January 2025

THE SISTERS OF CHRIST

Written by: D.P. Curtin

Christ’s sisters are a subject that is frequently overlooked, as the information presented on them in the gospel account is terse and does not grant even the slightest fragment of their historic personalities. They are not mentioned by name in the canonical Gospels, but they are alluded to briefly (Mark 6:3; Matt. 13:55), and their existence might be implied elsewhere in the Greek scriptures (Mark 3:35; Matt. 12:46). The author of St. Luke’s gospel mentions brothers, but gives no reference to sisters being in his immediate family. Just the same, they are not mentioned by St. John (2:12; 7:3-5) when references to the family of Christ are made. Moreover, apocryphal works also commonly omit them completely (Gospel of Thomas, 99). Functionally, they do not appear to have been active in the ministry of Christ in Galilee. Moreover, they are never alluded to in the works of St. Paul, St. Ignatius, or any of the ante-Nicene fathers. Epiphanius of Salamis the 4th century bishop is our sole account from patristic sources, and he is the first one to give them names, citing two or potentially three sisters: Maria, Anna, and Salome (Epiphanius, Panorion, 78:8:1, 78:9:6, Ancoratus, 60:1). These names are all extremely common given names for Jewish women of the period, particularly that of Mary/Maria, which has caused endless frustration to Biblical scholars who attempt to delineate which Mary is which. Given what is known about the period, these names, while unverifiable, are what would be expected for this epoch. Only one of these names is verified in an early Christian tradition. A certain ‘Maria’ is noted explicitly as a sister of Christ by the Gospel of Philip. Yet, the author does not expand on any identifiable information or behavior that we might associate with her. 

Conversely, the 5th century Coptic text ‘History of Joseph the Carpenter’ gives their names as ‘Assia and Lydia’. These are Hellenic names, and not Jewish ones, which appear strange in the context of the brothers who all have traditional, albeit common, Jewish names. Since no other outside source can corroborate their accuracy, they are likely the creation of the pseudepigraphal author. However,  since many Jewish names are paired with Greek names, they might perhaps be post-nominals, which were common to the period. However, there is no outside verification of this, unlike the Hebrew names which are attributed to them which are repeated in various early sources. 

Of these, Salome is the most intrigued based upon the record of the Greek scriptures and as well as early Christian apocrypha. There is an unidentified Salome mentioned as being present at the empty tomb (Mark 15:40, 16:1) and therefore in some inner circle of the early church. Yet, she is not mentioned elsewhere, either in St. Mark or in other canonical gospels. However, in reporting this same event, St. Matthew’s gospel replaces the name Salome with “the mother of the sons of Zebedee” (Matt. 27:56). Ergo, we can assume from this account that Salome was wife to Zebedee, and thus the mother of Christ’s apostles James and John. To this end this has become a common tradition within the church, and is also confirmed by Papias, albeit misattributed as Christ’s aunt (Fragment 10). She is confirmed in this role by later Byzantine hagiographers (Hippolytus of Thebes, Chronicon, 20) who clarify her role and connect it to one of the otherwise unknown sisters in St. Mark’s gospel. There is a converse identification by St. Clement of Alexandria who quotes a lost line from the Gospel of the Egyptians, wherein Salome states that she has not born any children (Clement, Stromata 3.9.64). However, it is likely that St. Clement objects to this on the grounds that it is a Gnostic introjection into the biblical account, and therefore notable in his discussion. She is elsewhere potentially identified with Jesus’ “mother’s sister” (John 19:25), mentioned once at the crucifixion of Christ.  In contrast to the canonical accounts, this Salome does, however, hold a prominent place in early Christian apocrypha beginning as early as the 2nd century. A young girl named Salome travels with Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem and assists with the birth in Bethlehem (Protoevangelium of James, 19:3; Solomon of Basrah, Book of the Bee, 36; History of Joseph the Carpenter 8:3; Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, 13; Tertullian, On the Flesh of Christ, 7:9) as well as following the resurrection of Christ (Apostalic Constitutions 3:6; Diatessaron 52:21–23; Second Letter of Clement 12:2). She is also noted as an aide to Mary while traveling in Egypt according to the Coptic text of the Vision of Theophilus and in the broader Coptic Synaxarium (Pachons 24, Amshir 16). Salome is noted as having an intimate, if not directly familial relationship to Christ in surviving gnostic texts (Gospel of Thomas, 61; Pistis Sophia; Excerpta ex Theodoto, 67), where she suggests they have the same father, noting they have “eaten from the same table”, and “shared the same bed”. Moreover, she is also paired with an unidentified woman named Mary (1st Apocalypse of James 40:25), which would be cogent if this was in fact her sister. St. Clement also makes allusions to Salome in his polemical work (Stromata, 3.6.45, 63, 64, 66; 3.13.92), although these references grant no insight to her identity or evangelical role in the early church, only her prominence amongst Christ’s early followers and distinctiveness from the of the mother of Christ and Mary of Magdala. In a final reference, Salome is alluded to in the Ethiopian Synaxarium, where she is given the post-nomen "Balata" (Ginbot 24, 25; Senne 8). This post-nomen is not explained in the text itself and is of unknown meaning.

The identity of Anna, sister of Christ, is entirely unknown. There appears to be no surviving tradition that is associated with her. Perhaps she is identical to the Jo-anna mentioned as the wife of Chuza, a financial backer of Christ’s ministry, and who was present at the empty tomb of Christ (Luke 8:3, 24:10), given the similarity in their names. The only explicit reference made to her is by Epiphanius (Ancoratus, 60:1), who makes note of her paired with Salome. Therefore, there is a high likelihood that this is a textual error on the part of Epiphanius, who confuses her with Maria, and she does not represent a separate historical personality. She appears in later Byzantine sources, along with Mary and Salome, such as in Sophronius of Jerusalem’s account in the 7th century, but this appears to be built on the account already noted by Epiphanius.

The last sister of Christ, Maria, is perhaps the hardest to identify. It is perhaps common knowledge that the various sundry Marys that exist in the Christian New Testament make identification a tedious and confusing task. Moreover, twenty centuries of tradition have compounded this issue by conflating the lives of the various Marys involved in the life of Christ. While unnamed in the canonical gospels, Maria appears as a specific name as early as the 3rd century in surviving texts (Gospel of Philip 59:6-11). Moreover, Byzantine expansions on the account by Epiphanius note that Maria, the sister of Jesus, married Cleophas, her uncle (Anastasius of Sinai, Qaestiones et responsiones, 153); ergo, she was sister(-in-law) to Mary, mother of Jesus (John 19:25). The inter-marriage of a niece to her uncle would not have been uncommon for the period, and has been found elsewhere. This interpretation of personalities would identify this Mary with the “Mary of Clopas” found in the canonical scriptures (John 19:25; Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew 42), and perhaps “Mary mother of James/Joses” (Mark 15:40, 16:1; Luke 24:10). This identification would further account for St. Jerome’s insistence that the alleged brothers of Jesus were in fact cousins (The Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Mary, 15), as the brothers of Christ: James, Joses, Jude, and Simon appear with similar names to that of the known sons of Cleophas: James, Joses, Symeon, and Levi (Papias of Hierapolis, Fragment 10).. In Assyrian sources she is identified as the mother of Joseph and Cleophas (Solomon of Basrah, Book of the Bee, 50), the latter of which name suggests that Cleophas became an adopted surname of the descendants fo Cleophas bar Jacob, which would further account for the extensive longevity that his life would have required. 

She is attributed to being the alleged founder of a specific sect of early Christianity, namely the Harpocratians (Origen, Contra Celsus, 91), although this is likely fictitious as the earliest known reference to this sect are from the 3rd century. However, their selection of Mary as their supposed founder does suggest that she held a place of prominence both within the realm of orthodox Christians but also among sundry Gnostic groups. There does not appear to be any tradition that relates her life following the establishment of the church, nor is there any account of her martyrdom. It has been suggested that she is Mary associated with the now largely lost apocryphal Gospel of Mary, although the surviving text of the gospel yields no additional information.