Good Friday 2024: Mary the Wife of Clopas

 In the 1980s sitcom Newhart, three Vermont woodsmen were among the cast of eccentric characters.  Larry, their spokesman, introduced the other two as "my brother Darryl" and "my other brother Darryl."

I can't help thinking of the Darryls when I read John 19:25, which says that those standing near the cross of Christ included "his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene."  Since the mother of Jesus was named Mary, three different Marys are mentioned in this verse.

The presence of three Marys together is not as unusual as we might imagine at first.  Available data indicate that the name Mary (Miriam in Hebrew) was held by nearly a quarter of the women in Judea in the first century AD.  There are reasons this name was so popular.  The original Miriam, the sister of Moses, was a prophet of Israel.  Shortly before the time of Jesus, two wives of Herod the Great bore that name, so it was a name associated with queens and princesses.

The Bible tells us about additional women named Mary among the first followers of Jesus.  One of them was Mary of Bethany, who anointed Jesus' feet with ointment about a week before the crucifixion (John 12:1-3).  We also know that the mother of John Mark, author of the Gospel of Mark, was named Mary (Acts 12:12).         

Mary the wife of Clopas is perhaps the least familiar of these Marys.  According to Eusebius'  Ecclesiastical History (Book 3, Chapter 11), Clopas was a brother of Joseph, the husband of Jesus' mother Mary, making Clopas' wife the sister-in-law of Jesus' mother.  

This information helps answer one of the main questions raised by John 19:25:  How many women are being referenced there? In one reading there are four:

1. Mary the mother of Jesus
2. An unnamed sister of Mary.
3. Mary the wife of Clopas.
4. Mary Magdalene.

But since Mary the wife of Clopas was the sister-in-law of the mother of Jesus, and since the word for "sister" in John 19:25 can be used for a wider range of relationships than just "sisters," there may be only three women in John 19:25:

1. Mary the mother of Jesus
2. Mary's sister-in-law Mary the wife of Clopas.
3. Mary Magdalene.

Richard Bauckham considers this reading to be the more likely one  (see Chapter 6 of Gospel Women).

Clopas and Mary had a son named Symeon who became the leader of the Christians in Jerusalem after the martyrdom of Jesus' brother James in 62 AD.  Symeon held that position for many years, eventually dying as a martyr himself (Book 3, Chapter 32).  

Since Mary is identified as "the wife of Clopas" rather than as the mother of Symeon, she and Clopas were likely known for more than just being Symeon's parents.  In his book Gospel Women, scholar Richard Bauckham points out that in the early church, a number of married couples worked together to spread the Gospel. (Think of Prisca and Aquila as an example, or Andronicus and Junia---Romans 16.)  Among these couples were relatives of Jesus (1 Corinthians 9:5), so Mary and her husband Clopas may have been such a husband-and-wife team of evangelists.  

Each of the Marys mentioned in the Gospels made a unique contribution to the early Christian movement, and it is worthwhile to learn what we can about their lives.  The example of Mary the wife of Clopas highlights the substantial role played by the extended family of Jesus in the early church.