Chapter 42.

And Joseph having come to a feast with his sons, James, Joseph, and Judah, and Simeon and his two daughters, Jesus met them, with Mary His mother, along with her sister Mary of Cleophas, whom the Lord God had given to her father Cleophas and her mother Anna, because they had offered Mary the mother of Jesus to the Lord.  And she was called by the same name, Mary, for the consolation of her parents.¹⁶⁹⁰

1690 One of themss. has:  And when Joseph, worn out with old age, died and was buried with his parents, the blessed Mary lived with her nephews, or with the children of her sisters; for Anna and Emerina were sisters.  Of Emerina was born Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist.  And as Anna, the mother of the blessed Mary, was very beautiful, when Joachim was dead she was married to Cleophas, by whom she had a second daughter.  She called her Mary, and gave her to Alphæus to wife; and of her was born James the son of Alphæus, and Philip his brother.  And her second husband having died, Anna was married to a third husband named Salome, by whom she had a third daughter.  She called her Mary likewise, and gave her to Zebedee to wife; and of her were born James the son of Zebedee, and John the Evangelist. Another passage to the same effect is prefixed to the Gospel.  It reads Emeria for Emerina, and Joseph for Philip.  It ends with a quotation from Jerome’s sermon upon Easter:—We read in the Gospels that there were four Mary’s—first, the mother of the Lord the Saviour; second, His maternal aunt, who was called Mary of Cleophas; third, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, fourth, Mary Magdalene—though some maintain that the mother of James and Joseph was His aunt. The same ms. thus concludes:  The holy Apostle and Evangelist John with his own hand wrote this little book in Hebrew, and the learned doctor Jerome rendered it from Hebrew into Latin.

E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH