Matthew 10:1-4
Named in the twelve
He is sent out with power against unclean spirits and to heal all manner of sickness, in the same sentence as Peter and John.
People of the Bible
James son of Alphaeus
Walked the whole three years and left not one recorded sentence.
Also called James the less, by many readings
He appears in all four lists of the twelve and nowhere else in a scene. His father is named to keep him apart from the son of Zebedee, and the name Alphaeus is also given to Levi’s father, which some readers take as a family link and others as a common name. Mark mentions a James the less whose mother Mary stands at the cross and comes to the tomb, and if that is this James then the only glimpse of his life is his mother refusing to leave.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of James son of Alphaeus
- 01
- 02
Mark 3:13-19
That they should be with him
Mark gives the reason for the twelve before the sending: that they should be with him. That part of the calling needs no recorded speech.
- 03
Mark 15:40
Mary the mother of James the less
If this is the same James, his mother is among the women watching from afar at the cross, and among the first at the tomb.
Why it matters
The silence is the point worth keeping. He was sent out with the others, given the same authority over unclean spirits, walked the same roads, saw the same things, and the gospels preserve nothing he said. Eleven of the twelve are not the ones the stories follow, and a sheet that only holds the talkers misreports what the group was. He is in every list because he was actually there.
4 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
