Giuseppe wrote: ↑Mon Jun 25, 2018 9:55 am
Justin: The remainder of the Psalm makes it manifest that He knew His Father would grant to Him all things which He asked, and would raise Him from the dead; and that He urged all who fear God to praise Him because He had compassion on all races of believing men, through the mystery of Him who was crucified; and that He stood in the midst of His brethren the apostles (who repented of their flight from Him when He was crucified, after He rose from the dead, and after they were persuaded by Himself that, before His passion He had mentioned to them that He must suffer these things, and that they were announced beforehand by the prophets), and when living with them sang praises to God, as is made evident in the memoirs of the apostles. The words are the following: 'I will declare Your name to my brethren; in the midst of the Church will I praise You. You that fear the Lord, praise Him; all you, the seed of Jacob, glorify Him. Let all the seed of Israel fear Him.'
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/01287.htm
Note that Justin doesn't say : He stood in the midst of His brethren
and the apostles. So the implication is that an apostle is
eo ipso a 'brother of Jesus'.
So according to this view the James in Gal 1:19 would be only an apostle. Not the biological brother of Jesus.
"He stood in the midst of his brethren, the apostles" (ἐν μέσῳ τῶν ἀδελφῶν αὐτοῦ ἔστη, τῶν ἀποστόλων). I fully agree, backed by the Greek. In this passage, apostles = brothers. In Matthew 28.10, Jesus instructs the women: "Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee," which seems to equate brothers to disciples (eleven of them, according to verse 16).
The complications arise when the "brothers of the Lord" appear to designate a group that is
not exactly the same as the apostles:
1 Corinthians 9.5: 5 Do we not have a right to take along a believing wife, even as the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?
On the one hand, Cephas himself seems at first glance to fall outside of both groups (brothers and disciples), which seems unlikely overall, so maybe Paul is not writing very clearly. On the other hand, however, it is far easier to understand why a very important figure like Cephas, known by name to the Corinthians (according to the rest of the epistle), might be singled out than it is to understand why two different names for the same group might be listed as if they were different groups altogether.
I sympathize fully with the effort to understand James as somebody other than Jesus' brother by blood, believe me. But that position will not be mine cheaply. I need to see a full reckoning of how these terms are used throughout our source texts.