Tractates on the Gospel of John (continued)
TRACTATE 10 213 ifemina) could be a mother; she could not be a "married woman who had consummated her marriage" (mulier). Moreover, she was called a married woman (mulier) by reason of her feminine sex and not from the despoilment of her chastity, and this accords with the language of Scripture itself. For you know that Eve, having been made from the side of her husband, still untouched by her husband, was immediately a married woman (mulier): "And he built her up into a married woman (mulierem).''
(3) Then how are they brothers? The Lord's brothers are relatives of Mary, relatives of any degree at all. How do we prove it? From Scripture itself. Lot is called the brother of Abraham; Lot was the son of Abraham's brother. Read and you will find that Abraham was the paternal uncle of Lot, and they were called brothers." How, except that they were relatives? Likewise Jacob had as his maternal uncle, Laban, the Syrian; for Laban was the brother of Jacob's mother, that is of Rebecca, Isaac's wife. Read the Scripture and you find that the uncle and the son of his sister are called brothers.'^ Once this principle is recognized, you will find that all the relatives of Mary are brothers of Christ.
3. But those disciples were more his brothers, because even those relatives would not be his brothers if they were not disciples, and they would be brothers without good reason if they did not acknowledge their brother as teacher. For in a certain passage, when it was announced to him that his mother and brothers were standing outside, but he was talking with his disciples, he said, "'Who is my mother or who are my brothers?' And stretching forth his hand over his disciples, he said, nates a woman who is married and has had sexual experience, and virgo designates a woman of marriageable age but unmarried or a woman without sexual experience. While common usage allows some interchange between femina and mulier, virgo is usually carefully distinguished from mulier. The Latin versions of Scripture ignored this distinction and often used mulier where the Latin reader would have expected virgo; this could give rise to some theological misunderstandings; hence the care taken by Augustine here.
10. Cf. Gn 2.22. 11. Cf. Gn 1 1.27 and 31; 13 8; 14.14. 12. Cf. Gn 28.2; 29.12-15.