Simon, brother of the Lord

When was Simon, brother active?

Simon, brother of the Lord is dated fl. c. AD 30 (death unrecorded) in the archive, which places Simon, brother in the Apostolic Age (AD 4–70). The dating is traditional and approximate; the archive marks it as uncertain rather than fixing a year the sources do not give.

Which early sources mention Simon, brother?

Simon, brother of the Lord is named in 2 primary-source passages catalogued here, drawn from Matthew and Mark. Every passage is quoted from a named public-domain translation, earliest first.

Where was Simon, brother from?

The archive associates Simon, brother of the Lord with Nazareth.

Who were Simon, brother’s contemporaries?

The archive links Simon, brother of the Lord to 5 other figures, including James the Just, Jude, the Brother of the Lord, Joses, brother of the Lord and Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Each connection is drawn from a source that places them together, not from inference.

Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?

Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.

The brethren as sons of Mary and Joseph (the Helvidian view)

That the four brothers and the sisters named at Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3 were children of Mary and Joseph born after Jesus. Argued by Helvidius in the fourth century, and the reading most naturally suggested by the plain sense of “brother”.

The brethren as sons of Joseph by an earlier marriage (the Epiphanian view)

That they were Joseph’s children by a first wife, so step-brothers. The reading of the Protoevangelium of James and of the History of Joseph the Carpenter, both held in this library, and the settled position of the Eastern churches. The History names Joseph’s four sons as Judas, Justus, James and Simon.

The brethren as cousins (the Hieronymian view)

That ἀδελφός renders a wider Semitic kinship term and the brethren were cousins. Argued by Jerome, and the position that became standard in the Latin West. The archive already holds the material this rests on — Hegesippus makes Clopas the brother of Joseph, so that Clopas’s son Symeon was the Lord’s cousin.

Simon, brother of the Lord = Symeon son of Clopas, second bishop of Jerusalem

A frequent identification, and the source of the Eastern tradition that this Simon succeeded James at Jerusalem. Against it: Hegesippus, this archive’s witness for Symeon, calls him the Lord’s cousin and makes his father Clopas the brother of Joseph — a nephew of Joseph, not a son. The two bore the same common name. Recorded, not adopted; the archive holds them as separate figures.