woman" is explained by the
fact that Paul
had no thought of an earthly father.
But while the witness of the New Testament is
clear in favor of a supernatural birth, it is equally
free from the decorative traits with which later
legend loved to adorn the story of the birth and
childhood of Jesus and the history of his mother.
The Gospels neither tell anything of the birth and
childhood of Mary, nor place her noticeably in
the foreground in his earthly ministry. She is
depicted as a pure maiden, full of childlike innocence and humble piety. It is noteworthy that she
understands as little as Joseph her son's profound
saying at the age of twelve. At the marriage of
Cans she presses him in loving impaa. Her tience for the anticipation of the time
Character. to reveal his power, and has to be
rebuked by him. She is apparently, at
least, passive when his brethren show their unbelief
in him, and is included in his reproof of them
(
Matt.
xii. 46-50).
Her bearing at the
cross is
human and motherly, and Jesus commends her to
John as an evidence of his filial love and reverence
for her
(
John xix. 25-27).
After the ascension she
appears in the circle of the apostles
(
Acts i. 14),
but without any specially prominent position.
Thus the New Testament affords no ground for the
undue exaltation of Mary which was later so common; in fact, Jesus utters a warning
(
Luke xi. 27, 28)
against it which ought to be sufficient.
