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?”100    Matt. xii. 48; Luke viii. 20, 21. 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.101    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 heretics102    Literally, “heresies.” 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.”103    Luke x. 25. And in another passage: “The Pharisees also came unto Him, tempting Him.” Who104    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 suggested105    Subesse. some occasion106    Materia. 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,107    Eo adicimus etiam. 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 up108    Supervenissent. 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.”109    John vii. 5. 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 store110    Non computantes scilicet. on that which was doing within; nor do they even wait,111    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 wager112    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?”113    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,114    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 His115    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 certainly116    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.”117    Luke xi. 27, 28. See also our Anti-Marcion, p. 292, Edin.

CAPUT VII.

Sed quotiens de nativitate contenditur, omnes qui respuunt eam ut praejudicantem de carnis in Christo veritate, ipsum Deum volunt negare esse natum, quod dixerit (Matt. XII, 48): Quae mihi mater, et qui mihi fratres? Audiat igitur et Apelles, quid jam responsum sit a nobis Marcioni eo libello, quo ad Evangelium ipsius provocavimus, considerandam scilicet materiam pronuntiationis istius. Primo quidem, nunquam quisquam adnuntiasset illi matrem et fratres ejus foris stare , qui non certus esset habere illum matrem et fratres, et ipsos esse, quos tunc nuntiabat, vel retro cognitos, vel tunc ibidem compertos , licet propterea abstulerint 0766B haereses ista de Evangelio, quod et creditum patrem ejus Joseph fabrum, et matrem Mariam, et fratres et sorores ejus optime notos sibi esse dicebant, qui mirabantur doctrinam ejus. «Sed tentandi gratia nuntiaverant et matrem et fratres, quos non habebat.» Hoc quidem Scriptura non dicit, alias non tacens, cum quid tentationis gratia factum est circa eum: Ecce, inquit (Matt. XXII), surrexit legis doctor, tentans eum. Et alibi (Matt. XIX): Et accesserunt ad eum Pharisaei, tentantes. Quod nemo prohibebat hic quoque significari, tentandi gratia factum. Non recipio quod extra Scripturam de tuo infers. Dehinc, materia tentationis debet subesse. Quid tentandum putaverunt in illo? Utique, natusne esset, an non; si enim hoc negavit responsio ejus, 0766C hoc captavit nuntiatio tentatoris. Sed nulla tentatio tendens ad agnitionem ejus, de quo dubitando tentat, ita subito procedit, ut non ante praecedat quaestio, 0767A quae, dubitationem inferens, cogat tentationem. Porro, si nusquam de nativitate Christi volutatum est, quid tu argumentaris, voluisse illos per tentationem sciscitari quod nunquam produxerunt in quaestionem? Eo adjicimus : etiamsi tentandus esset de nativitate, non utique hoc modo tentaretur, earum personarum adnuntiatione, quae poterant, etiam nato Christo, non fuisse. Omnes nascimur, et tamen non omnes aut fratres habemus aut matrem. Adhuc potest et patrem magis habere quam matrem, et avunculos magis quam fratres. Adeo non competit tentatio nativitatis, quam licebat et sine matris, et sine fratrum nominatione constare. Facilius plane est, ut, certi illum et matrem et fratres habere, divinitatem potius tentaverint ejus, quam nativitatem: 0767B an intus agens, sciret quid foris esset, mendacio petitus praesentia eorum, qui in praesenti non erant: nisi quod, etsi vacuisset tentationis ingenium, poterat evenire, ut quos illi nuntiabant foris stare, ille eos sciret absentes esse, vel valetudinis , vel negotii, vel peregrinationis nota jam necessitate. Nemo tentat eo modo, quo posse se sciat ruborem tentationis referre. Nulla igitur materia tentationis competente, liberatur simplicitas nuntiatoris , quod vere mater et fratres ejus supervenissent. Sed, quae ratio responsi, matrem et fratres ad praesens negantis, discat etiam Apelles. Fratres Domini non crediderant in illum, sicut et in Evangelio ante Marcionem edito continetur. Mater aeque non demonstratur 0767C adhaesisse illi , cum Martha et Maria alia in commercio ejus frequententur. Hoc denique in loco apparet incredulitas eorum: cum is doceret viam vitae, cum Dei regnum praedicaret, cum languoribus et vitiis medendis operaretur, 0768A extraneis defixis in illum, tam proximi aberant. Denique superveniunt, et foris subsistunt, nec introcunt, non computantes scilicet quid intus ageretur; nec sustinent saltem, quasi necessarius aliquid adferrent eo quod ille tum maxime agebat; sed amplius interpellant, et a tanto opere revocatum volunt. Oro te, Apelles, vel tu, Marcion, si forte tabula ludens, vel de histrionibus, aut aurigis contendens, tali nuntio avocareris, nonne dixisses: Quae mihi mater, aut qui fratres? Deum praedicans et probans Christus, Legem et Prophetas adimplens, tanti retro aevi caliginem dispargens, indigne usus est hoc dicto ad percutiendam incredulitatem foris stantium, vel ad excutiendam importunitatem ab opere revocantium? Caeterum, ad negandam nativitatem, alius 0768B necessarius fuisset et locus, et tempus, et ordo sermonis, non ejus qui posset pronuntiari etiam ab eo, cui et mater esset et fratres, cum indignatio parentes non neget, sed objurget . Denique, potiores fecit alios, et meritum praelationis ostendens. audientiam scilicet verbi, demonstrat qua conditione negaverit matrem et fratres. Qua enim alios sibi adoptavit, qui ei adhaerebant, ea abnegavit illos, qui ab eo absistebant. Solet etiam id implere Christus, quod alios docet. Quale ergo erat, si docens non tanti facere matrem aut fratres, quanti Dei verbum, ipse Dei verbum, nuntiata matre et fraternitate, desereret? Negavit itaque parentes, quomodo docuit negandos pro Dei opere. Sed alias figura est synagogae in matre abjuncta , et Judaeorum 0768C in fratribus incredulis. Foris erat in illis Israel; discipuli autem novi intus audientes, et credentes, et cohaerentes Christo, Ecclesiam deliniabant , quam potiorem matrem, et digniorem fraternitatem, recusato carnali genere, nuncupavit . Eodem 0769A sensu denique et illi exclamationi respondit, non matris uterum et ubera negans, sed feliciores designans, qui verbum Dei audiunt.