26o HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS 



acter; and while he towered above his family 

 as a mountain above its foothills, yet there was 

 an evident family resemblance, and in him all 

 the distinguishing traits of the family were pres- 

 ent in superlative growth. Not so in that house- 

 hold of Nazareth. The only other one of its 

 members known to the world was James — but 

 how unlike Jesus he was! "The tendencies of 

 this James were, according to the notices of him by 

 the Apostle Paul, strictly Judaistic and in ecclesi- 

 astical tradition he is represented as having lived 

 ... as a perfect Essenico-Ebionitish saint, in his 

 ascetic conduct more resembling John the Baptist 

 than Jesus. The probability that he was not the 

 real brother, but only a cousin of Jesus, has been 

 attempted to be made out from the fact that the 

 names of James and Joses, which the Nazarenes 

 give as the names of two brothers of Jesus, are 

 stated elsewhere by Matthew (xxvii. 56) to be 

 those of two sons of another Mary, who is taken 

 to be the same person as John (xix. 25) designates 

 as the sister of the mother of Jesus." ^ In reply 

 it may be said that brothers often differ. True ; 

 yet usually not in all their characteristics but only 

 in the more prominent ones, while in others they 

 strikingly resemble each other. We have not the 



1 New Life of Jesus, Strauss, Vol. I. p. 260. 



