Joses (Joseph)

Joses (the form in Mark; Matthew calls him Joseph) is named in both Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3 as one of the brothers of Jesus, alongside James, Simon, and Jude. Unlike James and Jude, no surviving writing is attributed to him, and the New Testament records nothing else about him in narrative form. The only further data is that Mark 15:40 — naming the women at the cross — refers to one of them as "Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses," which has been read by Catholic exegetes as a reference to a different Mary (possibly Mary of Clopas) and thereby evidence that the "brothers of the Lord" were actually cousins, not uterine brothers.

The brothers of the Lord question has been one of the most divisive interpretive issues in Christian tradition. Three positions have been held since antiquity. (1) The Helvidian view, named after the 4th-century writer Helvidius — and the standard Protestant position since the Reformation — holds that the brothers were uterine half-brothers, sons of Joseph and Mary born after Jesus. (2) The Epiphanian view, named after Epiphanius of Salamis and the standard Eastern Orthodox position, holds that they were sons of Joseph by a previous marriage. (3) The Hieronymian view, named after Jerome and the standard Roman Catholic position, holds that they were cousins, on the basis that the Greek adelphos covers wider familial relationships than modern English "brother."

Joses's primary place in Christian tradition has been as one of the four brothers named in the Gospel lists. His name appears in some early martyrologies (as Joses or Joseph, brother of the Lord), and the Eastern Orthodox tradition lists him among the Seventy disciples sent out by Jesus in Luke 10. The Western tradition has commemorated him jointly with the other brothers of the Lord in various liturgical observances of the Holy Family. His feast is celebrated in some Eastern traditions on July 30.