Introduction

On the Catholic Epistle of the Holy Apostle James

The writer of the epistle. Its designation and readers. Time and place of composition. The authenticity of the epistle. The general character and brief content of the epistle.

The writer of the first canonical epistle, without calling himself an apostle in his greeting (Jas 1:1), humbly names himself: “James, servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.” However, this silence about the apostolic office of the writer, addressing his epistle to “the twelve tribes scattered abroad,” not only does not deny the apostolic rank of the writer, but speaks of his great and undeniable authority both among Jewish Christians and among Jews in general. In this respect, the writer places above all praise the humble title and awareness of himself as a servant of God and Christ, and such a disposition is precisely what distinguishes the true apostles of Christ from those who wrongfully assumed apostolic authority. This leads to the conclusion that James, the writer of the epistle, was an apostle of Christ, one of the leaders of the apostolic church, who had oversight of Jewish Christian communities both within and outside Palestine. Such a person was the first and most renowned representative of the Jerusalem church, St. James, the Lord’s brother, called the Righteous, one of the seventy apostles (Acts 12:17; Gal 1:19). Church tradition attributes the writing of the epistle to this James, not to James the son of Zebedee or James the son of Alphaeus (the brother of the Apostle and evangelist Matthew). James the son of Zebedee died quite early (around 44 AD) a martyr’s death at the hands of Herod Agrippa (Acts 12:2); moreover, there are no historical records showing that he was known in the regions of the Diaspora. Meanwhile, the entire content of the epistle presupposes that its writer was well known throughout the Jewish Christian Diaspora. James, the Lord’s brother, according to tradition, enjoyed such fame in Jewish Christianity and Judaism, and he came into prominence after the death of St. James the son of Zebedee (Acts 15:13; Gal 1:19). This very James, the Apostle Paul places on equal footing with the Apostles Peter and John, calling all three the pillars of the Church (Gal 2:9).

If, following the lead of blessed Jerome (Prol. Comm. Matt. ch. XIII), many Catholic scholars (Cornelius a Lapide, Migne, Corneli, and others), Protestant ones (Baumgarten, Lange) and some Russian scholars (Metropolitan M. Philaret, Archbishop of Chernigov Philaret, Professor I. V. Cheltsov, Professor M. D. Muretov) identified James, the Lord’s brother, with James the son of Alphaeus, one of the twelve Apostles, both the New Testament data and the testimony of church tradition speak against this identification. In the Gospel, the Lord’s brothers according to the flesh — James, Joseph, Simon, and Jude — are clearly distinguished from the apostles or the Lord’s first and closest disciples, for example, in John 2:12: “After this, he went down to Capernaum, he and his mother and his brothers and his disciples.” If here and in some other places in the Gospel (Matt 12:48; Mark 3:31; Luke 8:19) the Lord’s brothers stand apart from the disciples or apostles of the Lord, then in John 7:5 it is explicitly stated that at first the Lord’s brothers did not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore could not be numbered among the apostles — and this is all the more remarkable because the evangelist John made this remark about the unbelief of the Lord’s brothers almost immediately after mentioning the circle of twelve apostles that had already been formed and existed (John 6:70-71). Even after the Lord’s resurrection, when the Lord’s brothers came to believe in him, they are still distinguished from the apostles (Acts 1:13-14), though sometimes they are mentioned alongside them (1 Cor 9:5). And ancient church tradition, for all its obscurity regarding the Lord’s brothers, still in most cases confirms that James, the Lord’s brother, is a person distinct from the Apostle James the son of Alphaeus. Thus, in the Apostolic Constitutions, James the Lord’s brother is clearly distinguished from the apostles of the twelve. “We twelve,” it is said in the Const. Apost. VI:12, “gathered together in Jerusalem, appeared to James, the Lord’s brother,” and below, VI:14, as those who proclaimed the catholic doctrine are named first the apostles of the twelve (including the Apostle James the son of Alphaeus), and then are added also “James, the Lord’s brother and bishop of Jerusalem, and Paul, the teacher of the nations.” Clement of Alexandria, in Eusebius, says: “Peter, James, and John, although chosen by the Lord himself (above other disciples), after the Savior’s ascension did not become rivals for the preeminence, but chose as bishop of Jerusalem the Righteous James” (Church History II:1). Eusebius himself in I:12 of his Church History numbers James, the Lord’s brother, among the seventy apostles, and in VII:19 says that James, the brother of Christ, “first received the episcopacy over the Jerusalem church from the Savior himself and the apostles,” by which in both instances James, the Lord’s brother, is clearly set apart from the circle of the twelve apostles. Finally, in the Menologion on October 23, James, the Lord’s brother, is numbered among the seventy apostles.

We will not go into a detailed examination and resolution of the difficult question: who were the Lord’s brothers according to the flesh? We will only say that the most substantiated view, and one more grounded in ancient church tradition, is that the Lord’s brothers were children of Joseph the Betrothed from his first marriage. Among the four brothers mentioned in the Gospel (Matt 13:55; Mark 6:3), James was undoubtedly the eldest and stood out from them by exceptional righteousness. He accompanied Joseph and the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus in their flight to Egypt from Herod’s persecution. Growing up with his brothers in the pious family of Joseph in the spirit of true piety, James was distinguished among the brothers precisely by his righteousness, which gave him the name “the Righteous.” According to the testimony of Hegessipus (in Eusebius, Church History II:23), St. James was a Nazirite from his mother’s womb: “He drank no wine or strong drink, ate no animal food, never cut his hair, and never anointed himself with oil or bathed.” But precisely because of James’s and his brothers’ especial devotion to the law, they remained unbelieving throughout the entire earthly life of the Lord Jesus Christ, and only at the beginning of the book of Acts do we find (Acts 1:14) the first mention of the Lord’s brothers among the believers, together with eleven apostles and the Mother of the Lord. Such a transition of James from unbelief to faith was accomplished through the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and his appearance to James (1 Cor 9:5). The conversion of James, the eldest of the brothers, to Christ brought about the conversion of the other brothers as well. Having believed with all his heart in the Lord Jesus, James, the Lord’s brother, both in his life and activity and in his views, represents an example of a true Jewish Christian in the best sense of that term; in his person we have the finest example of the union of the Old and New Testaments on a practical life basis. Regarding the law of Moses with great respect in its entirety and observing its ceremonial prescriptions, even advising the Apostle Paul to fulfill the rite of purification (Acts 21:18-26) for the sake of peace among the members of the Jerusalem church, James, however, at the apostolic council was the first to raise his voice for the liberation of those who believed among the Gentiles from the yoke of the law of Moses (Acts 15:13-21). For St. James, Christianity was not merely a transformed Judaism, but a new path of salvation in Christ, beginning with regeneration through the Gospel (Jas 1:18). Without severing the national-historical connection with Judaism, as the legacy of his fathers, St. James, however, permitted the fulfillment of Old Testament customs and ceremonies only insofar as they were not given a dogmatic, permanent significance, and they were transformed by the Christian spirit. The moral life of the Christian, according to the teaching of St. James, is regulated by the royal law of Freedom (Jas 1:25); all perfection and justification of the Christian is accomplished only through union with Christ in living and active faith (Jas 2:14-26), and he recognizes only active Christian love as a common obligation for all (Jas 1:27). In no way was St. James in antagonism with St. Apostle Paul — the great herald of Christian freedom (contrary to the opinion of Farrar and other Western scholars) — and only the enemies of the great apostle to the Gentiles — Judaizers and Ebionites — made use of the name and authority of the first bishop of Jerusalem to conceal their Judaistic tendencies and designs. The Nazirite observance of St. James, while Judaic in form, was Christian in spirit: with good reason it can be considered the prototype of Christian asceticism (and monasticism). St. James sealed his Christian ascetic life with his own blood. Enjoying the great respect of all believers and unbelievers, he lived continuously in Jerusalem until his martyrdom (perhaps around 64 AD), in the circumstances of which was expressed both the high respect that even unbelievers held for him as a great righteous man, and the truly Christian character of his faith and life. Hegessipus (in Eusebius, Church History II:23) recounts the martyrdom of Apostle James as follows: “When many believed (through the word of Apostle James) — even some of the elders — the Jews, scribes, and Pharisees began to cry out and say that in this way all the people would come to expect Jesus as the Christ. Therefore, coming to James, they said: ‘We ask you to restrain the people; you see, they are deceived and expect Jesus as the Christ. Now everyone has gathered for the Passover feast; we ask you to convince them about Jesus. We trust you in this, for we ourselves testify together with all the people to your righteousness and impartiality. So persuade the people not to be deceived about Jesus. Stand on the parapet of the temple so that from that height you will be seen by all and your words will be heard by the whole assembly...’ The aforementioned scribes and Pharisees indeed placed James on the parapet of the temple and then cried out to him: ‘Righteous one! We all must listen to you. The people are deceived and will follow Jesus who was crucified: tell us, what is the door of Jesus who was crucified?’ James cried out loudly: ‘Why do you ask me about Jesus, the Son of Man? He sits in heaven at the right hand of the great Power and will come again on the clouds of heaven.’ By this testimony of James many were fully convinced and began to praise Jesus, crying out: Hosanna to the Son of David! But the scribes and Pharisees said to each other: ‘We made a mistake in preparing such a testimony to Jesus; let us go up and throw down James so that at least people will not believe because of fear.’ And they began to cry out: ‘Oh! Oh! even the righteous one is deceiving...’ They went up and, having thrown down the righteous one, said to one another: ‘Let us stone him,’ and began to throw stones at him. The one who was thrown did not die immediately, but, rising up on his knees, spoke: ‘Lord, God the Father! forgive them; they do not know what they are doing.’ Meanwhile, as stones were being thrown at him, a certain priest, one of the sons of Rechab (mentioned by the prophet Jeremiah), cried out: ‘Stop! What are you doing: the righteous one is praying for us.’ But at that very moment one of them, a fuller, seized a club with which cloth is beaten, struck the righteous one with it — and he died.” From this account it is evident that St. James was a true apostle of Christ, proclaiming to the Jews Jesus as the Christ, the Savior and future Judge, and seeing salvation solely in Christ, not in the Old Testament law. And according to the testimony of Josephus (Jewish Antiquities XX:9, 1), St. James, by the judgment of the high priest Ananus, was stoned to death precisely as a transgressor of the law. This means that St. James’s observance of the customs and practices of his people was carried out in a Christian spirit.

The epistle of the holy Apostle James was originally designated and sent, as is stated in the inscription (Jas 1:1), to “the twelve tribes scattered abroad.” Contrary to the opinion of some researchers (Hoffmann, Jan, Holtzmann, Jülicher) who gave this expression a figurative meaning and saw in it a designation of “the new or spiritual Israel,” not having a continuing city in this world but seeking the one to come, the expression “twelve tribes” is an ancient theocratic designation of the entire Hebrew nation as one people of God, in distinction from other pagan nations (Acts 26:6); the addition “scattered abroad” (in the Diaspora) first of all indicates that the readers of the epistle were located outside Palestine. Meanwhile, the entire content of the epistle, having a purely Christian character, shows that these were genuinely Christians from Jews, or Jewish Christians. Not without foundation, however, did some indicate (for example, Weiss) that the writer’s speech often turns to unbelieving Jews as well, which is entirely natural in view of the fact that in the early period and for quite a long time believing and unbelieving Jews did not separate sharply from one another and had common gatherings, and also in view of the well-known very great authority of the Apostle James both among believing and among unbelieving Jews. Similarly, the restrictive addition “scattered abroad” does not exclude Jewish Christians and Jews in general living also in Palestine itself; the content of the epistle is fully applicable to them as well, though the epistle is primarily addressed to readers outside Palestine, more specifically, probably to Christian communities beyond the Jordan, of Damascus and Syria (see Acts 9:1).

Like all apostolic epistles, the epistle of St. James was occasioned directly by the needs and conditions of the religious and moral life of Christian communities; these particular features in the life of the latter to a very significant degree determined the content of the epistle, though some thoughts of the epistle could have been expressed by the apostle independently of the contemporary condition of the epistle’s readers, as is the case in Holy Scripture generally, where beside historical data stand enduring truths of doctrine and moral teaching. The Christians from Jews, according to the indications of the epistle, suffered many persecutions from without and experienced many internal disorders. Thus, poor Jewish Christians suffered numerous persecutions from their wealthy compatriots (Jas 2:2-7) and amid these and similar external hardships often deviated from a true understanding of the source of these hardships and temptations (Jas 1:12-21), were in danger of wavering in faith and even departing from it (Jas 5:7-11 and others). From sensual impulses and attachment to earthly goods arose quarrels among them (Jas 4:1-12); fraternal love in many had grown cold (Jas 4:13-17); many from arrogance wished to be teachers of others without having the ability and preparation for it (Jas 3:1 and following). From this proceeded such important and destructive errors of Jewish Christians as incorrect views on prayer (Jas 1:5-8), on faith and good works in their mutual relation (Jas 1:26-27). These and similar disorders in the inner and outer life, to which Jews and Christians from Jews have always been particularly inclined and which the holy apostle calls temptations, prompted the writing of the epistle. The purpose of the latter was, as is evident in itself, to eliminate from the life of Jewish Christians the mentioned dispositions and defects, to comfort the suffering, and to point all Christians in general the true path of moral perfection (see Jas 1:4). It is possible to suppose moreover — in view of the well-known high authority of the Apostle James even among unbelieving Jews — that by establishing the moral life of Jewish Christians on higher Christian principles, the apostle aimed also to attract unbelieving compatriots into Christianity.

The time and place of the epistle’s composition are not indicated in the epistle itself, as is the case with the time and place of origin of other New Testament writings. Therefore, the time of the epistle’s composition is determined only tentatively and conjecturally. In favor of an early composition, namely before the apostolic council at Jerusalem (51–52 AD), it was pointed out that the epistle’s very designation to Jewish Christians seems intelligible only in the early period before the Jerusalem council, the non-mention in the epistle of disputed points from the time of the apostolic council (ceremonial law, the relation of Gentile Christians to Jewish Christians), and also the predominantly moral-teaching character of the epistle with the relative scarcity of doctrinal elements, in which was seen evidence of the epistle’s nearness in time of writing to the Sermon on the Mount and the discourses of the Lord in general. These arguments have only relative value, and each of these positions can be opposed by considerations of the opposite kind. In favor, on the other hand, of a relatively later composition of the epistle, besides the wide spread of Christianity among the Jews of the Diaspora, it was pointed out, among other things, to the sad picture of the religious and moral condition of Jewish Christian churches according to the data contained in the epistle: Christianity among many had become thoroughly worldly, from which it was concluded that the epistle appeared in a later period of Apostle James’s life. It is easy, however, to see the weakness of this basis as well: can one generally within the span of two decades (within these limits the determination of the time of the epistle’s composition varies) point to a chronological boundary when the initial light and purity of the faith and life of Christians were obscured? Even more disputed is the argument for the late origin of the epistle derived from the supposed familiarity of Apostle James with the epistles of Apostles Peter and Paul. But the question of the mutual relation of the epistles of all three of these apostles is not easily resolvable. In particular, regarding the Apostles James and Paul, even Western European researchers of their epistles now unanimously acknowledge that Apostle James in his epistle does not at all oppose his worldview to the teaching of Apostle Paul, does not at all polemicize with him on the question of justification, as rationalist researchers of an earlier time liked to assert. Thus, the question of the year of the epistle’s composition we leave open, limiting ourselves only to attributing its origin to the middle of the 50s of our era.

All the more decisively must we reject the attempts of rationalist criticism to push back the composition of the epistle to the second Christian century, attributing (for example, by Harnack, Pfleiderer, Jülicher, and others) the writing of the epistle to 125–130 AD. Here we already have a denial of the epistle’s authenticity, doubts about which were known even to Christian antiquity. But the grounds for denying the epistle’s authenticity put forward by modern researchers: the supposed, but completely illusory polemic with Apostle Paul, the alleged influence of Essenism or Gnosticism, and so on, are completely absurd and do not require particular refutation. The reference to the similarity of some passages of the epistle to passages from the First Epistle of St. Clement of Rome (ch. 10 and 31, compare Jas 2:21, ch. 17, or ch. 38 see Jas 3:13) and from the “Shepherd” of Hermas (Vision III:9, compare Jas 1:27; Similitude IX:23, see Jas 4:12) proves precisely the opposite, namely: the complete fame and universally acknowledged authority of the epistle of St. James at the time these two ecclesiastical writers lived.

A very important proof of the authenticity of the epistle of St. James is the fact that the epistle, precisely as belonging to the Apostle James, is found in the Syriac translation Peshitta of the 2nd century. This is all the more important because this translation originated in a region bordering on the region where the epistle was written. Eusebius of Caesarea, like blessed Jerome, numbers this epistle among the disputed ones, but himself testifies to its public use in many churches (Church History III:25). The authenticity of the epistle is also confirmed by the testimony of it, besides the already mentioned St. Irenaeus of Lyon, Tertullian, also Clement, Didymus, and Dionysius of Alexandria and others. “The later acceptance into the canon testifies only to the caution with which the church established the apostolic origin of those writings which were not designated for some particular church, and therefore could not find the support of its authority for their canonicity, but required broad and thorough acquaintance with their origin” (Professor Bogdashevsky). After Eusebius, all doubts about the epistle’s authenticity cease forever in the church, and it remains immutably in the canon of divinely inspired books. Only Luther, finding in the epistle of St. James a refutation of his false doctrine about justification and salvation by faith alone, initially did not even include this epistle among the sacred New Testament writings. But this view, owing to a gross misunderstanding of the high moral-Christian dignity of the epistle, was soon abandoned by the Protestants themselves.

Regarding the place of composition there is no disagreement. Since the epistle belongs to the pen of St. Apostle James, the Lord’s brother, the first bishop of Jerusalem, the place of composition was indeed Jerusalem or Palestine in general, where, according to tradition, James dwelt continuously until his death. And the general tone of the content speaks to the Palestinian origin of the epistle. Many images of the apostle’s speech are explained only by the peculiarities of Palestine. The mention of early and late rain (Jas 5:7), of the fig tree, olive, and grapevine (Jas 3:12), of salt and bitter springs (Jas 3:11-12), of a burning wind that dries vegetation (Jas 1:11), presupposes the writer’s close and direct familiarity with Palestinian nature. The very designation of the epistle for all Jewish Christians of the Diaspora naturally points to Jerusalem as that central focal point of Jewish Christianity in which the sacred writer of the epistle could most conveniently learn about the condition of Jewish Christian communities of the Diaspora.

The epistle has an almost exclusively moral-teaching character; moral-practical content decisively predominates over the doctrinal, which appears in the epistle infrequently, and precisely as the basis of moral teaching (for example, Jas 1:18). “If St. Paul is the apostle of faith, St. Peter is the apostle of hope, St. John is the apostle of love, then James the Righteous both in his writing is the apostle of righteousness. The restoration on the basis of the Gospel’s law of violated righteousness in the relations of the rich to the poor constitutes, one might say, the main purpose of the epistle, permeating it from beginning to end” (Professor Bogdashevsky). In the disclosure of the concept of righteousness and moral truths in general, St. Apostle James, as naturally to be expected, very often comes into contact with the Old Testament moral-teaching books: the book of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Wisdom of Solomon, the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach. In tone, force, and ascetic severity in the disclosure of the concept and demands of righteousness, and also in directness and force of denunciation of rich oppressors, the epistle of St. James is most closely related to the book of the holy prophet Amos (compare, for example, Jas 2:6-7 and Amos 2:6 and others). But even more closely and in both spirit and letter the epistle of St. James is connected with the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, for example, in the designation of the New Testament revelation as “law” compare Matt 5 and see Jas 1:25. With this agrees a special spirit of loving-kindness permeating all the apostle’s exhortations and allowing us to see in the epistle a purely Christian work, though clothed in the form of Old Testament gnomical wisdom. And in the doctrinal aspect of the epistle, alongside the general Old Testament conception of God as a Being of absolute purity (Jas 1:13), God alone (Jas 2:19), Father of lights and source of all good (Jas 1:17), Lord of Sabaoth (Jas 5:4), sole Lawgiver and Judge (Jas 4:12) and so on, stands the apostle’s doctrine of Jesus Christ as the true God (Jas 1:1) and Lord of glory (Jas 2:1), whose second coming is the limit of believers’ expectation and hope (Jas 5:7-8), and whose teaching or Christianity in general is “the word of truth” by which God in Christ begot us (Jas 1:18), is “the perfect law of freedom” (Jas 1:25). In view of this, the strange opinion of a contemporary German scholar (Spitta) must be decisively rejected, according to which the epistle of James is a purely Jewish work written by a Jew for Jews around the time of Christ.

The original language of the epistle, in all probability, was Greek; it was the language spoken by the Jews of the Diaspora, and to them the apostle, both in oral conversation, which he held with them, according to the testimony of Hegessipus, before his death, and in his epistle could address himself only in Greek. The quotations from the Old Testament in the epistle are made according to the Greek translation of the Seventy (Jas 2:11). Moreover, the Greek language of the epistle, though not classical, is sufficiently pure, which apparently testifies that St. James commanded Greek from childhood.

The inspiration of the apostle’s speech and the aphoristic form of the exposition of his thoughts permit a division of the content of the epistle not so much into logically defined parts as only into separate groups of thoughts. The first group of the apostle’s instructions is formed by the discourse Jas 1:2-18 “on the temptations that befall Christians.” Then follow groups of thoughts: Jas 1:19-27 “on the right relation to the word of truth,” Jas 2:1-13 “denunciation of partiality,” Jas 2:14-26 “doctrine of justification” — three sections of one, essentially, group of exhortations, whose basic thought is the unity of Christian word and deed, teaching of life, faith and works. Thus, this second group of thoughts encompasses Jas 1:21-2:26. The third group of instructions forms the third chapter, Jas 3:1-18 — “on teaching, on false and true wisdom.” The fourth group of thoughts is formed by the fourth chapter, Jas 4:1-17 — on the true relation to God and the world. The fifth and final group is formed by verses 1–11 of the fifth chapter — “denunciation of the rich and comfort for the poor and humble.” The epistle ends with concluding exhortations to all Christians Jas 5:12-20.

In Russian, regarding the epistle of James, besides journal articles and remarks in general guides to New Testament books, there are several special works: 1) Fr. I. Kibalchich — St. James, the Lord’s Brother. An Attempt at an Overview of the Catholic Epistle of James, the Lord’s Brother. Chernigov, 1882. 2) N. Theodorovitch — Commentary on the Catholic Epistle of the Holy Apostle James. Vilna, 1897. 3) Hieromonk, now Bishop, George (Yaroshevsky) — The Catholic Epistle of the Holy Apostle James. An Attempt at an Isagogic-Exegetical Study. Kiev, 1901. 4) Archbishop Nikanor (Kamensky) — Explanatory Apostle, Part I. St. Petersburg, 1905. The best of all is the work of Bishop George, both in terms of thoroughness of isagogic information and in terms of breadth and depth of exegesis, as well as in strict adherence to scholarly method. In the work of Bishop George (pages VI-VIII of the Preface) extensive literature, foreign and Russian, on the epistle of the Holy Apostle James is indicated. An excellent article on “the Holy Apostle James and his epistle” with exhaustive bibliography belongs to Professor Protopriest D. I. Bogdashevsky in the Orthodox Theological Encyclopedia published with the journal “Strannik,” vol. VI, St. Petersburg, 1905, columns 42–55. By the same Professor Protopriest D. I. Bogdashevsky in the aforementioned “Essays on the Study of the Sacred Scriptures of the New Testament” (issue I, Kiev, 1909), besides introductory questions on the epistle (pages 153–178), succinctly but fully and profoundly correctly set forth are the “basic features of the theology” of the epistle of St. James (pages 178–201), and much earlier in a separate brochure are presented “explanatory remarks on the most difficult passages of the Catholic Epistle of the Holy Apostle James.” Kiev, 1894.

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For literature and basic points of the question about the “Lord’s brothers” see the Orthodox Theological Encyclopedia (St. Petersburg, 1906), vol. VI (columns 55–91). The best work on this question is the composition of the late Professor A. P. Lebedev — “The Lord’s Brothers: an Overview and Analysis of Ancient and Modern Opinions on the Question.” Moscow, 1904.