And also the parallel section in Against Marcion Book Four:But as often as there is discussion of the nativity, all those who reject it as prejudging the issue concerning the verity of the flesh in Christ, claim that the Lord himself denies having been born, on the ground that he asked, Who is my mother and who are my brethren? So let Apelles too hear what answer I have already given to Marcion in that work in which I have made appeal to the Gospel which he accepts, namely that the background of that remark must be taken into consideration. Well then, in the first place no one would ever have reported to him that his mother and his brethren were standing without unless he were sure that he had a mother and brethren and that it was they whose presence he was then announcing, having either previously known them, or at least then and there made their acquaintance. This I say, in spite of the fact that the heresies have deliberately removed from the Gospel the statements that those who marvelled at his doctrine said that both Joseph the carpenter, his reputed father, and Mary his mother, and his brothers and sisters, were very well known to them.
'But,' they say, 'it was for the sake of tempting him that they announced to him the mother and the brethren whom actually he had not.' Now the Scripture does not say this, though elsewhere it is not silent when any action respecting him was taken with a view to temptation. Behold, it says, there stood up a doctor of the law, tempting him:2 and in another place, And there came to him the Pharisees, tempting him.3 And there was no reason why it should not have been indicated here that this was done to tempt him. I refuse to accept an inference of your own, which is not in Scripture. Secondly, there has to be some ground beneath the temptation. What was it they could think worth tempting in him? 'Whether, of course, he had been born or not: for as his answer constituted a denial of this, this was what the tempter's announcement angled for.' But no temptation, which has in view the ascertainment of that in doubt of which it makes the temptation, proceeds with such abruptness as to dispense with a precedent question which by suggesting doubt may give point to the temptation. Consequently, as there had nowhere been any canvassing of Christ's nativity, how can you argue that these people wished by means of a temptation to elicit something they had never brought into question?
To this we add that, even if there had been a case for tempting him in respect of his nativity, the temptation would certainly not have proceeded on the lines of an announcement of the arrival of persons whose present existence was no necessary consequence of Christ's having been born. All of us are born, yet not all of us have either brothers or a mother: one is more likely at any point to have a father than a mother, and maternal uncles than brothers. Thus there is here no room for a temptation respecting his nativity, for this could quite well be a fact apart from any mention either of mother or of brethren. It is in fact easier to suppose that, being assured that he had both a mother and brethren, they were making trial of his divinity rather than of his nativity, by attempting to discover whether while busy indoors he knew what there was out of doors, when assailed with a lying report of the presence of people who actually were not there. And yet, even in this case the device behind the temptation would have failed of its purpose: for it could have been the case that those whom they reported standing without were known by him to be absent, through the claims of illness or of business or of a long journey, which he was already aware of. No one frames a temptation in terms through which he knows that the embarrassment of the temptation may recoil upon himself. As therefore there existed no pertinent ground of temptation, it remains for us to admit the candour of the messenger and to acknowledge that his mother and his brethren really had come for him.
But let Apelles, as well as Marcion, hear from me what was the reason behind the reply which for the moment denied mother and brethren. Our Lord's brethren did not believe in him:1 this also is included in the Gospel as it was published before Marcion's day. His mother likewise is not shown to have adhered to him, though Martha and other Marys are often mentioned as being in his company.2 At this juncture their unbelief at last comes into the open. When Jesus was teaching the way of life, when he was preaching the Kingdom of God, when he was occupied in healing infirmities and sicknesses, though strangers were intent upon him these near relations were absent. At length they come for him, they stand without and will not enter, evidently not valuing what was being done inside. They do not so much as even wait, but, as though bringing more important business than what he was then engaged upon, they go so far as to interrupt, and wish him to be called away from so great a work.
I put it to you, Apelles, or you if you like, Marcion, if perchance when playing dice or laying bets on actors or jockeys you were called away by such a message, would you not ask, 'Who is my mother, and who are my brethren?'? When Christ was preaching God and giving proof of him, was fulfilling the Law and the Prophets, and was dispelling the darkness of long ages past, was it without justification that he used this expression to castigate the unbelief of those who stood without, or at least to expose their unseasonableness in calling him back from his work? For repudiating nativity, on the other hand, he could have chosen the place and time and occasion of a different discourse, not such as could be uttered by one who had both a mother and brethren. When indignation denies kindred, this is not a denial but a reproof.
Besides, he gave others prior place, and when he reveals what has caused these to deserve preference, namely the hearing of the word, he makes it clear on what terms he has denied having a mother and brethren: for on the terms on which he adopted to himself those others who clave to him, on these he repudiated those who stood apart from him. It is Christ's custom himself to put into practice the teaching he gives to others. Then how could it be possible for him, when teaching men not to value mother or father or brethren so highly as the word of God, himself to desert the word of God when his mother and brethren were reported waiting? So then, he denied his kinsfolk for the reason for which he taught they ought to be denied, for God's work's sake.
And further: in another sense there is in his mother's estrangement a figure of the Synagogue, and in his brethren's unbelief a figure of the Jews. Outside, in them, was Israel: whereas the new disciples, hearing and believing, and being inside, by cleaving to Christ depicted the Church which, repudiating carnal kinship, he designated a preferable mother and a worthier family of brothers. To conclude, it was in this same sense that he answered also that other exclamation1--not as denying his mother's womb and breasts, but as indicating that those are more blessed who hear the word of God.
Most discussions ignore the fact that the question, 'Who is my mother and my brethren?', not recorded by Luke, can only have comeWe come now to the standing argument of all those who bring into controversy our Lord's nativity.1 He himself, they say, affirms that he has not been born when he says, Who is my mother and who are my brethren? In this way heretics are always, by their theories, wresting plain and simple expressions in any direction they please, or else, on supposition of simplicity, giving a general meaning to expressions based on special conditions and particular reasons, as on the present occasion. We on the contrary affirm, first, that there
could have been no report brought to him that his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to see him, if he had had no
mother or brethren, and if he who brought the message had not known who they were, either by previous acquaintance or by having then and there been informed, either when they asked to see him or when they themselves sent the messenger. To this first submission of ours our adversaries' usual answer is, What then if the message was brought with the purpose of tempting him? But the scripture does not say so, though its custom is to indicate when anything is done for temptation's sake—Behold a doctor of the law stood up, tempting him,b and in that question about tribute-money, And there came to him pharisees, tempting him—and consequently, where it makes no mention of temptation, it does not admit of its being interpreted as temptation.
For all that, though I have no need to, I demand the reasons for such temptation, in what respect they can have tempted him by the mention of his mother and his brethren. If because they wished to know whether he had been born, or not—had there ever been any doubt of this, which they could resolve by means of that temptation? Yet who could have any doubt of the birth of one who he saw
Was a man, whom he had heard declare himself the Son of man, who in consideration of all his human attributes they hesitated
to believe was God, or the Son of God? They found it easier to esteem him a prophet, some great one no doubt, but one in any
case who had been born. Even if there had been reason to tempt him by investigating his nativity, any other means would have been more in keeping with such temptation than the mention of those relations whom, in spite of having been born, he might by that time have lost.
Tell me, does everybody who has been born, have a mother still living? Does everybody who has been born, have brothers born to him as well? Is it not more likely that people have their fathers living or their sisters, or even no one? Also it is well known that a census had just been taken in Judaea by Sentius Saturninus, and they might have inquired of his ancestry in those records. Thus in no respect has this suggestion of temptation stood up to examination, and it really was his mother and his brethren who stood without. It remains for me to ask what he had in mind when in some figurative manner he used the words, Who is my mother, or my brethren?, giving the
impression of denying both relationship and nativity—yet arising from the requirements of the situation and conditional upon a reasonable explanation. It was that he was rightly displeased that while strangers were within, intent upon his words, such near relations stood without, and what is more, sought to distract him from his appointed work.
This was not so much a denial as a disavowal. And consequently, after his first remark, Who is my mother, and who are my brethren?, he added, Those only who hear my words and do them, thus transferring those titles of relationship to others, whom he should judge more closely related to him by their faith. Now no one makes a transference except from one already in possession of that which is transferred. If then he made to be his mother and brethren those who were not, in what sense did he deny those who were? Evidently on conditions of their own deserving, not from denial of those close relations, giving in himself an example of his own teaching, that he who should put father or mother or brethren before the word of God was not a worthy disciple.d For the rest, the admission that they were his mother and his brethren was even more clearly expressed by this refusal to acknowledge them. By adopting others he confirmed those whom through disfavour he denied, and the substitution was not of others more real but of others more worthy. In any
case it is not surprising that he preferred faith to blood-relationship, when <as Marcion will have it> he had no blood.
from Matt. 12: 48 and Mark 3: 33 - or the consideration always ignored by scholars, a Diatessaron.