Note 15 — Chapter VIII · EVENTS IN THE PUBLIC LIFE OF JESUS, EXCLUDING THE MIRACLES.

All the synoptists mention a visit of the mother and brethren of Jesus, on being apprised of which Jesus points to his disciples, and declares that they who do the will of God are his mother and his brethren (Matt. xii. 46 ff.; Mark iii. 31 ff.; Luke viii. 19 ff.). Matthew and Luke do not tell us the object of this visit, nor, consequently, whether this declaration of Jesus, which appears to imply a disowning of his relatives, was occasioned by any special circumstance. On this subject Mark gives us unexpected information; he tells us (v. 21) that while Jesus was teaching among a concourse of people, who even prevented him from taking food, his relatives, under the idea that he was beside himself, went out to seize him, and take him into the keeping of his family.15 In describing this incident, the Evangelist makes use of the expression, ἔλεγον ὅτι ἐξέστη (they said, he is beside himself), and it was merely this expression, apparently, that suggested to him what he next proceeds to narrate: οἱ γραμματεῖς ἔλεγον, ὅτι Βεελζεβοὺλ ἔχει κ.τ.λ. (the scribes said, he hath Beelzebub, etc., comp. John x. 20). With this reproach, which however he does not attach to an expulsion of demons, he connects the answer of Jesus; he then recurs to the relatives, whom he now particularizes as the mother and brethren of Jesus, supposing them to have arrived in the meantime; and he makes their announcement call forth from Jesus the answer of which we have above spoken.