Cleopas

The holy apostle Cleopas was one of the two disciples who walked with the risen Lord on the road to Emmaus and is counted among the Seventy Apostles. He is commemorated on 4 January, in the synaxis of the Seventy, and on 30 October.

His name

The name Cleopas is thought to be a shortened form of the Greek Cleopatros, “glory of the father”. Catholic and Orthodox tradition hold that he is the same as Clopas, mentioned in the Gospel of John (19:25), who is believed to have been the brother of Saint Joseph, the betrothed of the Mother of God. Others regard Clopas, Cleophas and Alphaeus as the same name.

On the road to Emmaus

Cleopas appears in the Gospel of Luke (24) as one of the two disciples walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus; he is named in verse 18, while his companion remains unnamed. The event takes place three days after the crucifixion, on the day of the Resurrection of the Lord. The two had heard that the tomb was found empty, but did not yet believe the women’s testimony. While they spoke of what had happened, a stranger asked them what they were discussing, but “their eyes were kept from recognizing him”. He rebuked their unbelief and interpreted for them the prophecies in the Scriptures about the Messiah. They asked him to stay with them at the table, and when he broke the bread “their eyes were opened” and they knew him, and he vanished. Cleopas and his friend hurried back to Jerusalem to tell the other disciples, and learned that the Lord had appeared to others too.

According to tradition

Hegesippus, quoted by Eusebius, says he learned from the grandsons of the holy apostle Jude that Clopas was the brother of Joseph, and his son, Symeon, was chosen bishop of Jerusalem after the martyrdom of James. Tradition says that Cleopas was killed by the Jews for his faith in the risen Christ, at Emmaus, in the house where he knew Him at the breaking of the bread. Some scholars distinguish two Cleopases, and others regard him as the same as Alphaeus, the father of the apostle James.