For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.
All Commentaries on Mark 3:35 Go To Mark 3
Bede
AD 735
Neither however are those, who donot believe the Holy Spirit to be God, guilty of an unpardonable blasphemy, because they were persuaded to do this by human ignorance, not by devilishmalice.But he subjoins, “Because they said, Hehath an unclean spirit,” that he might show that His reason for saying it, was their declaring that He cast out a devil by Beelzebub, not because there is ablasphemy, which cannot be remitted, since even this might be remitted througha right repentance; but the cause why this sentence was put forth by the Lord, after mentioning the unclean spirit, (who as our Lord shows was divided against himself,) was, that the Holy Spirit even makes those whom He brings together undivided, by His remitting those sins, which divided them from Himself, which gift of remission is resisted by no one, but him who has the hardness of an impenitent heart. For in another place, the Jews said of the Lord, that He had a devil .
The brother of the Lord must not bethought to be the sons of the ever-virgin Mary, as Helvidius says , nor the sons of Joseph by a former marriage, as some think, but rather they must be understood to be His relations.
see Ambr. in Luc. 6, 36: Being asked therefore by a message to go out, He declines, not as though He refused the dutiful service of His mother, but to show that He owes more to His Father's mysteries than to His mother’s feelings. Nor does He rudely despise His brothers, but, preferring His spiritual work to fleshly relationship, He teaches us that religion is the bond of the heart rather than that of the body. Wherefore it goes on, “And looking roundabout on them which sat about Him, He said, Behold My mother and My brethren.”
