The English proper noun Justus shares the same origin than ancient Greek Ioustos (with the capital letter);[1] Saint Joseph, the father of Jesus, was named the "righteous" in Matthew 1:19, an English translation of the Greek honorific title dikaios, which occurs frequently in the Gospels.
B. Lightfoot “supposes that he [Joseph Barsabbas] was the son of Alphaeus and brother of James the Less, and that he was chosen on account of his relationship to the family of the Lord Jesus.”[citation needed] The fourth-century church historian Eusebius reports a story he attributed to Papias from very early in the second century, which he had, in turn, learned in Hierapolis from the daughters of Philip the Evangelist.
"[4] Whether this story might have inspired one feature in the secondary longer ending of Mark's Gospel - "These signs will accompany those who believe: ... they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all"[5] - is possible but unproved.
The location provides a date for this legend, since the site of Eleutheropolis was a mere village called Betaris in the 1st century, whose inhabitants were slain and enslaved with others by Vespasian in AD 68 (Josephus).
[7] The latest official edition of the Roman Martyrology commemorates Joseph called Barsabbas and also Justus under the date of 20 July,[8] but limits its comments to the facts set out in the Acts of the Apostles.