Cleophas
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In the New Testament, "Cleophas" is the single English rendering of two men, who are in the Greek originals"Cleopas", an abbreviated form of Cleopatros, a commonplace Hellenistic name meaning "son of a renowned father", and the other "Clopas" (also "Clophas").
According to the Gospel of Luke, "Cleopas" was one of the two disciples to whom the risen Lord appeared at Emmaus (24:18). Cleopas, with an unnamed disciple of Jesus allegedly walked from Jerusalem to Emmaus on the day of Jesus' resurrection. Cleopas and his friend were discussing the events of the past few days when a stranger asked them what they spoke of. The stranger was asked to join Cleopas and his friend for the evening meal, and there the stranger revealed himself, after blessing and breaking the bread, as the resurrected Jesus and disappeared. Cleopas and his friend hastened to Jerusalem to carry the news to the other disciples, where Jesus subsequently appeared to them as well. The incident is without parallel in the gospels of Matthew and Mark.
Considering the importance of the event in the founding of Christianity it is extraordinary that, as the Catholic Encyclopedia states, there is no reliable data concerning him; his name is entered in the martyrology on the 25th of September nevertheless. (See the Bollandists' Acta Sanctorum, September, VII, 5ff.)
"Clopas" or "Clophas" is mentioned in Gospel of John xix, 25, where a Mary present at the Crucifixion is called Maria he tou Klopa. The official Roman Catholic explication is that she is "Mary the wife of Clopas:"
- "This name, Clopas, is thought by many to be the Greek transliteration of an Aramaic Alphaeus. This view is based on the identification of Mary, the mother of James etc. (Mark, xv, 40) with Mary, the wife of Clopas, and the consequent identity of Alphaeus, father of James (Mark, iii, 18), with Clopas. Etymologically, however, the identification of the two names offers serious difficulties: (1) Although the letter Heth is occasionally rendered in Greek by Kappa at the end and in the middle of words, it is very seldom so in the beginning, where the aspirate is better protected; examples of this, however, are given by Levy (Sem. Fremdwörter in Griech.); but (2) even if this difficulty was met, Clopas would suppose an Aramaic Halophai, not Halpai. (3) The Syriac versions have rendered the Greek Clopas with a Qoph, not with a Heth, as they would have done naturally had they been conscious of the identity of Clopas and Halpai; Alphaeus is rendered with Heth (occasionally Aleph). For these reasons, others see in Clopas a substitute for Cleopas, with the contraction of eo into w. In Greek, it is true, eo is not contracted into w, but a Semite, borrowing a name did not necessarily follow the rules of Greek contraction. In fact, in Mishnic Hebrew the name Cleopatra is rendered by Clopatra, and hence the Greek Cleopas might be rendered by Clopas. See also, Chabot, "Journ. Asiat.", X, 327 (1897). Even if, etymologically, the two names are different they may have been borne by one name, and the question of the identity of Alphaeus and Clopas is still open. If the two persons are distinct, then we know nothing of Clopas beyond the fact recorded in St. John; if, on the contrary, they are identified, Clopas' personality is or may be closely connected with the history of the brethren of the Lord and of James the Less."
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- — Catholic Encyclopedia, "Cleophas"
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The author of the Fourth Gospel's Maria he tou Klopa is perfectly ambiguous, whether "Mary of Klopas" is daughter or wife. If "wife" is rightly inserted, then Mary was the mother of James the Less, and Clopas is the same as the Alphaeus of Matthew 10:3 and 27:56. For this reading, it is essential to demonstrate that "Klopas" is an Aramaic form of the Greek name "Alphaeus," as in the Catholic Encyclopedia quote above.
The Roman Catholic Church recognizes a Saint Mary of Cleophas or Clopas; thus the question of whether or not this Mary, mother of a James, is a phantom duplication of Mary the mother of James the brother of Jesus, may not be asked by good Catholics. It is very much an open question in the purely secular analysis of the texts called "Higher Criticism."
Simeon, son of Clopas, succeeded James the Just as bishop of Jerusalem. This is the tradition Eusebius of Caesarea inherits from reading the lost history of Hegesippus, who wrote in the 2nd century AD, when these events were fresh in recently-living memory. If Simeon, one of the brethren of Jesus (see desposyni) succeeded his brother James, then Clopas, the father of both, is a cover-name to disguise Joseph.
In The Jesus Dynasty, biblical historian James Tabor postulates that Clopas was the brother of Joseph, Jesus's adoptive father, and the second husband of Mary, Jesus's mother. Tabor explains that if Joseph died young, as his absence from accounts of Jesus's adult life suggests, then according to Jewish custom his brother would have been duty-bound to marry his widow.
