By Clement Harrold

July 23, 2026

The English name James comes from the Greek Iakobos, which is itself based on the original Hebrew name Yaʿaqōḇ.* As you may have guessed, this was the name of the patriarch we call Jacob before God renamed him Israel.  

In Latin, the name is Iacobus, from which we get terms like Jacobite (referring to the supporters of the exiled Stuart King James II and his descendants), Jacobean (referring to the reign of King James VI of Scotland, who also became King James I of England), and Jacobin (referring to a group of radicals during the French Revolution).  

A medieval variant on the name Iacobus was Iacomus, and over time this eventually evolved into the English name James.

Jacob and James are therefore essentially the same name; it’s just that the latter has undergone an extra layer of translation.

Too Many Jameses...

When we turn to the New Testament, one of the more confusing tasks is trying to figure out the identity of the different Jameses that appear on its pages.

As the following list shows, there could be as many as six:

1. James the son of Zebedee, apostle (Matt 4:21; 10:2; Mark 3:17, 10:35; Luke 5:10; John 21:2)
2. James the son of Alphaeus, apostle (Matt 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13)
3. James the brother of the Lord, first bishop of Jerusalem and known as James the Just (Matt 13:55; Mark 6:3; Gal 1:19)
4. James the younger, brother of Joses (or Joseph) and son of Mary (Matt 27:56; Mark 15:40)
5. James the brother of Jude (Jude 1:1)
6. James the author of the epistle bearing his name (Jas 1:1)

Of these various individuals, the identity of (1) is uncontroversial. James the son of Zebedee—known as “James the Great”—was a fisherman along with his brother John. Together with Peter, the sons of Zebedee were part of Jesus’s inner circle (see Matt 17:1; 26:37; Mark 5:37; 9:2; 13:3; 14:33; Luke 8:51; 9:28). Famously, Jesus gave the nickname “Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:17) to the two brothers, perhaps on account of their fiery tempers. James was the second apostle to die after Judas, and his martyrdom in Jerusalem at the hands of King Herod took place around AD 44 (see Acts 12:1–2). This James is the patron saint of Spain, a country that he is said to have visited before his death. His relics were later transported to Santiago de Compostela (“Santiago” means “Saint James” in the local Spanish dialect).  

As for (2), if we are looking at the verses of the New Testament that identify him explicitly as the son of Alphaeus, then we know virtually nothing about him other than his status as one of the Twelve Apostles. As we shall see, however, everything hinges on whether this James is the same person as one (or more) of the other Jameses.  

It is widely accepted that (3) is the James who plays a pivotal role at the Council of Jerusalem (see Acts 15:13) and at other points in the book of Acts (see 12:17; 21:18). He also appears to be the James who, along with Peter and John, is described by St. Paul as one of the “pillars” of the early Church (Gal 2:9; cf. 2:12). Several of the Church Fathers refer to this figure as James the Just, and historically most Catholic and Protestant exegetes have agreed that he is identical with (5) and (6). The Jewish historian Josephus tells us that this James was martyred by stoning around the year AD 62 (see Antiquities of the Jews 20, 9), but other traditions say that he died by being clubbed or by being thrown from the pinnacle of the Jerusalem temple.  

It’s important to note that Catholic tradition has never understood (3) to be a full biological sibling of Jesus. The Greek word adelphos can mean “brother” but also “half-brother,” “stepbrother,” or some other close male relative. In the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, for example, Lot is referred to as Abram’s adelphos, even though Abram was his uncle (see Gen 14:14).

As the Church Fathers rightly observed, Mary’s words in Luke 1:34 along with Jesus’ decision to entrust her to the beloved disciple as He hung upon the cross (see John 19:25–27) are strong indicators that Mary had taken a vow of virginity, meaning that she had no biological children other than Jesus at the time of her Son’s death.

Consequently, when we speak of (3) being the “brother of the Lord,” we should be clear on what this means: Perhaps this James was a cousin of Jesus, or he may even have been a child of St. Joseph from a previous marriage (and therefore a stepbrother of Jesus). Either way, he was not Jesus’ full biological brother.  

Returning to our list of six Jameses, everyone agrees that (1) stands alone. As for the remaining figures—(2), (3), (4), (5), and (6)—at least by the Middle Ages, the majority report in the Catholic tradition seems to have been that these were all one and the same person.

This composite figure is frequently referred to as St. James the Less in order to distinguish him from James the Great. (The title “the Less” is drawn from the epithet given to the James mentioned in Mark 15:40, who is described using the Greek adjective mikros, which can mean not just “younger” but also “small” or “less.”)

Arguments for the Traditional View

Historically speaking, the most important (and thorny) part of the debate centers on whether (2) and (3) are the same person.

There are five main arguments in favor of the view that these two Jameses are identical:  

1. In the book of Acts, St. Luke never explicitly introduces a third James to the picture. Acts 1:13 mentions just two Jameses: James the brother of Zebedee and James the son of Alphaeus. The former’s death is cataloged at the beginning of Acts 12, while another James begins to receive mention from 12:17 onwards. The most natural reading is to assume this other James is James the son of Alphaeus.  

    

2. The deference shown toward this James in the book of Acts, even by members of the Twelve, suggests that he was himself a member of the Twelve. It also seems unlikely that he would have been made the first bishop of Jerusalem if he weren't a member of the Twelve.

    

3. In Galatians 1:19, St. Paul implies that James the brother of the Lord was one of the Twelve: “But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord’s brother.”

    

4. A multi-step argument can be constructed based on the identities of the women who appear at the crucifixion. The first step is to say that the “James the younger” in Mark 15:40 is James the son of Alphaeus, who is one the Twelve. The second step is to say that the mother of James the younger is the same woman as the Mary whom St. John describes as the wife of Clopas and, seemingly, the sister of the mother of Jesus (see John 19:25). (The word “sister” in Greek, like the word “brother,” can have a broader meaning than simply a biological sister.) From these two steps it follows that James the younger was both a member of the Twelve and a relative of Jesus. A more complete explanation of this argument is given in the Additional Notes section below.

    

5. The majority of the Catholic tradition supports the view that James the brother of the Lord is the same person as the apostle James the son of Alphaeus. In the early Church, for example, St. Jerome appears to have identified these Jameses as being one individual, although reconstructing his views on the subject can be challenging (see Against Helvidius 13-16 and On Illustrious Men 2). In much more recent times, The Catholic Encyclopedia, published in 1910, strongly affirms that (2)–(6) are the same person.

More modern scholarship has generally found the foregoing arguments to be unconvincing.

A possible response to the first argument is that it would have been obvious to Luke’s first-century audience that the James in question was the brother of Jesus (and not the son of Alphaeus), and therefore there was no need to clarify this fact.

A response to the second argument is that James’s kinship with Jesus suffices to explain his seniority in the early Church; it wasn’t necessary for him to also be a member of the Twelve.

A response to the third argument is that Paul often uses “apostles” as a broader category that includes but is not limited to the Twelve.

A response to the fourth argument is that it rests on too many unproven premises.

A response to the fifth argument is that the tradition is inconclusive on this point.  

Arguments Against the Traditional View

In contrast to what’s already been said, at least five arguments can be marshalled in favor of the view that (2) and (3) are separate individuals:

1. The New Testament never states that James the brother of the Lord was one of the Twelve. Given how prominent James the brother of the Lord becomes in the Jerusalem church, this silence seems noticeable. Similarly, when Jesus’ brothers are listed in the Gospels, no indication is given that any of these brothers are a part of the Twelve (see Matt 13:55–56; Mark 6:3).

    

2. In his list of the appearances of the Risen Jesus in 1 Corinthians 15:3–9, St. Paul seems to imply that James the brother of the Lord is distinct from the Twelve Apostles.

    

3. If James the son of Alphaeus was a brother of Jesus, then Acts 1:13–14 is surprising since it seems to regard the Twelve Apostles (including James the son of Alphaeus) and Jesus’ brethren as two distinct groups of people. A more natural reading of the passage is that Jesus’ brethren were not part of the Twelve.

    

4. The impression we get from the Gospels is that Jesus’ brethren were skeptical of Him during His earthly ministry: “For even his brethren did not believe in him” (John 7:5). Some translations also render Mark 3:21 as saying that Jesus’ own family thought He was out of His mind. It is harder to make sense of these verses if one of Jesus’ brethren was a member of the Twelve.  

    

5. For the most part, the Church Fathers are silent on the question of whether James the son of Alphaeus is the same person as James the brother of the Lord. Instead, the conflation is the result of later medieval tradition and therefore less reliable.  

Tentative Conclusions  

We see, then, that there are no easy solutions to the question of who the different Jameses are in the New Testament.

The more traditional Catholic approach is to say that there are just two Jameses: James the son of Zebedee (known as James the Great) and the other James (known as James the Less). This tradition is still reflected in the liturgical calendar, which observes just two feasts:

• May 3: Feast of Ss. Philip and James (the Less), Apostles
• July 25: Feast of St. James (the Great), Apostle

My own tentative view is that the Scriptural data makes more sense if there are three Jameses, where (1), (2), and (3) are distinct individuals, and (3) is the same person as (5) and (6). Where that leaves (4) remains uncertain.

With that being said, I am reluctant to contradict the traditional view, and so I shall content myself with saying that the evidence is inconclusive.  

Regardless of what stance we adopt in this debate, there is one prayer that all Catholics can surely get behind: St. James, pray for us!

*My thanks goes to Fr. Jacob Schmiesing for making me aware of the historical debate around the identity of the different Jameses, and for his crucial insights in making sense of the various traditions. 

Further reading:

St. James the Less

The Brethren of the Lord

Too Many Jameses: Untangling Jesus’s Family and Friends

Who Were the Women at the Crucifixion?

Additional Notes on Argument #4 for the Traditional View:

As already noted, a multi-step argument can be made based on the identities of the women who appear at the crucifixion. The first step is to say that the “James the younger” in Mark 15:40 is James the son of Alphaeus: “There were also women looking on from afar, among whom were . . . Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses.” Here the assumption is that this James must have been a prominent figure in order for his mother to be identified by her relation to him (cf. Mark 16:1). This appears to be especially true in Luke’s version of events where, seemingly, the Mary in question is identified solely by her relation to her son James, with no mention of his brother Joses (see Luke 24:10). From these considerations it seems reasonable to suppose that this James was a member of the Twelve, and that the title “the younger” was used to differentiate him from the other, more senior apostle who also bore the name James.

The second step in the argument is to say that the mother of James the younger is the same woman as the Mary whom St. John describes as the wife of Clopas and the sister of the mother of Jesus (see John 19:25). (As noted above, this doesn’t mean that Mary the wife of Clopas had to be a full biological sister of Mary the mother of Jesus. For a more detailed treatment of the identity of the wife of Clopas—including the nature of her relationship to Mary the mother of Jesus—see here.)

This second step is supported on three grounds:

(A) It is more likely that John would be referring to the same Mary mentioned by Matthew and Mark than it is that he would be adding a new Mary at the foot of the cross. If John is adding another Mary, then we are left in the unlikely position of there being four different Marys at the foot of the cross: Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Mary the wife of Clopas.  

(B) Whereas Matthew speaks of “Mary the mother of James and Joseph” being at the crucifixion (Matt 27:56), Mark uses “Joses” instead of Joseph (Mark 15:40, 47). Joses is simply a Greek variant of the name Joseph, a bit like how a man today might alternatively be referred to as Joe or Joey. But what makes this significant is that Mark uses the exact same variant when listing the brethren of Jesus: “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” (Mark 6:3). We know from elsewhere in Mark’s Gospel that he is perfectly capable of using the standard name “Joseph” when he wants to (see Mark 14:43). We’re therefore confronted with a situation where Jesus is described as having brothers who are named James and Joses, and the Mary at the crucifixion is described as having two sons who appear in the same order and who bear the exact same names. While this could be a coincidence, it seems more likely that the sons of this Mary are indeed the brothers of Jesus, which would be neatly explained by the inference that this Mary is a relative of Jesus’s mother.

(C) An early Christian tradition identifies Clopas as the brother of Joseph, the foster father of Jesus (see Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.11 and 4.22). If this tradition is correct, then Joseph and Clopas were brothers who both married women called Mary, and these Marys were therefore sisters-in-law. This fits well with the theory that James the younger and Joses are “brothers” (in an extended sense) of Jesus by virtue of their mother being a sister-in-law of Jesus’s mother.

One obvious drawback of this whole argument is that it has to explain why in the Synoptic Gospels James is called the son of Alphaeus, and yet in John’s Gospel his mother is called the wife of Clopas. Traditionally the solution to this difficulty has been to say either that Mary of Clopas had a previous husband named Alphaeus, or that Clopas and Alphaeus are simply two different names for the same man.  

In terms of responses, critics of the foregoing argument would likely point out that the evidence for James the younger being the son of Alphaeus and therefore a member of the Twelve is largely speculative. Likewise, the inference that Alphaeus and Clopas are the same person feels forced. Finally, Mary was such a common name in first-century Judea that it is in fact plausible that there were four Marys among the “many women” (Mt 27:55) who followed Christ to Calvary.