With the women. — Looking to what we have seen in the Gospels, it is a natural inference that here, too, the “devout women” of Luke 8:2-3, were among St. Luke’s chief informants. This may, perhaps, account for the variations in the list just noticed. The women were less likely than the disciples to lay stress on what we may call the accurate coupling of the Twelve. The mention of “the women” as a definite body is characteristic of St. Luke as the only Evangelist who names them. (See Notes on Luke 8:1-3; Luke 23:49.) We may reasonably think of the company as including Mary Magdalene, Salome, Susanna, Joanna, Mary and Martha of Bethany, possibly also the woman that had been a sinner, of Luke 7:37. Here we lose sight of them, and all that follows is conjectural. It is probable that they continued to share the work and the sufferings of the growing Church at Jerusalem, living together, perhaps at Bethany, in a kind of sisterhood. The persecution headed by Saul was likely to disperse them for a time, and some may well have been among the “women” who suffered in it (Acts 8:3); but they may have returned when it ceased. St. Luke, when he came to Palestine, would seem to have met with one or more of them.
Mary the mother of Jesus. — Brief as the record is, it has the interest of giving the last known fact, as distinct from legend or tradition, in the life of the mother of our Lord. St. John, we know, had taken her to his own home, probably to a private dwelling in Jerusalem (see Note on John 19:27), and she had now come with him to the first meeting of the Ecclesia. Here also we trace the influence of the women as St. Luke’s informants. They could not have left unnoticed the presence of her who was the centre of their group. The legends of some apocryphal books represent her as staying at Jerusalem with St. John till her death, twenty-two years after the Ascension; while others represent her as going with him to Ephesus and dying there; the Apostles gather around her death-bed; she is buried, and the next day the grave is found emptied, and sweet flowers have grown around it; Mary also had been taken up into heaven. The festival of the Assumption, which owes its origin to this legend, dates from the sixth or seventh century.
With his brethren. — The last mention of the “brethren” had shown them as still unbelieving (John 7:5). Various explanations of their change may be given. (1) They may have been drawn to believe before the Crucifixion by the great miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus. (2) The risen Lord had appeared to James as well as to the Apostles (1 Corinthians 15:7), and that may have fixed him and the other brothers in steadfast faith. (3) If the mother of Jesus was with John, the brethren also were likely to come, in greater or less measure, under the influence of their cousin. It may be noted that the brethren are here emphatically distinguished from the Apostles, and therefore that James the son of Aiphæus cannot rightly be identified with James the Lord’s brother. (See Note on Matthew 12:46.)