Chapter 2

Chapter Two — Exposition of the Second Chapter

¹ My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality. For whoever acts with partiality fills himself with great defilement, dishonoring one of his own kind, and himself even before that other; for the show he makes toward his fellow rebounds upon the very man who does it.

² For if there enter into your assembly a man with a gold ring, in splendid clothing, and there enter also a poor man in shabby clothing, and you give regard to the one wearing the splendid clothing and say, Sit here in a good place, and to the poor man you say, Stand there, or, Sit here under my footstool— The wearing of rings seems to have been especially a custom among the Hebrews. Perhaps someone will object here: If James is a teacher of the covenant according to Christ, how is it that he does not now abolish the things of the Law, but rather upholds them, approving of those who are still in the worship of the Law and not rebuking them? To him we will say this: that he is now speaking to them in a more introductory manner, condescending to their weakness, lest, by overturning the Law at the very threshold, he should make them draw back from the newness of the teachings. Managing the matter with greater prudence, and yielding—so far as it did no harm to the New Covenant—to their scruples about the Law (for what injury did it do to the faith in Christ to keep the Sabbath, or to fast and abstain from foods?), and so for the time making them more attentive to his own discourse by these concessions, he thus little by little exhorts them to withdraw from the things of the Law as useless and as calling men to bondage rather than to freedom, the freedom that is in Christ. Wisely, then, employing these slight accommodations, when he had won over those who were not put off by what he said, he then set before them the things befitting Christians.

³ And did you not make distinctions among yourselves? The conjunction and is superfluous here, after an archaic manner of speech; for since this is the apodosis of what was stated above, the conjunction is redundant. For it runs thus: If anyone enter into your assembly, and so on; then, Did you not make distinctions among yourselves? Since this is the apodosis, the construction requires that it be brought in without the conjunction and, so that the sense is: Inasmuch as you did not judge what was right, you became judges with evil thoughts. And you did not make distinctions stands for you corrupted your power of discernment, making no examination beforehand whether a man were poor but earnest, or rich but slothful; rather your want of discernment led you into partiality, to praise the one for his wealth and to dishonor the other for his poverty. And you became judges with evil thoughts—that is, unjust judges, having of malice set yourselves up out of partiality.

⁴ Listen, my beloved brethren: Did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? But you have dishonored the poor. Do not the rich oppress you, and do they not themselves drag you into the courts? Since poverty is a hard thing for most people even to hear of, on this account, having said the poor of this world, he at once added rich. But rich in what? In faith; for so it is. For the fact that the poor are undistracted by the world makes them, once they have come to the faith, more active than the wealthy. Therefore the Lord too chose disciples of this kind, whom He also declared to be heirs of the kingdom.

⁵ Do they not themselves blaspheme that good name which was invoked over you? If, however, you fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, You shall love your neighbor as yourself, you do well. But if you show partiality, you commit sin, being convicted by the Law as transgressors. A new name, in accordance with the prophetic word which says: To those who serve Me a new name shall be given, which shall be blessed over all the face of the earth.

⁶ For whoever keeps the whole Law, but stumbles in one point, has become guilty of all. For He who commanded, You shall not kill, also commanded, You shall not commit adultery. And if you do not commit adultery, but do kill, you have become a transgressor of the Law. So speak and so act, as those about to be judged by the law of liberty. For the judgment is merciless to him who has shown no mercy; and mercy triumphs over judgment. But stumbles in one point—that is, in not having perfect love; for this is the chief of all good things. If one lacks the head, the whole remaining body is useless. That he is speaking about this is plain from the foregoing argument. The words You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill were given by way of example. And observe that even the examples are drawn from the Law as it tends toward love. For he who loves his neighbor will not commit adultery, nor kill; for these are the deeds of an enemy. For if it were not so, no human being could be saved, since no one possesses an unbroken perfection through all the commandments. Rather, he who has achieved purity is at times overcome by anger, and he who gives alms often harbors envy. Therefore it was said not of every perfection in the virtues without exception, but concerning love—that one ought not, while showing partiality, to accomplish it defectively, but wholly and completely. And this we say of the other virtues as well. For whoever does not hold to the things of temperance, or of righteousness, to the end, but practices them more defectively, this man, limping in his conduct, has marred the whole body of virtue. The whole Law, then, must be understood as the law concerning love, with which his aim is chiefly occupied. And he calls the law of liberty the law that is free of partiality; for the one who shows partiality is not free, but a slave. For by whatever a man is overcome, to that also is he enslaved.

⁷ What is the profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but has not works? Can that faith save him? When we have forgiven our neighbors the sins they have committed against us, and have shared the giving of our goods with the needy, the mercy that is from God will receive us at the examination of our manner of life; for great is such amendment, just as, on the contrary, the condemnation is heavy for those who have not been conscientiously disposed toward their own kind. For upon those who have borne themselves without compassion toward the offenses committed against them by their neighbors, the condemnation of the wicked servant will close in, together with the recompense given in the prayer. For there our petition is that God forgive us, even as we also forgive those who have offended against us. And for those who are unmerciful, that is, hard, toward those who need bodily consolation, the judgment will meet them without mercy. But mercy triumphs over judgment; for the merciful, according to the Lord’s pronouncement, shall obtain mercy. Besides, if mercy toward the poor can procure forgiveness even for idolaters, as we heard in Daniel, what would it not accomplish for believing men? And this mercy seems to me to work much as the oil from the trees does for those who contend in the arenas: rubbed upon the athletes, it makes the grasp of their adversaries slip off; so too in the judgment, the mercy we show toward the poor will enable us to elude the assaults of the demons.

⁸ But if a brother or sister be naked and lacking the day’s food, and one of you say to them, Go in peace, be warmed and filled, yet give them not the things needful for the body, what is the profit? Observe his spiritual insight. For he did not say merely, If he has faith, but, What is the profit?—as though he said: Show me the thing from which I am to reckon you worthy of this title. For this is the work of faith. And what he says is this: Unless a man show by his deeds that he believes in God, the very claim to be called a believer is superfluous. For it is not the one who simply says he belongs to the Lord that is a believer, but the one who so loves the Lord that, for his faith in Him, he dares even death. And that this is the aim of what lies before us, the examples make clear. For Abraham, he says, showed by deed that he believed God, when he offered up his firstborn as a whole burnt offering. And in like manner Rahab too, having believed, despised death.

⁹ So too faith, if it has not works, is dead in itself. But someone will say, You have faith, and I have works. Show me your faith from your works, and I will show you my faith from my works. You believe that God is one; you do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. These words do not contradict the blessed Paul. For the name of faith is used in two senses: of the mere assent to what appears—for we are accustomed to call this too faith, in the sense in which we know that the demons believe in Christ, that He is the Son of God—and again, of the consequent commitment of disposition together with firm assent, which we call by the appellation of faith. It is the simple assent that the divine herald declares to be a dead faith, as having no part in the works that quicken it. But Paul speaks of that faith which springs from disposition, which most of all is not deprived of works; for such a faith could never come to be empty of noble works. For neither did Abraham obtain it without having first struggled to thrust off the weakness of his fathers, in which contest faith was awarded to him as the prize. Rather, Paul preferred this faith to the works according to the Law—Sabbath-keepings, and circumcision, and the rest of the purifications. For in the case of works also two meanings are to be seen. For works is said both of the works that confirm faith, deprived of which faith is left dead, and again of the works of the Law, apart from which both Abraham and all who are in Christ are justified. For that faith could never arise in an unclean man—I mean the faith of works—who will deny? For neither could ointment be stored in a vessel full of filth, nor could the faith of God arise in an unclean man. The divine apostles, then, are not at variance with one another; rather, dealing each with the differing sense of the term according to his need, each carries through the matter set before him.

¹⁰ But do you wish to know, O empty man, that faith apart from works is dead? He called empty the man who boasts in bare faith alone, possessing nothing of the substance that comes through works for its fulfillment.

¹¹ Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son upon the altar? You see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect. And the Scripture was fulfilled which says— Both apostles bring forward Abraham as an example of the doctrine of faith: the one, showing faith to be greater than works through the example of Abraham; the other, again, showing works to be greater than faith. And it has been said above how each turns about the twofold sense of the term, taking what contributes to his own demonstration. Some of the Fathers, however, have understood the matter in this way also. For they say that Abraham, distinguished according to the times, is an image of both kinds of faith: of the faith before baptism, which does not require works, but only faith and the confession of salvation, and the word by which we who believe in Christ are justified; and of the faith after baptism, which is joined together with works. In this way the Spirit, who spoke in these passages, is shown not to be at variance with itself; rather, the one faith justifies the one who comes to it by confession alone, if he straightway departs this life (for to such a one works are not present, but the cleansing through baptism was sufficient for him); while the other faith requires of the one already baptized the showing forth of good works as well. And with this Paul too agrees, speaking thus elsewhere, and teaching that the faith after baptism requires perfection through works, where he says: Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love. And love needs much wisdom to be fulfilled. And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God. Of justification by faith alone Abraham was an image, when he believed and it was reckoned to him for righteousness; and of justification by works, when he offered up his son upon the altar. For he not only did the work, but also did not depart from his faith concerning Isaac, in whom his seed was to be multiplied as the stars, reckoning that God is able to raise him even from the dead. Yet Paul also brings forward David as a witness. For David knew by the divine Spirit the faith that was to come in Christ in due season. Therefore he says: Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will in no way reckon sin.

¹² You see that a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone. By works—not those of the Law, as has already been said, such as circumcision and the like, but those of virtue, of righteousness, and the like.

¹³ And in like manner was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works, when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For just as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.