HistoricalChristian.Faith

Does Hegesippus’ usage tell against the cousin-theory — or can “dēuteron” (HE 4.22.4) mean “a second cousin”?

Type: supporting argument (off-timeline) · Assessment: sound — the earliest Palestinian witness keeps two relationships apart (James and Jude the Lord’s brother, Symeon son of Clopas his cousin), which tells against a reading that makes the brethren themselves cousins; the Hieronymian counter — that dēuteron in “a cousin of the Lord, the second” means “a second (i.e. another) cousin,” implying James too was a cousin — is the less-probable grammar, since “bishop” is the word named in the same sentence and the parallel at H.E. iii.22 numbers the same succession while still calling James “the brother.” The point is modest (it counts against the reading, it does not by itself decide between the other two) · argued by Richard Bauckham after Hegesippus and J. B. Lightfoot

Related arguments: the cousin theory — see also Does “brother” (adelphos) mean “cousin”? · Does the separate word for “kinsman” (suggenēs) tell against the cousin-reading? · Do the identifications that complete Jerome’s cousin-theory hold? · Does John 19:25 make “Mary of Clopas” the Virgin’s sister? · Are “James the little” and Joses the Lord’s brothers? · Does the shared manner of death (both stoned in Jerusalem) support the identification? · Was the cousin theory a novelty Jerome himself let go? · Does the “Papias” fragment give early support?

The claim

Hegesippus (c. 175), the earliest historical witness on the Lord’s kindred, is a linchpin of the modern debate because he keeps two relationships verbally distinct. James and Jude are the Lord’s brother (adelphos); Symeon, who succeeded James as bishop of Jerusalem, is the Lord’s cousin (anepsios), being the son of Joseph’s brother Clopas.¹ Since the Hieronymian reading makes the “brethren of the Lord” the sons of “Mary of Clopas” — that is, cousins, of the very family of Clopas to which Symeon belonged — a witness who reserves “cousin” for Symeon and “brother” for James and Jude, and never folds the one relationship into the other, tells against that reading. J. B. Lightfoot judged the testimony “distinctly opposed to the Hieronymian view.”²

The whole case turns on a single word. Reporting Symeon’s appointment, Hegesippus (quoted by Eusebius, H.E. iv.22.4) writes — in Greek — …Symēōn ho tou Klōpa kathistatai episkopos, hon proethento pantes, onta anepsion tou kyriou deuteron: “…Symeon the son of Clopas is appointed bishop, whom all put forward, being a cousin of the Lord, the second.”³ The final word deuteron (“second”) is grammatically masculine accusative singular, and can agree either with the expressed anepsion (“cousin”) or with an understood episkopon (“bishop”). That ambiguity is the crux, and everything depends on which noun it modifies.

The Hieronymian counter (steelmanned)

Defenders of the cousin-theory answer the “distinction” argument by taking deuteron with anepsion: Hegesippus calls Symeon “a second (i.e. another) cousin of the Lord” — with the implication that his predecessor James, just named, was also a cousin. On that reading Hegesippus becomes a witness for the Hieronymian view, not against it. The reading is defended by serious scholars — Josef Blinzler and John McHugh both press it — and it is not a fringe rendering: the standard Loeb translation (Kirsopp Lake) puts the sentence “whom they all proposed because he was another cousin of the Lord,” taking deuteron exactly this way.⁴ Grammatically the concord is unforced: anepsion… deuteron sit side by side, both accusative, and “a second one of the same kind” is a possible sense of the ordinal. If it holds, the brother/cousin distinction dissolves — both James and Symeon are cousins, and Hegesippus no longer stands in the Hieronymian’s way.

Weighing the grammar

The counter is coherent but is the weaker reading on three counts, as Bauckham sets out.³

“Bishop” is the word already in the sentence. The clause is about an appointment to office: Symeon kathistatai episkopos — “is appointed bishop.” With episkopos expressed only a few words earlier, supplying it again with deuteron (“put forward… as the second [bishop]”) is the natural completion; the whole passage “describes the succession in the episcopal see of Jerusalem,” and “in such a context, dēuteron should be taken, not with anepsion, but with episkopon understood.” Bauckham renders: “…Symeon the son of Clopas, was next appointed bishop, whom, since he was a cousin of the Lord, they all put forward as the second [bishop].”

The parallel at H.E. iii.22 fixes the idiom — and there James is still “the brother.” Eusebius uses exactly this elliptical “second” for episcopal succession a book later, and in the very same breath keeps the brother/cousin distinction intact: “At this time Ignatius was known as the second bishop of Antioch, Evodius having been the first. Symeon likewise was at that time the second ruler of the church of Jerusalem, the brother of our Saviour having been the first.”⁵ Here “second” unmistakably numbers the office (Ignatius after Evodius, Symeon after James), the noun “bishop” standing understood in the second limb of each pair — and Eusebius, summarizing the same succession, still calls James “the brother of our Saviour,” not a cousin. That is precisely the reading “second [bishop]” forces on iv.22.4, and it leaves James’ title untouched.

The “second cousin” reading says it awkwardly. If Hegesippus had meant “another cousin,” “his whole sentence is an awkward way of saying it” — the ordinal deuteros ordinarily means “second” in a sequence, not “a further one of the same sort” (for which Greek reaches for allos or heteros) — and the supposed corollary, that James was a cousin, is left wholly unstated, to be inferred from a word at the far end of a sentence whose subject is Symeon’s bishopric. The economical reading takes deuteron with the office it names and leaves James where Hegesippus everywhere else puts him: among the Lord’s brethren.

Assessment

Sound. On the more probable grammar — “the second [bishop],” with the office expressed in the same sentence and the idiom fixed by H.E. iii.22 — Hegesippus preserves a real distinction between the Lord’s cousin Symeon and the Lord’s brethren James and Jude, and so, as Lightfoot and Bauckham both conclude, his evidence “must be held to count against the Hieronymian view.”³ The “second cousin” counter is coherent and has a respectable translation behind it, so the point is not beyond dispute; but it is the less-probable reading, and it fails to convert Hegesippus into positive support for the cousins.

Two limits keep the finding honest. First, the conclusion is negative and modest: Hegesippus tells against the reading that folds the brethren into the family of Clopas as cousins; he does not prove the perpetual virginity, and between the two remaining readings his witness cannot by itself decide (both the Epiphanian and the Helvidian keep brother and cousin distinct). Lightfoot’s further step — that the “said to be the Lord’s brother according to the flesh” of Jude (H.E. iii.20) leans Epiphanian — is softer still and is treated on the Hegesippus detail page. Second, the argument does not close the door on every form of the cousin-theory: the most economical modern variant (Blinzler’s) actually enlists Hegesippus, identifying the brother Simon with Symeon son of Clopas — but even there Hegesippus gives no positive support, since he explains Symeon’s relationship as a cousin and does not explain James’ the same way, remaining “content with the traditional term ‘brother of the Lord.’” What the earliest Palestinian tradition shows is that it already distinguished the Lord’s cousin from the Lord’s brethren — a distinction Jerome would later have to overturn.

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