[Footnote 3: This second name is the Greek translation of the first.]
[Footnote 4: John xi. 16, xx. 24, and following.]
[Footnote 5: Matt. x. 4; Mark iii. 18; Luke vi. 15; Acts i. 13;
Gospel of the Ebionites, in Epiphanes, Adv. Hær., xxx. 13.]
[Footnote 6: Now Kuryétein, or Kereitein.]
We have seen that in general the family of Jesus were little inclined toward him.[1] James and Jude, however, his cousins by Mary Cleophas, henceforth became his disciples, and Mary Cleophas herself was one of the women who followed him to Calvary.[2] At this period we do not see his mother beside him. It was only after the death of Jesus that Mary acquired great importance,[3] and that the disciples sought to attach her to themselves.[4] It was then, also, that the members of the family of the founder, under the title of "brothers of of the Lord," formed an influential group, which was a long time at the head of the church of Jerusalem, and which, after the sack of the city, took refuge in Batanea.[5] The simple fact of having been familiar with him became a decisive advantage, in the same manner as, after the death of Mahomet, the wives and daughters of the prophet, who had no importance in his life, became great authorities.
[Footnote 1: The circumstance related in John xix. 25-27 seems to imply that at no period of the public life of Jesus did his own brothers become attached to him.]
[Footnote 2: Matt. xxvii. 56; Mark xv. 40; John xix. 25.]
[Footnote 3: Acts i. 14. Compare Luke i. 28, ii. 35, already implying a great respect for Mary.]
[Footnote 4: John xix. 25, and following.]
[Footnote 5: Julius Africanus, in Eusebius, H.E., i. 7.]