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| Explanation of the Lord's Question About His Mother and His Brethren. Answer to the Cavils of Apelles and Marcion, Who Support Their Denial of Christ's Nativity by It.
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Chapter VII.—Explanation of
the Lord’s Question About His Mother and His Brethren. Answer to
the Cavils of Apelles and Marcion, Who Support Their Denial of
Christ’s Nativity by It.
But whenever a dispute arises about the nativity,
all who reject it as creating a presumption in favour of the reality of
Christ’s flesh, wilfully deny that God Himself was born, on the
ground that He asked, “Who is my mother, and who are my
brethren?”7038
Let, therefore,
Apelles hear what was our answer to Marcion in that little work, in
which we challenged his own (favourite) gospel to the proof, even that
the material circumstances of that remark (of the Lord’s) should
be considered.7039
| 7039 See our
Anti-Marcion, iv. 19. | First of all,
nobody would have told Him that His mother and brethren were standing
outside, if he were not certain both that He had a mother and brethren,
and that they were the very persons whom he was then
announcing,—who had either been known to him before, or were then
and there discovered by him; although heretics7040
have removed this passage from the gospel, because those who were
admiring His doctrine said that His supposed father, Joseph the carpenter,
and His mother Mary, and His brethren, and His sisters, were very well
known to them. But it was with the view of tempting Him, that they had
mentioned to Him a mother and brethren which He did not possess. The
Scripture says nothing of this, although it is not in other instances
silent when anything was done against Him by way of temptation.
“Behold,” it says, “a certain lawyer stood up, and
tempted Him.”7041
And in another
passage: “The Pharisees also came unto Him, tempting Him.”
Who7042
| 7042 Literally,
“nobody prevented its being, etc.” | was to prevent its being in this place also
indicated that this was done with the view of tempting Him? I do not
admit what you advance of your own apart from Scripture. Then there
ought to be suggested7043
some
occasion7044
for the temptation.
What could they have thought to be in Him which required
temptation? The question, to be sure, whether He had been born or
not? For if this point were denied in His answer, it might come out on
the announcement of a temptation. And yet no temptation, when aiming at
the discovery of the point which prompts the temptation by its
doubtfulness, falls upon one so abruptly, as not to be preceded by the
question which compels the temptation whilst raising the doubt.
Now, since the nativity of Christ had never come into question, how can
you contend that they meant by their temptation to inquire about a
point on which they had never raised a doubt? Besides,7045
if He had to be tempted about His birth,
this of course was not the proper way of doing it,—by announcing
those persons who, even on the supposition of His birth, might possibly
not have been in existence. We have all been born, and yet all of us
have not either brothers or mother. He might with more probability have
had even a father than a mother, and uncles more likely than brothers.
Thus is the temptation about His birth unsuitable, for it might have
been contrived without any mention of either His mother or His
brethren. It is clearly more credible that, being certain that He had
both a mother and brothers, they tested His divinity rather than His
nativity, whether, when within, He knew what was without; being tried
by the untrue announcement of the presence of persons who were not
present. But the artifice of a temptation might have been thwarted
thus: it might have happened that He knew that those whom they
were announcing to be “standing without,” were in fact
absent by the stress either of sickness, or of business, or a journey
which He was at the time aware of. No one tempts (another) in a way in
which he knows that he may have himself to bear the shame of the
temptation. There being, then, no suitable occasion for a temptation,
the announcement that His mother and His brethren had actually turned
up7046
recovers its naturalness. But there is some
ground for thinking that Christ’s answer denies His mother
and brethren for the present, as even Apelles might learn. “The
Lord’s brethren had not yet believed in Him.”7047
So is it contained in the Gospel which was
published before Marcion’s time; whilst there is at the same time
a want of evidence of His mother’s adherence to Him, although the
Marthas and the other Marys were in constant attendance on Him.
In this very passage indeed, their unbelief is evident. Jesus was
teaching the way of life, preaching the kingdom of God and
actively engaged in healing infirmities of body and soul; but all the
while, whilst strangers were intent on Him, His very nearest relatives
were absent. By and by they turn up, and keep outside; but they do not
go in, because, forsooth, they set small store7048
| 7048 Non computantes
scilicet. | on
that which was doing within; nor do they even wait,7049
| 7049 Nec sustinent
saltem. | as if they had something which they could
contribute more necessary than that which He was so earnestly doing;
but they prefer to interrupt Him, and wish to call Him away from His
great work. Now, I ask you, Apelles, or will you Marcion, please (to
tell me), if you happened to be at a stage play, or had laid a
wager7050
| 7050 Contendens:
“videlicet sponsionibus” (Oehler) | on a foot race or a chariot race, and were
called away by such a message, would you not have exclaimed,
“What are mother and brothers to me?”7051
| 7051 Literally, “Who
is my mother, and who are my brethren?”—Christ’s own
words. | And did not Christ, whilst preaching and
manifesting God, fulfilling the law and the prophets, and
scattering the darkness of the long preceding age, justly employ this
same form of words, in order to strike the unbelief of those who stood
outside, or to shake off the importunity of those who would call Him
away from His work? If, however, He had meant to deny His own nativity,
He would have found place, time, and means for expressing Himself very
differently,7052
| 7052 The alius is a
genitive, and must be taken with sermonis. | and not in words
which might be uttered by one who had both a mother and brothers. When
denying one’s parents in indignation, one does not deny their
existence, but
censures their faults. Besides, He gave others the preference;
and since He shows their title to this favour—even because they
listened to the word (of God)—He points out in what sense He
denied His mother and His brethren. For in whatever sense He adopted as
His own those who adhered to Him, in that did He deny as His7053
| 7053 Abnegavit:
“repudiated.” | those who kept aloof from Him. Christ also
is wont to do to the utmost that which He enjoins on others. How
strange, then, would it certainly7054
| 7054 Force of the
indicative quale erat. | have been, if,
while he was teaching others not to esteem mother, or father, or
brothers, as highly as the word of God, He were Himself to leave the
word of God as soon as His mother and brethren were announced to Him!
He denied His parents, then, in the sense in which He has taught us to
deny ours—for God’s work. But there is also another view of
the case: in the abjured mother there is a figure of the synagogue, as
well as of the Jews in the unbelieving brethren. In their person Israel
remained outside, whilst the new disciples who kept close to Christ
within, hearing and believing, represented the Church, which He called
mother in a preferable sense and a worthier brotherhood, with the
repudiation of the carnal relationship. It was in just the same sense,
indeed, that He also replied to that exclamation (of a certain woman),
not denying His mother’s “womb and paps,” but
designating those as more “blessed who hear the word of
God.”7055
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