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on  tijij  Ifob  Scrrpturi^s  of  tijc  (ilj>  antr 

UNDER   THE    PRESENT    EDITORSHIP  OF 

The   Rev.  ALFRED    PLUMMER,  M.A.,  D.D. 

Sometime  Master  of  University  College,   DurJiatn 


The  Rev.  FRANCIS  BROWN,  D.D.,  D.Litt.,  LL.D. 

President  and  Professor  of  Hebre%u  and  Cog-nate  Lan^niages, 
Union  Theological  Seminary,  Nciu  York 

Planned  and  for  Years  Edited  by 

The  Late  Rev.  Professor  SAMUEL  ROLLES  DRIVER,  D.D.,  D.Litt. 

The  Rev.  ALFRED  PLUMMER,  M.A.,  D.D. 

The  Late  Rev.  Professor  CHARLES  AUGUSTUS  BRIGGS,  D.D.,  D.Litt. 


THE   EPISTLE  OF   ST.  JAMES 


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The  International  Critical  Commentary 

A  CRITICAL  AND 
EXEGETICAL  COMMENTARY 

ON  THE 

EPISTLE  OF  ST.  JAMES 

BY 

JAMES  HARDY  ROPES 

HOLLIS  PROFESSOR   OF  DIVINITY  IN  HARVARD   UNIVERSITY 


EDINBURGH 

T.  &   T.    CLARK,    38    GEORGE   STREET 

1  q  I  6 


Printed  by 
Morrison  &  Gibb  Limited, 

FOR 

T.    &    T.    CLARK,    EDINBURGH. 

LONDON  :    SIMPKIN,    MARSHALL,    HAMILTON,    KENT,   AND   CO.    LIMITED. 
NEW  YORK  :   CHARLES   SCRIBNEr'S   SONS. 


The  Rights  of  Translation  and  of  Reproduction  are  RescA'ed 


PREFACE. 

A  COMMENTARY  like  the  present  draws  frankly  from 
its  predecessors,  just  as  these  in  their  turn  used  ma- 
terials quarried  by  earlier  scholars,  whom  they  do  not 
name  on  each  occasion.  The  right  to  do  this  is  won  by  con- 
scientious effort  in  sifting  previous  collections  and  reproducing 
only  what  is  trustworthy,  apt,  and  instructive  for  the  under- 
standing of  the  text.  If  new  illustrations  or  evidence  can  be 
added,  that  is  so  much  to  the  good. 

So  far  as  I  am  aware,  the  solution  I  have  given  of  the  textual 
problem  of  i^',  the  "shadow  of  turning,"  is  strictly  new.  It 
is  a  matter  of  no  consequence  in  itself,  but  acquires  interest 
because  it  bears  directly  on  the  relation  of  the  Sinaitic  and 
Vatican  manuscripts,  and  because  Dr.  Hort  candidly  recognised 
this  reading  of  S  and  B,  as  hitherto  understood,  to  present  a 
grave,  although  unique,  obstacle  to  his  and  Dr.  Westcott's 
theory. 

To  some  other  discussions,  of  the  nature  of  detached  notes, 
in  which  material  is  freshly  or  fully  collected,  I  have  ventured 
to  call  the  reader's  attention  in  the  Table  of  Contents.  It  may 
also  be  not  improper  to  remark  that  the  account  of  extant 
ancient  commentaries  on  James  in  Greek  and  Latin  (pages 
110-113)  runs  counter  to  some  recent  statements. 

The  explanation  offered  of  "thou"  and  "I"  in  2^^,  which 
seems  to  me  to  solve  the  problem  of  that  passage,  is  not 
strictly  new,  but  has  been  overlooked  in  most  current  works 
on  the  epistle.  In  the  light  of  modern  geographical  knowledge 
the  reference  in  5'  to  "the  early  and  latter  rain"  gains  a 
greater  importance  than  has  generally  been  observed. 

The  summary  of  the  epistle  (pages  4/.)  may  make  more 


Vlll  PREFACE 

clear  and  intelligible  than  I  have  been  able  to  do  elsewhere  the 
measure  of  unity  which  the  epistle  shows,  and  the  relation  of 
its  parts. 

A  marked  defect  of  this  commentary,  although  one  not 
peculiar  to  it,  is  that  its  rabbinical  illustrations  ought  to  be 
fuller.  The  glaring  technical  inconsistencies  in  the  mode  of 
referring  to  such  passages  as  are  cited  will  betray  at  once  that 
they  are  drawn  from  various  secondary  sources  and  not  from 
original  and  systematic  research.  It  would  be  a  great  service 
to  New  Testament  scholars  to  provide  them  with  a  new  and 
adequate  set  of  Horae  hebraicae,  and  nowhere  is  the  need  so 
great  as  in  James  and  the  Gospel  of  Matthew. 

These  two  writings  are  sources  from  which  a  knowledge  of 
primitive  Palestinian  Christianity  can  be  drawn,  and  they  rep- 
resent a  different  line  of  development  from  that  of  the  Hel- 
lenistic Christianity  which  finds  expression  in  Luke,  Paul,  and 
John.  The  grounds  of  the  distinction  are  other  than  those 
which  the  Tubingen  School  believed  to  have  controlled  early 
Christian  history,  but  they  are  no  less  clear  or  far-reaching, 
A  just  understanding  of  these  tendencies  requires  a  sound 
view  not  only  of  the  origin  and  meaning  of  the  Epistle  of  James, 
but  of  its  history  in  the  church.  And  here  the  critical  question 
is  that  of  the  Shepherd  of  Hermas.  The  view  stated  below 
that  Hermas  betrays  no  knowledge  of  James  and  is  not  de- 
pendent on  him  was  forced  on  me,  I  am  glad  to  say,  by  the 
study  of  the  facts,  against  a  previous  prejudice  and  without  at 
first  recognising  where  it  led;  but  it  is  in  truth  the  key  to  the 
history.  If  Hermas  really  read  the  Epistle  of  James  so  often 
that  he  knew  by  heart  its  most  incidental  phrases,  now  working 
them  into  his  own  writing  and  again  making  them  the  text 
for  long  expansions,  the  place  of  the  epistle  in  early  Chris- 
tianity becomes  an  insoluble  riddle. 

The  notes  on  textual  criticism  in  the  commentary  are  intended 
to  treat  chiefly  those  selected  variants  which  make  a  difference 
in  the  sense ;  the  materials  employed  do  not  ordinarily  go  be- 
yond the  apparatus  of  Tischendorf,  I  hope  later  to  treat  the 
criticism  and  history  of  the  text  of  James  in  the  light  of  all  the 


PREFACE  ix 

evidence,  including  as  nearly  as  may  be  the  whole  body  of 
extant  minuscule  Greek  manuscripts. 

To  many  friends  who  have  helped  me  in  countless  ways  and 
from  great  stores  of  thought  and  knowledge  I  would  gratefully 
express  the  obligation  that  I  owe  them. 

James  Hardy  Ropes. 

Harvard  University^ 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

ABBREVIATIONS .  xi-xiii 

INTRODUCTION 1-116 

I.    The  Epistle 1-74 

§  I.  The  Purpose  and  Contents  of  the  Epistle     .    .      2-5 
(a)  Purpose,  p.  2 ;  (b)  Contents,  pp.  2-5. 

§  2.  The  Literary  Type  of  the  Epistle  of  James  .     .     6-18 
Epistle,  pp.  6-10 ;  Diatribe,  pp.  10-16  ;  Wisdom-litera- 
ture, pp.  16-17;  Protrepticus,  p.  18. 

§  3.  Literary  Relationships 18-24 

(a)  Wisdom-literature,  pp.  18/.  ;  (b)  Other  Jewish 
works;  ApostoUc  Fathers,  pp.  19-21 ;  (c)  New  Testa- 
ment books,  pp.  21-23. 

§  4.  Language 24-27 

§  5.  The  Ideas   and  Historical  Background   of   the 

Epistle 27-43 

(a)  The  ideas,  pp.  28-39  5  (^)  The  situation,  pp.  39-43. 

§  6.  The  Origin  of  the  Epistle 43-52 

(a)  History  of  opinion  as  to  the  author,  pp.  43-47 ; 
{b)  Conclusions,  pp.  47-52. 

Appendix  on  Jami:s  the  Lord's  Brother  and  Other 

Persons  Named  James 53-74 

§  I.  New  Testament  persons  named  James,  pp.  53/.  §  2. 
The  history  of  opinion,  pp.  54-59.  §  3.  The  decisive 
considerations,  pp.  59-62.  §  4.  The  tradition  con- 
cerning James  the  Lord's  brother,  (a)  The  New 
Testament,  pp.  62-64.    (b)  Other  tradition,  pp.  64-74. 

II.    Text 74-86 

§  I.  Greek  Manuscripts 74-75 

§  2.  Versions 75-84 

§  3.  Use  of  the  Authorities 84-86 

xi 


XU  CONTENTS 


PAGE 


III.  History  of  the  Epistle  in  the  Church      ....  S6-109 
§  I.  Absence  of  Mention  jn  Writers  Before  Origen  87-92 

§  2.  The  Greek  Church 92-95 

§  3.  The  Syrian  Church 96-100 

§  4.  The  Western  Church ioa-103 

§  5.  Order  of  the  Catholic  Epistles 103-104 

§  6.  Later  History 104-109 

IV.  Commentaries,  Ancient  and  Modern 110-115 

§  I.  Patristic  and  Medieval 110-113 

(a)  Greek,    pp.    110-112;     (b)    Latin,   pp.    112/.; 
(c)  Syriac,  p.   113. 

§  2.  Modern 113-115 

COMMENTARY 117-316 

Chapter  I 117-185 

■jzxq  in  the  singular,  pp.  129-131. 
The  meaning  of  crowns,  pp.  150-152. 
The  text  of  i'',  pp.  162-164. 

Chapter  H 185-225 

Chapter  III 226-251 

The  wheel  of  tiature,  pp.  236-239. 

Chapter  IV  252-282 

"If  the  Lord  will,''  pp.'279-28o. 

Chapter  V 282-316 

The  reprobation  of  swearing,  pp.  301-303. 
Anointing  with  oil,  pp.  305-307. 


INDEX       317- 


319 


ABBREVIATIONS. 


Blass  =  F.  Blass,  Grammatik  des 
N  eutestamentlichen 
Griechisch,  -1902. 

Blass-Debrunner  =  A.  Debrunner, 
Friedrich  Blass'  Gram- 
matik des  neutesta- 
mentlichen  Griechisch, 
vierte  vollig  neugear- 
beitete  Aufiage,  1913. 

Bultmann  =  R.  Bultmann,  Der 
Stil  der  Paiilinischen 
Predigt  und  die  ky- 
nisch-stoische  Diatribe 
(Forschungen  zur  Re- 
ligion und  Literatur 
des  Alten  und  Neuen 
Testaments,  xiii), 
1910. 

Burton,  Moods  and  Tenses  =  E.  D. 
Burton,  Syntax  of  the 
Moods  and  Tenses  in 
New  Testament  Greek, 
*i9oo. 

Buttmann  =  A.  Buttmann,  A 
Grammar  of  the  New 
Testament  Greek , 
Thayer's  translation, 
1876. 

DB  =  Dictionary  of  the  Bible. 

DCA  =  W.  Smith  and  S.  Cheet- 
ham,  A  Dictionary  of 
Christian  Antiquities, 
1893. 

EB  =  Encyclopcedia   Biblica, 

1899-1903. 


Gebser  =  A.R.Geb?>Qr,Der  Brief  des 
Jakobus,  Berlin,  1828. 

GgA  =  Gbttingische  gelehrte  An- 
zeigen. 

Goodspeed,  Index  =  E.  J.  Good- 
speed,  hidex  patristi- 
cus,  1907. 

Hadley-Allen  =  J.  Hadley,  A  Greek 
Grammar  for  Schools 
and  Colleges,  revised 
by  F.  D.  Allen,  1S84. 

Hamack,  CaL  =  A.  von  Harnack, 
Die  Chronologic  der 
altchristlichen  Littera- 
tur  bis  Eusebius  (Ge- 
schichte  der  altchrist- 
lichen Litteratur  bis 
Eusebius,  Zweiter 
Theil),  1897,  1904. 

Hatch,  Essays  =  Edwin  Hatch,  Es- 
says in  Biblical  Greek, 
1889. 

HDB  =  J.  Hastings,  A  Diction- 
ary of  the  Bible,  1S98- 
1902. 

Heisen  =  H.  Heisen,  Novae  hypo- 
theses inter  prctandac 
epistolaeJacobi,  Brem- 
en, 1739. 

Herzog-Hauck,  PRE  =  A.  Hauck, 
Rcalcncyklopadie  fiir 
Protestant  ische  Theol- 
ogie  und  Kirche,  be- 
griindet  von  J.  J.  Her- 
zog,  1896-1913. 


XIV 


ABBREVIATIONS 


Hort,  "Introduction,"  "Appendix" 
=  B.  F.  Westcott  and 
F.   J.    A.    Hort,    The 

New  Testament  in  the 
Original  Greek:  Intro- 
duction, Appendix, 
1881, 21896. 

JE  =  The  Jewish  Encyclopedia, 

1901-6. 

ITS  —  The  Journal  of  Theolog- 
ical Studies. 

Kriiger  =  K.  W.  Kriiger,  Grie- 
chische  Sprachlehre  fiir 
Schulen,  ^1861-2. 

Leipoldt,  GnK  =  J.  Leipoldt,  Ge- 
schichte  des  neutesta- 
mentlichen  Kanons, 
1907-8. 

Lex.  =  J.  H.  Thayer,  A  Greek- 
English  Lexicon  of  the 
New  Testament,  1886. 

L.  ayid  S.  =  H.  G.  Liddell  and  R. 
Scott,  A  Greek-Etiglish 
Lexicon,  '1883. 

Mayor  =  J.  B.  Mayor,  The  Epis- 
tle of  St.  James,  1892, 
^1897,  '1910. 

Meyer  =  Kritisch-exegetischer 
Kommentar  iiber  das 
Neiie  Testament  be- 
griitidet  von  Heinr. 
Aug.  Wilh.  Meyer. 

J.  H.  Moulton,  Prolegomena  =  A 
Grammar  of  New  Tes- 
tament Greek.  Vol  I. 
Prolegomena,  1906, 
^1908. 

NkZ  =Neue  kirchliche  Zeit- 
schrift. 

NTAF  =  The  New  Testament  in 
the  Apostolic  Fathers 
by  a  Committee  of  the 
Oxford  Society  of  His- 
torical Theology,  1905. 


ol.  =  olim   (used  to  indicate 

Gregory's  former  nu- 
meration   of    Greek 

Mss.,  in  Prolegomena, 
1894). 

OLBT  =  Old-Latin  Biblical  Texts, 
1883-. 

Pauly-Wissowa,  i?£  =  G.  Wissowa, 
Paulys  Realencyclo- 
pddie  der  classisclten 
Altertumswissenschaft ; 
neue  Bearbeitung, 
I 894-. 

Pott  =  D.  J.  Pott,  in  Novum 
Testamentum  Grace, 
editio  Koppiana,  Got- 
tingen,  '1816. 

SB  =  Studia   biblica   et   ec- 

clesiastica;  Essays 
chiefly  in  Biblical  and 
Patristic  Criticism, 
1890-. 

Schmidt,  Synonymik  —  J.  H.  H. 
Schmidt,  Synonymik 
der  griechischen 
Spracfw,  1876-86. 

Schurer,  GJV  =  E.  Schiirer,  Ge- 
schichte  des  jiidischen 
Volkes  im  Zeitalter 
Jesu  Christi,  ^1901-9. 

Taylor,  SJF  =  C.  Taylor,  Sayings 
of  the  Jewish  Fathers, 
^1897. 

Trench,  Sytiottyms  =  R.  C.  Trench, 
Synonyms  of  tJte  New 
Testament,  ^-1894. 

TS  —  Texts  and  Studies,  Con- 

tributions to  Biblical 
and  Patristic  Litera- 
ture, 1891-. 

TU  =  Texte  und  Untersuchun- 

gen  ziir  Geschichte  der 
altchristlichen  Liter a- 
tur,  1882-. 


ABBREVIATIONS 


XV 


Vg  =  Vulgate. 

Westcott,  CNT  =  B.  F.  Westcott, 
A  General  Survey  of  the 
History  of  the  Canon 
of  the  New  Testament, 
'1896. 

Winer  =  G.  B.  Winer,  A  Grain- 
mar  of  the  Idiom  of  the 
New  Testament,  Thay- 
er's translation,  -1873. 


Zahn,  Einleitung  =  Theodor  Zahn, 
Einlcitimg  in  das  Neue 
Testament,  ^1906-7. 

GnK  =  Geschichte  dcs 
Netitestamentlichen 
Kanons,  1888-92. 

Grundriss  =  Grundriss  der 
Geschichte  des  Netites- 
tamentlichen Kanons, 
1901,  -1904. 


The  commentaries  named  on  pp.  113-115  are  frequently  referred  to  by 
the  author's  name. 

The  page  numbers  sometimes  given  with  citations  from  Philo  are  those 
of  Mangey's  edition. 

The  Psalms  are  regularly  cited  by  the  Hebrew  numbers,  both  for  Psalms 
and  verses. 


INTRODUCTION. 

I.    THE  EPISTLE. 

The  Epistle  of  James  is  a  religious  and  moral  tract  having    -rj  h  >*•- 
the  form,  but  only  the  form,  of  a  letter.     It  contains  counsels     ' 
and  reflections  on  a  variety  of  topics  relating  to  personal  char- 
acter and  right  conduct,  but  attains  a  certain  unity  from  the 
writer's  own  traits  of  sincerity,  good  sense,  and  piety,  which 
are  manifest  in  every  paragraph.     The  epistle  has  been  as- 
signed to  many  dates  and  several  places  of  origin,  and  is  held 
by  many  to  be  a  genuine  writing  of  James  the  Lord's  brother; 
but  it  is  probably  the  pseudonymous  production  of  a  Christian 
of  Jewish  origin,  Uving  in  Palestine  in  the  last  quarter  of  the 
first  century  or  the  first  quarter  of  the  second.     The  precise       f  ^  Cv. 
limits  of  the  period  within  which  it  was  written  cannot  be 
determined. 

The  epistle  reflects  the  conditions  of  Jewish  life  in  Palestine, 
and  almost  all  the  ideas  have  their  roots  in  Jewish  thought,  but 
in  much  of  the  language,  style,  and  mode  of  expression  gener- 
ally, and  in  some  of  the  ideas,  Hellenistic  influences  are  unmis- 
takable and  strong.  The  interweaving  of  the  two  strains  con- 
tributes much  to  the  freshness  and  effectiveness  of  the  epistle 
as  a  hortatory  essay. 

Our  first  certain  knowledge  of  the  book  is  from  two  sources 
of  about  the  same  date;    namely,  Origen  (c.  185-c.  254)  and 
the  pseudo-clementine  Epistles  to  Virgins,  written  in  Palestine 
in  Greek  in  the  early  decades  of  the  third  century.     After     ^/a/^'*^ 
Origen  the  Epistle  of  James  seems  soon  to  have  become  widely 
accepted  in  the  Greek  church  as  a  part  of  the  N.  T.     In  the 
West  the  translation  into  Latin,  made  before  350,  gives  the    ,.  A/y^^^^ 
earliest  evidence  of  acquaintance  with  the  epistle  by  Latin-   ^ 
speaking  Christians.     In  Syria  the  Greek  original  was  known 


i^ 


2  JAMES 

as  early  as  the  latter  half  of  the  fourth  century,  and  it  was 
first  translated  into  Syriac  (as  a  part  of  the  Peshitto)  in  the 
early  part  of  the  fifth. 


§  I.    The  Purpose  and  Contents  of  the  Epistle. 
(a)  Purpose. 

The  writer  of  the  Epistle  of  James  has  in  mind  in  his  coun- 
sels the  general  needs  of  such  Christians  as  he  is  acquainted 
with  or  of  whose  existence  he  is  aware.  The  epistle  does  not 
treat  of  the  special  concerns  of  any  particular  church  nor  owe 
its  origin  to  any  specific  occasion.  The  author  addresses  any 
^  Christians  into  whose  hands  his  work  may  fall  and  touches 
upon  subjects  of  wide  and  general  interest.  It  cannot  be  said 
that  the  epistle  has  any  more  specific  "purpose"  than  the  gen- 
eral aim  of  edification.  In  the  selection  of  topics  the  writer 
was  governed  partly  by  his  own  special  interests  at  the  mo- 
4,  ment,  partly  by  what  he  drew  from  his  own  experience  of  the 

life  about  him  as  to  the  needs  of  human  nature  in  general. 
Doubtless  here,  as  always,  the  impulse  to  expression  arose  from 
the  consciousness  of  having  something  to  say  which  by  its 
freshness  either  of  form  or  substance  would  interest  readers 
and  strike  home.  There  is  no  attempt  in  the  epistle  to  give  a 
full  or  systematic  account  of  the  author's  ideas  on  any  subject. 

{b)  Contents. 

Like  the  ancient  Wisdom-literature  of  the  Hebrews,  with 
.  Vt,  ,'^ '  which  (in  spite  of  entire  difference  of  style)  the  writer  probably 

shows  some  familiarity,  much  of  the  epistle  is  in  aphoristic  form. 
Such  sentences,  having  their  meaning  complete  in  themselves, 
gain  comparatively  little  illumination  from  the  context;  they 
are  the  well-rounded  and  compact  results  of  whole  trains  of 
previous  thought,  and  are  successful  in  suggesting  these  to  the 
reader's  mind.  In  trying  to  interpret  by  a  paraphrase,  or  to 
show  the  connection  of  ideas,  it  is  difficult  to  avoid  ascribing  to 
the  writer  what  he  has  not  said,  and  elaborating  thoughts 
hinted  at,  rather  than  fairly  implied,  by  the  text  {cf.  the  full 
and  instructive  Paraphrases  of  Erasmus,  and  the  attempts  to 


THE   EPISTLE  3 

summarise  the  epistle  found  in  the  commentaries  and  the  books 
on  Introduction). 

The  aphorisms  are  not  generally  isolated,  but  are  gathered 
in  paragraphs;  and  these  often  have  unity  and  show  connec- 
tion and  progress  of  thought.  The  paragraphs  are  grouped 
loosely  under  more  or  less  definite  points  of  view,  and  in  chs. 
2  and  4^-5®  we  find  an  approach  to  the  fuller  discussion  of  a 
topic  from  various  sides.  In  some  instances  the  connection  be- 
tween smaller  divisions  is  made  by  the  skilful  use  of  the  same 
or  a  similar  word  at  the  close  of  one  sentence  and  the  opening 
of  the  next  (thus,  i^^-  ^at/aeti/,  ^^pdv;  i^f  Xecirofjievoi^  XetVe- 
rai;  ii2f-  7retpa(Tfi6u^  7reipa^6/xevo<i]  i^if-  Xoyov^  X070U;  gi^f. 
Trpoa-evxea-Oe^  8er]ai<; ;  cf.  the  connection  made  by  ^^'^-'^^  be- 
tween the  divergent  subjects  of  chs.  3  and  4).  It  is  notewor- 
thy that  in  the  later  chapters,  where  there  is  more  continuity 
in  the  flow  of  thought,  this  method  of  "capping"  sentences 
rarely  occurs. 

Beneath  the  whole  epistle  plainly  lie  two  pervading  and 
strongly  felt  principles :  (i)  the  hatred  of  sham  of  every  kind ; 
(2)  the  conviction  that  God  and  the  world  are  incompatible  as 
objects  of  men's  allegiance.  Neither  of  these  principles  could 
serve  as  a  title  to  the  tract,  but  they  bind  its  somewhat  mis- 
cellaneous contents  together  in  a  sort  of  unity. 

These  general  characteristics  recall  the  spirit  of  the  Hellen- 
istic diatribes,  among  which  the  Epistle  of  James  seems  to  find 
its  fittest  literary  classification.  There,  as  here,  the  aim  to 
pierce  through  appearance  and  pretense  to  reality  is  a  leading 
motive,  and  in  the  first  two  chapters  of  James  we  read  what 
Christian  earnestness  thought  it  worth  while  to  say  on  this 
favourite  theme  of  the  sometimes  superficial  or  possibly  flip- 
pant, but  commonly  serious  even  if  unconventional,  Greek  pop- 
ular street  preacher;*  while  James's  discussion,  in  his  last  two 
chapters,  of  the  two  incompatible  aims  of  human  striving  also 
treats  a  familiar  topic  of  these  moralists,  f 

*P.  Wendland,  Die  hellenistisch-romisclie  Kullur  in  ihren  Beziehungen  zu  Judentum  uttd 
Christentum* ,  IQ12,  p.  76  (Diogenes),  p.  85  (later  moral  preachers). 

t  Wendland,  op.  cil.,  p.  85 ;  A.  Bonhoffer,  Epiktet  und  das  Neue  Testament  (Religionsge- 
schichtliche  Versuche  und  Vorarbeiten,  x),  1911,  pp.  331/. 


4  JAMES 

These  contacts  make  more  intelligible  the  structure  of  the 
epistle.  Familiarity  with  these  great  discussions,  which  had 
been  given  in  public  for  centuries,  would  cause  contemporary 
readers  to  see  fitness  in  a  series  of  topics  which  to  us  seem  in- 
congruous, to  recognise  the  naturalness  of  transitions  which 
strike  us  as  awkward  and  abrupt,  and  to  detect  a  latent  unity 
which  for  us  is  obscured  by  the  writer's  habit  of  making  no 
introductory  announcement  of  his  successive  themes.  It  must, 
however,  be  emphasised  that  the  writer's  method  is  hortatory, 
not  expository  (about  60  imperatives  occur  in  the  108  verses) ; 
his  goal  is  nowhere  so  definitely  formulated  in  his  mind  as  to 
forbid  a  swift  and  unexpected  leap  to  inculcate  some  important 
object  of  Christian  endeavour  (so  in  ch.  5) .  In  such  cases  we  can- 
not assume  completely  to  trace  the  real  sequence  of  his  thought. 

The  following  summary  of  the  epistle  is  an  attempt  to  indi- 
cate for  the  several  larger  divisions  the  point  of  view  which  may 
have  led  to  the  grouping  of  the  paragraphs. 

i^    Epistolary  Salutation. 

I.        1 2-2 26.      ON   CERTAIN   RELIGIOUS   REALITIES. 

(i)  1 2-1*.     In  the  formation  of  character. 

(a)  1 2-4,     The  real  nature  of  trouble  is  as  an  aid  to  a 

well-rounded  character. 

(b)  i^-^.     Real  prayer  requires  unwavering  faith. 

(c)  1^-^^.    Poverty  is  real  wealth. 

(d)  i^2_    The  endurance  of  trouble  brings  the  crown  of  life. 

(e)  113-18.     The  real  cause  of  sin  is  not  temptation  sent 

by  God,  but  lies  within  yourself. 

(2)   i"-22'5.     In  religious  instruction  and  public  worship. 

(/)  119-25.     Hearing  is  indeed  better  than  talking,  but  the 

real  response  to  the  word  of  God  is  not  to  listen 

only  but  to  obey, 
(g)    1 28-27,     Real   worship   is   inconsistent  with  reckless 

speech;    the  best  worship  is  kindly  service  and 

inner  purity. 


THE  EPISTLE  5 

(h)  2^-''.  To  court  the  rich  and  neglect  the  poor  in  the 
house  of  worship  reverses  real  values. 

(i)  2^-1^  For  such  conduct  it  is  a  futile  excuse  to  urge 
that  the  law  of  love  requires  it. 

(j)  2"-26,  Equally  futile  is  it  to  pretend  in  excuse  that 
the  possession  oi  faith  dispenses  from  works. 

II.  3^-18.      ON   THE  teacher's   CALLING. 

(a)  31-12.    Against  ambition  to  be  teachers.    The  teacher 

is  under  heavier  responsibility  than  others;  yet 
the  tongue  (the  teacher's  organ)  is  as  powerful  as 
the  little  rudder  in  a  great  ship,  as  dangerous  as  a 
little  fire  in  a  great  forest,  and  is  untamable. 

(b)  313-18,    The  true  wise  man's  wisdom  must  be  meek 

and  peaceable;  such  wisdom  alone  comes  from 
above,  and  only  peaceable  righteousness  receives 
the  divine  reward. 

III.  4^-5-°.      WORLDLINESS    AND    THE    CHRISTIAN    CONDUCT    OF 

LIFE   CONTRASTED. 

{!)  4^-5^.     Worldliness  in  rivalry  with  God  as  the  aim  of  life. 

(a)  41-12.     The  cause  of  the  crying  evils  of  life  is  the  pur- 

suit of  pleasure,  an  aim  which  is  in  direct  rivalry 
with  God  and  abhorrent  to  him. 

(b)  4!'-^^.    The  practical  neglect  of   God  seen  in  the 

trader's  presumptuous  confidence  in  himself ;  and 
the  futility  of  it. 

(c)  51-6.     The  practical  neglect  of  God  seen  in  the  cruelty 

and  luxury  of  the  rich;  and  the  appalling  issue 
which  awaits  it. 

(2)  5^-2".     Counsels  for  the  Christian  conduct  of  life. 

(d)  5^-".     Constancy  and  forbearance ;  and  their  reward. 

(e)  5^2-^^.     The  religious  expression  of  strong  emotion; 

and  the  efficacy  of  prayer. 
(/)  5^^"  2°.     The  privilege  of  service  to  the  erring. 


6  JAMES 

§  2.    The  Literary  Type  of  the  Epistle  of  James.* 

The  character  of  James  as  an  epistle  is  given  it  solely  by  i*, 
which  (see  note  ad  loc.)  has  the  conventional  form  usual  in  the 
opening  sentence  of  a  Greek  letter.  But  the  address  (however 
interpreted)  "to  the  people  of  God,  in  their  dispersion"  (rat? 
hdiheica  jtvXavi  iv  Ty  Stacnropa)  implies  that  what  follows  is  a 
literary  tract  intended  for  any  Christian  into  whose  hands  it 
may  fall,  not  a  proper  letter  sent  to  a  definite  individual  or 
even  to  a  definite  group  of  persons. 

With  this  corresponds  the  epistle  itself.  The  author's  treat- 
ment of  his  themes  is  plainly  governed  by  the  conditions  of 
life  with  which  he  is  familiar,  but  nothing  implies  any  definite 
or  restricted  circle  within  the  Christian  church  as  the  persons 
to  whom  the  letter  is  sent.  The  terms  used  are  in  part  drawn 
from  local  conditions,  but  the  exhortations  themselves  could 
apply  anywhere  where  there  were  Christians.  As  a  letter  proper 
would  be  a  substitute  for  a  conversation,  so  such  an  epistle  as 
this  corresponds  to  a  public  address  prepared  for  delivery  to 
an  indefinite  number  of  audiences  and  equally  suitable  for  all 
of  them.  A  letter  proper  is  written  to  be  sent  to  the  person  or 
persons  addressed.  A  tract  is,  in  more  or  less  formal  fashion, 
published.  The  same  piece  of  writing  might,  indeed,  be  in  itself 
fit  for  either  use ;  in  that  case  the  author's  purpose  could  be 
learned  only  from  the  form  of  the  epistolary  address.  But  in 
the  present  instance  neither  contents  nor  address  indicates  that 
the  letter  was  ever  intended  to  be  sent  to  any  specific  church 
or  churches. 

On  the  history  of  the  epistolary  form  in  classical  and  Christian  lit- 
erature, see  R.  Hirzel,  Der  Dialog,  1895,  esp.  i,  pp.  300-308,  352-358, 
^  ii,  p.  8;  H.  Peter,  Der  Brief  in  der  romischen  Litteratur  (Abhand- 
lungen  der  phil.-hist.  Classe  der  Kgl.  Sachsischen  Gesellschaft  der 
Wissenschaften,  xx),  1901;  K.  Dziatzko,  art.  "Brief,"  in  Pauly-Wis- 
sowa,  RE,  1899;  A.  Deissmann,  Bibclskidien,  1895  (Eng.  transl.  1901), 
art.  "Epistolary  Literature,"  in  EB ;  H.  Jordan,  Ceschichte  der  altchrist- 
lichen  Literatur,  1911. 

*  C.  F.  G.  Heinrici,  Der  Ullerarische  Charakler  der  neuteslamentUchcn  Schrlften,  1908, 
brings  out  many  noteworthy  points  of  view  with  regard  to  the  varioui  aspects  of  these  ques- 
tions, and  was  one  of  the  first  in  recent  times  to  call  attention  to  their  importance. 


THE  EPISTLE  7 

The  Epistle  as  a  form  of  literature,  in  distinction  from  its  use 
as  the  convenient  instrument  of  personal  intercourse,  seems  to 
have  its  roots  in  the  Greek  literary  history  of  the  fourth  and 
third  centuries  before  Christ.  Eminent  men  of  a  still  earlier 
period  had  written  letters,  often  long  and  weighty,  and  these 
had  sometimes  been  collected.  Such  were  those  of  Isocrates, 
of  which  some  genuine  representatives  may  perhaps  be  included 
in  the  extant  collection  bearing  his  name.  Especially  Aristotle, 
t322  B.C.,  wrote  letters,  and  his  tracts  of  counsel  to  Alexander 
and  to  Themison,  King  of  Cyprus,  gained  by  virtue  of  their 
personal  dedication  something  of  the  character  of  letters.  Epi- 
curus, t27o  B.C.,  sought  to  strengthen  the  fellowship  of  his  dis- 
ciples by  writing  letters,  of  some  of  which  the  addresses  at  least 
are  known  to  us  (irpb^  tou?  iv  AlyvTrra)  (^i'\ov?,  7r/3o?  Tov<i  iv 
'A(TLa  (f)i\ov<?,  Trpo?  toi)?  iv  AafjbyjrdKq)  </>t'Xou9,  tt/oo?  toix;  iv 
MvTiXrjvTj  (f)Lkoa-6(liov^)  *  and  the  disciples  followed  the  mas- 
ter's example.  Many  letters  of  this  type  were  by  their 
nature  of  interest  to  others  than  the  persons  addressed,  and 
when  collected  and  more  widely  circulated  became  works  of 
literature. 

In  the  same  direction  led  the  custom  of  dedicating  books  to 
individuals  and  so  giving  the  whole  book  in  some  sense  the 
character  of  an  epistle.f 

The  result  of  all  this  was  that  the  epistle  became  a  usual 
form  for  a  treatise,  taking  a  place  like  that  held  by  the  dialogue. 
The  transition  corresponded  to  the  changed  times  and  the  ex- 
pansion of  Hellenism.  Once  all  higher  culture  had  been  con- 
centrated at  Athens,  and  a  group  there  gathered  for  grave  con- 
versation presented  the  normal  relation  of  author  and  audience 
which  the  book  affected  to  record  and  perpetuate.  Now  edu- 
cated men  were  diffused  in  countless  centres  throughout  a  widely 
extended  world  of  Greek  civilisation,  and  the  direct  method  of 
address  was,  naturally,  by  a  letter.^  In  the  Hellenistic  period 
all  the  world  wrote  letters,  and  many  of  them  were  intended 
for  pubHcation.     Philosophers  (especially  the  Epicureans  and 

*  H.  Usener,  Epicurea,  1887,  pp.  91,  133.  f  R.  Hirzel,  Der  Dialog,  i,  p.  173. 

i  So  Hirzel,  op.  cil.  i,  pp.  352/. 


8  JAMES 

Peripatetics),  moralists,  rhetoricians,  men  of  science,  used  this 
form  for  their  essays,  and  we  hear  of  epistles  on  topics  medical, 
mathematical,  grammatical,  antiquarian,  and  even^  perhaps, 
amusing.  Literary  letters  of  consolation  and  exhortation  "grad- 
ually gained  the  position  held  by  printed  sermons  and  books  of 
practical  edification  among  modern  Christians."  * 

The  rhetorical  writers  found  it  necessary  to  occupy  them- 
selves with  the  principles  and  rules  of  this  epistolography,  and 
discussed  the  nature  of  an  epistle  and  the  style  proper  to  it. 
From  this  period  proceed  various  treatises  on  the  art  of  letter- 
writing,!  with  their  classification  of  types  of  epistles  (twenty- 
two  kinds  are  given,  later  increased  to  forty-one),  on  which  later 
works  were  based. 

The  Romans,  who  constituted  a  part  of  this  Hellenistic  world, 
excelled  in  the  epistolary  form  of  composition,  and  became  "  the 
classic  nation  for  the  letter  as  the  Greeks  are  for  the  dialogue."! 
Varro,  Cicero,  Horace,  Seneca  are  the  great  names  of  a  vast 
epistolary  literature  to  which  morahsts,  philologists,  jurists, 
physicians  made  their  contributions,  and  in  which  it  is  often 
hard  to  know  whether  a  given  letter  carefully  written  on  a  seri- 
ous subject  was  originally  intended  for  pubHcation  or  only  for 
the  person  addressed. 

From  an  early  time  pseudonymous  letters  were  written,  with 
the  name  not  of  the  real  author  but  of  another — usually  some 
famous  leader  of  thought.  When  Menippus  wrote  letters  of 
the  gods  addressed  to  the  Epicureans,!  no  one  was  deceived ;  in 
other  instances  the  question  of  whether  or  not  the  author  de- 
sired to  deceive  the  public  is  less  easy  to  answer.  But  in  the 
dialogues  of  Plato  the  name  of  Socrates  is  used  with  entire 
freedom  for  the  exposition  of  Plato's  own  ideas,  and  a  similar 
use  of  a  great  name  in  "the  half  of  a  dialogue"  (to  quote  an 
ancient  writer's  description  of  a  letter ||)  was  natural  and  equally 
innocent.  Probably,  too,  the  habit  of  free  composition  of  let- 
ters, as  well  as  speeches,  incidentally  to  historical  narratives 

*  H.  Peter,  op.  cil.  p.  19 ;  cf.  E.  Norden,  Die  aniike  Kunslprosa',  1909,  ii,  p.  538,  note  2. 
t  R.  Hercher,  Epislolographi  grcBci,  pp.  1-16.  J  Hirzel,  op.  cil.  ii,  p.  8. 

I  Hirzel,  op.  cil.  i,  p.  358.  ||  Hirzel,  op.  cil.  i,  p.  305. 


THE  EPISTLE  9 

tended  to  promote  the  pseudonymous  composition  of  independ- 
ent examples  of  both  forms.  Teachers  of  rhetoric  composed 
model  letters,  appropriate  to  historical  characters  in  assumed 
situations,  and  gave  out  such  problems  for  their  pupils'  exer- 
cise in  the  epistolary  art.  A  large  proportion  of  the  many  hun- 
dred letters  assembled  in  the  great  collection  of  R.  Hercher, 
Epistolographi  grcBci,  Paris,  1873,  are  deemed  to  be  such  rhe- 
torical models  or  pupils'  exercises.  But,  whatever  the  causes, 
pseudonymous  epistles  became  common. 

Among  the  Jews  of  the  Hellenistic  age,  as  would  be  expected, 
literary  epistles  were  written.  Such  were  the  Letter  of  Aristeas, 
the  Epistle  of  Jeremy  which  forms  ch.  6  of  the  Book  of  Baruch 
in  the  Apocrypha,  and  the  Epistle  of  Baruch  to  the  Nine  and  a 
Half  Tribes  appended  to  the  Apocalypse  of  Baruch.*  All  these 
are  serious,  but  pseudonymous,  writings.  It  is  possible  that 
certain  of  the  letters  bearing  the  name  of  Heraclitus  and  of 
Diogenes  were  of  Jewish  origin,  f 

In  the  Christian  church  letters  as  literary  works,  not  merely 
as  private  communications,  were  produced  almost  from  the  start. 
To  name  no  other  examples,  the  epistles  of  Paul  to  the  Romans 
and  the  Ephesians  were  surely  not  intended  to  be  read  but  once, 
or  by  one  small  group  of  Christians  only ;  the  Pastoral  Epistles 
owe  their  origin  to  the  epistolary  tradition ;  and  such  a  work 
as  the  (First)  Epistle  of  Clement  of  Rome  can  hardly  have  been 
without  a  larger  purpose  than  to  edify  the  Corinthians  to  whom 
it  is  addressed.  The  custom  of  the  time  is  illustrated  in  the 
name  "Second  Epistle  of  Clement  of  Rome,"  early  assigned  to 
an  anonymous  homily,  as  well  as  in  the  pseudonymous  Epistle 
of  Barnabas  and  Second  Epistle  of  Peter,  and  in  the  anonymous 
Epistle  to  Diognetus.  With  the  further  development  of  the 
church,  Christian  epistolary  writings — both  personal  letters  and 
literary  works,  both  genuine  and  pseudonymous — multiplied 
rapidly,  and  many  have  been  preserved.  J 

The  epistolary  form  which  James  has  was  thus  altogether 
natural  and  appropriate  for  a  tract,  and  is  fully  accounted  for 

•  A.  Deissmann,  Bibelsludien,  p.  234.  t  Schiirer,  GJV*,  iii,  pp.  624/.  (§  ss,  VII,  8). 

X  H.  Jordan,  Geschichte  der  allchristlichen  Lileralur,  igii,  pp.  123-172. 


10  JAMES 

by  the  literary  custom  of  the  time  without  the  necessity  of  sup- 
posing either  a  real  epistolary  aim  on  the  part  of  the  author  or 
the  addition  by  a  later  and  inept  hand  of  an  alien  epistolary 
preface.*  But  it  throws  no  light  on  the  actual  literary  relation- 
ships of  the  document  itself,  which  shows  in  its  contents  noth- 
ing whatever  of  the  specific  character  of  a  letter. 

All  the  more  striking  is  the  abundant  illustration  which  the 
Epistle  of  James  receives  from  both  the  manner  and  the 
substance  of  Hellenistic  popular  moral  addresses,  or  Diatribes. 
At  least  since  the  time  of  Socrates,  who  was  at  once  the  revered 
head  of  a  circle  of  disciples  and  a  public  disputant  ready 
to  debate  with,  confute,  and  instruct  every  chance  comer, 
Greek  and  Hellenistic  cities  everywhere  must  have  known  the 
public  preacher  of  philosophy  and  morals  as  a  familiar  figure 
of  the  street  and  market-place.  In  the  early  fourth  century 
B.C.,  Diogenes  lived  at  Athens ;  and  his  followers  (called  Cynics 
from  their  master's  well-earned  nickname  of  "The  Dog")  de- 
veloped their  ethical  and  social  protest  against  the  fetters  of 
convention  into  a  well-marked  type  of  popular  doctrine.  This 
original  Cynicism,  united,  as  the  predominant  factor,  with 
other  more  cultivated  and  rhetorical  influences  to  produce  Bion 
of  Borysthenes  (c.  280  B.C.),  a  pungent  sermoniser  of  whose 
utterances  a  fortunate  chance  has  preserved  written  record, 
quoted  in  the  fragments  of  his  otherwise  unimportant  follower 
Teles  (c.  230  B.C.).  Later  generations  {cj.  Horace,  Epist.  ii,  2, 
1.  60)  looked  back  to  Bion  as  the  chief  representative,  if  not  the 
founder,  of  the  style,  and  the  fragments  make  it  evident  that 
an  apt  form  for  this  preaching  had  already  been  created.  In 
the  following  centuries  it  is  certain  that  others  besides  Cynics 
adopted  the  same  methods,  and  that  the  style  of  the  early 
preachers  was  perpetuated  by  a  long  series  of  inconspicuous 
workers ;  but  whatever  Hterary  precipitate  in  written  form  their 
discourses  may  once  have  had  perished  in  ancient  times.  In 
those  days,  as  now,  popular  moral  tracts,  although  undoubtedly 
abundant,  were  generally  commonplace  and  ephemeral.     Our 

*  This  latter  is  the  view  of  Harnack,  CaL,  i,  1897,  pp.  485-491. 


THE   EPISTLE  II 

knowledge  has  to  be  drawn  chiefly  from  later  representatives 
of  the  type.* 

PaulWendland,  Die  hcUcnistisch-romischc  Kullur  in  ihren  Beziehungen 
zu  Judentum  iind  Christentiim"-,  191 2,  pp.  75-96,  "Die  philosophische 
Propaganda  und  die  Diatribe"  ;  P.  Wendland,  "  Philo  und  die  kynisch- 
stoische  Diatribe,"  in  Wendland  and  Kern,  Beitrdge  zur  Geschichte 
dcr  griech.  Philosophic  und  Religion,  1895;  J.  Bernays,  Liician  und 
die  Kyniker,  1879;  R.  Bultmann,  Der  Stil  der  paidinischen  Predigt 
und  die  kynisch-stoische  Diatribe  (Forschungen  ziir  Religion  und  Litera- 
tur  des  Alten  und  Neuen  Testaments,  xiii),  1910;  Teletis  reliquiae, 
ed.  Hense^,  1909 ;  C.  F.  G.  Heinrici,  Der  liUerarische  Character  der  n.  t. 
Schriften,  1908,  pp.  9-12  ;  S.  DiU,  Roman  Society  from  Nero  to  Marcus  V 
Aurelius,  1904,  pp.  334-383;  T.  C.  Burgess,  Epideictic  Literature  \/ 
(Studies  in  Classical  Philology,  vol.  iii),  Chicago,  1902,  pp.  234-241 ; 
E.  Norden,  Die  antike  Kunsiprosa-,  1909,  i,  pp.  1 29-131;  ii,  pp.  556-558. 

In  Rome  under  the  empire  this  popular  preaching  associated 
itself  closely  with  literary  training,  and  produced,  or  deeply  in- 
fluenced, works  which  have  survived.  From  the  common  char- 
acteristics of  these  later  writers  and  their  close  resemblance 
to  the  meagre  remains  of  earlier  times,  it  is  evident  that  the 
type  early  matured  its  noteworthy  traits  of  popular  effective- 
ness and  retained  them  for  centuries  without  substantial  alter- 
ation. Stoic  philosophy  and  morals  had  come  to  the  front  as 
the  chief  higher  influence  on  the  masses,  and  abundantly  used 
this  apt  instrument.  In  Seneca  and  Epictetus  the  influence 
of  the  popular  diatribe  is  at  its  height.  "The  key-note,  the 
most  striking  colour,  of  the  whole  body  of  writing  of  the  phi- 
losopher Seneca  is  the  diatribe-style"  ;t  and  the  discourses  of 
Epictetus,  though  spoken  to  a  select  circle  of  personal  pupils, 
are  cast  in  the  style  of  the  diatribe.  How  widely  this  preaching 
had  pervaded  ancient  life  may  be  observed  from  the  traces  of 
its  large  influence  in  the  satires  of  Horace,  Persius,  Juvenal,  in 
the  orations  of  Dio  of  Prusa,  the  essays  of  Plutarch,  and  the 
treatises  of  the  Jew  Philo,  as  well  as  in  the  reports  of  the  utter- 
ances of  Musonius  and  other  less  well-known  personages  of  the 

*  On  the  traces  of  the  continuous  line  of  Cynic  preachers  in  the  late  third,  the  second,  and 
the  first  centuries  B.C.,  see  G.  A.  Gerhard,  Phoinix  von  Kolophon,  1909,  pp.  171/-.  with  many 
references  to  sources  and  literature. 

t  Wendland,  Hellenistisch-romisclie  Kultur',  p.  79. 


12  JAMES 

same  period.  Paul  at  Athens  (although  not  in  the  synagogues 
of  the  Hellenistic  cities)  must  have  presented  himself  to  his 
hearers  as  just  such  a  preacher  as  those  to  whose  diatribes  they 
were  accustomed  to  listen :  and  such  must  have  been  very  gen- 
erally the  case  with  the  early  Christian  missionaries.  It  is  not 
strange  that  the  diatribe  had  a  profound  and  far-reaching  effect 
on  the  forms  of  Christian  literature  for  centuries,*  that  its  in- 
fluence is  clearly  traceable  in  the  epistles  of  Paul,  and  that  it 
serves  to  explain  much,  both  of  the  form  and  the  content,  of 
the  Epistle  of  James. 

To  the  most  characteristic  traits  of  the  style  of  the  diatribe 
belong  the  truncated  dialogue  with  an  imaginary  interlocutor 
(often  introduced  by  aXX  epel  w,  aXX  ipovvrai,  epoivr   av 

.  ,  rjtim,  or  the  simple  ^770-1)  and  the  brief  question  and  answer 
{e.  g.  Teles,  p.  10,  lines  6/.:  'yepcov  yeyova<; ;  firj  i^rjTei  ra  rov 
veov.  aa6€vr)<;  iraXiv ;  fir)  ^'^tcl  ra  rod  laxvpov  .  .  .  airopo^t 
'koXlv  yejova<; ;  /jlt]  ^'qret  ttjv  rov  eviropov  Biairav) .     Good  in- 

*;  stances  of  both  are  found  in  Jas.  2^^  ^-  and  Jas.  51^  *-.  These 
traits  serve  well  to  illustrate  the  aim  of  immediate  impression, 
appropriate  to  popular  hortatory  address,  which  has  largely  con- 
trolled the  formation  of  this  literary  type. 

On  the  style  of  the  diatribe,  see  R.  Bultmann,  Der  Stil  der  pauli- 
nischen  Predigt  und  die  kynisch-stoischc  Diatribe,  1910,  where  will  be 
found  a  very  full  collection  of  detailed  illustrations  of  the  character- 
istics of  these  writings  drawn  from  Teles,  Musonius,  Dio  of  Prusa, 
Epictetus,  Seneca,  and  other  writers,  together  with  references  to  the 
literature  on  the  subject.  A  brief  but  good  statement  is  that  of  Hein- 
rici,  Der  liUerarischc  Charakter  der  neiUestamentlichen  Schrijlcn,  1908, 
PP-  74/- 

Origen,  Contra  Celsutn,  vi,  2,  points  out  the  effectiveness  of  this 
popular  and  hortatory  quality  in  Epictetus's  style  as  compared  with 
Plato :  xal  et  xP'h  T^  ToXiATJaavTa  etxelv,  bXifouq  pisv  wvijasv,  eV  ye  wvtqjev, 
■?)  xeptxaXTv-fj?  x.al  lxtTexT]5eu[JLivT]  ITk&ioiwt;  xal  twv  icoepaxXTjafw?  ^px- 
aivTWV  Xis'? '  TCXeiovai;  Ss  y)  twv  euTsXesTepov  atia  xal  xpaYt^aTt/.u<;  xal 
laToxaa;j.iv(o?  twv  tcoXXwv  [/.  e.  in  a  plain,  practical,  and  popular  style] 
5t5a^dvTWv  v-cd  Ypott^ixvtwv.  I'a-t'.  YoGv  iSetv  Tbv  [asv  IlXdTwva  ev  x^P<^^  '^^^ 
Soxouvxwv  elvoti  (5)iXo>s6ywv  (a6vov,  -ubv  Se  'Exixttitov  xal  bizh  twv  tux^vtwv 
xal  pox-f]v  xpbc;  -zh  w<})£>.£Tcj6o:t  ex^vxwv  eau|j.al^6tJL£vov,  abOoii^vuv  xTJq  iT.h 
Tuv  Xdywv  ot'jToO  [ieXTiioc;£0)c. 

*  Norden,  Anlike  Kunstprosa',  ii,  pp.  556-558. 


THE   EPISTLE  1 3 

Of  the  other  habitual  phrases  and  modes  of  expression  which 
give  a  well-marked  and  easily  recognisable  form  to  the  diatribe, 
very  many  are  observable  in  James.  Thus,  such  formulas  as 
/XT]  ifkavaade  (i^"^),  deXei^i  Se  jvcovat  (2-°),  ^XeircL';  (2-2),  opdre 
(2^*),  iVre  (ii9),  Ti  6(f)eXo<i  (2^^'  ^^),  ov  xPV  to  introduce  a  con- 
clusion (3!"),  Sto  Xeyei  with  a  quotation  (4''),  t^ou  {^^^  ^  s^-''-^-"), 
all  have  either  exact  or  substantial  parallels  in  the  recurrent 
phrases  of  this  literature.  The  transitions  are  often  made  in 
the  same  way  as  with  the  Greek  sermonisers — by  raising  an 
objection  (2^),  by  a  question  (2^^  4^  5^^),  by  dye  (413  ^1).  The 
imperatives  are  not  only  numerous  (nearly  sixty  times  in  the 
108  verses),  but,  as  in  the  diatribes,  are  sometimes  ironical 
(5S  perhaps  4®).  Rhetorical  questions  (e.  g.  2*'  °'  ^*-^^  3"^-  4^^-) 
are  numerous,  and  4^^-  shows  the  characteristic  form  of  state- 
ment by  *' catechism-like"  question  and  answer.  The  apos- 
trophe to  the  traders  and  the  rich  (4^*-5^)  is  quite  in  the  style 
of  the  diatribe,  and  does  not  in  the  least  imply  that  the  persons 
addressed  were  expected  to  be  among  the  readers  of  the  tract. 
Even  personifications  are  not  lacking  (i^^  2^^  4^  5^^)>  although 
they  are  less  elaborate  than  in  the  Greek  sermons,  where  they 
constitute  a  favourite  ornament.  Figures  are  abundant  in  all 
kinds  of  popular  address,  but  in  those  of  James  there  is  direct 
resemblance  to  the  diatribes.  Some  comparisons  are  conven- 
tional, traceable  for  centuries  previous  in  Greek  writers  (espe- 
cially, with  others,  the  rudder,  the  bridle,  the  forest  fire,  in  3^-^) ; 
as  in  the  diatribes,  many  are  drawn  from  the  works  of  nature, 
others  from  the  common  life  of  man  (i-^  2^^  5^),  and  they  are 
sometimes  double  or  with  repetition  (3^-«'  "-12).  Examples  from 
famous  individuals  are  found  here,  too  (Abraham,  Rahab,  Job, 
Elijah),  and  they  are,  as  with  the  Greek  preachers,*  stock  in- 
stances, well-known  representatives  of  the  qualities  mentioned. 

In  general  the  Greek  preachers  were  well  aware  that  in  their 
diatribes  they  were  awakening  sinners  and  inculcating  familiar 
but  neglected  principles,  not  engaged  in  investigating  truth  or 
in  carrying  thought  further  to  the  conquest  of  the  unknown. 

*  See  E.  Weber,  "De  Dione  Chrysostomo  Cynicorum  sectatore,"  in  Leipziger  Studien,  x, 
1887,  pp.  227/. 


14  JAMES 

Not  originality  but  impressiveness  was  what  they  aimed  at. 
The  argument  is  from  what  the  readers  already  know  and  ought 
,      Q  to  feel.     They  appeal  to  analogy  {cj.  Jas.  a^"*-!^),  to  experience 
i^  "^        ('cA-  3^4^'^)j  3,nd  to  common  sense  {cj.  Jas.  passim).     Harsh 
\>^'"^  address  to  the  reader  is  not  absent  in  James,  and  «  avdpmire 

^    Keve  (2"°),  fxoLxct^.^^e'i   (4O  are  not  unlike  the  a>  ToXaiTrcope^ 
j  fjuope,  stulte,  of  the  diatribe.     The  writers  of  diatribes  were 
'  '      fond  of  quotations  from  poets  and  sages,  but  these  were  used 
Ji^     i  not  for  proof  of  the  doctrine  but  incidentally,  and  often  for 
^/Vm^   ^^^  I  ornament  of  the  discourse.     So  is  it  usually  with  James  (i"-  " 
'  "         4^  5"'  -°  for  ornament ;   2^  to  state  an  inadequate  excuse,  which 
is  overruled),  in  contrast  to  the  frequent  use  in  Paul  and  Mat- 
thew of  the  0.  T.  for  proof. 
\jj'-'\  ^..    Other  traits  of  style  show  resemblance.     As  in  the  diatribes, 
^      .\     '^      there  is  a  general  controlling  motive  in  the  discussion,  but  no 
f^M  firm  and  logically  disposed  structure  giving  a  strict  unity  to 

the  whole,  and  no  trace  of  the  conventional  arrangement  recom- 
mended by  the  elegant  rhetoricians.     The  method  of  framing 
the  sections  in  by  a  general  statement  at  opening  and  close  is 
^  to  be  seen  in  James  at  i^-i^.  19-26  217-26  311-12.  i3-i8_    xhe  char- 
acteristic methods  of  concluding  a  section  are  found:    by  a 
^  sharp  antithesis,  i"^^  2^'-  -^  31^-1*  4^2.  ^y  g,  question,  4^-  5^;  by 
a  quotation,    5^0 ;    by  ov  xpv,  3^°-    A  key- word   often   runs 
through  a  passage,  or  is  repeated  so  as  to  give  a  sense  of 
reference  back;  so  7r€ipaafjb6<;  12-"^  croc^Ca  3"-i8,  ^r)Xo9  3^-42, 
'X^aX.Lvaycoyelv  lyXoicra-av   i26  ^2,  Xoyo^;   ii8-23^  vofio'i  iXevdepCa^ 
1 25  2^-,  KpCveiv  4"'  i2_ 
O      Like  a  diatribe,  the  epistle  begins  with  a  paradox  (i^)  and 
contains  others  (i^**  2^).    The  general  principle  that  popular  esti- 
mates of  values  are  false  and  must  be  reversed  underlies  James 
as  it  does  the  Greek  sermons.    Wherein  true  wealth  consists 
was  a  favourite  subject  of  their  exposition  and  prompted  many 
paradoxical  turns  ;    in  James  it  has  given  rise  to  a  passage 
not  without  its  difficulties  (1^°-^^).     Irony  is  not  lacking  (2"-" 
^  5^-^),  though  it  is  of  the  serious,  never  of  the  flippant,  order. 
Of  course,  any  one  of  these  traits  of  language,  style,  and 
mode  of  thought  could  be  paralleled  from  other  types  of  liter- 


THE   EPISTLE  1 5 

ature.  What  is  significant  and  conclusive  is  the  combination 
in  these  few  pages  of  James  of  so  many  of  the  most  striking 
features  of  a  specific  literary  type  familiar  in  the  contemporary 
Hellenistic  world.  The  inference  from  details  is  confirmed  by 
the  general  tone  and  character  of  the  whole  epistle — direct, 
plain,  earnest,  sensible — lively,  even  on  occasion  descriptive 
and  dramatic  {cf.  2^^-),  full  of  illustration  and  concrete  appli- 
cation— not  aiming  at  profundity  of  speculation,  popular  and 
hortatory  throughout. 

The  traits  referred  to  in  the  above  paragraphs  are  many  of  them 
observable  in  the  epistles  of  Paul,  who  betrays  large  influence  from 
the  style  of  the  diatribe.  No  writing  of  Paul's,  however,  comes  so 
close  to  the  true  type  of  this  form  of  literature  as  does  the  Epistle  of 
James.  Paul,  a  many-sided  thinker,  also  follows  other,  very  different 
and  not  always  readily  identifiable,  models,  and  in  his  general  tone 
displays  far  more  passion  and  far  more  boldness  of  thought  than  the 
admirable,  but  quiet,  simple,  and  somewhat  limited,  writer  of  our 
epistle.  For  the  resemblances  and  differences  between  Paul  and  the 
diatribe,  see  Bultmann,  op.  cit.  pp.  64-107. 

It  is,  to  be  sure,  true  that  some  differences  from  the  diatribes 
preserved  and  known  to  us  can  be  observed  in  James,  and  in 
view  of  the  strong  and  pervading  resemblance  these  are  of  sig- 
nificance. They  show  how  the  specific  character  of  this  Chris- 
tian Jew  led  him  to  develop  the  type  of  these  tracts.  The  most 
striking  difference  is  the  greater  seriousness  and  restraint  of 
tone.  Nothing  in  James  could  entitle  it  to  be  described  as 
(T'TrovBaiO'yeXoLov.  The  characteristic  diatribe  had  more  of  the 
laugh,  and  it  was  usually  a  bitterer  laugh  than  would  have  been 
possible  to  the  high-minded  but  friendly  preacher  who  here 
speaks  to  us.  The  diatribes  were  abundantly  humorous,  often 
trivial,  and  sometimes  verged  on  the  coarse.  Again,  James,  as 
a  Christian  preacher,  addresses  his  readers  as  "brethren,"  "be- 
loved brethren,"  whereas  the  Greek  preacher  thought  of  indi- 
viduals, addressed  them  in  the  singular,  and  was  not  bound  to 
them  either  by  love  or  by  the  bond  of  a  common  brotherhood. 
The  habit  of  scolding  the  audience  and  the  world  at  large  and 
of  ridicule  and  abuse  in  general  was  a  peculiarly  vivid  and  per- 


1 6  JAMES 

manent  trait  of  the  Cynic  diatribe.*  James  shows  a  certain 
contact  with  it  in  his  serious  warning  (4^"^-)  and  in  his  apostro- 
phes (4^-5  *),  but  his  usual  tone  is  mild,  and  one  might  almost 
suspect  that  the  injunctions  to  emphasise  the  gentle  nature  of 
true  wisdom  (3^^  ^■)  were  aimed  in  direct  condemnation  of  the 
Cynic's  rough  and  censorious  habit.  In  view  of  Jas.  5^^^  it  is 
worth  notice  that  for  the  frequent  oaths,  which  give  a  pic- 
turesque, if  slightly  vulgar,  force  to  the  language  of  the  dia- 
tribes, we  have  here  no  substitute. 

Again,  the  comparisons  used  by  James  are  more  limited  in 
range  than  those  with  which  the  diatribes  are  crowded.  His 
seem  conventional  and,  with  few  exceptions,  slight,  in  compari- 
son with  the  fulness  with  which  every  side  of  human  life — clean 
and  dirty — ^is  mirrored  in  the  comparisons  of  the  Greeks.  In 
particular,  the  figures  from  ways  and  customs  of  organised  so- 
ciety— the  arena,  the  theatre,  the  market-place,  war,  handi- 
crafts— and  from  the  practises  of  Greek  religion  are  lacking. 
He  seems  to  belong  to  a  simpler  world — although  he  is  not 
ignorant  of  a  wider  reach  beyond  his  own  daily  round.  In 
ideas  James,  of  course,  breathed  a  different  atmosphere.  Of  the 
familiar  Cynic  and  Stoic  commonplaces  the  chief  one  that  ap- 
pears is  the  representation  of  poverty  as  exaltation  and  wealth 
as  debasement,  while  the  opening  exposition  of  the  moral  uses 
of  trouble  has  a  certain  similarity  to  Greek  popular  philosophy. 
But  the  true  nature  of  freedom,  the  paradox  that  death  is  life, 
the  doctrine  that  sin  is  ignorance,  the  right  apprehension  of 
exile,  of  the  feelings,  the  general  principle  that  evils  are  good — 
these  are  not  James's  topics. 

The  resemblance  of  James  to  the  diatribes  is  made  even  more 
convincing  by  noting  the  contrast  which  the  epistle  shows  in 
style  and  method  to  the  Jewish  Wisdom-literature,  with  which 
it  is  often  classed,  and  with  which,  in  the  deeper  roots  of  our 
writer's  thought,  he  has  much  closer  kinship  than  with  the  Hel- 
lenistic diatribe.    In  the  Book  of  Proverbs  endless  contrasted 

*  On  this  trait  of  the  Cynics,  see  G.  A.  Gerhard,  Phuinix  von  Kolophon,  igog,  pp.  33-39, 
where  many  illustrations  are  given. 


THE  EPISTLE  I7 

sentences  (in  themselves  clever  and  interesting,  if  only  they 
were  not  so  many)  may  well  be  found  less  tedious  in  the  original 
poetry,  whose  rhythm  finds  its  proper  effect  in  this  trick  of  paral- 
lelism ;  but  how  unlike  to  the  simple  but  varied  prose  of  James ! 
And  the  literary  type  assumed  by  Proverbs,  with  its  constant 
address  to  "my  son"  and  its  imagined  sage  handing  down  an- 
cient wisdom,  is  utterly  different  from  that  of  James's  exhorta- 
tion to  his  audience  of  "beloved  brethren."  Jas.  i^"  might  pos- 
sibly seem  of  the  type  of  Proverbs,  and  4^-  ^^  barely  suggest  it, 
but  hardly  another  sentence  will  recall  the  haunting  distich  of 
the  Hebrew  book.  Equally  distant  from  James  are  the  shrewd 
practical  maxims  and  occasional  real  poetry  of  Ecclesiasticus. 
That  book  is  too  much  written  in  parallels  to  suggest  James, 
and  its  thinking  is  of  a  wholly  different  nature,*  as  may  be 
seen  by  comparing  either  its  prudential  wisdom  or  its  poetical 
feeling  for  Wisdom  with  what  James  has  to  say,  for  instance, 
in  3"-i8.  The  maxims  in  Tobit,  ch.  4,  plainly  translated  from 
a  Semitic  poetical  original,  call  to  mind  neither  the  diatribe  nor 
James.  And  the  Book  of  Wisdom,  with  its  higher  flights  of 
poetry  and  more  Hellenistic  and  modern  character,  does  not 
often  much  remind  us  of  James,  although  he  may  have  read 
it  and  56-1^  can  in  some  respects  be  compared  with  Jas.  3,  while 
Wisd.  7"  t.  (an  especially  unsemitic  passage)  recalls  Jas.  315-17^ 
In  the  Wisdom-hterature,  as  a  literary  type,  it  is  impossible 
to  place  James.  The  epistle  is,  rather,  a  diatribe,  showing 
how  that  highly  serviceable  t5^e,  now  well  known  to  us,  could 
be  handled  by  a  Jewish  Christian,  who  used  what  he  knew 
of  the  Greek  preacher's  sermons  not  to  gain  his  ideas  from 
them  but  for  suggestions  of  efifective  ways  of  putting  his  own 
Christian  and  Jewish  teaching. 

The  diatribe  was  highly  significant  for  Christian  preaching,  c.  g. 
Chrysostom,  Horn,  in  Joh.  iii,  3,  but  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  in 
fundamental  ideas  the  Christians'  connection  with  Jewish  thinking 
was  far  closer  than  with  the  Hellenistic  moralism.  Wilamowitz- 
Moellendorf  tends  to  overlook  this  in  his  striking  discussion  of  Teles 
in  Antigonos   von  Karyslos  (Philologische  Untersuchungcn,  iv),  1881, 

•This  diflterence,  at  least,  is  noted  by  Zahn,  Einleitung>,  i,  p.  80:    "Ohne  dass  man  von 
einer  sonderlichen  Geistesverwandtschaft  des  Jk  mit  diesem  Jesus  reden  kcinnte." 
2 


V 


l8  JAMES 

PP-  S'^-Sj-y  in  which  he  opposes  the  notion  of  J.  Freudenthal  that  the 
"sacred  eloquence  of  the  Jews"  was  the  immediate  parent  of  Christian 
homiletics.  See  the  important  discussion  by  J.  Freudenthal,  Die  Fla- 
vins Josephtis  heigelegte  Schrijt  Ucher  die  Hcrrschaft  der  Verntmft  {IV 
Makkabderbucli),  Breslau,  1869. 

A  third  type  of  Hellenistic  literature,  besides  the  epistle  and  the 
diatribe,  might  suggest  itself  as  a  possible  source  for  the  literary  char- 
acter of  James.  The  Protrepticus,  or  parenetic  tract,  was  a  form  of 
hortatory  writing  of  which  the  earliest  examples  are  the  two  exhorta- 
tions of  Isocrates,  Ad  Nicoclem  and  Nicocles.  More  ethical  and  less 
political  is  the  •jcapaivsac?,  or  prcecepiio,  of  Pseudo- Isocrates,  Ad  De- 
monicmn,  also  a  product  of  the  fourth  century  B.C.  These  tracts  are 
largely  composed  of  separate  apothegms,  many  of  these  being  widely 
current  and  often-repeated  practical  maxims,  but  both  in  form  and 
spirit  they  are  as  far  removed  from  the  Epistle  of  James  as  Lord  Ches- 
terfield's Letters  Written  to  His  Son  are  from  a  sermon  of  John  Wesley. 
They  are  later  prose  representatives  of  the  poetical  tradition  of  gnomic 
literature  seen  in  Theognis  and  in  the  now  lost  Phocylides,  and  are 
the  precursors  of  the  useful  florilegia  and  gnomic  collections  of  a  later 
time.  This  character  is  expressly  intimated  by  Isocrates,  Ad  Nicoclem, 
40/.,  when  he  declares  the  art  of  this  kind  of  composition  to  lie  in 
skilful  selection  of  the  fine  thoughts  of  others.  Later  instances  of  the 
protrepticus  seem  to  have  been  numerous.  The  earlier  ones  were  often 
tracts  recommending  and  inviting  to  the  rhetorician's  studies  and 
art.  The  moralists  and  philosophers,  too,  including  Posidonius,  wrote 
works  of  this  kind,  now  mostly  lost,  which  exerted  considerable  influ- 
ence. The  Protrepticus  of  Aristotle  was  a  defense  of  the  significance 
of  philosophy  for  life.  Galen  wrote  a  protrepticus  to  the  science  and 
practise  of  medicine.  The  type  ran  out  at  last  into  the  "epideic- 
tic"  literature  of  mere  display.  See  P.  Hartlich,  "De  exhortationum 
a  Graecis  Romanisque  scriptarum  historia  et  indole,"  in  Leipziger 
Sludien,  xi,  1889,  pp.  209-333;  T.  C.  Burgess,  Epideictic  Literature 
(Studies  in  Classical  Philology,  vol.  iii),  Chicago,  1902,  pp.  22gjf. 
note  2;  P.  Wendland,  Anaximenes  von  Lampsakos,  1905;  F.  Blass, 
Atlische  Beredsamkeif^,  1892,  ii,  pp.  iii,  271  Jf. 

§  3.    Literary  Relationships. 

(a)  The  relation  of  the  Epistle  of  James  to  the  Wisdom- 
literature  of  the  O.  T.  has  already  been  referred  to,  and  it  has 
been  pointed  out  that  in  literary  type  and  style  the  epistle 
breathes  a  different  atmosphere.  Some  of  the  ideas,  however, 
of  Proverbs,  Ecclesiasticus,  and  Wisdom  are  found  repeated  in 


THE  EPISTLE  1 9 

James.  It  is  not  unlikely  that  the  writer  was  familiar  with 
these  books,  and  a  full  list  of  the  parallels  is  to  be  found  in 
Mayor,  Epistle  of  St.  James,  ch.  4.  But  direct  influence  on 
the  language  of  James  cannot  be  affirmed  with  any  confidence, 
except  in  the  case  of  Proverbs,  from  which  (Prov.  3^^)  a  quo- 
tation is  made  in  Jas.  4^.  Some  of  the  more  striking  parallels 
are  to  be  found  in  Prov.  ii^°  ("the  fruit  of  righteousness," 
cf.  Jas.  3^^),  19^  (against  blaming  God,  cf.  Jas.  i^^),  27^  ("boast 
not  of  the  things  of  to-morrow,  for  thou  knowest  not  what 
the  morrow  will  bring  forth,"  cf.  Jas.  4^^"^®),  17^  27-1  (testing 
human  quahties,  cf.  Jas.  i^),  29-"  ("a  man  that  is  swift  in  his 
words,"  cf.  Jas.  ii^). 

The  Wisdom  of  Jesus  Sirach,  or  Ecclesiasticus,  offers  better 
parallels,  but  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  common  view  that 
James  unquestionably  used  it  can  be  maintained.*  Many  topics 
referred  to  by  James  appear  in  it ;  thus,  the  dangers  proceeding 
from  the  tongue  (Ecclus.  19^-1^  20^-*'  ^^-^^  22-^  2?>'^^-"^  35  [32]  '^-^), 
wisdom  the  gift  of  God  (i^"^"),  prayer  with  a  divided  heart  (i^^), 
pride  (lo^-^^),  the  uncertainty  of  life  (10^''  ii^^'  ^0,  blaming  God 
(15"-'^°),  man  as  made  in  God's  image  and  ruling  over  the  beasts 
(ly^*-))  the  eclipse  of  the  sun  and  the  changes  of  the  moon 
(j^3i  27").  Other  passages  remind  us  of  the  conditions  im- 
plied in  James;  so  4^°,  the  widow  and  orphan;  7^^,  visiting  the 
sick;  13"'-,  oppression  of  the  poor  by  the  rich;  i8^^  on  grudging 
beneficence;  38^  ^^  prayer  and  confession  by  the  sick.  But  these 
may  attest  a  general  similarity  in  the  religious  and  intellectual 
environment  rather  than  proper  literary  dependence,  although 
the  author  of  James  may  well  have  read  Ecclesiasticus.  The 
parallels  from  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon  are  less  striking.  The 
most  noteworthy  are  i"  {cf.  Jas.  4"  5^) ;  2*  {cf.  Jas.  41*) ;  2^°-'^°, 
the  oppression  of  the  poor;  3^-®,  tribulation  as  a  test  sent  by 
God ;  5^,  pride  and  wealth,  and  the  transitory  nature  of  wealth ; 
7'^  ^-y  comparison  with  light  and  the  sun.  No  case  implies  i 
dependence. 

{h)  The  style  and  language  of  the  Epistle  of  James  can  well 
be  illustrated,  as  already  shown,  from  those  of  the  Hellenistic 

*  For  references,  see  Schiirer,  GJV*,  iii,  p.  220  (§  32,  III,  r). 


20  JAMES 

diatribe  with  which  the  book  belongs.  Furthermore,  parallels 
in  phrases  and  vocabulary  are  abundant  from  Philo,  the  author 
of  4  Maccabees,  Clement  of  Rome,  and  Hermas,*  writers  of  the 
first  and  second  centuries  after  Christ,  who  all  joined  some 
degree  of  Hellenism  with  fundamental  Jewish,  or  Jewish  and 
Christian,  ideas,  and  who  were  members  of  a  partly  segregated 
Jewish  or  Christian  community  in  some  Hellenistic  city  (Alex- 
andria, Rome). 

H.  A.  A.  Kennedy,  "The  Hellenistic  Atmosphere  of  the  Epistle  of 
James,"  in  Expositor,  eighth  series,  vol.  ii,  191 1,  pp.  37-52,  is  a  use- 
ful collection  of  some  of  the  more  striking  parallels  from  Hellenistic 
writers. 

Another  work  which  shows  in  language  (not  in  structure,  nor 
in  the  broader  qualities  of  style)  special  affinity  to  James  is  the 
Testaments  of  the  Twelve  Patriarchs.f  This  is  of  Palestinian 
origin,  and  was  originally  written  in  Hebrew  about  one  hundred 
years  before  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era.  Its  literary 
quality  is  not  lofty,  and  a  good  deal  of  legend  and  folk-lore  crops 
out  in  it,  but  it  represents  in  its  ideas  a  high  type  of  Palestinian 
Judaism — devout,  earnest,  spiritual,  capable  of  lending  itself 
directly  to  Christian  use  and  of  receiving  Christian  additions. 
The  strict  and  plain  moral  teaching  and  the  simple  and  devout 
piety  of  the  Testaments  are  but  little  tinged  with  formalism 
or  legaHsm,  and  they  reveal  an  attractive  type  of  popular 
religion  such  as  can  well  have  nourished  itself  on  the  O.  T. 
Psalms,  and  in  which  many  not  unworthy  parallels  to  the  teach- 
ings of  the  Gospels  are  to  be  found.  James  is  a  far  more  highly 
educated  man  than  the  author  of  the  Testaments,  but  the  Jew- 
ish background  of  both  was  similar.  The  Testaments  appear 
to  have  been  translated  into  Greek  not  later,  and  perhaps 
earlier,  than  the  early  second  century  after  Christ.  The  fact 
of  Christian  interpolation  is  undoubted,  but  the  additions  can 
generally  be  recognised,  and  the  Greek  version  of  these  writings 

•For  parallels  from  Philo,  see  Mayor,  ch.  4;  Siegfried,  P/jj7oiio»  .4/ej;a»(irio,  1873,  pp.  310- 
314;  for  the  Christian  writers,  Mayor,  ch.^2. 
t  See  the  collection  of  parallels  in  Mayor,  ch.  4. 


THE   EPISTLE  21 

may  fairly  be  accounted  a  monument  of  Hellenistic  Judaism 
contemporary  with  James. 

The  parallels  are  numerous  and  in  many  instances  show  close 
verbal  resemblance.     For  instance  : 

Test.  Benj.  6^  '^  ayaOr]  SidvoLu  ovk  e^j^et  Svo  <y\oi(7<Ta^  €v\oyia<i 
Kal  Kurdpa^^  v^p€(o<;  ical  TLfirj^^  r^crvx^Ca^  koX  rapa')(ri<i^  viro- 
KpCaeo)^  Kal  a\i]deia<i^  [Trez/ia?  koI  ttXovtov^  dXka  fiiav  e^^et 
Trepl  7rdvTa<;  elXiKpLvrj  Kal  Kadapdv  Stddeaiv,   cf.   Jas.   2>^-  ^° ; 

Test.  Nephth.  S'  koI  6  Sta/3oXo9  (f)ev^eTai  acj)  vjxwv^  cf.  Jas.  4^ ; 

Test.  Dan  6-  iyyiaare  tw  Oew,  cf.  Jas  4* ; 

Test.  Zab.  8^  ocrov  yap  dv6pa)7ro<;  (T'Tr\ay')(v liberal  eh  rov 
ifKr^a-iov  avrov^  rocrovrov  Kal  6  Kvpuo^  eh  avrov^  cf.  Jas.  2^^ ; 

Test.  Jos.  2^  ev  hma  ireipacr {xoh  Sokl/xov  anreSeL^e  p-e  Kal  ev 
irao'LV  avToh  ep^aKpoOvprjaa  •  otl  /xeya  (pdppaKov  eariv  rj  p,aK- 
poOvp,ta  Kal  TToWd  ayadd  hihcoaiv  rj  inrop.ovrj^  cf.  Jas.  i^"*; 

Test.  Benj.  4^  there  ovv^  reKva  p,0Vj  rov  dyadov  dvSp6<;  to 
reXo?,  cf.  Jas.  5". 

We  find  also,  in  passages  of  indubitable  Jewish  origin,  strong 
similarity  in  the  emphasis  on  sincerity  (aTrXoV?;?),  mercy  (eXeo?), 
peace,  and  humility,  on  envy  {<^d6vo^),  anger,  and  arrogance, 
and  on  other  virtues  and  vices.  And  in  the  Testaments  the 
chief  interest  in  the  law  (which  is  called  X0709  dXrjOeia^, 
Test.  Gad  3^,  cf.  Jas.  i^^)  is  on  the  side  of  the  moral  precepts. 
But  all  these  resemblances  do  not  go  further  than  to  exhibit  a 
common  background  of  high  Jewish  morality  in  which  both  the 
Testaments  and  James  (and  Hermas)  share.  There  is  no  reason 
to  assume  literary  relationship ;  these  ideas  and  phrases  were 
part  of  the  ever-repeated  material  of  Jewish  sermons.  They 
show  James's  origin,  but  do  not  permit  the  inference  that  he 
had  read  the  Testaments,  which  are  a  valuable  compend  of 
Jewish  moral  ideas,  not  an  originating  centre  of  influence. 

(c)  The  relation  of  James  to  other  books  of  the  N.  T. 
itself  is  of  the  same  general  nature  as  its  relation  to  nearly 
contemporary  Jewish  writings  and  to  the  Apostolic  Fathers. 
In  no  case  (unless  it  be  Romans  and  Galatians)  is  direct  knowl- 
edge or  influence  on  either  side  to  be  admitted.  The  material 
is  conveniently  collected  by  Mayor,  Epistle  of  St.  James,  ch. 


22  JAMES 

3,  "On  the  Relation  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Other  Books  of  the 
New  Testament."  In  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews  the  refer- 
ences to  Abraham  (Heb.  ii^-io.  "-19)  a^d  Rahab  (Heb.  ii'O  as 
heroes  of  faith,  and  the  expression  Kapirov  elprjviKov  .  .  .  8l- 
Kaioavvrj<i  (Heb.  12",  cf.  Jas.  3^^),  are  the  most  important 
parallels,  and  they  prove  nothing.  From  the  Apocalypse  the 
most  important  is  the  promise  of  2^°,  yivov  7ri<TTo?  dxpc  davdrov 
KoX  Scoa-Q)  aoL  rov  (TT€<^avov  Tr}<i  ^w/}?,  but  this  cannot  be  in- 
tended by  James  in  i^-. 

A  closer  relation  is  observable  between  James  and  i  Peter, 
and  the  question  of  priority  has  been  strongly  argued  on  both 
sides.  The  two  books  represent  opposite  poles  of  thought. 
The  thought  of  i  Peter  is  closer  to  the  theology  of  Paul  than 
any  other  non-pauline  book  of  the  N.  T. ,  although  the  style  and 
language  depart  noticeably  from  Paul;  James  is  perhaps  the 
least  Pauline  book  in  the  N.  T.  Yet  the  two  are  curiously 
akin  in  their  phrases  and  some  of  their  ideas.  The  following 
table  exhibits  some  of  the  most  striking  instances: 

I  Peter  James 
l'   (Staaiuopa)  I' 

i«f-,  cf.  4"  I'f- 

I"  lis 

I"  (Is.  40«-9)  i'°f- 

2'   (dTCoOstJisvot  ouv)  I'l 

48  (Prov.  1012  [Heb.])  5-° 

S^f-  (Prov.  3")  4«f- 

5'    (ivTlJTTJTe)  4' 

These  major  instances  are  supported  by  a  large  number  of 
others,  in  themselves  less  significant,  which  add  their  evidence 
that  the  authors  of  James  and  i  Peter  have  come  under  com- 
mon religious  and  literary  influences.  Beyond  this  the  evidence 
does  not  carry  us,  and  the  established  phrases  and  conventions 
which  we  must  assume  for  Hellenistic  Jewish  synagogue  ser- 
mons as  well  as  for  Christian  preaching  are  a  sufficient  back- 
ground to  account  for  all  the  facts.  It  is,  indeed,  remark- 
able that  of  the  small  number  of  direct  allusions  to  O.  T. 
language  in  James,  three  are  found  paralleled  in  i  Peter.     But 


THE  EPISTLE  23 

in  two  cases  (Is.  40^-^  Prov,  lo^^)  the  utter  difference  in  use 
makes  dependence  on  either  side  highly  improbable,  while  the 
third  (Prov.  3^*)  is  a  saying  very  naturally  remembered  and 
quoted  (so  also  in  Clem.  Rom.  30).*  It  is  hard  to  picture 
the  mental  processes  of  a  writer  who  having  read  James  should 
have  thereby  been  affected  in  such  a  manner  as  to  produce 
I  Peter,  or  vice  versa.  In  general  it  must  be  said  that,  even 
if  literary  dependence  were  admitted  to  exist,  it  would  be 
wholly  impossible  to  decide  on  which  side  it  lay. 

Thorough  discussions  of  the  N.  T.  parallels  are  to  be  found  in  Spitta, 
Der  Brief  des  Jakobiis,  1896,  pp.  155-236.  For  Spitta's  theory  of  the 
Jewish  origin  of  the  epistle  it  was  essential  to  show  that  James  is  not 
dependent  on  any  Christian  sources. 

The  parallels  which  the  Epistle  of  James  shows  to  the  above- 
mentioned  writers,  both  Jewish  and  Christian,  do  not  in  any 
case  indicate  acquaintance,  still  less  borrowing,  on  either  side.f 
Just  as  the  typical  style  of  the  Greek  diatribe  persisted  in  rec- 
ognisable form  for  centuries  and  was  used  by  preachers  and 
writers  of  diverse  literary  level,  so  likewise  the  phrases  and 
vocabulary  of  Jewish  Hellenistic  religious  writing  and  public 
speech  at  the  time  of  the  origin  of  the  Christian  church  made 
up  a  common  stock  used  independently  by  many  writers  in 
widely  distant  places  for  a  long  period.  The  phenomena  and 
history  of  the  religious  language  and  homiletical  phrases  and 
courses  of  thought  among  English-speaking  Protestants  the 
world  over  during  the  past  two  centuries  would  provide  a  mod- 
ern instance  of  substantially  the  same  situation.  From  the 
Jews  the  Christians  took  over  a  large  section  of  this  body  of 
language  and  thought,  and  used  and  developed  it  as  their  own. 
This  could  not  have  been  otherwise.  The  apostles  began  this 
process,  and  it  continued  until  this  Jewish  stock  had  been  fully 
naturalised  and  its  origin  forgotten. 

In  the  Epistle  of  James  the  currents  represented  by  the  Hel- 
lenistic diatribe  and  by  the  sermons  and  religious  tracts  of 

•  All  three  citations  depart  from  the  LXX  by  substituting  [o]  deo?  for  /cvpios. 
t  The  relation  of  James  to  Clement  of  Rome,  Herraas,  etc.,  ii  discussed  below,  pp.  87-QO, 
in  connection  with  the  history  of  the  Epistle  of  James  in  the  church. 


24  JAMES 

Greek-speaking  Jews  cross  and  interlace.  The  nearest  parallel 
to  this  combination  among  Jewish  writers  is  the  Alexandrian 
Philo,*  among  Christians  the  Apostle  Paul.  The  literary  per- 
sonality whom  we  learn  to  know  in  our  epistle  is  in  part  ex- 
plained by  these  causes,  but  his  writing  also  shows  his  own 
distinctive  individuality,  education,  and  experience. 

§  4.    Language. 

The  language  of  the  epistle  is  that  of  a  writer  of  the  Koine 
who  uses  Greek  fluently  and  accurately,  although  his  style  has 
a  certain  Biblical  tinge;  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  Greek  was 
probably  his  mother  tongue,  f  His  forms  and  syntax  are  cor- 
rect, and  appropriate  to  written  discourse ;  there  is  less  occasion 
than  in  Paul  or  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels  to  turn  from  the  ordi- 
nary grammars  to  the  colloquial  Greek  of  the  papyri  for  illus- 
tration of  strange  expressions.  Some  instances  occur  of  words 
and  phrases  characteristic  of  good  Greek  style  and  unique, 
or  very  rare,  in  the  N.  T. ;  so  a7e  vvv  (with  plural),  eoiKev, 
XPV,  '^po'i  with  accusative  {(f)66vov)  equivalent  to  the  adverb 
{^OovepSis:),  aireipaaTO^  kukcov^  airap'x^^  tk.  Certain  allitera- 
tions and  plays  on  words  are  perhaps  intentional,  thus:  i^ 
ireipaa iiol'i  ireptTrearjTe  TroLKiXoi'i,  i^*  a7r€Xi]\vd€v  Koi  eu^eW 
eireXadeTo,  2^  hieKpidriTe  .  .  .  Kptrai,  3^  /xiKpov  /ieXo?  ia-rlv 
Kol  fieydXa  av')(e'i,  4"  (f)at,vo/jLev7]  .  .  .  a(f)avt,^ofiev7)  (for  oth- 
ers, see  Mayor ^,  pp.  cclii^.).  Especially  in  his  figurative  lan- 
guage the  writer  shows  his  command  of  well-chosen  and  ex- 
pressive words.  The  vivacity,  simple  directness,  and  general 
attractiveness  and  effectiveness  of  his  style  are  conspicuous  even 
to  the  reader  of  the  English  version.  The  relation  of  the  style, 
on  its  Hellenistic  side,  to  the  diatribe  has  already  been  dis- 
cussed (pp.  12-16). 

At  the  same  time,  long  and  difficult  words  are  rather  seldom 
used,  no  tendency  appears  to  elaboration  of  grammatical  struc- 
ture or  to  complication  of  sentences  or  periods,  and  there  is 

*  p.  Wendland,  "Philo  und  die  kyniscli-stoische  Diatribe,"  in  Wendland  and  Kern,  Beitrdge 
zur  Gescliichte  d.  griecli.  Philosophie  und  Religion,  1895. 

t  Mayor,  chs.  8  and  g,  treats  fully  of  the  grammar  and  style;  note  also  his  "Index  of 
Greek  Words." 


THE  EPISTLE  2$ 

nothing  to  suggest  acquaintance  with  the  higher  styles  of 
Greek  literature.  The  general  tone  is  plainer  and  less  literary 
than  that  of  the  preface  to  the  Gospel  of  Luke  (Lk.  i^-^)  or  of 
the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  or  of  Philo  (although  many  of  the 
single  phrases  can  readily  be  illustrated  from  this  last  writer). 
Even  as  compared  with  Paul,  there  is  less  to  recall  the  con- 
temporary rhetoric  of  the  school,  although,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  is  less  to  suggest  the  every-day  talk  of  the  street.  We 
may  conclude  that  the  popular  Hellenistic  preachers  and  the 
written  tracts,  now  lost,  which  corresponded  to  their  sermons, 
have  combined  with  the  Greek  O.  T.  to  form  this  writer's  style 
and  to  give  him  his  vocabulary. 

The  judgment  of  Erasmus  (Annotationes  in  epistolam  Jacobi,  1516) 
on  James's  style  is  interesting.  After  saying  that  the  epistle  is  salu- 
bribiis  prceceptis  refcrta,  he  continues:  Nee  enim  rcferre  videtur  usqtie- 
quaque  majcstatcm  illam  et  gravilatem  apostolicam.  Nee  hehraismi  tan- 
tum  quantum  ah  apostolo  Jacobo  qui  fuerit  episcopus  Hierosolymitanus 
expeclaretur .  This  guarded  statement  was  repeated  by  Luther  in  the 
following  form  {Resolutiones  Lutherianae  super  propositionibus  suis  Lip- 
siae  disputatis,  1519):  Stilus  epistolae  illius  longc  est  infra  apostolicam 
majestatem  nee  cum  Paulino  ullo  modo  comparandus. 

The  vocabulary  of  James  consists  of  about  570  words.  About 
73  of  these  are  not  found  elsewhere  in  the  N.  T.*  This  number 
may  be  compared  with  63  for  i  Peter  (of  the  same  length  as 
James),  34  for  Galatians,  and  43  for  Ephesians  (both  some- 
what longer). 

Of  James's  words  all  except  about  25  are  found  in  the  Greek 
0.  T.  (including,  of  course,  the  Apocrypha).  Only  6  words 
in  the  epistle  appear  to  be  found  neither  in  the  N.  T.  nor  in 
the  Greek  O.  T.  (^pvoo,  ivdXio<;^  evTreiO'^'i,  icfytjfjLepo'i^  dprjaKO<i^ 
KUT'qcfjeLa) . 

Not  only  through  this  hint  from  his  vocabulary,  but  by  re- 
peated direct  allusion  to  the  language  of  the  Greek  translation 
is  it  made  clear  that  James  knew  the  LXX.f  Thus  i^°  *•  is 
based  on  Is.  40^  '■ ;  in  2 ^^  he  uses  the  language  of  Gen.  22-' ' ;  in 

•So  Thayer;  Mayor's  list  counts  up  only  63,  in  consequence  of  a  different  treatment  of 
variant  readings. 

t  Cf.  H.  A.  A.  Kennedy,  op.  cil.  p.  39. 


26  JAMES 

2"  quotes  Gen.  15^ ;  in  4^  Prov.  3^^ ;  5"  suggests  Ps.  103^ ;  while 
many  other  single  phrases  occur  in  which  the  writer  clearly  be- 
trays his  familiarity  with  the  LXX  (see  Westcott  and  Hort's 
list  of  "Quotations  from  the  Old  Testament,"  p.  607).  In 
several  cases  (notably  2^3  ^/Xo?  deov,  520)  there  is  a  use  of 
O.  T.  language  in  a  translation  at  variance  with  the  LXX, 
but  these  are  brief  phrases  and  do  not  in  the  least  imply  ac- 
quaintance with  the  Hebrew  original.  It  may  be  added  that 
one  of  the  two  or  three  formal  quotations  (4^,  the  only  quota- 
tion introduced  by  57  'ypa(f)r]  Xeyei)  is  not  found  in  the  O.  T. 
at  all,  and  is  of  unknown  origin. 

This  acquaintance  with  the  LXX  gives  a  distinct  Biblical 
flavour  to  the  style  in  general.  Actual  grammatical  Hebraisms 
are  few.  The  genitive  of  quality,  equivalent  to  an  adjective, 
appears  in  aKpoaTrj<;  eTTLkr^a- ixovrf^  (i^^),  /cpiral  StaXoytaficov 
TTovripoiv  (2^) ;  perhaps  also  the  less  strange  vojio'i  i\ev9epia<i 
([j25j  212)^  0  KocTfio^  T?}?  a8LKia<;  (3^),  to  irpoacoTrov  rrj'i  yeve- 
o-ew?  avrov  (i^s)  ought  to  be  included.  The  use  of  ev  in  3' 
may  perhaps  be  a  Hebraism.  In  5^^  (Trpoaevxy  irpoa-qv^aro) 
the  writer  is  probably  not  imitating  the  Hebrew  infinitive  ab- 
solute ;  but  the  Christian  iv  tu>  ovofiart  (51°-  !■*)  may  perhaps  be 
called  a  Hebraism,  and  TroLijral  Xoyov  (i--)  would  probably 
have  a  different  meaning  in  secular  Greek. 

But  there  are  many  cases  of  the  use  of  Biblical  phrases, 
correct  but  slightly  unhellenic*  Thus  ek  fiaprvpLou  (5^)^  i\o- 
yiaOr]  ek  SiKULoavvijv  {2^^),  the  frequency  of  t^ov  (six  times,  as 
against  nine  in  all  Paul's  epistles),  iroielv  eXeo?  {2^^),  iroieiv 
elpijvrjv  (3^^),  VTrdyere  iv  elprjvr)  (2^°),  ev  Trda-ai^  TaL<i  6hol<;  avrov 
(i^),  fiaKdpLO<i  avrjp  {i^"^),  opcfiavov^  Kal  %^/oa?  (i"0,  Trpocrci)- 
7ro\r)fi.-\Jr{ac<;  (2^),  TrpoaoiTroXTjfXTrreire  (2^),  to  koXov  ovofxa  to 
€7rcKX.T]6ev  icf)  vfid<i  (2'),  drjpicov  re  Kal  TreTeiVMv  epireTbiv  re 
Kal  ivaXicov  (3^),  tou^  KaO'  o/jbOLCoatv  Oeov  yeyovora^  {3^),  y^o^" 
'XaXihe'i  (4^),  KaOapicraTe  y^elpa'i  (4^),  eU  Ta  wTa  Kvpiov  2a- 
^aci)0  (54),  iv  rjfjiepa  a-^ayrj^  (5^),  Trpoifiov  Kal  o'yjniJiov  (5''), 
TToXva-TrXayxvo'i  (51^),  are  some  of  the  characteristic  expres- 
sions of  this  sort. 

*  On  such  expressions,  see  J.  H.  Moulton,  Prolesomena,  pp.  lo/. 


THE   EPISTLE  27 

The  theory  that  the  Epistle  of  James  is  a  translation  from  an  Aramaic 
or  Hebrew  original  has  from  time  to  time  been  put  forward  (references 
in  Mayor',  p.  cclx,  note  i),  most  recently  by  J.  Wordsworth  in  his  dis- 
cussion of  the  Latin  Codex  Corbeiensis  (ff)  in  SB,  i,  1885,  pp.  142-150. 
The  usual  arguments  have  been  a  priori,  on  the  groimd  that  James  the 
Lord's  brother  must  have  written  Aramaic.  Wordsworth  found  note- 
worthy textual  variants  in  ff  together  with  some  cases  of  very  free 
translating,  and  tried  to  explain  both  phenomena  by  the  adventurous 
supposition  that  the  Greek  and  Latin  texts  give  two  independent  ver- 
sions of  the  Aramaic  original.  But  the  textual  variants  are  adequatelj^, 
and  more  easily,  explained  on  the  ordinary  principles  of  textual  criticism, 
while  the  free  translations  do  not  at  all  imply  any  other  original  than 
the  current  Greek  text  in  a  form  much  like  Codex  Vaticanus.  Words- 
worth's theory  is  criticised  by  Mayor,  ch.  10,  and  Zahn,  Einleitimg, 
§  6,  note  6. 

On  the  other  side,  nothing  in  the  epistle  suggests  that  it  was  not 
written  in  Greek,  and  there  is  much,  including  plays  on  words  (xafpetv, 
Xapav,  i'^-)i  alliteration  (i^  2,^,  and  perhaps  elsewhere),  a  probable 
Greek  metrical  quotation  (I'O,  the  use  of  the  LXX,  and  many  Greek 
expressions  not  easily  retranslatable  into  a  Semitic  language,  which 
taken  together  make  it  morally  certain  that  Greek  was  the  original 
language  in  which  the  epistle  was  written. 

§  5.    The  Ideas  and  Historical  Background  of  the 

Epistle. 

On  the  ideas  of  the  Epistle  of  James  reference  should  be  made  (be- 
sides the  commentaries  and  books  on  N.  T.  theology  and  the  history 
of  the  apostolic  age)  to  Woldemar  G.  Schmidt,  Der  Lehrgehalt  des  Jaco- 
busbriefcs,  1869;  P.  Feine,  Der  Jakohisbrief  nach  Lehranschauungcn 
undEntstehiingsverhdltnissen,  1893  ;  E.  Grafe,  Die Stelhingnnd  Bedeiitung 
des  Jakobusbriefes  in  der  Entwickehmg  des  Urchristentums,  1904;  B. 
Weiss,  Der  Jakobusbrief  tind  die  tteiiere  Kritik,  1904 ;  E.  Kiihl,  Die 
Stelhmg  des  Jakobusbriefes  zum  aUtestamentlichen  Gesetz  tind  zur  Paidi- 
nischen  Rechtjeriigungslehre,  1905;  B.  Bartmann,  St.  Paiilus  und  St. 
Jacobus  iiber  die  Rechtjerligung  (Biblische  Studien,  ii),  Freiburg,  1897. 

The  most  striking  fact  about  this  epistle  is  the  paucity  in 
it  of  allusions  and  ideas  and  interests  which  were  peculiar  to 
any  particular  phase  of  early  Christianity  and  which  would 
indicate  the  origin  and  date  of  the  writing.  The  book  is  by  no 
means  colourless,  either  in  its  religious  or  its  moral  aspects, 
but  it  is,  for  the  most  part,  of  very  general  applicability,  a  trait 
which  gives  it  its  curiously  modern  sound.    This  circumstance 


28  JAMES 

has  given  rise  to  a  great  divergence  of  critical  opinion  about 
the  book,  and  the  task  of  the  critic  is  to  find  the  place  and  time 
at  which  the  absence  of  such  references  can  be  best  accounted 
for  without  doing  injustice  to  the  few  positive  indications  which 
the  book  contains. 

It  is,  indeed,  true  that  in  a  tract  like  this,  not  sent  to  meet 
the  needs  of  any  particular  moment  or  crisis  in  a  definite  church, 
but  aiming  at  the  edification  of  any  Christians  into  whose  hands 
it  might  fall,  a  general  treatment  and  but  little  allusion  to 
specific  conditions  might  be  expected.  Further,  in  any  short 
tract  of  practical  rather  than  systematic  character  not  all  sides 
of  the  writer's  thought  will  be  represented.  Yet  in  James  the 
discussion  relates  to  so  great  a  number  of  eminently  concrete 
matters,  and  takes  in  so  wide  a  range  of  religious  thought,  that 
it  can  hardly  fail  to  give  us  a  tolerable  notion  of  the  main 
ideas  which  were  most  important  to  the  writer's  religious  life. 
In  this  respect  it  will  bear  comparison  with  many  of  the  epistles 
of  Paul  or  the  Apostolic  Fathers.  We  have  a  right  to  believe 
that  the  epistle  offers  a  picture,  not  indeed  complete,  but  yet 
fair  and  trustworthy,  of  the  writer's  religious  position.  And 
for  that,  as  well  as  for  the  outward  circumstances  in  which  he 
wrote,  the  silences  of  the  epistle  are  highly  significant  and  must 
be  given  full  weight. 

The  historical  background  of  the  epistle  has  two  aspects: 
(a)  the  religious  ideas  which  underlie  the  writer's  practical  re- 
ligious exhortations,  and  (b)  the  general  character  and  situation 
of  the  Christians,  as  known  to  the  writer  and  implied  in  the  book. 

(c)  The  Ideas. 

The  writer's  religious  position  is  fundamentally  that  of  later 
Judaism.  But  it  is  to  be  observed  that  herein  he  shows  no 
trait  of  specific  "Jewish  Christianity,"  such  as  would  distin- 
guish him  from  early  Christians  generally,  whether  of  Jemsh 
or  Gentile  origin.  He  nowhere  betrays  any  pride  in  or  loyalty 
to  the  Jewish  people  (contrast  Paul,  Rom.  9'-^,  Eph.  2"-i-,  etc.), 
never  hints  at  any  duties  to  the  temple  or  its  sacrifices,  gives 
no  sign  that  he  observes  or  values  the  Pharisaic  ideals  of  puri- 


THE  EPISTLE  29 

fication  or  the  Sabbath  or  the  dietary  regulations.  This  might, 
indeed,  be  explained  as  due  to  full  agreement  among  the  Jewish 
Christians  who  constituted  his  environment,  so  that  these  fun- 
damental things  could  be  taken  for  granted  and  hence  were 
not  alluded  to.  And  the  same  reason  can  be  given  for  the 
absence  of  any  reference  to  circumcision  or  to  the  exclusive 
privileges  of  the  Jews  in  the  favour  of  God.  Yet  even  so,  these 
omissions  prove  that  the  question  of  whether  it  was  or  was  not 
necessary  for  Christians  (or  even  for  Jewish  Christians)  to  be 
circumcised  and  observe  the  Mosaic  law  was  not  an  important 
subject  of  dispute  in  those  places  at  that  time.  The  writer  is 
simply  not  concerned  about  faithfulness  in  these  matters ;  they 
do  not  occur  to  him  (c/.  chs.  4,  5)  as  points  at  which  lack  of 
complete  devotion  to  God  may  naturally  show  itself.  Either, 
then,  he  did  not  hold  to  those  things  which  marked  off  "Jewish 
Christians,"  properly  so  called,  from  other  Christians,  or  else 
no  controversy  about  them  touched  his  circle.  The  latter  pos- 
sibility is  unlikely,  because  in  a  body  of  Jewish  Christians  who 
were  so  completely  devoted  to  these  aspects  of  Judaism  as  would 
in  that  case  be  supposed  (r/.  Acts  2120),  it  is  unlikely  that  a 
writing  of  this  practical  tendency  would  be  wholly  devoid  of 
any  reference  to  them.  On  the  other  hand,  a  strong  Jewish 
substratum,  such  as  we  find  here,  was  common  to  early  Chris- 
tianity at  Gentile  as  well  as  at  Jewish  centres.  We  may  fairly  I 
conclude  that  the  writer  was  not  a  partisan  "Jewish  Christian." 
The  writer's  main  ideas  of  Jewish  origin  can  easily  be  put  to- 
gether from  the  epistle.  They  are  by  no  means  meagre,  and 
touch  on  many  sides  of  religion.  He  believes  in  one  God,  the 
creator  and  father  of  men  (2^^  3^)  and  of  the  universe  (i"), 
who  is  holy  (i"),  from  whom  only  good  gifts  come  to  men,  and 
who  is  the  source  of  all  good  (i^>  ^'),  in  whose  hands  are  all  our 
ways  (415).  God  is  merciful  (5"),  hears  prayer  (1=*-^  4-  '■  5"-^*), 
forgives  sin  (51^'  ^o).  A  Judgment  is  coming  upon  all  men  {2^^ 
412  55. 9)^  and  it  is  our  duty  strictly  to  observe  God's  law 
( 1 21-25  28-12  411)^  of  which  a  knowledge  has  been  given  us  and 
by  which  we  shall  be  judged  (2^-).  A  favourable  issue  for  any 
man  in  this  Judgment  is  called  "justification"  {z-^-  ■*  '■).    To  j 


30  JAMES 

I  be  "saved"  and  to  be  "justified"  seem  to  refer  to  the  same 
experience  (2^*-  ^*,  cf.  i^i  412  520).  The  Avriter  plainly  thinks  of 
this  justification  as  given  to  a  sincerely  good  man  who  loves 
God  (1^2  2^).  Such  a  man  will  be  repentant  for  his  imperfec- 
tions (5"),  and  will  receive  the  forgiveness  (51*)  of  a  merciful 
Lord  and  Father  (3^).  It  is,  of  course,  assumed  that  the  persons 
in  question  are,  or  profess  to  be,  men  of  faith  (2^^  ^■),  members 
of  the  people  of  God  (i^) ;  the  writer  is  not  thinking  of  heathen, 
nor  discussing  the  question  of  the  eternal  destiny  of  Socrates. 
Those  who  love  God  can  look  forward  to  life  as  their  crown  of 
reward  (i^^)  ^nd  to  the  inheritance  of  a  kingdom  (2^). 

To  possess  the  Law  of  God,  which  is  able  to  save  our  souls 
(i^i),  is  a  privilege  and  joy  (i^^  2^"^).  In  this  law  the  ten  com- 
mandments and  other  precepts  of  the  O.  T.  occupy  a  chief 
place  (2^-"),  however  much  they  may  or  may  not  be  supple- 
mented by  other  teaching  and  by  Christian  interpretation. 

The  devil  (4'^)  and  our  own  wicked  impulses  (i^^  ^■)  bring  us 
to  sin,  and  all  men  do  sin  (3-) ;  unforgiven  sin  issues  in  death 
(ji5  ^20)^  aj^(j  lY^Q  torment  of  a  future  punishment  is  mentioned 
(5^-^).  God  requires  complete  devotion  (esp.  4^"^°),  a  faith  in 
himself  which  does  not  waver  in  its  determination  to  hold  fast 
to  him  (i^-^)  in  spite  of  trials  (i--*-  ^2),  A  sharp  contrast  exists 
between  God  and  the  world  (4^),  heaven  and  earth  (3^^,  and 
with  the  world  and  the  earth  the  writer  associates  the  realm  of 
demons  (3^^). 

Wisdom  is  a  gift  of  God,  and  that  it  is  indispensable  for  men 
in  general,  and  particularly  for  teachers  (3^^'^'),  is  taken  for 
granted  (i^).  Among  the  duties  prominent  in  the  writer's  mind 
are  care  for  the  poor,  sick,  and  needy  (i^^  2^''-  5^^),  attention 
to  the  erring  (5^*^),  impartiality  to  poor  and  rich  (2*-*),  peace- 
ableness  and  gentleness  (120  f.  ^"-is),  manifold  self-restraint  in 
speech  {1^^  32-12  4H-12  ^9. 12)^ 

The  writer  has  a  strong  sense  of  human  personal  responsi- 
bility, of  the  importance  of  man's  will,  and  of  his  power  by  God's 
help  to  put  forth  moral  effort  and  succeed  in  the  achievement  of 
character.  Good  works  (there  is  no  hint  that  among  these 
he  includes  ritual  or  Pharisaic  acts  of  piety,  but,  on  the  other 


THE  EPISTLE  3 1 

hand,  no  clear  indication  that  he  consciously  rejects  them)  are 
necessary  to  please  God  (i^^-  ^^  a^^.  i*-26  313).  a  living  faith 
can  be  recognised  by  the  good  works  of  the  believer  (2^^).  It 
does  not  exist  where  there  are  no  accompanying  works.  Faith 
without  works  is  dead. 

For  a  striking  statement  of  the  general  attitude  of  the  Jew  in  these 
matters,  see  C.  G.  Montefiore,  Judaism  and  St.  Paul,  1914,  pp.  34-44. 
The  whole  description  given  by  Montefiore  of  the  religious  attitude  of 
the  average  rabbinical  Jew  would  in  most  respects  well  sum  up  the 
fundamental  ideas  of  the  Epistle  of  James. 

The  language  of  James  can  be  illustrated  at  countless  points  from 
Philo,  as  the  commentary  shows,  but  not  even  the  contrcist  of  heavenly 
and  earthly  (3'0  shows  any  real  contact  with  the  specific  ideas  of  Philo's 
Hellenistic  Judaism. 

The  poor  and  lowly  have  been  chosen  by  God  for  his  own 
(2^),  and  have  high  privilege  (i*) ;  the  rich  are  fortunate  only 
when  they  lose  their  wealth  (i^''),  they  are  selfish,  lacking  in  the 
requisite  complete  devotion  to  God,  and  cruel  (5^"®) ;  and  God 
hates  the  proud  (4'^'  ^°).  The  desire  for  riches  and  pleasure 
leads  to  every  evil  (4^-^)  and  alienates  from  God  (4''). 

Certain  Jewish  religious  ideas,  it  will  be  noticed,  are  absent 
here  (besides  the  omissions  already  mentioned) ,  including  some, 
like  the  Spirit  of  God  and  angels,  which  had  an  important  place 
in  the  Christian  inheritance  from  Judaism.  But  the  whole  con- 
stitutes a  substantial  and  inclusive  system  of  religious  thought, 
and  it  is  noteworthy  how  many  religious  ideas  are  introduced 
in  so  short  a  tract.  In  discussing  a  moderate  number  of  topics, 
the  writer  has  found  occasion  to  reveal  with  surprising  fulness 
his  positive  religious  conceptions  and  beliefs.  In  such  a  docu- 
ment, as  will  be  seen  later,  conspicuous  omissions  are  likely  not 
to  be  accidental,  but  to  indicate  the  absence  of  the  ideas  from 
the  writer's  thinking  or,  at  any  rate,  their  relative  unimpor- 
tance for  his  vital  religion. 

In  addition  to  this  Jewish  body  of  thought  the  epistle  con- 
tains a  few  references  to  specifically  Christian  beliefs.  The 
writer  describes  himself  (lO  as  "a  worshipper  of  the  Lord  Jesus 


32  JAMES 

Christ" ;  the  faith  which  he  shares  with  his  readers  is  "in  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  of  glory"  {2^).  As  with  Paul,  it  is  not  easy 
to  be  sure  when  "the  Lord"  refers  to  God  and  when  to  Christ, 
but  the  writer  bids  his  readers  continue  in  the  hope  of  "the 
coming  of  the  Lord,"  evidently  meaning  Christ  (5^"^).  That  he 
also  means  Christ  by  "the  Lawgiver  and  Judge"  (4^^),  and 
"the  Judge"  (5')  is  perhaps  not  hkely,  but  the  fair  name  which 
they  bear  and  which  is  blasphemed  by  the  rich  who  oppress 
them  (2O  is  undoubtedly  that  of  Christ,  and  it  is  probably  in 
his  name  (5^^)  that  the  elders  anointed  the  sick  with  oil.  Jesus, 
then,  is  the  Messiah,  and  is  Lord ;  he  abides  in  divine  glory,  and 
will  come  to  judge  all  men  and  save  those  who  love  God.  The 
Christians  are  probably  meant  by  the  first-fruits  of  God's  crea- 
tures (i^*),  whom  he  begat  by  his  word  of  truth,  that  is,  by  the 
complete  revelation  of  his  law  in  the  form  in  which  Christian 
understanding  receives  it.  They  have  now  taken  the  place, 
and  received  the  attributes,  formerly  held  by  the  Jews  as  the 
people  of  God  (i^). 

These  Christian  references  are  not  very  numerous,  but  they 
are  unmistakable,  and  relate  to  the  most  fundamental  points 
of  primitive  Christian  belief.  As  is  natural,  it  is  chiefly, 
though  not  exclusively,  in  Christian  connections  that  the  es- 
chatological  side  of  the  writer's  thought  comes  out.  The  Chris- 
tian elements  are  entirely  germane  to  the  ideas  of  Jewish  origin 
and  fuse  with  the  latter  in  one  consistent  and  comprehensible 
system. 

That  the  Epistle  of  James  was  written  not  by  a  Christian  at  all  but 
by  a  Jew,  and  that  it  has  suffered  interpohxtion  at  i'  and  2',  is  elaborately 
argued  in  the  valuable  book  of  F.  Spitta,  Der  Brief  des  Jakobus,  1896 ; 
and  the  same  idea  was  independently  worked  out  by  L.  Massebieau, 
"L'epitre  de  Jacques  est-elle  I'oeuvre  d'un  Chretien? "  in  Revue  de  VHis- 
toire  des  Religions,  xxxii,  1895,  pp.  249-283.  Hardly  a  single  scholar 
besides  these  two  has  been  led  to  adopt  the  theory.  The  reasons 
which  have  seemed  decisive  against  it  are  the  following : 

(i)  The  interpolation  of  the  words  referring  to  Christ  in  i'  is  not 
yi  suggested  by  anything  in  the  sentence.     In  2>  the  phrase  is,  indeed, 

awkward,  but  is  not  intolerable. 

(2)  The  passages  of  the  epistle  interpreted  above  as  Christian  are 
an  integral  part  of  the  structure  of  the  letter,  and  in  the  case  of  most 


jA-^ 


THE  EPISTLE  33 

of  them  Spitta's  attempt  to  show  that  the  language  was  equally  pos- 
sible for  a  Jew  is  unsuccessful.  Note  also  the  surely  Christian  refer- 
ence to  "the  elders  of  the  church"  (51^.  Again,  if  the  discussion  of 
faith  and  works  in  2^^-"-^  implies  a  polemic  against  Paul  or  Paulinists, 
that  is  conclusive  for  the  Christian  origin  of  the  epistle;  and  the 
position  of  recognised  primary  significance  assxmied  for  faith  in  i' 
and  2 5  is  both  characteristic  of  Christian  thinking  and  unlikely  for 
a  non-christian  Jewish  writer. 

(3)  The  epistle  contains  nothing  whatever  which  positively  marks 
it  as  distinctively  Jewish.  There  is  no  sentence  which  a  Jew  could 
have  written  and  a  Christian  could  not ;  its  Jewish  ideas  are  without 
exception  those  that  a  Christian  could  hold.  This  peculiar  stamp  of 
thought  would,  if  Jewish,  be  abnost,  if  not  quite,  without  example 
among  Jewish  writers ;  while  to  suggest  that  the  strictly  Jewish  parts 
have  been  excised  by  the  Christian  interpolator  supposes  a  degree  of 
literary  activity  on  his  part  not  contemplated  in  the  original  theory 
and  dangerous  to  its  integrity.  The  idea  of  a  Christian  editor  largely 
modifying  a  previous  Jewish  document  is  a  theory  which  would  have 
little  to  commend  it  as  against  the  usual  notion  of  a  Christian  writer 
freely  using  congenial  Jewish  material. 

Important  criticisms  of  Spitta's  views  are  those  of  E.  Haupt,  in 
T]ieol.  Stiidien  und  Kritihen,  Ixix,  1896,  pp.  747-768;  Harnack,  CaL, 
i,  1897,  pp.  485-491;  Zahn,  Einleitung,  1897,  §8,  note  7;  Mayor", 
1910,  pp.  cxcii-cciii. 

In  this  system  of  thought,  however,  in  which  the  fundamental 
ideas  of  primitive  Christianity  appear  in  union  with  a  form  of 
Judaism,  simple,  rational,  and  free  from  Jewish  nationalist  and  ^      .  i 

partisan  traits,  we  are  struck  by  the  absence  of  many  elements  '  ■.  i*^ 
which  quickly  became  common,  and  some  which  are  universal,  in 
other  early  Christianity.  First,  and  most  noticeable,  is  the  ab- 
sence of  any  mention  whatever  of  the  death  of  Christ.  There 
is  no  reference  to  it  either  as  constituting  a  problem  (cf.  Lk. 
2413-27^  Acts  223  3I8  173  2623^  I  Cor.  i22),  as  the  means  of  men's 
salvation,  or  even  as  a  significant  event  in  the  history  of  Jesus 
Christ.  In  this  omission  our  author  stands  in  contrast  with 
practically  every  other  writer  of  the  N.  T.  and  with  the  Apos- 
tolic Fathers  save  Hermas,  and  the  substance  of  his  epistle 
forbids  the  explanation  that  he  had  no  occasion  to  make  such 
a  reference.  That  the  writer  thought  of  salvation  as  to  be 
brought  to  believers  through  Christ  at  his  coming  (5^)  is  evi- 
3 


34  JAMES 

dent,  but  it  is  equally  plain  that  he  had  no  vivid  consciousness, 
and  perhaps  no  clear  thought  at  all,  of  any  relation  of  Christ's 
death  to  God's  saving  grace. 

Here  we  have  a  striking  contrast  to  Paul.  And  this  contrast 
is  borne  out  by  other  omissions.  Paul's  doctrine  held  to  a 
radical  change  produced  by  faith.  The  old  man  is  put  oflf, 
the  Christian  has  become  a  new  creature,  he  is  no  longer  in  the 
flesh  but  in  the  Spirit,  and  Christ  dwells  in  him,  he  is  free  from 
bondage  to  sin,  is  already  justified,  and  may  count  on  complete 
salvation  through  the  power  of  God,  the  supernatural  forces 
meanwhile  showing  their  presence  in  his  new  ability  to  do 
right.  The  realistic  and  literal  meaning  of  all  this  in  Paul's 
thought  is  not  to  be  minimised.  But  of  this  whole  conception 
of  miraculous  entrance  on  a  new  mode  of  existence  through 
complete  transformation  by  an  initiation  nothing  appears  in 
James.  This  whole  method  of  viewing  religion  is  alien  to  his 
way.  He  believes  in  God's  help,  but  without  any  mysticism 
whatever.  And  he  probably  makes  no  reference  to  the  Holy 
^  Spirit  (see  note  on  4^).  The  omission  of  many  of  the  individual 
ideas  which  find  expression  in  Paul's  epistles  would  not  be 
significant,  but  this  broad  contrast  in  the  general  view  of  the 
religious  life  is  important,  for  (apart  from  the  phraseology  of 
James's  discussion  of  faith  and  works)  all  the  positive  ideas  of 
James,  taken  individually,  would  have  been  highly  satisfactory 
to  Paul. 

The  only  exception  to  what  has  just  been  said  of  the  absence 
of  this  essential  side  of  Paul's  thought  from  James  is  the  figure 
of  birth  for  becoming  a  Christian  (i^^).  But  this  is  expressed 
by  a  term  {aireicvr^aev)  not  found  in  Paul  and  foreign  to  the 
technical  use  (ava'yevvr)cn<;)  of  the  early  Gentile  church.  It 
implies  only  that  the  Christians  have  succeeded  to  the  Jew- 
ish privilege  of  "sons  of  God,"  and  does  not  carry  us  into  the 
circle  of  Pauline  ideas  referred  to  above. 

The  use  of  the  term  Lord  ([b]  xiiptoq)  for  Jesus  Christ  (i'  2>  5"-^*), 
although  characteristic  of  Paul,  was  not  original  with  him,  and  marana 
tha  (i  Cor.  16",  Didache  io«)  shows  that  it  had  early  become  current 
with  Aramaic-speaking  Cluristians  and  must  have  been  widely  used. 


THE   EPISTLE  35 

Its  use  does  not  imply  other  Hellenistic  ideas.  See  W.  Bousset,  Kyrios 
Christos,  1913,  p.  103,  note  3  ;  J.  Weiss,  Christiis,  1909  (Eng.  transl. 
1911) ;  H.  Bohlig,  "Zum  BegrifE  Kyrios  bei  Paulus,"  in  Zt.fur  neutest. 
Wissenschaft,  xiv,  1913,  pp.  23-37. 

While  James  and  Paul  thus  stand  in  this  sharp  contrast,  no 
hint  appears  in  James  of  controversy  with  Pauhne  Christianity 
over  the  validity  of  the  Jewish  law,  nor  of  attack  on  Paul 
personally.  In  2^^--^  James  is  not  engaged  in  doctrinal  con- 
troversy, but  is  repelling  the  practical  misuse  which  was  made, 
or  which  might  be  made,  of  Paul's  doctrine  of  justification  by 
faith  alone  in  order  to  excuse  moral  laxity.  James  shows  no 
comprehension  of  what  Paul  actually  meant  by  his  formula ; 
but  the  formula  itself  is  foreign  to  him,  and  he  heartily  dis- 
likes it. 

The  relation  to  Paul  implied  in  2^*--'  is  the  most  discussed  subject  in 
connection  with  the  epistle.  Large  references  to  the  abundant  litera- 
ture may  be  foimd  in  B.  Bartmann,  St.  Paulus  und  St.  Jacobus  uher  die 
Rechtfertigung  (Biblische  Studien,  ii),  1897,  pp.  1-17.  That  James 
wrote  after  Paul's  doctrine  had  become  well  known  to  the  church  must 
be  admitted,  for  he  quotes  exactly  Paul's  formula  (22'.  '^*,  cf.  Gal.  21*, 
Rom.  3"),  and  this  formula  was  the  outgrowth  of  the  most  original 
element  of  Paul's  system  and  is  alien  to  earlier  Jewish  thought.  Whether 
James  shows  signs  of  having  gained  his  knowledge  of  Paul  from  actually 
reading  Paul's  epistles  cannot  be  determined.  His  language  is  probably 
capable  of  explanation  on  the  assumption  that  he  had  not  read  them, 
and  his  entire  failure  to  suggest  that  Paul's  formula  could  be  dissociated 
from  its  misuse  shows  at  least  that  he  had  paid  surprisingly  little  atten- 
tion to  Romans  and  Galatians. 

Most  of  the  discussions  of  the  relation  of  James  to  Paul  err  through 
the  inability  of  their  authors  to  separate  themselves  from  modern  the- 
ological issues  and  the  method  of  modern  theological  definition.  Cer- 
tainly James  did  not  understand  Paul's  motive  for  insisting  that  justi- 
fication is  by  faith  alone  and  not  by  works,  and  he  resists  a  doctrine 
which  seems  to  him  to  mean  that  good  conduct  can  safely  be  neglected 
by  a  Christian.  But  he  has  no  idea  of  disparaging  faith,  which  he 
everj^where  assumes  as  present  and  which  he  highly  values.  His  point 
is  that  faith  and  works  are  inseparable  in  any  properly  constituted 
Christian  life,  and  he  argues  this  clearly  and  effectively.  That  he  sup- 
posed the  false  inference,  which  threatened  morality,  to  be  a  necessary 
consequence  of  Paul's  formula  is  not  certain,  though  not  unlikely. 
Paul  himself  would  have  had  no  quarrel  with  James's  positive  con- 


36  JAMES 

tention  about  morality,  although  he  might  have  preferred  to  describe 
good  conduct  as  "the  fruit  of  the  Spirit"  (Gal.  5"')  rather  than  as 
the  evidence  of  a  living  faith  (Jas.  2") ;  but  he  would  have  deplored 
as  utterly  superficial  and  inadequate  James's  mode  of  stating  the  con- 
ditions of  justification. 

There  has  been  much  discussion  as  to  whether  Paul  and  James  meant 
the  same  thing  by  the  terms  "justification,"  "works,"  and  "faith." 
As  to  "justification,"  the  idea  clearly  is  the  same,  although  Paul's  pe- 
culiar use  of  it  in  his  system,  whereby  it  pertains  to  the  initial  moment 
of  the  Christian  life  and  not  merely  to  the  day  of  judgment,  is  wholly 
foreign  to  James.  In  "works"  Paul  would  have  included  the  good 
conduct  to  which  James  refers,  but  when  he  speaks  of  "  works  of  the 
law"  he  often  has  prominently  in  mind  such  ritual  requirements  as 
circumcision,  which  are  not  at  all  what  James  is  referring  to.  As  to 
"faith,"  there  is  no  difference  of  "concept,"  for  James  has  no  special 
"concept"  of  faith,  but  is  talking  of  the  act  or  state  popularly  called 
faith ;  it  is  not  a  question  of  definition,  but  of  observation.  If  it  be 
true  that  Paul  would  have  denied  the  name  of  faith  to  the  "dead" 
faith  of  which  James  speaks,  that  is  because  he  had  changed  and  en- 
larged the  connotation,  and  so  reduced  the  denotation,  of  the  term. 
Paul  and  James  move  in  this  matter  in  different  circles  of  thought,  and 
the  attempt  to  superimpose  one  circle  on  the  other  in  order  to  deter- 
mine their  agreement  or  disagreement  in  detail  is  futile.  They  can  be 
compared  only  in  the  large.  Then  it  appears  that  the  two  writers  are 
at  one  on  the  moral  question;  and  that  the  substance  of  James's  own 
theology  is  all  contained  in  Paul's,  while  he  lacks  everything  that 
made  Paul's  view  distinctive  and  original.  The  same  relation  sub- 
sists here  that  appears  in  nearly  every  other  comparison  between 
James  and  kindred  thinkers. 

As  there  is  no  contact,  friendly  or  otherwise,  with  the  Hellen- 
istic, or  mystical,  side  of  Paul's  thought  and  no  controversy 
with  Paul  personally,*  so  there  is  naturally  no  suggestion  either 
of  gnostic  tendencies  or  of  polemic  against  them.  In  the  Johan- 
nine  literature  gnosticising  conceptions  everywhere  affect  the 
method  of  thought,  even  though  a  vigorous  argument  is  carried 
on  against  the  results  of  their  dangerous  tendencies.  James 
lives  in  a  different  atmosphere. 

Allusion  to  gnostic  tendency  has  been  found  in  the  contrast  of  true 

and  false  wisdom  (3"-"),  the  word  'i^ux^'f-'h  (3"),  the  use  of  -ziXtioq 

\_{i*.  1'.  "32)^  tiie  blame  of  God  for  temptation  (i"),  the  disrespect  for 

♦Neither  2"  nor  ch.  3  can  possibly  have  reference  to  Paul. 


THE  EPISTLE  37 

and  judging  of  the  law  (4'i,  Cerdon  and  Marcion),  the  misuse  of  the 
Pauline  doctrine  of  faith  {2^*--^) ;  but  no  one  of  these  implies  such  no- 
tions. See  Pfleiderer,  Urchristentum"-,  1902,  ii,  545-547,  for  a  statement 
of  that  view,  which  has  exercised  considerable  influence;  cj.  Grafe, 
Slellung  und  Bedeutung  des  Jakobiisbricfcs,  1904,  p.  44. 

There  is  no  inclination  to  asceticism  in  the  epistle,  for  the 
praise  of  the  poor  and  condemnation  of  the  rich  and  the  re- 
quirement of  a  radical  choice  between  God  and  the  world  are 
no  more  ascetic,  in  any  proper  sense  of  the  term,  than  are  the 
sayings  of  Jesus  on  these  subjects.  No  sacramental  tendency 
shows  itself.  No  speculative  interest  appears  in  any  direction. 
The  eschatology  is  incidental  and  undeveloped.  And  the  post- 
apostolic  notion  sometimes  ascribed  to  James,  of  Christianity 
as  a  body  of  doctrine  to  be  believed  ("the  faith,"  "fides  quae 
creditur"),  and  correspondingly  of  faith  as  an  "  intellectualistic  " 
acceptance  of  propositions,  is  not  at  all  the  "dead"  faith  of 
which  James  speaks.*  The  demons'  faith  in  one  God  stands, 
in  fact,  at  the  opposite  pole  from  this  "  intellectualism  "  ;  for  as 
a  faith  in  God's  existence  and  power  it  is  sincere  and  real ;  its 
fault  Kes  in  its  complete  divorce  from  love  or  an  obedient  will. 

When  we  make  a  comparison  with  the  Apostolic  Fathers  the 
positive  traits  which  give  definite  character  to  the  thinking  of 
every  one  of  them  are  all  lacking  in  James.  Most  of  these  have 
been  included  in  the  summary  of  things  absent  already  given, 
but  the  entire  absence  of  allegory  is  a  striking  addition  that  can 
be  made  to  the  list.  Indeed,  James  exhibits  not  one  distinctly 
marked  individual  theological  tendency  which  would  set  liim 
in  positive  relation  to  any  of  the  strong  forces  either  of  the 
apostoUc  or  of  the  post- apostolic  period.  His  simple-minded 
and  robust  emphasis  on  the  power  and  duty  of  a  right  funda- 
mental choice  and  of  right  action,  and  his  way  of  describing  his 
religion  as  God-given  "law,"  are  the  two  most  distinctive  the- 
ological ideas  in  the  epistle.  The  latter  of  these  has,  indeed, 
reminded  critics  of  the  doctrine  of  the  new  law  and  the  new 
Lawgiver  in  the  Apostolic  Fathers  and  elsewhere.f    But  James 

*  This  error  is  common  and  has  led  to  many  unwise  inferences  about  relative  dates, 
t  For  instance,  cf.  Boussct,  Kyrios  Chrislos,  pp.  361,  note  3,  36S-373;   F.  Loofs,  LeilfaJen 
zumStudium  der Dosmengeschichle*,  pp.92/.  118, 123/. 


38  JAMES 

does  not  make  this  the  starting-point  of  a  theology,  or  an  im- 
portant principle  of  his  christology.  No  more  does  he  carry 
what  might  readily  have  become  a  doctrine  of  works  and  of  the 
human  will  a  step  beyond  the  simple  expression  of  sincere  moral 
earnestness.  The  many  parallels  between  James  and  the  Apos- 
tolic Fathers*  are  due  to  the  share  that  both  have  in  the  com- 
mon stock  of  moral  and  religious  ideas  which  Christianity  took 
over  from  Judaism ;  they  are  given  a  false  prominence  by  the 
lack  in  James  of  distinctive  religious  ideas  which  would  have 
sharply  marked  him  off  from  these  kindred  thinkers. 

A  large  dependence  on  the  sayings  of  Jesus  in  the  Synoptic 
Gospels  has  often  been  found  in  the  epistle.  An  exhaustive 
list  and  full  discussion  of  those  parallels  is  given  by  Spitta.  j 
Most  of  them,  as  Spitta  rightly  contends,  have  no  bearing  on 
the  question,  being  merely  verbal  or  else  due  only  to  common 
relation  to  Jewish  ideas.  The  following,  however,  are  worth 
noting;    the  context  should  be  examined  in  each  case. 

/i^'^     \i  l/       J^^'  ^°'  "''TsiTU . . .  y.al  So6Tjff£Tat       Mt.  7',  Lk.     11':    ahslzt    xal    SoOi^aeTat 

Jas.  2^:  TOLx;  TCTWXoi? .  • .  x.X-r)po-       I\It.  5':  [xaxaptot  o'l  xtcoxoI  fy  xveu[JiaTt, 
vofxoui;  TTJi;  ^aatXeta?.  oxt  auxwv  laxtv  t)  PaatXeta  twv  oupavwv, 

C/.  Lk.   6-°   (OC  TCTWXOt)- 

Jas.  3";  Toli;  -rcotouatv  etpTjvrjv.  Mt.   5°:  [Jixxaptoi  ot  sipiQVOTCotoi. 

Jas.  4<:  [AocxaXfSe?.  Mk.  8^':   ev  Tfj  y^^s?  xkutt]  t^  [jiotxaXfSc 

(c/.  Mt.  i2'9  16O. 

Jai.  51-':    aye   vuv   ol    xXoujiot       Lk.  6=*:  xXt)v  oual  ufxtv  toIs  xXouat'ot?,  oxt 
>txX.  ax^X^xe  xtJv  xapavtXrjatv  utxuv. 

Jas.  512  (oaths).  Mt.  s^^-". 

Some  of  these  parallels  (especially  the  last  one)  may  well  be 
cases  of  direct  influence  from  a  word  of  Jesus,  and  there  may 
also  be  influence  from  his  words  hidden  in  some  of  the  slighter 
parallels.     But  more  significant  than  these  single  and  disputable 

•  Conveniently  collected  in  Mayor,  ch.  2.  \  Der  Brief  dcs  Jakobus,  1896,  pp.  155-183. 


THE  EPISTLE  39 

points  is  the  broad  fact  that  we  find  James  following  some  of 
the  larger  interests  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels  and  entirely  un- 
touched by  others.  His  ever-recurring  insistence  on  doing, 
both  in  itself  and  in  contrast  to  merely  hearing  or  saying,  rep- 
resents the  same  type  of  religion  which  has  so  chosen  the 
sayings  in  the  Gospels  (especially  Matthew)  as  to  emphasise 
exactly  the  same  point.  ^Mt.  721-23,  Lk.  6^«,  Mt.  72^-",  Lk. 
547-49^  Mt.  25'1-^S  etc.)  So  also  with  the  value  set  on  poverty 
and  the  warning  to  the  rich,  with  the  injunctions  to  prayer, 
to  complete  devotion  to  God  (Mt.  6^^-^*),  to  restraint  in  judging 
and  in  unkind  speech,  and  with  other  topics.  These  are  mostly 
ideas  natural  to  devout  Judaism ;  the  point  to  be  noted  is  the 
special  and  strong  interest  in  them  found  ahke  in  the  compilers 
of  the  Gospels  (or  of  their  source)  and  in  James.  Yet  equally 
conspicuous  is  James's  omission  of  some  of  the  chief  motives 
which  have  produced  the  Synoptic  Gospels.  Not  only  does  he, 
like  other  early  writers,  but  in  more  complete  measure  than 
they,  fail  to  use  the  traits  of  Jesus'  life  and  character,  even  where 
they  would  have  been  particularly  apt  for  reinforcement  of 
moral  and  religious  appeal,  but  the  absence  of  the  term  Son  of 
Man,  and  of  the  idea  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  as  an  important 
structural  element  in  his  thought,  separate  James  from  the 
Synoptic  type  on  the  side  of  the  sayings,  while  the  comparative 
absence  of  eschatological  interest  and  the  entire  absence  of  in- 
terest in  the  death  of  Christ  (those  great  commanding  topics 
which  so  largely  dominate  the  Markan  side  of  the  Synoptic 
tradition)  forbid  the  supposition  that  from  the  same  circle  and 
age  could  have  come  both  a  gospel  like  Matthew  or  Luke  (to 
say  nothing  of  Mark)  and  the  Epistle  of  James.  James  was  in 
religious  ideas  nearer  to  the  men  who  collected  the  sayings  of 
Jesus  than  to  the  authors  of  the  Gospels,  but  his  religious  in- 
terests are  not  identical  with  those  of  either  group. 

{b)  The  Situation. 

We  must  now  turn  to  the  general  character  and  situation  of 
the  Christians  whose  needs  and  tendencies  guided  the  compo- 
sition of  the  epistle.     Here  we  get  no  help  from  the  address 


40  JAMES 

in  i^.  The  tract  is  not  a  letter  sent  to  a  definite  group  of  in- 
dividuals, and  by  "the  twelve  tribes  in  the  dispersion"  were 
meant  any  Christians  anywhere  who  might  read  the  book.  We 
have  to  suppose  that  the  author  has  in  view  general  Christian 
conditions,  as  he  knew  them  where  he  lived  and  as  he  supposed 
them  to  exist  elsewhere. 

The  Christians  who  are  in  mind  evidently  consisted  mainly 
of  poor  and  humble  folk,  living  along  with  other  persons  much 
better  off  who  appear  to  have  beeti  large  farmers  (5^) ;  travelling 
traders  are  also  a  familiar  class  (4^'^).  These  Christians  are 
subject  to  troubles  such  as  might  shake  their  faith  in  Providence 
(i^),  but  are  not  represented  as  exposed  to  any  direct  religious 
persecution.  The  rich,  indeed,  are  mostly  hostile  to  Christian- 
ity, and  are  oppressors  of  the  poor  through  the  courts  and  by 
other  methods  (2'^^-  5^),  but  nothing  indicates  that  their  op- 
pression was  religious  persecution. 

In  I"  the  rich  man  is  a  brother,  but  apparently  exceptional  (cf.  2') ; 
in  2'  the  rich  man  is  not  a  Christian,  and  the  rich  of  2^  blaspheme  the 
Christian  name,  while  the  apostrophe  of  51-^  is  clearly  addressed  to 
non-christians. 

The  traits  of  these  Christians,  so  far  as  mentioned  in  the 
epistle,  are  easily  comprehensible.  The  writer  offers,  indeed, 
no  praise  of  his  readers  such  as  would  be  found  in  a  Pauline  let- 
ter ;  but  that  is  part  of  its  character  as  a  diatribe.  They  have 
certain  moral  dangers,  they  need  encouragement  and  warning ; 
but  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  conditions  known 
to  the  writer  were  those  of  any  conspicuous  demoralisation  or 
monstrous  worldliness.  If  some  relied  on  their  Christian  pro- 
fession to  make  up  for  defect  in  Christian  practise,  the  crime 
which  draws  out  that  censure  is,  after  all,  nothing  graver  than 
an  excessive  civility  and  truckling  to  rich  strangers  who  ap- 
peared at  their  church  meeting.  Their  quarrelsome  propensi- 
ties seem  to  have  been  strongly  developed  in  both  word  and 
act  (3'f-  ^■■''"'  4^"^'  "  5'),  but  more  is  not  implied  than  the  ordi- 
nary frictions  and  wrong  speeches  of  decent,  but  somewhat  un- 
governed,  people. 


THE  EPISTLE  41 

Nothing  worse  is  indicated  here  than  took  place  at  Thessa- 
lonica,  at  Corinth,  at  Phihppi,  at  Jerusalem,  in  the  earliest  years 
of  those  churches,  and  we  have  no  right  to  infer  from  the  faults 
of  James's  readers  a  relatively  late  stage  in  their  Christian  his- 
tory. Nothing  in  the  epistle,  it  is  true,  refers  to  them  as  if 
they  had  lately  come  from  Judaism  or  heathenism,  or  breathes 
the  fresh  enthusiasm  of  a  newly  planted  church,  and  the  sense 
of  the  very  recent  conversion  of  the  readers  which  is  often  found 
in  Paul  is  lacking  (so  even  i^*).  But  it  is  wrong  to  say  that 
a  condition  of  Christian  life  is  here  indicated  so  secularised 
as  to  imply  a  very  long  lapse  of  time  since  these  Christian 
churches  were  founded. 

That  these  Christians  lived  among  Jews,  not  as  mission  out- 
posts among  the  heathen,  and  were  themselves  Jews,  is  the  im- 
plication of  the  whole  epistle.  There  is  no  reference  to  idolatry, 
to  slaves,  to  a  generally  accepted  lax  standard  of  sexual  mo- 
rality, to  any  surroimding  heathenism.  In  a  heathen  city  their 
difficulties  would  have  been  likely  to  come  from  the  police,  or 
from  neighbours  poor  like  themselves  and  jealous;  here  the 
oppression  is  from  the  rich,  who  maltreat  their  work-people. 
The  apostrophe  to  the  rich  (s^-^)  is  in  language  full  of  allusion 
to  the  0.  T.,  as  if  those  who  are  attacked  might  be  expected 
(if  they  would  but  read)  to  feel  the  force  of  an  appeal  to  the 
impartial  severity  of  the  Lord  of  Sabaoth  in  the  Judgment  and 
to  the  torments  of  fire  in  the  last  days.  The  Christian  assem- 
bly is  called  a  "synagogue  " — not,  perhaps,  a  decisive  piece  of 
evidence,  but  yet  significant  in  confirmation  of  the  rest.  The 
picture  in  s^*-^^  of  the  visit  of  the  elders  to  the  sick  man  with 
oil  and  prayer  and  confession  is  a  curiously  exact  reproduction 
of  what  Jewish  writers  tell  of  Jewish  ways.  The  sense  of  the 
pressing  duty  of  almsgiving  and  of  visiting  the  unfortunate  are 
traits  of  a  Jewish  community.  The  knowledge  of  the  O.  T. 
everywhere  assumed  proves,  however,  no  more  here  than  at 
Corinth  (r/,  Clement  of  Rome),  and  the  writer's  familiarity 
with  Jewish  midrashic  embellishment  of  the  O.  T.  stories  (5^0 
is  significant  rather  for  him  than  for  his  readers. 

That  the  conditions  were  those  of  Palestine  seems  directly  im- 


42  JAMES 

plied  by  the  reference  (5O  to  "  the  early  and  latter  [rain]."  Only 
in  Palestine  among  the  countries  that  come  in  question  do  the 
seasonal  conditions  produce  the  intensity  of  anxious  hope  to 
which  this  verse  refers.  By  reason  of  just  that  intensity  of 
feeling  (as  well  as  because  of  the  comparative  inconspicuousness 
of  the  few  O.  T.  passages  where  these  rains  are  mentioned) 
the  phrase  has  every  appearance  of  being  not  a  literary  allusion 
but  a  reference  to  a  familiar  fact  of  daily  life.  If  the  word 
KaixTwv  in  i^^  means  the  sirocco,  that  would  suit  the  climate 
of  Palestine,  or  of  other  Oriental  regions,  but  the  word  may 
mean  merely  "heat"  and  so  give  no  specific  implication. 

These  Palestinian  Jewish  Christians  formed  an  established  re- 
ligious body,  with  a  regular  meeting,  doubtless  both  for  instruc- 
tion and  for  worship  {cf.  i^^--^),  of  which  no  secret  was  made 
and  which  outsiders  were  more  than  welcome  to  visit.  They 
were  numerous  enough  to  be  a  community  (not  necessarily, 
nor  probably,  segregated  from  the  rest  of  the  city  or  village) 
in  which  social  vices  and  virtues  could  exist  (so  eV  vixlv  41-3 
513-16).  They  had  elders  (5^**),  but  there  is  no  mention  of  bishops 
or  deacons.  They  also  had  "teachers"  (3O,  a  class  to  which 
the  writer  himself  belonged,  which  is  well  known  in  early  Chris- 
tianity, and  which  persisted  in  Palestine  until  the  third  century 
{cf.  Ps.-Clement,  Epistles  to  Virgins).  What  ch.  3  indicates 
concerning  the  functions  and  character  of  these  teachers,  as 
well  as  about  the  ideals  to  be  cherished  by  them,  need  not  be 
here  recited. 

The  general  state  of  the  country  and  the  relations  of  these 
churches  with  their  Jewish  neighbours  (other  than  the  rich)  are 
but  little  touched  on  in  the  epistle.  The  impression  through- 
out the  tract  is  of  a  settled  condition  of  affairs.  There  is  no 
indication  of  war  or  of  public  disturbance  or  calamity ;  no 
allusion  is  made  to  the  Jewish  war  or  to  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem.  Agriculture  and  trade  appear  to  be  carried  on  in 
peace;  the  uncertainties  of  life  are  those  of  ordinary  peaceful 
times.  There  has  been  opportunity  for  the  Christian  churches 
to  grow  and  estabhsh  themselves — mainly  through  winning 
converts  among  the  humbler  classes.     Nothing  in  the  epistle 


THE  EPISTLE  43 

implies  a  time  of  very  active  missionary  work.  The  rich  who 
blaspheme  are  evidently  for  the  most  part  out  of  reach  of  Chris- 
tian influence  (2^-'') ;  if  one  of  them  comes  to  the  Christian 
meeting  a  flutter  of  officious  attention  arises  in  the  congrega- 
tion. Argumentative  apologetics  do  not  show  themselves  in 
any  way,  whether  in  the  choice  or  the  treatment  of  religious 
topics — the  contrast  here  to  the  writings  of  Paul  is  striking. 
Nor  does  any  acute  crisis  in  the  relations  of  Christians  and 
non-christians  appear  to  exist ;  one  would  infer  that  the  Chris- 
tians, although  very  possibly  disliked,  were  tolerated  and  free 
to  maintain  their  own  activity  and  inner  life,  with  their  own 
officials  and  constituency,  under  the  instruction  of  their  own 
teachers.  The  Christians'  relations  to  non-christian  neighbours 
who  worship  the  same  God  and  Father  appear  to  be  peaceful ; 
they  can  well  be  ruled  by  the  same  counsels  which  are  primarily 
given  with  reference  to  mutual  relations  among  Christians. 

B.  Weiss  has  advanced  an  ingenious  but  untenable  view,  which 
is  clearly  and  fully  stated  in  his  Jakobusbrief  und  die  neuere  Kritik, 
1904,  esp.  pp.  17^.  He  holds  that  ch.  3  of  the  epistle  is  intended  to 
correct  unwise  missionary  methods  {"falscher  Bekehrungseifer")  on  the 
part  of  the  Christians.  Out  of  these,  he  thinks,  arose  also  the  internal 
troubles  of  which  ch.  4  speaks.  Nothing  in  the  epistle  seems  to  me 
to  be  in  accord  with  this  notion.  Weiss  builds  it  on  the  singular  argu- 
ment that  since  there  is  no  indication  in  the  epistle  of  doctrinal  di- 
versities within  the  church  there  was  nothing  that  the  "teachers" 
could  teach  to  their  fellow  Christians.  Hence  they  must  have  been 
missionaries  to  non-christians ! 

Nothing  in  the  epistle  suggests  that  the  writer  is  especially 
familiar  with  conditions  at  Jerusalem. 

§  6.    The  Origin  of  the  Epistle. 
(a)  History  of  Opinion  as  to  the  Author. 

M.  Meinertz,  Der  Jakobusbrief  iind  sein  Verfasser  in  Schrift  und 
Ueberlicfenmg  (Biblische  Studien,  x,  1-3),  Freiburg,  1905;  see  infra, 
pp.  86-109,  "  History  of  the  Epistle  in  the  Church." 

The  views  of  modern  scholars  will  be  found  well  summarised  in 
J.  Moffatt,  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  the  Neiv  Testament,  191 1,  pp. 


44  JAMES 

468-475  ;  Beyschlag,  Der  Brief  des  Jacobus'  (Meyer*),  1897,  pp.  23-27 ; 
see  also  Holtzmann,  Einleilung',  1892,  pp.  336-338;  Zahn,  EinleUung, 
§  8,  with  notes;  Mayor,  ch.  7. 

The  first  word  of  the  epistle  declares  it  to  have  been  written 
by  "James."  But  nothing  indicates  directly  and  explicitly 
which  James  is  meant,  and  it  is  not  even  clear  that  the  author 
is  an  apostle  or  that  he  is  a  person  mentioned  elsewhere  in  the 
N.  T.  The  earliest  known  opinion  on  the  person  of  the  writer 
is  that  of  Origen  (infra,  pp.  92/.),  who  understood  the  author 
to  be  James  the  Lord's  brother.  This  identification  may  well 
have  come  to  him  from  tradition,  and  may  have  been  shared 
by  Clement,  who  probably  was  acquainted  with  the  epistle 
{infra,  pp.  91  /•) ;  but  of  all  that  we  have  no  positive  knowledge 
whatever.  In  any  case,  this  view  became  the  standing  opinion, 
with  but  few  exceptions,  in  the  churches,  Greek,  Latin,  and 
Syrian,  which  successively  adopted  the  epistle  into  their  N.  T. 

Eusebius,  in  stating  that  the  epistle  is  not  accepted  by  some 
churches,  doubtless  had  in  mind  the  Syrians  and  perhaps  the 
Latins,  but  he  does  not  intimate  that  any  one  who  held  to  its 
apostolic  authorship  attributed  it  to  any  other  James  than  the 
Lord's  brother,  and  does  not  imply  that  he  knew  of  any  rival 
positive  tradition.  He  himself  seems  to  have  accepted  the  epis- 
tle, as  did  Jerome,  whose  more  definite  statement  is  probably 
only  a  paraphrase  of  the  remarks  of  Eusebius,  H.  e.  ii,  23. 

Euseb.  H.  e.  ii,  23'^ '■  Totauxa  xal  tA  xaxa;  'lajcw^ov,  o5  t)  xpwTT)  twv 

\iiv,  oO  xoXXol  YoiJv  Tcjv  xaXatuv  aO-u^q  l[xvT5[x6v£uaav. 

H.  e.  iii,  25'  tuv  3'  ivxtXsYOfxevwv,  yvoptixuv  0'  o5v  oixwq  -coti;  ToXkolq, 
■^  XsYoixevT)  'lotxw^ou  ^ige-zoii  xal  -f)  'lotiSa,  15  te  IIsTpou  Beuxlpx  IxtaToX'f) 
xal  fj  ow[La'C,o[i.ivri  SeuT^pa  xal  xptTT)  'Iwavvou. 

Jerome,  De  vir.  ill.  2,  Jacobus  qui  appellatiir  f rater  dominl,  cogno- 
tnento  Justus,  ut  nonnulli  existlmant,  Joseph  ex  alia  iixore,  ut  autcm 
mihi  videlur,  Mariae,  sororis  niatris  domini,  ciijus  Johannes  in  libra 
sua  meminif,  filius,  post  passioncm  domini  statim  ab  apostolis  Hieroso- 
lymorum  episcopus  ordinatus,  unam  tantitm  scripsit  epistulam,  quae  de 
septem  catholicis  est,  quae  et  ipsa  ab  alio  quodarn  sub  nomine  ejus  cdita 
adseritur,  licet  paulatim  tempore  procedente  obtinuerit  auctorilatcm. 

Nearly  all  succeeding  writers  of  ancient  and  mediaeval  times, 
whether  they  follow  the  Epiphanian  or  the  Hieronymian  theory 


THE  EPISTLE 


45 


of  the  personal  relationship  to  Jesus  of  James  the  Lord's  brother, 
ascribe  to  him  the  epistle.  In  most  instances,  indeed,  the  au- 
thor is  referred  to  simply  as  "James  the  apostle,"  but  many 
writers  (e.  g.  Chrysostom,  Andrew  of  Crete,  Rufinus,  Prosper 
of  Aquitaine,  Gregory  of  Tours,  Bede,  Bar-Hebraeus)  make  it 
clear  that  James  the  Lord's  brother  is  intended.  In  a  very 
few  cases  the  author  of  the  epistle  is  taken  to  be  James  son  of 
Zebedee.  Thus  the  tenth  century  (so  Gebhardt)  Latin  Codex 
Corbeiensis  has  a  subscription  to  the  epistle :  Explicit  epistola 
Jacobi  filil  Zcebedei ;  and  a  series  of  Spanish  writers,  headed  by 
Isidore  of  Seville,  t636,  and  running  down  to  the  seventeenth 
century,  have  been  led  by  national  patriotism  to  claim  the 
epistle  for  their  apostle  and  patron,  St.  James  of  Compostella 
(the  son  of  Zebedee).  This  tendency  is  to  be  observed  in  the 
Mqzarabic  liturgy ;  and  through  some  channel  (perhaps  popu- 
lar rather  than  learned)  it  has  reached  Dante  (Paradiso,  xxv,  13- 
18,  29-33,  76-78,  94/-)-  But  in  general  there  was  no  departure 
from  the  traditional  view ;  and  down  to  the  sixteenth  century, 
if  nothing  to  the  contrary  is  indicated,  a  reference  to  "James  the 
apostle"  as  author  of  the  epistle  is  to  be  taken  as  meaning 
James  the  Lord's  brother. 

Meinertz,  op.  cit.  pp.  211-215,  Zahn,  Einleitung,  §  5,  note  3.  The  pref- 
ace to  the  Catholic  epistles  printed  in  the  editio  princeps  of  the  Peshitto 
(ed.  Widmanstad,  1555)  has  not  been  confirmed  from  any  ancient 
S3Triac  Ms.  and  is  probably  no  older  than  that  edition.  It  reads :  "  In 
the  name  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  we  print  three  epistles  of  James, 
Peter,  and  John,  who  were  witnesses  of  the  revelation  of  our  Lord 
when  he  was  transfigured  before  their  eyes  on  Mount  Tabor,  and  who 
saw  Moses  and  EHjah  who  talked  with  him." 

With  the  Reformation  came  criticism  of  the  Epistle  of  James 
and  corresponding  variety  in  the  views  of  its  authorship.  Eras- 
mus and  Cajetan  were  in  doubt,  while  many  Lutherans  wholly 
denied  apostolic  authorship,  and  Luther  himself  was  disposed 
to  ascribe  the  epistle  to  "some  good  pious  man  who  had  taken 
some  sayings  from  the  apostles'  disciples"  {Sammtl.  Werke, 
Erlangen  ed.,  vol.  Ixiii,  p.  157).  The  possibility  that  the  epistle 
was  written  by  James  son  of  Alphaeus  (distinguished  from  the 


46  JAMES 

Lord's  brother)  also  came  into  view.  But  in  the  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth  centuries  Protestant  opinion  settled  back  into 
the  traditional  view,  holding  the  epistle  to  be  genuine  and  to  be 
the  work  of  the  Lord's  brother.  No  Protestant  writer  of  influ- 
ence has  ever  taken  up  the  cause  of  the  son  of  Zebedee,  or  of 
the  son  of  Alphaeus  (as  distinct  from  the  Lord's  brother),  for 
neither  of  which  views,  indeed,  can  anything  be  said. 

For  Roman  Catholic  writers  the  decree  of  the  Council  of 
Trent  merely  determined  that  the  epistle  must  be  accepted  as 
by  an  "apostle  James,"  and  the  obiter  dictum  (Sess.  xiv,  Doc- 
trina  de  sacramento  extremae  unctionis,  ch.  i,  De  institutione  sacra- 
menti  extremae  unctionis)  which  referred  to  extreme  unction  as 
per  Jacohum  autem  apostolum  ac  domini  fratrem  fidelihus  com- 
mendatum  ac  promulgatum,  did  not  restrict  Catholics  to  a  corre- 
sponding view  of  the  epistle.  This  left  room  for  the  Spanish 
opinion  in  favour  of  the  son  of  Zebedee,  as  well  as  for  the 
uncertainty  of  Cornelius  a  Lapide,  ti637,  and  others;  but 
these  exceptions  are  rare,  and  in  the  nineteenth  century  it 
does  not  appear  that  any  Roman  Catholic  writer  on  the 
epistle  attributed  it  to  any  other  author  than  James  the  Lord's 
brother. 

Modern  Protestant  criticism  of  the  epistle  begins  with  the 
first  edition  of  De  Wette's  Einleitung,  1826,  in  which  its  apos- 
tolic origin  was  roundly  denied.  Later  scholars  are  mainly 
divided  between  those  who  accept  the  epistle  as  a  genuine  work 
of  James  the  Lord's  brother  (on  Protestant  ideas  about  his  per- 
sonality, see  infra,  p.  59)  and  those  who  attribute  it  to  an  un- 
known writer  of  a  later  generation.  Occasionally  this  rejection 
proceeded  from  orthodox  Lutheran  motives  like  those  of  the 
sixteenth  century,*  but  in  most  instances  the  rejection  of  the 
apostolic  origin  of  the  Epistle  of  James  goes  with  the  critical 
rejection  of  other  traditions  as  to  the  N.  T.  literature.  The 
name  of  James  son  of  Zebedee  has  found  but  few  to  support  it ; 

*  So,  perhaps,  Kahnis,  Die  lulherische  Dogmalih,  i',  1861,  pp.  533  Jf.,  who  thinks  the  epistle 
written  by  a  Jewish  Christian  in  direct  polemic  against  Paul,  but  does  not  explicitly  deny 
that  James  the  Lord's  brother  was  the  author.     For  other  instances,  see  Meinertz,  pp.  255/. 


THE  EPISTLE  47 

and  the  view  urged  by  Spitta  and  Massebieau  that  the  writer 
was  not  a  Christian  but  a  Jew  has  met  with  small  favour.  If 
the  writer  was  not  an  apostle,  three  views  are  possible :  (i)  that 
the  writer  was  an  otherwise  unknown  James,  (2)  that  the  first 
verse  is  a  later  addition,  (3)  that  the  epistle  was  from  the  start 
pseudepigraphic.  All  these  views  are  represented  among  Prot- 
estant scholars. 

Those  who  hold  the  author  to  be  James  the  Lord's  brother  assign 
the  epistle  either  to  a  date  before  c.  50  (so  Beyschlag,  Zahn,  Mayor,  and 
many  others)  or  to  one  shortly  before  the  death  of  James  (62  or  a  httle 
later) ,  and  naturally  think  of  Jerusalem  as  the  place  of  composition. 
Among  critics  who  reject  the  apostolic  authorship,  the  dates  given  show 
wide  variation,  but  are  seldom  earUer  than  90  or  later  than  130,  al- 
though a  few  carry  the  possible  date  down  as  late  as  150.  As  to  the 
place,  these  critics  are  for  the  most  part  divided  between  Palestine  and 
Rome. 

(6)  Conclusions. 

From  the  study  of  the  internal  evidence  given  by  the  his- 
torical background  and  ideas  of  James  must  be  drawn  what 
we  can  know  of  the  date  and  authorship  of  the  epistle.  Ex- 
ternal evidence  carries  us  only  to  the  point  that  the  epistle  was 
probably  not  written  later  than  150  a.d.  That  would  seem 
certainly  implied  by  the  belief  of  Origen  that  it  was  the  work 
of  James  an  apostle,  even  though  his  testimony  to  the  actual 
authorship  be  not  accepted.  It  is,  indeed,  probable  that  the 
epistle  bore  from  the  first  the  name  of  James,  and  that  thereby 
was  intended  the  brother  of  the  Lord,  but  nothing  in  the  epistle 
or  in  the  conditions  of  literary  production  of  that  age  forbids 
the  idea  that  such  a  tract  was  originally  pseudonymous.  The 
title  and  the  tradition  offer  the  name  of  a  conceivable  author ; 
but  they  create  no  overpowering  presumption  that  he  was  the 
real  one. 

Harnack,  Lehre  der  Zwolf  Apostel  (Texte  und  Untersuchungen,  ii), 
1884,  pp.  106-109,  CaL,  i,  1897,  pp.  485-491,  holds  that  the  epistle, 
written  120-150  A.D.  as  an  anonjmious  compilation  of  earlier  sayings, 
began  with  i  =  and  was  not  made  over  into  an  Epistle  of  James  by  the 
addition  of  i'  until  toward  the  end  of  the  second  century.  For  this 
view,  which  is  part  of  a  theory  that  this  process  was  applied  to  several 


48  JAMES 

N.  T.  writings,  there  is  no  evidence  in  the  case  of  the  Epistle  of  James. 
The  first  verse,  if  properly  understood,  makes  a  suitable  opening  to 
the  tract,  and  even  if  it  be  held,  as  Harnack  holds,  that  James  the 
Lord's  brother  cannot  have  written  the  epistle,  neither  anything  in  the 
epistle  itself  nor  the  literary  custom  of  the  time  makes  any  difficulty 
in  supposing  it  a  pseudonymous  religious  tract.  Against  the  theory 
appeal  is  made  to  the  apparent  relation  of  xapav  (v. ^)  to  xafpetv  (v.^); 
it  is  also  said  that  an  editor  introducing  at  so  late  a  date  an  attribution 
to  James  would  have  made  it  unmistakable  which  James  was  intended 
{cf.  Zahn,  Einleitung,  §  8,  note  i).  These  counter-arguments  are  not 
conclusive,  but  Harnack's  theory  is  still  less  convincing. 

We  may  sum  up  the  pertinent  points  in  the  internal  evi- 
dence already  discussed.  The  writer  and  the  readers  whom  he 
expected  to  reach  by  his  tract  were  Greek-speaking  Jewish 
Christians  in  Palestine.  The  churches  are  apparently  past  the 
earlier  stages  of  their  life ;  they  had  been  formed  not  very  re- 
cently and  are  living  under  settled  conditions  among  Jewish 
neighbours  as  an  accepted  part  of  the  whole  Palestinian  com- 
munity. Neither  Hfe  nor  thought  in  the  church  is  dominated 
by  passionate  missionary  effort.  No  crisis  seems  present  in 
the  internal  affairs  of  these  believers ;  and  there  is  no  indication 
of  public  disturbance  or  of  recent  or  impending  calamity  in 
civil  matters.  The  great  controversy  over  the  Law,  of  which 
we  read  in  the  Acts  and  the  epistles  of  Paul,  is  no  longer  rife. 

The  writer  himself  writes  Greek  with  entire  facility,  and  has 
become  so  familiar  with  the  literary  type  of  the  Hellenistic  di- 
atribe that  he  can  freely  use  it  (evidently  not  for  the  first  time 
here)  as  the  vehicle  of  his  Christian  admonitions.  He  is  him- 
self, no  doubt,  a  Jew,  but  accustomed  to  read  the  O.  T.  in  the 
Septuagint  version.  His  main  ideas  are  Jewish,  and  his  dis- 
tinctively Christian  thinking  primitive  though  unmistakable. 
Religion  appears  to  him  mainly  in  the  guise  of  a  noble  spiritual 
Law.  He  is  later  than  Paul,  of  whose  formulas  he  disapproves 
without  understanding  their  real  purpose.  Singularly  devoid 
of  contact  with  the  progressive  movements  which  were  else- 
where developing  toward  second-century  Christian  thought,  he 
does  not  descry  within  his  horizon,  still  less  contain  in  himself, 


THE  EPISTLE  49 

any  of  the  germinant  heresies  of  the  age.  Even  the  tenden- 
cies which  led  the  exclusive  and  stagnant  form  of  Jewish  Chris- 
tianity to  solidify  itself  into  a  heresy  are  alien  to  him.  He 
represents  an  admirable  type  of  Christianity,  but  one  of  ex- 
traordinary intellectual  isolation. 

These  internal  indications  are  best  satisfied  by  supposing  that 
the  epistle  was  written  by  a  Christian  teacher  in  some  half- 
hellenistic  city  of  Palestine,  in  the  period  of  quiet  after  the  de- 
struction of  Jerusalem  in  70  A.D.*  and  before  the  disturbances 
which  culminated  in  the  rebellion  of  Bar-Cochba,  132-135  a.d. 
For  a  closer  dating  than  75-125  a.d.  the  epistle  seems  to  pro- 
vide no  aid. 

As  to  the  place  of  origin  the  epistle  is  wholly  without  sug- 
gestion, and  a  number  of  towns  in  Palestine  could  show  the 
required  conditions.  A  good  example  is  Caesarea,  the  Roman 
capital.  Here  was  a  Romanised  city  containing  a  population 
partly  Jewish,  partly  heathen,  in  which  the  writer's  contact 
with  Hellenistic  moral  preaching  would  be  easily  supposable, 
but  where  the  Christians  would  not  have  found  themselves  out 
of  relation  to  Jewish  life.  Christians  existed  at  Caesarea  from 
an  early  time  (Acts  10/.  zi*-  ^^),  and  its  continued  importance 
as  a  Christian  centre  is  attested  by  the  references  in  the  Clem- 
entine Recognitions.  No  sufficient  reason  exists  for  thinking 
that  the  author  of  the  Epistle  of  James  actually  lived  here,  but 
it  happens  that  more  is  known  about  Caesarea  than  about  most 
similar  places,  and  it  is  instructive  to  find  that  its  known  cir- 
cumstances would  well  account  for  the  origin  of  the  epistle. f 
Much  the  same  could  be  said  of  Tiberias,  if  there  were  any  such 
tradition  of  Christians  there.J 

The  general  view  here  stated  of  the  time  and  place  of  origin 
of  the  Epistle  of  James  excludes  the  traditional  authorship  by 

*  A  date  earlier  than  the  Jewish  war  is  unlikely  because  the  epistle  ignores  the  Pauline 
controversy  over  the  law  while  it  yet  shows  a  knowledge  of  Pauline  formulas. 

t  On  Cssarea,  see  Schiirer,  GJV,  §  23,  I,  9  (and  other  references  in  the  Index) ;  G.  A. 
Smith,  Historical  Geography  of  the  Holy  Land'',  pp.  138  ff.;  JE,  art.  "Cssarea";  EB,  art. 
"Csesarea." 

I  On  Tiberias,  see  Schiirer,  GJV,  §  23,  I,  33. 


50  JAMES 

James  the  Lord's  brother.  Is  this  indirect  result  confirmed 
by  any  convincing  direct  evidence?  Such  proof  is  difficult  to 
get  because  so  little  is  known  of  James's  ideas  or  character; 
yet  two  special  considerations  tend  to  make  it  unlikely  that 
the  author  was  James. 

(i)  The  first  is  the  writer's  contact  with  Hellenism.  Not 
only  is  the  epistle  written  in  a  Greek  style  better  than  that 
of  most  writers  of  the  N.  T.,  but  the  writer  shows  a  contact 
with  Greek  modes  of  public  preaching  and  with  Greek  ideas 
and  illustrations  which  would  not  be  expected  in  a  Galilean 
peasant  whose  experience  of  the  world,  even  in  the  period  of  his 
broadest  activity,  came  through  his  leadership  of  the  Christians 
at  Jerusalem.  And  this  remains  true,  even  when  all  necessary 
deductions  have  been  made  for  the  later  and  legendary  nature 
of  the  ascetic  traits  with  which  the  description  given  by  Hege- 
sippus  has  endowed  the  "bishop  of  Jerusalem." 

(2)  The  second  point  has  to  do  with  what  we  know  of  James 
the  Lord's  brother's  religious  attitude.  He  was  deeply  engaged 
with  the  questions  directly  arising  out  of  the  controversy  be- 
tween Paul  and  the  Judaisers  (Acts  15,  21^8^-,  Gal.  2'-^"  2^2) .  ^jkJ 
although  he  took  a  mediating  position  at  Jerusalem,  yet  he  was 
fully  trusted  as  a  leader  by  the  crowds  of  Christians,  "all  zealous 
for  the  law,"  who  lived  there,  while  the  allusion  in  Gal.  2^2  surely 
indicates  that  his  ideas  of  Jewish  Christian  observance  of  the 
Jewish  dietary  regulations  were  strict.  But  in  the  epistle  all 
these  questions  lie  completely  outside  the  circle  of  the  writer's 
interest,  extensive  as  that  circle  is.  And  this  becomes  of  greater 
significance  because  the  writer  has  in  mind  and  discusses  Paul's 
formulas.  He  disapproves  of  them,  but  on  other  grounds  than 
that  which  chiefly  moved  the  Judaisers  of  Paul's  day,  and 
caused  that  well-known  controversy  to  be  the  life-and-death 
struggle  of  exclusive  Jewish  Christianity.  Then  the  question 
was  whether  such  "works"  of  the  Law  as  circumcision,  the 
dietary  rules,  and  the  Sabbath  were  requisite  to  justification; 
now,  without  a  hint  of  that  question,  the  objection  to  Paul's 
statement  is  that  it  seems  to  imply  that  men  can  be  justified 


THE   EPISTLE  51 

without  showing  any  of  the  "works"  of  Christian  love.  It 
seems,  to  say  the  least,  unlikely  that  a  representative  leader 
who  had  taken  a  great  part  in  the  earlier  controversy  should, 
within  fifteen  years,  in  discussing  the  same  forms  of  statement, 
betray  no  consciousness  whatever  of  that  controversy  or  of  its 
vital  significance  for  the  section  of  the  church  to  which  he  be- 
longed. The  writer  of  the  epistle  is  anxious  for  the  spiritual 
welfare  of  Jewish  Christians ;  he  shows  no  sign  of  any  concern 
about  the  interests  of  Jewish  Christianity. 

If,  then,  this  epistle  probably  bore  from  the  start  the  name 
of  "James,  servant  of  God  and  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,"  and 
yet  is  not  from  the  pen  of  James,  the  well-known  leader  of 
Jewish  Christianity,  might  we  not  suppose  it  to  be  the  work 
of  some  otherwise  unknown  Palestinian  Christian  sharing  this 
not  uncommon  name  ?  This  is  undoubtedly  possible ;  in  view, 
however,  of  the  conspicuous  position  and  wide,  heroic  fame  of 
the  Lord's  brother,  it  does  not  seem  likely.  A  Christian  epistle 
bearing  his  name,  with  no  special  indication  of  the  identity  of 
the  author,  could  hardly  have  been  put  out  in  Palestine  in  the 
first  or  early  second  century  without  seeming  to  the  Christian 
public  of  that  age  to  claim  the  authorship  of  the  great  James, 
just  as  it  did  in  the  time  of  Origen,  a  century  later.  And  the 
literary  customs  of  the  time  make  the  publication  of  a  pseu- 
donymous epistle  well  conceivable,  even  for  an  earnest  and  sin- 
cere writer,  at  a  time  when  James  himself  had  been  dead  cer- 
tainly for  fifteen  years,  perhaps  for  more  than  fifty. 

The  origin  here  supposed  for  the  epistle  seems  to  accord  well 
with  its  earliest  history  in  the  church.  Produced  after  the 
apostolic  period,  in  a  secluded  part  of  Christendom,  and  having 
no  immediate  significance  for  current  controversy,  it  was  pre- 
served in  Palestine  alone  for  nearly  or  quite  a  century.  Then, 
its  pseudonymous  character  in  the  meantime  forgotten,  it  came 
to  the  knowledge  of  the  Greek  church  either  through  being 
brought  to  Alexandria  in  the  second  century  or  through  one  of 
the  visits  of  Origen  to  Palestine.  The  use  of  it  in  the  pseudo- 
clementine  Epistles  to  Virgins  of  the  third  century  may  have 


5  2  JAMES 

been  due  to  its  currency  among  Greek-speaking  Christians  in 
Palestine,  where  those  epistles  were  written.  Since  our  epistle 
was  known  to  be  an  ancient  book  when  it  first  came  to  the  at- 
tention of  Origen  (or  of  Clement  of  Alexandria?),  and  since  it 
purported  to  be  written  by  James,  apparently  the  Lord's  brother 
of  that  name,  and  since  it  contained  nothing  unworthy  of  such 
an  origin,  it  was  gradually  accepted,  first  in  Alexandria,  then,  as 
it  became  known  more  widely  and  with  high  authority  recom- 
mending it,  elsewhere  in  the  Christian  world.  This  process  went 
on  slowly  because  the  church  leaders  were  aware  that  the  book 
was  a  newcomer  which  had  not  been  read  and  valued  in  the 
church  at  large  in  the  second  century. 

The  often-quoted  statement  of  Jerome  {quae  et  ipsa  ab  alio  quodam  sub 
nomine  ejus  edita  adseritur)  must  not  be  taken  to  imply  more  knowledge 
than  Jerome  gained  from  Eusebius,  and  the  latter's  statement  means 
only  that  in  his  time  the  Syrian  and  Latin  churches  had  not  yet  taken 
up  the  epistle  into  their  canon.  We  cannot  infer  from  Jerome  that  a 
tradition  of  the  real  authorship,  or  even  of  the  pseudonymity  of  the 
epistle,  had  survived  through  the  second  century  and  come  with  it 
to  Greek  theologians  and  so  to  Jerome  himself ;  see  above,  p.  44. 

For  the  significance  of  the  Epistle  of  James  in  the  history  of 
early  Christian  thought  it  makes  not  much  difference  whether 
it  was  written  by  James  the  Lord's  brother  about  the  year  60, 
or  by  another  Palestinian  teacher  fifty  years  later.  In  either 
case  the  place  of  origin  and  the  kind  of  Christians  whose  life 
the  epistle  reflects  are  the  same,  and  the  epistle  itself  shows 
how  little  development  of  Christian  thought  took  place  there 
in  those  decades.  The  historical  importance  of  that  phase  of 
Christian  history  lies  not  in  what  came  out  of  it  but  in  the 
traces  it  reveals  of  still  earlier  Palestinian  Christianity,  and  in 
its  testimony  to  one  of  the  many  legitimate  forms  which  Chris- 
tianity (and  in  this  case  very  early  Christianity)  has  assumed 
in  its  long  history. 


JAMES  THE   lord's  BROTHER  53 


APPENDIX  ON  JAMES  THE  LORD'S  BROTHER  AND 
OTHER  PERSONS  NAMED  JAMES. 

Acta  Sanctorum,  Mali,  vol.  i,  pp.  18-34,  Antwerp,  1680. 

A.  H.  Blom,  Disputatio  theologica  inauguralis  de  toi2  aaea^ois  ct 
TA12  AAEA*AI2  TOY  KYPIOY,  Leyden,  1839. 

J.  B.  Lightfoot,  "The  Brethren  of  the  Lord,"  in  Saint  Paul's  Epistle 
to  the  Galatians,  1865,  "1890,  pp.  252-291. 

Theodor  Zahn,  "Briider  und  Vettern  Jesu,"  in  Forschungen  ziir 
Geschichte  des  neutest.  Kanons,  vi,  1900,  pp.  225-364. 

Max  Meinertz,  Der  Jakobtisbrief  und  sein  Verfasser  in  Schrift  und 
Ueberlieferung  (Biblische  Studien,  x,  1-3),  Freiburg,  1905. 

§  I.      NEW   TESTAMENT   PERSONS   NAMED  JAMES. 

The  N.  T.  persons  bearing  the  name  of  James  are  as  follows : 

(i)  James  son  of  Zebedee  and  Salome,  (elder?)  brother  of  John, 
included  in  all  four  lists  of  the  Twelve,  and  frequently  referred  to 
in  the  Gospels.  He  was  beheaded  by  Herod  Agrippa  I  in  or  before 
the  year  44  a.d.  (Acts  12^). 

(2)  James  son  of  Alphaeus,  one  of  the  Twelve  (Mt.  lo'*,  Mk.  3", 
Lk.  6l^  Acts  ii3). 

(3)  James  the  Lord's  brother.  So  described  in  Gal.  i^^,  and 
mentioned  in  2^'  ^-;  doubtless  the  person  referred  to,  as  having  seen 
the  risen  Lord,  in  i  Cor.  15^.  Evidently  the  same  as  James  who 
appears  as  a  leading  Christian  at  Jerusalem  in  Acts  12^^  15^'  21^^. 
Cf.  Mk.  6»  =  Mt.  13^^ 

(4)  James  "the  less"  (6  ntxp6<;).  His  mother  was  Mary,  and  he 
had  a  brother  Joses  (Mk.  15^  =  Mt.  27^^,  Mk.  16^  =  Lk.  2410). 

(5)  James  father  (or,  very  improbably,  brother)  of  Judas,  the 
latter  being  one  of  the  Twelve  ('louSa?  'laxco^ou) ,  Lk.  6^®,  Acts  i^^. 
Instead  of  this  Judas  another  name  (either  Thaddaeus  or  Lebbaeus) 
appears  in  the  list  of  Mk.  3^*,  copied  in  Mt.  lo''. 

(6)  James,  by  whom  the  Epistle  of  James  claims  to  have  been 
written  (Jas.  i^). 

(7)  James  brother  of  the  Judas  (Jude  v.  ^)  by  whom  the  Epistle 
of  Jude  claims  to  have  been  written. 

Of  these  several  persons  named  James,  No.  i  (James  son  of 
Zebedee)  and  No.  2  (James  son  of  x\lphseus)  are  certainly  distinct 
individuals,  both  names  being  found  together  in  the  Hsts  of  the 
Twelve  Apostles.  Of  the  career  of  James  son  of  Alphaeus,  however, 
nothing  whatever  is  known,  at  any  rate  under  that  name ;   and  the 


54  JAMES 

same  is  true  of  No.  4  (James  the  less)  and  No.  5  (James  [father]  of 
Judas),  so  that  the  way  is  open  for  identifying  one  or  more  of  these 
three  with  No.  3,  James  the  Lord's  brother,  a  man  of  note  re- 
peatedly mentioned  in  the  Acts  and  in  Paul's  epistles.  Such  a 
combination,  by  which  Nos.  2,  3,  4,  5,  6,  and  7  were  regarded  as 
a  single  individual,  was  made  by  Jerome  toward  the  end  of  the 
fourth  century,  and  has  prevailed  in  the  western  church  and  with 
modern  Roman  Catholic  scholars.* 

§  2.      THE   HISTORY   OF   OPINION. 

The  history  of  opinion  with  regard  to  the  relationships  of  James 
the  Lord's  brother  is  of  considerable  interest. 

The  most  natural  interpretation  of  the  terms  "brother"  (Mt. 
J 246,  47  j_j55  2810  [?],  Mk.  s^^-  ^2  6^,  Lk.  S^^'  ^o,  Jn.  212  f,  5.  10  2017  [?]^ 
Acts  i",  I  Cor.  g\  Gal.  i^')  and  "sister"  (Mt.  1356,  Mk.  6^)  is 
undoubtedly  to  take  them  as  referring  to  children  of  Joseph  and 
Mary,  younger  than  Jesus.  This  is  apparently  implied  t  by  the 
statement  of  Lk.  2^  {cf.  also  Mt.  i^^),  that  Mary  "brought  forth 
her  firstborn  son  (xbv  u'tbv  tov  •TcpwTd-roxov),"  and  this  view,  often  called 
the  "Helvidian,"  was  perhaps  the  opinion  of  most  persons  in  the 
Christian  church  of  the  second  century.  Origen  implies  that  it 
was  so,  since  he  refers  to  the  opposite  opinion,  which  he  himself 
held,  as  that  of  "some,"  in  apparent  distinction  from  the  majority 
{Tom.  X,  17,  on  Mt.  13^^);  and  Tertullian  probably  held  the  Lord's 
brethren  to  have  been  the  sons  of  Joseph  and  Mary  {Contra  Mar- 
cioneni,  iv,  19 ;   De  came,  7). 

Zahn,  Forschnngen,  vi,  p.  319,  cf.  pp.  309-313,  argues  that  Clement 
of  Alexandria,  Strom,  vii,  16,  93/.,  likewise  implies  that  the  mass  of 
simple  Christians  held  to  the  "Helvidian"  view;  and  holds  that  that 
view  was  maintained  by  Hegesippus.  But  the  implication  of  Clement's 
language  does  not  carry  so  far  as  this,  and  as  to  the  view  of  Hegesippus 
there  is,  in  fact,  no  positive  evidence  whatever. 

By  the  fourth  century,  however,  this  opinion  had  been  reduced 
to  the  grade  of  a  heresy.  In  376-377,  when  Epiphanius  fulminates 
against  it  in  a  pastoral  letter,  which  he  later  incorporated  in  his 
great  work  against  heresies  {Ear.  Ixxviii,  pp.  1034-1057;  cf.  xxviii, 
7  ;  xxix,  I  /. ;  li,  10;  Ixvi,  ig),  it  is  only  to  comparatively  unim- 
portant or  out-of-the-way  Christians,  such  as  those  in  Arabia  (or 

*  The  identification  of  James  the  Lord's  brother  with  James  son  of  Zebedee  has  occasion- 
ally been  made,  but,  as  in  Iren.  Hcbt.  iii,  12",  only  by  a  sheer  mistake. 

t  A  clear  statement  of  the  opposite  interpretation  of  Lk.  2'  and  Mt.  i"  may  be  found  in 
Lightfoot,  Calalians,  pp.  270^. 


JAMES  THE  lord's  BROTHER  55 

possibly  Agaria  west  of  the  sea  of  Azov*),  whom  he  dubbed  Anti- 
dicomarianitae,  or  Bonosus  of  Sardica,  or  Jovinian  that  he  can  refer 
as  instances.  The  views  of  all  these  were  condemned  as  heretical, 
while  Apollinaris  of  Laodicea,  many  of  whose  followers  at  least  are 
said  to  have  held  to  this  opinion  (Epiph.  Hcbv.  Ixxvii,  36;  Ixxviii,  i), 
was  himself  a  theologian  of  doubtful  repute. f  Helvidius  himself 
is  an  obscure  person,  known  to  us  solely  through  Jerome's  refuta- 
tion of  a  treatise,  written  at  Rome  about  the  year  380,  in  which 
he  maintained  the  view  that  goes  by  his  name.  He  seems  to  have 
been  a  bold  spirit,  disaffected  toward  the  current  monkish  asceti- 
cism ;  using  chiefly  the  statements  of  the  Gospels,  he  found  him- 
self able  to  produce  as  older  theological  authorities  only  Tertullian 
and  Victorinus  of  Pettau.  He  won  some  followers,  but  the  day 
for  his  view  had  passed  and  was  not  to  come  again  until  the  eigh- 
teenth century. 

Opposed  to  this  ancient,  so-called  Helvidian,  view  of  the  matter, 
with  its  support  in  the  natural  implications  of  Scripture,  was  an- 
other theory,  which  is  first  found  in  certain  apocryphal  writings, 
and  which,  being  more  in  accord  with  the  prevailing  sentiment, 
dominated  the  church  of  the  fourth  century  and  remains  the  usual 
doctrine  in  the  Greek  church  to  the  present  day.  It  is  often  called 
the  "Epiphanian"  doctrine,  from  its  most  painstaking  defender  in 
the  fourth  century  (Epiph.  Har.  Ixxvii,  36;  Ixxviii,  1-24),  but  its 
origin  lies  as  far  back  as  the  early  second  century.  According  to 
this  theory,  Mary  had  no  other  children  than  our  Lord;  the 
"brothers"  and  "sisters"  were  the  children  of  Joseph  by  a  former 
wife,  brought  up  in  the  household  of  Joseph  and  Mary  and  reputed 
Jesus'  half-brothers.  For  the  theory  no  direct  evidence  is  to  be 
found  in  the  N.  T.;  it  seems  to  derive  its  origin,  and  certainly  gained 
its  rapid  spread,  from  the  feeling  of  veneration  for  the  Virgin 
Mary  which  has  produced  so  vast  an  overgrowth  of  legends  about 
her  life.  This  was  here  conjoined  with  the  far-reaching  asceticism 
which,  foreign  to  Judaism,  came  with  Hellenism  into  Christian 
thought  and  life.  Ascetic  doctrine  speedily  supplemented  the  vir- 
gin birth  by  the  perpetual  virginity  of  Mary;  hence  a  first  wife 
had  to  be  assumed  as  the  mother  of  Joseph's  children.  The  ear- 
liest extant  statement  of  this  is  found  in  the  romance  now  known 
as  the  Protevangelium  Jacobi,  a  fiction  of  the  middle  of  the  second 
century,  in  which  it  is  said  (ch.  9)  that  at  the  time  of  his  betrothal 
to  Mary  Joseph  was  a  widower  more  than  eighty  years  old,  with 
a  number  of  children.     A  similar  statement  is  said  by  Origen 

*  So  Zahn,  Forschungen,  vi,  p.  306,  note  2. 

t  Hilary  of  Poitiers  (t  366),  Comm.  in  Mall.  1',  calls  those  who  held  this  opinion  homines 
pravissimi. 


56  JAMES 

{Tom.  X,  17,  on  Mt.  13^*)  to  have  been  contained  in  the  Gospel 
according  to  Peter  (of  date  not  far  from  the  Protevangelium). 
It  may  have  been  the  view  of  Clement  of  Alexandria,  and  was 
definitely  affirmed  by  Origen  himself,  although  he  seems  to  be 
aware  that  it  is  supported  only  by  these  legendary  authorities 
ideliramenta  apocryphorum,  as  Jerome  calls  them),  and  that  it  rests 
solely  on  dogmatic  or  even  sentimental  grounds.  Most  of  the 
early  writers  had  no  occasion  to  state  by  what  theory  they  har- 
monised the  doctrine  of  the  perpetual  virginity  with  the  existence 
of  brothers  and  sisters  of  the  Lord,  and  therefore  cannot  be  quoted 
on  this  question,  but  when  Epiphanius  wrote  (not  long  before  380), 
he  was  able  to  assume  that  his  own  view  was  universally  held  by 
orthodox  Christians.  It  is,  indeed,  explicitly  stated  by  Hilary  of 
Poitiers  (t368)  and  "Ambrosiaster"  (c.  375),  and  was  the  view 
of  Ephraem  Syrus,*  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  Ambrose,  and,  in  the  main, 
of  Chrysostom  (who,  however,  seems  later  to  have  inclined  toward 
the  equally  orthodox  theory  of  Jerome).  Later  Greek  writers,  with 
few  exceptions,  held  to  this  tradition,  and  the  calendars  of  the 
Greek,  Syrian,  and  Coptic  churches,  which  distinguish  James  the 
Lord's  brother  from  both  of  the  apostles  named  James,  are  evi- 
dently in  accord  with  this  doctrine  of  the  Apocrypha,  of  Origen, 
and  of  Epiphanius.  This  is  the  view  accepted  by  the  theologians 
of  the  oriental  Orthodox  churches  at  the  present  day. 

For  the  following  note  on  the  brethren  of  Jesus  in  Russian  theological 
literature  I  am  indebted  to  Dr.  Aurelio  Palmieri : 

Most  of  the  Russian  writers  accept  the  opinion  of  St.  Epiphanius, 
and  hold  that  Joseph  had  six  sons  before  his  marriage  with  the  Virgin. 
Among  the  Russian  writers  who  hold  this  view  are :  Bieliaev,  O  sobornom 
poslanii  ap.  Jakova  {The  Catholic  Epistle  of  St.  James)  Ctenia,  held  in 
the  Society  of  the  Friends  of  Ecclesiastical  Progress,  1872,  vol.  i; 
Bishop  Alexis  (Novoslov),  Vvedenie  v  poslanie  Jakova  {Introduction  to 
the  Epistle  of  St.  James) ,  ibid.  1877,  vol.  ii,  p.  341 ;  Jaroscevsky,  Sobornoe 
poslanie  Sv.  Ap.  Jakova  {The  Catholic  Epistle  of  St.  James),  Kiev,  1901, 
p.  36;  Glubokovsky,  Blagovieslie  khristianskoi  svobody  v  poslanii  Sv. 
Ap.  Pavla  k  Galatam  {The  Gospel  of  Christian  Liberty  in  the  Epistle  of 
St.  Paul  to  the  Galalians),  Petrograd,  1902,  pp.  67-69;  Orlin,  Sobornoe 
poslanie  Jakova  {The  Catholic  Epistle  of  St.  James),  Riazan,  1903,  p.  2; 
Glagolev,  in  Pravoslanaia  bogoslovskaia  entziklopedia  {Orthodox  Theo- 
logical Encyclopedia),  Petrograd,  1901,  vol.  ii,  pp.  1113-1126;  Bogda- 
scevsky,  ibid.  vol.  vi,  pp.  42-43.  One  exegete  only  has  accepted  the 
view  of  Jerome :  Theodorovic,  Tolkovanie  na  sobornoe  poslanie  Sv.  Ap. 
Jakova  {Commentary  on  the  Catholic  Epistle  of  St.  James),  Vilna,  1897. 

Two  Russian  writers  have  proposed  another  explanation.  They  are 
Prof.  Kibalcic,  Sv.  Ap.  Jakov.,  brat  Gospoden  {St.  James,  Apostle  and 

*  J.  R.  Harris,  Four  Lectures  on  the  Western  Text  of  the  Xew  Testament,  1894,  p.  37. 


JAMES  THE  LORD  S  BROTHER  57 

Brother  of  Our  Lord),  Cernigov,  1882  ;  and  the  famous  historian,  Alexis 
Lebedev,  in  the  review:  Duscepoleznoe  Ctenie,  Moscow,  1903,  i,  pp. 
38-82  ;iii,  407-425  ;  vi,  215-228;  vii,  363-370;  x,  235-245;  xi,  377- 
396 ;  xii,  542-552  ;  1904,  i,  91-105 ;  ii,  229-236,  and  in  vol.  vi,  of  Orth. 
Theol.  Ency.  According  to  Lebedev,  the  N.  T.  does  not  state  that 
either  the  Virgin  or  Joseph  had  other  sons  except  Jesus.  Therefore  the 
so-called  brethren  of  Jesus  were  not  brethren  in  the  ordinary  sense; 
neither  do  they  belong  to  a  supposed  first  wife  of  Joseph.  They  were 
only  cousins  on  the  side  either  of  Mary  or  Joseph.  The  only  woman 
whom  the  Gospels  represent  as  their  mother  is  Mary,  mentioned  in  the 
Gospel  of  John,  with  the  explanatory  reference  to  Clopas,  who  would 
be  their  father.  Mary  is  not  the  sister  of  the  Virgin,  who  is  not  rep- 
resented as  having  sisters.  She  was  therefore  cousin  of  Joseph.  The 
Gospels  say  almost  nothing  about  Clopas ;  his  name  is  only  mentioned 
by  Luke.  Nevertheless,  we  can  argue,  he  was  well  known  in  the  age  of 
the  apostles.  A  tradition  of  the  second  century  says  that  he  was  the 
only  brother  of  Joseph.  Therefore,  Mary  of  Clopas  was  a  cousin  of 
Joseph  and  consequently  of  the  Virgin,  and  she  is  the  mother  of  the 
so-called  brethren  or  cousins  of  Jesus.  Prof.  A.  Lebedev  has  discussed 
his  opinion  in  a  special  work,  Bratja  Gospodni  (i  Cor.  9,  5),  Moscow, 
1908. 

In  the  western  church  the  influence  of  Jerome  has  caused  opinion 
on  the  subject  to  have  a  different  history.  This  active-minded 
controversialist  spent  the  years  382-385  in  Rome,  and  early  in 
that  period,  in  reply  to  the  then  recent  work  of  Helvidius,  wrote 
his  treatise,  Adversus  Helvidium  de  pcrpetua  virginitate  B.  Mariae. 
In  this  he  presented  an  entirely  novel  theory,  by  which  he  was 
able  to  identify  James  the  Lord's  brother  with  James  the  apostle, 
son  of  Alphseus,  and  so  reduce  the  number  of  persons  named 
James  in  the  N.  T.  to  two.  The  theory  can  be  most  clearly  ex- 
hibited by  the  following  table  of  relationships,  as  understood  by 
Jerome. 


I  1 

Mary  Mary  of  Clopas.  wife  of  Alphaus 

I  i  i  \  \  I 

Jesus        James  Joses  Judas  Simon  sisters 

son  of  Alphaeus, 
apostle, 
the  less, 
brother  of  the  Lord 

Under  Jerome's  theory  this  Judas  (Mk.  6')  can  be  identified  with 
the  apostle  Judas  Jacobi,  the  genitive  then  indicating  the  relation  of 
brother,  not  son.  A  further  possible  combination  is  that  which  iden- 
tifies Simon  brother  of  the  Lord  with  Simon  the  Zealot,  one  of  the 
Twelve.  But  neither  of  these  combinations  seems  to  have  occurred 
to  Jerome. 


58  JAMES 

Jerome's  theory  appears  to  have  been  wholly  original  with  him, 
and  both  his  own  efforts  and  those  of  later  Roman  Catholic  writers 
to  find  support  for  it  in  earlier  ecclesiastical  tradition  must  be 
deemed  to  have  failed.  By  the  theory  the  "brothers  and  sisters" 
of  the  Lord  are  made  his  cousins,  being  children  of  his  mother's 
sister.  In  order  to  hold  this,  it  must  be  assumed  that  the  word 
"brother"  is  in  these  contexts  susceptible  of  such  a  meaning,  an 
assumption  linguistically  highly  unlikely,  if  not,  as  most  Protestant 
scholars  would  hold,  impossible.  Apart  from  this  essential  foun- 
dation-stone the  theory  rests  on  the  following  considerations : 

(i)  Gal.  i"  implies  that  James  the  Lord's  brother  was  an  apos- 
tle. Since  James  son  of  Zebedee  died  about  44  A.D.,  James  the 
Lord's  brother  must  be  the  same  as  James  son  of  Alphaeus. 

(2)  Jn.  19"  may  be  interpreted  as  meaning  that  Mary  of  Clopas 
was  the  sister  of  the  mother  of  Jesus. 

(3)  Mk.  1$^  {cf.  15^^  16^)  mentions  as  a  witness  of  the  crucifixion 
a  Galilean  woman,  Mary  mother  of  James  the  less  and  Joses,  and 
Jerome  identified  her  with  Mary  of  Clopas. 

(4)  James  the  less  is  identified  with  James  son  of  Alphgeus ;  for, 
in  the  opinion  of  Jerome,  the  designation  "the  less"  {minor,  b  [xtxpd?) 
is  added  in  order  to  distinguish  this  James  from  the  more  prominent 
apostle  of  the  same  name,  James  son  of  Zebedee.  In  that  case 
Mary  of  Clopas  must  have  been  the  wife  of  Alphaeus.  What  the 
designation  "of  Clopas"  means,  Jerome  does  not  know.  He  does 
not  suggest  the  explanation,  later  current  but  linguistically  un- 
sound, that  Clopas  and  Alphaeus  represent  the  same  Aramaic  name 
(Chalphai). 

From  the  point  of  view  of  monkish  asceticism,  Jerome's  ingen- 
ious theory  had  an  advantage  over  the  previously  current  doctrine 
represented  by  Epiphanius.  It  preserved  not  only  the  perpetual 
virginity  of  Mary,  but  also  that  of  Joseph  (Adv.  Helv.  19).  Against 
it,  in  spite  of  its  complete  lack  of  traditional  authority,  could  be 
urged  only  linguistic  and  historical  objections,  while  in  an  age 
which  was  much  occupied  with  strict  definition  of  the  limits  of  the 
canon,  the  Epiphanian  view  was  subject  to  the  discredit  of  its 
close  association  with  antiquated  apocryphal  legends.  Even  in 
the  East  Jerome's  theory  seems  to  have  commended  itself  to  Chrys- 
ostom  (Comm.  in  Gal.  i^*),  and  Theodoret  expressly  advocated  it. 
In  the  Latin  church  it  gained  the  powerful  support  of  Augustine 
and  made  a  rapid  conquest.  Cassiodorius  (468-562)  treats  the 
theory  as  established,  and  the  western  liturgies  imply  it  by  provid- 
ing (unlike  the  eastern)  only  one  day  of  commemoration  for  any 
James  other  than  the  son  of  Zebedee. 

The  theologians  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  of  succeeding  centuries 


JAMES  THE   lord's   BROTHER  59 

clung  to  this  received  view  with  but  few  exceptions.*  Certain 
critics  of  the  seventeenth  century,  indeed,  Combefis  (ti679),  Hen- 
schen  the  Bollandist  (ti68i),  and  Richard  Simon  (ti7i2;  His- 
toire  critique  du  texte  du  Nouveau  Testament,  1689,  ch.  17)  argued 
that  James  the  Lord's  brother  was  not  the  same  person  as  James 
son  of  Alphaeus,  but  they  do  not  seem  to  have  reached  a  clear  and 
complete  theory.  In  later  times  also  an  occasional  Roman  Cath- 
olic writer  has  taken  similar  ground,  but  in  general  there  has  been 
complete  adherence  to  the  theory  of  Jerome,  which  is  now  the 
established  tradition  of  Roman  Catholic  scholars. 

On  the  Protestant  side,t  in  so  far  as  the  question  was  discussed 
by  the  men  of  the  Reformation,  the  traditional  view  of  Jerome 
seems  to  have  been  retained.  Luther  (who  held  fast  to  the  per- 
petual virginity  of  Mary)  and  the  Magdeburg  Centuries  both  identi- 
fied James  the  Lord's  brother  with  the  son  of  Alphaeus  ;  and  in 
spite  of  some  signs  presaging  the  coming  confusion  of  critical  theo- 
ries, these  sixteenth-century  authorities  were  followed  by  the  bulk 
of  seventeenth-century  Protestants.  Striking  exceptions  were  Gro- 
tius  (t  1645),  who  preferred  the  Epiphanian  solution,  and  Hammond 
(t  1660).  The  eighteenth  century  shows  less  agreement.  Various 
scholars  rejected  the  Hieronymian  tradition;  while  the  eccentric 
Whiston  (ti7S2),  and  later,  with  vastly  greater  influence.  Herder, 
in  his  Briefe  zweener  Briider  Jesu  in  unserm  Kanon,  1775,  affirmed 
the  Helvidian  doctrine. 

In  the  critical  inquiries  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  old  opin- 
ions have  been  reaflfirmed  and  ingenious  new  theories  proposed. 
In  the  first  half  of  the  century  the  Hieronymian  view  was  held  by 
a  large  proportion  of  Protestant  writers,  at  least  of  the  more  ortho- 
dox type,  and  from  the  latter  part  of  the  century  also  such  voices 
were  not  lacking.  {  The  Epiphanian  doctrine  is  also  maintained 
by  a  few  writers,  among  whom  stands  the  great  name  of  Light- 
foot. §  But  among  Protestant  scholars  the  Helvidian  view  has 
increasingly  gained  adherents,  and  it  is  now  dominant. 

§    3.      THE   DECISIVE   CONSIDERATIONS. 

The  reasons  for  the  tendency  of  modern  Protestant  scholars  to 
adopt  the  Helvidian  view  are  sound  and  do  not  require  long  dis- 
cussion here. 

*  See  for  abundant  detail  on  mediaeval  and  modem  scholars  Meinertz,  Jakobusbrief,  pp. 
203-316. 

t  Meinertz,  op.  cit.  pp.  216,  288. 

t  Smith  and  Fuller,  DB',  vol.  i,  part  ii,  1893,  p.  1517. 

§  Lightfoot,  Galatians,  pp.  270-272,  adopted  the  Epiphanian  view  on  the  ground  of  Jn. 
19".  ".  He  holds  it  unlikely  that  Mary,  if  she  was  the  mother  of  James  and  the  others, 
should  have  been  "consigned  to  the  care  of  a  stranger  of  whose  house  she  becomes  henceforth 
the  inmate." 


6o  JAMES 

(i)  Against  the  Epiphanian  view  no  conclusive  objection  can 
be  brought,  save  that  no  real  evidence  speaks  for  it.  It  is  not 
intrinsically  improbable,  nor  contrary  to  anything  in  the  N.  T., 
that  Joseph  should  have  married,  lost  his  wife,  and  had  a  family 
of  children  before  his  betrothal  to  Mary,  but  the  legends  of  the 
Protevangelium  Jacobi  afford  no  presumption  of  trustworthy  tradi- 
tion, and  nothing  in  the  N.  T.  itself  is  capable  of  sustaining  the 
weight  of  the  story.  The  argument  from  Jn.  ig^^,  on  which  Light- 
foot  rests  his  case,  is  wholly  insufificient.  In  fact,  the  Epiphanian 
view  has  its  roots  in  the  dogmatic  assumptions  of  an  ascetic  the- 
ology, or  at  best  in  mere  pious  sentiments  which  have  become  alien 
to  modern  Protestant  thought. 

(2)  The  theory  of  Jerome,  although  more  frequently  advocated 
among  Protestants  than  the  Epiphanian  view,  is  subject  to  far 
greater  objections. 

(a)  In  the  first  place  it  requires  the  admission  that  "brother" 
in  the  various  contexts  where  it  is  used  can  mean  "  cousin."  This 
is,  in  fact,  impossible  and  is  fatal  to  the  whole  theory.* 

(b)  Jerome's  interpretation  of  Jn.  19^^,  whereby  Mary  of  Clopas 
is  made  out  to  be  the  sister  of  the  Virgin,  is,  on  the  whole,  unlikely 
(see  the  commentaries,  and  Zahn,  Forschungen,  vi,  pp.  338/.  352). 

(c)  Mary  "of  Clopas"  is  more  naturally  taken  as  referring  to 
the  wife  of  Clopas,  and  in  that  case  (since  the  identification  of  the 
names  Clopas  and  Alphaeus  is  not  to  be  accepted)  she  cannot  well 
have  been  the  wife  of  Alphaeus. 

{d)  The  necessity  of  inferring  from  Gal.  i^*  that  James  the  Lord's 
brother,  there  referred  to,  was  in  Paul's  view  an  apostle  is  dis- 
puted (see  the  commentaries).  But,  even  if  the  inference  be  granted, 
it  is  now  admitted  that  from  early  times  and  through  all  the  early 
centuries  others  than  the  Twelve  were  called  apostles. 

So,  for  instance,  Epiphanius  called  James  an  apostle,  but  denied  that 
he  was  one  of  the  Twelve.  See  Zahn,  Forschungen,  vi,  p.  7,  note  2,  pp. 
307/. ;  Lightfoot,  "  The  Name  and  Office  of  an  Apostle,"  in  Galatians, 
pp.  92-101. 

Whether  in  i  Cor.  15',  even  if  toI?  dicooTdXoti;  xaatv  means  the 
Twelve  only,  James  is  or  is  not  represented  as  included  among  them  is 
so  doubtful  that  no  argument  can  properly  be  drawn  from  the  passage. 

(e)  The  expression  'Idexw^oi;  6  lAixpi?  (Mk.  15*°),  on  the  use  of 
which  (Lat.  minor)  Jerome  puts  much  stress,  does  not  seem  to  be 
used  of  inferiority,  in  contrast  to  some  "James  the  Great"  among 
the  apostles,  but  (note  that  it  is  positive,  not  comparative)  refers 
to  some  personal  characteristic,  probably  of  stature. 

*  Mayor',  pp.  xxivf.,  discusses  the  arguments  adduced;  see  also  Lex.  s.  v.  a.Se\<f)6^,  and 
Lightfoot,  Galatians,  pp.  261-265. 


JAMES   THE   lord's   BROTHER  6 1 

It  thus  appears  that  Jerome's  highly  speculative  combinations 
crumble  under  analysis.  Against  his  view  speak  positively  many 
of  the  references  in  the  Gospels.  The  consistent  distinction  made 
between  the  apostles  and  the  brethren  of  the  Lord,  and  the  failure 
of  the  evangelists  to  give  any  hint  that  one  or  two  or  even  three 
of  the  Twelve  Apostles  are  identical  with  certain  more  or  less  well- 
known  persons  elsewhere  referred  to  in  their  histories  are  impor- 
tant arguments.  It  is  difficult  to  believe,  even  if  Jerome's  theory 
of  cousinship  were  true,  that  the  evangelists  could  have  been  aware 
of  such  a  fact.  The  repetition  of  the  name  Mary  for  two  sisters, 
the  supposed  union  of  two  households  while  evidently  the  mothers 
of  both  were  still  living,  and  the  complete  ignoring,  in  the  nar- 
ratives, of  the  second  mother's  relation  to  her  children,  although 
she  is  expressly  stated  (Mk.  15*°)  to  have  been  a  member  of  Jesus' 
company  in  Galilee,  all  these  improbabihties  combine  with  the 
explicit  statement  of  the  Gospel  of  John  that  Jesus'  brethren  did 
not  believe  on  him  (Jn.  7^)  and  the  clear  implication  of  lack  of 
sympathy  with  his  work  found  in  Mk.  321-  ^i  to  make  it  appear  im- 
possible that  James  the  Lord's  brother  should  have  been  one  of  the 
original  Twelve  Apostles. 

For  an  effective  statement  of  how  ill  the  cousinship  hypothesis  suits 
the  Gospel  narratives,  see  Mayor^,  p.  xxix.  The  various  difficulties 
which  make  Jerome's  view  impossible  are  fully  presented  by  Lightfoot, 
Galatians,  pp.  258-265. 

In  order  to  maintain  the  theory  of  Jerome,  which  has  had  wider 
and  longer  prevalence  among  western  Christians  than  any  other 
view,  it  is  necessary  to  escape  the  difficulties  by  supplementary 
hypotheses  of  various  kinds,  such  as  making  an  unwarrantable  dis- 
tinction between  the  James  of  Gal.  i^^  and  the  James  of  Gal.  2', 
or  understanding  that  the  term  "the  brethren  of  the  Lord"  is 
used  by  the  evangelists  with  tacit  exclusion  of  the  only  "brother 
of  the  Lord"  in  whom  the  early  church  had  any  special  reason  to 
be  interested.* 

In  fact,  we  have  no  reason,  apart  from  dogma  or  an  untrust- 
worthy sentiment,  to  question  that  the  brothers  and  sisters  of  the 
Lord  were  children  of  Joseph  and  Mary  younger  than  Jesus,  and 
that  the  impression  as  to  them  and  their  history  naturally  derived 
by  unsophisticated  readers  from  the  four  Gospels  and  the  Acts  is 
correct.  We  know  nothing  whatever  about  the  relationship  to  one 
another  of  the  several  persons  named  James  who  are  brought  before 

*  To  these  theories  the  full  discussion  of  the  subject  itself,  and  of  the  history  of  opinion, 
by  Meinertz  is  a  valuable  guide;  see  also  Zahn,  Forschungen,  vi,  pp.  326/. 


62  JAMES 

US  in  the  Gospels  and  Acts  and  the  epistles  of  Paul.  There  cannot 
have  been  fewer  than  three  distinct  Jameses ;  in  all  probability 
there  were  four  or  five. 

§   4.      THE   TRADITION  CONCERNING  JAMES   THE   LORD'S  BROTHER. 

(o)  The  New  Testament. 

James  son  of  Zebedee,  the  apostle,  died  a  martyr's  death  by  order 
of  Herod  Agrippa  I,  about  44,  and  does  not  seriously  come  in 
question  as  author  of  the  epistle.  Of  the  other  persons  called 
James  mentioned  in  the  N.  T.  only  James  the  Lord's  brother  is 
sufficiently  known  to  us  in  his  personality  and  career  to  make  the 
question  of  whether  he  may  have  been  the  author  of  the  epistle 
capable  of  discussion. 

The  information  furnished  by  the  N.  T.  about  this  James  is 
important.  In  the  Gospels  he  is  named  only  in  Mk.  6^,  Mt.  13^*, 
as  well  known  to  the  inhabitants  of  Nazareth,  but  he  is  to  be  as- 
sumed as  included  with  the  other  brothers  in  the  attempt  to  re- 
strain the  public  activity  of  Jesus  described  in  Mk.  2,'^'^-  ^^  =  Mt.  12'*^ 
According  to  the  Gospel  of  John  the  brethren  of  the  Lord  and 
his  mother  accompanied  Jesus  to  Capernaum  (Jn.  2^-),  challenged 
him  (Jn.  7^"^)  to  go  to  Jerusalem  and  manifest  himself  to  the 
world  (they  themselves  not  believing  on  him),  and  proved  their 
own  Jewish  piety  by  making  the  pilgrimage  to  the  feast  of  taber- 
nacles (Jn.  7^°).  On  both  these  occasions  we  may  fairly  infer  that 
James  was  with  the  others.  At  any  rate,  the  evangelist  was  cer- 
tainly not  aware  that  James  at  that  time  took  any  different  atti- 
tude from  the  rest  of  the  family. 

In  the  command  to  report  the  fact  of  the  resurrection  to  "my  breth- 
ren," Mt.  281",  Jn.  201',  the  word  "brethren"  is  probably  to  be  taken 
in  the  sense  of  spiritual  relationship,  but  the  interpretation  is  not  wholly 
certain. 

After  the  resurrection  we  find  the  mother  of  Jesus  and  his  brethren 
joined  with  the  apostles  and  other  Christians  in  the  common  life 
and  common  Christian  faith  of  the  church  at  Jerusalem  (Acts  i^*), 
but  of  their  transition  to  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  nothing  is  told  us. 
James  is  nowhere  expressly  mentioned  until  Acts  12^^,  when  he 
seems  to  be  represented  as  of  chief  importance,  next  to  Peter, 
among  the  Christians  then  resident  in  Jerusalem.  In  view  of  the 
regular  custom  in  the  Book  of  Acts  of  formally  introducing  to 
the  reader  the  personages  of  the  narrative  as  they  are  mentioned 
(Barnabas  4^®;  Stephen  and  Philip  6°;  Paul  7^*;  Agabus  11^*; 
Silas  15--;  Timothy  16^;  Aquila,  Priscilla  18- ;  Apollos  iS'-'*),  we 
may  infer  from  the  absence  of  any  such  introduction  of  James  that 


JAMES   THE   lord's   BROTHER  63 

the  author  knew  him  to  be  the  Lord's  brother  and  deemed  him 
sufficiently  accounted  for  by  Acts  i^"*. 

In  Acts  James  appears  again  at  15^^  and  21^*.  At  the  confer- 
ence at  Jerusalem  concerning  the  admission  of  uncircumcised  be- 
lievers into  the  church,  he  took  with  Peter  a  leading  part,  and  is 
represented  as  offering  the  opinion  (Acts  is""^0  which  was  accepted 
and  put  into  effect  by  the  church  of  Jerusalem.  This  decision, 
fully  concurred  in  by  Peter,  was  joyfully  recorded  by  the  writer 
of  Acts  as  an  adequate  charter  of  Gentile  liberty  (i5^0-  Nearly 
ten  years  later,  at  the  close  of  the  main  period  of  Paul's  missionary 
activity,  James  is  the  head  of  the  church  at  Jerusalem,  still,  as 
before,  fully  trusted  by  the  Christians  of  the  city — who  were  "all 
zealous  for  the  law" — and  at  the  same  time  heartily  well  disposed 
toward  the  Gentile  missionary  Paul,  to  whom  he  gives  a  friendly 
welcome  and  prudent  advice  (Acts  21^*-").  After  Paul  has  fallen 
into  the  singular  difficulties  which  ultimately  led  to  his  journey  to 
Rome,  we  hear  in  Acts  no  word  more  either  of  James  or  of  the 
Jerusalem  Christians. 

These  notices  in  Acts  are  supplemented  by  certain  allusions  of 
Paul.  James  the  Lord's  brother,  whom  Paul  says  (Gal.  i")  that 
he  saw  on  his  first  visit  to  Jerusalem,  can  be  no  other  than  the  James 
who  united  with  Peter  and  John  in  assuring  Paul  of  their  recogni- 
tion and  fellowship  in  Gal.  2^,  and  this  mutual  understanding  can 
hardly  be  referred  to  any  other  occasion  than  that  described  in 
Acts  15.  The  intricate  problems  here  involved  cannot  now  be  dis- 
cussed. The  leading  position  of  James  at  Jerusalem,  and  his  full 
identification  with  the  Jewish  Christians  of  that  city,  are  implied 
in  Gal.  2^-  by  the  words  "before  that  certain  came  from  James." 
The  other  references  are  i  Cor.  15^,  which  mentions  that  James 
had  a  vision  of  the  risen  Christ,  and  9^  which  implies  that  the 
brethren  of  the  Lord  were  married. 

Beyond  this  the  N.  T.  information  does  not  go.  We  are  justi- 
fied in  referring  all  these  notices  to  the  same  James,  and  our 
two  sources  agree  in  representing  him  as  trusted  by  the  Jewish 
Christians  of  Jerusalem,  while  at  the  same  time  friendly  to  Paul 
and  the  Gentile  mission.  Of  his  own  views,  of  the  direction  which 
his  Christian  thinking  had  taken  and  the  distance  it  had  travelled, 
and  of  his  special  type  of  character  and  temperament,  of  his  precise 
attitude  toward  the  problems  then  arising  about  the  relations  of 
Christianity  to  the  law  and  customs  of  the  Jews — of  all  that  we 
learn  hardly  anything.  We  may  infer  that  a  man  accepted  by  the 
Jerusalem  Christians  as  their  leader  cannot  have  abandoned  the 
practise  of  the  Jewish  law;  and  Gal.  2'-  seems  to  show  James's 
agreement  with  the  Jerusalem  Christians  who  (in  Paul's  view)  led 
Peter  astray.     On  the  other  hand,  we  are  directly  informed  (Gal.  2') 


64  JAMES 

that  James  admitted  the  right  of  Gentiles  to  become  Christians 
without  passing  through  the  gate  of  circumcision.  From  the  so- 
called  "provisos  of  James"  (Acts  15^-  ^^  21^'^)  much  the  same  in- 
ference is  to  be  drawn ;  they  mean  that  James  did  not  wish  to 
impose  the  Law  upon  Gentile  Christians.* 

ih)  Other  Tradition. 

Outside  of  the  N.  T.  a  considerable  amount  of  tradition  about 
James  the  Lord's  brother  has  been  preserved,  and,  mingled  with 
much  obvious  legend,  some  elements  of  fact  are  probably  contained 
in  it.     The  chief  sources  are  the  following : 

(i)  Josephus,  Antiquities,  xx,  9^: 

axe  §■?)  oijv  TotoiJTO?  wv  6  "Avavo?,  vopifaai;  e'xstv  xatpbv  IxtT'^Sstov  Sii 
<rb  TsOvdvott  t^ev  4>'^ffTov,  'AX^lvov  S'^xt  xaxdc  "zijv  6Bbv  uxipx^'v,  xa6(!^ei 
ouv^Bptov  xpiTwv  xal  xapay'^^T'**'^  ^'^  otuxb  irbv  (i3eX(J)bv  'iTjaou  tou  Xsfo- 
{jL^vou  XptaToG,  'Idtxwpoi;  ovo[xa  aixw,  xat  Ttva<;  sxipoLx;,  wq  xapavojjLTjaavTwv 
xaTTJYopfav  •rcoti^aitJ.evos,  icap^Swxs  XeuaOtjffOtJLsvo'ji;. 

"  So  Ananus,  being  that  kind  of  a  man,  and  thinking  that  he  had  got 
a  good  opportunity  because  Festus  was  dead  and  Albinus  not  yet 
arrived,  holds  a  judicial  council ;  and  he  brought  before  it  the  brother 
of  Jesus  who  was  called  Christ, — James  was  his  name, — and  some  others, 
and  on  the  charge  of  violating  the  Law  he  gave  them  over  to  be  stoned." 

This  passage  is  suspected  of  being  an  interpolation  by  Schiirer, 
GJV\  i,  §  19,  5,  PP-  S8i  /.  (E.  Tr.  I.  ii,  pp.  186/.),  and  Zahn,  For- 
schungen,  vi,  pp.  301-305.  It  is  defended  as  genuine  by  Mayor*, 
p.  Iviii,  note  2;  Lightfoot,  Galatians,  p.  366,  note  2;  and  E.  Schwartz, 
Zeitschrift  fiir  die  neutestamentliche  Wissenschafl,  iv,  1903,  pp.  59/. 
The  only  ground  for  doubt  of  the  genuineness  is  that  the  text  of 
Josephus  is  known  elsewhere  to  have  suffered  from  Christian  inter- 
polation (notably  Antiq.  xviii,  3^,  the  passage  about  Jesus  Christ), 
and  that  Origen  refers  {Tom.  x,  17,  on  Mt.  13^^;  Contra  Celsum, 
i,  47  ;  ii,  13)  to  a  statement  in  Josephus,  no  longer  extant,  but 
plainly  of  Christian  origin,  to  the  effect  that  the  murder  of  James 
was  the  occasion  of  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem.  This  evidence 
for  interpolation  is  not  sufficient ;  and  Josephus's  date  for  the 
death  of  James,  a.d.  62,  must  stand,  although  it  contradicts  the  nar- 
rative of  Hegesippus. 

(2)  Hegesippus,  quoted  by  Eusebius,  H.e.  ii,  23: 

"To  the  government  of  the  church  in  conjunction  with  the  apostles 
succeeded  the  Lord's  brother,  James, — he  whom  all  from  the  time  of 
the  Lord  to  our  own  day  call  the  Just,  as  there  were  many  named 
James.     And  he  was  holy  from  his  mother's  womb ;   wine  and  strong 

♦J.  H.  Ropes,  "Acts  xv.  21,"  in  Journal  of  Biblical  Literature,  vol.  xv,  1896,  pp.  75-81. 


JAMES   THE   lord's  BROTHER  65 

drink  he  drank  not,  nor  did  he  eat  flesh ;  no  razor  touched  his  head, 
he  anointed  himself  not  with  oil,  and  used  not  the  bath.  To  him  alone 
was  it  permitted  to  enter  the  Holy  Place,  for  neither  did  he  wear  wool, 
but  Unen  clothes.  And  alone  he  would  enter  the  Temple,  and  be  found 
prostrate  on  his  knees  beseeching  pardon  for  the  people,  so  that  his 
knees  were  callous  like  a  camel's  in  consequence  of  his  continually 
kneeling  in  prayer  to  God  and  beseeching  pardon  for  the  people.  Be- 
cause of  his  exceeding  righteousness  (Sta  ji  Tot  ttjv  uTOppoX-^jv  t^5 
StxatoffuvYjc;)  he  was  called  the  Just  (6  Stxato?)  and  Oblias,  which  is  in 
Greek  'Bulwark  of  the  People'  (xeptozTj  toO  Xaou),  and  Righteousness, 
as  the  prophets  declare  concerning  him. 

"Therefore  certain  of  the  seven  sects  among  the  people,  already 
mentioned  by  me,  in  the  Memoirs,  asked  him,  '  What  is  the  door  of 
Jesus  (tc<;  if)  Oupa  toO  'Itjcjou)?'  and  he  said  that  He  was  the  Saviour; 
— of  whom  some  accepted  the  faith  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ.  Now 
the  aforesaid  sects  were  not  believers  either  in  a  resurrection  or  in 
One  who  should  come  to  render  to  every  man  according  to  his  deeds ; 
but  as  many  as  believed  did  so  because  of  James.  So,  since  many 
of  the  rulers,  too,  were  believers,  there  was  a  tumult  of  the  Jews  and 
scribes  and  Pharisees,  for  they  said  there  was  danger  that  all  the 
people  would  e.xpect  Jesus  the  Christ.  Accordingly  they  said,  when 
they  had  met  together  with  James:  'We  entreat  thee,  restrain  the 
people,  since  it  has  gone  astray  unto  Jesus,  holding  him  to  be  the 
Christ.  We  entreat  thee  to  persuade  (xetaat)  concerning  Jesus  all 
those  who  come  to  the  day  of  the  passover,  for  we  all  listen  (zeteotJieOa) 
to  thee.  For  we  and  all  the  people  testify  to  thee  that  thou  art  just 
and  that  thou  respectest  not  persons.  Do  thou  therefore  persuade 
the  people  concerning  Jesus,  not  to  go  astray,  for  all  the  people  and 
all  of  us  listen  to  thee.  Take  thy  stand  therefore  on  the  pinnacle  of 
the  Temple,  that  up  there  thou  mayest  be  well  seen,  and  thy  words 
audible  to  all  the  people.  For  because  of  the  passover  all  the  tribes 
have  come  together,  with  the  gentiles  also.' 

"So  the  aforesaid  scribes  and  Pharisees  set  James  on  the  pinnacle 
of  the  Temple,  and  called  to  him  and  said,  'O  thou,  the  Just,  to  whom 
we  all  ought  to  listen,  since  the  people  is  gomg  astray  after  Jesus  the 
crucified,  tell  us  what  is  the  door  of  Jesus.'  And  with  a  loud  voice  he 
answered,  'Why  do  you  ask  me  concerning  the  Son  of  Man?  and  he 
sitteth  himself  in  heaven  on  the  right  hand  of  the  great  Power  and  shall 
come  on  the  clouds  of  heaven.'  And  when  many  were  convinced  and 
gave  glory  for  the  witness  of  James,  and  said,  'Hosanna  to  the  son  of 
David,'  then  again  the  same  scribes  and  Pharisees  said  to  one  another, 
'We  were  wrong  to  permit  such  a  testimony  to  Jesus;  but  let  us 
go  up  and  cast  him  down,  that  through  fear  they  may  not  believe 
him.'  And  they  cried  out  saying,  'Ho,  ho!  even  the  Just  has  gone 
astray,'  and  they  fulfilled  the  Scripture  written  in  Isaiah,  Lei  us  away 
with  the  Just,  because  he  is  troublesome  to  us;  therefore  they  shall  eat  the 
fruits  of  their  doings. 

"Accordingly  they  went  up  and  cast  the  Just  down.  And  they  said 
one  to  another,  'Let  us  stone  James  the  Just,'  and  they  began  to 
stone  him,  since  he  was  not  killed  by  the  fall.  But  he  turned,  and 
5 


66  JAMES 

knelt  down,  saying,  'I  beseech  thee,  Lord  God  Father,  forgive  them, 
for  they  know  not  what  they  do.'  And  so,  as  they  were  stoning  him, 
one  of  the  priests  of  the  sons  of  Rechab,  the  son  of  the  Rechabim, 
mentioned  by  Jeremiah  the  prophet,  cried  out,  saying,  'Stop  !  What 
are  ye  doing?  The  Just  prays  for  you.'  And  a  certain  one  of  them, 
one  of  the  fullers,  taking  the  club  with  which  he  pounds  clothes, 
brought  it  down  on  the  head  of  the  Just;  and  so  he  suffered  mar- 
tyrdom (e[AapTijpY]ffev). 

"And  they  buried  him  there  on  the  spot,  near  the  Temple,  and  his 
monument  still  remains  near  the  Temple.  A  true  witness  {[lip'zuq) 
has  he  become  both  to  Jews  and  Greeks  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ.  And 
immediately  Vespasian  besieges  them  (xoXtopx,et  auxou<;)." 

Hegesippus  was  a  Christian  probably  resident  in  Palestine  and 
of  Jewish  origin,  but  not  a  Judaiser.  In  the  time  of  Eleutherus, 
bishop  of  Rome  (174-189),  he  wrote  his  Memoirs  ('TxoiJLvig[iaTa) 
in  five  books,  of  which  a  few  fragments  have  come  down  to  us.* 
His  work  was  probably  used  by  Clement  of  Alexandria  and  by 
Epiphanius  as  well  as  by  Eusebius. 

E.  Schwartz,  Zeitschrift  fur  die  neutestamentliche  Wissensckaft,  Iv, 
1903,  appears  to  doubt  the  use  of  Hegesippus  by  Clement  (p.  57),  and 
denies  that  Epiphanius  has  preserved  from  Hegesippus  anything  about 
James  not  contained  in  the  fragments  in  Eusebius  (p.  50,  note  2).  But 
it  seems  proved  that  the  work  of  Hegesippus  was  accessible  to  Epipha- 
nius ;  cf.  Lightfoot,  S.  Clement  of  Rome-,  i,  1890,  pp.  328^. ;  Zahn,  For- 
sckungen,  vi,  pp.  258/. ;  H.  J.  Lawlor,  Eiisebiana,  Oxford,  1912,  pp.  5-18. 

The  long  fragment  given  above,  whether  written  by  Hegesippus 
or  taken  over  from  his  source,  is  plainly  composed  in  order  to  do 
honour  to  James  as  an  ascetic  and  martyr,  who  had  shared  with 
the  apostles  in  the  conduct  of  the  church  of  Jerusalem.  His  influ- 
ence with  the  mass  of  the  Jews  of  the  city  and  his  title  of  "the 
Just"  imply  that  in  his  eminent  piety  he  was  not  thought  to  have 
departed  from  Jewish  standards,  while  his  sorrow  for  the  sin  of  his 
people  in  rejecting  their  Messiah  recalls  the  words  of  Paul  in 
Rom.  9-1 1.  The  narrative  itself,  even  when  purged  of  its  inner 
inconsistencies,  is  a  legend,  betraying  no  close  contact  with  the 
events,  and  nothing  can  be  drawn  from  it  to  add  to  the  picture  of 
James's  character  and  position  derived  from  the  N.  T.  In  the  bare 
tradition  of  a  violent  death  Hegesippus  agrees  with  the  account 
found  in  Josephus,  but  nearly  all  the  details  of  the  two  accounts 
vary.  In  particular  Hegesippus's  reference  to  Vespasian  seems  to 
imply  a  date  several  years  later  than  the  year  62  a.d.  definitely 
indicated  in  Josephus.  f 

*  The  fragments  are  collected,  with  notes,  in  Zahn,  Forschungen,  vi,  pp.  228-230;  cf.  also 
pp.  250-273. 

t  See  Zahn,  Forschungen,  vi,  pp.  234-235;  Einlcilung,  i,  §  5,  note  4;  he  thinks  66  A.D. 
Would  suit  the  statement  in  Hegesippus. 


JAMES  THE   lord's  BROTHER  67 

The  source  of  Hegesippus's  information  is  entirely  unknown. 
The  conjecture,  often  repeated,  that  he  drew  it  from  a  violently 
anti-pauline  work,  the  Steps  (or  Ascents)  of  James,  said  by  Epi- 
phanius  {Hcer.  xxx,  16)  to  have  been  in  circulation  among  the 
Ebionites,  has  almost  nothing  to  commend  it.* 

From  other  fragments  of  Hegesippus  (Eusebius,  H.  e.  iii,  11; 
iv,  22)  we  learn  that  James  was  the  first  bishop  of  Jerusalem ;  and 
by  their  aid  the  following  genealogical  table  can  be  constructed : 

Jacob  Panther  (?  Epiph.  Har.  Ixxviii,  7) 


I  I 

Mary ^Joseph  Clopas 


Jesus  James  the  Judas  the  Symeon,  second 

Lord's  brother  Lord's  brother  bishop  of 


Jerusalem 


grandsons 


Whether  Hegesippus  held  that  Mary  was  the  mother  of  James 
and  Judas  is  nowhere  indicated.  He  gives  (Eusebius,  H.  c.  iii, 
19,  20,  32)  an  interesting  account  of  the  arrest  of  the  grandsons  of 
Judas  in  the  time  of  Domitian  (81-96),  on  the  charge  of  dangerous 
dynastic  claims  as  being  of  the  lineage  of  David,  and  apparently 
also  on  charges  connected  with  their  adherence  to  the  "kingdom" 
of  Christ.  When  the  accused  proved  that  they  were  poor  farmers, 
and  that  the  kingdom  of  Christ  had  to  do  wholly  with  religious 
ideas,  they  were  released,  and  lived  until  the  time  of  Trajan  (98- 
117),  greatly  honoured  among  the  churches  both  as  confessors  and 
as  kinsmen  of  the  Lord.  Symeon  is  said  to  have  suffered  martyr- 
dom in  the  reign  of  Trajan,  at  the  age  of  120  years. 

In  an  acute  essay,  "Zu  Eusebius  Kirchengeschichte.  I.  Das  Mar- 
tyrium  Jakobus  des  Gerechten,"  in  Zeilschrift  fur  die  neutestamentliche 
Wissenschaft,  iv,  1903,  pp.  48-61,  E.  Schwartz  has  tried  to  relieve  some 
of  the  problems  of  the  long  fragment  of  Hegesippus  by  removing  inter- 
polated words  and  sentences.  This  critical  process  would  leave  the 
following : 

StaSlxETott  tV  exxXrifffav  [xexi  twv  dxoaT6).6)v  6  dtSeX({)b(;  toO  xupfou 
'laxto^o?,  6  6vo(i.aa6£l<;  u%h  xavxwv  Si'xatoi;  dicb  twv  toO  xupfou  xP'^^wv 
[i.ixpi  y.cd  'rjiJ.wv,  eicsl  xoXXol  'laxw^ot  exaXouvTo,  outo?  Ss  ex  ■/.oikiaq 
|XTf]Tpb<;  auToO  ayto?  ^v,  olvov  xotl  afxspa  oux  sxtsv,  ouSe  eiA'^uxov  etfjayev, 

*H.  Waitz,  Die  Pseudoklementinen,  Homilien  und  Recognilionen  (Texte  und  Unteisu- 
chungen,  xxv),  1904,  pp.  i64-i6g,  232,  386. 


68  JAMES 

^upbv  i%\  Ttjv  x,e<j)aXY)v  auxou  oux  ave^Tj,  eXaiov  oux  rikeiilKxzo,  xal  paXa- 
ve{(p  oux  expifioai^o  '  ouSe  epeoOv  scjjopet  dXXa  aivSovai;,  xal  t«.6vo<;  siai^pxeTO 
sii;  xbv  vabv  rjupiaxsTO  ts  xet'tAevo?  €xl  Tol?  yo^^'^'v  '^'^^  atTou[X£VOs  uxep 
ToO  Xaou  a<J)£aiv,  wi;  dxeaxXrjxevat  xa  y^vaxa  aiixoQ  Si'xiQV  xa[i,T)Xou.  Sta 
Y£  xot  xYjv  UTcep^oXTjv  auxou  exaXetxo  6  Sfxatos  xal  w^Xtac;,  o  eaxtv  "EXXyj- 
vcaxl  xeptoxT)  tou  Xaou. 

Ttve?  ouv  xwv  exxd  atpeaswv  xwv  Iv  x(p  Xay  xwv  7i:poYeYpa[J.[JLlv6)v  (iot 
oiLx  ext'axeuov  ouxe  dvdaxaatv  oiixe  epxoiASvov  dxoSouvac  exdaxy  xaxd  xd: 
§PYa  auxou  *  ococ  Se  xal  STttaxeuaav,  otd  'Idxco^ov.  xoXXwv  ouv  xiaxsudvxwv 
■^v  Odpu^oq  xwv  dpx6vT(i)v  Xsy^vxwv  oxt  xivSuveuet  TCdq  6  Xab?  'IrjaoiJv  xbv 
Xpiaxbv  TupoffSoxdv.  sXsyov  ouv  ouveXOovxe?  xw 'laxco^y  '  "  xapaxaXoufiev 
oe,  imayeq  xbv  Xaov,  exsl  exXavrjOifj  eti;  'Iirjaouv  w?  auxou  ovxoi;  tou 
XptaxoO  ■  (jol  Y«P  xdvxsi;  xei66[jLe6a "  i][i.slt;  Yap  (i.apxopou[i,£v  aot  xal  xd? 
6  Xab?  oxt  Stxato?  e!  xat  bxt  xpoawxov  ou  Xajx^dvecs.  axijBi  o3v  exl  xb 
xxepuYtov  xou  lepou,  iva  avuOev  ^s  extcfjavrjc;  xal  27  eudxouaxd  aou  xd  pi^yiaTa 
xavxl  x<p  Xa(p.  Std  Y<ip  ""^^  xdaxa  auveXirjXuOaat  xdaat  al  <j)uXal  nerd 
xal  xwv  e6v<I)v." 

eaxTjaav  ouv  ol  xpo£cpY][i£vot  xbv  'Idxw^ov  exl  xb  xxepuYtov  xou  vaou, 
xal  expa^av  aux(p  xal  elxav '  "  Stxate,  (p  xdvxe?  xefBeaSat  64)efXo[JLev, 
exel  h  Xab?  xXavdxat  dxtaw  'Irjaoij  xou  axaupwOevxoi;,  dxdYY^tXov  tj^lIv 
xt^;  -fj  6upa  xou  'Itjoou."  xal  dxexpivaxo  <j)(i)v^  (jtsydXy) '  "  zl  ;ji.e  exepwxdxe 
xspl  xou  ulou  xou  dvOpuxou,  xal  auxb<;  xdOiQxat  ev  x(p  oupavip  ex  8e- 
^tuv  xfj?  [Lsja'k-qq  Suvdtxsw?,  xal  yieXXst  epxea9at  Ixl  xwv  v£<j)£Xwv  xou 
oupavou  ;  "  xal  xoXXwv  xXT)po4>opT)G£vx(ov  xal  So^ai^ovxuv  exl  xf^  ;jLapxupt(? 
xou  'laxw^ou  xal  Xeyovxcov,  "  woavvd  xw  ulw  Aaut'S,"  x6x£  xdXcv  ol  aiixol 
xpb?  dXXifjXoui;  iXefov,  "  xaxw?  £XotTQaaiJ.£v  xotauxTjv  (xapxupiav  xapaa- 
x6vx£<;  x<p  'Itjsou  *  dXXd  dva^avxE?  xaxa^aXw^iEv  auxov,  Yva  4)O^Tj6ivx£i; 
[jL-f)  xtaxeuawcrtv  aux(p."  xal  expa^av  "kifovzeq,  "  w  w,  xal  6  Sfxato? 
sxXavif)6T),"  xal  IxXi^pwaav  x-f]v  Ypa4>V  "i^V  ^^  x<p  'Hffaig;  YSYPOtHttevTjv, 
"d'pwiJ.£v  xbv  Stxatov,  bxt  hdaxP'Q'^zoq  TjiAtv  Eaxtv  *  xofvuv  xd  Y^viQ^iaxa  xwv 
EpYWV  auxwv  4>'3iY°'^'^'j'''"  dvapdvxec;  ouv  xax£^aXov  xbv  S(xatov  xal  ixel 
xaxapXT)8£lc;  oux  dxiOavev,  Xa^wv  xt<;  dx'  auxwv,  el^  xwv  yva^&mv,  xb 
^uXov  £v  V  dxoxt£i^£t  xd  lyidxta,  i^veyxev  xaxd  xtj?  x£<})aXti<;  xou  Stxafou, 
xal  ouxw?  £(xapxupirja£v.     xal  luOii?  OuEaxaatavbi;  xoXiopxei  auxou?. 

Schwartz's  theory  is  that  Eusebius  found  the  passage  already  inter- 
polated, with  additions  partly  due  to  ignorance,  literary  ineptitude, 
and  pious  love  of  embellishment,  partly  designed  to  combine  the  legend 
of  Hegesippus  and  the  tradition  found  in  Josephus.  To  the  interpolator 
is  supposed  to  be  due  the  confusing  introduction  of  the  scribes  and 
Pharisees  as  the  chief  enemies  of  James  after  the  [Sadducean]  "rulers" 
had  begun  to  be  affected  by  his  preaching.  The  details  of  Schwartz's 
analysis  are  worked  out  with  great  skill,  and  the  theory  in  its  main 
outlines  is  highly  plausible,  although  in  the  nature  of  the  case  it  is 
incapable  of  demonstration. 

(3)  The  Gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews,  quoted  by  Jerome, 
De  viris  illustribus,  2  : 

Evangelium  quoque  quod  appettatur  secundum  Hehraos  et  a  me  nuper 
in  grcecum  sermonem  latinumquc  translatum  est,  quo  el  Origenes  scepe 


JAMES   THE   lord's   BROTHER  69 

iitilur,  post  resurreclioticm  salvatoris  refer  I:  "  Dominus  aiitetn  aim  dc- 
dissel  sindonem  servo  saccrdolis,  ivil  ad  Jacobiim  ct  a  p  par  nit  ei ;  jura- 
verat  cnim  Jacobus  sc  non  comesitrmn  paneni  ab  ilia  hora  qua  blbcrat 
calicem  domintis  (v.  1.  domini)  donee  videret  eum  rcsurgcnlcm  a  dormien- 
tibus."  Rursusque  post  paululum :  "Adferle,  ait  dominus,  mensant  et 
panem."  Statimque  additur :  "Tulii  panem  et  benedixit  et  f regit  et 
dedit  Jacobo  Justo  et  dixit  ei:  Frater  mi,  coinede  panem  tuum,  quia 
resurrexit  filius  hominis  a  dormientibus." 

This  much-discussed  fragment  was  probably  taken  over  from 
some  work  of  Origen,  in  spite  of  Jerome's  explicit  claim  to  have 
translated  it  from  the  Hebrew.*  The  Gospel  according  to  the 
Hebrews  appears  to  have  been  current  in  Greek.  Hegesippus  is 
our  earliest  witness  to  its  existence  (Eusebius,  H.  e.  iv,  22^);  how 
much  earlier  it  was  written  is  unknown. f  It  was  the  gospel  used 
by  the  Ebionites  (Eusebius,  H.  e.  iii,  25^  27^),  or  Jewish  Chris- 
tians, and  may  have  contained  trustworthy  tradition,  although  the 
few  extant  fragments  do  not  greatly  commend  it.  Jerome  seems 
to  have  confounded  it  with  the  Hebrew  Matthew,  which  he  says 
he  saw  at  Beroea  and  also  in  the  library  at  Caesarea,  and  he  has 
thereby  brought  great  confusion  into  modern  study  of  the  subject. f 

The  appearance  of  the  risen  Christ  to  James  the  Just  is  to  be 
identified  with  that  mentioned  by  Paul  (i  Cor.  15'') ;  but  in  con- 
tradiction to  Paul  the  Gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews  claimed 
for  James,  the  head  of  the  Jewish  Christians,  the  honour  of  the 
first  resurrection  appearance,  which  Paul  says  belonged  to  Peter. 

(4)  Other  Apocryphal  Gospels. 

The  Protevangelium  Jacobi,  8,  9,  17-,  which  claims  (25^)  to  have 
been  written  by  James  soon  after  the  death  of  Herod,  represents 
Joseph  as  an  elderly  widower  with  sons  (but  no  daughters)  at  the 
time  when  Mary,  a  girl  of  twelve,  is  committed  to  his  protection. 
This  agrees  with  what  Origen  says  (Comm.  in  Matt.  t.  x,  17)  as  to 
the  statement  of  "the  Book  of  James"  (■?)  ^f^Xo?  'lotxc&^ou),  and  at 
least  chs.  1-17  of  the  Protevangelium  are  therefore  to  be  regarded 
as  written  in  the  second  century. 

Other  apocryphal  infancy-gospels  contain  similar  representations, 
in  many  or  all  cases  doubtless  derived  from  the  Protevangelium  or 
its  source.  So,  among  the  documents  collected  by  Tischendorf 
(Evangelia  apocrypha,  1876),  the  Gospel  of  Pseudo-Matthew,  8^'  ''; 
Gospel  of  the  Nativity  of  Mary,  8  (here  Joseph  is  gra^idcevus,  but 

*  See  the  discussion  by  A.  Schmidtke.  Neiie  Fragmente  und  VntersiKkungen  zu  den  Juden- 
christlichen  Evangelien  (Texte  und  Untersuchungen,  xxxvii),  igii,  pp.  133-138. 

t  Zahn,  Forschungen,  vi,  p.  274,  says  not  before  the  final  removal  of  Jews  from  Jerusalem, 
132  AD. 

t  Schmidtke,  op.  cit.,  and  H.  Waitz,  art.  "Apokryphen  des  NT.s,"  in  PRE.xsw.  {Ergdn- 
zungsband,  i),  pp.  80-83. 


70  JAMES 

not  stated  to  be  a  widower) ;  History  of  Joseph  the  Carpenter, 
2,  4,  II ;  (Arabic)  Gospel  of  the  Infancy,  35.  In  several  of  the 
Apocryphal  Gospels  there  is  a  story  of  how  James,  bitten  by  a 
viper,  was  miraculously  healed  by  the  boy  Jesus.* 

(5)  The  Recognitions  of  Clement. f 

This  work  is  extant  in  the  Latin  translation  made  by  Rufinus 
c.  398,  from  a  Greek  original,  certainly  written  not  much  earlier 
than  the  year  300  and  probably  the  composition  of  a  post-nicene 
Arian  writer  later  than  350.  The  comparison  of  the  Recognitions 
with  the  largely  parallel  material  of  the  Greek  work  known  as  the 
Homilies  of  Clement  (likewise  Arian  and  post-nicene,  of  about  the 
same  date)  shows  that  both  are  mainly  derived  from  a  common 
source,  an  edifying  but  fictitious  Clementine  romance  compiled 
from  earlier  sources  between  225  and  300.  This  romance  had  the 
form,  preserved  also  in  the  later  compilations,  of  a  report  made 
by  Clement  of  Rome  (under  instructions  from  Peter)  to  James, 
bishop  of  Jerusalem,  concerning  Clement's  experiences  in  the  com- 
pany of  Peter  on  a  journey  along  the  Syrian  coast  of  the  Medi- 
terranean from  Caesarea  to  Antioch.  To  the  romance  may  well 
have  belonged  the  letter  of  Clement  to  James,  now  prefixed  to  the 
Homilies. 

Back  of  this  lost  romance  lie  its  own  sources,  one  of  which  was 
an  anti-pauline  Jewish-Christian  gnostic  account  of  the  preach- 
ing of  Peter  (KT)p6Y[jLaTa  ITsTpout),  written  about  200  or  earlier  and 
purporting  to  have  been  sent  by  Peter  to  James.  From  this  comes 
the  letter  of  Peter  to  James  also  prefixed  to  the  Homilies.  The 
other  main  source  belonging  to  this  stage  was  perhaps  a  book  of 
Acts  of  Peter,  written  early  in  the  third  century,  in  which  James 
played  no  part. 

In  all  this  literature  the  hero  of  the  action  is  Peter,  but  both  of 
the  extant  works  are,  as  it  were,  dedicated  to  James,  and  the  same 
was  plainly  true  of  more  than  one  of  their  predecessors.  James 
is  represented  as  bishop  of  Jerusalem,  and  is  called  "bishop  of 
bishops"  and  archbishop.  He  appears  as  the  leading  Christian 
authority  of  the  East,  by  whom  all  teachers  must  be  accredited 
{Rec.  iv,  35),  just  as  Peter  was  the  leading  Christian  authority  of 
the  West.     Indeed,  even  Peter  stands  in  a  certain  subordination 

*  The  Apocryphal  Gospels  are  conveniently  accessible  in  English  in  The  Ante-Nicene  Fathers 
(American  ed.,  vol.  viii,  Buffalo,  i8S6). 

fHamack.  CaL,  ii,  1Q04,  pp.  518-5.40;  H.  Waitz,  Psettdoklemenlinen  (Te.xte  und  Unter- 
suchungen,  xxv^  1904;  H.  Waitz,  art.  "  Clementinen,"  in  PRE,  xxiii  (Ergdnzungsband ,  i),  1913, 
pp.  312-316. 

{This  document  does  not  appear  to  have  had  any  connection  with  the  Kerygma  Petri,  cur- 
rent in  .Alexandria  in  the  late  second  century,  see  E.  von  Dobschiitz  Das  Kerygma  Petri 
(TU,  li),  1893. 


JAMES   THE   LORD  S   BROTHER  7 1 

to  him.  It  is  assumed  {e.  g.  Ep.  of  Clement  to  James,  preface ;  Rec. 
i,  43/.)  that  James  was  not  one  of  the  Twelve  Apostles. 

In  Recognitions,  i,  66-71,  a  protracted  public  discussion  between 
James,  standing  at  the  top  of  the  steps  of  the  temple,  and  Caiaphas 
leads  to  a  riot  in  which  James  is  hurled  from  the  steps  and  badly- 
injured.  The  narrative  occurs  in  a  section  which  is  distinguished 
in  various  ways  from  the  surrounding  material,  and  a  certain  re- 
semblance to  the  long  fragment  from  Hegesippus  quoted  above 
has  led  to  the  theory  that  both  drew  from  a  common  source.  But 
the  further  theory  that  this  source  was  the  lost  Ebionite  Steps  of 
James  ('Avapa0[xol  'laxu^ou)  mentioned  by  Epiphanius  {Hcer.  xxx, 
16)  is  not  probable. 

The  Clementine  literature  confirms  and  makes  more  vivid  the 
other  representations  of  the  important  and  influential  position 
occupied  by  James,  but  makes  no  positive  addition  to  our  knowl- 
edge about  him. 

(6)  Other  Tradition, 

(a)  That  James  was  the  first  bishop  of  Jerusalem  was  expressly 
stated  by  Hegesippus,  as  noted  above,  but  this  writer  did  not  in- 
dicate from  whom  the  appointment  to  this  office  came. 

Hegesippus  ap.  Eus.  H.e.  ii,  23  <  BtaSlxsTat  Se  x-fjv  lx,xXT]CTfav  jxe-ni 
xwv  ixoaToXwv  6  aosXt}'^?  "^^^  xupt'ou  'laxw^os,  see  also  Eus.  H.  e.  iv, 
22*,  where  Hegesippus  expressly  describes  Symeon,  who  was  made 
bishop  on  the  death  of  James,  as  second  in  the  succession. 

Clement  of  Alexandria  states  that  Peter,  James  (presumably  the 
son  of  Zebedee),  and  John,  being  the  apostles  who  had  received 
special  honour  from  the  Saviour,  chose  James  the  Just  to  be  bishop 
of  Jerusalem.  This  representation  is  followed  by  Eusebius  and 
Jerome.  In  the  Recognitions  of  Clement  and  in  Epiphanius  the 
statement  appears  that  James  was  ordained  bishop  by  the  Lord 
himself. 

Eusebius,  H.e.  ii,  i'  KXtjiit]?  Iv  s'/.tw  twv  'YxoTUituffswv  YP<i4>wv  (iSe 
TcapfaxTjatv  •  "  ITixpov  ^lip  ifficn  xal  'Idxw^ov  xal  'IwavviQv  tisTtz  tt)v  aviiXT)4'tv 
ToG  a(i)T^po<;,  w?  av  xal  uxb  xou  awxfjpoq  xpoTeTttJi.T]ixivou(;,  (A"?)  extSixal^ea- 
6ac  Sd^T)?,  iXkoL  'Idxw^ov  xbv  Stxotiov  extaxoxov  xwv  'IspoaoXuixwv  IXIaOat." 

H.  e.  ii,  23^  'Idxw^ov  xbv  xou  xupfou  .  .  .  dSeXif  6v,  w  xpbq  xuv  ixoa- 
xiXwv  h  x^?  ETCtffxoicTii;  xr\q  Iv  "lepoaoXufiotq  lyxsxefpwxo  6p6vo(;.* 

Jerome,  De  viris  illuslr.  2,  Jacobus  .  .  .  post  passionem  domini  statim 
ah  apostolis  Hierosolymorum  episcopus  ordinatus.  .  .  .  Triginta  itaqiie 
annis  Hierosolymae  rexit  ecclesiam,  id  est  usque  ad  septimum  Neronis 
annum. 

•Eusebius  elsewhere  repeatedly  refers  to  James  as  having  been  bishop,  E.e.  iii,  s.  7.  n; 
iv,  s;  vii,  19. 


72  JAMES 

Recog.  Clem,  i,  43,  ecdesia  doniini  in  Hierusalem  constituta  copio- 
sissime  muUiplicata  crescebat  per  Jacobum  qui  a  domino  ordinatus  est 
in  ea  episcopus,  reciissimis  dispensationibus  gubernata. 

Epiphan.  Her.  Ixxviii,  7,  xal  xpwxoi;  outo?  [5c.  6  'Itixw^oq]  g'lXifj^e 
Tf)v  xa6d8pav  x^?  eictaxoir^q  w  xsiciffTeuxe  xupio?  Tbv  6p6vov  otuTou  ItcI  t^? 

•J-^?  Xp(iT([). 

The  N.  T.  says  nothing  about  a  bishop  at  that  time  in  Jerusalem, 
and  the  attribution  of  the  title  to  James  is  probably  an  anachronism, 
in  spite  of  the  episcopal  throne  which  Eusebius  {H.  e.  vii,  19)  says 
was  preserved  at  Jerusalem  and  shown  to  visitors  down  to  his  own 
time. 

{b)  From  Clement  of  Alexandria  one  other  noteworthy  state- 
ment about  James  is  preserved  by  Eusebius,  H.  e,  ii,  i* : 

"And  he  [viz.  Clement  of  Alexandria]  further  says  this  about  him 
[viz.  James]  in  the  seventh  book  of  the  same  work  [viz.  the  Hy poly- 
poses] : 

"'To  James  the  Just  and  John  and  Peter  after  the  resurrection  the 
Lord  committed  Knowledge  (xaplSwxe  t-Jjv  Yvwatv) ;  they  committed 
it  to  the  other  apostles ;  and  the  other  apostles  to  the  seventy,  one  of 
whom  was  Barnabas.  Now  there  were  two  Jameses,  one,  the  Just, 
who  was  thrown  from  the  pinnacle  and  beaten  to  death  by  a  fuller's 
club,  and  one  who  was  beheaded.'  " 

.  (c)  The  account  of  James  given  by  Epiphanius  in  H(Br.  xxix,  3-4, 
Ixxviii,  7-14,  is  derived  mainly  from  the  long  fragments  of  Hege- 
sippus  found  in  Eusebius  (to  whom  direct  reference  is  made,  Hcer. 
xxix,  3-4)  and  from  the  Protevangelium  Jacobi  or  some  other  apoc- 
ryphal gospel.  A  few  touches,  not  of  great  importance,  are  added 
either  from  Epiphanius's  own  invention  or  possibly  from  inde- 
pendent knowledge  of  the  Memoirs  of  Hegesippus.  Thus,  besides 
stating  that  James  was  appointed  bishop  by  the  Lord,  Epiphanius 
says  that  he  was  a  priest  and  wore  the  "petalon"  (the  ornament 
of  the  high-priest's  mitre,  Ex.  28^^  f-  29^),  and  went  once  a  year 
into  the  Holy  of  Holies  (as  if  he  were  the  officiating  high  priest).* 
He  also  adds  to  the  description  of  his  asceticism  that  he  went  bare- 
foot and  was  unmarried ;  tells  how  once  his  prayer  for  rain  in  a 
time  of  drought  was  immediately  answered ;  and  says  that  he  died 
about  twenty-four  years  after  the  ascension  of  the  Saviour,  and  at 
the  age  of  ninety-six. 

(d)  The  burial-place  of  James  was  said  by  Hegesippus  (ap.  Eus. 
H.  e.  ii,  23'*)  to  have  been  still  marked  in  his  day  by  a  monument 
near  the  temple  (xapa  tw  vay).     In  the  time  of  Jerome  another 

*  This  is  evidently  a  mere  expansion  from  the  statement  of  Hegesippus  ap.  Eus.  H.  e.  ii, 
23'  Toi/Toi  ixovio  ef  ^i"  eis  rd  ayia  [v.  I.  rd  dyta  Tiui'  ayiuv]  eicrieVai. 


JAMES  THE  LORD  S  BROTHER  73 

site  for  his  grave  was  indicated  on  the  Mount  of  Olives  (Jer.  Dc  vir. 
ill.  2,  quidam  e  nostris  in  monte  Oliveti  eum  condltum  putant  sed  falsa 
eorum  opinio  est).  For  later  legends  as  to  his  grave,  see  Zahn, 
Forschungen,  vi,  pp.  233/.  His  body  is  said  to  have  been  trans- 
ferred by  the  Emperor  Justin  II  (565-578)  and  his  consort  Sophia 
to  the  new  church  of  St.  James  in  Constantinople.* 

(e)  Acts  of  James  have  not  come  down  to  us.  Andreas  of  Crete 
(t  720)  wrote  a  tract,  "On  the  Life  and  Martyrdom  of  the  Holy 
Apostle  James  the  Brother  of  God,"  pubHshed  by  A.  Papadopoulos- 
Kerameus,  'AviXexxa  'lepoaoXutn-ucxfi?  STaxyoXoYta";,  i,  Petrograd,  1891, 
pp.  1-14,  but  it  adds  nothing  to  tradition  otherwise  known.  It 
was  the  source  used  by  Symeon  Metaphrastes  (tenth  century)  for 
his  well-known  memoir,  'YTc6tJLVT)iJ,a  zlq  Tbv  Sycov  'Mxw^ov,  iicoatoXov  xal 
dSsX960£ov,  Acta  Sanctorum,  May  i  (Migne,  Patrologia  grcBca,  vol. 
cxv,  cols.  199-218). 

(/)  As  mentioned  above,  the  Protevangelium  Jacobi  claims 
James  as  its  author.  Also  an  Ebionite  work,  entitled  Steps  of 
James,  referred  to  by  Epiphanius  {HcBr.  xxx,  16),  contained  utter- 
ances of  James  against  the  temple  and  the  sacrifice  and  the  fire 
on  the  altar.  The  same  book  seems  to  have  included  false  stories 
intended  to  throw  discredit  on  the  apostle  Paul.  What  the  term 
"Steps"  meant  in  the  title  of  the  book  is  not  clear. 

The  Naassenes,  a  syncretistic  sect  described  by  Hippolytus,  had 
a  book  containing  their  doctrine  as  transmitted  by  James  the  Lord's 
brother  to  Mariamne  (Hippolytus,  Philosophumena,  v,  7 ;  x,  9). 

(g)  The  ancient  liturgy  proper  to  the  churches  of  Syria,  now 
obsolete  except  on  the  feast  of  St.  James,  and  then  used  in  a  few 
localities  only,  is  known  as  the  Liturgy  of  St.  James.  This  name 
is  first  attested  in  692,  and  applies  to  both  the  Greek  and  the 
Syrian  form  of  the  liturgy. 

See  L.  Duchesne,  Christian  Worship,  Its  Origin  and  Evolution^,  1904, 
pp.  65-69;  F.  E.  Brightman,  Liturgies  Eastern  and  Western,  i,  Oxford, 
1896. 

St.  James  the  Lord's  brother  is  commemorated  in  the  Greek 
church  on  October  23,  and  the  calendars  of  the  Greek  and  other 
Oriental  churches  provide  separate  days  for  James  the  Lord's 
brother  and  James  (son  of  Alphseus)  the  apostle.  In  the  western 
church  various  days  have  been  observed,  but  all  except  May  i  have 
gradually  been  eliminated,  while,  under  the  guidance  of  Jerome's 
theory  of  identification,  the  separate  feast  of  James  son  of  Alphaeus 
(formerly  celebrated  on  June  22)  has  also  been  dropped.     For  rea- 

•Georgius  Codinus,  Z)e  adificib  constantinopolitanis.  p.  36  (Migne,  Patrologia  grcsca,  vol. 
clvii,  col.  593). 


74  JAMES 

sons  which  do  not  appear  Philip  and  James  were  early  associated 
together,  and  May  i  is  now  the  day  of  St.  Philip  and  St,  James  in 
the  Roman  and  Anglican  churches. 

May  I  is  found  assigned  to  "  James  "  in  the  Martyrologium  Hiero- 
nymianum  (sixth  century).  The  Venerable  Bede  (t735)  attests  the 
date  in  his  metrical  martyrology: 

Jacobus  f rater  domini  pins  atque  Philippus 
mirifico  Maias  veneranhir  honore  calendas, 
and  it  has  been  general  in  western  calendars. 

Did.  of  Christian  Antiquities,  1893,  art.  "James  the  Less,  St.,  Legend 
and  Festival  of";  R.  A.  Lipsius,  Die  apokryphen  Apostelgeschichten  und 
Apostellegenden,  ii,  2,  1884,  pp.  247-253;  A.  J.  Maclean,  art.  "Festi- 
val," §  31,  in  Harford  and  Stevenson,  Prayer  Book  Dictionary,  191 2. 

II.    TEXT. 

J.  H.  Ropes,  "The  Text  of  the  Epistle  of  James,"  in  Journal  of 
Biblical  Literature,  xxviii,  1909,  pp.  103-129. 

B.  Weiss,  Die  katholischen  Briefe,  Textkritische  Untersuchungen  und 
Textherstellung  (Texte  und  Untersuchungen,  viii,  3),  1892. 

P.  Corssen  [review  of  Weiss],  in  GgA,  1893,  pp.  573-602. 

B.  Weiss,  "Textkritische  Studien,"  in  Zeitschrift  fiir  ivissenschaftliche 
Theologie,  Ixiii,  1894,  pp.  424-451. 

[F.  J.  A.  Hort],  "Introduction,"  in  Westcott  and  Hort,  The  New 
Testament  in  the  Original  Greek,  1881,  -1S96. 

§  I.    Greek  Manuscripts. 

The  Greek  text  of  James  is  found  in  the  following  Mss.  In 
designating  the  Mss.  the  numbers  established  by  Gregory,  Die 
griechischen  Handschrifien  des  Neuen  Testaments,  1908 ;  Text- 
kritik  des  Neuen  Testamentes,  vol.  iii,  1909,  are  used  throughout 
this  commentary. 

Cent.  Hi. 

^  21.  Oxyrhynchus  1171 ;  contains  Jas.  2^5-3^ 

Cent.  iv. 

B.  Codex  Vaticanus. 
J<.  Codex  Sinaiticus. 

P — .Oxyrhynchus  1229;  contains  Jas.  110-12.15-18^ 

Cent.  V. 
A.     Codex  Alexandrinus. 

C.  Codex  Ephraem  ;  contains  Jas.  1^-4^. 


TEXT  75 

048  (formerly  D).     Codex  Patiriensis;   contains  Jas.  4^*-s^'^. 

W.  Sanday  and  P.  BatifEol,  "Etude  critique  sur  le  Codex  Patiriensis 
du  Nouveau  Testament,"  in  Revue  Biblique,  1895,  pp.  207-213. 

0166.     Heidelberg,  University  Library,  1357 ;  Jas.  i". 

A.  Deissmann,  Die  Septuagintapapyri  und  andere  aUchristliche  Texte 
der  Heidelberger  Papyrussammliing,  1905,  p.  85. 

^ — .  Oxyrhynchus  fragment,  Papiri  greci  e  latini,  i,  191 2, 
No.  5;  Jas.  I"-". 

Cent.  vii. 

^^.  A  series  of  corrections,  made  in  accordance  with  some 
standard,  in  Codex  Sinaiticus. 

Cent,  viii  or  ix. 
^. 

Sact^ 

Cent.  ix. 

j^act_ 

P^*=^    Palimpsest,  often  defective. 

2,2,  (formerly  13^*^0.     The  "queen  of  the  cursives." 

Cent.  XV. 
69  (formerly  31^''^).    The  Leicester  Codex. 

The  readings  of  codices  33  and  69  are  accurately  given  by 
Tregelles,  The  Greek  New  Testament,  1857-79. 

In  addition  about  four  hundred  and  seventy-five  manuscripts 
dating  from  the  tenth  to  the  eighteenth  centuries  are  enumer- 
ated in  the  lists  of  Gregory  and  H.  von  Soden. 

§  2.    Versions. 

The  ancient  versions  which  are,  or  might  be,  useful  for  the 
criticism  and  history  of  the  text  of  James  are  the  following : 

(a)  Egyptian  Versions. 

(b)  Ethiopic  Version. 

(c)  Syriac  Versions. 


76  JAMES 

(d)  Armenian  Version. 

(e)  Latin  Versions. 

(a)  Egyptian  Versions. 

H.  Hyvernat,  "Etude  sur  les  versions  copies  de  la  Bible,"  in  Revue 
Bibliqiie,  v,  1896,  pp.  427-433,  540-569;  vi,  1897,  pp.  48-74- 

F.  Robinson,  art.  "Egyptian  Versions,"  in  HDB,  i,  1898. 

F.  C.  Burkitt,  art.  "Text  and  Versions,"  in  EB,  iv,  1903. 

[J.  Leipoldt],  "The  New  Testament  in  Coptic,"  in  Church  Quarterly 
Review,  bcii,  1906,  pp.  292-322. 

(i)  Sahidic. 

This  version,  widely  used  in  Upper  Egypt,  is  now  held  to  be 
older  than  the  Bohairic  of  Lower  Egypt,  and  to  have  been 
made  in  the  period  200-350  a.d.  Existing  Mss.  of  some  portions 
are  thought  to  date  from  the  fourth  century.  The  version  con- 
tains an  important  infusion  of  ''western"  readings;  the  later 
Mss.  show  much  textual  corruption  and  alteration. 

Tischendorf  gives  for  James  some  readings  of  this  version, 
derived  from  Woide  [-Ford],  Appendix  ad  editionem  Novi  Test. 
Gmci  e  codice  MS  Alexandrino,  1799,  where  (pp.  203-207)  Jas. 
J  2. 12  (^10. 13)  is  printed  from  Paris,  Bibl.  nat.  copt.  44  (Sahidic 
vocabulary,  c.  cent,  xiii),  and  Jas.  126-2^.  8-23  33-6  4I1-17  57-20^  {^q^ 
Oxford,  Bodl.  Hunt.  3  (lectionary,  later  than  cent.  xi). 

Other  fragments  are  known  to  exist  as  follows : 

Rome,  Propaganda,  Mus.  Borg.  (Zoega,  Catalogus,  LXIII), 
cent,  vii,  fragments  of  complete  N.  T.,  including  Jas.  1^-21. 
Text  printed  in  J.  Balestri,  Sacrorum  Bihliorum  fragmenta 
Copto-Sahidica  Musei  Borgiani,  iii,  1904,  pp.  441-444;  and 
doubtless  the  source  of  the  text  printed  by  E.  Amelineau, 
Zeitschr.  fur  Agyptische  Sprache,  xxvi,  1888,  pp.  99/. 

Rome,  Propaganda,  Mus.  Borg.  (Zoega,  XCV),  lectionary, 
cent,  xi  or  xii,  Jas.  2^-  ^■^^.  Text  printed  in  Balestri,  Sacrorum 
Bihliorum  fragmenta,  iii,  p.  444. 

Cairo,  Museum,  8005,  Jas.  i2('-2«;  see  Crum,  "Coptic  Mon- 
uments," in  Catalogue  general  des  antiquites  egyptiennes  du  Musee 
du  Caire,  iv,  1902. 

Petrograd,  W.  Golenischeff,  cent,  x,  Jas.  223-314,    Text  printed 


TEXT  77 

in  Bulletin  de  VAcademie  Iniperialc  de  St.  Petersbourg,  xxxiii, 
1890,  pp.  373-391- 

Vienna.  Jas.  i^""  511-20.  i^-is,  17-20  from  Saliidic  lectionaries  are 
to  be  found  in  Wessely,  Studien  zur  Paldographie  und  Papyrus- 
kunde,  xii,  191 2. 

(2)  Minor  Egyptian  Versions. 

Akin  to  the  Sahidic  are : 

{a)  Akhmimic.  Perhaps  made  in  the  fourth  century,  but 
soon  supplanted  by  the  Sahidic.  The  oldest  Mss.  are  attrib- 
uted to  the  fourth  century. 

London,  Brit.  Mus.  5299  (i),  formerly  Flinders  Petrie  (Crum, 
492;  Gregory,  2),  300-350  a.d.  (so  Crum;  Hyvernat  assigns 
to  cent.  V  or  vi),  Jas.  4^''-  ^^.  Text  in  W.  E.  Crum,  Coptic 
Manuscripts  Brought  from  the  Fayyum,  1893,  PP-  2/.;  see  also 
Crum,  Catalogue  of  the  Coptic  Manuscripts  in  the  British  Museum, 
1905. 

The  text  of  this  fragment  corresponds  to  a  Greek  text  as  follows: 

xptTTJi;.  el?  Zi  eoTtv  6  votioOsiT)?  xal  .  .  .  xopeuawixeOa  zlc,  ttjvSs  tt)v  tuo- 
Xiv  xal  xoti^aa);i,£v  sviauxiv  eva.  It  agrees  entirely  in  text,  and  substan- 
tially in  translation,  with  the  Sahidic  of  Woide. 

Strassburg,  University  Library,  cent,  v  or  vii-viii,  James, 
complete  from  i^'.  Text  in  F.  Rosch,  Bruchstiicke  des  ersten 
Clemensbriefes,  19 10. 

{b)  Middle  Egyptian  (Memphis  and  the  Fayyum). 

Of  this  version  the  text  of  Jas.  i^^-  ^s  21-  3'  ^  jg  published  by 
Crum,  Catalogue  of  the  Coptic  Manuscripts  in  the  British  Museum, 
1905,  p.  244,  from  Brit.  Mus.  or.  4923  (5) ;  Crum,  509. 

(3)  Bohairic  ("Coptic"). 

This  version,  still  in  ecclesiastical  use  among  the  Coptic 
Christians,  is  probably  the  latest  of  the  Egyptian  versions.  It 
was  probably  made  not  earlier  than  400  a.d.  (F.  Robinson), 
perhaps  after  the  year  518  (Burkitt),  or  even  as  late  as  700 
(Leipoldt,  op.  cit.  p.  311).*    The  oldest  Mss.   (fragments  of 

*  Kenyon,  Handbook  to  the  Textual  Criticism  of  the  Nerji)  Testament-,  igi2,  p.  185,  inclines 
to  a  date  at  the  end  of  the  third  or  in  the  fourth  century. 


78  JAMES 

Eph.  and  2  Cor.)  date  from  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries. 
The  oldest  continuous  texts  are  of  the  twelfth  century.*  It 
came  under  the  influence  of  the  Byzantine  Greek  text,  and  has 
had  no  less  extensive  and  eventful  a  textual  history  than  the 
Latin  and  the  Syriac  translations  (Leipoldt,  op.  cit.  p.  297).  In 
James  its  text  clearly  belongs  with  that  of  BKAC  and  shows 
no  kinship  to  the  Antiochian  group  KLPS.  But  it  betrays 
no  special  relation  to  any  particular  one  of  the  older  uncials  of 
the  group  to  which  it  belongs.  Tischendorf  drew  his  references 
to  the  epistles  from  the  unsatisfactory  edition  and  translation 
of  Wilkins,  1716. 

[G.  Horner],  The  Coptic  Version  of  the  New  Testament  in  the 
Northern  Dialect,  iv,  1905,  has  printed  a  text  of  the  Epistle  of 
James  drawn  from  a  Ms.  (Brit.  Mus.  or.  424 ;  Gregory,  4^p)  of 
1307  A.D.,  copied  from  a  copy  of  a  Ms.  of  1250  a.d. 

{b)  Ethiopic  Version. 

R.  H.  Charles,  art.  "Ethiopic  Version,"  in  HDB,  i,  1898. 
F.  Pratorius,  art.   "Bibelubersetzungen,  athiopische,"  in  Herzog- 
Hauck,  PRE^,  vol.  iii,  1897. 

The  Ethiopic  version  was  made  in  cent,  iv-v  (Dillmann)  or 
cent,  v-vi  (Guidi) ;  whether  originally  translated  from  the 
Greek  or  the  Sahidic  is  disputed,  but  in  any  case  it  was  later 
corrected  from  the  Arabic  version.  It  is  preserved  in  many 
Mss.,  some  of  which,  containing  the  Catholic  epistles,  are  as 
old  as  the  fifteenth  century.  The  editions,  whether  the  Roman 
edition,  1548  (reprinted  in  the  London  Polyglot),  or  the  still 
more  unsatisfactory  one  edited  by  Thomas  Pell  Piatt,  London, 
1830,  are  uncritical  and  unreliable,  and  the  citations  of  this 
version  in  Tischendorf's  apparatus,  being  made  from  them, 
must  be  used  with  caution. 

(c)  Syriac  Versions. 

E.  Nestle,  art.  "Syriac  Versions,"  in  HDB,  iv,  1902. 
W.  Wright,  art.  "Syriac  Literature,"  in  Encydopcedia  Britannica, 
xxii,  1887,  republished  as  A  Short  History  of  Syriac  Literature,  1894. 

*  Brit.  Mus.  Curzon  Catena,  dated  889  A.D.,  is  probably  translated  directly  from  a  Greek 
catena  on  the  Gospels. 


TEXT  79 

(i)  Peshitto. 

This  translation  was  probably  made  after  411  a.d.,  under 
the  direction  of  Rabbula,  bishop  of  Edessa  (411-435),*  and,  so 
far  as  known,  is  the  earliest  Syriac  translation  of  James. 

The  British  Museum  has  a  Ms.  containing  James  from  the 
fifth  or  sixth  century  (Add.  14,470;  Greg.  i3«^),  and  several 
Mss.  of  the  sixth  century  and  of  the  sixth  or  seventh  century ; 
but  the  analogy  of  Syriac  Mss.  of  the  Gospels  indicates  that  the 
text  will  not  be  found  to  differ  substantially  from  that  of  the 
printed  editions,  of  which  that  by  Leusden  and  Schaaf,  1708, 
was  used  by  Tischendorf. 

(2)  Harclean. 

A  revision  of  the  Peshitto  in  accordance  with  Greek  Mss. 
of  the  "Antiochian"  type  was  made  in  508  a.d.  for  Philoxenus, 
bishop  of  Mabug ;  but  no  Ms.  has  been  identified  as  containing 
the  Epistle  of  James  in  this  version.  The  Philoxenian  revision 
was  again  revised,  with  excessive  literalness  of  translation,  in 
616  at  Enaton,  near  Alexandria,  by  Thomas  of  Harkel,  bishop 
of  Mabug,  who  followed  a  different  type  of  Greek  text  and 
suppHed  marginal  variants  from  Greek  Mss.  Of  the  many 
Mss.  of  this  Harclean  revision  one,  containing  James,  is  said 
to  be  of  the  seventh  century  (Rome,  Vat.  syr.  266 ;  Gregory, 
25^^).  The  edition  of  J.  White,  1778-1803,  prints  James  from 
a  Ms.  of  the  eleventh  ( ?)  century. 

(3)  Palestinian  ("Jerusalem")- 
F.  C.  Burkitt,  "  Christian  Palestinian  Literature,"  in  JTS,  ii,  1901, 
pp.  174-185. 

This  version,  made  directly  from  the  Greek,  but  under  the 
influence  of  the  Peshitto,  is  in  a  dialect  of  Aramaic  similar  to 
that  of  the  Samaritans  and  the  Palestinian  Jews,  and  was  prob- 
ably made  not  earlier  than  the  sixth  century  (reign  of  Justinian) 

•That  the  evidence  which  formerly  led  to  the  assignment  of  an  earlier  date  for  the  Peshitto 
is  without  value  has  now  been  decisively  shown  by  F.  C.  Burkitt,  5.  EphraMs  Quotations 
from  the  Gospel  (TS,  vii),  1901. 


8o  JAMES 

for  the  use  of  certain  communities  of  Malkite  Christians  in 
Palestine,  some  of  whom  were  afterward  settled  in  Egypt. 
The  earHest  Ms.  is  of  the  seventh  century.  The  text  on  which 
the  version  rests  is  of  a  mixed  character. 

Jas.  I  ^-^2  in  this  dialect  has  been  printed  from  a  lectionary  of 
the  twelfth  (?)  century,  probably  from  Egypt,  by  Mrs.  Agnes 
S.  Lewis,  A  Palestinian  Syriac  Lectionary  (Studia  Sinaitica, 
vi),  1897,  pp.  34-35,  cf.  p.  Ixv. 

{d)  Armenian  Version. 

F.  C.  Conybeare,  art.  "Armenian  Version,"  in  HDB,  i,  1898. 

H.  Gelzer,  art.  "Armenien,"  in  Herzog-Hauck,  PRE^,  vol.  ii,  1897. 

Said  to  have  been  originally  translated  (c.  400)  from  the 
Syriac  and  revised  after  431  by  Greek  Mss.  brought  from  Con- 
stantinople. The  best  edition  is  that  of  Zohrab,  Venice,  1805, 
from  which  the  readings  in  Tischendorf's  apparatus  are  drawn. 
It  is  based  chiefly  on  a  Ms.  dated  1310.  Mss.  of  the  whole 
N.  T.  of  the  twelfth  or  thirteenth  century  are  preserved  at 
Venice. 

(e)  Latin  Versions. 

P.  Corssen,  "Bericht  iiber  die  lateinischen  Bibeliibersetzungen,"  in 

Jahresbericht  iiber  die  Fortschritte  der  classischen  AUertmnswissenschaft, 
ci,  1899,  pp.  1-83. 

(i)  Old  Latin. 

H.  A.  A.  Kennedy,  art.  "Latin  Versions,  the  Old,"  in  HDB,  iii,  1900, 
with  full  references  to  literature. 

Two  Mss.  are  known  containing  a  Latin  text  of  James  sub- 
stantially earlier  than  the  revision  of  Jerome. 

ff.     Codex  Corbeiensis,  cent,  ix  or  x. 

Text  in  J.  Wordsworth,  "The  Corbey  St.  James  (ff),  and  its 
Relation  to  Other  Latin  Versions,  and  to  the  Original  Language 
of  the  Epistle,"  in  SB,  i,  1885,  pp.  1 13-150,  also  (with  photo- 
graph) in  A.  Staerk,  Les  manuscrits  latins  du  V"  au  XI IP  siecle 
conserves  a  la  Bibliotheque  imperiale  de  Saint-Petershourg,  1910. 
This  Ms.  of  James  is  remarkable  because  it  forms  a  part  of 


TEXT  8 1 

a  codex  containing  treatises  by  Philastrius  and  Pseudo-Tertul- 
lian  together  with  the  epistle  of  Barnabas,  but  no  other  Biblical 
book. 

W.  Sanday,  "Some  Further  Remarks  on  the  Corbey  St.  James  (ff)," 
in  SB,  i,  1885,  pp.  233-263. 

s.  Codex  Bobiensis,  cent,  v  or  vi.  Palimpsest.  Contains 
Jas.  11-210  2i«-35  3^'-5"  5"  ^■' 

H.  J.  White,  Portions  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  of  the  Epistle  of  St. 
James,  and  of  the  First  Epistle  of  St.  Peter  frotn  the  Bobbio  Palimpsest 
(s),  now  Numbered  Cod.  16  in  the  Imperial  Library  at  Vienna  (OLBT, 
No.  IV),  1897,  pp.  xviii-xx,  33-46. 

J.  Bick,  Wiener  Palimpseste,  I.  Teil:  Cod.  Palat.  Vindobonensis  16, 
olim  Bobbiensis  (Sitzungsberichte  der  kais.  Akad.  der  Wissenschaften 
in  Wien,  Phil.-hist.  Klasse,  vol.  clix,  7),  1908,  pp.  43-89. 

With  these  should  be  mentioned : 

m.  Speculum  Pseudo-Augustini.  Excerpts  from  the  Scrip- 
tures, perhaps  made  in  the  fourth  century,  preserved  in  several 
Mss.,  of  which  the  best  is  of  the  eighth  or  ninth  century;  ed. 
Weihrich  {Corpus,  vol.  xii),  Vienna,  1887.  A  little  over  one- 
fourth  of  James  (29  verses  out  of  108)  is  preserved  in  this 
Speculum. 

The  texts  of  ff  and  m  are  reprinted  in  Mayor,  pp.  3-27.  For  the  text 
of  s,  Mayor's  reprint  of  Belsheim's  edition  is  insufficient,  and  White's 
or  Bick's  edition  must  be  consulted. 

Some  Old  Latin  readings  are  perhaps  to  be  found  in  the  text 
of  James  in  the  Vulgate  Codices  Toletanus  and  Harleianus 
1772. 

One  quotation  from  James  is  found  in  the  commentaries  of 
Ambrosiaster,  who  on  Gal.  51"  cites  Jas.  520.  The  text  is  doubt- 
less Old  Latin,  but  is  substantially  identical  with  that  of  the 
Vulgate;  see  A.  Souter,  A  Study  of  Ambrosiaster  (Texts  and 
Studies,  vii),  1905,  p.  197. 

On  the  Perpignan  Ms.  (p),  now  Paris,  Bib.  nat.  lat.  321,  see 
E.  S.  Buchanan,  JTS,  xii,  191 1,  pp.  497-534. 


82  JAMES 

(2)  Vulgate. 

S.  Berger,  Hisioire  dc  la  Vulgate  pendant  les  premiers  siecles  du  moyen 
age,  Paris,  1893. 

J.  Wordsworth  and  H.  J.  White,  Novum  Testamentum  Domini  Nostri 
Jesu  Christi  Latine  secundum  editionem  S.  Hleronyml,  Pars  prior,  Quat- 
tuor  evangelia,  Oxford,  1889-98;  Prafatio,  pp.  x-xv,  Epilogus,  pp.  672- 

673.  705-724- 
H.  J.  White,  art.  "Vulgate,"  in  HDB,  iv,  1902. 

The  text  of  the  Latin  Vulgate  in  James  is  best  preserved 
in  the  Cod.  Amiatinus  (A),  c.  700,  and  Cod.  Fuldensis  (F),  c. 
540,  from  which  the  text  as  given  in  the  authoritative  Editio 
Clementina,  Rome,  ^1592,  ^1593,  ^1598,*  differs  in  many  points. 
The  text  of  A  with  the  variants  of  F  is  to  be  found  in  a  suflS- 
ciently  accurate  reprint  in  Mayor,  pp.  3-27. 

(3)  Textual  Relations. 

The  extraordinarily  numerous  variations  found  in  the  text 
of  the  Old  Latin  Bible  were  due  largely  to  differences  of  local 
Latin  usage  and  to  caprice,  but  probably  also  in  some  measure 
to  learned  revisions  effected  with  the  aid  of  Greek  copies  and 
similar  to  that  which  produced  the  Vulgate. 

In  James,  ff  is  substantially  a  pure  Old  Latin  text,  not  mLxed 
with  Vulgate  readings.f  That  the  copy  which  was  corrected 
in  order  to  make  the  Vulgate  was  closely  akin  to  it  is  shown  by 
the  abundant  agreement  of  ff  and  Vg,  not  only  in  vocabulary, 
but  especially  in  the  structure  of  sentences  and  the  order  of 
words,  t  With  this  inference  corresponds  the  fact  that  Chroma- 
tins of  Aquileia  (tc.406),  the  friend  of  Jerome,  uses  the  Latin 
version  of  James  found  in  ff,§  and  that  the  only  probable  allu- 
sion to  James  in  the  writings  of  Ambrose  agrees  with  ff  against 
Vg.  The  date  of  the  version  found  in  ff  is  thus  not  later  than 
cent.  iv.  Sanday  thinks  ff  a  local  recension  of  north  Italian 
origin.  II 

*  See  G.  M.  Youngman,  American  Journal  of  Theology,  xii,  1908,  pp.  627-636. 

t  Wordsworth,  SB,  i,  pp.  126/.  t  Sanday,  SB,  i,  pp.  258/. 

§  Chromatius,  Tract,  in  ev.  S.  Matth.  ix,  i ;  xiv,  7 ;  quoted  in  full  by  Wordsworth,  SB,  i, 
p.  135- 

II  P.  Thielmann,  Archivfiir  laleinische  Lexikographie,  viii,  1893,  p.  502,  holds  that  2  is  prob- 
ably of  African  origin. 


TEXT  ^3 

Heer,  Die  versio  latina  des  Barnabasbriefes,  1908,  pp.  xlv/.,  infers  that 
the  translation  of  Barnabas  contained  in  the  Codex  Corbeiensis  was  made 
after  Tertullian  and  before  Cyprian  and  Novatian,  and  points  out  that 
in  the  version  of  James  the  use  of  salvare,  together  with  other  indications, 
suggests  a  somewhat  late  date. 

The  Latin  version  found  in  m  {Speculum  Pseudo-Augustini) 
is  substantially  that  of  Priscillian  (Spain,  1385).*  It  stands 
further  removed  from  both  ff  and  Vg  than  they  do  from  each 
other,  but  presents  complicated  relationships  to  these  two.  It 
is  believed  by  Sanday  to  represent  "a  late  African  text,"  that 
is,  "an  African  base  .  .  .  corrupted  partly  by  internal  devel- 
opment and  partly  by  the  admission  of  European  readings."  f 
There  is  no  sufficient  evidence  that  ff  and  m  rest  upon  two 
independent  translations  of  James  into  Latin,  f  On  the  con- 
trary, the  same  Greek  text  underlies  the  two,  and  we  must 
assimie  a  single  original  translation,  which  has  been  modified  in 
the  interest  of  Latin  style  and  local  usage,  and  not  in  order  to 
conform  it  to  current  Greek  Mss.  Since  sufficient  time  has  to 
be  allowed  for  the  divergence  of  ff  and  m  before  the  latter  part 
of  the  fourth  century,  it  follows  that  the  original  translation 
of  James  into  Latin  was  made  certainly  not  later  than  350. § 

That  James  was  translated  into  Latin  separately  from  other 
books  (and  probably  later)  is  indicated  by  the  peculiarities  of 
the  version  itself,  ||  by  the  unique  phenomenon  of  its  inclusion 
with  patristic  treatises  in  Codex  Corbeiensis  (ff )  ,**  and  also  by 
the  complaint  of  Augustine  ff  at  the  unusual  badness  of  the 
translation  of  James,  and  the  fact  that  Cassiodorius,  who  in  other 
cases  took  the  Old  Latin  as  the  basis  of  comment  in  his  Com- 

*0r  of  Instantius;  see  G.  Morin,  "Pro  Instantio,"  in  Revue  Benedictine,  vol.  sxx,  1913, 
PP-  153-173- 

t  Sanday,  Classical  Review,  iv,  i8go,  pp.  414-417;   SB,  !,  pp.  24.4  Jf. 

t  Sanday,  OLBT,  No.  II,  1887,  p.  cclv;  cf.  SB,  i,  pp.  250,  259.  Wordsworth's  view  (SB, 
i.  PP-  133/-)  that  £f,  Vg,  ra,  and  the  quotations  in  Jerome's  writings  represent  four  distinct 
translations  is  wholly  untenable. 

§  Hilary  of  Poitiers,  De  trin.  iv,  8,  writing  in  the  Greek  East  in  356-358,  seems  to  make  his 
own  translation  of  Jas.  i"  (Zahn,  Grundriss-,  p.  6g). 

II  Westcott,  CNT'',  pp.  270/.     The  case  with  2  Peter  is  similar ;  cf.  Westcott,  pp.  269/. 

**  Zahn,  GnK,  i,  p.  324. 

tt  Augustin.  Retract.  11,32,  adjuvant  (sc.  Augustine's  adnotaliones ,  now  lost)  erso  aliquid,  nisi 
quod  ipsam  epislolam,  quam  legebamus  quando  ista  diciavi,  non  diligenter  ex  grcBco  habebamus 
inter  prelatam. 


84  JAMES 

plexiones  in  epistolas  et  acta  apostolorum  et  apocalypsin,  in  James 
found  it  best  to  use  the  Vulgate  form.* 

The  Latin  version  found  in  s  is  so  close  to  Vg  that  it  is  a 
question  whether  s  ought  not  to  be  classed  as  a  Vulgate  Ms. 
(so  Hort,  "Appendix,"  p.  83).  It  differs  from  Codex  Amiatinus 
of  the  Vg  scarcely  more  than  Codex  Fuldensis  does,  but  is  nearer 
to  A  than  to  F.  On  the  ground  of  resemblances  to  the  Latin 
version  used  by  Fulgentius  of  Ruspe  (f  533)  and  Facundus  of 
Ermione  (f  c.  570)  White  surmises  that  the  elements  in  s  which 
are  divergent  from  the  Vulgate  "represent  a  stream  of  late 
African  text."  f 

Jerome  probably  revised  the  Latin  version  of  the  Acts  and 
epistles  in  384-385,  as  he  had  that  of  the  Gospels  in  383,  but 
his  revision  of  the  former  books  was  superficial  and  imperfect ; 
it  "does  not  represent  the  critical  opinion  of  Jerome,  even  in 
the  restricted  sense  in  which  this  is  true  of  the  text  of  the  Gos- 
pels."! It  is  noteworthy  that  in  Jerome's  own  quotations 
from  James  he  does  not  follow  the  Vulgate.§ 

The  Greek  text  underlying  ff  and  m  was  of  the  same  type  as 
that  of  the  older  Greek  uncials,  and  resembled  B  more  closely 
than  does  any  extant  Greek  Ms.  (not  excluding  even  i<).  The 
Vulgate  shows  traces  of  the  influence  of  Greek  readings  different 
from  the  text  of  ff,  m,  but  hardly  ever  agreeing  with  KLPS. 

§  3.    Use  of  the  Authorities. || 

Since  most  of  the  important  variants  were  in  existence  as 
early  as  the  fourth  century,**  it  is  evident  that  the  value  of 
the  documents  is  not  mainly  to  be  determined  by  their  date, 
or  even  by  the  date  of  the  recension  which  they  may  represent. 

•  Cf.  Zahn,  ibid.  t  OLBT,  No.  IV,  1897,  p.  xsi. 

t  Westcott,  art.  "Vulgate,"  in  Smith,  DB,  p.  3479,  cf.  p.  3460;  cf.  Wordsworth,  SB,  i,  p. 
128 ;   White,  art.  "Vulgate,"  in  HDB,  iv,  pp.  874,  883. 

§  Wordsworth,  /.  c.  p.  134. 

II  The  following  observations,  it  should  be  noted,  are  intended  to  apply  only  to  the  Epistle 
of  James,  where  by  reason  of  the  late  emergence  of  the  epistle  into  use  the  problems  have  a 
peculiar  character.  Detailed  evidence  for  the  conclusions  here  stated  will  be  found  in  J.  H. 
Ropes,  "The  Text  of  the  Epistle  of  James,"  JBL,  xxviii,  1909,  pp.  103-129. 

**  The  isolated  variants  of  the  minuscules  (variants  many  of  which,  even  when  known,  are 
very  properly  left  unmentioned  in  Tischendorf's  apparatus)  do  not  in  most  cases  come  seri- 
ously into  question. 


TEXT  85 

Ancient  documents  must  be  treated  like  modern  editions ;  their 
worth  depends  on  the  materials  available  for  making  them  and 
on  the  soundness  of  the  principles  or  tastes  which  guided  their 
formation.  The  main  task  of  textual  criticism  is  to  discover 
the  character  of  those  principles  or  tastes. 

In  the  text  of  James  the  chief  groups  that  can  at  present  be 
treated  as  distinct  critical  entities  are  B  ff,  A  33,  KLPS  al. 
(the  "Antiochian  recension").  Of  these  the  text  of  KLPS  al. 
proves  on  examination  to  contain  no  distinctive  readings  which 
commend  themselves  as  probably  original.  This  is  not  due  to 
its  lateness,  but  to  the  systematic  preference  of  its  editor  (or 
of  a  series  of  editors  and  copyists)  for  textual  improvements 
already  in  existence,  which  had  been  made  at  various  times  in 
the  interest  of  "lucidity  and  completeness."  We  are  there- 
fore tolerably  safe  in  refusing  to  accept  its  testimony  in  the 
comparatively  few  cases  where  its  distinctive  readings  might 
in  themselves  have  some  degree  of  plausibility.  The  pecuhar 
common  element  of  A  33  is  also  due  to  emendation. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  text  of  B  ff,  while  not  absolutely 
free  from  obviously  emended  readings,  proves  to  be  much  freer 
from  them  than  is  that  of  any  other  document.  Moreover,  the 
text  of  B  shows  less  trace  of  emendation  than  that  of  ff.  Ac- 
cordingly, if  due  precaution  is  taken  against  admitting  unsup- 
ported errors  due  to  an  eccentricity  of  B,  it  is  a  sound  rule 
that  in  cases  where  "internal  evidence  of  readings"  is  not  de- 
cisive the  reading  of  B  shovdd  be  followed.  Since,  however, 
B  is  by  no  means  free  from  error  and  even  emendation,  positive 
evidence  from  "transcriptional"  or  other  internal  probability 
will  outweigh  the  authority  of  B. 

The  use  of  the  witnesses  other  than  B  is  thus  twofold.  First, 
when  they  disagree  with  B,  their  readings  may  sometimes  com- 
mend themselves  by  their  internal  character  as  superior.  Sec- 
ondly, when  they  agree  with  B,  they  serve  as  guarantee  that  the 
reading  of  B  is  not  due  to  the  idiosyncrasy  of  that  Ms.,  and  also, 
by  affording  evidence  of  the  wider  currency  of  the  reading,  they 
somewhat  strengthen  confidence  in  it. 

The  statement  of  Hort  ("Introduction,"  p.  171),  which  seems 


86  JAMES 

to  mean  that  the  authorities  for  the  Catholic  epistles  stand  in 
order  of  exceUence  BK33CAP,  is  substantiated  (at  any  rate  for 
the  uncials)  in  the  Epistle  of  James. 

The  rule  above  stated  cannot  be  presumed  to  5neld  a  perfect  text. 
The  result  will  probably  include  some  undetectable  errors.  It  will, 
however,  certainly  contain  fewer  emetided  readings  than  would  be  in- 
troduced by  following  the  guidance  of  any  other  document  or  group 
of  documents;  and  this  is  the  chief  requisite  of  a  sound  text,  since  in 
texts  of  the  N.  T.  false  readings,  if  supported  by  more  than  one  docu- 
ment, are  much  more  frequently  due  to  emendation  than  to  accident, 

F.  C.  Burkitt,  The  Rules  of  Tyconius  (TS,  iii),  1894,  p.  cxviii :  "The 
general  character  of  the  'Neutral'  text  so  often  represented  by  B  alone 
stands  on  a  sure  basis,  but  B  may  here  and  there  desert  that  text  by 
an  interpolation  or  by  a  substitution  which  may  not  necessarily  be 
self-betraying. 

"These,  however,  are  but  secondary  considerations  compared  with 
the  general  result,  that  in  the  Old  Testament  as  in  the  New  the  text  of 
our  oldest  Mss.  as  a  whole  is  proved  by  the  evidence  of  the  versions  to 
be  immensely  superior  to  the  later  eclectic  texts  commonly  used  in  the 
Greek-speaking  churches  from  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century.  These 
later  revisions  sometimes  preserve  valuable  fragments  of  older  texts 
which  would  otherwise  have  been  lost  altogether,  but  it  is  for  such 
fragments  alone  that  these  recensions  are  valuable,  and  not  for  their 
continuous  text." 

Some  further  progress  in  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  the  text  of 
James  is  to  be  expected  through  the  accumulation  of  new  materials 
and  the  verification  and  digestion  of  the  great  work  of  H.  von  Soden. 
The  textual  notes  printed  in  this  Commentary  on  the  several  verses  of 
James  are  based  in  the  main  on  Tischendorf's  apparatus.  The  writer 
hopes  to  carry  through  an  exhaustive  study  of  the  text  of  James  at  a 
later  time. 


III.    HISTORY  OF  THE  EPISTLE  IN  THE  CHURCH. 

The  earliest  express  references  to  the  Epistle  of  James  are 
those  found  in  Origen,  and  the  epistle  seems  to  have  come  into 
general  use  and  esteem  only  after  his  time  and  through  the  in- 
fluence of  Alexandria.  No  one  of  the  Apostohc  Fathers,  of 
the  Christian  writers  of  the  second  century,  or  of  the  heretics 
of  the  same  period  betrays,  in  the  present  writer's  opinion,  ac- 
quaintance with  James.     From  the  third  century  the  epistle 


HISTORY  OF  THE  EPISTLE  87 

begins  to  be  quoted,  and  to  be  included  in  the  canon,  first  of  all 
in  the  Greek  church,  then  in  the  Latin,  and  finally  in  the  Syrian 
church.  Among  the  Greeks  the  process  seems  to  have  been 
complete  before  the  time  when  Eusebius  wrote  his  history 
(c.  324).  In  the  West  at  the  close  of  the  fourth  century,  Jerome 
and  Augustine  mark,  and  did  much  to  effect,  the  final  accept- 
ance of  the  book  as  sacred  Scripture.  In  Syria  the  official  trans- 
lation of  the  N.  T.  included  the  Epistle  of  James  after  412  (or 
a  little  later),  and  it  was  used  by  representative  theologians  of 
the  Antiochian  school  somewhat  earlier;  yet  for  a  long  time, 
and  even  as  late  as  the  sLxth  century,  influential  church  leaders, 
especially  those  in  close  relations  with  the  Nestorians,  refused 
to  admit  it  into  their  canon.  The  extraordinary  influence  of 
Alexandrian  thought  on  the  world  is  instructively  exhibited  in 
this  one  small  instance  of  a  vast  pervasive  process. 

Much  of  the  necessary  material  may  be  found  assembled  in  Mayor, 
ch.  2;  see  also  Charteris,  Canonicity,  18S0,  pp.  292-300;  Meinertz, 
Jakobusbrief  (Biblische  Studien,  x),  1905;  Zahn,  Einleitung,  i,  =1906, 
§7,  notes  4-6;  The  New  Testament  in  the  Apostolic  Fathers,  by  a 
Committee  of  the  Oxford  Society  of  Historical  Theology,  Oxford, 
1905;  and  the  general  works  on  the  history  of  the  canon.  Zahn's 
statements  in  the  Einleitung  are  too  much  influenced  by  Mayor,  and 
are  less  trustworthy  than  his  earher  judgments.  On  the  history  of 
opinion  as  to  the  author  of  the  epistle,  see  above,  pp.  54-59. 

§  I.    Absence  of  Mention  in  Writers  Before  Origen. 

Clement  of  Rome. — A  great  number  of  passages  from  the 
epistle  of  Clement  have  been  supposed  to  show  acquaintance 
with  James,  and  are  conveniently  gathered  together  by  Mayor.* 
In  some  of  these  noteworthy  coincidences  of  phrase  occur, 
as  in  chs.  13,  23,  30,  38,  46,  and  in  the  references  to  Abraham 
in  chs.  10,  17,  31,  and  to  Rahab  in  ch.  12.  But  these  are  not 
ideas,  nor  forms  of  expression,  which  are  original  with  James, 
and  the  likeness  is  not  sufficient  to  prove  literary  dependence, 
but  only  similar  literary  associations. 

Lightfoot,  5.  Clement  of  Rome'',  1890,  i,  p.  96,  speaks  somewhat 
guardedly  of  the  recognition  of  James's  "type  of  Apostolic  teaching," 
*To  these  may  be  added  Clem.  Rom.  40'  iyd-n-rt  koAutttei  Tr\i)9o?  aixapTiutv,  cf.  Jas.  j*". 


88  JAMES 

although  in  fact  he  believed  (i,  p.  397,  cf.  ii,  pp.  97,  100)  that  Clement 
knew  and  used  our  epistle.  Westcott,  CNT\  1896,  p.  49,  thinks  that 
Clement  used  James,  as  does  Zahn,  GnK,  1889,  i,  pp.  962/.  Holtz- 
mann,  Einleitung',  1892,  p.  91,  regards  the  question  as  indeterminable. 
Weiss,  Einleitung^,  1889,  pp.  36,  49,  does  not  ascribe  to  Clement  any 
acquaintance  with  James.  That  there  is  no  sufficient  evidence  of  use 
by  Clement  is  also  the  decided  opinion  of  the  Oxford  Committee, 
NTAF,  1905,  pp.  137/. 

Of  the  Other  Apostolic  Fathers  there  is  no  adequate  evidence 
that  2  Clement  of  Rome,  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas,  Ignatius, 
Polycarp,  the  Teaching  of  the  Twelve  Apostles,  or  the  Epistle 
to  Diognetus,  used  or  knew  James.  The  same  is  true  of  Justin 
Martyr  and  of  the  Apologists  of  the  second  century. 

The  Oxford  Committee,  NTAF,  p.  128,  while  admitting  a  "general 
similarity  ...  in  the  spirit  of  [2  Clement's  and  James's]  teaching,"  hold 
that  the  passages  in  2  Clement "  are  insufl&cient  to  give  positive  evidence 
in  favour  of  hterary  dependence." 

Polycarp  6  xal  o\  xpeff^uirspot  SI  siiffTCXayxvot,  zlq  TcavTa?  ekBii^Loi/sq, 
Ixtaxp^cpovue?  ti  dtxox£xXocvT)[j,lvo[,  exttjx.sx'roti.evot  Tz&yzaq  acQetielq,  (!.■?) 
(i(i.£Xouvxei;  xqpixq  tj  opcpavoO  ij  xivqioq  .  .  .  d-TCSX^tiievot  Tz&c-qq  Spy^?,  xpoaw- 
•jcoXirjt^fa?,  xpfoewi;  ioi'xou,  is  noteworthy  as  combining  a  great  many  of 
the  topics  treated  in  James,  but  there  is  no  sufficient  indication  of  direct 
literary  connection.  The  same  is  to  be  said  of  Epistle  of  Barnabas  20. 
Most  of  the  parallels  from  the  Apostolic  Fathers  and  from  Justin  are 
conveniently  collected  in  Mayor,  ch.  2 ;  see  also  NTAF. 

Hermas. — The  Shepherd  presents  a  great  number  of  resem- 
blances to  James,  and  in  some  cases  the  similarity  extends  to 
a  series  of  parallels  in  a  longer  context.  Close  resemblance, 
however,  is  not  found  to  any  of  those  phrases  and  sentences  of 
the  epistle  which  are  unmistakably  original  whether  in  thought 
or  expression  (e.  g.  Jas.  2^^-^^),  and  in  most  of  the  parallel 
passages  the  difference  of  spirit  and  language  is  noteworthy. 
Hence  it  is  altogether  likely  that  both  writers  are  independently 
using  a  mass  of  religious  and  moral  commonplaces,  probably 
characteristic  of  the  Jewish  hortatory  preaching  with  which 
both  were  plainly  familiar.  That  these  resemblances  are  so 
numerous,  while  yet  no  one  of  them  is  conclusive,  does  not  pro- 
vide (as  it  has  often  been  asserted  to  do)  cumulative  evidence 


HISTORY  OF  THE  EPISTLE  89 

of  literary  dependence ;  on  the  contrary,  it  makes  the  opposite 
explanation  all  the  more  probable.  There  may  be,  indeed,  a 
common  dependence  on  some  single  current  book  of  practical 
reUgion,  but  the  existence  of  such  a  book  is  not  proved ;  a  com- 
mon background  would  suffice  to  account  for  the  facts,  and  that 
need  not  imply  that  the  two  authors  lived  in  the  same  locaUty 
or  in  neighbouring  places.  The  probability  is  that  Hermas  did 
not  know  the  Epistle  of  James,  and  that  there  is  no  direct 
literary  connection  between  the  two  writings. 

The  view  maintained  in  the  text  seems  to  me  well  established,  but 
is  not  that  of  most  scholars.  Zahn  {Der  Hirt  des  Hennas,  1868,  pp. 
396-409;  GnK,  1889,  i,  p.  962;  Einleitung^,  1906,  §  7,  note  5)  holds 
the  dependence  of  Hermas  on  James  to  be  certain,  and  with  him  agree 
Weiss,  Einleitung",  1889,  p.  37,  and  Westcott,  CNT\  1896,  pp.  204, 
207.  Conversely,  Holtzmann,  Einleitung^,  1892,  pp.  92,  336,  held,  as 
have  others,  that  James  was  probably  dependent  on  Hermas.  The 
Oxford  Committee,  1905,  p.  113,  however,  are  in  doubt,  saying  with 
regard  to  Hermas,  "we  should  be  hardly  justified  in  placing  the  Epistle 
higher  than  Class  C"  (their  "lower  degree  of  probability") ;  and  Lei- 
poldt,  GnK,  i,  1907,  p.  189,  deems  Hermas  only  "perhaps"  dependent. 
Hamack,  CaL,  i,  1897,  p.  485,  and  Jiilicher,  Einleitung^,  1906,  p.  193, 
have  perceived  that  there  is  no  adequate  evidence  of  literary  dependence 
on  either  side.  For  references  to  many  judgments  of  scholars,  see 
Meinertz,  Jakobusbrief,  1905,  pp.  86-90. 

The  parallels  between  James  and  Hermas  are  elaborately  treated  by 
Zahn,  Der  Hirt  des  Hermas,  1868,  pp.  396-409;  the  more  important 
are  carefully  discussed  in  NTAF,  Oxford,  1905  ;  and  a  very  full,  though 
not  quite  complete,  series  is  cited  in  Mayor,  /.  c. 

The  parallel  which  is  perhaps  most  striking  is  found  in  Hermas, 
Mand.  ix,  where  the  subject  is  a  warning  against  Stifux^*^-  The  ex- 
hortation to  pray  to  the  Lord  without  St^'ux'a  and  iStaTixTG).; ;  the 
promise  that  God  will  fulfil  such  a  request ;  the  assurance  that  God 
beareth  no  grudge  (oux  saTt  y^p  h  9eb<;  ui;  ol  fivOpuTcot  ol  [ivrjatxaxouvTe? 
dtXX'  (x^xhq  dtpLVT)aixax6?  lejTt) ;  the  warning  that  tA  Zl'ifU'xor.  .  .  .  ouSev 
oXttq  IxtxuYX'i'^o'J^'  "^iiiv  afTYjuLiTtov  auTtov ;  the  exhortation  to  pray  Iv  -zfi 
•rcfaTEt ;  the  generalisation  that  tj  ^I'^ux^cc . . .  icivTwv  d(;xoTUYx<^v£'  '^^'^  spYuv 
otuTT^q  a)v  xp4aaet,  all  have  their  parallels,  and  to  some  extent  in  the  same 
order,  in  Jas.  i'-'.  Further,  the  passage  contains  a  number  of  single 
phrases  (e.  g.  f)  xfo-cti;  ava>9lv  ea-ut  ...-?)  SI  Sti^uxfa  exfYetov  icveufii  ejTt 
xotpdk  ToO  Sta^dXou;  xaSiSptaov  ouv  t-?)v  xotpSfotv  aou;  aeauTbv  atTtw  xal  [l^ 
Tbv  3i36vTa  aot)  which  closely  resemble  language  found  in  various  parts 
of  the  epistle. 


go  JAMES 

But  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  author  of  James  coined 
the  word  Stijiuxo?)  and  the  parallels  do  not,  either  individually  or  in 
their  combination,  go  beyond  the  range  of  religious  commonplaces, 
while  the  more  original  elements  of  expression  and  thought  in  these 
very  verses  of  James  are  wholly  neglected.  Sermons  and  tracts  from 
all  ages  show  just  such  resemblances  in  countless  instances  where  no 
possibility  of  literary  dependence  exists. 

Similar  illustrations  of  the  relation  of  the  two  documents  can  be  mul- 
tiplied almost  indefinitely,  but  nowhere  else  is  there  so  near  an  approach 
to  a  parallelism  in  the  development  of  a  considerable  context  as  in 
Mand.  ix.  A  comparison  of  the  elaboration  in  Mand.  viii  of  what  is 
compactly  expressed  in  Jas.  i^'  is  also  instructive;  cf.  Ep.  Barnab.  20. 

Irenseus. — The  following  passages  alone  come  in  question : 

iv,  16^  ipse  Abraham  sine  circumcisione  et  sine  observation e 
sahhatorum  credidit  deo  et  reputatum  est  illi  adjustitiam,  et  amicus 
dei  vocatus  est  (cf.  Jas.  2^^) ; 

iv,  13^  Abraham  .  .  .  amicus  f actus  est  deo  (cf.  Jas.  2^^); 

V,  i^  factor es  autem  sermonum  ejus  facti  (cf.  Jas.  1^2);  facti 
autem  initium  facturae  {cf.  Jas.  i^*). 

In  the  first  of  these  (iv,  16^)  the  striking  identity  of  language 
with  Jas.  2^3  is  wholly  due  to  the  last  five  words,  and  may  well 
be  a  coincidence,  for  the  combination  of  ideas  is  natural,  and 
was  current  apart  from  James  (cf.  Clem.  Rom.  10^,  ^A^paa/x 
6  ^tXo9  irpocra'yopevOeL^,  and  10^),  and  the  form  of  expres- 
sion is  the  simplest  and  most  direct  possible.  The  other  re- 
semblances are  too  slight  to  show  any  literary  relationship. 

Westcott,  CNT'',  1896,  p.  391,  and  Harnack,  Das  Neue  Testament  urn 
das  Jahr  200, 1889,  p.  79,  see  here  no  evidence  that  Irenaeus  knew  James. 
On  the  other  hand,  Zahn,  Forschungen,  iii,  1884,  p.  152 ;  GnK,  i,  1888, 
p.  325;  Grundriss-,  1904,  p.  21;  Julicher,  Einleitung^,  1906,  p.  453; 
Leipoldt,  GnK,  i,  1907,  p.  235,  accept  the  evidence  of  use  by  Irenasus 
as  probably  valid.  Weiss,  Einleitung-,  1889,  p.  72,  inclines,  though 
with  more  reserve,  to  the  same  view.  For  the  opinions  of  other  writers, 
see  Meinertz,  Jakobusbrief,  1905,  p.  68,  note  6. 

Iren.  iv,  34^  libertatis  lex,  iv,  39^  tov  deafjiov  t-j}?  iXevOepia^^ 
are  fully  accounted  for  from  Irenaeus's  own  emphasis  on  the 
liberty  of  the  Gospel,  and  do  not  indicate  any  acquaintance 
with  James;  cf.  Iren.  iii,  iz*^;  iv,  g-;  iv,  37^ 


HISTORY  OF  THE  EPISTLE  9 1 

Tertullian. — No  passage  in  Tertullian  proves  use  of  James, 
and  his  omission  to  quote  Jas.  i^^  in  discussing  the  Lord's  Prayer, 
J)e  orat.  8,  seems  to  show  that  he  was  not  acquainted  with  it, 
or  at  any  rate  that  he  ascribed  to  it  no  apostoHc  or  sacred 
authority. 

So  Westcott,  CNTi,  p.  379;  Weiss,  Einleitung^,  p.  72;  Ronsch,  Das 
Neue  Testament  Tertullian's,  1871,  pp.  572-574.  Zahn,  Forschungen, 
iii,  p.  152,  held  to  Tertullian's  dependence  on  James  in  Adv.  Jud.  2, 
De  oral.  8;  later,  GnK,  i,  p.  325,  he  leaves  the  question  undecided; 
and  finally,  Grundriss'^,  p.  20,  he  ventures  no  statement.  Jiilicher, 
Einleitung^,  p.  453,  is  uncertain;  Leipoldt,  GnK,  i,  p.  235,  is  inclined 
to  accept  the  evidence  of  use  as  "perhaps"  valid. 

Clement  of  Alexandria. — No  passage  is  found  where  Clement 
of  Alexandria  shows  acquaintance  with  James.  Eusebius,  how- 
ever, writes  of  Clement  as  follows : 

Hist.  eccl.  vi,  14^  ^v  Se  ral'^  "TiroTViraicrecrLV ^  ^vveXovra  etVety, 
7rdar)<i  rrj^;  evhiadrfKOv  'ypac^rj^  eTrtreT firj ^eva<i  ireiroirjrai  Sirjyi]- 
aem^  /xrjSe  Ta<i  avTtXejofxeva<;  irapeXOcov^  ttjv  'louSa  Xeyco  Kal 
Ta?  XoLTra'i  Ka9o\iKa<i  eTTLcnoXa'i  ttjv  tc  ^apva/3d  Kal  ti]V 
Ilerpou  Xeyofievrjv  'AiroKoXvxl/LV. 

The  statement  about  Clement  made  by  Photius,  Bihlioth. 
cod.  109  eppL'qvelai  .  .  .  rod  OeCov  TiavXov  roiv  iirLaroXfov  koX 
T&v  KadoXtKwv,  is  to  the  same  effect,  and  the  two  testimonies 
would  be  accepted  as  attesting  Clement's  knowledge  of  James, 
were  it  not  that  the  Latin  Adumbrationes  dementis  in  epistolas 
canonicas,  which  are  accepted  as  the  translation  of  the  Hypo- 
typoses  made  under  the  direction  of  Cassiodorius  in  the  sixth 
century,  include  only  i  Peter,  Jude,  i  and  2  John.  That  these 
four  pieces  were  only  selections  from  a  larger  body  of  Latin 
translations  is  made  less  likely  by  the  careful  reference  of  Cassi- 
odorius to  only  four  epistles  in  the  following  passage : 

De  instit.  div.  lit.  8:  In  epistolis  autem  canonicis  Clemens 
Alexandrinus  presbyter,  qui  et  Stromateus  vacatur,  id  est  in  epistola 
sancti  Petri  prima,  sancti  Joannis  prima  et  secunda,  et  Jacohi 
quaedam  attico  sermone  declaravit.  Ubi  multa  quidem  subtiliter 
sed  aliqiia  incaute  locutus  est,  quae  nos  ita  transferri  fecimus  in 
latinum,  ut  exclusis  quibtisdam  ojfendiculis  purificata  doctrhiQ. 


92  JAMES 

ejus  securior  potuisset  hauriri.  Since  one  of  the  pieces  translated 
at  the  order  of  Cassiodorius  was  certainly  a  commentary  on 
Jude,  the  conjecture  is  natural  that  an  error  in  the  text  (or 
the  memory)  of  Cassiodorius  has  here  substituted  "James" 
for  "Jude."  This  conclusion  and  the  lack  of  use  anywhere  in 
Clement's  extant  writings  of  the  three  epistles  (James,  2  Peter, 
3  John)  not  included  in  the  Latin  Adumbrationes  must  be  ad- 
mitted to  throw  some  doubt  on  the  inference  which  would  other- 
wise be  drawn  from  the  statements  of  Eusebius  and  Photius, 
and  the  question  must  be  left  undecided.  The  general  rela- 
tion of  Clement  to  Origen  would  make  it  entirely  natural  that 
he  as  well  as  Origen  should  have  had  the  epistle;  but  it  cer- 
tainly made  no  appeal  to  his  interest. 

So  Jiilicher,  Einleitung^,  p.  454.  Zahn,  Forschungen,  iii,  pp.  133- 
138,  150-153;  GnK,  i,  pp.  321-323;  Grundriss-,  p.  21,  is  convinced 
(but  in  part  on  highly  precarious  grounds)  that  Clement  used  James. 
On  the  other  side  are  Westcott,  CNT^,  p.  362-364 ;  Hamack,  N.  T. 
urn  200,  p.  80;  Weiss,  Einleitung-,  p.  72;  Leipoldt,  GnK,  i,  p.  233, 
and  P.  Dausch,  Der  neutestamentliche  Schriftcanon  und  Clemens  von 
Alexandrien,  Freiburg,  1894,  pp.  26-28. 

§  2.    The  Greek  Church. 

Origen  makes  many  quotations  from  our  epistle,  sometimes 
naming  James  as  the  source ;  e.  g.: 

Comm.  in  Joan.  t.  xix,  c.  23  eav  Ze  XejrjTai  fxev  iricrri'?, 
^cBjoi?  Se  €p<y(i)v  TV'y')(dvrj^  veKpd  icmv  -q  Totavrrj^  &)?  iv  rrj  (f)e- 
po/xev7)  'laK(o^ov  iTna-roXrj  aveyvcofjiev. 

Other  formulas  used  by  Origen  in  quoting  James  are : 

ft)?  Trapa  'laKoo^cp  (Select,  in  Ps.  30,  ed.  Lommatzsch,  vol.  xii, 
p.  129) ; 

(f)r]alv  6  a'Tr6(T7o\o<i  {ibid.  65,  vol.  xii,  p.  395) ; 

^■qal  <yap  Ta«:&)/3o9    (ibid.  118,  vol.  xiii,  p.  100); 

Ka\co<i  yeypaTrrat  {ibid.  118,  vol.  xiii,  p.  70); 

(f)rjaLv  {ibid.  118,  vol.  xiii,  p.  106); 

iXex^V  {Select,  in  Exod.  15,  vol.  viii,  p.  324) ; 

oTrep  '^yov/xai  elprjaOat  vtto  tt}?  ypat^rj^  {Comm.  in  Joh, 
fragm.  6,  Berl,  ed,  vol.  iv,  p.  488); 


HISTORY  OF  THE  EPISTLE  93 

o  'la/cwySo?  ypd(f)ei,  (ibid,  fragm.  38,  p.  514,  also  ibid,  fragm. 
46,  p.  521); 

Ka6oi<;  (fi7](n  'ld/c(o^o<i  6  airoaroXo^;  (ibid,  fragm.  126,  p.  570). 

See  Mayor^,  pp.  Ixxxi/.  The  Latin  extracts  given  by  Mayor,  in 
some  of  which  James  is  called  "apostle"  or  "brother  of  the  Lord,"  are 
from  the  version  of  Rufinus,  and  cannot  be  trusted  in  this  particular. 
Other  similar  Latin  passages  could  be  added  to  Mayor's  collection. 

Origen  thus  regarded  the  author  of  James  as  an  ''apostle," 
and  included  the  epistle  in  "Scripture"  ;  moreover,  in  his  com- 
prehensive statements  about  the  contents  of  the  N.  T.,  preserved, 
to  be  sure,  only  in  the  Latin  of  Rufinus  (Horn,  in  Gen.  xiii,  2, 
the  "wells"  ;  Horn,  in  Jos.  vii,  i,  the  "trumpets"),  he  includes 
James  with  Peter  and  Jude  among  the  authors  of  the  N.  T. 
This  evidence  is  confirmed  by  his  abundant  use  of  passages  from 
the  epistle  in  his  works. 

The  fact  that,  in  speaking  of  James  the  Lord's  brother  in 
Comm.  in  Matt,  x,  17  (on  13^^^-))  Origen  fails  to  mention  any 
epistle  by  him  may,  however,  indicate  that  he  then  believed 
the  epistle  to  have  been  written  by  some  other  Apostle  James. 
The  omission  of  any  reference  to  the  Epistle  of  James  (or  to 
that  of  Jude)  in  the  passage  quoted  by  Eusebius,  H.  e.  vi,  25^-^°, 
from  Origen's  commentary  on  John,  book  v,  is  noteworthy, 
but  the  purpose  of  the  passage  is  to  show  that  even  the  great 
apostles,  Paul,  Peter,  and  John,  wrote  but  little,  and  mention 
of  James  was  not  necessary. 

The  precise  attitude  toward  the  epistle  indicated  by  the  word  <pepo- 
(i^vT)  in  the  first  extract  quoted  above  has  been  much  discussed.  But 
the  expression  seems  to  mean  "current,"  and  does  not  indicate  any 
qualification  of  Origen's  acceptance  of  the  writing  in  question.  Cf. 
Comm.  in  Joan.  t.  i,  c.  2  (with  reference  to  the  law  of  Moses)  twv 
Tofvuv  9spo[xlv(i)v  YPOtfwv  xal  ev  xaaatc;  sxxXrjafai?  6so0  xextaxeusJLSvwv 
elvat  Gefcov  oux  i2v  d(i(ipTot  iiq  X^y^v  xpo)TOY^vv7][JLa  (xev  xbv  Mouaew?  v6- 
liov  ixapx-fjv  Se  xh  suaYY^Xtov;  t.  i,  c.  3  <pdi:axo>v  txeta  to.  eiiaYT^^"^  '^"'5 
xpd^Eti;  xal  Ta?  lxtaToX(i<;  9^peaOat  xoiv  dtxoa'u6X(i)v  .  .  .  ev  xat?  <pepo[jL^vat<; 
IxtCTToXati;. 

The  positive  evidence  that  Origen  counted  James  as  a  "disputed" 
book,  and  had  scruples  about  including  it  in  his  N.  T.,  seems  to  reduce  it- 
self to  an  over-hasty  inference  from  Comm.  in  J  oh.  xx,  10  ou  auYZwpirjGev 


94  JAMES 

av  uxb  Twv  •7capaSe%o[i^v(i)v  to  Uiaziq  xwpl?  spYWv  vsz-pa  loTtv,  where 
the  context  shows  that  there  is  no  implication  whatever  that  any 
class  of  recognised  Christians  deliberately  rejected  James.  Zahn's  state- 
ment in  GnK,  i,  p.  323  and  note  i,  was  correct,  and  has  been  unfortu- 
nately modified  in  Gnmdrlss-,  p.  43 ;  cf.  Gregory,  Canon  and  Text  of  the 
New  Testament,  1907,  pp.  226/. 

The  extant  writers  of  the  Greek  church  contemporary  with 
Origen  or  just  after  his  time  made  somewhat  sparing  use  of 
James,  but  there  is  no  reason  to  think  that  any  of  them  failed 
to  include  it  in  his  N.  T.  The  antiquity  of  the  epistle,  its 
practical  religious  and  moral  usefulness  for  edification,  and  the 
growing  belief  that  it  was  written  by  the  Apostle  James  (see 
pp.  43-45)  were  motives  which  united  to  compel  acceptance 
of  it.  A  third-century  papyrus  and  all  Greek  copies  of  the 
Catholic  epistles  (the  earliest  of  which  date  from  the  fourth 
century)  contain  it,  and  it  is  found  in  the  several  Egyptian 
versions,  which  must  have  followed  the  custom  of  Alexandria. 

Frequent  use  and  direct  quotation  of  James,  apparently  as 
Scriptm-e  (i,  11^),  are  found  in  the  pseudo-clementine  Epistolae 
ad  virgines,  probably  written  in  Palestine  or  southern  Syria  in 
the  early  decades  of  the  third  century.  In  the  same  century 
perhaps  Gregory  Thaumaturgus*  (\  c.  270),  probably  Dionysius 
of  Alexandriaf  (t  265),  and  certainly  Methodius  of  OlympusJ 
(t  c.  311)  show  acquaintance  with  James. 

In  the  fourth  century  the  evidence  increases.  Eusebius  uses 
the  epistle  freely ,§  and  it  seems  to  have  formed  part  of  his  N.  T. 
The  fifty  copies  of  the  N.  T.  made  under  his  direction  by  or- 
der of  the  Emperor  Constantine  no  doubt  included  the  seven 
CathoHc  epistles,  and  we  may  assume  that  this  was  true  also 
of  the  copies  prepared  by  Pamphilus  (f  309).  The  statement 
of  Eusebius  that  some  did  not  accept  James  is  to  be  understood 
of  the  Syrians. 

»Westcott,  CNT\p.  392. 

tHamack,  Dte  Uberlieferung  und  der  Bestand  der  urchristlichen  Lilleralur  his  Eusebius, 
1893,  pp.  419,  421/. ;  Bardenhewer,  CesckiclUe  der  allkirchlichen  Lilleralur,  ii,  p.  175 ;  Meinertz, 
J akobusbriej ,  p.  112. 

t  Leipoldt,  GnK,  i,  p.  250;  Bonwetsch,  "Die  TheoloRie  von  Methodius  von  Olympus," 
in  Alhandl.  der  kgl.  Ges.  der  Wissenschaften  zu  Gollingen,  phil.-hisl.  Klasse,  N.  F.  vii,  i,  1903, 
p.  142;   and  Methodius  von  Olympus,  I.  Schrijten,  1891,  pp.  291,  293. 

§  Westcott,  CNT',  p.  43«. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  EPISTLE  95 

Hist.  eccl.  li,  23"  Totau-ra  y.fx\  "zx  -/.xix  'lixw^ov  ou  t)  xpcoTY)  twv  6voyia- 
l^o[i£V(i)V  xaOoXtxwv  STCtaxoXwv  elvat  XsysTai '  laxioy  Ss  (i)?  voOsusrai  [xsv, 
oii  xoXXol  Yoi^^  ''^'^^  xaXatuv  auzi}q  £ti,VTj(jL6veuffav.  idq  ouSe  t^<;  Xeyo- 
liivqq  'loiiSa,  (xtai;  xal  aLixf)<;  ouciq<;  twv  Itcto;  Xsyo[j.^v(i>v  xa9oXt>c(I)v  •  8[jiw>; 
S'  tfftJLev  xal  TauTa<;  (le-uo;  luv  XotTcuv  £v  ■Kksia'zxiq  S£3T)[j,oat£uti.£va<;  £•/.- 
xXifjatati;. 

Ibid,  iii,  25'  twv  3'  avxtX£Yoti.lvwv,  yvwptjjiwv  8'  ouv  o[i.(i)?  xotq  xoXXots,  t) 
X£YO[A£VY]  'laxw^ou  (fipeixt  xal  y)  'lojSa  i^  t£  IHxpou  3£uxdpa  exiaxoX^  xal  -J) 
6vofi,ai^otJ.ivirj  S£uxipa  xal  xpfxT]  'loxivvou. 

From  Eusebius's  statements  a  knowledge  of  these  ancient  doubts 
about  James  was  kept  alive  among  Greek  scholars  through  the  Middle 
Ages ;  cf.,  for  instance,  in  the  fourteenth  century,  Nicephorus  Callistus, 
Hist.  eccl.  ii,  46. 

The  Catalogus  Claromontanus  (Ms.  of  sixth  century ;  the  list 
is  believed  to  have  been  composed  in  Alexandria  in  the  fourth 
century)  includes  it,  as  do  the  lists  of  Athanasius,  Cyril  of 
Jerusalem,  Epiphanius,  Gregory  of  Nazianzus,  Amphilochius, 
and  Chrysostom.*  In  many  of  these  writers  quotations  or  allu- 
sions are  also  found,  f 

To  these  witnesses  may  be  added  Macarius  of  Egypt  (f  391), 
the  so-called  60th  canon  of  the  Council  of  Laodicea  (fourth  or 
fifth  century),  and  from  the  fifth  century  Cyril  of  Alexandria, 
Isidore  of  Pelusium,  Hesychius  of  Jerusalem,  Marcus  Eremita, 
Eusebius  of  Alexandria.  J 

The  acceptance  of  James  in  the  Greek  church  (not  including 
certain  Greek-speaking  Syrians)  is  thus  unbroken  from  the  time 
of  Origen,  when  the  book  first  emerges  into  the  light  of  history. 
Before  the  year  400  knowledge  of  it  is  attested  for  Alexandria, 
Palestine,  Cyprus,  Asia  Minor,  and  Constantinople. 

The  Armenian  Church.  The  Armenian  N.  T.,  in  the  only  form 
known  to  us,  was  made  to  correspond  to  Greek  Mss.  brought  from 
Constantinople  after  431,  and  hence  includes  James  with  the  other 
Catholic  epistles;  see  the  full  references  to  Armenian  writers  of  the 
fifth  century  given  by  Meinertz,  Jakobusbrief,  pp.  185-189. 

*  "  Euthalius "  included  James  and  the  other  Catholic  epistles  in  his  edition ;  cf.  J.  A. 
Robinson,  Eutkaliana  (TS,  iii,  3),  1895,  p.  27. 

t  The  reference  to  Basil  given  by  Westcott,  CNT'',  p.  434,  is  to  the  Constiluliones  monasiicae, 
which  are  probably  not  genuine.  The  resemblances  in  the  passages  from  the  Clementine 
Homilies  cited  by  Mayor',  pp.  Ixxxiii/.,  are  inadequate  to  show  acquaintance  with  James. 
Gregory  of  Nyssa  nowhere  alludes  to  James. 

t  For  references  to  James  in  Greek  writers  of  the  fifth  century,  see  Meinertz,  Jakobusbrief, 
pp.  159/.  163-165,  177/- 


96  JAMES 

§  3.    The  Syrian  Church. 

W.  Bauer,  Der  Apostolos  der  Syrer,  1903;  Zahn,  "Das  Neue  Testa- 
ment Theodors  von  Mopsvestia  und  der  urspriingliche  Kanon  der 
Sjnrer,"  in  Neue  Kirchliche  Zeitschrift,  xi,  1900,  pp.  788-806. 

The  history  of  the  epistle  among  the  Syrians  is  very  different, 
but  shows  the  gradual  effect  of  the  influence  of  Greek  learned 
authority.  The  earliest  translation  of  James  into  Syriac  was 
that  of  c.  412  in  the  Peshitto  version,  which  included  also 
I  Peter  and  i  John.  Previous  to  that  time  none  of  the  Catholic 
epistles  had  gained  complete  acceptance  into  the  Syrian  canon. 

Zahn,  GnK,  i,  pp.  373-375.  Cf.  Dod.  Addai,  46.  The  Syrian  canon 
published  from  a  ninth-century  Ms.  by  Mrs.  A.  S.  Lewis,  Sliidia  Sina- 
itica,  i,  1894,  pp.  11-14,  is  believed  to  have  been  composed  about  400 
A.D. ;  it  includes  the  four  Gospels,  Acts,  and  the  epistles  of  Paul  (with 
Hebrews  and  perhaps  3  Corinthians),  but  expressly  excludes  all  the 
Catholic  epistles  as  well  as  the  Apocalypse. 

Hence  Aphraates  (c.  345)  and  the  genuine  works  of  Ephraem 
(t378)  show  no  trace  of  acquaintance  with  James,  and  no  clear 
trace  is  found  in  the  scant  remains  of  other  literature  in  the 
Syriac  tongue  down  to  the  great  division  of  the  Syrian  church 
after  the  Council  of  Chalcedon  (451). 

So  Burkitt,  "Text  und  Versions,"  in  EB,  iv,  1903,  col.  5004,  note ;  cf. 
also  Westcott,  CNT'',  p.  452;  Jiilicher,  Einleitimg^,  p.  490;  and  Bur- 
kitt, 5.  Ephraim's  Quotations  from  the  Gospel  (TS,  vii,  2),  1901.  The 
contrary  statements  of  Zahn,  Grtindriss^,  p.  53  (altered  in  2d  ed.),  and 
of  J.  A.  Bewer,  "The  History  of  the  New  Testament  Canon  in  the 
Syrian  Church,"  in  American  Journal  of  Tlieology,  iv,  1900,  p.  349,  are 
founded  on  the  evidence  adduced  in  the  "Scriptural  Index"  in  J.  H. 
Hill,  Dissertation  on  the  Gospel  Commentary  of  S.  Ephraem  the  Syrian, 
1896.  But  in  so  far  as  the  references  to  James  there  collected  are  drawn 
from  works  preserved  only  in  Greek  or  Latin,  they  are  worthless  {cf. 
Zahn,  Forschungen,  i,  p.  46) ;  and  the  remainder,  found  in  Syriac  works, 
are  shown  by  Bauer,  op.  cit.  pp.  42-47,  to  be  in  every  case  inadequate 
to  prove  use  of  James.  Bauer  himself,  p.  48,  has  added  two  instances 
of  possible  use,  only  one  of  which,  however,  deserves  consideration,  the 
phrase  "father  of  lights,"  abha  d'  nahire,  found  in  Opera,  v,  col.  489. 
The  "Polemic  Sermon,"  No.  23,  in  which  this  occurs  is  undoubtedly 
genuine,  but  the  context  contains  no  hint  of  the  passage  in  James,  and 


HISTORY  OF  THE  EPISTLE  97 

the  allusion  is  not  clear  enough  to  permit  any  inference  whatever. 
Bauer,  pp.  52/.,  has  gone  too  far  in  saying  that  Ephraem  probably 
knew  James,  and  has  unfortunately  been  followed  here  by  Leipoldt, 
GnK,  i,  p.  245. 

The  resemblance  to  Jas.  3"  (Peshitto)  in  Isaac  of  Antioch  (fc.  460), 
ed.  Bickell,  i,  1873,  p.  132,  pointed  out  by  Bauer,  p.  53,  perhaps  is 
due  to  acquaintance  with  James,  but  may  be  accidental. 

In  the  Doctrine  of  the  Apostles,  published  by  Cureton  and  Wright, 
Aficient  Syriac  Documents,  p.  32,  there  is  a  singular  reference  to  "what 
James  had  written  from  Jerusalem."  If  the  document  is  from  the 
fourth  century  (Harnack,  Ueberlieferung  und  Bestand  der  altchristl.  Lit- 
teratur,  p.  535)  this  might  form  an  exception  to  the  above  statement. 
See  Westcott,  CNT\  p.  251. 

Even  among  Greek-speaking  members  of  the  undivided  Syr- 
ian church,  a  considerable  group  did  not  recognise  James  as  a 
part  of  the  N.  T.  The  most  notable  of  these  is  the  Antio- 
chian,  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia*  (f  c.  429),  who  accepted  no  one 
of  the  Catholic  epistles.  The  same  may  have  been  the  attitude 
of  Titus  of  Bostra  (fc.  371),  and  was  probably  that  of  Severi- 
anus  of  Gabala  {c.  400,  a  Syrian  by  birth),  and  of  the  author 
of  the  Apostolic  Constitutions. 

In  one  passage,  Pseudo-Ignatius,  Philip  p.  11  xw?  xetpi'Csn;  Tbv 
dixsfpaffTov,  the  author  of  the  Apostolic  Constitutions  perhaps  betrays 
his  knowledge  of  Jas.  i".  Apart,  however,  from  this  possible  allusion 
to  James,  this  writer  shows  acquaintance  with  no  Catholic  epistle  except 
I  Peter,  and  in  his  use  of  i  Peter  nowhere  indicates  that  it  was  a  part 
of  his  N.  T. ;  cj.  Bauer,  op.  cit.  pp.  61  /. 

In  later  centuries,  too,  there  is  adequate  evidence  that  by 
many  of  the  leaders  of  the  Nestorians  in  Eastern  Syria  James 
was  not  accepted,  although  they  used  the  Peshitto.  In  545 
Paul  of  Nisibis,  lecturing  at  Constantinople  but  doubtless  rep- 
resenting accurately  the  opinion  of  the  school  of  Nisibis,  attrib- 
uted full  canonicity  only  to  i  Peter  and  i  John,  and  classed 
James  with  the  antilegomena.f  So  Cosmas  Indicopleustes 
(c.  545),  who  had  become  acquainted  with  East  Syrian  theo- 

*  Bauer,  op.  cit.  pp.  53-58;  Zahn,  "Das  Neue  Testament  Theodors,"  in  NKZ,  xi,  1900, 
pp.  788-793. 

t  Junilius.  Institula  regularia  divinae  legis,  i,  6 ;  see  Westcott,  C.VT'.  pp.  553  /. ;  H.  Kihn, 
Theodor  von  MopsueUia  und  Junilius  Africanus  als  Exegeten,  1880. 

7 


gS  JAMES 

logians,  says  that  there  are  various  views  about  the  Catholic 
epistles,  and  that  some  reject  all  of  them;  but  it  is  not  clear 
that  he  refers  to  contemporaries.*  In  the  eighth  century  The- 
odore bar-Koni,  the  Nestorian,  apparently  rejected  all  the 
Catholic  epistles. t  About  825  Isho'dad,  bishop  of  Haditha  on 
the  Tigris,  refers  to  others  besides  Theodore  who  reject  all  the 
Catholic  epistles,  and  may  have  in  mind  contemporaries  of  his 
own.  I  In  the  preface  to  the  Catholic  epistles  by  the  Jacobite 
scholar,  Bar-Hebraeus  (1226-86),  the  doubts  about  James, 
I  Peter,  and  i  John  are  mentioned  (although  Bar-Hebraeus 
himself  accepted  those  epistles),  and  this  preface  is  found  in- 
cluded in  Syriac  N.  T.  Mss.  as  late  as  the  fifteenth  century. 

M.  Klamroth,  Gregorii  Ahulfaragii  Bar  Ebhraya  in  actus  et  epistulas 
cathollcas  adnotationes,  Gottingen,  1878.  This  preface  of  Bar-Hebraeus, 
which  is  itself  perhaps  based  partly  on  the  statement  of  Isho'dad,  is 
found : 

(i)  in  part  in  the  well-known  Amsterdam  Ms.  (Library  of  the  Fra- 
ternity of  the  Remonstrants,  no.  184)  of  1470  from  Mardin  (Gregory, 
Prolegomena,  p.  836,  no.  65),  which  contains  the  two  pseudo-clementine 
epistles  on  virginity;  cf.  Wetstein,  Diiae  epistolae  S.  dementis,  1752, 
pp.  407/. 

(2)  in  a  Ms.  now  or  formerly  belonging  to  Robert  S.  Williams,  of 
Utica,  N.  Y.  (Gregory,  Prolegomena,  p.  845,  no.  12)  described  by  I.  H. 
Hall,  "  A  Syriac  Manuscript  with  the  Antilegomena  Epistles,"  in  Journal 
of  the  Society  of  Biblical  Literature  and  Exegesis  for  1884,  pp.  37-49. 
This  Ms.  is  dated  147 1,  and  probably  came  likewise  from  near  Mardin. 

In  the  latter  Ms.  the  preface  runs  as  follows  (Hall,  /.  c.  p.  41) : 

"Three  Catholic,  that  is.  General,  epistles  were  translated  into  Syriac 
from  the  beginning  :  one  of  James,  the  brother  of  our  Lord,  who  was 
bishop  in  Jerusalem,  and  wrote  to  the  beheving  people  that  were  scat- 
tered in  every  place  of  captivities  and  persecutions,  and  to  them  was 
directed  this  first  epistle;  and  the  second,  of  Peter;  and  the  third,  of 
John.  But  men  have  doubted  about  them,  because  they  were  not  like 
the  [proper]  style  of  speech,  and  because  they  were  not  written  to  any 
one  person  or  people.     But  Eusebius  assures  [us]  that  they  are  theirs." 

On  the  other  hand,  after  about  350  the  movement  to  adopt 
some  at  least  of  the  seven  Catholic  epistles  recognised  by  the 

•  Zahn,  GnK,  ii,  pp.  230-233. 

t  A.  Baumstark,  "Die  Biicher  I-IX  des  ktfla|8a  Seskoljon  des  Theodoros  bar  Koni,"  in 
Oriens  Chrislianus,  i,  1901,  pp.  173-17S, 
t  Bauer,  op.  cil.  pp.  54  /. 


HISTORY   OF  THE  EPISTLE  99 

Greek  church  is  clearly  seen  among  the  Western  Syrians,  both 
of  Antioch  (where  Greek  was  spoken)  and  of  Edessa.*  Thus 
ApoUinarius  of  Laodicea  in  Syria  (f  c.  390),  whose  father,  how- 
ever, was  a  native  of  Alexandria,  is  said  to  have  commented  on 
James,  t  Chrysostom  (f  407)  uses  James  freely,  and  in  the 
so-called  Synopsis  of  Chrysostom,  which,  whatever  its  origin, 
correctly  represents  that  writer's  views,  James  is  included  with 
I  Peter  and  i  John  {icai  rcav  KadokiKMv  iTncrroXal  rpel<i). 
Polychronius  (f  428),  the  brother  of  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  in- 
troduces a  citation  from  James  as  from  tI?  twv  airoaToXoav. 
Theodoret  (f  c.  457)  quotes  Jas.  5"  and  makes  at  least  one  other 
allusion.f  In  Edessa  the  Peshitto  version  was  made  by  the 
direction  of  Rabbula  (bishop  411-435),  and,  in  accordance 
with  the  then  current  canon  of  Antioch,  it  included  James, 
I  Peter,  and  i  John. 

In  the  case  of  Lucian  of  Antioch  (fsn)  it  is  Hkely,  though  it  cannot 
be  proved,  that  he  accepted  James,  i  Peter,  and  i  John ;  cf.  Zahn, 
Grundriss-,  p.  54;  Harnack,  art.  "Lucian  der  Martyrer,"  in  Herzog- 
Hauck,  PRE,  xi,  1902. 

From  this  time  on  the  position  of  James  in  the  Monophysite 
branch  of  the  church  grew  increasingly  secure,  in  accordance 
with  the  general  tendencies  of  the  time.  The  successive  re- 
visions of  the  Syriac  N.  T.,  under  Bishop  Philoxenus  in  508  and 
by  Thomas  of  Heraclea  in  616,  even  brought  in  the  other  four 
Catholic  epistles  and  completed  in  Syriac  the  Greek  canon 
of  seven.  The  seven  are  included  in  the  85th  of  the  apostolic 
canons  appended  to  the  Apostolic  Constitutions,  which  is  be- 
lieved to  have  been  drawn  up  in  Syria  in  the  early  part  of  the 
fifth  century,  and,  having  been  translated  into  Syriac  not  later 
than  600,  became  a  corner-stone  of  ecclesiastical  law  in  the 
east.§  To  the  full  Greek  canon,  with  seven  Catholic  epistles, 
John  of  Damascus  (c.  750)  lent  the  influence  of  his  great  au- 
thority. 

*  See  Bauer,  op.  cit.  pp.  62-68.  t  See  Leipoldt,  GnK,  i,  p.  248. 

X  Meinertz,  Jakobusbrief,  p.  172,  note  i. 

§  Zahn,  GnK,  ii,  pp.  180-193  ;  H.  Achelis,  art.  "  Apostolische  Konstitutionen  und  Kanones," 
in  Herzog-Hauck,  PRE,  i,  i8g6. 


lOO  JAMES 

The  history  of  the  acceptance  of  James  among  the  Nestorians 
is  not  known,  but  their  great  scholar  Ebed  Jesu  of  Nisibis 
(ti3i8),  in  his  Catalogue  of  All  the  Books  of  the  Church,  in- 
cludes "three  epistles  which  in  every  manuscript  and  language 
are  ascribed  to  Apostles,  namely  to  James  and  to  Peter  and  to 
John."  * 

The  history  of  the  epistle  in  the  Syrian  church  thus  clearly 
illustrates  a  natural  process.  At  first  the  canon  of  the  Syrians 
consisted  only  of  the  Gospels  (i.  e.  the  Diatessaron)  and  the 
epistles  of  Paul ;  but  gradually  other  books  were  adopted 
from  Greek  neighbours,  and  this  took  place  most  rapidly  in 
the  western  churches  which  looked  to  Antioch  and  Edessa  for 
authoritative  judgment.  But  even  among  the  Antiochians 
James  only  won  its  place  in  the  face  of  long- continued  and  in- 
fluential opposition,  although  progress  was  greatly  aided  by  the 
wide  use  of  the  Peshitto.  In  the  parts  of  Syria  remoter  from 
Greek  influence  the  adoption  of  James  into  the  canon  was  tar- 
dier, and  down  almost  to  modern  times  a  vivid  recollection  was 
preserved  of  the  doubtful  position  of  James,  as  of  the  other 
CathoUc  epistles. 

§  4.    The  Western  Church. 

The  western  church  shows  the  same  tardiness  in  the  accept- 
ance of  James  that  we  have  traced  among  the  Syrians ;  and  here 
again  it  was  the  influence  of  Alexandria  that  ultimately  brought 
the  epistle  into  the  Latin  canon.  Before  the  middle  of  the 
fourth  century  there  is  no  clear  trace  of  any  acquaintance  with 
James.  The  Canon  of  Muratori  omits  it ;  Irenaeus  makes  no 
certain  use  of  it ;  TertuUian  seems  either  not  to  have  known  it 
or  to  have  rejected  it.  Among  the  innumerable  quotations  of 
Cyprian  there  is  none  from  James,  and  Novatian  (c.  252),  De 
trin.  4,  would  almost  certainly  have  quoted  Jas.  i^^  if  he  had 
known  it  as  a  part  of  Scripture,  f  A  hundred  years  later  {c.  359) 
the  African  Catalogus  Mommsenianus  omits  James,  and  it  is 
worthy  of  note  that  even  Ambrose  (f  397)  never  directly  quotes 
from  it. 

*  Westcott,  CNT\  p.  SS7-  t  Westcott,  CNT'',  p.  384,  note  2. 


HISTORY  OF   THE   EPISTLE  lOI 

The  evidence  adduced  for  use  by  Hippolytus  (Zahn,  Grundriss-,  p.  21 ; 
cf.  his  earher  and  more  accurate  statement,  GnK,  i,  pp.  323  /.)  is  wholly 
inadequate.  One  passage  often  quoted  (Hippol.  ed.  Lagarde,  p.  122) 
is  from  a  ninth-century  treatise.  The  resemblances  in  the  commentary 
on  Daniel  (Bonwetsch,  Studien  zii  den  Kommentaren  Hippolyts  (Texte 
und  Untersuchungen,  xvi,  3),  1897,  p.  26)  are  too  slight  to  have  any 
weight,  as  are  those  in  the  Berlin  Griechischc  christliche  Schriftsteller, 
Hippolytus,  ed.  Achelis,  vol.  i,  part  ii,  1897,  pp.  6,  60/.  The  possible 
reference  to  Jas.  i',  "the  word  of  Jude  in  his  first  letter  to  the  twelve 
tribes"  (ibid.  p.  231),  is  in  a  catena-fragment  taken  from  an  Arabic 
commentary  on  the  Apocalypse  made  in  the  thirteenth  century,  and, 
wholly  apart  from  the  obvious  questions  of  transmission  and  genuine- 
ness, is  too  confused  and  too  slight  for  any  affirmation  to  be  founded 
on  it  (so  Zahn,  GttK,  i,  p.  323). 

On  Ambrose,  cf.  Wordsworth,  SB,  i,  p.  128,  note  2.  It  is  probable 
that  the  passage.  Expos,  evang.  Luc.  viii,  13,  sive  Lazarus  pauper  in 
sceculo  sed  deo  dives,  sive  apostolicus  aliquis  pauper  in  verba,  lociiples  in 
fide  betrays  acquaintance  with  Jas.  2^.  The  probability  is  increased 
by  the  agreement  with  the  version  of  £f  (pauperes  sceculi,  locupletes 
in  fide)  against  the  Vulgate  {pauperes  in  hoc  mundo,  divites  in  fide) . 

The  earliest  evidence  of  knowledge  of  James  in  the  Latin  west 
is  probably  to  be  found  in  the  Latin  translation  on  which  the 
texts  of  Codex  Corbeiensis,  the  pseudo-augustinian  Speculum, 
and  the  Vulgate  all  ultimately  rest.  This  must  have  been  made, 
at  latest,  by  350  a.d.  But  in  Codex  Corbeiensis  the  epistle  is 
included  in  a  collection  of  patristic  tracts,  and  there  is  no  evi- 
dence that  it  was  a  part  of  any  Latin  N.  T.  until  a  generation 
later.* 

The  earliest  Latin  writer  to  quote  from  James  is  Hilary  of  Poi- 
tiers, De  trin.  iv,  8  (written  356-358,  during  his  exile  in  Asia 
Minor  and  the  east),  who  refers  to  it  once  only,  and  then  in  a 
catena  of  passages  which,  he  alleges,  are  misused  by  the  Arians 
in  support  of  their  heresy.  Since  the  form  of  his  quotation 
{demutatio  ;  cf.,  however,  Priscillian,  Tract,  i,  p.  26.  21)  agrees 
with  no  known  Latin  version  of  James,  it  is  likely  that  Hilary 
is  making  his  own  translation  from  the  Greek. 

"  Ambrosiaster  "  (366-382  ;  like  Jerome,  with  whom  he  seems 
in  other  ways  to  have  had  some  relations,  a  supporter  of  Da- 
masus)  once  quotes  Jas.  5  2°,  in  a  form  almost  identical  with 

♦  Cf.  Zahn,  GnK,  i,  pp.  323-32S- 


102  JAMES 

that  of  the  Vulgate.*  Priscillian  (375-386),  Ukewise  closely 
connected  with  the  east,  repeatedly  quotes  James  in  a  Latin 
translation  substantially  identical  with  that  of  the  pseudo-au- 
gustinian  Speculum  (m).t  Philastrius  of  Brescia  (383-391)  in- 
cluded James  in  his  canon.  | 

The  Vulgate  revision  of  the  epistles,  including  James,  seems 
to  have  been  prepared  in  384-385,  and  wielded  invincible  au- 
thority.§  Jerome  also  makes  many  quotations  from  the  epistle 
in  his  own  writings,||  and  in  392  wrote  as  follows: 

De  viris  illustribus,  2 :  Jacobus  qui  appellatur  f rater  domini  .  .  .  unam 
tantum  scripsit  epistnlam,  quae  de  septem  catholicis  est,  quae  et  ipsa  ab 
alio  quodani  sub  tiomine  ejus  edita  adseritur,  licet  paulatim  tempore  pro- 
cedente  obtinuerit  aucloritatem. 

The  canon  of  Rufinus  (c.  404)**  included  Jacobi  fratris  domini 
et  apostoli  unam,  as  would  be  expected  from  the  many  refer- 
ences to  James  in  similar  terms  found  in  his  translations  of  the 
exegetical  works  of  Origen.  Chromatins  of  Aquileia  (f  406), 
the  intimate  friend  of  both  Jerome  and  Rufinus,  quotes  James 
with  a  text  closely  like  that  of  Codex  Corbeiensis  (ff).tt 

Augustine  (354-430)  is  the  first  African  to  make  use  of  the 
Epistle  of  James.  J  J  He  adopted  exactly  the  canon  of  Jerome, 
and  under  his  influence  this  list  of  books  was  established,  prob- 
ably by  the  Council  of  Hippo  in  393  and  the  "third"  Coun- 
cil of  Carthage  in  397,  certainly  by  the  Council  of  Carthage  in 
419. §§  The  Donatists  of  this  period  also  accepted  the  same 
Catholic  epistles  as  the  Catholic  church.  |||I  In  405  Pope  Inno- 
cent I  wrote  a  letter  to  Exsuperius,  bishop  of  Toulouse,  in  which 

*  A.  Souter,  A  Study  of  Ambrosiaster  (TS,  vii,  4),  1905,  pp.  196/.;  G.  Morin,  "Qui  est 
I'Ambrosiaster  ?     Solution  nouvelle,"  in  Revue  Benedictine,  vol.  joxi,  1914,  pp.  1-34. 

t  The  passages  are  given  in  Mayor,  pp.  5-23.  t  Har.  Ixxxviii. 

§  The  Roman  synod  of  382  is  a  mere  assumption  to  account  for  the  so-called  Decretum 
Celasianum,  containing  a  list  of  the  books  of  the  N.  T.'which  was  supposed  to  have  proceeded 
from  it.  E.  von  Dobschiitz,  Das  Decretum  Gelasianum  (Texte  und  Untersuchungen,  xxxviii), 
191 2,  has  now  proved  that  the  Decretum  is  a  pseudepigraphic  document  of  the  first  half  of 
the  sixth  century. 

II  Cf.  Wordsworth,  SB,  i,  p.  129,  and  notes. 

**  Expositio  in  symholum  apostolorum,  36. 

tt  Trad,  in  evang.  S.  Matt,  is,  1 ;  xiv,  7 ;  quoted  by  Wordsworth,  op.  cit.  p.  13s. 

tt  See  De  doctrina  Christiana,  ii,  12  ;  cf.  Wordsworth,  op.  cit.  p.  129.  Augustine  quotes  James 
in  a  Latin  version  closely  like  the  Vulgate. 

§§  Zabn,  GnK,  ii,  pp.  244-259.  ||  ||  Westcott,  CAT',  p.  422. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  EPISTLE  103 

he  names  these  same  books  as  constituting  the  N.  T.  Worthy 
of  mention  is  the  fact  that  when,  about  544,  Cassiodorius  had 
a  copy  of  the  N.  T.  prepared,  secundum  autiquam  translationem 
(i.  e.  as  it  was  before  the  revision  by  Jerome),  this  copy  included 
James. 

The  difference  between  the  Greek  and  the  Latin  canon  of 
the  N.  T.,  which  lasted  until  the  end  of  the  fourth  century,  is 
nowhere  more  clearly  seen  (not  even  in  the  case  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews)  than  in  the  Epistle  of  James ;  and  in  the  west, 
as  in  Syria,  it  seems  to  have  been  men  acquainted  with  the 
learning  and  custom  of  Alexandria  who  brought  the  Epistle 
of  James  into  general  use  and  made  it  an  integral  part  of  the 
N.  T.  But  in  the  west,  unlike  Syria,  authority  promptly  pre- 
vailed, and  after  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century  no  trace  is 
found  of  any  lingering  prejudice  against  James. 

§  5.    Order  of  the  Catholic  Epistles.* 

The  order  in  which  the  Catholic  epistles  were  arranged  is 
not  determinable  earher  than  Eusebius.  His  order  is  probably 
James,  Peter,  John,  Jude ;  in  any  case  he  put  James  first.  This 
order  is  that  followed  by  Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  Athanasius,  Epi- 
phanius,  Gregory  of  Nazianzus,  Euthalius,  the  later  Greek  lists, 
nearly  all  Greek  Mss.,  and  the  Bohairic  version.  In  the  Pesh- 
itto  a  similar  order  is  found,  James,  i  Peter,  i  John.  In  a  few 
instances  from  among  the  Greeks  the  epistles  of  Peter  are  put 
first,  so,  notably,  in  the  85th  apostolic  canon  and  Codex  ^ 
(cent,  viii  or  ix). 

In  the  west  before  Jerome  a  different  condition  is  found, 
which  reflects  the  fact  that  until  that  time  the  western  church 
did  not  possess  a  complete  and  definitive  canon  of  Catholic 
epistles.  Nearly  always,  in  honour  to  the  Roman  see,  Peter 
is  put  first ;  so  in  the  usage  of  Rufinus,  in  all  three  of  the  codices 
prepared  for  Cassiodorius,  and  in  the  Hst  of  the  Codex  Claro- 
montanus.  The  place  of  James  varies  among  the  other  three 
stations;  but  there  was  a  tendency  to  adopt  the  order  Peter, 
John,  James,  Jude,  and  this  order  recurs  later  from  time  to 

•  Mainly  drawn  from  Zahn,  GnK,  ii,  pp.  375-380. 


I04  JAMES 

time,  and  is  followed  in  the  decree  of  the  Council  of  Trent  of 
April  8,  1546.* 

In  the  Vulgate,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Greek  order,  James, 
Peter,  John,  Jude,  was  followed,  and  no  Vulgate  Ms.  is  known 
which  departs  from  it.  The  Codex  Fuldensis  (c.  540  a.d.)  con- 
tains an  older,  pseudo-hieronymian,  prologue  to  the  Catholic 
epistles,  which  expressly  states  that  the  order  of  the  orthodox 
Greeks  differs  from  that  earlier  current  in  Latin  Mss.  and 
that  the  Greek  order  was  introduced  into  Latin  usage  by 
Jerome.  From  the  Vulgate  the  Greek  order  has  come  into 
the  modern  English  Bible. 

§  6.    Later  History, 

Leipoldt,  GnK,  ii,  1908,  where  full  citations  will  be  found ;  Westcott, 
CNT,  part  iii,  ch.  3  ;  S.  Berger,  La  Bible  au  seiziemc  siecle,  1879  >  Mei- 
nertz,  Jakobusbrief,  1905,  who  gives  a  full  account  of  Byzantine  and 
mediaeval  Latin  references;  G.  Kawerau,  "Die  Schicksale  des  Jakobus- 
briefes  im  16.  Jahrhundert,"  in  Zeitschrift  fur  kirchUche  Wissenschafl 
und  kirchliches  Leben,  x,  1889,  pp.  359-370;  W.  Walther,  "Zu  Luthers 
Ansicht  iiber  den  Jakobusbrief,"  in  Theol.  Studien  tmd  Kritiken,  Ixvi, 
1893,  pp.  595-598 ;  M.  Meinertz,  "  Luther's  Kritik  am  Jakobusbriefe 
nach  dem  Urteile  seiner  Anhanger,"  in  Biblische  Zeitschrift,  iii,  1905, 
pp.  273-286;  H.  H.  Howorth,  "The  Origin  and  Authority  of  the  Bib- 
lical Canon  according  to  the  Continental  Reformers,"  in  JTS,  viii, 
1906-7,  pp.  321-365,  ix,  1907-8,  pp.  188-230;  "The  Canon  of  the 
Bible  among  the  Later  Reformers,"  ibid.  x'lgoS-g,  pp.  182-232. 

After  the  early  part  of  the  fifth  century  any  doubt  as  to  the 
right  of  James  to  a  place  in  the  canon  disappeared  from  the 
west,  and  only  Isidore  of  Seville  (t636)  so  much  as  refers  to 
the  ancient  doubts. f  In  15 16  the  first  published  edition  of 
the  Greek  Testament  in  print  appeared,  with  Annotationes  by 
its  editor  Erasmus.  In  these  (p.  601),  with  clear  internal  in- 
dication of  dependence  on  the  statements  of  Jerome,  Erasmus 
mentions  the  scruples  of  antiquity,  and  adds  some  reasons  of 
his  own,  drawn  from  language  and  style,  for  doubting  whether 
the  epistle  is  from  the  hands  of  an  apostle.J  Nevertheless,  he 
heartily  accepts  it  as  a  proper  part  of  the  canon. 

*  Leipoldt,  GnK,  ii,  p.  46.  f  De  origine  officiomm,  i,  12.  tSee  above,  p.  25.     . 


HISTORY   OF   THE   EPISTLE  1 05 

The  influence  of  Erasmus's  learning  was  felt  in  both  the 
Catholic  and  Protestant  camps.  On  the  Catholic  side  Car- 
dinal Cajetan,  who  had  a  knowledge  of  Jerome  at  first  hand, 
allowed  himself  in  some  matters  to  adopt  a  criticism  more  radi- 
cal than  that  of  Erasmus,  but  in  the  case  of  James  he  was  satis- 
fied (1529)  with  pronouncing  its  apostolic  authorship  uncertain. 
At  the  Council  of  Trent  these  free  views  were  vigorously  rep- 
resented, and  appeal  made  to  the  authority  of  Jerome,  but  in 
the  decree  of  April  8,  1546,  the  Epistle  of  James  was  included 
in  the  list  of  sacred  and  canonical  Scripture  and  its  author  de- 
clared to  be  an  apostle.* 

This  action  has  led  to  a  distinction,!  still  current  in  the 
Roman  Catholic  church,  between  those  books  of  the  Bible 
which,  it  is  believed,  have  always  been  accepted  (sometimes 
called  "proto-canonical"),  and  those  which  only  gradually  at- 
tained full  canonical  authority  ("deutero-canonical").  To  the 
latter  class  belongs  the  Epistle  of  James.  But  this  is  purely 
an  historical  classification;  no  defect  of  canonicity  is  held  to 
pertain  to  the  "deutero-canonical"  books,  whether  in  O.  T.  or 
N.  T. 

On  the  Protestant  side  the  canonical  character  of  certain 
books,  and  notably  of  James,  was  earnestly  contested.  The 
doubts  raised  by  the  historical  learning  of  Erasmus  were  strength- 
ened as  the  reformers  undertook,  on  the  basis  of  independent 
investigation,  to  separate  the  original  substance  of  Christian 
doctrine  from  its  later  accretions  of  tradition.  The  ancient  ex- 
ternal evidence  from  the  first  four  centuries  as  to  the  apostolic 
origin  of  certain  books  (Hebrews,  James,  2  Peter,  2  and  3  John, 
Jude,  Revelation)  was  seen  to  be  by  no  means  uniformly  favour- 
able, and  the  question  arose  whether  such  books  could  be  treated 
as  safe  bases  of  doctrinal  authority.  At  the  same  time  a  new 
criterion  of  canonicity  was  introduced  by  Luther,  who  classified 
the  books  of  the  traditional  canon  according  as  they  showed  fidel- 
ity to  the  Gospel  of  Christ  ("Christum  predigen  und  treyhen")  as 
he  understood  it,  that  is,  to  the  doctrine  of  salvation  by  faith, 

•  See  above,  p.  46.    This  decree  was  reaffirmed  by  the  Vatican  Council,  April  24,  1870. 
tThe  distinction  appears  in  Sixtus  Senensis  (1566),  and  was  maintained  by  Bellarmin 
(1586);  see  Leipoldt,  GnK,  pp.  52^. 


lo6  JAMES 

most  clearly  expressed  in  John,  Romans,  and  i  Peter  (these 
"the  true  kernel  and  marrow  among  all  the  books").  Luther's 
objection  to  James  is  found  as  early  as  1519,*  but  his  judgments 
were  most  clearly  expressed  in  the  first  edition  of  his  German 
N.  T.  (Wittenberg,  September,  1522).  In  the  Introduction  to 
this  he  says : 

"  In  fine,  Saint  John's  Gospel  and  his  first  epistle,  Saint  Paul's  epistles, 
especially  those  to  the  Romans,  Galatians,  Ephesians,  and  Saint  Peter's 
first  epistle, — these  are  the  books  which  show  thee  Christ,  and  teach 
thee  everything  that  is  needful  and  blessed  for  thee  to  know  even  though 
thou  never  see  or  hear  any  other  book  or  doctrine.  Therefore  is  Saint 
James's  epistle  a  right  strawy  epistle  ('  eyn  rcchte  stroern  Epistel '  f)  in 
comparison  with  them,  for  it  has  no  gospel  character  to  it." 

The  special  preface  to  James  presents  his  view  in  detail.  He 
values  the  epistle  because  it  emphasises  the  Law  of  God  {^^Gottis 
gesetz  hart  treyhV),  but  denies  its  apostolic  authorship,  chiefly 
on  the  ground  that  it  teaches  justification  by  works.  He  con- 
cludes : 

"  Therefore  I  will  not  have  it  in  my  Bible  in  the  number  of  the  proper 
chief  books,  but  do  not  intend  thereby  to  forbid  anyone  to  place  and 
exalt  it  as  he  pleases,  for  there  is  many  a  good  saying  in  it." 

In  printing,  Luther  separated  James,  with  Jude,  Hebrews,  and 
Revelation,  from  the  other  book  of  the  N.  T.,  putting  them  at 
the  end  of  the  volume  and  assigning  them  no  numbers  in  his 
table  of  contents. 

In  the  first  edition  of  the  complete  German  Bible  (1534),  the 
section  of  the  Introduction  containing  the  remark  that  James  is 
"a  right  strawy  epistle"  was  for  some  reason  omitted;  but  the 
preface  to  James  is  not  substantially  altered,  and  in  many  other 
utterances,  public  and  private,  and  extending  through  the  whole 
period  of  his  life,  Luther  expressed  the  same  judgment,  with 
no  lessening  of  decisiveness  or  vigour.     In  the  successive  issues 

*  Resoluiiones  Lulherianae  super  propositionibus  suis  Lipsiae  dispulalis,  Weima.ied.,  vol.  ii, 
p.  425- 

tThe  phrase  is  founded  on  the  "wood,  hay,  stubble"  of  i  Cor.  3>=,  to  which  Luther  also 
alludes  in  his  preface  to  Hebrews.  It  means  only  that  the  epistle  contains  much  straw,  not 
that  it  is  wholly  composed  of  it. 


HISTORY  Of  THE  EPISTLE  107 

of  the  German  Bible  down  to  the  present  day,  the  order  of  the 
books  of  the  N.  T.  remains  that  of  Luther,  although  since  1603 
it  has  grown  customary  to  assign  numbers  to  the  four  con- 
tested books  with  the  rest. 

The  view  held  by  Luther,  that  James,  in  view  of  its  inner 
character,  ought  not  to  be  given  full  canonical  authority,  while 
yet,  as  a  book  profitable  for  edification,  it  ought  not  to  be  utterly 
rejected,  is  substantially  the  view  of  most  of  the  earlier  German 
Protestants.  Dogmatic  and  exegetical  writers  formulated  it 
with  great  variety  of  shades  of  emphasis.  They  frequently 
permitted  themselves  sharp  criticism  of  the  epistle,  and  ex- 
pressly denied  its  authority  for  the  establishment  of  doctrine, 
and  to  Luther's  subjective  grounds  they  added  arguments 
drawn  from  the  early  history  of  the  canon.  Such  attacks  were 
stimulated  afresh  by  the  attempted  compromise  of  the  "Augs- 
burg Interim"  (1548),  in  which  Jas.  51-*  was  used  as  authority 
for  the  sacrament  of  extreme  unction.  The  most  complete 
formal  rejection  is  to  be  found  in  the  so-called  Wiirttemberg 
Confession  (1552),  in  which  is  contained  this  article: 

"De  sacra  scriptura,  Sacram  scripturam  vocamus  eos  canonicos  libros 
Veteris  et  Novi  Testamenti  de  quorum  auctoritate  in  ecclesia  numquam 
dubitatum  est." 

This  was  intended  to  exclude  definitely  from  the  canon  the 
seven  disputed  books,  some  or  all  of  which  were  frequently 
designated  as  ''apocrypha  of  the  New  Testament "  or  even  (as 
in  Wolder's  Polyglot,  Hamburg,  1596)  as  "non-canonical." 

On  the  other  hand,  Luther's  jealous  personal  opponent, 
Carlstadt,  in  his  elaborate  investigation  of  the  canonical  Scrip- 
tures, while  recognising  that  James  and  the  other  disputed  books 
are  of  lesser  dignity  and  value,  yet  refused  to  admit  that  they 
lack  full  canonical  authority.  In  favour  of  the  Epistle  of 
James  was  also  thrown  the  powerful  influence  of  Melanchthon, 
who  beheved  that  the  statements  of  James  about  justification 
could  be  understood  in  such  a  way  as  to  escape  conflict  with 
the  doctrines  of  Paul. 

In  the  later  years  of  the  sixteenth  century,  with  the  establish- 


lo8  JAMES 

ment  of  the  stricter  doctrine  of  inspiration,  the  doubts  about 
the  canonical  authority  of  James  tended  to  disappear  among 
orthodox  Lutherans,  and  after  the  year  1600  they  are  seldom 
heard  except  from  the  ranks  of  the  rationalistic  and  critical 
theologians.  The  German  doctrinal  standards  do  not  contain 
lists  of  the  books  of  the  N.  T.,  but  the  rightfulness  of  the  posi- 
tion of  James  in  the  canon  was  assumed  at  the  date  when  these 
documents  were  prepared,  and  was  plainly  deemed  unassailable. 
The  terms  "deutero-canonical,"  "libri  canonici  secundi  ordinis'' 
continued  in  use  for  many  years,  but  were  emptied  of  all  sub- 
stantial meaning. 

Kawerau,  op.  cil.  p.  369,  "Die  Konkordienformel  mit  ihrem  Riickgang 
auf  die  Apologie  (p.  693)  bezeichnet  wol  den  Wendepunkt  in  der  Beur- 
theilung  des  Jakobusbriefes.  Die  Inspirationslehre  des  nachfolgenden 
Dogmatikergeschlechtes  hatte  ein  kritisches  Urtheil  nicht  mehr  ver- 
tragen  konnen." 

In  the  reformed  churches  outside  of  Germany  Luther's 
principle  of  discrimination  between  the  different  books  of  the 
N.  T.  did  not  meet  with  favour,  and  although  the  ancient 
doubts  as  to  certain  books  were  fully  recognised,  there  seems 
to  have  been  little  or  no  disposition  to  set  up  a  new  canon. 
Zwingli,  Calvin,  Beza,  and  their  followers  all  accepted  James 
as  canonical,  although  it  was  admitted  that  the  authorship 
was  disputable.  The  Gallican  Confession  (1559)  and  the  Belgic 
Confession  (1561)  include  James  in  their  lists  of  Holy  Scripture. 
After  this  time  critics  sometimes  denied  the  genuineness  and 
apostolic  authorship  of  books,  but  they  had  no  idea  of  altering 
the  contents  of  the  traditional  N.  T. 

In  England  the  early  translations  show  strong  Lutheran  in- 
fluence.* Tyndale's  New  Testaments  (^1525)  follow  the  ar- 
rangement of  Luther  in  putting  Hebrews,  James,  Jude,  Revela- 
tion at  the  end,  and  giving  them  no  numbers  in  the  table  of 
contents.  This  is  in  accord  with  the  adoption  by  Tyndale  of 
much  matter  from  Luther's  prefaces  and  with  other  marks  of 
dependence  on  the  German  Bible.    Tyndale's  prologue  to  James 

*  H.  H.  Howorth,  "The  Origin  and  Authority  of  the  Biblical  Canon  in  the  Anglican  Church," 
in  JTS,  viii,  IQ06-7,  pp.  1-40. 


HISTORY    OF   THE    EPISTLE  109 

(1534)  alludes  to  ancient  doubts  and  later  objections,  but  con- 
cludes: "Me  thynketh  it  ought  of  ryght  to  be  taken  for  holye 
Scripture,"  and  no  movement  for  rejecting  the  epistle  from  the 
canon  seems  to  have  arisen  in  England. 

The  Bibles  of  Coverdale  (1535),  "Matthew"  (1537),  and 
Taverner  (1539)  likewise  preserve  the  Lutheran  order.  In  the 
Great  Bible  (1539),  published  by  ecclesiastical  authority,  the 
Vulgate  order  of  the  N.  T.  books  is  for  the  first  time  found  in 
an  English  Bible.*  This  was  naturally  followed  in  the  Bishops' 
Bible  (1568),  and  King  James's  Bible  (1611) ;  but  it  had  already 
become  familiar  to  the  Puritans  through  the  Geneva  N.  T. 
(1557),  in  which  the  order  of  the  books,  as  well  as  many  other 
evidences,  shows  the  transition  in  English  Puritanism  from 
Lutheran  to  Calvinistic  influences. 

Dutch,  Swiss,  Danish,  and  Swedish  Bibles  of  the  sixteenth  centiuy 
are  known,  and  even  an  Icelandic  Bible  published  at  Copenhagen  in 
1807,  which  follow  Luther's  order;  cf.  Leipoldt,  GnK,  ii,  pp.  loi,  104; 
H.  H.  Howorth,  "The  Origin  and  Authority  of  the  BibUcal  Canon 
according  to  the  Continental  Reformers.  II.  Luther,  Zwingh,  Lefevre, 
and  Calvin,"  in  JTS,  ix,  1907-8,  pp.  188-230,  and  "The  Canon  of  the 
Bible  among  the  Later  Reformers,"  ibid,  x,  1908-9,  pp.  182-232. 

The  Thirty-Nine  Articles  (1562)  declare  (Art.  VI) :  "All  the 
Books  of  the  New  Testament,  as  they  are  commonly  received, 
we  do  receive,  and  account  them  Canonical."  The  Westmin- 
ster Confession  (1647)  expressly  includes  James  in  the  list  of 
Scripture. 

The  Thirty-Nine  Articles  are  inconsistent,  for  Art.  VT  also  states :  "In 
the  name  of  the  Holy  Scripture  we  do  understand  those  canonical  Books 
of  the  Old  and  New  Testament  of  whose  authority  was  never  any  doubt 
in  the  Church."  This  sentence  was  taken  almost  verbatim  from  the 
Wiirttemberg  Confession  of  1551  (where  it  was  deliberately  phrased 
so  as  to  exclude  from  the  canon  the  seven  disputed  books) ,  and  the  con- 
tradiction with  the  specific  statement,  quoted  above,  which  follows  it 
in  the  English  article  was  perhaps  not  noticed.  See  Schaff,  Creeds  of 
Christendom,  i,  p.  628. 

*  Coverdale's  Latin-English  New  Testament  of  1538  necessarily  follows  the  Vulgate  order. 


no  JAMES 


IV.    COMMENTARIES,  ANCIENT  AND   MODERN. 

Mayor',  1910,  ch.  11;  M.  Meinertz,  Jakobusbrief,  1905; 
R.  Cornely,  Historica  et  critica  introductio  in  utriusque  Testa- 
menti  libros  sacros  (Cursus  Scrip turae  Sacrae),  vol.  i,  Introductio 
generalis,  1894,  pp.  630-763 ;  vol.  ii,  Introductio  specialis,  1897, 
pp.  686-688;  J.  G.  Walch,  Bibliotheca  theologica,  vol.  iv,  1765. 

§  I.    Patristic  and  Medieval. 

Of  patristic  and  mediaeval  commentaries  but  seven  are  extant 
and  accessible :  in  Greek,  the  Catena  of  Andreas  (ed.  Cramer) 
and  the  wrongly  named  "CEcumenius" ;  in  Latin,  Bede  and 
Walafrid  Strabo ;  in  Syriac,  Isho'  Dad,  Bar-Salibi,  and  Bar- 
Hebraeus. 

(a)  Greek. 

Clement  of  Alexandria  probably  included  comments  on  James 
in  his  Hypotyposes  (see  above,  pp.  91/.),  but  no  fragment  of 
them  has  been  preserved. 

The  numerous  passages  from  Chrysostom  in  Cramer's  Catena  of 
Andreas  on  James  (collected  in  Migne,  Patrologia  graca,  vol.  Ixiv)  are 
not  fragments  of  a  commentary,  but  have  been  identiiied  in  nearlj- 
every  case  as  coming  from  known  writings  of  Chrysostom;  cj.  S. 
Haidacher,  "  Chrysostomus-Fragmente  zu  den  katholischen  Briefen," 
Zeitschrift  fur  katholische  Theologie,  1902,  pp.  190-194.  The  five  pas- 
sages of  this  catena  from  Hesychius  of  Jerusalem  (t433),  collected  in 
Migne,  vol.  xciii,  and  the  ten  from  Cyril  of  Alexandria  (f  444),  collected 
in  Migne,  vol.  Ixxiv,  bear  no  mark  of  coming  from  a  commentary  on 
James. 

The  Latin  work,  hi  epistolas  cathoJicas  enarralio,  ascribed  in  the  Mss. 
to  Didymus  of  Alexandria  (t398),  includes  James,  and  is  probably  the 
translation  made  in  the  sixth  century  by  Epiphanius  Scholasticus  for 
Cassiodorius  {cf.  Cassiodorius,  Inst.  8).  A  large  part,  however,  of  the 
work  (in  James  more  than  half)  consists  of  extracts  of  various  authorship 
taken  from  the  same  Catena  of  Andreas.  The  five  brief  catena-frag- 
ments expressly  ascribed  to  Didymus  show  no  sign  of  having  been 
written  for  a  commentary  on  the  Catholic  epistles,  and  Cassiodorius 
was  probably  mistaken  in  attributing  such  a  work  to  Didymus. 

Bardenhewer,  Gcsch.  d.  altkirchl.  Litteratur,  iii,  pp.  109/. ;  E.  Klostcr- 
mann,  Uher  des  Didymus  von  Alexandrien  in  epistolas  canonicas  enar- 


COMMENTARIES,   ANCIENT  AND   MODERN  ill 

ratio  (Texte  und  Untersuchungen,  xxviii),  1905;    F.  Zoepfl,  Didymi 
Alexattdrini  in  epistolas  canonicas  hrevis  enarratio,  Munster,  1914. 

The  Catena  of  Andreas  was  published  by  J.  A.  Cramer  in 
Catenae  gracorum  palrum  in  Novum  Testamentum,  Oxford,  1844, 
vol.  viii  (1840) ;  cf.  von  Soden,  Schriften  des  Neuen  Testaments, 
i,  pp.  278/.  The  catena  on  the  Catholic  epistles  here  published 
has  manuscript  attestation  from  the  ninth  century  (Codd.  K  and 
1895) ;  its  present  form  (which  includes  fragments  of  Maximus 
Confessor  (j  662)  is  not  to  be  dated  earlier  than  675.  If,  how- 
ever, the  Enarratio  on  the  Catholic  epistles  ascribed  to  Didy- 
mus  (as  stated  above)  is  in  fact  the  translation  referred  to 
by  Cassiodorius,  then  the  Catena  of  Andreas,  since  it  under- 
lies the  Enarratio,  existed  in  an  earlier  form  in  the  sixth  cen- 
tury. The  Catena  is  made  up  of  more  or  less  relevant  passages 
from  many  authors,  among  whom  Chrysostom  takes  by  far  the 
most  prominent  place,  Cyril  of  Alexandria  standing  next.  Of 
the  earlier  writings  used  by  the  compiler  for  the  Epistle  of 
James  no  one  appears  to  have  been  a  commentary  on  the 
epistle.  The  Catena  of  Andreas  on  the  Catholic  epistles  is 
also  printed  in  part  by  Matthai,  SS.  apostolorum  septem  epis- 
tolae  catholicae,  Riga,  1782,  pp.  183-245,  and  again,  substan- 
tially complete,  under  the  supposition  of  being  a  work  of 
Euthymius  Zigabenus  (ed.  Kalogeras,  Athens,  1887,  vol.  ii; 
but  cf.  p.  of). 

An  anonymous  commentary  on  the  CathoHc  epistles  (Migne, 
Patrologia  grcBca,  vol.  cxix)  was  ascribed  to  (Ecumenius,  bishop 
of  Tricca  in  Thessaly  {c.  600)  by  the  first  editor  (Donatus, 
Verona,  1532),  but  without  good  reason.  It  is  found  in  many 
Mss.  of  the  tenth  century  and  thereafter,  and  is  associated  with 
commentaries  on  Acts  and  the  Pauline  epistles,  which  may  or 
may  not  be  from  the  same  hand  with  that  on  the  Catholic 
epistles  but  in  which  the  commentary  on  Paul  is  certainly  not 
by  (Ecumenius.  The  work  is  a  continuous  interpretation, 
partly  based  on  the  Catena  of  Andreas,  and  often  presenting 
acute  and  well-phrased  exegetical  comments. 

Diekamp  observes,  p.  1056,  that  this  commentary  twice  calls  Basil 
Tbv  rjtxexepov,  which  seems  to  imply  that  the  writer  was  either  of  the 


112  JAMES 

Basilian  order  or  else  a  Cappadocian  from  Caesarea.  This  seems  con- 
clusive against  the  whoUy  unsupported  guess  of  Donatus  that  the 
real  fficumenius  was  the  author. 

The  year  990,  formerly  given  as  about  the  date  of  the  bishop  fficume- 
nius,  was  a  mere  guess  of  W.  Cave.  The  discovery  of  the  true  date 
(c.  600)  is  due  to  F.  Diekamp,  "Mittheilungen  iiber  den  neuaufgefund- 
enen  Commentar  des  Oekumenius  zur  Apokal3^se,"  in  SUzimgsberichte 
der  Akad.  d.  Wiss.  zu  Berlin,  1901,  pp.  1046-1056. 

The  commentary  on  the  Catholic  epistles  printed  under  the 
name  of  Theophylact,  archbishop  of  Bulgaria  (fl.  1075),  is  merely 
another  text  of  the  commentary  of  "OEcumenius"  (Migne,  Pa- 
trologia  grcBca,  vol.  cxxv). 

Bardenhewer,  art.  "Oecumenius,"  in  Wetzer  and  Welte's  Kirchenlexi- 
kon",  189s ;  A.  Ehrhard  in  Krumbacher,  Geschichie  der  byzantinischen 
Litteratur^,  1895,  pp.  131-135 ;  H.  von  Soden,  Schriften  des  Neuen  Testa- 
ments, i,  1902,  pp.  686-692. 

The  schoha  printed  by  Matthai,  Riga,  1782,  at  the  foot  of  his  text 
of  the  Catholic  epistles,  are  drawn  from  the  margin  of  Cod.  462  (ol. 
loi^")  of  the  eleventh  century,  and  appear  to  be  the  private  notes  of 
a  devout  owner  of  this  copy  of  the  epistles. 

On  an  (unedited)  commentary  of  Metrophanes  of  Smyrna  (ninth 
century),  see  Krumbacher,  Geschichte  der  byzantmische?!  Litter atiir"^,  pp. 
78/.  132;   B,  Georgiades  in  'ExxXijaiaaxtXT)  'AXi^Geta,  vol.  iii,  1882-3. 

(lb)  Latin. 

Augustine's  commentary  on  James,  to  which  he  refers  in 
Retract,  ii,  32,  is  lost,  but  it  does  not  appear  to  have  been  an 
important  work. 

The  only  extant  Latin  commentaries  earlier  than  the  thir- 
teenth century  are  the  Expositio  of  the  Venerable  Bede  (f  735), 
Migne,  Patrologia  latina,  vol.  xciii,  and  the  Glossa  ordinaria  of 
Walafrid  Strabo  (f  849),  Migne,  vol.  cxiv,  which  is  in  part 
dependent  on  Bede.* 

Other  writers  are  frequently  referred  to  as  if  they  had  written  com- 
mentaries on  James.  But  the  Coniplexio  of  Cassiodorius  (t575)  on 
James  (Migne,  vol.  Lxx,  cols.  1577-1580)  is  only  a  brief  summary  of  the 
epistle;  the  Proffwtwww  of  Isidore  of  Seville  (f  636 ;  Migne,  vol.  Ixxxiii, 
col.  178)  consists  of  but  four  lines;  Alulf's  industry  (eleventh  century; 

*  On  the  character  and  influence  of  Bede's  expositions,  see  B.  Gigalski,  Bruno,  Bischof  von 
Segni,  Abt  von  Monte  Cassino,  Munster,  1898,  pp.  2io#. 


COMMENTARIES,   ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  113 

Migne,  vol.  kxix,  cols.  1381-1386)  has  been  devoted  merely  to  selecting 
nine  appropriate  passages  from  various  works  of  Gregory  the  Great 
(t6o4).  Three  homilies  of  Rabanus  Maurus  (t856;  Migne,  vol.  ex, 
hom.  34,  40,  42)  treat  of  the  Epistle  of  James,  but,  doubtless  to  the 
advantage  of  his  hearers,  were  not  original,  since  they  consist  merely 
of  blocks  copied  bodily  from  the  Expositio  of  Bede. 

Other  pre-reformation  Latin  commentators  on  James  were 
Martin  of  Leon  (f  1203;  Migne,  vol.  ccLx),  Hugo  of  St.  Cher 
(t  1262),  Nicholas  of  Gorham  (f  1295),  Nicholas  de  Lyra 
(t  1340),  Gregory  of  Rimini  (f  1358),  John  Hus  (f  1415),  Di- 
onysius  Rickel  (f  1471),  Laurentius  Valla  (f  1457). 

(c)  Syriac. 

Isho  Dad  (c.  850),  commentary  on  James,  i  Peter,  i  John, 
published  by  Margaret  D.  Gibson,  The  Commentaries  of  Isho' 
Dad  of  Merv,  vol.  iv  (Horae  Semiticae,  x),  1913,  pp.  36/. 

Dionysius  Bar-Salibi  (fc.  1171),  commentary  on  the  Apoc- 
alypse, Acts,  and  Catholic  epistles.  Corpus  scripiorum  christi- 
anorum  orientalium,  Series  syriaca,  vol.  ci.  Bar-Salibi  states 
that  from  earHer  commentators  he  had  found  but  brief  exposi- 
tions of  the  Catholic  epistles. 

Gregorius  Bar-Hebraeus  (f  1286),  The  Store  of  Mysteries, 
written  1278.  The  commentary  on  James  was  published  by 
M.  Klamroth,  Gregorii  Abidfaragii  Bar  Ebhraya  in  Actus  Apos- 
tolorum  et  Epistolas  catholicas  adnotationes ,  Gottingen,  1878. 
See  J.  Gottsberger,  Barhebraus  und  seine  Scholien  zur  Heiligen 
Schrift  (Biblische  Studien,  v),  1900. 

§  2.    Modern. 

Since  1500  many  commentaries  on  James  have  been  written.* 
At  the  head  of  the  list  worthily  stands  Erasmus,  Novum  In- 
strumentum  omm  .  .  .  cum  annotationibus,  1516;  Paraphrases, 
1521. 

The  comments  of  the  most  important  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
expositors  can  be  read  in  J.  de  la  Haye,  Biblia  magna,  Paris, 

*0n  the  history  of  the  detailed  exegesis  Huther  (in  Meyer),  =1870,  is  better  than  the  re- 
vision by  Beyschlag,  '1897. 

8 


114  JAMES 

1643,  and  Biblia  maxima,  Paris,  1660;  Critici  sacri,  London, 
1660;  M.  Poole,  Synopsis  criticorum,  London,  1669-96.  Men- 
tion may  be  specially  made  of  Vatablus  (ti547),  whose  scho- 
lia, however,  as  published  in  Critici  sacri,  were  deemed  to  be 
"alicubi  doctrinis  calvinianis  aspersa,"  and  of  Est  (f  1613), 
Cornelius  a  Lapide  (f  1637),  and  Calmet  (f  1757). 

The  chief  Roman  Catholic  commentaries  of  the  nineteenth 
century  are  those  of  Bisping,  187 1 ;  Schegg,  1883  ;  Trenkle, 
1894 ;  Belser,  1909 ;  Meinertz  (in  Tillmann's  Heilige  Schrijt 
des  N.  T.),  1912, 

An  extensive  and  useful  list  of  the  Roman  Catholic  commentators 
is  given  by  F.  S.  Trenkle,  Der  Brief  des  heiligen  Jacobus,  1894,  pp.  56/. ; 
see  also  Comely,  Historica  et  crUica  introductio,  vol.  i,  pp.  691-732; 
vol.  ii,  pp.  687/.;  Meinertz,  Jakobusbrlef,  pp.  216-219,  289-311.  For 
the  names  of  less  noteworthy  expositors,  see  H.  Hurter,  Nomenclator 
literarius  recentioris  theologiae  catholicae,  1871-86  (covering  the  period 
1564-1869) ;  J.  Quetif  and  J.  Echard,  Scriptores  ordinis  pradkaloriim 
recensUi,  Paris,  17 19-21,  especially  vol.  ii,  p.  947  (Dominican  expositors 
to  1720). 

From  Protestant  theologians  have  proceeded  innumerable 
commentaries  on  James.  Of  the  older,  Calvin  (11564),  Grotius 
(ti645),  H.  Hammond  (ti66o),  Bengel  (fiysi),  deserve  men- 
tion. The  essential  parts  of  Grotius  and  of  many  minor  works 
are  to  be  found  collected  in  Critici  sacri,  1660,  and  Matthew 
Poole's  Synopsis  criticorum,  1669-96.  In  the  important  ser- 
vice of  presenting  the  illustrative  material,  H.  Heisen,  Novae 
hypotheses  inter pretandae  epistolae  Jacobi,  Bremen,  1739,  now  a 
rare  book,*  contains  vast  but  ill-digested  collections  on  many 
passages  of  the  epistle;  J.  J.  Wetstein's  indispensable  Novum 
Testamentiim  grcecum,  1 751-2,  which  gathers  in  convenient 
form  the  stores  of  previous  writers,  stands  with  but  one  later 
rival.  M.  Schneckenburger's  excellent  little  Annotatio  ad  epis- 
tolam  Jacobi,  1832,  is  still  of  independent  value.  The  most 
useful  modern  commentaries  are  those  of  J.  E.  Huther  (in 
Meyer),  ^1857,  ^1870;  revised,  without  thoroughgoing  altera- 

•A  copy,  which  has  been   courteously  put    at  my  disposal,  is  in  the   Library  of   Union 
Theological  Seminary,  New  York. 


COMMENTARIES,   ANCIENT  AND   MODERN  115 

tion,  by  W.  Beyschlag,  ^1897 ;  Spitta,  Der  Brief  Jakobus  un- 
tersucht,  i8g6 ;  H.  von  Soden  (in  Holtzmann's  Hand-Kommen- 
tar),  ^1899;  Oesterley  (in  Expositor's  Greek  Testament),  1910; 
and  especially  J.  B.  Mayor,  The  Epistle  of  St.  James,  ^1892, 
^1910  (a  thesaurus  of  learned  material),  and  H.  Windisch  (in 
Lietzmann's  Handbuch  zum  Neuen  Testament),  191 1.  Mayor's 
bibliography  gives  a  very  complete  list  of  modern  works. 


COMMENTARY   ON   THE    EPISTLE   OF 
JAMES. 

CHAPTER  I. 

Epistolary  Salutation  (ji). 

1.  deov  Kol  Kvpiov  'Irja-ov  Xpiarov,  ''of  God  and  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ."  Cf.  the  similar  language  of  i  Tim.  i^, 
2  Tim.  1 2,  Tit.  i*.  In  2  Pet.  i\  Tit.  2^^  6eov  seems  to  refer  to 
Christ,  and  this  is  possible  in  James,  but  is  made  unlikely  by 
the  absence  of  the  article.  Tit.  i^  hovkoii  deov  cnroaroXo^  8e 
^Irja-ov  XpiaTov  seems  to  be  inspired  by  the  same  motive  as 
Jas.  i^ ;  both  phrases  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  loyalty 
to  Christ  does  not  diminish  the  service  due  to  God. 

So£)\o9.  In  the  0.  T.  "servant"  (^^J^,  8ov\o<;^  depdircov, 
Trat?)  is  regularly  used  for  "worshipper"  (e.  g.  Ps.  34^2) ;  and  the 
corresponding  verb  is  used  also  of  the  worship  of  heathen  gods 
(e.  g.  I  Kings  9^).  Names  compounded  with  'abd  ("servant") 
and  the  name  of  God,  or  of  a  god,  are  found  in  Hebrew,  and 
were  common  among  the  Phoenicians,  Aramaeans,  and  Arabs 
(EB,  art.  "Names,"  §  37).  In  particular  the  prophets  are  called 
Jahveh's  servants  (e.  g.  Amos  3^),  and  the  term  is  appHed  as  a 
title  of  distinction  to  such  worthies  as  Moses  {e.  g.  1  Kings  8'^^), 
David  (e.g.  2  Sam.  3^^)^  ^^(j  many  others.  The  "servant  of 
Jahveh"  of  Is.  42-53  presents,  however,  a  different  problem, 
and  is  translated  Trai?  Kvpiov. 

In  the  N.  T.  SovXol  is  used  in  the  sense  of  "attached  wor- 
shippers" in  Lk.  2-\  Acts  4^9  i6i^  Rev.  i^.  Paul  describes  him- 
self as  8ov\o<;  'Irja-ov  XpLarov  in  the  address  of  Romans  (Rom. 
lO  and  (with  the  inclusion  of  Timothy)  in  Philippians  (Phil, 
ii  SovXoi  X.T.),  and  a  similar  expression  is  found  in  Jude  vs.^ 
and  2  Pet.  i' ;    cf.  Tit.  i^  SovXo^  deov.     It  is  not  a  term  of 

117 


Il8  JAMES 

special  humility,  nor  is  it  to  be  understood  as  involving  a  claim 
to  the  rank  of  a  prophet  or  distinguished  leader.  The  writer 
simply  declares  himself  to  belong  to  Christ  as  his  worshipper, 
and  so  commends  himself  to  readers  who  are  also  Christians. 
Note  that  Paul  uses  this  form  of  description  in  the  address  of 
Romans  and  Philippians  only,  two  epistles  in  which  he  is  con- 
sciously striving  to  avoid  the  assumption  of  personal  authority 
and  to  emphasise  the  give  and  take  of  an  equal  comradeship 
in  faith. 

The  immediate  origin  of  this  use  of  SouXoq  is  Semitic.  A  few  Greek 
analogies  are  collected  in  Eisner,  Observationes  sacrae,  1720,  on  Acts 
16"  ;  cf.  Reitzenstein,  Hellenist.  Mysterienreligionen,  1910,  pp.  66,  78. 
The  use  of  SoCiXo;  has  no  bearing  on  the  question  of  the  identity  of  the 
author. 

rah  ScoBe/ca  (f)v\al<;,  the  Christian  church  conceived  as  the 
true  Israel,  inheriting  the  rights  of  the  ancient  people  of  God. 

The  conception  of  the  tribes  of  the  Hebrew  people  as  twelve  in  num- 
ber, both  at  first  in  the  nomadic  and  later  in  the  settled  condition,  arose 
very  early,  but  seems  at  all  times  to  have  been  a  theory  rather  than  a 
fact  of  observation.  It  may  have  had  an  astronomical  origin,  like 
some  other  sacred  uses  of  the  number  twelve.  In  Canaan  the  tribes 
came  to  indicate  mainly  a  territorial  division,  although  the  theory  of 
an  original  hereditary  classification  was  maintained.  In  and  after  the 
exile  much  stress  was  laid  on  the  idea  of  the  twelve  tribes,  as  is  to  be 
observed  in  the  pictures  of  the  past  presented  by  the  priest  code  and 
the  writings  of  the  chronicler,  as  well  as  in  Ezekiel's  ideal  state  (e.  g. 
Gen.  35^'-''',  Num.  2,  Ezra  6",  Ezek.  481-'.  "-35), 

In  later  Jewish  literature  they  are  frequently  referred  to.  Faithful 
Israelites  within  and  without  Palestine  claimed  and  valued  their  mem- 
bership in  a  tribe  (Tobit,  Tob.  i';  Judith,  Jud.  8=;  Anna,  Lk.  2"; 
Paul,  Rom.  ii\  Phil.  3^ ;  cf.  Letter  of  Aristeas,  §§  32,  39,  46,  47-59,  six 
scholars  dtp'  exiaxTfjq  (fuX'qq).  The  "twelve  tribes"  denoted  the  whole 
commonwealth  of  Israel,  and  a  strong  sentiment  was  associated  with 
the  phrase.  Cf.  Ecclus.  44^3;  Ass.  Mos.  2<f- ;  Apoc.  Baruch  1=  62^^  63' 
643  772  78^  843;  Acts  26'  xh  SwSsxacpuXov  T)pLwv;  on  Test.  XII  Patr. 
Benj.  9-,  cf.  Charles,  in  HDB,  "Testaments  of  the  XII  Patriarchs"; 
the  conception  is  implied  in  the  plan  of  the  Testaments.  In  Clem.  Rom. 
3i<  S5«  the  emphasis  on  the  salvation  of  the  whole  Jewish  nation  resi- 
dent in  various  parts  of  the  dominions  of  Ahasuerus  is  unmistakable. 

The  reunion  of  the  twelve  tribes  in  Palestine  was  a  part  of  the  Jew- 
ish Messianic  hope.     See  references  in  Schiirer,  G7F^  ii,  pp.  537  /. 


I,  I  119 

This  aspect  of  the  hope  is  suggested  in  Orac.  Sibyll.  ii,  171  ■fjvfxa 
hi]  Zevf.(X(fu'koq  dx'  avaxoXiT)i;  "kahq  Tj^ec  (of  uncertain  date  and  origin), 
cf.  iii,  249,  Xabq  6  SwSsxdicpuXoc;.  The  expectation  lies  at  the  basis 
of  Mt.  19 =^  and  appears  again  in  the  eschatological  sealing  of  twelve 
thousand  from  each  tribe  in  Rev.  7'  ^-j  and  in  the  twelve  gates  of  the 
twelve  tribes  in  Rev.  211-  "■,  where,  however,  the  conception  and  phra- 
seology are  derived  from  Ezek.  48'"-". 

The  term  "twelve  tribes"  thus  stands  for  the  integrity  of  the 
nation  Israel,  as  it  once  actually  existed,  and  as  it  still  abides  in 
idea  and  spiritual  fellowship  and  common  hope. 

The  precise  designation  "the  twelve  tribes,"  cd  SuSsxa  ^uXaf,  is  found 
only  a  few  times  in  the  O.  T.,  Ex.  24*  282'  39'^;  Josh.  4^;  cf.  Ecclus. 
44".  More  common,  and  with  essentially  the  same  meaning,  are 
"the  tribes,"  ad  cpuXat,  and  "all  the  tribes,"  xdcaat  cd  cpuXaf.  To  all 
these  expressions,  which  give  the  sense  of  "all  Israel,"  xoc?  'lopa-^X  {cf. 
Ezra  6"))  ^  limiting  genitive  is  always  added  unless  it  is  clearly  implied 
in  the  immediate  context.  This  is  usually  "of  Israel"  (Ex.  24^),  but 
other  genitives  occur:  "of  the  children  of  Israel"  (Ezek.  47''),  "of 
Jacob"  (Ecclus.  48'°),  "thy"  (Deut.  18^),  "your"  (Josh.  23^),  "their" 
(Ezek.  4S«),  "the  Lord's"  (Ps.  I22''),  "of  thine  inheritance"  (Is.  6310- 

The  same  rule,  that  a  genitive  of  nearer  definition  is  necessary,  holds 
good  in  later  usage.  Thus  Acts  26'  ib  SwBexayuXov  ij[jLwv,  Rev.  y* 
ex  Tzicriq  cpuX-^?  utwv  'IapaT)X,  21'-,  Clem.  Rom.  55^,  Protevangelium 
Jacobi,  !>• '.  Cf.  the  similar  expressions  resulting  from  the  familiar 
barbarism  of  the  LXX  by  which  ax^xTpov  (aai:')  is  used  for  9uX^, 
Test.  XII  Patr.  Nephth.  5  xa  SwSsxa  ax^xxpa  tou  'lapaTjX,  Clem.  Rom. 
31^  Tb  SwSsxdffXTQTCTpov  TOU  'lapaTjX. 

The  only  known  cases  where  an  expression  like  al  SciSsxa  9uXai  is 
used  by  itself  of  the  nation  Israel  are  the  passages  Orac.  Sibyll.  ii,  171 
SexiicpuXoi;  octz'  avaToXtirji;  Xao?,  and  iii,  249  Xcxhq  6  SwSsxacpuXoi;.  These 
are  highly  poetical  allusions,  and  do  not  point  to  any  common  prose 
usage  at  variance  with  the  rule.  See  Zahn,  Einleitung,  i,  §  3, 
note  4. 

The  Christian  church,  according  to  the  fundamental  and  uni- 
versal N.  T.  view,  stands  as  the  successor  of  the  Jewish  eKKXija-ia. 

Cf.  Mt.  16'',  where  ^Jiou  tt]v  IxxXiQafotv  seems  to  be  used  in  contrast 
with  the  IxxXTjjta  ('^^ij)  tou  'lapai^X,  Mt.  21",  i  Pet.  2'  eOvoq  aY'ov, 
Xixhc,  e\q  ■Kegnzoiri'siv,  Gal.  3^-''  ='  6'^  Tbv  Tapa^X  tou  6eou  (in  contrast 
to  which  cf.  I  Cor.  10^^  ihv  'lspcti]k  xotTa  aipxa),  Phil.  3'  rj[i.elq  yip  ia^iev 
■f)  TCspcTOfji-Q  (cf.  Col.  2"  6V  Tfi  xepcTo^^  TOU  XpiaTou). 


I20  JAMES 

Hence  the  attributes  of  the  nation  Israel  may  be  applied 
directly  to  the  church.  CJ.  Gal.  3^-^,  where  descent  from 
Abraham  is  so  ascribed  to  all  believers,  Col.  2",  etc.  This  is 
one  of  the  fundamental  thoughts  of  Luke  and  Acts;  as  well  as 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  where  everything  pertaining  to 
the  old  national  religion  is  shown  to  belong  also  (only  in  the 
reality,  not  the  shadow)  to  the  new  religion.  So  Barn.  4^-  ^^  f-, 
where  the  covenant  is  shown  to  belong  to  the  new  people.  See 
Zahn,  Einleitung,  i,  §  3,  note  9,  The  conception  of  the  new 
Israel  as  made  up  of  a  symboUcal  twelve  tribes  is  in  accord  with 
this  underlying  principle  of  the  apostolic  age  and  presents  in 
itself  no  difficulty.  Rev.  21^2^  where  no  thought  of  any  Jewish- 
Christian  particularism  is  present,  approaches  closely  to  such 
a  use.  The  positive  reasons  for  assuming  this  meaning  are  dis- 
cussed below. 

A  symbolical  use  of  SwSsxa  ipuXai  somewhat  different  from  that  of 
Jas.  ii  is  found  in  Hermas,  Sim.  ix,  17,  where  of  twelve  mountains,  from 
which  come  the  stones  used  to  build  a  tower  {i.  e.  the  church),  it  is 
said:  SwSsita  90X3(1  etatv  <x\  xaTocxoOaat  8Xov  Tbv  x6a[i.ov.  To  them  the 
Son  of  God  has  been  preached  through  the  apostles,  while  these  twelve 
tribes  are  themselves  further  explained  as  ScoSexa  eOviQ  with  highly 
diverse  characteristics.  Here  the  twelve  tribes,  or  nations,  plainly 
signify  all  the  nations  of  the  world.  The  unusual  designation  is  doubt- 
less chosen  in  order  to  indicate  that  as  these  have  now  become  the  field 
of  God's  redemptive  activity,  they  have  come  into  the  place  of  the 
twelve  tribes  of  the  children  of  Israel.  The  whole  world  is  the  new 
SuBexicpuXov  of  the  Christian  dispensation. 

iv  TTj  hLaariropa.  haa-Tropd  means  "scattering,"  "dispersion" 
(either  act  or  state) ;  cJ.  Jer.  15^,  Dan.  12^  (LXX),  Test.  XII 
Patr.  Asher,  7,  i  Pet.  i^  Hence,  with  the  article,  -q  haarrropd 
is  used  concretely  of  the  Jews  so  dispersed,  or  even  of  the  dis- 
tricts in  which  they  were  dispersed.  Thus  Deut.  30^,  Neh.  i', 
Judith  5^',  Jn.  7^^  of  either  the  dispersed  or  the  land  of 
dispersion;  Ps.  147^,  Is.  49^  2  Mace,  i",  Ps.  Sol.  8'*,  of  the 
dispersed.  Here  it  is  more  naturally  taken  of  the  state  of  dis- 
persion, although  the  other  view  is  possible.  With  the  article 
the  expression  means  "in  the  well-known  state  of  dispersion," 
not  merely  "in  dispersion"  in  the  abstract  sense.     CJ.  Ps.  139, 


I,    I  121 

///.  (Cod.  A)  and  in  contrast  Jer.  15^  SLaa-Trepo)  avTov<i  iv 
Biaa-TTopa,  Test.  XII  Patr.  Asher,  7  eaeade  iv  haaTropa^  i  Pet. 
ji  eK\eKrol<i  irapeTriSijfjiOL^  hiaaTropa^;. 

The  noun  otaaxopa  (Deut.  28")  is  used  but  a  few  times  in  the  O.  T. 
It  is  not  a  regular  representative  of  any  one  Hebrew  word,  and  is  never 
used  to  translate  any  of  the  derivatives  of  rhy.  The  verb  Staaxstpu  is 
more  common  {cf.  also  the  simple  aicetpu,  Zech.  lo^),  especially  in  Isaiah, 
Jeremiah,  Ezekiel ;  it  represents  a  number  of  Hebrew  verbs,  most  fre- 
quently some  form  of  Tis  (30  times  out  of  58). 

StaaxopxcXw  (in  literary  use  chiefly  late,  see  Lex.)  is  often  used  in 
much  the  same  sense  as  Stacjxsfpw  to  refer  to  the  dispersion  of  Israel, 
but  tends  to  denote  more  violent  action,  as  the  scattering  of  a  dis- 
comfited foe  {e.  g.  Ps.  59",  Jer.  5120-").  Stotaxopxiapioc;,  found  but  five 
times,  remained  a  descriptive  word,  and  did  not  attain  to  the  tech- 
nical significance  of  Siaaxopa.  axopxt'l^w  is  less  common  and  weaker; 
axopxcatJioc;  is  found  but  once  (in  Aq.  Sym.  Theod.  Jer.  25 '<  [322°]). 

The  more  common  noun  to  denote  the  Jewish  exile  is  dcxotscta,  in 
eight  cases  dcxotxsat'a,  a  word  peculiar  to  LXX  {L.  and  S.),  to  which 
corresponds  the  factitive  .verb  axotxiXetv.  The  noun  means  "emi- 
gration," "colony,"  "body  of  colonists,"  with  a  range  of  meaning 
parallel  to  that  of  Staaxopa;  it  is  used  as  a  technical  term  to  denote 
the  captivity  or  the  captives,  usually  representing  nSu,  "exile,"  e.g. 
Ezra  4*  ulol  ttj?  axoiy.ta<;,  Jer.  29'-  ^-  --•  ^^.  ixotxt'a  seems  to  be  synony- 
mous with  [AeTotx.ta  ([xsTocxsata  Mt.  I'Oj  which  is  less  common,  but 
represents  about  the  same  group  of  Hebrew  words. 

xapoixfa,  "sojourn,"  "residence  as  a  stranger,"  is  used  a  few  times 
to  represent  nSu,  Ezra  8^5  utol  tyj?  xapotxfai;,  i  Esd.  5'  i%  t^?  adx- 
[xaXwat'ai;  t^?  xapotxfaq,  where  the  parallel  translation  of  Ezra  2^  has 
&%oiv.iaq.  In  Ecclesiasticus  prol.  lalc,  sv  t^  xapotx.(q:,  it  is  used  in  the 
same  sense.  It  refers  to  the  "sojourn"  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
land  of  temporary  residence,  while  dxotxfa  refers  to  the  same  fact  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  home  land  from  which  those  sojourning  abroad 
are  absent. 

alyj^(xkui<ji<x,  "captivity,"  represents  in  the  main  the  group  of  words 
derived  from  n2u\ 

Of  the  words  here  considered,  atx(x.aX(Offfa  is  obviously  the  most 
limited  in  application,  referring  to  the  captivity  proper;  ixoixfa  and 
[jiEToixfa  are  applicable  to  any  portion,  as  well  as  to  the  whole,  of  the 
body  of  Jews  residing  in  foreign  parts;  otaaxopa  can  only  be  used  with 
reference  to  the  general  scattering  of  Jews.  Thus  the  afxfxaXwafot  was 
(e.  g.)  in  Babylon ;  the  Jews  in  any  one  place  could  be  called  dxotxfa 
(Jer.  29',  etc.) ;  while  tj  Staaxopi  means  the  scattered  state,  or  the 
scattered  section,  of  the  Jewish  nation. 


122  JAMES 

Thus  Staffxopde,  always  standing  in  contrast  with  the  idea  of  visible 
unity  of  the  nation,  calls  attention,  usually  with  a  certain  pathos,  to  the 
absence  of  that  unity,  whereas  axoixiot  might  refer  to  a  colonisation 
wholly  free  from  such  associations.  This  is  especially  marked  in  2  Mace. 
I^'extauvayaye  ty)v  Staaxopav  ■f)[j,wv,  eXeuOepwaov  ttou*;  SouXsuovxaq  ev  toTi; 
e'Gveatv.  Here  axotxfa  would  have  been  weak.  Accordingly  StaaTcopa  is 
the  appropriate  word  in  Jas.  i'. 

The  statement  sometimes  made  (e.  g.  Carr,  Camb.  Gk.  Test.  pp.  xxx, 
10 ;  less  unguardedly  Edersheim,  Life  and  Times  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
1,  pp.  6/.  9;  Mayor',  p.  cxxxvii)  that  tj  Staaxopa,  "when  used  with- 
out any  qualifying  words,"  means  the  Eastern  Hebrew-speaking  part 
of  the  dispersion,  seems  to  be  wholly  without  foundation. 

The  dispersion  of  the  Jews  over  the  world  began  through 
capture  in  war  and  emigration  for  trade  as  early  as  the  ninth 
century  B.C.  (cf.  i  Kings  2o^'*).  The  forced  emigration  of  many 
thousands  from  both  the  northern  and  southern  kingdom  to 
Assyria  and  Babylonia,  the  voluntary  settlement  in  the  Greek 
period  of  large  numbers  of  Jews  in  Alexandria  and  other  Egyp- 
tian cities,  and  in  Cyrenaica,  the  planting  of  Jewish  communi- 
ties of  traders  and  peaceful  residents  in  Antioch  and  other  places 
of  Syria,  Asia  Minor,  and  Greece,  and  the  colony  of  Jews  in 
Rome  (partly  owing  its  origin  to  the  captives  brought  thither 
by  Pompey  in  63  B.C.  and  afterward  liberated),  as  well  as  those 
in  other  cities  of  Italy,  had  created  by  the  first  century  after 
Christ  a  vast  Jewish  population  dispersed  in  all  parts  of  the 
civilised  world,  and  perhaps  amounting  to  3,000,000  or  4,000,000 
souls. 

For  a  representative  list  of  diaspora  Jews,  cf.  Acts  2'-";  see  also 
Philo,  In  Flaccum,  7,  and  Legat.  ad  Cainm,  36. 

EB,  art.  "Dispersion"  (H.  Guthe) ;  Schiirer,  GJV,  §  31 ;  Mommsen, 
Provinces  of  the  Roman  Empire,  ch.  11. 

Although  perhaps  the  majority  of  Jews  in  the  diaspora  had 
thus  come  to  reside  abroad  through  voluntary  emigration  under- 
taken out  of  motives  of  private  interest,  and  although,  apart 
from  occasional  disturbances  with  their  neighbours  and  oppres- 
sion from  the  governments,  the  situation  of  the  Jews  seems  to 
have  been  one  of  privilege  and  prosperity,  yet  the  dispersion 


I,  I  123 

is  uniformly  represented  by  Jewish  writers  as  a  grave  misfor- 
tune destined  to  be  ended  by  the  divine  intervention. 

The  cause  of  this  was  partly  the  fact  that  the  first  large 
emigration  was  the  forced  removal  in  the  captivities,  so  that 
the  tradition  became  estabhshed  that  exile  was  an  evil,  to  be 
followed,  when  the  punishment  was  over,  by  return  {cf.  Is. 
40I*).  This  traditional  feeling  seems  to  be  reflected  in  Ps. 
Sol.  g^  iv  Traml  'iOveu  r)  hiacnropa  rod  ^laparjX  Kara  to  pr]fxa 
Tov  deov'  ha.  8LKaL0)drj<; ,  6  ^eo9,  iv  rrj  SiKaLoavvj)  (tov  ev  rat? 
avoixiat';  r]ix(av.  But  the  view  was  confirmed  by  the  attitude 
of  Palestinian  Judaismj  as  it  came  to  lay  increasing  emphasis 
on  a  national  ritual  purity,  which  could  not  be  preserved  in 
unclean  lands,  and  on  a  restoration  of  national  glory  in  Pales- 
tine under  the  Messiah,  in  which  all  faithful  Jews  would  share. 
The  dispersion  was  an  evil  because  it  interfered  with  the  con- 
summation of  TCL  a^aOa  'lapaifK  ev  (Twaywyrj  (f)v\(ov  (Ps.  Sol. 
17^).  These  ideal  interests  must  have  been  powerfully  rein- 
forced by  practical  motives  springing  from  the  actual  danger, 
observed  ever  since  the  beginning  of  the  exile,  that  Jews  ex- 
posed to  the  corrupting  influences  of  foreign  life  would  relax 
their  strictness  of  morals,  indulge  in  heathen  abominations, 
and  lose  their  religion — and  their  souls.  (Ezek.  14^-",  Dan. 
18;  note  the  disappearance  of  the  ten  tribes  in  the  Assyrian 
captivity,  attested,  e.  g.,  by  Jos.  Ant.  xi,  5^). 

In  times  of  foreign  oppression  and  distress  the  desire  for 
restoration  of  the  dispersed  must  have  been  strengthened  by 
the  sense  of  weakness  felt  by  the  pious  community  in  Palestine 
(the  "poor"),  suffering  the  lack  of  the  help,  both  moral  and 
material,  which  might  be  afforded  by  the  return  of  the  Jews 
of  the  diaspora.  It  then  seemed  evident  that  the  glory  of 
Israel  could  be  finally  manifested  only  through  the  concentra- 
tion in  the  Holy  Land  of  the  power  and  wealth  of  the  sons  of 
Israel,  now  scattered  among  the  nations.     So,  e.  g.,  Tob.  13*  '■. 

Tal<i  So)8eKa  (f)vXak  rat?  iv  rrj  haaTropa.  For  the  whole 
phrase  there  are  two  possible  interpretations : 

(i)  "To  the  dispersed  People  of  God,"  i.  e.  the  Christian 
church  at  large ; 


124  JAMES 

(2)  "To  the  Jews,  residing  in  the  dispersion." 

Many  different  applications  of  these  two  senses,  separately 
or  in  combination,  will  be  found  in  the  commentaries.  The 
second  interpretation  given  above  is  almost  always  qualified 
by  a  limitation  to  Christian  Jews.  This  suits  the  general  char- 
acter of  the  epistle,  but  is  in  no  way  suggested  by  the  phrase 
itself,  and  cannot  be  regarded  as  legitimate. 

In  this  phrase,  rat?  iv  rrj  haairopa  applies  not  to  a  part 
but  to  the  whole  of  raU  SatBeKa  <f>v\aL'i,  and  the  only  possible 
meaning  is  that  all  the  twelve  tribes  are  "in  the  dispersion." 
It  is  not  legitimate,  although  common  in  the  commentaries, 
to  take  the  phrase  as  meaning  "those  tribes  (of  the  twelve) 
which  are  in  the  dispersion"  (as  if  it  read  rat?  e/c  tmv  B(o8eKa 
^vX(op  rah  iv  rrj  BtaaTTopa),  or  "those  persons  from  the 
twelve  tribes  who  are  residing  in  the  dispersion"  (as  if  rot? 
airo  TMv  BmBeKa  ^vXoiv  BiaaTrapelaiv^  so  Ps.-Euthal.  in  his 
argumentum,  Migne,  Patrologia  grceca,  vol.  Ixxxv,  col.  676). 

The  permissibility  of  the  first  interpretation  has  already 
been  shown.  According  to  it  the  Christian  church  is  here  not 
merely  designated  as  the  new  Israel,  but  is  further  described 
by  ev  ry  Biaairopa  as  now  dispersed  in  an  aHen  world.  For 
the  ideas  on  which  this  latter  conception  rests  the  N.  T.  fur- 
nishes abundant  illustration.  It  includes,  perhaps,  the  sugges- 
tion of  a  temporary  state  with  the  hope  of  a  future  reunion. 

It  is  simpler  to  take  lalq  ev  Tfj  Staaicop?  thus  as  a  mere  further  de- 
scription of  the  church  than  to  suppose  (with  Zahn,  Einleitn7ig,  i,  p. 
53,  and  §  3,  note  6)  that  it  is  added  in  order  specifically  to  distinguish 
the  new  twelve  tribes  (the  Christians),  which  were  all  in  the  dispersion, 
from  the  old  (the  Jews),  which  were  partly  in  the  home  land  of  Israel. 
Other  characteristics  would  have  lain  far  nearer  to  hand  if  this  had 
been  the  direct  purpose. 

The  new  Israel  has  a  heavenly  metropolis  (Gal.  4^^  17  Be  avw 
'lepovcraXij/x  .  .  .  i]rL<i  ecnlv  p^iqrrjp  rjjXMv,  Heb.  12"^  irpocr- 
eXrjXvdaTe  Sttwi/  opet  kol  iroXec  deov  ^covro';^  'lepovcraXrjfx 
eTrovpavLQ)),  where  is  the  seat  of  its  commonwealth  (Phil.  320). 
But  for  the  present  it  sojourns  in  exile,  i  Pet.  i^  e/cXe/croi? 
TrapeTTiBrjixoL'i  Biacnropa<i ,  i^'  rov  rrj'i  TrapoiKiw;  v/xayv  ')(^p6vov, 


I,  I  125 

2^^  ft)9  7rapoiKOv<i  Kal  irape'mh'q^ioxK  ;  cj.  also  Jn.  17^^-^^  The 
contrast  with  the  old  Israel  is  explicitly  drawn  out  in  Heb.  13^* 
ov   yap   e'xpp.ev   wBe   fi€VOV<rav   iroXir^  aWa   ttjv  /xeWovaav 

iTTl^TJTOVfJLeV. 

The  idea  is  intimately  connected  with  the  phraseology,  though  not 
with  the  real  meaning,  of  certain  O.  T.  passages,  Ps.  39'^,  oxc  ■jzxpoiv.oc; 
eyco  d\fLi  sviji  yt5  xal  icapexfSTjiJLOi;  xaOwi;  Tcdvxe?  o'l  Tcaxigeq  [lod,  Ps.  119", 
Lev.  25",  I  Chron.  291*,  Gen.  47'. 

The  interpretation  of  the  conception  of  men  as  strangers  and  sojourn- 
ers, given  by  Philo,  De  cherub.  34,  is  not  parallel  to  the  Christian  idea 
in  James,  but  it  shows  how  the  O.  T.  passages  attracted  attention  and 
could  lend  themselves  to  such  use.  The  thought  of  Hermas,  Sim.  i, 
resembles  Philo,  not  James. 

In  early  Christian  thought  the  idea  gained  great  prominence. 
Cf.  the  classical  expression  in  Ep.  ad  Diognetum  5  TrarpiSwi 
oiKovaiv  lB{a<ij  cOOC  ax;  irdpoLKoi  •  fjiere^^^ovcn  irdvTwv  &)?  ttoXItul 
Kol  Trdvd'  VTrop.evQva-tv  &)?  ^evoi  •  iraaa  ^evr)  Trarpi?  i(TTtv  avroiv^ 
KoX  TToa-a  Trarph  ^evrj;  also  2  Clem.  Rom.  s^'  ^'  ";  and  note 
the  usage  by  which  the  church,  or  the  Christians,  in  any  lo- 
cality are  said  not  to  reside  but  to  "sojourn"  {irapoLKelv)  there, 
Polyc.  Phil,  inscr.  ry  iKKXrja-ia  rov  Oeov  rrj  irapoiKovarj  <^l- 
XiiriTQV'i;  Mart.  Polyc.  inscr.;  Euseb.  H.e.  iv,  23;  Ep.  eccl.  lugd. 
et  vienn.  in  Euseb,  H.  e.  v,  i^. 

The  emphasis  on  this  mode  of  thought  in  later  times  is  famil- 
iar, and  reaches  its  classical  expression  in  the  great  poem  of 
Bernhard  of  Cluny,  De  contemptu  mundi. 

From  this  usage  seems  to  have  arisen  the  ecclesiastical  sense  of  the 
word  Tcapotxfot,  that  is,  "the  body  of  (Christian)  aliens"  in  any  place, 
and  so  parochia,  "parish."  The  earUest  cases  of  this  use  of  the  noun 
are  Mart.  Polyc.  inscr.,  Irenaeus  in  Eus.  E.  e.  v,  2^^^,  and  Apollonius 
in  Eus.  H.  e.  v,  18'. 

•jcapotxfoc  in  the  sense  of  the  local  body  of  Christians  thus  took  a 
different  turn  of  meaning  from  Staaxopi,  which  in  this  Cathohc  epistle 
refers  to  the  whole  church;  but  the  metaphor  underlying  the  derived 
sense  is  the  same  in  both  cases,  and  up  to  a  certain  point  the  develop- 
ment was  parallel.  Each  takes  one  side  of  the  meaning  of  IxxX-Qafa. 
See  Lightfoot,  note  on  Clem.  Rom.  inscr. 

The  words,  then,  mean :  ''  To  that  body  of  Twelve  Tribes,  the 
new  Israel,  which  has  its  centre  in  Heaven,  and  whose  members, 


126  JAMES 

in  whatever  place  on  the  earth  they  may  be,  are  all  equally  away 
from  home  and  in  the  dispersionT^  This  interpretation  implies 
in  the  writer  a  mind  capable  of  conceiving  clearly  and  expressing 
tersely  a  strongly  figurative  expression,  but  that  is  not  too 
much  to  ascribe  to  the  author  of  this  epistle.  Cf.  i^^-  ^^-  ^^ 
3",  etc.  It  also  assumes  that  the  underlying  conception  was 
familiar  to  the  readers. 

Of  this  "symbolical"*  interpretation  of  the  address  of  the 
epistle  important  recent  advocates  have  been  Holtzmann,  von 
Soden,  Jiilicher,  and  Zahn.  The  chief  objection  brought  against 
it  is  that  it  is  deemed  inappropriate  to  the  simple  address  of  a 
letter.  But,  first,  we  have  here  not  a  real  letter  sent  to  a  defi- 
nite group  of  readers,  but  a  literary  form  for  a  tract,  or  diatribe. 
And,  secondly,  even  in  a  real  letter  the  greeting  (as  distinguished 
from  the  outside  address  intended  to  guide  the  carrier)  natu- 
rally contains  not  only  expressions  of  affection  but  descriptive 
phrases  intended  to  suggest  the  writer's  relations  and  attitude 
to  the  person  addressed,  and  to  some  extent  even  the  thoughts 
with  which  the  letter  was  to  be  occupied.  This  may  be  seen 
in  all  the  epistles  of  Paul,  and  in  the  epistles  of  Ignatius,  Clem- 
ent of  Rome,  and  Polycarp.  The  same  concern  is  not  absent 
from  the  greetings  and  subscriptions  of  modern  letters. 

In  opposition  to  the  interpretation  here  defended,  the  \'iew  of  the 
address  most  widely  held  adopts  the  second  of  the  two  interpretations 
referred  to  above,  taking  Tat?  BcoSeKa  (fuXalq  as  if  merely  equivalent 
to  lolq  'louSatotq.  The  serious  grammatical  difficulties  involved  are 
usually  ignored.  The  phrase  is  then  (in  part  arbitrarily)  limited  so  as 
to  mean,  "to  extra-palestinian  Jewish  Christians"  (Beyschlag).  In- 
asmuch as  the  phrase  itself  is  notably  7<«limited,  this  exegetical  proce- 
dure seems  too  violent  to  be  permissible.  Moreover,  if  this  were  the 
meaning,  we  should  expect  to  find,  as  we  do  not,  in  the  epistle  itself 
some  specific  allusion  to  the  distinctive  circumstances  of  readers  so 
carefully  limited  in  the  address;  in  fact  (see  Introduction),  the  epistle 
best  suits  conditions  in  Palestine.    This  is  felt  by  Beyschlag,  who  sug- 

*  The  interpretation  here  defended  is  not  strictly  "  symbolical,"  for  the  Christians  doubt- 
less believed  themselves  to  be  in  a  real,  and  not  a  symbolical,  sense  the  true  Twelve  Tribes  of 
Israel,  who  had  succeeded  by  legitimate  spiritual  inheritance  to  the  title  of  the  People 
of  God.  Their  attitude  was  not  different  from  that  which  has,  for  instance,  made  the  0.  T.  a 
Christian  book,  and  has  often  expressed  itself  in  the  characteristic  language  of  modem  Prot- 
estantism. 


I,  I  127 

gests,  wholly  without  warrant,  that  otaaicopa  may  refer  to  everything 
outside  of  Jerusalem. 

The  various  forms  of  this  view  of  the  address,  intended  to  obviate 
one  or  another  of  the  difficulties  under  which  it  labours,  require  highly 
artificial  and  improbable  hypotheses.  No  kind  of  early,  or  of  ingenious, 
dating  can  bring  us  to  a  time  when  a  writer  addressing  Jewish  Chris- 
tians in  distinction  from  unbeUeving  Jews  would  have  addressed  them 
as  "the  twelve  tribes,"  if  by  the  term  he  meant  "  the  Jews  ";  and  if  the 
term  is  here  used  for  "  the  People  of  God,"  then  the  hmitation  to  Jewish 
Christians  is  not  contained  in  it. 

To  suppose,  on  the  other  hand,  a  time  when  Christian  believers  still 
regarded  themselves  as  full  members  of  the  commonwealth  of  Israel, 
and  had  not  yet  broken  their  social  and  religious  connection  with  it 
(so,  e.  g.,  B.  Weiss,  Einleitung-,  p.  398)  gives  no  aid  whatever  in  under- 
standing the  phrase  itself.  No  time  after  the  crucifixion  is  known  to 
us  when  a  Christian  teacher  could  expect  a  respectful  hearing  for  a 
didactic  tract  from  both  converted  and  unconverted  Jews  in  the  dis- 
persion at  large,  or  would  have  felt  such  responsibility  for' the  general 
moral  instruction  of  all  diaspora  Jews  alike  as  this  writer  shows.  The 
promptness  of  the  separation  of  Christians  and  Jews  in  the  diaspora 
is  illustrated  by  all  the  mission  narratives  of  Acts.  Nor  can  even  the 
unsupported  guess  of  a  current  hmitation  of  the  term  -r)  Staaxopa  to 
Southern  Sjria  or  Babylonia  or  elsewhere  overcome  the  difficulty  that 
the  epistle  itself  nowhere  hints  at  conditions  in  any  way  peculiar  to  or 
characteristic  of  any  such  district. 

On  the  view  of  Harnack,  that  the  address  was  a  later  addition  by  a 
different  hand,  see  Introduction,  pp.  47/.  Under  such  a  view  the 
spurious  address  might  have  no  definite  meaning  or  might  have  the 
meaning  advocated  above.  Spitta,  who  takes  the  phrase  in  the  literal 
sense,  "To  the  Jews  in  the  dispersion,"  avoids  some  of  the  difficulties 
by  regarding  the  epistle  as  originally  Jewish  and  not  Christian,  but  he 
misses  the  grammatical  structure  explained  above,  and  has  likewise 
no  reason  to  give  for  the  inexplicable  limitation  to  the  diaspora.  The 
"symbolical"  interpretation  alone  will  account  for  that. 

Xaipeiv  scil.  Xeyei  (cf.  2  John,  w.  i"-  ") ;  the  ordinary  opening 
salutation  of  a  Greek  letter,  Hke  Latin  salutem,  shown  by  the 
countless  papyrus  letters  preserved  to  have  been  current  in 
Greek  letters  of  all  periods ;  cf.  Acts  15^'  23^6,  and  examples  in 
Deissmann,  Bibelshidien,  pp.  209-216;  Witkowski,  Epistolae 
grcBcae  privatae,  1907 ;  J.  A.  Robinson,  Ephesians,  1903,  pp. 
276/. ;  Milligan,  Thessalonians ,  1908,  pp.  127/.  See  also  G.  A. 
Gerhard,   "  Untersuchungen  zur   Geschichte  des  griechischen 


128  JAMES 

Briefes,"  in  Philologus,  Ixiv,  1905,  pp.  27-65  ;  Dziatzko,  "Brief," 
in  Pauly-Wissowa,  RE;  F.  Ziemann,  De  epistularum  gracarum 
formulis  sollemnibus  (Diss.  phil.  Halenses,  xviii),  191 1.  It  was 
in  common  use  among  Greek-speaking  Jews;  Esther  16^  (  =  8^'), 
I  Esd.  6^  I  Mace.  10"  12^,  2  Mace,  i^-  ",  3  Mace.  7^,  Ep.  Arist. 
41  (ed.  Thackeray),  (other  references  in  Spitta,  adloc).  The 
writer  does  not  here  show  influence  from  PauHne  epistolary 
forms. 

The  ordinary  greeting  of  a  Hebrew  or  Aramaic  letter  seems  to  have 
resembled,  as  among  other  peoples,  the  salutation  of  daily  life.  Thus 
(Aramaic)  Dan.  41  (388)  Hiv^\  ponVf  etpiQVT)  u[Ji,Iv  xXy)9uv6sit),  6-\;  Ezra 
41'  57  i^Vb  ^"i^W  etpi^VY)  xaaa  (cf.  i  Esd.  6'  xotfpetv  as  a  translation  of 
the  same  original).  ThePeshittohas  <-La^A<  for  %at'petvin  Jas.  i*.  The 
same  formulas  appear  in  the  three  Aramaic  circular  letters  of  Rab- 
ban  Gamahel  (first  or  second  century  after  Christ ;  texts  in  G.  Dalman, 
Aramdische  Sprachproben,  1896;  preserved  in  the  Mishna,  jer.  Sanh.  18'' 
and  elsewhere)  Hiiff)  ]''3'?^f  >  and  in  the  N.  T.  x^P'?  ^S^-'^  ^'^^  eEpiQVY) 
xXTr)6uv6£tT],  I  Pet.  i',  2  Pet.  i^,  Jude  2  eXeoi;  u[xiv  xal  eipiQVTj  xal  dyixTj 
Ti:XT]9uv6e{T2.  In  2  Mace,  i'  eipiQVTiv  ayotOiQv  and  xoti'petv  are  combined,  but 
the  characteristic  N.  T,  enlargements,  e.  g.  xapt?  ufjilv  -/.al  eipiQVQ  axb 
OeoG  TtaTpb?  T)tJi.wv  xal  xupfou  TrjffoO  Xptffxou,  Phil,  i  -,  i  Pet.  i-  are  probably 
not  due  to  a  combination  of  the  Greek  and  Hebrew  greetings,  but  to  the 
influence  of  the  priestly  benediction.  Num.  624-=^;  cf.  J.  C.  T.  Otto, 
"Ueber  den  apostoHschen  Segensgruss,"  in  Jb.  f.  deutsche  Theol.  1867, 
pp.  678-697. 

For  similar  (probably  Jewish)  expansion  cf.  the  letter  to  the  nine 
and  one-half  tribes  in  Apoc.  Bar.  78=:  "Thus  saith  Baruch  the  son  of 
Neriah  to  the  brethren  carried  into  captivity:  mercy  and  peace"  {cf. 
Gal.  6'0-     See  Zahn,  Einlcitung,  i,  §  6,  note  7. 

In  this  general  connection  the  following  verses  from  the  epitaph  of 
Meleager,  Anthol.  graca,  vii,  419  (Brunck,  i,  p.  37),  are  worth  quoting: 

^D^  e?  yLEV  Supo?  Ifffft,  SaXa[A,  ef  S'ouv  au  ye  $oIvts, 
ASSovt(;,  et  S'  "EXXt]v,  Xotlpe,  to  S'auxb  (ppotaov. 

I.    ON  CERTAIN  RELIGIOUS  REALITIES  (1^226). 

The  paragraphs  of  chs.  i  and  2  are  held  together  by  the  com- 
mon underlying  purpose  of  denouncing  shams  and  emphasis- 
ing various  aspects  of  reality  in  religion.  (See  Introduction, 
supra,  pp.  3-5).  The  first  half  of  this  division  (i^-^^)  treats  of 
matters  relating  to  the  development  of  character,  the  second 


I,    1-2  129 

half  (i"-226)  of  topics  pertaining  to  religious  instruction  and 
public  worship. 

2-4.  The  moral  use  of  Trial.  Out  of  trial  comes  steadfastness 
and  steadfastness  makes  perfect. 

The  epistle  begins  as  a  didactic  essay,  and  plunges  at  once  into  the 
subject  without  the  introductory  paragraph  of  congratulation,  good 
wishes,  assurance  of  prayerful  interest  in  the  person  addressed,  etc., 
which  is  a  characteristic  standing  feature  in  Greek  letters,  both  Chris- 
tian and  secular;  cf.  the  papyrus  letters  referred  to  above,  pp.  12-7/.,  to- 
gether with  Rom.  i^  i-,  i  Cor.  i<  "•,  2  Cor.  i^  f-,  Eph.  i'  «-,  Phil,  i'  «-, 
Col.  i3  ff.,  I  Thess.  1=  «■,  2  Thess.  i'  «-,  2  Tim.  i'  «■,  Philem.  4/.  i  Pet.' 
i^  «•,  2  Jn.  4,  3  Jn.  2-4.  It  is  noticeable  that  those  N.  T.  "epistles" 
which  have  most  the  character  of  hterary  works  rather  than  letters  lack 
this  opening  paragraph.  Thus  i  Timothy  and  Titus  (which  for  other 
reasons  also  are  recognised  as  containing  less  genuine  matter  than  2 
Timothy),  Hebrews,  i  John,  Jude,  Revelation,  and  perhaps  2  Peter 
(where  this  purpose,  however,  may  be  intended  by  i  ^  « ■) .  The  spurious 
epistles  of  Plato  and  others,  which  are  hterary  pieces  and  not  real  let- 
ters, have  Hkewise  for  the  most  part  nothing  corresponding  to  the  open- 
ing paragraph  common  in  letters  of  daily  life. 

2.  iraaav  x^-P^-V'  Trdaav,  "all,"  is  here  used,  not  to  denote 
strict  completeness  of  extension,  but  as  an  intensifying  adjective, 
in  the  sense  either  of  "full,"  "supreme"  (summus)  or  (less 
naturally)  of  "nothing  but,"  "unmixed"  {merus,  Ger.  lauter). 
Cf.  Eur.  Med.  453,  irav  KepSo^  97701)  ^7)fiiovfievr]  (f)v<yrj. 

■Kxq  in  the  singular  means  (i)  "every,"  "every  kind  of"  (exaa-uoq, 
•rcavTotoq),  having  this  sense  only  with  anarthrous  nouns,  e.  g.  Phil. 
4"  xivTa  aytov,  Mt.  4-^  xaaav  voaov  v.x\  Tcatrav  [ixXxv-iav,  Col.  412  ev 
xavrl  6eXT)[AaTt  tou  6£o0  ; 

(2)  "whole,"  "entire"  (oXoq,  iotiis).  In  this  sense  it  is  used  (a)  with 
the  article,  and  in  either  the  attributive  or  predicate  position,  Mt.  8'* 
xaaa  tj  %6'kiq,  Acts  2oi«  xbv  lucivxa  xpovov ;  (b)  with  anarthrous  nouns, 
e.g.  Plato,  Leges  708  B  ^uvdicaja  xoXts,  "a  whole  city."  The  rule  is 
that  the  noun  lacks  the  article  in  cases  where  without  xa?  it  would 
not  have  had  it. 

(3)  From  this  sense  of  "whole,"  is  derived  the  meaning  "full," 
"complete,"  and  so  "utter"  {summus).  In  this  sense  it  is  used  with 
abstract  nouns  in  cases  where  the  idea  of  quantity  or  extension  is  not 
present,  and  is  found  both  with  and  without  the  article. 

Thus  Plato,  Leges  646  B  et?  axxaxv  (pauXoxrjTo:,  "into  utter  degrada- 
tion" (Jowett);   Leges  952  A  xaqQ  axouS^  txavOdtvscv,  "with  all  (com- 
9 


130  JAMES 

plete)  zeal";  Respub.  575  A  ev  xocct)  avapxf?  y-oil  dtvopifijt,  "in  all  (com- 
plete) anarchy  and  lawlessness";  Thuc.  i,  86^  TuxwpTjT^a  icavul  a6^vet, 
"with  full  strength,"  iv,  11'  icpoOuiAfqc  xaaT)  xP'»>tJ''Svot  xaf  xapaxeXeuctAqi ; 
Polyb.  i,  39'  scs  xaaav  ^X6ov  iicopfav,  i,  15*  tyj?  iz&G-qq  dtXoyfaq  xXi^pr), 
iii,  77^  ev  T^  xiffi]  <ptXavGpwxt(?,  iv,  27^  t^i;  xaCTTji;  ye(ji,£i  xaxoxpaY(JLoauvT)<;, 
xi,  4[7]-  Ttjq  xaaT)?  iXoycffTioc.;  eaxl  aTf)[AeIov,  "a  proof  of  complete  folly"; 
Epict.  iii,  s'°  x&piv  aot  s'xw  xaaav. 

The  Hebrew  Sb,  whose  meanings  had  a  development  in  general  like 
those  of  xaq,  does  not  appear  to  have  advanced  to  this  usage. 

2  Mace.  2^2  Tou  xupt'ou  (jL£Ta  TCotaT]?  extetxEtaq  tXsw  Yevo[ji.evou  aixol?  is 
one  of  the  very  few  cases  of  this  sense  in  the  Apocrypha.* 

In  the  N.  T.  this  usage  is  common,  especially  in  Paul,  where  xa?  be- 
comes a  favourite  intensifying  adjective.  Thus  Acts  4"  [Aexcb  izapgriaiaq 
xaaTjg,  523  1711  (jLETot  xiaT)?  xpo0u[xto«;,  20^'  23'  xaaf]  auvetBTjaet  ayaSfj 
X£xoXtT£U(jLac,  28^^  Rom.  7'  15'^  xXifjpwaat  uiia?  xaa-rjt;  xo^P^?  ^'^^  sJp-Qvr)?, 
151^,  2  Cor.  I'  8'  X(4<J7)  axouSfi,  9'  xdtaav  auxdipxetav  (notice  the  various 
senses  of  xaq  exemplified  in  this  verse)  12'^,  Eph.  i'  ev  xiiay]  009(1?  '^ot^ 
qjpovi^aet,  4^'  5',  Phil,  i'  2"  [aeto:  xciaT)?  xi^P*?)  Col.  !'-"•  ^a  |v  xioTj 
aoqji'i?,  3*^  2  Thess.  2'-  >",  i  Tim.  i"  and  4'  xia-r]?  ixoSoxij?  a^to?,  2"  5' 
6',  2  Tim.  42,  Tit.  21*  32^  i  Pet.  2"  s"",  2  Pet.  i*  axouS^v  xaaav.  In 
some  of  these  instances,  as  would  be  expected,  it  is  not  easy  to  decide 
certainly  between  the  meaning  "full"  and  the  meaning  "each"  or 
"every." 

It  is  evident  that  this  usage  is  a  Greek  and  not  in  any  degree  a  Se- 
mitic idiom.     This  sense  is  the  probable  one  in  Jas.  i^. 

(4)  Still  another  use  of  xaq  is  found  in  cases  where  the  word,  through 
its  position  in  the  sentence,  becomes  translatable  by  "unmixed," 
"wholly,"  "only,"  meriis,  tantummodo,  Ger.  lauter.  Thus  Plato,  Phileh. 
27  E,  28  A  ou  ydip  av  tjSovtj  xdev  ayaGbv  ^v  .  .  .  oiiSe  y'  av  XiixY)  xav  xax6v,t 
Protag.  317  B  eycD  oijv  toutwv  t-?)v  evavxfav  axaaav  oSbv  eXifjXuOa,  "the 
entirely  opposite  course,"  Thuc.  vi,  37"  ev  xAut]  xoXe[jii<jt  HtxeXf?  {i.  e. 
"Sicily  which  is  wholly  hostile"),  Jos.  Ant.  iv,  5'  Bta  xiiair)<;  epiQfjLou 
piwv,  "flowing  through  nothing  but  desert."  In  Prov.  11 23  IxtOutifa 
Stxai'uv  xaaa  iyaQ-t],  the  Hebrew  liN,  tantummodo,  is  translated  by  xaffa,t 
and  the  sense  is  "The  desire  of  the  righteous  is  solely  good"  (i.  e.  both 
in  its  character  and  in  its  results). 

The  Latin  omnis  is  used  in  this  same  way,  as  Cic.  N.  D.  ii,  21,  mdla 
in  ccelo  nee  fortiina  nee  temeritas,  nee  erratic  nee  varietas  inest:  contraque 
omnis  ordo,  Veritas,  ratio,  eonstantia. 

This  method  of  heightening  the  effect  of  the  noim  is,  in  many  cases, 
closely  akin  to  the  sense  discussed  under  (3)  and  can  be  fully  distin- 

*  Possibly  Ecclus.  ig"  iv  Tracrjj  <70(/)ia  is  to  be  reckoned  here. 

t  This  passage  from  the  Philebus  is  specially  significant  because  ttSv  agrees  with  the  predi- 
cate, not,  as  the  logical  analysis  might  seem  to  require,  with  the  subject  (r^Sovrj). 
X  Hatch  and  Redpath,  s.  v.  was,  have  overlooked  this  fact. 


I,  2  131 

guished  from  that  only  in  extreme  instances.  It  is  likely  that  the  Greek 
writer  was  often,  perhaps  usually,  not  conscious  of  the  distinction  which 
our  analysis  reveals. 

See  Schleusner,  Lexicon  in  Nov.  Test.  s.  v.  iziq  (Glasgow,  1824,  pp. 
358/.);  Kruger,  Griechische  Sprachlehre  fiir  Schiden,  i,  §  50,  11,  Anm. 
7-13;  also  Stephanus,  Thesaurus,  s.v  ■Kaq  (especially  ed.  Hase  and 
Dindorf,  Paris,  1831-65,  vol.  vi,  col.  568). 

Xf^P^v  "joy,"  i.  e.  "occasion  of  joy"  {cf.  Lk.  2^^,  1  Thess.  2"), 
a  predicate  accusative,  the  sentence  with  orav  suggesting  the 
real  object  of  7)<^'r]aa(jQe. 

Probably  an  allusion  is  intended  to  %ai)oeiy,  v.^  The  writer 
sets  forth  one  notable  source  of  joy.  For  similar  use  of  the 
greeting,  cj.  Tob.  5^"  (Cod.  N)  etTrei'  avT(^  •  x^tpeiv  aoc  ttoWo, 
jevoLTO.  Kal  ctTTOKpLOeh  Ta)/3ei^  elirev  avro)'  rl  [xoi  en  vTrdp^ei 
XaCpeiv ;  Ps.-Plato,*  Epist.  viii,  352  B  TiXaTOiv  tow  Atcow? 
olKeioi<;  T€  Kol  €TaipoL<i  ev  TrpdrTeiv  •  a  B'av  SiavorjdevTe';  fidXuTTa 
€v  TrpdrroLTe  ovrco^  ireipdcroixaL  ravd'  vjimv  Kara  Bvvafxiv  Bce- 
^eXdelv. 

This  paronomasia  is  possible  only  in  Greek,  and  is  a  strong  argument 
against  the  theory  of  a  Semitic  original.  Cf.  Zahn,  Ei?ileitU7ig,  i,  §  6, 
note  6.    The  Peshitto  has  jof^,  which  obUterates  the  play  on  words. 

r]'yrj(yaa-6e.  The  aorist  is  perhaps  used  because  the  writer  is 
thinking  of  each  special  case  of  Treipaafidf;.  For  the  distinc- 
tion, often  significant,  between  present  and  aorist,  in  commands 
and  in  prohibitions,  see  Winer,  §  43.  3,  §  56.  i  b,  Buttmann, 
§  139.  6,  J.  H.  Moulton,  Prolegomena,  pp.  173/. 

aSe\(f)oi  fiov.  So  2^>  "  3^-  i"-  ^^  512,  19  •  aBe\(f)ot  alone  4^^ 
^7.  9, 10.   aBe\(f)OL  fxov  ayaTrrjTOi  ii«>  i^  2^. 

Like  the  Hebrew  T]i<,  "brother,"  aSe\(f)6<;  was  used  by  Jews 
(and  apparently  by  Jews  alone)  to  mean  "fellow  countryman," 
cf.  Ex.  2",  Deut.  153,  Judith  f"*,  Tob.  2\  2  Mace.  i\  Mt.  5^% 
Acts  13^^.  Philo,  De  caritate,  6  (ii,  p.  388),  explains  dBe\(^6'i 
as  meaning  ov  /xovov  tov  e/c  tcov  avrcov  (f>vvra  yoveoov  dWa  Kal 
6?  da-TO'i  Tj  Kal  6fW(f)vXo<;  rj^  cf.  Philo,  De  septenario,  9  init. 

*  Probably  written  before  the  Christian  era  as  a  rhetorical  exercise,  perhaps  at  Athens. 
See  Susemihl,  Gesch.  d.  griech.  Litteratur  in  der  Alexandrinerzeit,  1892,  ii,  pp.  581-585. 


132  JAMES 

By  Christians  the  word  was  used  of  fellow  members  in  the 
new  Israel,  Jn.  2123,  Acts  i^S  Rom.  i^^  161*,  Eph.  6^\  Phil. 
22%  Heb.  312,  I  Pet.  s^\  2  Pet.  i^o,  Rev.  i^.  This  usage,  charac- 
teristic of  the  early  Christians,  is  to  be  deemed  a  natural  out- 
growth of  the  Jewish  usage,  doubtless  stimulated  and  confirmed, 
but  not  originated,  by  such  sayings  of  Jesus  as  Mk.  3^^,  Mt.  23^, 
cf.  Lk.  22^2_  It  would  also  be  made  easier  to  some  Gentile 
Christians  through  such  usages  as  that  of  the  technical  language 
of  the  Serapeum  of  Memphis,  where  dSeX(/)09  denoted  a  fellow 
member  of  the  religious  community.  See  Deissmann,  Bibel- 
studien,  1895,  pp.  82  /.,  and  the  references  there  given ;  also  let- 
ters in  Witkowski,  Epistolae  grcecae  privatae,  1907;  Moulton  and 
Milligan,  Vocabulary  of  the  Greek  Test.  1914,  ^.  v.  a8€\(})6^. 

As  an  address,  aSe\(f)OL,  with  or  without  the  additional  words, 
is  common  in  the  0.  T.,  e.  g.  Judg.  19^^,  i  Sam.  30^2,  i  Chron. 
282,  Judith  f\  Tob.  f,  cf.  Apoc.  Bar.  78^  80^;  and  still  more  in 
the  N.  T.,  e.  g.  Rom.  7S  i  Cor.  i",  i  Thess.  i\  i  Jn.  31^;  cf. 
Clem.  Rom.  i^  4^,  2  Clem.  Rom.  i^  lo^  14^  Ign.  Eph.  16S 
Hermas,  Vis.  iii,  lo^  iv,  i^-  *,  Ep.  Barnab.  2"^,  and  see  Good- 
speed's  Index  patristicus  for  other  references.  It  is  especially 
characteristic  of  the  speeches  in  Acts,  cf.  i^^  2^^  31^  6^  ']-•  -^ 
j^is.  26,  38  j^T,  13  22I  231'  ^'  ^  28^^;  and  it  may  be  suspected 
that  it  belonged  to  the  homiletical  style  of  the  synagogue 
and  was  brought  thence  into  Christian  hortatory  language.  It 
is  a  form  appropriate  to  a  member  of  a  strictly  defined  society, 
such  as  the  Jewish  or  the  Christian  brotherhood,  addressing 
other  members  whom  he  recognises  as  equals.  This  character 
distinguishes  the  Christian  parenetic  literature  from  the  0.  T. 
Wisdom-literature.  In  the  latter  the  conventional  form  is  "My 
son,"  vie  (Prov.  i^  and  passim),  or  reKvov  (Ecclus.  2^  and  pas- 
sim), and  the  situation  is  conceived  to  be  that  of  an  old  man 
bequeathing  his  accumulated  wisdom  to  his  child  or  pupil. 
Cf.  Toy  on  Prov.  i*. 

Treipaa-fioh,  "  trials." 

On  the  uniformly  neutral  meaning  of  Hebrew  hdj,  "try,"  "test," 
see  Driver  on  Deut.  6'*.  This  holds  for  xetpdew,  irstpat^w,  xsipaatAO'; 
in  LXX  (including  Apocrypha),  except  Ecclus.  2'  33'. 


I,  2  133 

In  the  N.  T.  (i)  the  noun  Treipaafio^,  "  trial"  (which  in  secular 
writers  is  known  only  in  Dioscur.  Prcef.  5  tow  eVl  tmv  iraOwv 
•7r€tpaa/xov<i,  "experiments  on  diseases"),  has  clearly  the  mean- 
ing "affliction,"  that  being  one  of  the  most  common  tests  of 
character.  Lk.  22^8,  Acts  201'  ftera  7rd.arj<i  Ta7r€ivo(f)poavvr]<i 
Kol  SaKpvcov  Kal  ireLpaafiMv,  cf.  Ecclus.  2^  33^,  Lk.  8^^  (cf. 
Mk.  4"),  Heb.  11",  i  Pet.  i«.  See  E.  Hatch,  Essays  in  Biblical 
Greek,  pp.  71  /.,  Harnack,  "Zwei  Worte  Jesu,"  in  Sitzungsbe- 
richfe  der  kgl.  Preuss.  Akademie,  1907,  pp.  942-947,  both  of  whom 
give  this  meaning  to  nreipaa pA<;  in  the  Lord's  Prayer,  Mt.  6^^. 
(2)  The  whole  group  of  words  is  used  to  refer  to  temptation 
to  sin,  since  that,  primarily  an  assault,  is  at  the  same  time  a 
test.  This  development  of  the  meaning  accords  with  the  secu- 
lar use  of  Tretpdoo^  Treipd^o),  which  may  be  illustrated  from  the 
derivative  ireipaTrj^,  "pirate,"  i.  e.  "attacker."  Thus  in  Jas. 
1^*  the  words  are  flatly  used  in  the  sense  "seduce  to  evil."  So 
Mt.  4^  6^' ;  the  name  0  irupdi^wv  for  Satan,  Mt.  4^,  i  Thess. 
3^  I  Cor.  75  lo^^  I  Tim.  6^,  etc.;  cf.  the  Jewish  prayer  in  Bera- 
choth,  60  b,  translated  by  Taylor,  Sayings  of  the  Jewish  Fathers'^, 
p.  128.  That  both  meanings  can  be  employed  by  the  same 
writer  in  neighbouring  contexts  may  be  illustrated  by  the  use 
of  the  English  "trial"  in  its  several  senses. 

In  the  passage  before  us  7r€ipaafjL0i<i  evidently  means  "  trials," 
i.  e.  adversities,  which  befall  us  from  without  and  against 
our  wfll.  According  to  James  (vv.  ^^^■)  "temptations"  spring  , 
mainly  from  within  and  could  not  be  a  subject  for  rejoicing. ; 
There  is  no  reason,  however,  to  think  especially  of  religious  per- 
secution ;  what  James  has  in  mind  is  the  strain  put  upon  faith 
in  Providence  and  in  a  good  God  by  the  fact  that  God  permits 
his  people  to  fall  into  distress  of  various  kinds  and  to  be  op- 
pressed by  grievous  poverty.  The  people  here  addressed  are 
not  a  missionary  outpost  among  the  heathen ;  nothing  in  the 
epistle  (not  even  2'  and  4''  ^■)  implies  the  situation  revealed 
by  I  Pet.  412  ff..  They  appear  to  be  largely  poor  and  struggling 
people,  subject  to  the  hardships  of  the  poor,  cf.  i^"  2'^^-  ^  Note 
the  prevalent  eagerness  to  have,  implied  in  4^-^ 

irepLTrea-rjTe,  "fall  in  with,"  "encounter,"  ordinarily  used  of 


134  JAMES 

unwelcome  encounters,  as  with  robbers  (Lk.  lo^"),  misfortunes, 
sicknesses  (Prov.  ii^,  2  Mace.  6^^) ;  see  references  in  Lexx, 
Wetstein,  and  Heisen,  pp.  258/. 

ttolklXol^,  "divers." 

The  classical  and  higher  literary  use  employed  ttolkiXo^  in 
senses  naturally  derived  from  its  original  meaning  of  "many-col- 
oured," "variegated";  thus  it  meant  "complex,"  "elaborate," 
"diversified,"  "intricate,"  "subtle,"  "ambiguous,"  "unstable," 
nearly  always  in  contrast  with  "simple"  (Schmidt,  Synonymik, 
iv,  pp.  361  /.).  In  classical  writers  hardly  any  clear  case  can 
be  found  of  the  looser  meaning,  "various,"  "divers,"  Travro- 
BuTTO'i,  in  which  the  word  appears  in  later  and  less  cultivated 
use,  so  Mt.  4-S  Mk.  i^",  Lk.  4^°,  Heb.  2",  i  Pet.  i«,  3  Mace.  2% 
TTOt/ciXat?  Kal  TToXXat?  iSoKifiaaa^;  TLficop{ai^,  4  Mace.  7^  17^ 
firjrepa  iirra  riicvwv  hi  evae^eiav  7roiKL\a<;  ^aadvov^  f^^XP'' 
Bavdrov  virofxeivaaav,  iS^i.  Hermas  offers  many  cases  of  this 
meaning ;  see  Goodspeed,  Index,  and  note  especially  Mand.  iv, 
2^  TToXXal  Kal  TTOL/CLXac,  Mand.  x,  i^  ')(ep(TOvvTaL  airo  r5>v 
UKavOoiv  Kal  /Soravcov  ttolklXcov,  Sim.  vii,  4  OXij^rivaL  iv  Tracrai^ 
0\L-\jr€aL  iroLKiXai';.  So  Ep.  ad  Diogn.  12^  7roiKL\.OL<i  Kap7roi<i 
KeKoo-fjir)iJievoi,  Mart.  Polyc.  2^. 

For  non-christian  use,  cf.  Aelian,  V.  h.  ix,  8  0  3e . . .  vroXXat? 
Kal  7roiKi\at<;  ')(^pr]adfi€VO^  ^iov  fjbera/SoXal'i ,  Synes,  Ep.  114. 
The  popular  weakening  of  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  and  its 
employment  merely  to  give  greater  fulness  to  the  phrase,  is  seen 
at  its  extreme  in  2  Tim.  3^,  Tit.  3^,Heb.  13^,  where  ttolklXo^  seems 
wholly  superfluous.  The  use  here  in  James  is  probably  of 
that  general  type,  with  little  or  no  emphasis ;  it  is  less  probable 
that  the  word  is  used  here  to  intensify  the  idea  of  TreipaafMols, 
"trials  however  various,"  implying  number  and  severity. 

3.  TO  SoKLfiiov,  "test,"  "proof,"  here  of  the  act  of  proving. 
The  word  more  properly  refers  to  the  means  of  testing  {Kpt,T^piov, 
cf.  Prov.  27"!  SoKifitov  ap<yvpi<p,  and  references  in  Lex.  and 
Mayor),  but  this  does  not  give  an  adequate  sense  here,  although 
adopted  by  Mayor  and  some  older  commentators. 

In  the  similar  passage  i  Pet.  i ',  xh  3ox(;jliov  cannot  well  mean  "  proof " ; 
Soy-^ixtov  is  there  a  neuter  adjective  from  aoyj.\ji.ioq  =  Soy.'.txo^,  "proved," 
"good."     See  Deissmann,  iVez^e  Bibelsludien,  1897,  pp.  86^. 


I,  2-3  135 

In  other  usage  also  the  word  makes  a  natural  advance  from 
the  idea  of  "test"  to  that  of  "purification"  (as  with  metals)  or 
of  "training"  (as  Herodian,  ii,  10^  SoKifxiov  Be  aTpartwTOiv 
Kdfiaro<;  aW'  ov  rpv(f)i]. 

T779  7ricrT€<M9. 

T^q  xtffxeox;]  om  B^  £f  syr'^'^i.  The  evidence  against  the  words  raises 
a  bare  suspicion  that  they  were  added  by  conformation  to  i  Pet.  i '. 
To  omit  them  does  not  alter  the  general  sense. 

The  word  vrtcrTt?  clearly  means  in  James  that  fundamental 
attitude  of  the  man's  soul  by  virtue  of  which  he  belongs  to  the 
people  of  God,  cf.  i«  2^-  s-  ^\  It  is  taken  for  granted  that  the 
natural  effect  of  ireLpacrfioL  is  to  imperil  persistence  in  faith. 
See  Introduction,  p.  40. 

Karepyd^eraL,  "works,"  "achieves";  the  force  of  Kara-  is 
"perfective."  See  Moulton,  Prolegomena,  pp.  m/.,  Sanday 
on  Rom.  7^^     Cf.  Rom.  5^  tj  dXiyjn<i  vTrofiovrjv  Karepyd^eTai. 

y.aiegyi.f^e'zai  is  found  only  eleven  times  in  LXX ;  while  in  the  N.  T., 
apart  from  this  instance  and  i  Pet.  4',  it  occurs  only  in  Paul  (twenty 
times). 

vTTOfiovqv,  "steadfastness,"  "staying-power,"  not  "patience." 
On  the  distinction,  cf.  Lightfoot  on  Col.  i^S  Tvench,'Synonyms, 
liii. 

uxoyi^vw,  uxoyLovTj  havc  in  classical  Greek  a  considerable  range  of 
meanings  springing  from  the  root-meaning  "stay"  and  including 
"endurance,"  "firmness,"  "submission,"  "patience,"  etc. 

In  the  Greek  O.  T.  uxo[xovnQ  is  used  chiefly  for  Hebrew  n)pn  ,ni|-in^ 
"hope,"  "expectation,"  e.  g.  Ps.  71=^  oxt  au  el  t)  utcoixovtq  [kou,  xupte' 
xuptoq  f)  iXizlc,  [LOU  iv.  veoxTj-uoq  \lou.  So  Theodotion,  Job  17'%  trans- 
lates mpn  once  by  uxofiovf),  while  Aquila  repeatedly  substitutes  5xo;i.ovi^ 
in  this  sense  for  IXict?  of  LXX.  This  meaning  is  found  by  some  in 
2  Thess.  35,  Rev.  i'  3",  but  the  passages  are  all  capable  of  different 
explanation. 

In  Ecclus.  2"  ij-*  41=  ijTcotiovT)  occurs  in  the  sense  "patience,"  38" 
"diUgence,"  16''  uxopLov-fjv  euas^ouv;,  "the  constancy  of  the  pious."  In 
the  last  sense  uxotiovT)  and  uxotidvw  are  found  many  times  in  4  Maccabees, 
where  the  virtue  of  religious  constancy  in  spite  of  adversity  and  even 
torture  (17-'  x-fjv  Ixl  ixlq  ^aaivot^  .  .  .  uxoiJLOvfjv)  is  celebrated  in  the 
great  instances  of  Eleazar  and  of  the  mother  of  the  seven  sons.     It  is 


136  JAMES 

there  associated  with  ivSpe{a  (i"  153")  and  xaxoitiOsta  (gO  and  is  the 
product  of  iX-Klq  (17*).  Cf.  Test.  XII  Patr.  Jos.  2'  xoXXa  iyabx  BtSwotv 
f)  uxo[xovi^  (the  whole  section  is  noteworthy),  10'  bpdt-zs.  oiv,  xsxva  [lou, 
icdaa  xaTspY^l^eTac  t)  uxo^jlovq,  10',  Ps.  Sol.  2^°. 

vTTOfiovrj,  meaning  "constancy,"  was  thus  a  virtue  highly 
prized  by  the  Jews  and  frequently  exemplified  by  cases  from 
their  history  beginning  with  that  of  Abraham,  notably  those 
mentioned  in  4  Maccabees.  It  is,  indeed,  a  characteristic 
Jewish  virtue  of  all  time,  and  the  Christian  emphasis  on  it  is 
a  part  of  the  inheritance  from  Judaism.  Chrysostom  calls  it 
^aaiXh  Tcav  apercov. 

But  heathen  writers  show  that  the  virtue  was  also  admired  in  the 
Greek  and  Roman  world.  The  word  uxotAovo  is  hardly  ever  used  for 
the  virtue  in  general  (yet  cf.  Plut.  Apophth.  lacon.  Agesil.  2),  but  it  is 
not  uncommon  with  reference  to  the  endurance  of  specific  hardship. 
See  the  quotations  given  by  Trench,  especially  Cicero's  definition  of 
the  Roman  quality  patientia  in  De  invent,  ii,  54  paiientia  est  honestatis  aid 
utilitatis  causa  rerum  arduarum  ac  difficilmm  voluniaria  ac  dinturna  per- 
pessio. 

In  the  N.  T.  vTrofiov^  is  chiefly  used  in  this  sense  of  unswerv- 
ing constancy  to  faith  and  piety  in  spite  of  adversity  and  suffer- 
ing. Thus  Lk.  8^^  21^3  iv  ry  virofiovfi  vfMcov  KT-^creaOe  Ta^  yjrvx^ai; 
vfMwv,  Rom.  15^  f-,  2  Pet.  i®,  Heb.  10^'=  12^,  Rev.  2'^-  ^'  ^^  The 
noun  and  its  verb  occur  but  rarely  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels, 
and  not  at  all  in  John,  but  are  characteristic  of  the  vocabulary 
of  Paul  and  the  apostolic  age.  i  Pet.  2^,  where  vTrofievm  is 
twice  used  in  the  sense  of  "endure  uncomplainingly  and  pa- 
tiently," is  an  exception  to  the  more  usual  emphasis  on  loyal 
"firmness." 

In  Jas.  i^  vTTOfiovq  means,  then,  not  "uncomplaining  pa- 
tience" (so,  e.g.,  Spitta),  nor  merely  "endurance"  as  a  single 
act  or  concrete  state,  but  rather  that  permanent  and  underlying 
active  trait  of  the  soul  from  which  endurance  springs — "con- 
stancy," or  "steadfastness,"  thought  of  as  a  virtue.  Cf.  5", 
where  the  meaning  is  the  same,  and  i^^. 

A  closely  similar  thought  is  found  in  Rom.  5^  ^-  koI  kuvx^- 
IxeOa  iv  raU  OXi-^jreacv^  €t86T€<;  otl  rj  OXi-yfri^;  VTrofiovrjv  Karep- 


h  3-4  137 

yd^CTat^  rj  Se  VTrofiovr)  hQK,tfXt']v^  rj  he  So/cijUbr}  iXTriBa^  rj  Se  e'A,- 
TTt?  ov  KaraKT'xyveL.  It  is  not  necessary,  however,  to  assume 
literary  dependence.  For  the  rhetorical  figure  of  climax,  cf. 
i"'-,  Rom.  iqi^  2  Pet.  i*  ^-j  Wisd.  6^^  ^- ;  see  Blass-Debrunner, 
§  493,  for  other  references. 

On  joy  in  trial,  cf.  2  Mace.  6^'^-^\  4  Mace.  7"  1112,  Mt.  5"'-,   \ 
Acts  5^S  I  Pet.  i^^-;   on  the  whole  theory  of  punishment  as 
chastening,  cf.  Ps.  661" «-,  y^{^,  ii9^  pj-oy,  ^n,  12^  Judith  825-27. 
On  affliction  as  a  test  to  be  expected  in  the  life  of  the  pious, 
cf.  Ecclus.  21-5,  Judith  8^5,  i  Pet.  412,  2  Tim.  312. 

Spitta's  contention  that  James  has  in  i^-^  the  case  of  Abraham  al- 
ready in  mind  is  not  made  out.  Abraham  was  indeed  one  of  the  great 
examples  of  constancy  in  faith  in  spite  of  searching  trial,  cf.  Judith  2)-^--'', 

1  Mace.  2",  Ecclus.  44-",  4  Mace.  6i<'  -^  921  1312  1420  1519  f.  175  1820.  23, 
Jubilees  17,  19,  Pirke  Aboth,  v.  4.  But  there  is  no  reason  whatever 
for  assuming  in  our  verse  reference  to  any  specific  case  of  constancy. 

4.  5e,  "and,"  not  "but."  This  verse  turns  to  remoter,  but 
essential,  consequences  of  ireLpaafioL. 

epyov  TeXecov  e^ero).  We  must  not  rest  satisfied  with 
constancy,  but  must  see  that  it  produces  those  further  fruits 
which  make  up  completeness  of  character.  The  thought,  here 
very  summarily  expressed,  is  the  same  as  in  Rom.  s^^-,  2  Pet. 
1 5-^.     For  the  phrase  cf.  Jn.  17*  to  epyov  Te\€i(oaa<i. 

The  constancy  here  referred  to  is  constancy  in  faith,  from 
which  completed  character  may  be  expected  to  spring.  This 
is  closely  similar  to  the  characteristic  Pauline  doctrine  of  faith 
working  itself  out  (or,  made  effective)  in  love.  Gal.  5^,  Rom. 
6^--^,  cf.  V.  22  vvvl  Be  e\evdep(o6evTe<;  airo  Tr]<;  d/xapTLa<;  .  ,  . 
e^ere  rov  Kapirbv  vp-oiv  ek  dyiaafjLov.  This  inclusive  and  fun- 
damental thought  well  fits  its  position  at  the  opening  of  the  tract. 

"To  have  a  perfect  work"  is  taken  by  many  to  mean  "be  perfected," 
in  respect  either  to  duration  until  the  end  or  to  other  completeness. 
The  verse  would  then  urge  merely  that  the  constancy  which  trials  pro- 
duce be  made  by  voluntary  effort  a  perfect  constancy. 

This  is  a  less  natural  meaning  for  the  phrase  itself,  and  it  gives  a 
weaker  sense  than  the  interpretation  "produce  its  full  and  proper 
fruits,"  which  is,  moreover,  supported  by  the  analogy  of  Rom.  52'-, 

2  Pet.  1 5-'. 


138  JAMES 

rekuoi  Koi  oKoickrjpoL.  A  perfect  and  complete  character  is 
recognised  as  the  aim  of  the  whole  process. 

Te\€io?,  "finished,"  "perfect,"  is  a  favourite  word  of  James, 
thus  i"'  25  32,  cf.  222. 

The  idea  of  "maturity,"  "adult  growth,"  either  physical  (Heb.  51*, 
I  Cor.  142°)  or  spiritual  (i  Cor.  2«  13",  Col.  i"  412),  does  not  seem  pres- 
ent in  James's  use,  which  is  rather  akin  to  that  of  Mt.  5"  19". 

For  the  use  of  Te\ei09,  referring  to  the  natural  aim  of  moral 
effort,  the  O.  T.  use  of  □"'!3n,  "perfect,"  "innocent,"  and  D^ffi', 
"perfect,"  "single- (minded),"  laid  ample  foundation.  So  DH, 
0"'pr\,  of  Noah,  Gen.  6^;  Job  i^;  Deut.  iS^^,  Ps.  iS^^  3737, 
and  often;  thv!!,  i  Kings  8"  ii^ 

A  similar  Greek  use  grew  out  of  the  simple  meaning  of  the 
word,  cf.  Philo,  Leg.  all.  ii,  23  (of  Moses  in  contrast  to  the  ordi- 
nary immature  man),  and  other  passages  quoted  by  Mayor, 
also  the  Stoic  sayings  in  Stobaeus,  Anthol.  ii,  7,  11,  g,  iravra  8e 
rov  Kokov  Kol  ayadbv  dvBpa  reXeiov  elvai  Xejovai  Blo,  to  firjSe- 
IxLo.'i  cnroKeiTreadat  apeTrj<;,  ii,  7,  5,  b  8  (ed.  Heeren,  ii,  p.  117). 
See  HDB,  "Perfection,"  and  J.  Weiss,  Erster  Korintherbrief , 
1910,  pp.  73-75. 

As  rikeio<i  means  "complete"  in  the  sense  of  "perfect," 
"finished,"  so  6\6K\r)po<i  means  "complete  in  all  its  parts," 
no  part  being  wanting  or  inadequate.  The  distinction  is  well 
illustrated  by  Trench,  Synonyms,  xxii.  6\6tckr)po<;  is  not  com- 
mon with  a  moral  appHcation,  cf.  4  Mace.  15^^  rrjv  evaefieiav 
oXoKXrjpov,  Wisd.  15^  6\6K\r)po<;  BiKaLoavvr}.  It  was  custom- 
ary to  use  the  two  words  together  merely  to  give  a  fuller 
phrase,  as  here,  cf.  Col.  4}'^,  reXeiOL  kol  7r€7r\'tjpocf>opr)/j,€voi. 
Many  examples  of  such  use  of  reXeio^  and  oX6KXr}po<i  in  com- 
bination, drawn  from  Philo,  Plutarch,  Dio  Chrysostom,  etc., 
will  be  found  in  Mayor,  Trench,  Spitta,  and  Heisen,  Novae 
hypotheses,  pp.  312^.  Compare  English  "meet  and  right," 
"good  and  sufficient,"  German  "klipp  imd  klar,"  etc. 

5-8.  Divine  aid  to  this  perfectness  is  gained  through  Prayer. 
But  blessings  co7ne  only  in  answer  to  the  prayer  of  steadfast  loy- 
alty in  faith. 


I,  4-S  139 

The  external  connection  is  made  here  by  Xenrerai  (v.  *  \ei- 
TTOfievot) ;  cf.  vv.  i-  ^  %ai/9eti/,  ')(apdv,  v.  ^  reXetoi',  TeXeiot,  vv.  ^'  ^ 
alreirco^  etc.  The  main  topic  of  the  section  is  prayer  (not  wis- 
dom), the  point  being  that  real  prayer  requires  unwavering  faith. 
The  marked  resemblance  between  these  verses  and  Hermas, 
Mand.  Lx,  shows  that  behind  both  lie  current  homiletical  lan- 
guage and  ideas. 

5.  a-o(f)ia  {cf.  Jas.  7,^^'  ^^'  ^0  is  not  to  be  taken  in  the  popular 
Stoic  sense  of  "Science,"  iTncyrrjixr)  deimv  koX  avdpcoTrivcov  /cat 
Twv  TOVTcov  alTLOiv  (references  in  Lightfoot  on  Col.  i^),  which 
is  reflected  in  Paul's  use,  e.  g.  i  Cor.  i^o-  22  "EXXT/ye?  (70(^iav 
^T]TOvaLv,  2^'  ^'  s  313,  and  (with  reference  to  the  Christian  sub- 
stitute for  the  world's  wisdom)  i  Cor.  i^"  2^^-  31^  Eph.  i^  31°, 
Col.  2'^,h>  w  da\v  "Trdvre^  01  drjaavpoX  rr}?  ao(^Ca<i  koX  fyvaxreco^ 
a7r6Kpv(f)oi.  It  is  rather  "Wisdom,"  the  supreme  and  divine 
quality  of  the  soul  whereby  man  knows  and  practises  right- 
eousness.* Of  this  Hebrew  idea  of  wisdom  Solomon  was  the 
great  exemplar,t  cf.  2  Chron.  i^°-^^,  Wisd.  f  ^-  8^  g^°-^^,  and 
of  this  Proverbs  (e.  g.  ch.  2,  see  Toy  on  Prov.  i^-*),  Ecclesi- 
asticus  {cf.  ch.  i,  especially  vv.  ^■'-^o,  51^^-22),  ^^d  the  Wisdom 
of  Solomon  treat. 

Abundant  passages  in  this  literature  refer  to  this  wisdom  as 
coming  from  God,  and  him  alone,  Prov.  2'^  Kvpio^  hihwaiv 
<yo(f>iaVj  Kal  diro  Trpoawirov  avrov  <yvoi(7Vi  Kal  avveaL^,  Ecclus. 
ii  TTcicra  ao^ia  irapa  Kvpiov,  39^-  ^  51I',  Wisd.  8'^^  9^  tt)?  aTTO 
(Tov  a-o(f)ca<i  dnovcrri^  eh  ovSev  Xoytad'^a-erat.  The  basis  of  the 
passage  in  James  is  thoroughly  Jewish. 

irda-iv  8L86vT0<i.  God's  readiness  to  give  is  a  motive  to 
prayer. 

On  the  idea  of  God  as  ready  and  desirous  to  give  to  all, 
cf.  Ps.  145^^-13,  Ps.  Sol.  4"-i5,  Test.  XII  Patr.  Gad  f,  Philo, 
De  cher.  34,  Leg.  alleg.  i,  13  otl  j)CK6ho3po'i  q)v  6  ^eo?  ')(^api^eTai 
TO,  or^aQa  irdai  koI  toZ?  /mtj  TeXetot?,  Mt.  5'*^  7^'  ". 

aTrXw.     Properly  means  "simply,"  but  here  clearly  shown 

*  The  limitation  of  <TO(f>Ca  to  the  wisdom  requisite  for  the  state  of  mind  recommended  in 
V. '  is  not  justified. 

t  But  there  is  no  reason  for  thinking,  with  Spitta,  that  Solomon  is  in  mind  in  the  passage,  or 
that  in  v.'  na<ri.v  refers  to  "all"  in  contrast  to  Solomon  alone. 


I40  JAMES 

by  what  follows  to  have  a  moral  sense,  "graciously,"  "boun- 
teously," "generously." 

The  adverb  is  found  only  here  in  the  N.  T.,  but  the  noun 
a7r\o'T77<f  is  not  uncommon.  In  Rom.  12*  6  fieraBLBom  iv 
aTrXoTijTi,  2  Cor.  8^  9"-  ^'  t^  .  .  .  dTrXoTrjTi  t?}?  KotvQ)vta<i 
€69  avToik,  Jos.  Antiq.  vii,  13^  t^<?  aTrXoTrjTO'i  ical  t^?  fie'ya- 
Xoyjrvx^a^ ,  it  means  "liberality,"  "generosity,"  "single-minded 
attention  to  the  gift  with  no  thought  of  self" ;  cf.  Ecclus.  20", 
"The  gift  of  a  fool  shall  not  profit  thee ;  for  his  eyes  are  many 
instead  of  one"  ;  also  Plut.  De  adulat.  p.  63  F,  to  he  rov  ic6kaKo<i 
epyov  ovBev  e;\;€t  Bikulov^  ovB'  aTrXovv^  ovB'  eXevOeptov.  Sanday, 
on  Rom.  12*,  quotes  the  important  passages  from  Test.  XII 
Patr.  Issach.  {irepl  aTrXoTrjTO^;)  in  which  the  various  qualities 
of  the  single-minded  man  are  set  forth ;  note  especially  Issach. 
3*,  on  generosity,  and  see  also  Charles's  valuable  notes  in  his 
English  translation,  1908,  pp.  102-105. 

The  adverb  aTrXw?  itself  is  used  in  this  sense  ("freety,"  "lib- 
erally") by  Hermas,  Mand.  ii,  4  and  6. 

For  various  unacceptable  senses  given  to  airXcj?  here,  see  Beyschlag, 
and  for  full  references,  see  Hort,  ad  loc. 

fir)  oveiBi^ovTO^  describes  God's  giving  as  full  and  free,  in 
contrast  to  the  meanness  which  after  a  benefaction  calls  it  un- 
pleasantly to  the  mind  of  the  one  benefited.  That  this  disa- 
greeable trait  of  human  nature  was  prominent  in  ancient  times 
is  attested,  e.  g.  by  Ecclus.  41-  p^ra  to  Bovvat  prj  oveiBi^e^ 
J315-18  2014-16  (cf.  also,  for  a  slightly  different  aspect,  2922-28)^ 
Plut.  De  adulat.  p.  64  A,  Trdcra  oveiBt^opevr)  %apt9  iira'xPr^'i  koI 
a^apm,  Schol.  on  Eur.  Or  est.  1238  oveiBr]^  tcov  evepyea-LOJv  ra'i 
v7ropvi](7€i<>  ;   see  further  Wetstein  and  Mayor. 

6.  iv  TTtcrTet,  cf.  5^^.  Explained  by  prjBev  BiaKpivop^vo^  as 
meaning  "in  constancy  {viropovrf)  of  faith."  "Faith"  is  the 
fundamental  religious  attitude,  not  an  incidental  grace  of  char- 
acter, and  the  words  mean  here  more  than  "in  confidence  that 
he  will  receive  his  request."  6  BiaKpiv6p€vo<i  is  a  man  whose 
allegiance  wavers,  not  one  tormented  by  speculative  intellectual 
questionings,  which  do  not  fall  within  James's  horizon.     This  is 


I,  5-6  141 

indicated  by  v. '',  which  shows  (as  Beyschlag  well  remarks) 
that  the  kind  of  waverer  whom  James  has  in  mind  fully  expects 
to  receive  some  benefit  from  God. 

haKptvofievo^,  "wavering,"  "doubting,"  literally  "divided," 
"at  variance  with  one's  self";  cf.  Mt.  2121,  Mk.  11",  Rom. 
4^  {cf.  Sanday's  note)  14-^  Jas.  2^.  This  sense  is  found  in 
Protev.  Jac.  11,  Clem.  Rom.  ii,  40  (see  the  passages  in  Mayor), 
but  has  not  been  pointed  out  in  writings  earlier  than  the  N.  T. 
For  ciScdKptTO^  in  the  corresponding  sense,  cf.  Ign.  Trail.  1 
SidvoLav  ahioLKpLTOv  iv  vTrofiovy.  In  Ign.  Magn.  15,  Eph.  3, 
Test.  XII  Patr.  Zab.  7^,  the  meaning  is  not  certainly  the  same 
as  here ;  see  Zahn,  Ignatius  von  Antiochien,  1873,  p.  429,  note  i. 

On  the  general  thought  of  the  necessity  of  faith  to  success 
in  prayer,  cf.  passages  mentioned  above,  those  given  below  on 
SiS^v^o"?,  v.  ^8,  and  Ecclus.  7^0  /x^  oXi'yo-^vxv'^'p'i  €v  rrj  Trpoaev^y 
cof,  Wisd.  i^^-,  Enoch  qi-*,  Herm.  Mand.  Lx,  atrov  aSia- 
rd/cTco^  (see  Introduction,  p.  89).  But  the  God  who  would  save 
sinners  does  not  reject  the  prayer  of  the  publican,  nor  the  cry, 
"I  believe,  help  thou  mine  unbelief." 

yap  explains,  and  enforces  by  a  figure,  the  importance  of  not 
wavering. 

eoLKev.    Not  in  LXX ;  in  N.  T.  only  here  and  i-^. 

KkvhwvL,  "wave  of  the  sea,"  but  with  emphasis  rather  on 
size  and  extension  than  on  separateness  and  succession  (Kv/xa), 
hence  often  used  in  a  collective  sense.  It  probably  means  here 
"the  surge  of  the  sea,"  "the  billowing  sea"  ;  cf.  Lk.  S^-*  eVe- 
Tifirjaev  tw  avefio)  koX  ra>  kXvScovc  rov  vBaTO<;,  Wisd.  14*. 

dvefMi^ofievco,  "wind-driven,"  a  very  rare  word  for  the  clas- 
sical avefwo). 

pLirt^ofievQ),  "blown,"  literally,  "fanned,"  from/3i7rt9,  "fan." 
Adds  here  nothing  essential  to  the  idea  of  avefii^Ofievo).  The 
two  participles  together  explain  the  comparison. 

pLTTi^Q}  is  frequently  used  in  secular  writers  of  the  action  of 
wind  on  the  sea.  See  the  passages  quoted  in  Heisen,  p.  444, 
and  the  full  discussion  in  Hort,  ad  loc.  Cf.  the  fragment  in  Dio 
Chrys.  Or.  32,  p.  368: 


142  JAMES 

Philo,  De  gig.  ii  Ihwv  <ydp  ti?  tov  ev  elprjvrj  crvve'xrj  iroXefiov 
avOpcoTTcov^  ov  Kara  ra  edvrj  Kal  ^j^jw/aa?  Kal  TroXets  avro  fjiovov 
avviaTclfievov^  aXXa  koI  Kar  olKia<i^  fxaWov  8e  Kal  Kad'  eva 
avBpa  eKacTTOVj  Kal  tov  iv  raU  '\^v')(^al<i  aXeKTOv  Kal  fiapvv 
'^€L/xo)va^  6?  VTTO  ^LaLOTciTT]^  (f)opd';  TMv  Kara  fiiov  Trpay/xciTcov 
avappiTTL^eraLj  redavfiuKev  et/coro)?,  ec  rt?  iv  ')(€ifjLoi)vt  ei/Siav  Kal 
iv  kXvBcovt  KVfiaLvovar]<;  daXdaarj'i  lyaXrivr^v  dyeiv  Svvarai, 
and  other  passages  in  Wetstein  and  Mayor. 

The  point  of  comparison  in  James  is  the  ordinary  instability 
of  the  heaving  sea,  not  the  unusual  violence  of  a  storm.  The 
sentence  is  made  less  forcible  through  the  excessive  elaboration 
of  the  figure.  For  the  figure  itself,  cf.  passages  quoted  above. 
Is.  57^",  Ecclus.  33^,  6  v7roKpiv6/x€vo<i  iv  avrcp  [sc.  vofiw]  w?  iv 
KaTaiyiBi  irXolov,  Eph.  4"  with  Robinson's  note  and  refer- 
ences, Jude,  V. ".  Note  also  the  elaborate  metaphor  of  4  Mace. 
7^-^,  where  the  man  of  steadfast  piety  is  described  as  a  helms- 
man tenax  propositi ;  and  see  references  in  Mayor,  and  Heisen, 

PP-  451/- 

7.  yd-p.  Introduces  a  second  time,  in  another  and  more 
direct  form,  the  reason  for  v.  **.  Cf.  Hermas,  Sim.  4^  ttw  ovv, 
(^r)criv^  6  TOioOro?  Bvvarat  Tt  alrrjaaadai  irapd  tov  Kvpiov  Kal 
Xa^elv^  fxr]  BovXevcov  tw  Kvplco ;  also  Jas.  4'  and  note. 

oleado).  olixai  is  found  in  N.  T.  only  here  and  Jn.  212^, 
Phil,  i",  BoKew  having  taken  its  place  {cf.  Mt.  3^  firj  Bo^rjTe). 
It  is  often  used,  as  here,  "with  collateral  notion  of  wrong  judg- 
ment or  conceit"  (L.  and  S.).  So  in  Attic;  and  cf.  Job  ii^, 
I  Mace.  5",  2  Mace.  5-1. 

o  dvOpwiro^  iKeivo^;,  with  a  suggestion  of  disapproval,  or 
contempt,  as  Mk.  14^1,  Mt.  12^^. 

TOV  Kvpiov,  i.  e.  God,  cf.  v.  ^  In  Paul  always,  or  nearly  al- 
ways, of  Christ,  except  in  quotations. 

8.  avTjp  Biyjrvxo'i,  either  subject  of  Xrjp^^erai,  making  the 
sentence  a  general  statement  (WH.  text,  R.V.  mg),  or  else  in 
apposition  with  the  unexpressed  subject  (WH.  mg.  R.V.),  which 
it  further  describes.  The  latter  construction  has  analogies,  3^-  ^ 
4^^  and  yields  a  much  more  forcible  sense.  It  underlies  the 
punctuation  of  Cod.  B  and  the  rendering  of  the  Peshitto. 


I,  6-8  143 

Hort  argues  for  R.V.  mg.  on  the  ground  that  IxeTvo?  naturally  re- 
fers not  to  the  waverer  just  mentioned,  but  to  the  more  remote  "man 
that  lacketh  wisdom."  But  the  phrase  is  highly  effective  with  refer- 
ence to  the  person  just  described  elaborately,  and  on  the  other  hand  it 
is  impossible  to  see  why  the  warning  that  follows,  which  is  of  universal 
appUcation,  should  be  addressed  with  such  special  emphasis  only  to 
"the  man  that  lacketh  wisdom." 

The  rendering  of  A.V.  based  on  the  late  Vulgate  text  (not  Codd. 
AF),  mr  duplex  .  .  .  inconstans  est,  is  still  less  acceptable. 

avrjp  gives  more  emphasis  to  the  idea  (notice  the  emphatic 
position)  than  would  be  given  by  Bi-yjrvxo'i  alone.  The  change 
from  dv6p(i)7ro<i  (v. '')  to  avi]p  is  probably  merely  for  the  sake  of 
variety.     Cf.  Hermas,  Mand.  ix,  6  Tra?  <yap  Bi-^vxo'i  av-qp. 

Sn|ri;;)^09,  "double-minded,"  "double-souled,"  /.  e.  "with  soul 
divided  between  faith  and  the  world"  {cf.  4^  r)  ^^CKia  rov  Kocrfxov 
e^Opa  Tov  deov  iarLv),  "Mr.  Facing-both-ways." 

The  word  is  not  foimd  in  secular  literature  nor  in  LXX  or  N.  T.  ex- 
cept here  and  Jas.  4',  but  is  correctly  formed  according  to  the  analogy 
of  Stxovou?  (Philo,  De  mere,  merelr.  4,  p.  269),  Zi-^Xuiaaoc,  {ibid.;  Ecclus. 
5"),  SfYvwyLoc;,  StJcapStoq,  SiXoyos  (i  Tim.  3'),  Stxpoffwiuoi;  (Test.  XII 
Patr.  Aser  2, etc.),  StaTOfAoq,  StauiAaToq,  etc.  It  is  not  at  all  likely  to 
be  the  coinage  of  this  writer. 

In  early  Christian  writings  Bt4iux°?  ^'^^  SttJ^ux^w  (see  Goodspeed, 
Index)  are  frequent,  occurring  in  Hermas  about  forty  times,  especially 
in  Mand.  ix;  Clem.  Rom.  11-  (of  persons  like  Lot's  wife),  23'  x6ppw 
•jfevioBd)  ay'  Tjixtov  tj  Ypa^Tj  aiixiQ,  OTtou  Xiyst '  TaXxticupot  effftv  ol  Stij'uxot, 
ol  ScaTtii^ovxeq  ttjv  '^^yr\y,  o't  Xsyovxei; '  rauTa  fjx.ouaafi.sv  xal  Ixl  twv  -rca- 
T^puv  T^^CyJ,  xal  ISou  fsytjpaxxiJLSv,  if.a\  ouSev  t)[xIv  toutcov  auv^ipTjxsv  {cf. 
Lightfoot,  ad  loc).  In  2  Clem.  Rom.  11-  the  same  quotation  is  given 
as  from  6  xpocptj-utxbs  Xoyo?,  which  Lightfoot  conjectures  to  be  "Eldad 
and  Modad."  Cf.  Didache  4^,  Barn.  19=  20'  (StxXoxapSfot),  2  Clem. 
Rom.  19  (onj'ux'av)  ;  see  Mayor  for  some  later  instances. 

A.  H.  Clough's  poem,  entitled  Dipsychus,  has  brought  the  word  into 
English. 

The  idea  so  neatly  put  by  ofi^uxo?  has  similar  expression  in  a  series 
of  phrases  found  in  classical  Greek,  such  as  iix^  6u[jt,bv  £xovt£<;  (Homer), 
eyivovTo  S(xa  od  yy&[LOLi  (Herodotus),  etc.,  all  meaning  "be  at  variance," 
"be  in  doubt." 

'  Somewhat  closer  are  the  O.  T.  passages,  Ps.  12^  (nO  ev  y.!xpilq:  xal  ev 
xapSfqt,  "with  a  double  heart,"  i  Chron.  12 3'',  Ecclus.  i^'  sv  xapSt? 
Staafj,  2"-"  (where  "go  two  ways,"  and  "lose  uxoixov^"  are  parallel, 
and  are  closely  connected  with  ou  xtaxeust),  Hos.  10-.    See  also  Enoch 


144  JAMES 

91  <,  Mt.  6"-*,  and  Tanchuma  on  Deut.  26'^  (quoted  by  Schottgen),  ecce 
scriptura  monet  Israelilas  et  dicil  ipsis  quo  tempore  preces  coram  domino 
effundant  ne  habeant  duo  corda,  untim  ad  deum  s.  b.  alterum  vero  ad 
aliam  rem.  In  Test.  XII  Patr.  Aser  ^,Benj.  6 ;  a  similar  thought  is  as- 
sociated with  the  idea  of  the  good  and  the  evil  "root" ;  see  Bousset, 
Religion  des  Judentums-,  pp.  400  /.  Classical  references  are  given  by 
Wetstein,  Mayor,  Heisen,  p.  475.  Singleness  of  soul  was  prized  in  the 
Gentile  world  (Plato,  Epictetus),  but  the  connection  of  single-minded- 
ness  and  prayer  seems  characteristic  of  Jewish  or  Christian  thought. 
Cf.  also  the  verb  Sw-rdil^G)  (especially  in  Clem.  Rom.  23',  above). 

uKaTcicrTaTo^,  "unstable,"  "unsteady,"  "fickle,"  "incon- 
stant," a  disparaging  predicate  applied  to  0  SiaKpivoixevo^, 

The  word  is  found  in  N.  T.  only  here  and  3^,  in  LXX  once  (Is.  54", 
as  parallel  to  Taxstvig),  Sym.  three  times ;  dxaTotaTaata  is  found  twice  in 
LXX,  twice  in  Sym.,  and  five  times  in  N.  T. 

The  adjective  and  noun  are  used  to  describe  character  in  Polybius, 
vii,  4«  (of  a  youth). 

iv  TraVat?  rat?  08049  avrov,  i.  e.  his  whole  conduct  is  like  his 
attitude  toward  faith.  For  the  Hebraism  "ways"  in  the  sense 
of  "habitual  course  of  conduct,"  see  Ps.  91"  145",  Prov.  3*' 
(irdaai^  68oL<i  (tov),  and  Prov.  passim,  Wisd.  2^*^,  Ecclus.  ii'*^ 
jyi5, 19.  ete.^  jer.  i6i7,  Ezek.  f-  ^,  Acts  14^%  1  Cor.  41^;  cf.  v.  " 
below,  iv  rai<i  Tropetat?  avrov. 

The  expression  axaTdoraToi;  Iv  xiaai?  Tat?  oSoI?  auTou  might  mean 
"unsettled  (tempest-tossed)  in  all  his  experiences"  with  reference  to 
the  ill  effects  of  such  Snjiux^*  in  actual  life.  For  dxaTctaxa-coi;  in  this 
sense,  cf.  Is.  54",  and  for  oSot  Ps.  91",  Rom.  3^^  (where  the  quotation  is 
taken  as  relating  not  to  conduct  but  to  experience) .  This  is  the  view  of 
many  commentators,  ancient  and  modern,  but  the  sentence  seems  to 
call  for  a  characterisation  of  the  man  rather  than  a  prophecy  of  his 
fortunes. 

9-11.  Poverty  no  evil  and  wealth  no  advantage. 

The  writer  returns  to  the  Treipaa-fioi  of  v.  2.  That  these  fall 
heavily  on  the  poor  man  is  not  an  evil  for  him  but  an  elevation, 
of  which  he  should  boast  as  a  privilege.  Likewise  let  the  rich 
man  boast  when  brought  low  by  adversity ;  for  riches  are 
transitory  things,  and  he  should  be  only  glad  to  lose  them  in  a 
way  which  conduces  to  his  moral  welfare,  cf.  Lk.  6^°-^^. 


1, 7-10  145 

9.  Kav)(^d(jd(i),  ''boast,"  over  a  privilege  or  a  possession,  corre- 
sponding to  X'^P^^  riyijaaade.  The  word  is  used  in  the  O.  T. 
of  "any  proud  and  exulting  joy,"  and  so  here  (in  secular  Greek 
it  did  not  have  this  development),  cf.  Ecclus.  lo^i  39*,  Jer.  9^2  f- 
rdBe  Xeyei  Kvpio<i  '  fir)  Kavxacrda)  6  ao(f)6<;  iv  rr}  (TO(f>ia  avTov^ 
Kol  fMrj  Kav^jdcrdo)  6  laxypo'i  iv  rrj  Icr^yi  avrou^  Kol  /jltj  /caih 
XdaOa  6  7r\ovaio<i  iv  rw  ttXovtq)  avrov,  aXX  7)  iv  rovro)  Kav- 
XacrOu)  6  Kavx^^l^^vo^  ^  avvieiv  Kal  yivwaKetv  on  iyci)  el/xi  kv- 
pio<i  6  TTOiOiv  eXeo?  Kol  Kpifia  Kal  hiKatoa-vvrjV  iirl  Tr]<;  77}<?,  ort 
iv  rovTOL';  to  diXrjixd  /xov^   XeyeL  Kvpio^^  Ps.  32",  2  Cor.  ii^°, 

cf.   "-29,     12  9. 

6  a8e\(f)6<;,  cf.  v.  ^,  aBe\(f)o{  and  note. 

6  Ta7r€i,v6<i,  "humble,"  "lowly,"  of  outward  condition,  not 
(as  4*)  inner  spirit.  Cf.  Ecclus.  ii^  29^,  i  Mace.  14^*,  Ps.  9^^ 
(lo^*),  82  (81)^  Taireivov  Kal  irevrjra,  Prov.  30^^  (24"),  Eccles. 
10^,  Is.  11^,  Dan.  3^^,  Job  5"  rbv  irotovvra  raireLVOv'?  ek  vy^o'^, 
Lk.  i^2_     See  Trench,  Synonyms,  xlii. 

iv  ra>  in^ei. 

The  lowly  should  find  the  elevation  he  so  much  craves  in  the 
moral  gain  achieved  through  trials,  cf.  i  Cor.  7-^ 

Others  make  u(j;oc;  refer  to  the  heavenly  reward  of  the  pious.  This 
is,  of  course,  included  in  the  advantage  of  the  lowly,  but  it  is  not  said 
here  that  the  elevation  is  only  future. 

The  actual  moral  dangers  of  wealth  in  the  early  church  are 
well  illustrated  by  Hermas,  Vis.  iii,  6. 

The  exaltation  of  the  humble  was  the  promise  of  the  prophets 
(e.  g.  Is.  54"')  and  the  hope  of  Israel,  Prov.  3''',  Ps.  18-'  138*'; 
cf.  Lk.  14^^  OTL  ira/i  6  v-yjrtov  eavrov  Ta'ireiva>67]creTaL  Kal  6 
TaTretvoiv  eavrov  vy^adrjo-ejai.  These  are  now  realised.  But 
note  the  moralistic  turn  given  to  apocalyptic  ideas;  in  i  Pet.  i^ 
the  eschatological  framework  of  Jewish  and  Christian  thought 
is  far  nearer  the  surface  of  the  writer's  consciousness. 

10.  The  two  interpretations  of  v.  ^^  divide  on  the  question 
whether  or  not  dhe\(^6<i  is  to  be  supplied  with  0  irXoixno^. 

(i)  It  is  more  natural  to  supply  it.     In  that  case  the  rich 

man   is  a  Christian,  and  rarrecvcoaei  refers  to   the  external 
10 


146  JAMES 

humiliation  and  loss  brought  him  by  the  Treipaa-fioi  of  v.  ^ 
which  from  the  Christian  point  of  view  are  a  proper  ground  of 
boasting,  tm  v-^ei,  and  rrj  TaTretvcocrec  both  refer  to  the  same 
or  similar  experiences,  but  are  not  quite  parallel  expressions, 
since  i/i/ro?  is  used  of  a  moral  and  spiritual  exaltation,  raireCvoiaL'i 
of  external  and  material  humiliation.  Apart  from  this  lack  of 
parallelism  the  chief  objections  to  this  view,  which  is  that  of 
most  commentators  (to  the  names  given  by  Beyschlag,  add  von 
Soden,  Spitta,  Scott,  Zahn,  Knowling,  Hort),  are  (i)  that  else- 
where in  the  epistle  the  rich  are  spoken  of  (2^-^  5^-®)  as  bad  men 
outside  the  Christian  society,  and  (2)  that  TrapeXevaerai  has 
to  be  taken  as  denoting  "lose  his  wealth,"  and  v.  "  in  a  corre- 
sponding sense. 

(2)  According  to  the  other  interpretation,  aB€\(j>6<;  is  not  to 
be  supplied  with  0  TrXoucrto?.  Then,  since  the  verb  to  be  sup- 
plied is  svirely  Kavxao-Oco  (although  Alford  proposed  KavxciraL^ 
"CEcumenius"  alaxyveaOco,  and  Grotius  TaTreivovaOo)) ,  that 
word  must  be  taken  ironically,  and  tt}  TaireLvoaaei  referred  to 
the  humiUation  and  shame  of  the  Day  of  Judgment  (c/".  5^  eirl 
rat?  TaXaiTTwptaL'i  Tat9  iirepxpixevam)  set  forth  plainly  in 
irapeKevaerai  and  fxapavdrjaerai — "let  the  rich  man  find  his 
boast  (if  he  can !)  in  his  coming  abasement  from  the  lofty  sta- 
tion he  now  occupies." 

This  involves  serious  difficulties:  (i)  the  unnatural  refusal 
to  supply  aSeXc^o'?,  (2)  the  excess  of  fierce  irony  in  the  use  of 
the  understood  Kavxaadco,  (3)  the  lack  of  adaptation  of  the 
thought  in  any  way  to  the  idea  of  TreLpaa/xoi,  which  still  seems 
to  govern  the  context.  On  the  other  hand,  this  interpretation 
would  be  in  accord  with  5^,  and  would  in  some  respects  well 
suit  the  following  context,  w.  ^°-". 

This  latter  view  is  held  by  many  older  commentators,  and  by 
Huther,  Alford,  Weiss,  Beyschlag,  but  seems  on  the  whole  to 
involve  greater  difficulties  than  those  of  the  view  first  stated. 
The  rich  man  here  contemplated  is,  therefore,  to  be  understood 
as  a  Christian. 

TT}  ra7rei,v(0(T€c.  The  bringing  low  of  the  rich  through  loss 
of  property,  standing,  etc.,  cf.  Lk.  i^^,  Phil.  3^^     This  might  be 


I,  lo  147 

by  reason  of  his  Christian  profession,  for  the  rich  man  was  pe- 
culiarly exposed  to  loss  in  time  of  persecution  {cj.  the  result  of 
anti-semitic  persecution  at  Alexandria,  as  described  by  Philo, 
Leg.  ad  Gaiutn,  18) ;  but  it  might  well  come  about  through 
other  causes,  and  would  always  be  a  Tretpaa-fio'i  that  would 
put  a  severe  strain  on  faith  in  the  goodness  of  God. 

xfj  xaxetvcitjet  is  taken  by  some  as  strictly  parallel  to  -ry  utpet  and 
so  meaning  Christian  "  humility."  "  Let  the  rich  man  make  his  humble 
spirit,  not  his  wealth,  his  boast,"  cf.  Ecclus.  31'  7'^,  "zaicdyutcov  acpoSpa 
TTjv  tj^uxV  ffou  ...  oTc  l/.StxT)ai<;  dcasPoO?  %Ug  xal  a%<li'kt]^,  and  the 
saying  of  Hillel,*  "My  humihty  is  my  greatness  and  my  greatness 
is  my  humility."  This  is  possible,  but  does  not  suit  the  connection 
with  x£ipaa[jio(  quite  so  well,  and  one  would  expect  xocxetvoippoaiJVT] 
(i  Pet.  sO- 

On  the  transitoriness  of  riches,  cf.  Job  24^*  2721,  Ps.  4g^^''^, 
Wisd.  58  ff-,  Ecclus.  ii^sf.,  Mt.  61^,  Lk.  i2i«-2i  16''^-^',  Philo,  De 
sacrificantibus,  10  (M,  ii,  258): 

"God  alone,  it  says  (Deut.  10"),  shall  be  thy  boast  (au'xTQtxot)  and 
greatest  glory.  And  pride  thyself  neither  on  wealth  nor  on  glory  nor 
high  position  nor  beauty  of  person  nor  strength  nor  the  like  things 
over  which  the  empty-minded  are  wont  to  be  elated ;  reckoning  that 
in  the  first  place  these  things  have  no  share  in  the  nature  of  good,  and 
that  secondly  they  are  subject  to  speedy  change,  fading  ([jiapaiv6t«.eva) , 
as  it  were,  before  they  have  well  blossomed  (dcv0^aoci)."  For  other  ref- 
erences, cf.  Spitta,  p.  26,  note  3. 

0T4  0)9  av6o<;  'XppTov  irapekexxreraL.  Through  the. same  in- 
terest in  warning  against  high  estimation  of  riches  which  ap- 
pears in  2^^-  6-8  51-6,  the  writer  is  led  on  in  this  clause  and  v.  " 
to  describe  the  certainty  of  loss  to  the  rich.  The  passage  sets 
forth  the  sture  fate  of  the  typical  rich  man. 

The  passage  is  dependent  on  Is.  40^  ^-  irdcra  aap^  ')(opro<i  koX 
iraaa  oo^a  avdpdiirov  o)?  dv6o<;  ■y^oprov.  e^i]pdv6rj  0  ')(opro<i 
Koi  TO  dvdof  i^eTrecrev  (also  quoted  i  Pet.  i^*). 

dv6o<i  xopTov  is  the  LXX  rendering  of  Hebrew  Hltrn  pX^ 
"flower  of  the  field."  In  Ps.  103  (i02)i'^  the  same  Hebrew  is 
rendered  more  correctly  dv6o^  rov  djpov.     ')(opTo<i  is  probably 

*  Lev.  rabba,  c.  i ;   see  Bacher,  Die  Asada  der  Tannailen^,  i,  p.  6. 


148  JAMES 

used  here  not  only  of  grass  proper,  but  of  any  green  herbage 
(so  of  lilies,  Mt.  6-*'  ^'',  of  grain,  Mt.  13^^),  and  the  flower  thought 
of  is  any  flower  growing  in  the  field,  just  as  in  the  Hebrew.  The 
original  comparison  in  Is.  40^*-  relates  to  life  in  general,  for 
which  the  spectacle  familiar  in  the  Orient  of  the  grass  and 
flowers  suddenly  withered  by  heat  and  drought  is  a  common 
figure;  thus  Ps.  90^*-  102"  aael  p^^opro?,  103^^,  Job  14^  wcnrep 
avdo^,  Is.  5112;   and  (of  the  wicked)  Ps.  37^,  Job  1530-33 

TrapeXevaerat.  The  rich  man  "  will  pass  away,"  "  disappear," 
i.  e.  in  any  case  his  riches  will  pass  away  and  he  will  cease  to  be 
a  rich  man.  (This  is  merely  elaborated  in  vv.  "  and  ^^.)  There- 
fore he  should  congratulate  himself  on  the  opportunity  of  moral 
gain  described  in  vv.  ^-^  and  on  the  raTretWcri?  which  substi- 
tutes real  values  for  transitory  ones. 

TcapsXsuffeirat  includes  the  consequences  of  death,  but  also  the  work 
of  moth  and  rust  (Mt.  6^'-  ^o).  This  is  better  than,  with  some  inter- 
preters, to  take  TuapeXeuCTSTat  as  meaning  "  die,"  for  the  rich  is  no  more 
sure  to  die  than  the  poor.  The  rich  needs  to  be  reminded  not  of  the 
certainty  of  death  but  of  the  transitoriness  of  wealth. 

11.  avereiXev.  The  aorists  are  gnomic,  as  in  v.  -* ;  but 
cf.  Is.  40''  LXX.  See  Burton,  Moods  and  Tenses,  §  43,  Blass, 
§  57,  9,  Buttmann  (Thayer's  translation),  p.  202  ;  Winer  (Moul- 
ton's  translation),  pp.  346/.;  J.  H.  Moulton,  Prolegomena,  p. 
135- 

Winer  (Thayer's  translation) ,  pp.  277/.,  takes  a  different  view,  holding 
the  aorists  to  be  narrative,  as  in  a  parabolic  story;  cf.  Mt.  13^^  *f-. 

crvv  T&>  Kav(7(ovL.  Kavatov  means  "burning  heat,"  Gen.  31^°, 
Dan.  367  (Theod.  Codd.  AQ),  Is.  25^  (Theod.),  Lk.  12",  Mt. 
20^2  J  or  "sirocco,"  Hebrew  D''^p^  (Job  27^1,  Hos.  13^^  Jonah  4^ 
Ezek.  17^"  19^^),  the  southeast  wind  common  in  Palestine  in 
spring  and  destructive  of  young  growth  by  reason  of  its  extreme 
and  withering  dryness.  See  Benzinger,  Hebr.  Archdologie,  pp. 
29  /.,  DD.BB.  art.  "Wind."  It  is  often,  as  here,  difficult  to 
decide  between  the  two  possible  meanings  {e.  g.  Ecclus.  18^^  43  3, 
Judith  ?>^).  For  the  A.V.,  "a  burning  heat,"  R.V.  has  substi- 
tuted "the  scorching  wind." 


I,  10-12  149 

e^eVeo-ey,  "faded,"  "wilted,"  from  Is.  40^  cj.  Is.  28i'  ",  Job 

142    1530,    33_ 

The  Greek  word  is  used  in  the  sense  not  only  of  "fall  off,"  but  also  of 
"fail,"  "come  to  naught."  The  specific  meaning  "fade"  is  contained 
in  the  Hebrew  ^2i,  and  so  in  translation  became  attached  to  exxixxetv. 

77  evirpeTTeia,  "comeliness,"  "goodly  appearance."  Only  here 
in  N.  T.,  cf.  Ecclus.  24"  (of  olive-tree).  The  word  is  common 
in  LXX  as  in  classical  writers,  with  a  suggestion  of  fitness  to 
the  object  and  its  relations,  and  so  sometimes  gains  a  notion 
of  stateliness  or  majesty,  which  KaX6<i^  KaX\o<i,  do  not  have. 
Cf.  Ps.  93I  Kvpio<i  i/SaaiXevaev^  euTrpeirecav  iveSvaaro,  Wisd. 
729  evTrpeTrearepa  rjXLOv,  and  other  references  given  by  Hort. 

rov  irpoaairov  avrov,  "of  its  face,"  i.  e.  "form  and  appear- 
ance." 

Under  the  influence  of  the  extended  meanings  of  the  Hebrew  aijs 
the  word  xpdawxov  proceeded  in  translation  to  the  sense  "  surface."  Cf. 
Job  41"  (of  stripping  off  the  crocodile's  scales)  ti?  axoxaXut^ec  icpoowxov 
IvSiaew?  auxoO  ;  2  Sam.  14-"  xb  icpoacoxov  xoO  p:Q[jLaTo<;  xouxou,  "  the  situa- 
tion, attitude,  appearance,  of  this  affair";  Gen.  2«  ih  xpoauxov  ttj? 
YTjq.  From  this  to  the  meaning  "outward  form  and  appearance"  is 
not  a  long  step. 

iv  raU  TTO/jetat?  avTov  is  figurative,  like  o8ot9,  v.  ^,  and  re- 
fers to  the  experiences  and  fortunes  of  the  rich,  cf.  Prov.  2^  4^^ 
Ta?  8e  TTopeia^  aov  iv  elprjvrj  irpod^ei.  To  take  it  of  literal 
journeys  is  wholly  inappropriate  to  the  context. 

Hort's  interesting  interpretation  is  probably  oversubtle:  "The  com- 
mon interpretation  of  'goings'  as  a  mere  trope  for  'doings'  seems  too 
weak  here.  The  force  probably  lies  in  the  idea  that  the  rich  man  per- 
ishes while  he  is  still  on  the  move,  before  he  has  attained  the  state  of  rest- 
ful enjoyment  which  is  always  expected  and  never  arrives.  Without 
some  such  hint  of  prematurity  the  parallel  with  the  grass  is  lost." 

fxapavOijaerai,  "wither,"  "waste  away."  So  Wisd.  2«,  Job 
242*,  but  outside  the  Bible  more  often  of  the  decay  of  other 
things  than  plants.  The  reference  is  to  the  loss  of  riches  and 
earthly  prosperity,  not  to  eternal  destiny. 

12.    The  Reward  of  Steadfastness. 


I50  JAMES 

This  verse  recurs  to  the  thought  of  vv.  ^■*.  The  sub-paragraph  should 
end  after  v.  ^-,  not  before  it,  as  in  WH.'s  text. 

fiaKcipLo^  avrfp  sc.  ecntv. 

av^p]  A^  minn  read  avOpwxo?,  probably  an  emendation  in  order  not 
to  exclude  women. 

This  form  of  praising  a  virtue  is  very  common  in  the  O.  T.,  especially 
in  Psalms  and  Ecclesiasticus,  for  Hebrew  U'lxn  n.ti'x.  dtvi^p  is  natu- 
rally preferred  to  avSpwxo?  in  most  cases.  The  article  is  omitted  by 
LXX  in  most  of  the  instances,  probably  because  the  statement  is  thought 
of  as  of  general  application  ("blessed  is  any  man  who,"  etc.).  Cf.  Ps. 
i>  846,  Prov.  8^2,  Ecclus.  i^^-  2»  26',  Is.  56=,  Job  51'  (Aaxapto?  Ss  av9pwrco? 
ov  T^Xey^sv  6  xupto?,  4  Mace.  7"  Sta  x-^v  apsxrjv  x(ivTa  luovov  uxo(JL^vetv 
(jLax<4pi6v  eoTtv,  etc.,  Dan.  1212  (Theod.)  (jiaxaptos  6  utcoixIvcov. 

This  precise  formula  is  not  found  elsewhere  in  the  N.  T.  (except  Rom. 
4',  quoted  from  LXX),  although  beatitudes  are  abundant,  e.g.  Mt. 
53-"  ii»,  Lk.  i«  2329,  Jn.  20",  Rom.  14",  i  Pet.  3i<.  Cf.  Hermas,  Vis. 
ii,  2'  (iotxiptot  5(JLei<;  oaot  uxopiiveTe  t^iv  6Xtt];tv. 

Both  in  form  and  substance  this  verse  in  James  is  characteristically 
Jewish  and  Biblical.  On  the  interesting  difference  from  the  abundant 
and  familiar  Greek  and  Latin  congratulatory  expressions,  see  E.  Nor- 
den,  Agnostos  Theos,  1913,  pp.  100/.;  G.  L.  Dirichlet,  De  vctenim  ma- 
carismis  (Religionsgeschichtliche  Versuche  und  Vorarbeiten,  xiv),  1914. 

vTTOfievei,  "endureth";  i.e.  "shows  constancy  under";  cf. 
Zech.  6"  LXX  0  8e  aTe^avo^  ecnai  roi<;  VTro/xevovaLV.  The 
word  may  also  be  taken  as  future,  vTrojxevel. 

TretpaaiMv,  "trial,"  as  in  v.  2.  Inner  enticement  to  evil  would 
have  to  be  resisted,  not  endured. 

BoKLfio^  jevofievo^,  "having  shown  himself  approved,"  cf. 
Rom.  5^.  This  is  another  way  of  saying  viro/Mevei,  not  a  further 
condition  of  receiving  the  crown. 

Tbv  ax^tpavov  tfiq  t^w^?.  A  crown  (n"it3];.)  was  worn  for  ornament  by 
the  Jews,  as  by  other  peoples  of  antiquity,  being  sometimes  a  wreath 
of  leaves  or  flowers  (e.  g.  Judith  15",  cf.  Wisd.  2',  etc.)  worn  at  feasts 
(Cant.  3",  Is.  28'-  ^  Ecclus.  32^,  etc.),  weddings,  and  occasions  of  joy, 
sometimes  a  crown  of  gold  (e.  g.  Ezek.  16''  23^,  Esther  S'^,  Ep.  Jer.  9, 
I  Mace.  lo^"  13",  2  Mace.  14^;  cf.  2  Sam.  123°  =  i  Chron.  20^,  where 
the  crown  of  gold  was  probably  on  the  head  of  an  idol,  see  H.  P.  Smith 
on  2  Sam.  12'°).  At  least  in  the  case  of  golden^crowns  it  served  as  a 
badge  of  dignity  and  rank  (cf.  Philo,  De  somn.  ii,  9),  and  could  be  used 
as  a  gift  of  honour  (just  as  with  the  Greeks,  cf.  Epist.  Arist.  320). 


I,   12  151 

Such  a  crown  (usually  of  gold)  is  sometimes  spoken  of  as  worn  by  a 
king  (Ps.  21  ^  Sir.  40s  Zech.  6i'.  ^S  Jer.  13'^  Ezek.  ai^"'  (">),  but  others 
also  could  wear  it,  and  it  was  not  intended  as  a  symbol  of  dominion. 
Many  gold  chaplets  in  the  form  of  leaves  have  been  found  in  ancient 
graves  and  are  to  be  seen  in  museums.  The  ordinary  badge  of  royalty 
(^aatXefaq  yvtoptatiaxa,  Lucian,  Pise.  35;  insigne  regiiim,  Tac.  Ann.  xv, 
29)  was  not  a  crown  (aTs^javo?)  but  a  fillet  (ScaSTjjia,  Hebrew  igr), 
Esther  i",  i  Esd.  43",  Wisd.  s'S  Ecclus.  ii^  476,  Is.  62%  i  Mace.  i\ 
etc.).  Not  imtil  the  time  of  the  later  Roman  emperors  did  the  oblitera- 
tion of  the  actual  distinction  between  crown  and  diadem  take  place 
which  has  determined  the  meaning  of  the  words  in  modern  usage. 

From  the  Greeks  the  Jews  became  familiar  with  the  custom  of  giving 
a  wreath  as  a  prize  to  victors  in  games.  This  was  an  important,  but 
incidental,  result  of  the  general  employment  of  chaplets  (ax^cpotvoc)  as 
ornaments  and  badges  of  honour. 

See  EB  and  HDB  and  Hastings,  Encyclopedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics, 
"Crown";  DCA,  "Coronation"  and  "Crown";  Trench,  Synonyms, 
xxiii ;  Lightfoot  on  Phil.  41 ;  J.  Kochling,  De  coronarum  apud  antiquos 
m  et  usu  (Religionsgesch.  Versuche  und  Vorarbeiten,  xiv),  1914. 

Qiitpmot;  is  often  figuratively  used  in  the  O.  T.  in  the  sense  of  "hon- 
ourable ornament"  or  "mark  of  dignity"  (Prov.  i'  axl?avov  xap'^wv, 
4'  12^  Yuv-f)  avSpefa  axltpavoi;  xm  dtvSpl  aixTJ?,  1621  axiqjavos  /.auxTjaews 
Y^pa?,  I7«  axl{pavo<;  Yep6vxwv  xsxva  x^xvcov,  Job  19',  Is.  28^  eaxac  /,upio<; 
aa^a(b6  6  axlcpavo?  xiji;  eX-rct'Soq,  Lam.  5'S  Ecclus.  i"  cpo^o?  xupi'ou  .  .  . 
cii(f(zwq  ayaXXtatiaxo?,  6"  158  ax^ipavov  dyaXXiKixaxo?  .  .  .  xaxaxXrjpo- 
voii'^aet  (the  symbol  put  for  the  rejoicing  which  it  symbolises),  25' 
ax^(pavo<;  yepoyxoi'ii  xoXuxetpfa. 

The  corresponding  verb  cxsipavow  is  used  of  the  bestowing  of  marks 
of  favour  and  honour  (Ps.  8'  So^m  v.a\  xniji  laxecpavwaac;  aijx6v,  103  <  xbv 
axEipavouvxti  as  Iv  iXizi,  3  Mace.  3^8,  on  which  see  Deissmann,  Bibel- 
siudien,  p.  261,  Heb.  2^-  =),  just  as  it  is  by  late  secular  writers"  (Polj'b. 
Diod.  Plut.  papyri ;  see  Deissmann,  I.  e.)  in  the  sense  merely  of 
"reward." 

For  the  figurative  use  of  the  crown  as  a  prize,  see  4  Mace.  17"-";  cf. 
9«,  Wisd.  4-.  Similarly,  of  victory  over  pleasure,  love  of  money,  etc., 
Heraclit.  £/>.  iv;  Philo,  Leg.  all.  ii,  26,  iii,  23. 

For  rabbinical  references  to  crowns,  see  Taylor,  SJF-,  p.  72,  note  23. 
Test.  XII  Patr.  Benj.  41  [Imitate  the  good  man's  compassion]  Yva  xal 
ufAelc  axe!p(4vou<;  So^tji;  <popdaTjxs,  belongs  to  the  same  group  as  the  similar 
N.  T.  passages  discussed  below. 

In  the  N.  T.  axe^avo?  is  used  of  the  thorn-chaplet  put  on  the  head 
of  Jesus  (Mt.  27",  Mk.  15'',  Jn.  192.  ^),  of  wreaths  used  as  prizes  (i  Cor. 
9"),  of  golden  crowns  as  badges  of  dignity  (Rev.  4*-  1°  6-  9''  i4'S 
also  12O,  of  a  crown  of  stars,  and  in  the  figurative  senses  of  a  prize  (2 
Tim.  4'  6  xTi<;  Sixaioauvr^q  axecpavo;  ov  axoSuast  tAoi  h  xupioc;  ev  sxet'vT!  t^ 


152  JAMES 

T)[JL£pi}:,  cf.  I  Cor.  9")  and  of  an  honourable  ornament,  or  badge  of 
dignity  (Phil.  4',  i  Thess.  2''  Tt<;  yap  Tjfjiwv  bX%\c,  ri  x^-P^  ^  axd^avot; 
xauxTjtJsws,  Rev.  3"). 

^  This  last  sense,  of  a  figurative  "honourable  ornament,"  seems 
to  be  the  meaning  in  i  Pet.  5*  /cal  (j)av€p(o6evTO<;  tov  ap'^^^Liroi- 
fievo';  fco/xt€i<r6e  tov  afiapdvnvov  t/}?  86^7]<;  ar€(j)avov  (where 
lurks  an  implied  contrast  with  a  wreath  of  leaves),  in  Rev.  2^" 
Swo-ft)  (TOL  TOV  a-T€(f>avov  tt}?  ^odt}?,  and  in  the  passage  of  James 
under  discussion.  There  is  no  reason  whatever  for  thinking  of 
a  royal  crown,  and  no  need  of  introducing  any  reference  to  the 
use  of  wreaths  as  prizes  in  the  Greek  games.  That  metaphor, 
which  implies  competition  and  so  exclusion,  is  not  an  adequate 
one  as  the  basis  of  the  N.  T.  use  {cf.  2  Clem.  Rom.  7,  where  this 
very  difficulty  is  felt),  and  crowns  were  in  fact  acquired  in  other 
ways  as  well  as  by  contending  in  the  games.  The  idea  is  rather 
of  a  mark  of  honour  to  be  given  by  the  Great  King  to  his  friends. 
An  excellent  case  of  this  figurative  use  is  Ep.  Arist.  280  icaOm 
(TV  rovro  eTTtreXeZ?,  eiTre,  fieyLare  ^acnXev.  6eou  croc  aric^avov 
hiKaLoavvr)<i  hehatKoro^.  Righteousness  here  constitutes  the 
crown,  and  it  is  a  gift,  not  a  prize. 

The  metaphor  of  the  crown  for  the  blessed  reward  of  the  pious  was  evi- 
dently already  familiar  before  the  N.  T.  authors  wrote.  This  is  shown 
not  only  by  Test.  XII  Patr.  Benj.  4'  akeady  quoted,  but  also  by  the 
form  of  the  several  N.  T.  passages.  Note  the  use  of  the  definite  article, 
the  variation  in  the  added  genitive,  and  the  acquaintance  with  the 
idea  implied  in  r^xtlq  Be  atpOapxov,  i  Cor.  g-'\  It  may  even  be  that 
axi'^oLwq,  like  oxeyotvow,  had  already  gained  the  simple  meaning  "re- 
ward." 

Tf;?  ^c«0?,  epexegetical  genitive,  as  i  Pet.  5^,  Ep.  Arist.  280. 
The  blessed  life  of  eternity  constitutes  the  crown.     CJ.  Rev.  2'". 

iTn^yyeiXaro  sc.  0  6e6'i,  cf.  i  Jn.  51".  There  is  no  promise  of 
the  O.  T.  or  of  our  Lord  in  just  this  form  (cf.  Deut.  30^^"^°), 
and  a  reference  to  Rev.  2^°  Saxroi  croc  top  crTe(f)avov  t?}?  ^cbt}?  is 
unlikely.  Eternal  life  as  the  reward  for  the  friends  of  God  was 
a  fundamental  idea  of  later  Jewish  and  of  Christian  escha- 
tology,  cf.  Ps.  Sol.  i3i«,  Enoch  58'',  4  Ezra  8^25.^  mL  9",  Jn. 
3!^  lo^",  Rom.  2^,  Rev.  2^,  etc. 


h  12-13  153 

E.  Zeller,  however,  argues  in  Zeil.f.  wissensck.  Theol.  1863,  pp.  93-96, 
that  Rev.  2'"  is  the  promise  referred  to. 

exT]YYS''^«'r°]  B^A^  minn  ff  boh.     The  addition  of  a  subject  is 
emendation,  thus : 

+  xuptoi;  C  min. 

+  6  xuptoq  KLP  minni''"''  syr''"'. 

+  0  Oso?  minn  vg  syrp«=''. 

T049  ayaTTMcrtv  avTov. 

Note  the  resemblance  to  2  Tim.  4*.  Von  Soden  suggests 
dependence  on  some  liturgical  form,  but  this  is  unnecessary. 
The  idea  and  phrase  are  strongly  characteristic  of  Deuteronomy. 
Cf.  Ex.  20^,  ical  TTOLcov  eXeo?  et?  'x^cXidBa';  rot?  ayaTTcoaLV  /xe, 
Deut.  f  T0t9  ayaTTcJaLV  avTop,  Ps.  511  1452^  Ecclus.  t,i^^,  Bel 
V.  ^^,  Rom.  8^^.  See  passages  from  O.  T.  and  other  Jewish  liter- 
ature mentioned  in  Spitta,  p.  30.  Cf.  the  similar  expression  in 
Jas.  2^  T?}?  ^aaCKeia^  ^?  iTrtTyyeiXajo  tol<;  aja'TTcocnp  avTov. 
The  believer's  life  is  marked  by  constancy  in  faith  and  by  love 
of  God,  and  he  may  be  designated  by  either  attribute. 

13-18.  When  under  temptation,  do  not  excuse  yourself  by  say- 
ing that  temptations  proceed  from  God.  They  come  from  man's 
evil  passion.  God  sends  only  good  gifts  to  us,  for  we  are  his  chil- 
dren and  the  first-fruits  of  his  creation. 

The  passage  has  no  doctrinal  purpose  other  than  to  warn  the 
readers  against  resorting  to  a  current  excuse  for  sin.  The  con- 
nection with  the  preceding  is  made  by  the  aid  of  the  ambigu- 
ity of  the  word  Treipa^ofjievo';,  which  means  both  "tried"  and 
"tempted."  The  temptations  intended  do  not  appear  to  be 
restricted  to  those  involved  in  "trials." 

13.  firjSeU  .  .  .  XeyeTco.    Cf.  M  et'rrr]<;,  Ecclus.  5*'  "  15". 

•7r€Lpa^6fA,evo<;.  Evidently  means  {cf.  vv.  "  f)  temptation  to 
sin,  not  merely  external  trial.  See  on  'rreipacTfjio'L'ij  v.  2,  and 
cf.  I  Tim.  6»  et?  Treipaafiov  koX  irayLBa.  The  excuse  shows  that 
the  writer  is  not  thinking  of  a  state  of  religious  persecution, 
with  the  consequent  temptation  to  complete  renunciation  of 
faith  in  Christ  or  in  God,  but  rather  of  ordinary  temptation. 
In  the  case  supposed  the  person  tempted  either  has  yielded,  or 
is  on  the  point  of  yielding;  he  is  called  o  Treipa^ofjievo'i,  instead 
of  o  ufiapTOiVj  by  a  kind  of  euphemism.     He  excuses  himself 


154  JAMES 

by  declaring  that  the  temptation  came  from  God.  Paul  in 
I  Cor.  ioi3  makes  a  similar  exhortation  in  curiously  different 
form:  "Do  not  excuse  yourselves  by  thinking  that  your  temp- 
tation is  greater  than  man  can  bear." 

Warning  against  this  natural  and  common  impulse  of  frail 
humanity  is  found  clearly  expressed  in  Ecclus.  15""^°,  M  ^'^^rjj'i 
oTi  Aia  Kvpiov  airea-Tr^v  ktX.  ;  cf.  also  the  references  to  Philo 
given  below. 

Prov.  19'  dc(ppoffuvif]  dcvSpb?  XutiafveTat  -zolc,  oSou?  auToO,  tov  Se  6e?)v  «?- 
Ttaxott  T^  v.agbiq.  auxou,  Hermas,  Sim.  vi,  3  aETiwvxac  xov  xupiov,  and 
similar  passages,  relate  to  complaints  of  misfortune,  not  to  excuses  for 
sin. 

That  the  idea  was  often  expressed  among  Greeks  of  many 
periods  is  seen  from  the  following  instances : 

Homer,  Odyss.  i,  32-34  (Zeus  speaks), 

w  xoxot,  olov  hi]  vu  Osou?  ^poxol  atxtowvTat. 
e^  •f)yi£wv  yap  cpccsi  ■/.&■/.'  e(j.[X£v«t '    ol  Ss  %ad  auxol 
acpfjfftv  citxaa6aXtT)fftv  uicspixopov  akys'  exouo'v. 
//.  xix,  86-87,  ^1^  S'oux,  aiTioq  et[i.l, 
aXkx  Tiebq  xal  [Aotpot  xal  Yjepo^olxcc;  eptv6<;. 

Euripides,  Tro  des,  914-1032,  Orest.  285,  Phcen.  161 2-14. 

iEschines,  Timarch.  i,  190,  [x-?)  yap  otsaOs,  w  'AeYjvatot,  -zac,  xwv  aStxT]- 
liaxwv  apxa?  fifxb  6ewv,  dXV  oux  ux'  dvGpcoxcov  (JaeXyetaq  YfyveaOat. 

Plato,  Res  pub.  10,  p.  617  E,  atxt'a  IXofjisvou  •  6ebc;  avatxto?,  exactly  ex- 
presses the  idea,  but  seems  irrelevant,  because  in  the  context  the  choice 
referred  to  is  made  by  a  pre-existent  soul  of  a  future  condition  of  life ; 
cf.  also  p.  619  C. 

Philo,  Leg.  alleg.  ii,  19,  Mang.  p.  80,  "When  the  mind  has  sinned  and 
removed  itself  far  from  virtue,  it  lays  the  blame  on  divine  causes  (xd  Oeiot), 
attributing  to  God  its  own  change  (xpoxTj)";  Dcfuga  et  inv.  {De  prof.), 
15,  Mang.  pp.  557  /. :  "Of  no  secret,  treacherous,  and  deliberate  crime 
is  it  proper  to  say  that  it  was  done  by  the  will  of  God  (xax«  Oedv) ,  but 
they  are  done  by  our  own  will  (xa9'  tlJ'-*?  auxou?).  For  in  ourselves, 
as  I  have  said,  are  the  treasuries  of  evil,  but  with  God  the  treasuries 
of  good  things  only.  Whoever,  therefore,  'flees  for  refuge,'  that  is, 
whoever  blames  not  himself  but  God  for  his  sins,  let  him  be  punished. 
...  A  blemish  almost  or  quite  incurable  is  the  affirmation  that  the 
deity  is  the  cause  of  evil.  .  .  .  And  what  slander  could  be  worse  than 
to  say  that  not  with  us  but  with  God  lies  the  origin  of  evil?"  Cf. 
also  Philo,  Quod  deter,  pot.  insid.  32. 


1, 13-14  155 

Terence,  Eun.  v,  2.  36,  quid  si  hoc  quispiam  voluil  deus? 
Plaut.  Aul.  iv,  10.  7,  deus  impulsor  mihi  fuit. 
See  L.  Schmidt,  Die  Ethik  der  alien  Griechen,  1882,  i,  pp.  230-240. 

The  fact  that  this  idea  was  so  familiar  helps  to  account 
for  the  attachment  of  w.  ^^-^^  to  a  passage  (w.  '•^-^'^)  which 
deals  with  another  sort  of  ireipaa- fx6<i .  The  substance  of  the 
passage  is  not  original;  the  freshness  consists  in  the  way  in 
which  the  thought  is  worked  out. 

The  suggestion  of  Pfleiderer  {Das  Urchristentum'^,  ii,  p.  546)  that  this 
is  polemic  against  the  gnostics  has  as  little  foundation  as  the  older  ref- 
erences to  Essenes,  Pharisees,  or  Simon  Magus.  The  quotations  given 
above  prove  this.  It  would  be  easier  (and  not  unnatural)  to  think  of 
a  Greek  popular  habit  of  thought  and  speech  which  had  affected  a 
Jewish  community.  The  idea  of  being  "  tempted,"  which  is  the  root 
of  the  whole  passage,  also  shows  that  the  self-excusing  sinner  whom 
James  has  in  mind  is  no  gnostic. 

cnro.  The  preposition  airo,  which  expresses  a  "  looser  and  more 
remote"  relation  of  agency  is  perhaps  used  here  out  of  rever- 
ence. Cf.  Lex.  s.  V.  p.  SQ**,  Lightfoot  on  Gal.  i^ ;  J.  H.  Moulton, 
Prolegomena,  pp.  102,  237. 

axo]  J<  minn  read  uxo,  by  an  unnecessary  emendation  to  a  more 
usual  phrase. 

aTreipacTTO'i  (class,  aireiprjrof; ^  aTreiparo?)  can  mean,  when 
used  of  a  person,  (i)  ''untempted,"  "untemptable,"  or  (2)  "un- 
versed," "having  no  experience." 

In  favour  of  the  meaning  "  un  temp  table "  (E.V.)  is  the  sharp 
verbal  contrast  then  afforded  to  ireipd^eL  ovSeva. 

KUKcov.  On  this  good  literary  use  of  the  genitive,  see  Winer, 
§30.  4;  Blass,  §36.  11;  J.  H.  Moulton,  Prolegomena,  p.  74 
("the  poetical  phraseology  of  the  Attic  period  had  come  down 
into  the  market-place"). 

14-15.  The  source  of  temptation  is  within  the  man;  the 
process  is  from  passion,  through  sin,  to  death. 

It  is  highly  significant  that  James's  mind  naturally  turns  for 
the  true  explanation  of  temptation  not  to  the  Jewish  thought 
of  Satan  (c/.  the  explanation  of  the  origin  of  sin  in  the  Book  of 


156  JAMES 

Enoch  69^^),  or  of  the  "evil  root,"  but  to  a  psychological 
analysis,  strongly  influenced  by  Greek  conceptions  of  human 
nature. 

14.  v-TTo  rr}?  tSta?  i7n6v/jbia<i.  Belongs  primarily  with  iretpd- 
^eraL,  for  otherwise  the  contrast  of  6e6<;  and  iTridv/Mia  is  weak- 
ened ;  but  it  is,  secondarily,  the  agent  of  the  participles  also. 

i7n6v/xLa,  a  word  in  itself  applicable  to  any  desire,  whether  in- 
nocent or  wrong,  is  here  used  of  desire  for  something  forbidden, 
"lust"  (E.V.)  in  the  broader  sense  of  that  word.  The  source 
of  temptation  is  desire,  and  lies  within,  not  mthout,  the  man. 
There  is  no  emphasis  here,  as  in  Ecclus.  is^^'^*^,  on  free  will; 
on  the  other  hand,  any  conception  of  an  outside,  personified, 
Power,  such  as  Paul  employs  in  Rom.  7*-  i"-  i^-  ",  is  foreign  to 
this  passage.  The  conception  is  far  simpler  and  more  naive 
than  either  of  these. 

On  iindvfiLa^  see  Trench,  Synonyms,  §  Ixxxviii,  and  cf.  4^, 
2  Pet.  i\  2  Tim.  36,  Tit.  3^ 

Ecclus.  18'°  '•  5',  4  Mace,  i^-  irpb  [xev  ouv  ty)<;  t)Sov^(;  saxtv  £xt6u;ji.ta  ' 
[LB-zx  ok  TT)v  TjSovYjv  xapa,  4  Mace,  i"-  '^  a'-  *•  '  3=.  ".  12  ^23^  Jn  these 
passages  the  word  is  used  with  various  shades  of  meaning.  Cf.  Philo, 
Quod  omn.  proh.  liber,  22  eJ  (lev  yap  [tj  t^u^T]]  %ghc,  extGufxta?  l7,auveTai 
i^  uy'  7)0ovf)s  SeXeal^e-uat.  On  the  significance  of  liutOutxta  in  Philo's  sys- 
tem, see  J.  Drummond,  Philo  Judcsus,  1888,  ii,  pp.  302-306,  and  note 
especially  De  conctip.  i  /.,  M.  pp.  348-350;  Dc  sacerd.  honor.  3,  M.  p. 
235,  where  siciOujAfa  is  vividly  set  forth  as  the  source  of  sin.  The 
background  of  James's  use  is  current  popularised  conceptions  of  Hel- 
lenistic philosophy.  The  Stoic  discussion  of  the  word  in  Stobasus,  ii,  7 
(Wachsmuth's  ed.  pp.  87-91)  is  instructive  in  this  respect.  See  also 
on  Jas.  4'  '•. 

There  seems  no  sufficient  reason  for  introducing  the  thought  of  the 
jezer  ha-ra  here,  although  the  function  is  closely  similar.  See  F.  C. 
Porter,  "The  Yecper  Hara,"  in  Yale  Biblical  and  Semitic  Studies,  1902, 
pp.  91-158. 

e^e\ic6ixevo<i  kul  Be\ea^6fX€vo<; ^  "when  he  is  lured  and  en- 
ticed" (by  it). 

These  words  were  applied  to  the  hunter  or,  especially,  the  fisherman, 
who  "lures"  his  prey  from  its  retreat  (s^sXxstv)  and  "entices"  it 
(SeXea'Cetv)  by  bait  (SeXeap)  to  his  trap,  hook,  or  net.     The  two  words 


1, 14-15  157 

thus  merely  refer  to  different  aspects  of  the  same  process.  They  are  a 
natural  figure  of  speech  for  the  solicitation  of  illicit  desire,  and  the  com- 
bination of  one  or  both  with  eTCt8utJi,ta  or  tjSovt)  is  repeatedly  found  in 
Philo  and  in  Greek  writers.  Cf.  the  sentence  from  Philo  quoted  above 
and  the  many  illustrative  passages  given  by  Mayor  and  Hort;  also 
2  Pet.  2"-  18. 

The  language  thus  has  its  analogies  outside  of  the  O.  T.,  in  Greek 
writers.  This  figure  is  not  necessarily  connected  with  that  which  is 
worked  out  in  v. " ;  and  there  is  no  evidence  that  the  words  £^eXx6[i.evo<; 
v.(x\  Se>weal^6[xevo<;  suggested  in  themselves  the  practises  of  the  harlot,  or 
that  these  are  in  mind  in  either  verse. 

15.   Illicit  desire  leads  to  sin,  and  sin  causes  death. 

elra  introduces,  with  a  change  of  figure,  the  practical  result 
of  the  temptation  arising  from  eirtdvixCa.  When  indulged  {cf. 
4  Mace.  31-^)  desire  bears  its  natural  fruit,  first  sin,  then,  ulti- 
mately, death.  This  follows  {elTo)  the  enticement  of  tempta- 
tion. 

For  the  metaphor  (which  is  purely  decorative),  cf.  Ps.  ^^*  ('"  ?Sou 
{iSt'virjffev  dvojAiav,  auv^Xa^sv  x6vov,  y.xl  eTexsv  iStxi'av;  Philo,  De  sacr. 
Abel,  et  Cain.  31,  Justin  Martyr,  Dial.  100,  p.  327  C. 

avWa^ovaa  tlkt€1. 

Cf.  Gen.  2i2  38^,  etc.  The  two  ideas  have  no  independent  signifi- 
cance in  the  figure.  That  the  issue  is  due  to  a  union  with  the  will 
(Bcyschlag)  is  not  indicated  as  in  the  writer's  thought.  Such  psy- 
chological analysis  is  found  in  Philo,  but  is  beyond  the  range  of  James  ; 
and  the  idea,  when  developed  carefully,  proves  inconsistent  with  this 
context,  see  Spitta,  p.  37.  There  is  no  reason  for  thinking  of  x\dam 
and  Eve,  in  spite  of  Justin  Martyr,  Dial.  p.  327  (other  references  in 
Schneckenburger  and  Spitta);  nor  of  the  devil  as  father  (Spitta). 
But  the  quotations  from  Philo  and  Test.  XII  Patr.  (e.  g.  Benj.  7)  given 
by  Spitta,  ad  loc,  attest  the  frequent  use  of  this  figure  to  express  similar 
ideas. 

afiapriav.  "Sin,"  collectively  and  in  general;  '^pravae  ac- 
tiones  et  cogUationes."  Desire  for  what  is  forbidden  tempts 
the  man,  and  thus  is  the  source  of  sin.  Cf.  Apoc.  Mos.  19 
eTnOvfiia  <ydp  iariv  K€(f)a\i]  irdarj^  dfiapria^. 

?;  Se  dfjuapria.     Takes  up  dfiapriav ;   hence  the  article. 

ciTroTeXea-Oela-a,  "when  it  has  become  complete,  fully  devel- 


158  JAMES 

oped,"  "has  come  to  maturity."  The  word  (on  which  see  Hort) 
is  drawn  from  the  figure  of  the  successive  generations,  and  it  is 
not  necessary  to  determine  wherein  in  fact  the  complete  ma- 
turity of  sin  consists ;  sin  is  "  complete"  when  it  is  able  to  bring 
forth  its  inevitable  baneful  fruit,  death.  The  "perfect  work" 
(c/.  V.  ^)  of  sin  is  death. 

uTTOKvel,  cf.  V.  1^.  The  verb  is  frequently  used  of  animals, 
hence  appropriate  here;  otherwise  it  is  a  medical  rather  than 
a  literary  word. 

Neither  dxoxsXetv  nor  tiicoxustv  is  a  common  Biblical  word,  dxo- 
TsXeiv  is  found  elsewhere  only  i  Esd.  5",  2  Mace.  15",  Lk.  1322;  dtTcoxuelv 
only  4  Mace.  15",  Jas.  i". 

OdvaTov.  Death  as  an  objective  state,  brought  upon  man 
as  the  result  of  sin,  and  the  opposite  of  blessed  life  with  God 
{cf.  v.  1^  aT6(j)avov  ^o)?}?,  and  52°)  and  cf.  Rom.  6^1  f-  6^^  ra  jap 
oyjrcovia  t^9  d/xapTia<i  ddvaTO<i,  8^;  Wisd.  i^-^-.  C/.  Philo,  £>e 
plant.  Noe  9,  M.  p.  335.     See  also  Mt.  y^^-  ". 

16  -18.  God,  on  the  other  hand,  sends  solely  and  consistently 
good  gifts,  as  befits  the  relation  of  a  father  to  his  first-born. 

16.  /J'T}  trXavaade.  "Do  not  err,"  "be  not  deceived."  As 
in  I  Cor.  6^  15'''',  Gal.  6^,  used  to  introduce  a  pointed  utterance. 
Cf.  Ign.  Phil.  3,  Eph.  16,  which  may,  however,  be  dependent 
on  I  Cor.  6^ 

On  ahe\(^oC,  which  here  is  used  to  add  to  the  emphasis,  see 
note  on  v.  2,  and  cf.  2^  3^2. 

17.  irdaa,  "every." 

Various  commentators  assign  to  xaaa  here  the  meaning  "only," 
"nothing  but"  (see  note  .on  xdeaav  x«P*v,  v.  2).  But  this  is  not  neces- 
sary to  the  sense  here,  and  is  rendered  almost,  if  not  quite,  impossible 
by  the  order  of  words  xaaot  hoaiq  ayaOif].  xaq  with  the  sense  of  "only" 
(Ger.  Jautcr)  should  stand  next  to  the  adjective  to  which  it  logically 
belongs,  and  usually  stands  directly  before  it. 

Soo-49,  "gift,"  either  the  act  of  giving  or  the  thing  given. 
Here  the  parallelism  to  hdiprjixa  makes  the  latter  sense  probable. 
Cf.  Ecclus.  11^^  26^^  32".  The  word  is  very  common  in  Eccle- 
siasticus. 


I,  15-17  159 

cL'yaOrj.  On  this  word  lies  strong  emphasis,  in  contrast  to  the 
evil  iretpaa ix6<i  which  ?7  l^ta,  iircOvfiLa  and  not  God  brings  to 
man.  The  omission  of  the  writer  to  make  the  implied  comple- 
mentary statement,  that  bad  gifts  do  not  come  from  God,  adds 
to  the  rhetorical  effect. 

Smprjfxa,  "present,"  "donation,"  "benefaction";  cf.  Rom. 
5!^  A  mainly  poetical  word.  Not  quite  happily  rendered  by 
R.V.  "boon." 

For  the  difference  between  5(§(i)[ac  and  SwpsopLat  with  their  cognates, 
see  Mayor's  and  Hort's  notes,  together  with  the  huge  collection  of 
material  in  Heisen,  pp.  541-592.  The  latter  series  of  words  often  has 
the  idea  of  generous  giving ;  but  here  in  James  there  is  no  special  dis- 
tinction intended,  the  repetition  being  solely  for  rhetorical  effect,  and 
very  probably  part  of  a  poetical  allusion  or  quotation. 

reXeiov,  cf.  i*-  ^^  3^.  "Perfect"  in  this  case  (note  parallel 
to  ayadi])  excludes  any  element  of  evil  in  the  gift.  Cf.  3- 
Te\ei09  avi]p,  Clem.  Al.  Pad.  i,  6,  p.  113  reXeio'i  wv  reXeia 
'X^apieiTai  B-qirovdev,  Philo,  De  sacr.  Abel,  ct  Cain.  14  OifWi  he 
ovSev  areXe'i  avru)  ^^^api^eadat^  SaO'  oKoKkrjpoL  koX  iravrekel^ 
al  Tov  a^evrjrov  hcopeai  iraaat. 

That  iraaa  80  |  erf?  dyd  |  Or]  Koi  |  irav  8co  I  prjfid  re  |  \etou 
makes  an  hexameter,  the  second  syllable  of  B6al<;  being  length- 
ened under  the  ictus,  may  be  an  accident,  although  even  so 
it  might  show  a  good  ear  for  rhythm  on  the  part  of  the 
writer.  But  the  unusual  and  poetical  word  Scoprj/j^a  and  the 
imperfect  antithesis  to  vv.  ^^-'^^  make  it  more  likely  that  we 
have  here  a  quotation  from  an  unknown  source. 

dvcodev,  i.  e.  ovpavodev,  cf.  3^'''  ^^,  Jn.  3^^  19",  referring  to  that 
which  is  from  God. 

So  Philo,  De  somn.  i,  26  Sm  rd<i  6iuL/3pr]6€L(Ta<;  dvcodev  Boopeaf 
a.'yaOo^  koi  reXeto'i  ef  cipxi'^  iyevero  [sc.  6  'Icraa«]. 

The  thought  that  God  is  the  source  only  of  good,  here  clearly  ex- 
pressed, is  found  in  Greek  writers  (see  quotations  in  Mayor*,  pp.  56/., 
and  Schneckenburger,  p.  30),  as  well  as  in  Philo,  e.  g.  De  decern  orac.  t^^ 
Gsbc;  ^v,  euOut;  Ss  xupto?  i-^^^hz,,  [jl6vwv  i.'^:t^C(i'^  oc'tTto?,  xaxou  3*  ouoevoc;, 
De  prof.  15,  De  confus.  ling.  36  (see  other  quotations  in  Mayor  and 
Schneckenburger) . 


1 60  JAMES 

It  was  evidently  a  familiar  commonplace  of  Jewish  thought,  cf.  Tob. 
4"  auToc;  6  xupto?  SfSwat  xavxa  to  dtya^ii,  also  Beresh.  r.  51.  5  dixit 
R.  Chanina:  non  est  res  mala  descendens  desuper ;  Sanhedrin  59.  2. 

Kara^alvov  expands  avcodev,  and  so  explains  why  the  gifts 
are  "good"  and  "perfect."  For  similar  phrases  lagging  after 
the  first  statement,  cf.  y.^*  3*  412.  This  gives  better  force  to 
each  word  than  to  connect  ia-jLV  with  Kara^alvov. 

Hort  (following  Thos.  Erskine,  The  Unconditional  Freedom  of  the  Gos- 
pel^, 1820,  pp.  239  ff.)  advocates  the  translation  :  "  Every  giving  is  good 
and  every  gift  perfect  from  above  {or  from  its  first  source),  descending," 
etc.  This  assumes  that  Soat?  and  SwpTjtxa  contain  in  themselves  the 
idea  of  a  divine  gift,  and  in  order  to  make  avwOev  fit  the  sentence  re- 
quires for  it  the  meaning  "from  their  source,"  "by  reason  of  their 
origin,"  which  it  can  hardly  have.  It  produces,  however,  the  sense  re- 
quired by  the  context,  and  if  the  words  were  to  be  regarded  as  forming 
a  complete  sentence,  it  would  be  hard  to  give  them  any  other  trans- 
lation than  this.  If  they  are  a  quotation,  the  original  application  would 
probably  have  been  in  the  direction  of  the  Greek  proverb  Swpov  S*  0  xt 
ScT)  -ziq  exoct'vec  and  the  Latin  noli  equi  denies  inspicere  donali  (Jerome, 
Praef.  comni.  in  Ephes.),  "Don't  look  a  gift  horse  in  the  mouth";  see 
H.  Fischer,  in  Philologns,  1891,  pp.  377-379. 

airo  Tov  7raTp6<;  twv  (fxoTwv,  i.  e.  God,  here  described  as  the 
creator  of  the  heavenly  bodies  {cf.  Ps.  136^  t5>  iroiricravTi  (f)(ora 
fieydXa  fiovm^  Jer.  4^^  eire^Xe-^a  .  .  .  et?  tov  ovpavov^  koL  ovk 
Tjv  ra  (f)coTa  aiirov),  and  thus  as  the  ultimate  source  of  all 
light  and  of  all  blessing,  cf.  Ps.  36^  eV  Ta>  (fxori  aov  oyjro/xeda 

This  designation  and  the  developed  figure  which  follows,  in 
which  God  as  the  Sun  of  Righteousness  {cf.  Mai.  4^)  is  con- 
trasted with  the  physical  sun,  seem  to  be  suggested  by  the 
thought  of  the  good  gifts  which  descend  from  the  heavens,  at 
once  the  abode  of  God  and  the  location  of  the  sun.  That  it 
was  natural  to  a  Jew  is  shown  by  the  benediction  before  Shema: 
"Blessed  be  the  Lord  our  God  who  hath  formed  the  lights." 
Perhaps  it  hints  at  the  thought  of  God's  nature  as  light.  No 
astrological  allusion  is  to  be  found  here. 

For  TraWjp  in  this  sense,  cf.  Job  38^*  {verov  iranqp  and  the 
whole  verse),  and  note  Philo's  constant  use  of  o  irar-qp  rS)v 


I,  17  161 

oXtov  in  sense  of  "the  Creator."  Cf.  Apocalypse  of  Moses,  36 
(as  read  in  Ceriani,  Monumenta  sacra  et  prof  ana,  v,  i)  evfoinov 
ToO  (jxoT6<i  tS)v  oXcov^  tov  Trarpof  roiv  (f)(OT(jov;  Testament  of 
Abraham  (ed.  M.  R.  James,  1892),  Recension  B,  c.  7,  irarr^p 
TOV  (jxoTo^  ;  Ephraem  Syr.  Opera,  v,  col,  489  (see  above,  p.  96). 

Philo's  lofty  thought  of  God  as  "archetypal  Splendor"  is  mainly  in- 
teresting here  as  showing  the  total  absence  from  the  mind  of  James  of 
such  metaphysical  speculation,  although  he  sees  the  ideal  and  poetical 
aspects  of  light.  See  Philo,  De  cherub.  28  (M.  i,  p.  156),  De  somn.  i,  13 
(M.  i,  p.  632),  quoted  by  Hort. 

Trap  &.  For  rrrapd  c.  dat.  used  in  the  mention  of  an  attribute, 
cf.  Job  12",  Eph.  t\  Rom.  9",  etc.  Cf.  also  trapa  tw  deS),  Mk. 
10",  Mt.  1926,  Lk.  18",  Rom.  2",  Eph.  6^;  so  Gen.  18I''  (Cod. 
A).  Perhaps  the  indirectness  of  statement  is  due  to  a  certain 
"instinct  of  reverence"  (Hort),  cf.  airo,  v.". 

The  affirmation  is  that  to  send  good  gifts  belongs  to  God's  y 
imvarying  nature.  In  this  he  is  imlike  the  sun,  which  sends 
now  the  full  light  of  noon,  now  the  dimness  of  twilight,  and 
which  at  night  sends  no  light  at  all.  God's  light  ever  shines ; 
from  him  proceeds  no  turning  shadow.  So  i  Jn.  1^6  ^eo?  ^w? 
iarlv  Koi  aKorCa  ovk  eariv  ev  avrw  ovhefiia. 

Closely  similar  are  Is.  6o'''  ^^  xal  oux  eaxat  aoi  etc  6  vjXto?  e?<;  (fdc,  i^jxipai;.  \/ 
ouS^  a.waxo'kii  oeX-^vr^i;  ^foxtsl  cot  -rilv  vuxxa,  iXk'  eairat  aoc  xupto?  (pwi;  aE<i- 
vtov,  vjcA  6  6£b<;  S65a  cou.  ou  Y(ip  Suae-uac  6  T^Xto?  aot,  xal  -^  ceXi^vrj  oot 
oOx  IxXefij'et '  eotat  yap  xdpibc,  aot  (fdc,  aJuviov,  Wisd.  7^'  '■  (pwrl  auvxpt- 
votxevT)  euptffxsTat  xpoTspa '  touxo  jJiev  yip  SiaS^x^'^'^'  ^iJ^j  ffocpi'a?  5e  oux 
d:vTiaxu£'  xaxt'a. 

For  the  contrast  between  God  and  the  heavens,  the  moon,  and  the 
stars,  cj.  Job  15'*  255  '•.  See  also  Enoch  41^,  "For  the  sun  changes  oft  v' 
for  a  blessing  or  a  curse";  Ecclus.  17"  ti  cpwxstvoTspov  tjXi'ou  ;  xal  J 
ToOxo  exXeixet.  Cj.  Epictetus,  Diss,  i,  14'°,  where  the  limitation  of 
the  sun,  which  is  not  able  to  illuminate  the  space  where  the  shadow  of 
the  earth  falls,  is  contrasted  with  the  power  of  God  (6  xal  xbv  ijXtov 
auxbv  Tcexofr)X(l)q  xal  iceptiywv). 

The  comparison  of  God  with  the  sun  is  a  natural  one  under  any 
monotheistic  conception.  See  Mayor's  or  Schneckenburger's  references 
to  Philo  and  Plato,  also  i  Jn.  i^  with  Westcott's  note. 

For  the  idea  of  the  immutability  of  God,  cf.  Mai.  3^  St6xi  lyw  xuptoi; 
h  Oeb?  uiAwv  xal  oiix  TjXXoiwiJiat,  Heb.  713-18^  Philo,  Leg.  all.  ii,  9;   ii,  22 
II 


1 62  JAMES 

xdtvta  T(i  aXXa  xplicsTat,  [Jiovoc;  Se  otuTbi;  fiTpeirudi;  lott,  and  passages 
in  Mayor',  p.  6i.  C/.  Clem.  Al.  Strom,  i,  24,  p.  41S  -zh  kazlx;  xal  (Jt.6v[[jiov 
Tou  Osoij  xal  xb  aTrpexTOV  auToO  cpw?  xal  dtaxTjfJ.i'ctaTOV. 

o5x  e'vt]  SP  minn  have  substituted  the  weaker  and  more  familiar 

TrapaXXay^ ,  "variation."  This  does  not  seem  to  be  an  astro- 
nomical terminus  technicus,  although  in  general  senses  (e.  g.  of 
the  "variation"  in  the  length  of  the  day  and  in  the  daily  course 
of  the  sun  through  the  heavens ;  cf.  references  in  Mayor^,  p.  60, 
and  Gebser,  Brief  des  Jacobus,  p.  83)  it  is  used  by  astronomers, 
and  its  resemblance  to  the  term  TrapdXka^L^,  "parallax,"  gives 
it  a  quasi-astronomical  sound.  The  contrast  intended  is  mainly 
with  the  sun  and  moon,  as  being  the  most  important  and  most 
changeable  (f)(OTa. 

TrapaWajr)  rj  t/jott^?  cnroaKLacrfxa. 

This  is  the  reading  of  all  printed  editions  of  the  N.  T. ;  with 
this  reading  r/JOTrr)?  airoaKiaarfia  would  mean  "shadow  that  is 
cast  by  turning"  (R.V.).  The  reading  is,  however,  probably 
wrong  (see  textual  note  below),  and  for  the  last  three  words 
should  be  substituted  17  t/jottt}?  airoa-KLdafiaro'i,  the  whole 
phrase  meaning:  "with  whom  is  none  of  the  variation  that 
belongs  to  ('consists  in,'  'is  observed  in')  the  turning  of  the 
shadow."  The  general  sense  is  the  same  as  with  the  usual 
reading. 

•^  Tpox^q  (ixoaxt(ia[JLaTo<;]  BH*Pap.  oxyrhynch.  1229. 

r]  xpoxT)  dicoaxtaafAairoq]  614  1108  £f  {vel  modicum  obumbraiionis)  boh 
(nor  a  form  of  a  shadow  which  passed) . 

T)  TpoxYjc;  di:xoaxt'aa[jia]  K^ACKLP  minn  vg  (mcissitudinis  obumbratio) 
Jer  {adv.Jov.  i,  39  conversionis  olumhraculum)  Aug  (momenti  obumbratio) . 

ri  igoid}  Tj  TpOTCTJi;  dexoaxfacr^xa  876  1518. 

(ixo(jxto:ff(j.o(  f)  xapaXXaY"^  ^  xpoxT)  sah. 

Editors  appear  all  to  have  read  yj  (instead  of  ■?)),  and  have  conse- 
quently been  unable  to  find  any  meaning  in  the  phrase  as  found  in 
J<*B  and  recently  (1914)  confirmed  by  the  discovery  of  the  papjTus 
fragment  (fourth  century)  published  in  The  Oxyrhynchiis  Papyri,  x, 
no.  1229.  They  have,  therefore,  been  driven  to  adopt  the  reading  of 
t^^ACKLP  minn.  Hort  discusses  the  passage  in  "  Introduction,"  pp. 
217/.,  as  follows : 

"The  only  quite  trustworthy  evidence  from  internal  character  for 


1, 17  163 

derivation  from  a  common  proximate  original  consists  in  the  presence 
of  such  erroneous  identical  readings  as  are  evidently  due  to  mere  care- 
lessness or  caprice  of  individual  scribes,  and  could  not  easily  have  escaped 
correction  in  passing  through  two  or  three  transcriptions  ...  X  and  B 
have  in  common  but  one  such  reading"  [viz.  the  one  in  Jas.  i''  here 
under  discussion]. 

In  order  to  accoimt  for  the  origin  of  this  reading  of  t<B,  which  he  as- 
sumed to  be  obviously  false,  Hort  made  the  following  ingenious  sugges- 
tions :  (i)  that  axoaxtaafAa  was  incorporated  with  a  following  aijT6<; 
(actually  found  in  one  minuscule) ;  or  (2)  that  it  was  assimilated  to  the 
preceding  genitive  xpox^? ;  or  (3)  that  axo-  became  mentally  separated 
from  -axcac7[i.a,  and  that  the  supposed  solecism  was  then  corrected; 
or  (4)  that  both  the  competing  readings  represent  corruptions  of  an 
original  a7:o<y>x.i(za\i.6q  not  found  in  any  Ms.  (see  ''  Introduction,"  p.  218, 
and  Mayor,  textual  apparatus  to  the  passage). 

Wordsworth,  SB,  i,  p.  138,  in  part  following  Est,  Commentarhis 
in  epistolam  Jacobi,  1631,  thinks  that  the  modicum  of  ff  and  the 
momenti  of  Augustine  imply  potct),  poxfj?,  "turn  of  the  scale,"  and  that 
one  or  the  other  of  these  represents  the  original  Greek.  But  neither 
poxT)  nor  poTrqc,  makes  good  sense,  and  although  (cf.  Is.  40")  a  "little 
thing"  may  cause  a  "turn  of  the  scale,"  the  Latin  word  modicum  is 
not  a  natural  translation  for  the  Greek  poiriQ.  Hence  modicum  obumbra- 
tionis  is  probably  only  a  loose  and  general  translation  of  xpoiri)  dxo- 
a%t&<:[L(xxoq,  in  which  the  specific  meaning  of  xpox^  is  neglected.  On  the 
other  hand,  momenti  would  indeed  be  an  exact  rendering  of  pox^q,  but, 
in  the  sense  of  "movement,"  it  is  equally  apt  as  a  translation  of  Tpoic^<;.* 
Accordingly,  the  Latin  versions  merely  show  that  Jerome  and  Augus- 
tine had  the  reading  of  i<°AC,  while  ff  represents  a  different  text, 
identical  with  that  of  614  1108  boh. 

The  genitive  dtxoaxKiafJLaTOf;  in  614  iio8fif  boh  gives  important  partial 
support  to  the  text  of  BJ<*  pap,  and  makes  it  unlikely  that  the  read- 
ing of  these  latter  is  due  to  an  accidental  error  in  a  proximate  com- 
mon ancestor. 

In  fact,  the  reading  of  BJ<*  pap  t]  Tpoin]i;  iicooxtaotiaTo?  makes  ex- 
cellent sense,  if  only  t)  is  taken  as  the  article  on  which  •upoirf)<;  depends, 
the  meaning  being  that  given  above  {cf.  Kiihner-Gerth,  Grammatik  d. 
griech.  Sprache^,  ii,  §  464. 3).  The  resulting  phrase  is  apt  and  not  with- 
out beauty,  but  the  accumulation  of  long  words  makes  it  heavy,  and 
it  was  broken  up  by  taking  t)  as  meaning  "or"  and  dropping  the  geni- 
tive termination  from  one  or  the  other  of  the  two  nouns.t 

'Possibly  modicum  has  been  substituted  for  an  original  translation,  momentum,  "move- 
ment." This  latter  word  may  well  have  been  misunderstood  in  the  sense  of  "a  little,"  "a 
particle";  and  in  that  case  modicum  would  be  a  correct  and  unambiguous  synonym. 

t  A  similar  misreading  is  found  in  the  repeated  quotation  by  Augustine  of  Rom.  7"  d/napru- 
Aos  f]  aixapria.  in  the  translation  aut  peccatum ;  so  e.  g.  Ep.  82,  §  20  (Vienna  ed.  vol.  xxxiv,  p. 
372.  s)i  Contra  duas  episfulas  Pelagianorum,  i,  14.     See  C.  H.  Turner  in  JTS,  xii,  p.  275. 


164  JAMES 

It  thus  appears  that  the  textual  facts  here  do  not  indicate  any  close 
relation  between  B  and  X,  but  only  that  in  this  instance  both  are  free 
from  a  process  of  emendation  which,  in  one  or  the  other  direction,  has 
affected  all  other  witnesses  except  the  papyrus.  The  reading  of  X'^AC 
and  that  of  614  1108  are  two  independent  corrections  of  the  original  as 
found  in  BK*  pap. 

Both  614  and  1108  belong  to  von  Soden's  group  1°.  To  the  same 
group  seems  to  belong  also  876  {^^"),  which,  according  to  Scrivener, 
reads  xapaXXay-f)  ^  Tpox^  1)  Tpox^?  iicoaxfaapia.  This  is  a  conflation 
due  to  an  unsuccessful  attempt  at  conformation  of  one  type  of  text  to 
another;  it  is  also  found  in  15 18. 

876,  1518,  1765,  and  2138  have  at  the  close  of  the  verse  a  gloss  ouSs 
tAEXPt  uxovot'a?  Ttvb?  uxo^oXif)  ixoaxttiotAaToc;,  "not  even  the  least  suspicion 
of  a  shadow."  Von  Soden's  hypothesis  (p.  1862)  that  the  reading  of 
Bt<*  was  a  trace  of  this  gloss  was  unlikely  in  itself  and  is  now  seen  to 
be  unnecessary.  The  gloss  itself  has  arisen  from  the  comment  of  "  (Ec- 
umenius":  -zh  SI  "Tpoir^?  axoaxt'ocatJLa,"  avxl  toO,  ouSe  [JI^XP'?  uxovofa^ 
Ttvbq  uxo^oXt). 

!  TpoTTT],  "turning,"  "change,"  is  another  semi-astronomical 
■  word.  It  is  used  technically  for  the  solstice  (hence  EngUsh, 
"tropic"),  so  Deut.  33"  rfKiov  rpoiroiv,  Wisd.  7^*  rpoTrcov 
aX\.ayd<;,  see  Sophocles,  Greek  Lex.  s.  v.  for  many  examples ; 
but  it  is  also  applied  to  other  movements  of  the  heavenly 
bodies,  so  perhaps  Job  38^^  eTrCaraaat  he  rpoira'^  ovpavov,  cf. 
references  in  L.  and  S.  s.  v.,  especially  Plato,  Tim.  11,  p.  39  D. 
'  The  word  is  also  used  in  the  sense  of  change  in  general,  and 
with  reference  to  human  fickleness  and  frailty ;  see  Philo,  Leg. 
all.  ii,  9;  De  sacr.  Abel,  et  Cain.  37,  and  references  given  at 
length  by  Mayor^,  p.  61.  These  various  meanings  make  pos- 
sible the  figurative  use  here,  in  which  there  is  allusion  to  both 
senses.  To  exclude  altogether  the  astronomical  allusion,  as 
some  do,  unduly  weakens  the  passage  and  overlooks  the  sug- 
gestions of  o  Trarrjp  joiv  <f)Q)T(ov^  TrapaWayq,  and  airoa-Kiaa-fia, 
but  it  is  impossible  to  fix  the  meaning  as  a  direct  reference 
to  any  particular  celestial  phenomena,  and  there  is  nowhere 
any  indication  of  contact  with  astrological  language.  The 
heavenly  bodies  are  all,  to  popular  notion,  subject  to  change 
which  affects  their  property  of  casting  light  on  the  earth. 

Spitta  thinks  that  xpoxTj  refers  to  the  return  of  the  sun  (and  other 
luminaries)   by  way  of  the  north  to  their  place  of  rising  in  the  east, 


1,  i7-i8  i6s 

after  they  have  set  in  the  west,  and  adduces  Enoch  41'  and  'j2^-^'  ". 
The  general  sense  need  not  exclude  these  movements  of  the  sun  and 
other  heavenly  bodies,  but  there  is  no  evidence  of  a  technical  use  of 
xpoTO)  which  would  permit  it  to  be  imderstood  in  this  sense  without 
explanatory  context.  The  same  is  true  in  even  greater  measure  of 
Spitta's  interpretation  of  xapaXXaYiQ  as  the  regular  seasonal  variation 
to  north  and  south  in  the  rising  and  setting  of  the  sun  and  other  bodies. 

aTTOcTKiW/xa,  "shadow." 

The  word  is  found  only  here  and  in  Christian  writers,  dexoaxial^ti) 
means  to  "cast  a  shadow,"  axo(jx(aa(Aa  therefore  (like  axCaaixa,  Diod. 
Plut.)  is  either  the  "shadow  cast"  or  the  "act  of  casting  a  shadow." 

Beyschlag,  following  Huther,  wrongly  insists  that  ixooxiaisi^a.  means 
"the  state  of  being  overshadowed"  {"das  Beschattetwerden") ,  and  so 
interprets  it  of  a  shadow  cast  on  God.  For  discussion  of  nouns  in  -[la, 
see  Lightfoot,  Colossians,  pp.  255  _ff. ;  J.  A.  Robinson,  Ephesians,  pp. 

255/- 

There  is  no  thought  here  of  a  sun-dial.  The  word  for  shadow  on  a 
dial  is  aTCoaxtaa[x6<;,  and  even  that  word  requires  a  context  to  define  it 
in  that  meaning. 

The  explanation  (of  the  ordinary  text)  given  by  late  Greek  commen- 
tators and  lexicographers,  "not  a  trace  of  turning,"  "not  a  shadow  of 
fickleness"  (" CEcumenius,"  Hesychius,  Suidas,  see  the  citations  in 
Gebser,  p.  86),  and  A.V.  "neither  shadow  of  turning,"  is  unlikely,  even 
if  the  text  were  sound,  because  in  that  sense  axta,  and  not  the  heavy 
and  explicit  compound  ixoffxiaatJia,  would  be  expected.  The  differ- 
ence may  be  imperfectly  suggested  in  English  by  comparing  the  words 
"shadow"  and  "shadowing."  Moreover,  in  a  comparison  with  the 
sun,  (x%oa%iaa[i.<x  can  hardly  have  been  used  without  some  thought  of 
its  proper  meaning. 

18.  In  contrast  with  the  mistaken  idea  that  God  sends  temp- 
tation is  his  actual  treatment  of  us,  making  us  sons,  and  giving 
us  the  highest  place  among  his  creatures.  He  is  more  to  us  than 
a  consistent  benefactor;  he  is  a  devoted  father,  and  as  such 
cannot  tempt  us  to  evil. 

^ovXTjdek,  "deliberately,"  and  thus  showing  his  real  atti- 
tude and  set  purpose.  On  the  specific  meaning  of  ^ovXofiat 
("volition  guided  by  choice  and  purpose")  in  contrast  to  6e\(o^ 
see  Hort  on  this  verse,  and  Lex.  s.  v.  OeXco,  with  references. 

Bede,  Calvin,  Grotius,  etc.  take  this  as  marking  a  contrast  to  human 
merit ;  but  this  is  as  far  as  possible  from  the  context. 


1 66  JAMES 

aireKvrjaev  ?;/u,a9,  refers  either  to  mankind  or  to  the  Chris- 
tians. 

A  specific  reference  to  the  Jews  is  sometimes  found  here,  and  can  be 
supported  by  Jer.  2',  by  Philo,  De  const,  princ.  6  (ii,  p.  366),  where 
Israel  is  called  dxapxT),  and  by  T-oyov  (but  v.  I.  Xoyou?)  dX-oOeia?  as  a 
description  of  the  Law  in  Test.  XII  Patr.  Gad  31.  But  nothing  in  the 
context  suggests  this  reference,  and  for  the  idea  of  God  as  becoming  the 
father  of  Israel  by  means  of  the  Law  no  parallel  is  adduced. 

The  reference  to  Christians  is  entirely  possible  and  makes  a 
better  connection  with  v.  ^^  In  that  case  cnre/cv-qaev  refers  to 
the  new  birth ;  X0709  aXrjdeia<i  is  the  Gospel  (c/.  Odes  of  Sol- 
omon 8^) ;  and  KTia/xdrav  refers  to  all  creation,  but  with  par- 
ticular thought  of  men.  The  associations  of  avayevvrja-L';  with 
Greek  religious  ideas  do  not  seem  to  be  implied  here. 

If  r)[t.aq  is  taken  to  refer  to  Christians,  it  must  be  understood  of  be- 
lievers in  general,  not  of  the  first  generation  only  (Huther)  or  of  Jewish 
Christians  (Beyschlag). 

The  objections  brought  against  this  view  are  (i)  that  the 
context  (w.  ^^-i?)  has  discussed  the  subject  from  general  points 
of  view,  with  no  reference  to  Christians  as  distinct  from  others ; 
(2)  that  for  the  Gospel  0  Xo'70?  t?}?  akrjddm,  with  the  article, 
would  be  expected  {cf.  Eph.  i^'\  Col.  i^  2  Tim.  2^^;  note,  in  a 
different  sense,  X0709  aXr]0€{a<;,  Ps.  119^^  2  Cor.  6^  ;  (3)  that 
instead  of  /crLo-fidrcov  some  word  expressly  denoting  "men" 
would  have  been  expected.  These  objections  do  not  seem 
conclusive. 

The  other  view,  urged  by  Spitta  and  especially  Hort,  takes 
rjfji'd';  of  mankind,  begotten  by  God's  word  to  be  supreme  among 
created  things,  cf.  Ecclus.  15**.  The  objection  which  seems  de- 
cisive against  this  is  that  the  figure  of  begetting  was  not  used  for 
creation  (Gen.  i"*^  does  not  cover  this),  whereas  it  came  early 
into  use  with  reference  to  the  Christians,  who  deemed  them- 
selves "sons  of  God." 

The  idea  of  a  divine  begetting  and  of  the  entrance  into  Christian  life 
as  a  new  birth  has  its  roots  in  Greek  not  in  Jewish  thought.  So  Clem. 
Alex.  Strom,  v,  2  (p.  653  Potter)  xal  xapd  xoi?  Pap^ipoi?  (piXoai^pots  tb 


I 


I,  i8  167 

xaxTix^oaf  -re  %cd  qxtixlcctt.  ivaYewfjaat  AeYSTac.  See  W.  Bauer's  note 
on  Jn.  3'  in  Lietzmann,  Handbiich  ziim  Neuen  Testament;  A.  Diete- 
rich,  Eine  Mithras-liturgle\  1910,  pp.  134-155,  157/-  On  the  verb 
dtTcsxuTjaev  (no  parallel  in  N.  T.),  see  R.  Reitzenstein,  Die  hellenistischen 
Mysterienreligionen,  1910,  p.  114.  Cf.  Jn.  i'^  33-8^  i  Jn.  2"  3'  4^-  « 
51.  s  I  Pet.  !'•  ='  (cf.  Hort's  note  on  i  Pet.  i^),  Tit.  35. 

X07&)  aXrjOeia'i.  The  knowledge  of  God's  truth  and  will 
makes  us  his  sons  (cf.  vv.  ^l  22. 23) .  ^^e  "word  of  truth"  is  for 
James  mainly  the  Law  (v.  "),  which  means  the  Jewish  law  as 
understood  by  Christians.  In  2  Cor.  6^,  Col.  1^,  Eph.  i^^  and 
perhaps  2  Tim.  2^^  it  is  the  gospel  of  salvation. 

There  is  no  connection  between  this  verse  and  Philo's  figure,  often 
repeated  in  one  and  another  form,  of  the  generative  word  of  God  (cf. 
Leg.  alleg.  iii,  51,6  axsp[xaTtxbi;  v.oA  YsvvYjxtxbi;  -cwv  xaXuv  Xoyoc;  6p06<;, 
and  references  in  Spitta,  pp.  45  /.) ;   the  idea  is  utterly  different. 

aTrapxv^  riva,  "a,  kind  of  first-fruits";  riva  indicates  a  fig- 
urative expression,  cf.  Winer-Schm.  §  26.  i.  a. 

The  "first-fruits,"  both  of  the  body  and  of  the  field,  were  sacred,  and 
were  often  offered  to  God.  See  EB,  "Firstborn,"  HDB,  "First-fruits," 
Schurer,  GJV,  §  24,  II. 

The  figure  is  found  with  reference  to  Israel  in  Jer.  2'  (apyji  YevTjpLdxuv 
auTou),  Philo,  De  const,  princ.  6  (otoxi  tou  auiJixavTOi;  dvOpcoTCWV  '{h/OKX^ 
(iTC£V£[XT]6Y]  ola  Tti;  dxapx'O  t<p  xoiTQxf)  xal  xaxpO,  and  to  the  Chris- 
tians in  2  Thess.  2"  (Codd.  BFG,  etc.)  and  Rev.  14^  But  the  figure 
does  not  seem  very  common  in  Jewish  thought.  With  Greek  writers 
the  word  is  more  frequent  in  a  figurative  sense,  see  L.  and  S.  and  the 
Scholiast  on  Eur.  Or.  96  quoted  in  Lex.  s.  v.,  which  says  that  dxap-/T) 
"was  used  not  merely  of  that  which  was  first  in  order  but  of  that  which 
was  first  in  honor." 

KTia-fidTcov,  cf.  I  Tim.  4^  (Rev.  5^^  8^) ;  not  used  elsewhere  in 
N.  T.,  cf.  Wisd.  13^.  In  O.  T.  found  only  in  Wisdom,  Ecclesi- 
asticus,  3  Maccabees ;  not  used  in  this  sense  in  secular  writers, 
and  to  be  associated  with  the  Jewish  use  of  ktl^co  and  its  de- 
rivatives. 

Von  Soden,  misled  by  his  failure  to  see  any  adequate  connection  of 
thought  for  V. ",  wished  to  take  x-utaixd-rcov  of  God's  new  creation  {cf. 
2  Cor.  5"  xatv-f)  XTbtq,  Gal.  6>=,  Eph.  21"  4=0,  within  which  these  par- 
ticular Christians  addressed  are  distinguished  by  reason  of  their  sub- 


l68  JAMES 

jection  to  fiery  trials.  But  (i)  this  does  not  suit  axexutiaev,  which 
must  at  least  refer  to  all  Christians;  (2)  it  would  require  some  clearer 
indication  of  the  restriction,  since  the  idea  is  not  a  common  one; 
and  (3)  while  suited  to  vv.  2-",  it  is  inappropriate  at  this  point  in  the 
chapter. 

19-27.  Let  your  aim  he  not  speech^  hut  attentive  hearing;  not 
hearing  only,  hut  doing;  not  empty  worship,  hut  good  deeds. 

The  thought  here  turns  to  the  need  of  reahty  and  sincerity 
in  religious  instruction  and  public  worship  {V-^-z^^). 

19-21.   To  hear  is  hetter  than  to  speak;  listen  to  the  Word. 

19.  Vaxe]  Bi^^AC  minn  ff  vg  boh  syrt"^i-™8. 

(CJTto]   i^*. 

"axe  Se]  A  boh™".  ' 

wars]  KLP  minnp'"'  syrp"!"  hoi-t^t. 
om]  minn. 

eaxw  Se]  B^^CP*  minn  S.  vg  boh. 

XOtl  ECTTG)]  A  ^^. 

sffTw]  KLP=  minnpie"'  syrp"'''"^!. 
The  Antiochian  reading  (wote  .  .  .  saxw)  is  a  characteristic  emen- 
dation. 

iVre,  "know  this."  The  address  aSeXcfiOi  /xov  shows  that 
this  belongs  in  the  paragraph  with  the  following.  The  sense 
alone  would  perhaps  suggest  that  tVre  is  probably  indicative 
(so  R.V.),  not  imperative  (A.V.) ;  but  the  analogy  of  opare, 
fi€iJ.vr]ao,  and  similar  rhetorical  appeals  in  the  Greek  diatribes 
(Bultmann,  Stil  der  paulin.  Predigt,  p.  32)  leads  to  the  opposite 
conclusion. 

For  this  view  it  may  also  be  urged  that  Jas.  4*  has  oVSare  as  the  in- 
dicative, tffxe  is  the  sole  form  of  the  imperative,  and  the  more  literary 
form  of  the  indicative.  Note  Vaaat  in  Acts  26*;  Heb.  12I'  has  "axs 
(probably  indicative),  10'"  o't'SatJLev;  Eph.  5^  late  is  probably  indica- 
tive. 

7ra9  dv6p(07ro<i,  not  limited  to  teachers,  but  cf.  3^3. 

rax^'i  €L<;  to  uKovcrai. 

In  view  of  the  reference  to  the  Word  in  vv.  ^^-^^  (note  Sto), 
it  is  likely  that  rwy^v^  ek  to  ctKovcrai  relates  primarily  to  the 
hearing  of  the  Word,  and  not  merely  to  social  intercourse  gen- 


I,  18-20  169 

erally.  The  same  phrase  is  found  in  Pirke  Aboth,  v,  18,  of  the 
trait  of  the  good  pupil,  who  is  "quick  to  hear  and  slow  to  for- 
get."   Cf.  Gal.  4^1. 

ek  TO.  This  can  be  justified  in  Greek  as  a  development  of 
the  meaning  "with  reference  to,"  cf.  Lk.  12^1,  Rom.  i6i^  Dio 
Chrys.  Or.  32,  p.  361  A  i'ywt  he  fiaWov  av  vfia^  eTTrjvovv  ^paSd 
fxev  (fydeyyofievom  e^Kparw  Se  ari<yo)VTa'i  •  ^Ivov  7rp6<i  opyrjv 
fir]  raxv^  aWa  ^pa8v<;,  but  it  is  not  attested  as  common  in 
ordinary  secular  Greek.  Cf.  e.  g.  Pirke  Aboth,  v,  18,  HiriDD 
'j^^^^b,  "quick  to  hear,"  ^y^^h  nt'p,  "slow  to  hear,"  Aboth 
R.  Nathan,  i,  "be  slow  to  judge." 

aKovaaij  \a\r}araL^  op'^rjv. 

Ecclus.  5^^  'yivov  ra'^^v^  ev  a/cpodaei  aov  koX  ev  fiaKpoOvfiid 
^Oeyyov  ctTTo/cpiaLv  is  the  closest  parallel  to  this  verse  among 
the  many  precepts  of  the  Wisdom-literature  which  relate  to  con- 
trol of  speech  and  restraint  of  anger.  Cf.  Ecclus.  ^^5,  Prov.  10" 
(and  Toy's  note)  132  151  1622  1728  2920^  Eccles.  7^  g^^.  See  be- 
low on  3I-10.  Cf.  Pirke  Aboth,  ii,  14,  "Be  not  easily  provoked," 
also  V,  17,  and  note  Mt.  522. 

The  interpretation  of  opyiQ  given  by  Bengel  (ut  nil  loquatur  contra 
deiim  nee  sinistre  de  deo),  followed  by  Gebser,  Calvin,  Spitta,  who 
take  the  anger  as  impatience  against  God,  has  little  to  commend  it. 
On  the  other  hand,  Beyschlag's  interpretation  of  Spy-fj  as  "passionate 
disposition  (leidcnschaftliche  Gemiilhsverfassung) "  of  every  kind,  show- 
ing itself  in  murmurings  against  God  and  in  fanaticism,  as  well  as  in 
quarrels,  goes  too  far.  The  writer  is  thinking  of  what  men  ordinarily 
know  as  anger,  against  whomsoever  directed.  Its  opposite  is  good 
temper  and  self-restraint. 

20.  ipydt^erai,  more  naturally  taken  to  mean  ''do,"  "practise," 
than  in  the  rarer  sense,  "effect,"  "produce,"  "bring  about," 
which  properly  belongs  to  Karepyd^ofxai  (cf.  v.  ^).  Hence 
SiKatocrvvTjv  is  to  be  taken  as  equivalent  to  ro  Sikuiov,  "right- 
eous action"  (cf.  2^  ajiapriav  ipyd^eade).  Cf.  Acts  lo^^,  Heb. 
1 1 33,  Ps.  152  ipya^ofievo^  StKacoavvrjv,  and  the  common  O.  T. 
phrase  Trotelv  rr)v  SiKaLoavvTjv,  e.  g.  Gen.  18".  The  opposite 
of  epyd^eaOai  SL/caioa-vvrjv  is  ipyd^eadat  d/xapriav,  2^.  Sikui- 
o(Tvvr]v  Oeoi)  then  means  "righteousness  which  God  approves" 


170  ,  JAMES 

(c/.  Mt.  6^^  4  Mace.  lo^"),  and  the  phrase  is  here  due  to  the 
contrast  with  0/37^  avBp6<;. 

The  whole  sentence  means:  "Wrath  doeth  not  righteous- 
ness," i.  e.  "Out  of  wrath  righteous  action  does  not  spring." 
It  is  doubtless  intended  as  a  warning  against  wrong  use  of  the 
doctrine  that  anger  is  sometimes  valuable  as  an  engine  of 
righteousness. 

Another  interpretation,  however,  gives  to  egy&'Qz'zxi  the  rarer  sense 
"effect,"  "produce"  (c/.  2  Cor.  7"),  and  refers  the  phrase  "produce 
righteousness"  to  the  effect  of  the  teacher's  anger  on  a  pupil,  cf.  Zahn, 
Einleitimg,  i,  §  4,  note  2. 

oux  ipyi^exoet]  BXAC^  minn. 
ou  yt.ai£gy6iX,exxi\  CKLP  minnp'". 
External  attestation,  possibility  of  conformation  to  i ',  and  transcrip- 
tional tendency  to  strengthen  the  verb  decide  for  epYa^^exat.     xaxsp- 
Ytil^eTat  may  have  been  intended  to  have  the  sense  "produce." 

21.  Sio,  "acting  on  this  principle."  An  exhortation  to  a 
meek  and  receptive  spirit.     The  emphatic  word  is  TrpavTTjjt, 

aTTode/xevoi,  "stripping  off."  For  the  same  collocation,  810 
aiToOefievot,  used  to  introduce  an  exhortation,  see  Eph.  4". 
Cf.  also  I  Pet.  21  aTToOefievoi,  with  Hort's  note,  Rom.  1312, 
Eph.  422  ff-,  Col.  35  ff-,  Clem.  Rom.  13,  Ps.-Clem.  Epistle  to 
James,  11. 

The  word  is  used  of  clothes,  but  also  of  the  removal  of  dirt  from  the 
body  {cf.  I  Pet.  3"  aapx.b<;  axoSsai?  puxou),  and  very  commonly  in 
Greek  writers  of  the  rejection  of  a  mental  or  moral  quality.  For 
quotations  from  early  Christian  writers,  see  Mayor^,  p.  66. 

pvirapiav,  "filthiness"  {cf.  2  2),  probably  carrying  out  the 
figure  of  clothes.  Evil  habits  and  propensities  in  general  seem 
to  be  meant. 

pwapiav  is  complete  in  itself  and  does  not  need  to  be  con- 
nected with  KaKiw^.  The  force  of  iracrav,  however,  probably 
continues  to  TrepiacreiaVj  which  would  otherwise  have  the  article. 

0  For  O.  T.  use  of  the  figure  of  dirty  clothes,  cf.  Zech.  3*.  Derivatives 
of  puxos  are  used  in  Philo  (c.  g.  De  mul.  nom.  21)  and  in  Greek  writers 
to  denote  moral  defilement  (see  references  in  Mayor). 


1,  20-2I  171 

Trepia-creiav  /caKia<;,  "excrescent  wickedness,"  ''superfluity  of 
naughtiness"  (A.V.),  cf.  Rom.  5^^  ttjv  irepiaaeiav  tyi^  x«^tTo?. 
KaKiwi  is  genitive  of  apposition,  and  the  phrase  calls  attention 
to  the  fact  that  wickedness  is  in  reality  an  excrescence  on  char- 
acter, not  a  normal  part  of  it.  Cf.  Philo,  De  somn.  ii,  g,  where 
he  uses  the  figure  of  pruning  off  sprouts,  KaOdirep  yap  rok 
SevBpea-Lv  i7rL(f)V0VTa(,  ^Xdarai  irepiaaai  ktX.  ;  De  sacr.  9  ra? 
irepi.Tra'i  (f)va€L<;  tov  rjye/xovLKOV^  a?  al  afxerpoL  TOiv  rraOoiv  ea- 
Treipdv  T€  Koi  avvrjv^rja-av  opfxal  Kol  6  KaKO<;  '^f^?}'?  yecopyb'i 
e(f)VTev(rev ^  dcfypoavvrj  ^  /Mra  o"7rouS?}?  airoKeipacrde  and  the  figure 
of  pruning  used  in  Jn.  15^. 

This  is  more  forcible  than  to  take  the  phrase  to  mean  merely  "abun- 
dance of  evil,"  i.  e.  "the  abounding  evil,"  "the  great  amount  of  evil," 
which  we  find  in  our  hearts,  cf.  2  Cor.  8=,  Lk.  6<».  Still  less  natural  is 
the  interpretation  of  some  who  make  xeptaaefa  equivalent  to  xepta- 
a£U[xa,  "remainder"  {cf.  Mk.  8'),  i-  e.  from  the  past  life.*  For  other 
unacceptable  interpretations,  see  Mayor  and  Beyschlag. 

The  fact  that  the  Aramaic  mjp  seems  to  be  used  to  mean  both  "be 
foul"  and  "be  abundant,"  as  well  as  "sin,"  is  probably  of  merely  curi- 
ous interest.  See  Buxtorf,  Lexicon,  cols.  1549-1550.  More  significant 
is  the  use  of  ^uxapt'oc  in  the  sense  of  sordid  meanness  by  Teles  (ed. 
Hense^,  pp.  t,t,,  37)  and  Plutarch,  De  adul.  el  ainico,  19. 

KaKia<i,  "naughtiness"  (A.V.),  "wickedness"  (R.V.).  This 
more  general  meaning  {cf.  pvirapiav)  is  better  here  than  the 
special  sense  of  "malice,"  which  is  not  rendered  appropriate  to 
the  context  even  by  0/377;,  and  is  not  the  natural  opposite  of 
irpavTq'i ;  cf.  Acts  8".  See,  however,  Lightfoot  on  Col.  3*, 
Trench,  Synonyms,  §  xi. 

ev  Trpavrrjri,  "meekness,"  "docility."  The  contrast  is  with 
opyi]  rather  than  KaKiwi.  Cf.  3".  Calvin :  significat  niodes- 
tiam  et  facilitatem  mentis  ad  discendum  compositae.  This  is  the 
centre  of  the  whole  disposition  recommended  in  vv.  ^^"-^.  Cf. 
Ecclus.  3^^  48  io2*  45^  (eV  TrpaiiTrjjL  in  each  case). 

Cf.  Lightfoot  on  Col.  3^^  Trench,  Synonyms,  §  xlii ;  Heisen, 
Novae  hypotheses,  p.  637,  gives  some  good  Greek  definitions  of 
meekness. 

*  The  emendator  whose  hand  appears  so  often  in  A  33  seems  to  have  substituted  nepuacreviia 
in  his  text  (so  A  33  442). 


172  JAMES 

he^acrOe,  Jer.  g^,  Prov.  i'  2^  41",  Ecclus.  5I^^ 
This  seems  to  refer  (like  hi^acrOai  eh  jrjv  Kaphiav  (tov  in 
Deut.  30^),  not  to  the  mere  initial  acceptance  of  the  gospel, 
preached  and  heard,  but  (cf.  €iJb(f)VTov)  to  attention  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  God's  will,  cf.  Mt.  ii^S  i  Cor.  2^'.  The  Christian's 
ideal  should  not  be  much  talking  (which  leads  to  angry  strife) 
but  meek  and  docile  listening  to  the  voice  of  God.  There  lies 
the  way  to  salvation. 

TOV  €/i(f)VTOv  Xoyov.  efi(f)VTO<;,  from  efi^veiv,  "implant,"  may 
mean  "implanted"  (R.V.),  "innate"  (Wisd.  12"),  "intrinsic," 
"deep-rooted." 

t7  eixtpuToc;  often  means  the  "natural" — in  contrast  to  the  "taught" 
(Plato,  Eryx,  398  C  StSax-ubv  -f)  dpsx-f)  'q  ^piyuTov),  to  the  "extraneous" 
(Herod,  ix,  94  spLtpu-cov  [xavTtx'fiv  eixe,  i.  e.  "as  a  power  arising  within 
himself"),  or  to  the  "acquired"  (Justin  Martyr,  Apol.  ii,  8  Sta  to 
l;jL(puTov  Tcavxl   ylvet  avSpwxwv  axIpfAa  toQ   Xoyou) ;    it  also  means  the 

•3    "deep-rooted,"  in  contrast  to  the  "superficial"  (Polyb.  ii,  45  Sta  tt)v 

!     e'tigjuTov  dStxfav  xal  TuXeove^fav  96ovT)aavTs?).     But,  since  the  "  implanted  " 

or  "inherent"  is  not  necessarily  innate,  ejAepuTo?  can  be  used  of  that 

which  has  been  in  fact  bestowed,  provided  it  is  thought  of  as  deeply 

rooted  within  the  man. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  rendering  "engrafted"  (A.V.),  which  has  been 
recommended  to  many  by  the  connection  with  Si^aaOe,  is  unsuitable 
because  it  directly  expresses  the  idea  of  "foreign,"  "applied  from  with- 
out," "not  a  natural  growth,"  a  meaning  for  which  a  derivative  of 
IfjLipuTeuecv,  "engraft,"  would  be  required. 

In  the  present  context  the  sense  "innate"  is  made  inappro- 
priate by  Be^acrde,  by  tov  8vvd/x€vov  kt\.,  and  by  the  absence 
of  any  special  indication  of  this  meaning.  e/x(f)VTo<;  seems  to 
be  used  here  to  describe  the  "word"  as  one  which  has  entered 
into  union  with  the  nature  and  heart  of  man,  "the  word  deeply 
rooted  within  you."  The  attribute  adds  a  certain  solemnity 
and  intensity  to  the  appeal. 

Cf.  Ep.  Barnab.  i-  outoj?  €/x<jiVTOv  rr}?  Scopea^  7rv€VfiaTtKr]<i 
Xf^pt'V  €lX^(f)aT€,  "I  rejoice  ...  at  your  blessed  and  glorious 
spirits ;  so  deeply  rooted  within  is  the  grace  of  the  spiritual 
gift  that  ye  have  received,"  9^  olSev  6  ttjv  €iJL(f>VTOv  Scopeav 
T^9  SiaOijKrj'i  avTov  d€fi€VO<;  iv  rjfuv^  Pseudo-Ign.  Eph.  17  ^i-a,  tl 


I,   21  173 

€fi(f)VTOv  TO  irepl  Oeov  irapa  X.pi(7T0v  Xa/SoWc?  KpiT'qpiov  et? 
dyvoiav  KaraTTLTTTOfxev. 

The  €fjL(f)vro<;  X070?  itself  is  called  in  v.  "  vofxo'i  reXeco'i,  and 
in  vv.  ^^  '•  is  described  as  something  to  be  done.  It  seems  to 
mean  the  sum  of  present  knowledge  of  God's  will.  It  is  in- 
wrought into  a  man's  nature  and  speaks  from  within,  but  this 
does  not  exclude  that  it  should  also  exist  for  man's  use  in  written 
or  traditional  form,  whether  in  the  law  of  Moses  or  in  the  pre- 
cepts of  Jesus.  In  v.  ^^,  as  was  natural  for  a  Jew,  the  writer 
seems  to  have  turned  in  his  thought  to  the  external  expression 
in  the  law. 

Cf.  4  Ezra  9^1,  "  For,  behold,  I  sow  my  law  in  you,  and  it  shall  s/ 
bring  forth  fruit  in  you,  and  ye  shall  be  glorified  in  it  for  ever"  ; 
4  Ezra  8^,  Deut.  30"-!^  (v.  ^*,  "But  the  word  is  very  nigh  unto  v' 
thee,  in  thy  mouth  and  in  thy  heart,  that  thou  may  est  do  it"). 

There  is  probably  no  allusion  to  the  parable  of  the  sower;  yet  cf. 
Mk.  420,  Lk.  813.  "^ 

The  interpretation  here  given  is  substantially  the  one  most  common 
in  modern  commentaries.  Similarly  "CEcumenius"  takes  the  whole 
phrase  as  referring  to  conscience,  ejicpuTov  Xofov  xaXel  tov  Staxptxtxbv  toO 
^eXxt'ovoq  xal  toG  x£tp°'^°?)  ^'^^'  o  ^"^^  Xoycxol  eajxlv  %a\  xaXoutieGa. 

Hort's  note  gives  valuable  material,  and  Heisen,  Novae  hypotheses, 
pp.  640-699,  has  collected  a  great  number  of  more  or  less  apposite  quo- 
tations, and  fully  presented  the  older  history  of  the  exegesis.  Calvin, 
De  Wette,  and  others  take  sfxcpuxov  as  proleptic,  "Receive  the  word 
and  let  it  become  firmly  planted"  (Calvin  :  ita  siiscipile  ut  vere  insera- 
tur) ;  but  the  attributive  position  seems  hardly  to  admit  this. 

The  ancient  versions  translate  as  follows : 
Bohairic,  "newly  implanted." 
Syriac,  Peshitto,  "received  in  our  nature." 
Latin, 

Cod.  Corb.  (£f)  geniliim. 

Cod.  Bob.  (s)  insitum. 

Vulgate  insitum. 

The  Latin  insitiis  means  "implanted"  or  "engrafted"  or  "innate"; 
see  the  instructive  examples  from  Cicero  and  other  writers  in  Harpers' 
Latin  Dictionary. 
The  history  of  the  English  translation  has  been  as  follows : 

Wiclif,  1380,  "  insent  or  joyned  ";  1388,  "that  is  planted." 
Tyndale,  1526,  "that  is  grafted  in  you." 


174  JAMES 

Great  Bible,  1539,  "that  isgraffed  in  you." 

Geneva,  1557,  "that  is  grafted  in  you." 

Rheims,  1582,  "engrafted." 

A.V.  161 1,  "engrafted." 

R.V.  1881,  "implanted,"  mg.  "inborn," 

(TcocraL.  Cf.  2^*  4^2  5^'',  Rom.  i^^  ov  jap  eiraia-'x^vvofjiai  ro 
evajyeXiov,   SvvafjLt^  yap   deov  iarXv  et?   acoTrjpiav^  Acts  20^'-. 

ra?  ypv')(a<i  v/jlmv.  Cf.  5'",  i  Pet.  i'  crwrrjpiav  \pv)(^cov,  Heb. 
10^^  et?  irepLiroirjcnv  \f/v^7]^j  Ep.  Barnab.  19^"  ixeXerSiv  ek  to 
aSyaac  j/'u^^t'  tw  \6ya>. 

Evidently,  when  this  was  written,  not  merely  the  idea  of  salvation 
but  the  phrase  "salvation  of  the  soul"  was  fully  current. 

22-25.   But  hearing  only,  without  doing,  is  valueless. 

Cf.  2i'*-26,  "Faith  without  works  is  valueless"  ;  31^,  "Wisdom 
which  does  not  issue  in  peace  is  of  the  earth." 

22.  yiveade.  yiveaOat  serves  in  many  cases  as  a  kind  of 
aorist  of  elvai.  Hence  the  imperative  yCvecrde  is  used  like  an 
aorist  imperative  to  convey  a  "pungent"  exhortation  to  "be," 
not  merely  to  "become."  ecrre  as  imperative  is  not  found  in  the 
N.  T.  Cf.  Jas.  3S  Mt.  6^^  24^^,  i  Cor.  142°,  Eph.  521.  There 
is  no  need  of  the  elaborate  translation  "show  yourselves"  or 
"prove  yourselves"  {cf.  Lex.  s.  v.  yCvofiai^  5.  a),  nor  of  any 
other  of  the  subtleties  which  the  commentators  offer.  See 
Blass-Debrunner,  §§  335-337. 

That  hearing  the  commands  of  a  law,  or  a  teacher,  must  be  followed 

by  doing  them  is  an  obvious  precept  of  ethics,  often  overlooked  in 

practise  in  all  ages.     Cf.  Ezek.  33'^,  Mt.  y^*  icaq  ouv  oaxt?  dxouei  \xou 

»  /    Touq  Xdyou?  TOUTOut;  xal  Tcotel  auTou?,  oiiocwO-^aexat  dvSpl  9povqx(p,  7-'"-^ 

Lk.  8"  ii28  12". 

The  antithesis  of  hearing  and  doing  is  frequently  found  in  the  Tal- 
^  !  mud.  Cf.  Pirke  Aboth,  i,  16;  i,  iS,  R.  Simeon  b.  GamaUel  I.:  "All 
'  my  days  I  have  grown  up  amongst  the  wise,  and  have  not  found  aught 
good  for  a  man  but  silence ;  not  learning  but  doing  is  the  groundwork ; 
and  whoso  multiplies  words  occasions  sin,"  iii,  14,  R.  Chananiah  b. 
Dosa:  "Whosesoever  works  are  in  excess  of  his  widsom,  his  wisdom 
stands ;  and  whosesoever  wisdom  is  in  excess  of  his  works,  his  wisdom 
stands  not,"  iii,  27,  v,  20  ;  also  Sifre  on  Deut.  11",  quoted  in  Taylor, 
SIF"^,  p.  50,  note  23 ;   T.  B.  Shabbath  88  a,  quoted  in  Mayor,  p.  69, 


h  21-23  17s 

note  I.  Cf.  also  Philo,  De  pram,  et  poenis,  14  raq  ee{a<;  xapaiveaeti; 
.  .  .  [Ji9j  xsvaq  xal  £pT)[jiou?  (ztcoXcxsIv  twv  oixstwv  xptiqscov,  dXXd  TCXiQpwaott 
Touq  XoyoLiq  epyo'?  £TCatv£Tot<;,  De  congr.  erud.  grat.  9,  and  passages  given 
by  Elbogen,  Religionsanschauimgen  der  Pharisder,  1904,  pp.  41  /. 

Cf.  Seneca,  Ep.  108.  35  sic  ista  ediscamus  tit  quae  fuerint  verba  shit      yy 
opera. 

'TToiTjTal  \6yov,  "doers  of  the  word." 

This  sense,  "carry  out  what  is  commanded,"  forxotelv  and  its  deriva- 
tives ■rcoiT)TT)<;  and  %oirj<nq,  is  a  Hebraism  (cf.  nir'jj)  and  peculiar  to 
Biblical  Greek.  See  Lex.  s.  v.  xotslv,  and  cf.  i  Mace.  2"  ttouc;  "Koi-qzaq 
ToO  vojiou.     In  classical  Greek  TcocTiT-f)!;  toG  vdfxou  means  vo[jio6^TT)q. 

aKpoarai.  Found  three  times  in  James  (i-.  23,  25) .  elsewhere 
in  N.  T.  only  Rom.  2^^,  ov  yap  ol  aKpoarai  vofiov  hUaiOL  irapa 
ra>  dew  aXX  ol  irotr^ral  BLKaiooO^aovrac.  The  close  resem- 
blance here  is  an  excellent  illustration  of  the  common  relation 
of  both  Paul  and  James  to  Jewish  moral  thought  and  precept. 

aKpoarai   naturally  suggests  hearing  the  public  reading  of    ^ 
the  Scriptures  in  Jewish  or  Christian  worship,  cf.  Rev.  i^  01 
aKovovre^    rov^  Xoyovi   ri]<i  7rpo(l}r]reta<i  Kal  rrjpovvre'i  ra  iv 
avrj}  yeypa/jLfjLeva. 

[lovov  dtxpoocxat]  B  minn  ff  vg  with  other  versions  read  ixpoaral  [jiovov. 
The  decision  as  to  which  reading  is  the  emendation  must  rest  wholly 
on  the  weight  assigned  to  B  ff.  That  a  few  minuscules  omit  [xovov  is 
not  significant. 

irapaXoyi^ofievoL  iavroik,  "deceiving  yourselves"  by  the 
notion  that  hearing  is  sufficient.  Cf.  v.  ^6,  Gal.  6^  Mt.  721-23, 
Rom.  2^^-25.  eavrovfi  for  v/ieZ?  avrov^,  cf.  J.  H.  Moulton, 
Prolegomena,  p.  87. 

23.  on,  "because,"  introduces,  as  a  kind  of  argument,  a 
brief  illustrative  parable. 

ov  is  the  appropriate  negative,  because  ov  TroiT/r?;?,  as  a 
single  idea,  is  opposed  to  aKpoar7]<i. 

ovro^;^  cf.  vv.  '^'■'-  -°  (rovrov),  32. 

eoLKev.     Only  here  and  i^  in  O.  T.  or  N.  T. 

avhpl^  cf.  V.  «. 

KaravoovvrL,  "look  at,"  with  no  thought  of  a  hasty  or  any 
other  special  kind  of  glance ;  so  KarevorjaeVj  y.  ^*. 


k/ 


176  JAMES 

TO  TrpoacoTTov  Tt}<?  y€V€a-€(o<;  avrov,  "the  face  that  nature  gave 
him,"  seen  in  a  mirror,  is  here  used  as  a  comparison  for  the 
ideal  face,  or  character,  which  a  man  sees  set  forth  in  the  law. 
As  one  may  forget  the  former  and  have  no  lasting  benefit  from 
seeing  it,  so  the  mere  aKpoarrj^  has  no  profit  from  the  latter. 
T^9  ryeveaeco^  is  emphatic,  to  mark  the  distinction  of  the  two 
kinds  of  "faces." 

y€V€(T€ay>,  gen.  of  attribute,  or  perhaps  of  source. 

7eWo-i9  is  here  used,  as  in  3^,  in  the  sense  of  "Nature,"  much 
as  in  modern  usage,  to  mean  the  created  world  (including  man) 
as  distinguished  from  God,  and  with  a  suggestion  of  its  character 
as  seen  and  temporal.  So  Plato,  Res  p.  viii,  p.  525  B;  Plut.  De 
gen.  Socr.  24,  p.  593  D;  Philolaus  ap.  Stob.  Ed.  i,  c.  22  (ed. 
Wachsmuth,  p.  197);  and  especially  Philo  in  many  passages, 
e.  g.  De  post.  Cain.  9  6eov  jxev  'iStov  r/pe/xia  koX  (rrdai<;^  yevecreco'; 
8e  fierd^aa-i'i  re  koL  fxera^ariKr]  irdaa  Kivrjaui.  For  abundant 
references  to  Philo,  see  Mayor*,  pp.  117/.  The  Romans  trans- 
lated by  rerum  nakira. 

More  congenial  to  the  Jewish  point  of  view,  and  hence  more  com- 
mon in  the  O.  T.,  is  /,Ttac<;,  "creation,"  which  is  often  used  collectively 
in  the  later  books  {e.  g.  Ps.  104=*,  Judith  161^  Wisd.  i62\  Ecclus.  49'*, 
3  Mace.  2''  '),  in  much  the  same  sense  as  ylvsat?  in  Philo. 

Beyschlag  states  strongly  certain  difficulties  of  the  usual  interpreta- 
tion of  Tb  xp6a(i>icov  "zriz  Ysveaeo)?,  but  fails  to  discover  an  acceptable 
substitute  for  the  meaning  given  above.  The  meaning  "birth"  {cf.  e.  g. 
Gen.  32 3  z\z  Ti)v  Y^v  t^?  -^zyiiszijiq  aou)  is  hardly  adequate,  since  a  man 
sees  in  the  glass  not  merely  the  gift  of  birth  but  also  the  acquisitions  of 
experience. 

ecToirrpcp.  The  ancients,  like  the  modern  Japanese,  had  pol- 
ished metal  mirrors  of  silver,  copper,  or  tin.  Cf.  EB,  "  Mirrors," 
ZrD5,  "Mirror." 

The  figure  of  a  mirror  is  frequently  used  by  Greek  ethical  writers 
(see  references  in  Mayor,  pp.  71/.),  but  otherwise  than  here,  with  ref- 
erence to  the  reflection  of  the  actual,  not  of  the  ideal,  man.  Philo, 
De  vita  content  pi.  10,  compares  the  law  (•?)  vofAoSsata)  to  a  mirror  for  the 
rational  soul  (t)  Xoytx-f)  i}"JX"n))  iri  a  manner  which  recalls  James's  figure. 

24.  Karevorjaev ^  eirekadero.  Probably  gnomic  aorist,  which 
is  intrinsically   a  form  of  popular  expression,  not  a  literary 


1,  23-25  177 

nicety.    Cf.  Buttmann  (transl.  Thayer),  p.  201,  and  see  i"  and 
note.      For  iireKddeTO^  cf.  Hermas,  Vis.  iii,  13-. 

aireXrfKvOev,  perfect,  because  of  reference  to  a  lasting  state 
("is  off,"  "is  gone"),  not  merely,  like  the  other  verbs,  to  a 
momentary  act.     See  J.  H.  Moulton,  Prolegomena,  p.  144. 

For  similar  alternation  of  gnomic  perfect  and  aorist,  see  Plato,  Protag. 
328  B.  But  cf.  Buttmann  (transl.  Thayer),  p.  197,  where  any  "subtile 
distinction"  is  denied. 

25.  7rapaKv\l/a<ij  "look  in."  This  compound  has  lost  all  trace 
of  any  sense  of  "sideways"  {Trapa-)^  or  of  stooping  {KVTrra))  to 
look,  cf.  Jn.  20^'  1^,  I  Pet.  i^-,  Ecclus.  14^^  21^.  The  figure 
is  of  looking  ("peeping,"  "glancing")  into  a  mirror,  and  is  here 
brought  over  in  a  metaphor  from  the  simile  of  v.  -^  See  F. 
Field,  Oiium  norvicense,  iii^,  p.  80  (on  Lk.  24^2),  pp.  235/.  (on 
Jas.  i^^) ;   cf.  iyKVTTTcOj  Clem.  Rom.  40^,  with  Lightfoot's  note. 

The  word  often  implies  "a  rapid,  hasty,  and  cursory  glance,"  see  the 
good  examples  quoted  by  Hort ;  but  that  shade  of  meaning  seems  here 
excluded  by  the  latter  half  of  the  verse. 

voixov  reXeiov  top  t?}?  eXev^epia?,  shown  by  the  context  to 
be  the  same  as  rov  €fi,(l)VTOv  Xoyov  of  v.  ^^ ;  cf.  2^'-  v6/jlov  iXev- 
depia'=i. 

The  omission  of  the  article  is  frequent  with  t'o/Lto?  {cf.  2^'  1^, 
and  see  Sanday's  note  on  Rom.  2^"^) ;  but  this  explanation  is 
here  unnecessary,  since  the  term  is  further  defined  by  an  attrib- 
utive expression  with  the  article,  cf.  Gal.  3'"^ ;  see  Blass-Debrun- 
ner,  §  270;  Winer,  §  20.  4;  J.  H.  Moulton,  Prolegomena,  p.  74; 
L.  Radermacher,  N eutestamcntUche  Grammatik,  191 1,  pp.  19,  89. 

reXeLOVj  cf.  i^',  Rom.  12-  to  OeXrjfMa  rov  Oeov^  to  ayaOov  koX 

eudpearov  koX  reXeiov.     The  epithet  is  not  in  distinction  from 

some  other,  imperfect,  law,  but  means  simply  (Spitta)  such  a 

law  that  a  better  one  is  inconceivable  (cf.  Pss.  19  and  119),  "the 

ideal  perfection  which  is  the  goal  of  life"   (Sanday).     Philo, 

De  vita  Mos.  ii,  3,  ]M.  p.  136  ol  vofjioi  KaWunoi  kol  m  a\r}6ci)<i 

OeloL  jxrjhev  a>v  'xpr]  'jrapakiirovre'i.     The  perfection  of  the  law 

in  question  is  made  plain  by  the  further  description  of  it  as 

"  the  law  of  freedom." 
12 


lyS  JAMES 

rov  TYj^  iX€v6epca<i,  "the  law  characterised  by  freedom." 
This  expression  means  "the  law  in  the  observance  of  which 
a  man  feels  himself  free."     It  could  have  been  used  of  the 
Mosaic  law  by  a  devout  and  enthusiastic  Jew ;  cf.  Deut.  28^^, 
Ps.  I-  19^-11  408  546  11932,  45.  97^ 

Cf.  Pirke  Aboth,  iii,  8,  R.  Nechonyiah  b.  ha-Kanah  (c.  80 
A.D.) :  "Whoso  receives  upon  him  the  yoke  of  Torah,  they  re- 
move from  him  the  yoke  of  royalty  and  the  yoke  of  worldly 
care"  ;  vi,  2,  R.  Jehoshua  b.  Levi  (c.  240  a.d.)  :  "Thou  wilt  find 
no  freeman  but  him  who  is  occupied  in  learning  of  Torah," 
with  Taylor's  notes  on  both  passages ;  see  the  glorification  of 
the  law  of  Moses  in  contrast  to  other  laws  which  were  imposed, 
ft)?  ovK  €\€vdepoL<i  aWa  Bov\oi<;j  in  Philo,  De  vita  Mos.  ii,  9. 
These  references  show  that  there  is  no  ground  for  the  common 
affirmation  that  this  phrase  implies  a  sublimated,  spiritualised 
view  of  the  Jewish  law,  which,  it  is  said,  would  have  been  im- 
possible for  a  faithful  Jew,  cf.  Jiilicher,  Einleitung^-  ^,  p.  190. 
It  is  also  evident  that  the  words  reXeiov  and  rr}<;  eXef^e/Jia? 
are  not  introduced  in  order  thereby  to  mark  the  law  which 
James  has  in  mind  as  distinguished  from,  and  superior  to,  the 
Jewish  law. 

In  the  passages  of  Irenaeus  where  lex  lihertatis  and  similar  phrases 
occur  {cf.  Iren.  iv,  13^  343.  4  371  393)  there  is  emphasis  on  the  original 
divine  gift  of  human  freedom,  with  which  the  law  stands  in  no  conflict, 
but  which  it  rather  confirms.  It  is  not  possible  to  apply  these  passages 
directly  to  the  interpretation  of  James. 

To  a  Christian  "the  perfect  law  of  liberty"  would  include 
both  the  O.  T.  (parts  of  it  perhaps  being  spiritually  interpreted, 
cf.  Mt.  s^^-"*,  I  Cor.  921,  Rom.  2>"  8^  Ep.  Barnab.  10)  and  the 
precepts  and  truths  of  the  Gospel ;  cf.  2*-^^,  where  the  ten  com- 
mandments and  the  commandment  of  love  are  all  expHcitly 
said  to  be  a  part  of  the  law.  The  use  of  the  phrase  by  a  Chris- 
tian implies  that  he  conceived  Christianity  as  a  law,  including 
and  fulfilling  (Mt.  5^^)  the  old  one.  This  is  not  inconsistent 
with  an  early  date,  for  even  Paul  cannot  avoid  sometimes  (i  Cor. 
9^1,  Rom.  3^^,  Gal.  6^)  referring  to  the  new  system  as  a  law. 
Cf.  Jn.  13^*,  I  Jn.  2^  ^-j  I  Tim.  i^  deXovre^  elvai  vofjLoSLSdaKoXoL 


h  25  179 

(used  of  persons  who  present  themselves  as  Christian  teachers). 
See  Introduction,  supra,  pp.  37/. 

The  use  of  the  term  "law"  in  this  inclusive  sense  is  plainly 
of  Jewish  origin  and  illustrates  the  direct  Jewish  lineage  of 
Christianity.  But  the  tendency  to  conceive  Christianity  as 
essentially  a  system  of  morals  (a  "new  law")  was  not  specifi- 
cally Jewish.  It  seems  to  have  been  present  from  primitive 
times  in  the  common  Gentile  Christianity.  "The  Pauline  con- 
ception of  the  Law  never  came  to  prevail,  and  Christendom  at 
large  did  not  know  how,  nor  dare,  to  apply  criticism  to  the  O.  T. 
religion,  which  is  Law.  (Without  criticising  the  form  they  spir- 
itualized the  contents.)  Consequently  the  formula  that  Chris- 
tianity consists  of  Promise  plus  Spiritual  Law  is  to  be  regarded 
as  of  extreme  antiquity  {uralt)^'  (Harnack,  Lehrbuch  der  Dog- 
mengeschichte,  i^,  p.  250;  i^,  p.  317). 

Being  the  product  of  a  permanent  trait  of  human  nature,  to 
be  seen  in  all  ages,  this  moralism  was  not  confined  to  any  lim- 
ited locality  or  single  line  of  tradition  in  early  Christianity. 
The  doctrine  of  Christianity  as  law  is  emphasised  in  the  Shep- 
herd of  Hermas,  cf.  Vis.  i,  3'',  Sim.  v,  5^  6^,  viii,  3-  with  Har- 
nack's  note.  See  also  Barn.  2^  (0  Kaivo<}  v6/jlo<;  rov  tcvpiov  'qjxoiv 
'It^o-oO  'KpiaTOv^  avev  ^vjov  avdyKT]';  wy),  with  Harnack's  note 
and  the  references  contained  in  it.  In  Justin  Martyr  (e.  g. 
Apol.  43)  and  the  other  apologists  the  idea  is  of  frequent  oc- 
currence, and  it  was  probably  a  part  of  the  primitive  theology 
of  Asia  Minor  in  which  the  more  developed  system  of  Irenaeus 
had  its  roots.  With  Irenaeus  and  his  contemporaries  the  "new 
law"  took  an  important  place.  See  Ritschl,  Die  Entstehung 
der  altkatholischen  Kirche"^,  1850,  pp.  312-335  (with  abundant 
citations),  Harnack,  Lehrbuch  der  Dogmengeschichte*,  i,  pp. 
316/.  note  I,  pp.  548/.  §  3  ;  Loofs,  Leitfaden  zum  Studiiim  der 
Dogmengeschichte*,  §  21.  4. 

The  familiar  Stoic  idea  expressed  in  the  maxims  oxt  (idvo?  6  aoqsb? 
eXsuOspo?  y.al  %xq  a'tppwv  8ou>.o<;,  deo  parere  libcrlas  est  (Seneca,  De  mt. 
heat.  15)  is  expanded  in  Philo's  tract  about  slavery  and  freedom,  Quod 
oninis  prohiis  liber,  for  instance,  7  rap'  oU  [jlIv  av  opyr)  ri  sxtOLi[jLca  ij 
Tt  otXXo   TuaOo?  1^  xal  sxt'^ouXoi;  xaxia   Syvaaxsus:,   Tcavxws   zh\   SouXot, 


l8o  JAMES 

oaot  5e  (lexa  v6[iou  i^ujtv,  sXeiOepot.  The  combination  of  these  ideas 
with  the  Jewish  enthusiasm  for  the  law  is  to  be  seen  in  4  Macc.,c.  g. 
^22-26  J42  J)  ^aatXsus  XoYtd^jLot  ^ajtXtxwxepot  xa'.  iXeuOepwv  sXeuOcpcoTspo:. 
A  tacit  claim  that  the  Greek  philosopher's  ideal  of  freedom  charac- 
terises the  Jewish  and  Christian  law  may  possibly  underlie  the  lan- 
guage of  James,  whether  or  not  such  is  to  be  traced  in  the  rabbinical 
sayings  quoted  above. 

Other  interpretations  given  for  the  phrase  are : 

(i)  "Natural  law  in  the  soul,"  "the  hght  of  nature."  But  nothing 
suggests  this. 

(2)  That  law  which  by  the  new  covenant  has  become  implanted  in 
the  souls  of  men,  written  in  their  hearts  (Jer.  31''-^-),  so  that  the  fulfil- 
ment of  it  springs  from  inner  spontaneous  impulse,  not  from  enforced 
conformity  to  externally  imposed  precepts;  in  a  word,  the  gospel  on 
that  side  on  which  it  is  a  rule  of  conduct  (so  Beyschlag). 

The  chief  difference  of  this  view  from  the  one  adopted  above  is  that 
the  latter  takes  the  "law  of  liberty"  in  the  sense  of  Christianity  con- 
ceived as  law,  while  Beyschlag  takes  it  of  that  element  in  Christianity 
which  is  law.  The  real  difference  is  not  great.  Beyschlag's  main  in- 
terest here  is  to  show  that  the  phrase  does  not  imply  the  legalistic  con- 
ception of  Christianity  of  the  Old  Catholic  period,  and  in  this  he  is 
probably  right. 

(3)  The  Christian  law  in  distinction  from  the  Jewish,  because  it 
consists  of  positive  and  not  of  negative  precepts.     On  this,  see  supra. 

Pliilo  enforces  the  same  thought  with  a  different  figure,  Dc 
sacr.  Abel,  et  Cain.  25,  "After  ha\ing  touched  knowledge,  not 
to  abide  in  it  (/^^  eTrifielvai)  is  like  tasting  meat  and  drink  and 
then  being  prevented  from  satisfying  one's  hunger." 

epyov,  the  addition  of  epyov  to  TrotT/r?;?  gives  a  certain  em- 
phasis, "a  doer  who  does." 
^       lxaKdpio<i,  cf.  V.  12.     See  Jn.  13I",  Lk.  12^^  Seneca,  Ep.  75,  7 
^   non  est  bcafus  qui  scit  ilia  sed  qui  facit. 

Trj  TTOLijcret  avrov  probably  means  collectively  the  man's  whole 
conduct  (Hebrew  "w'*>'r))  (^f-  Dan.  9^^  (Th.),  but  not  without 
allusion  to  the  preceding  iroiriTrj'^ -^  "he  will  be  worthy  of  con- 
gratulation in  these  deeds  of  liis." 

[i-axapto?  does  not  mean  "prosperous"  (Huther,  Beyschlag,  and  oth- 
ers), but  is  the  opposite  of  "blameworthy." 

26-27.  Careful  attention  to  worship  is  no  substitute  for  self- 
restraint,  purity  of  life,  and  good  works. 


I 


I,  25-26  181 

The  connection  with  the  preceding  is  here  made  in  two  ways : 
(i)  by  the  advance  from  the  more  general  precept  of  reaUty, 
*'not  hearing  but  doing,"  to  the  more  specific,  ''not  mere  wor- 
ship but  doing  good";  (2)  by  the  reference  in  v.  ^s  to  the  sin 
of  uncontrolled  speech  {cf.  v.  "). 

26.  hoKel,  "tliinketh,"  i.  e.  "seemeth  to  himself."  Cf.  v.  i^ 
fir]8eU  Xejerco ;  and,  for  the  same  use  of  SoKelv,  Gal.  6^  i  Cor. 
iQi^  Jn.  s''- 

OprjaKOf;. 

This  adjective  is  not  found  elsewhere  excepting  in  lexicons, 
but  derivatives  are  common,  notably  OprjCKeCa  (w.  ^^^  "), 
which  means  "religious  worship,  especially,  but  not  exclusively, 
external,  that  which  consists  in  ceremonies"  {Lex.).  OprjaKo^ 
means  "given  to  religious  observances."  The  Greek  words  have 
somewhat  the  same  considerable  range  of  meaning  as  the  Eng- 
lish word  "  worship,"  with  reference  to  the  inner  and  the  external 
aspects  of  religious  worship.  Mayor  quotes  a  useful  series  of 
passages  from  Christian  writers ;  see  Trench,  Synonyms,  §  xlviii ; 
E.  Hatch,  Essays  in  Biblical  Greek,  pp.  55-57;  and  Lex.  In  the 
present  verse  dpr]aK6<;  doubtless  refers  to  attendance  on  the 
exercises  of  public  worship,  but  also  to  other  observances  of  re- 
ligion, such  as  almsgiving,  prayer,  fasting  {cf.  Mt.  6^"l^  2  Clem. 
Rom.  16^).  The  passage  impHes  that  a  large  and  recognised 
field  of  religious  observance  was  naturally  and  ob\'iously  open 
to  the  persons  whom  James  has  in  mind. 

For  both  thought  and  language,  cj.  Philo,  Quod  del.  pot.  insid.  7 : 
"Nor  if  anyone  in  his  abundant  wealth  builds  a  temple  with  splendid 
contributions  and  expenditures,  or  offers  hecatombs  and  never  ceases 
sacrificing  oxen,  or  adorns  the  temple  with  costly  offerings,  bringing 
timber  without  stint  and  workmanship  more  precious  than  any  silver 
and  gold,  shall  he  be  reckoned  with  the  pious  ([xst'  eOae^uv  avaYeTps'?^")  > 
for  he  also  has  erred  from  the  path  of  piety,  accounting  worship  a  sub- 
stitute for  sanctity  (6pT)5X£'!av  ccvtI  oatoTr^To?  fjyoJiJLEvoi;)." 

The  English  words  "religion,"  "religious,"  used  here  and  in  v.  ", 
for  OpTjaxsia,  Opijaxd?,  are  to  be  understood  in  the  external  sense  of 
"worship,"  "religious  rite,"  etc.,  in  which  formerly  they  were  more 
used  than  at  present.  Cf.  Milton:  "With  gay  religions  full  of  pomps 
and  gold"  {Paradise  Lost,  i,  372)  ;  Shakespeare  :  "Old  rehgious  man," 
i.  e.  religieiix,  "belonging  to  a  religious  order"  {As  You  Like  It,  v,  4, 166). 


l82  JAMES 

'i  \  As  used  at  the  present  day,"  religion  "  conveys  the  meaning  of  6pY]ffx.E{a 
I  well  enough  in  v.  ^^,  but  is  inadequate  in  v.  ",  where  the  Greek  word 
'   means  specifically  "worship."     See  HDB,  "Religion." 

fir)  ;i^aXtya7ft)7wy  yXcocraav,  cf.  v.  "  and  31-^^.  For  the  meta- 
phor, cf.  Lucian,  Tyramiicida,  4  xa?  rcov  rjSovMV  ope^ei'^  %ctA,i- 
vaywyova-Tji; -^  De  saltat.  70;  Philo,  De  mut.  nom.  41,  De  agric. 
15  /.,  Quod  det.  pot.  insid.  8;  Plut.  De  sol.  anim.  10,  p.  967; 
Hermas,  Mand.  xii,  i;  and  the  phrase  a')(^d\ivov  arofia  in 
Aristoph.  Ran.  862  ;  Eurip.  Bacchae,  386 ;  Philo,  De  vita  Mosis, 
iii,  25. 

There  is  no  good  reason  for  Hmiting  either  the  unbridled 
speech  here  referred  to  or  the  6/0777  of  vv.  ^^f-  to  extravagant 
and  intemperate  utterance  in  preaching  and  teaching  {cf.  3 2) ; 
the  precepts  are  of  general  appHcabihty. 

airaTOiv  KaphCav  iavTOv.  Cf.  Test.  XII  Patr.  Nephth.  3  fir] 
ovv  (TTrovSa^ere  .  .  .  iv  Xoyoi';  /cevoU  arrarav  Ta<i  \f/v')(a<i  v/jlmv 
OTL  aicoTTCovre^  (v.  I.  cr/coTroit'Te?)  iv  KaOapo^rjn  KapSia<;  crvvr']- 
<7€T6  TO  deXrj/jLa  rod  deoii  Kparelv;  and  on  the  use  of  Kaphia, 
cf.  s\  Acts  14!^ 

fidraio^,  from  fiaTrjv,  "in  vain,"  "failing  of  its  essential  pur- 
^  pose."  His  very  dprjaKeia,  in  itself  good,  becomes  useless,  be- 
cause spoiled  by  this  fault  of  character.     Cf.  v.  2°,  and  veKpd, 

^  ^  The  fact  fhat  fiaTaio^  in  the  0.  T.  is  specially  used  of  idols 
and  idol-worship  (e.  g.  Jer.  2^  10^,  cf.  Acts  14^^,  i  Pet.  i^^)  adds 
point  to  this  sentence.    Cf.  Spitta,  p.  57,  notes  2  and  3. 

27.   9p7]aK€ca. 

This  is  not  a  definition  of  religion,  but  a  statement  (by  an 
oxymoron)  of  what  is  better  than  external  acts  of  worship. 
James  had  no  idea  of  reducing  religion  to  a  negative  purity  of 
conduct  supplemented  by  charity-visiting. 

Cf.  Coleridge,  Aids  to  Reflection,  Introductory  Aphorisms 
XXIII  (and  Note  [8]):  "Morality  itself  is  the  service  and  cere- 
monial (cultus  exterior,  dprjaKeia)  of  the  Christian  religion." 

The  thought  is  the  same  as  that  of  the  prophets,  cf.  Mic.  6«-',  Is.  !•»-•', 
58s  Zech.  7^-",  Prov.  142.  Cf.  Clem.  Al.  Strom,  vi,  §  77,  p.  778  P,  o5 
{viz.  he  who  keeps  the  commandments)  B'  jgtI  to  Op-rjaxsuecv  -zh  Osiov  §isl! 


I,  26-27  183 

tf^q  ovTUi;  StxaioauviQi;,  epyuv  -ce  xal  yvtiaew?,  and  among  Greek  writers, 
Isocrates,  Ad  Nicocl.  p.  iS^^  E,  fjyoCi  Se  60(i,a  touto  xaXXtaTov  elvat  xai 
Oepaicetav  [Ji,eYtffi;T]v  av  ox;  ^^Xxtaxov  xotl  SixatoTaxov  aauxbv  iLapiyjiq,  In 
the  higher  forms  of  heathen  Hellenistic  religious  thought  "a  spiritual 
idea  of  God  is  contrasted  with  anthropomorphic  conceptions  and  naive 
worship  of  idols,  while  purity  of  heart,  as  the  best  sacrifice,  and  ad- 
hesion to  the  will  of  God,  as  the  true  prayer,  are  contrasted  with  foolish 
prayers  and  vows";  see  P.  VVendland,  Hellenisiisch-rdmische  Kultur", 
1912,  p.  S7,  and  note  8  (references). 

fcaOapa  Kol  afiiavTO<;,  synonyms  giving  the  positive  and  nega- 
tive side,  cf.  i^'  ^,  etc. 

The  two  words  are  often  found  in  Greek  writers  in  an  ethical  sense 
and  together,  Dion.  Hal.  A.R.  viii,  43^;  Plut.  Perid.^g;  also  Philo, 
Leg.  all.  i,  15,  De  animal,  sacrif.  idon.  13;  Hermas,  Mand.  ii,  7,  Si7ti.  v,  7, 
Test.  XII  Patr.  Jos.  4\  etc. 

For  ix\xl(xyio<;,  cf.  Heb.  7-%  i  Pet.  i^;  in  the  O.  T.  only  found  in  Wis- 
dom and  2  Maccabees. 

The  words  are  naturally  used  with  dprjaKeia,  because  ritual 
purity  and  spotlessness  was  required  in  all  ancient  worship, 
Jewish  and  heathen,  and  was  never  more  insisted  on  among  the 
Jews  than  by  the  Pharisees  in  the  first  Christian  century  {cf. 
Mk.  7^  ff-,  Mt.  2325).  There  is  no  special  contrast  meant  (as 
Spitta  thinks)  to  heathen  worship. 

Trapa  tw  dew,  "in  God's  judgment,"  "such  as  God  approves," 
cj.  Lk.  1 30,  I  Pet.  2^.  20^  Rom.  2^\  2  Thess.  i«,  Prov.  i^^\  Wisd. 
9^°  12^,  etc.  This  is  a  good  Greek  use  of  irapd  (see  Winer,  §  48, 
d.  6.;  L.  and  S.  s.  v.),  which,  with  other  expressions  (Lk.  24'' 
ivavTiov,  Lk.  i^'^  ivminov,  etc.),  is  the  equivalent  of  the  Hebrew 

Oew  Kal  Trarpi. 

Oew  v.tx\  xotTpi]  KC^KL  minn. 

Tw  Gsw  xal  xaxpt]  BC*P  minn. 

T(j)  6ew  /.Jtl  Ttp  xctTpi]  A. 

Tip  Osw  xaxpt]  minn. 

The  usage  in  the  N.  T.  is  to  write  either  Osbg  irax-^p  (e.  g.  Rom.  i', 
Gal.  I',  and  often)  or  6  Osbs  xal  xaxT)p  (e.  g.  i  Cor.  is'*  and,  with  t)|jl(7)v 
added.  Gal.  1*,  etc.).  The  only  instance  of  6sbc;  y.al  xaxt)?,  excepting 
the  present  one,  is  the  easily  explicable  case  Eph.  4^ ;   the  only  rases  of 


1 84  JAMES 

6  Gsbi;  Tcax-^p  are  Col.  i'  (xw  Gsip  xaxpi  in  Codd.  BC*  and  versions;  tu 
6ew  Tw  Tcaxpi  in  Codd.  DFG),  3",  and  possibly  i^-.  Hence  probably 
the  article  is  a  conformatory  emendation  and  the  formula  here  unique 
in  the  N.  T. 

The  phrases  0  deb'i  koX  Trartjp  and  ^eo?  irarrjp  are  found  at 
the  opening  and  else'vhere  in  Paul's  epistles  and  other  N.  T. 
writings,  but  nowhere  in  the  Gospels,*  Acts,  i  John,  or  Hebrews. 
They  evidently  belong  to  the  common  semi-liturgical  religious 
language  which  at  once  grew  up  among  the  early  Christians, 
but  not  at  all  to  the  tradition  of  Jesus'  sayings.  This  designa- 
tion of  God  is  possibly  used  here  because  it  is  the  care  for  God's 
fatherless  ones  {cf.  Ps^_6^  which  is  enjoined. 

iTTLaKeTTTeadaL,  used  of  visiting  the  sick,  in  Mt.  253"'  ^^,  Ecclus. 
7'^  and  also  in  secular  Greek,  e.  g.  Xen.  Cyr.  v,  4^° ;  Plut.  De 
san.  prcec.  15,  p.  129  C. 

op(^avov^  Kol  %^j0a9,  the  natural  objects  of  charity  in  the 
community,  cf.  e.  g.  Deut.  27^^,  Ecclus.  41"  71^01;  op<^avol<i  «? 
Trarrjp^  koL  avrl  av8p6<;  rrj  firjrpl  avrojv,  Acts  6^,  Barn,  20 
(the  Two  Ways),  Polyc.  6,  Hermas,  Mand.  viii,  10. 

For  abundant  further  references,  see  Spitta,  p.  57,  note  5 ; 
Weinel,  Die  Wirkungen  des  Geistes  imd  der  Geiste,  p.  145,  note; 
Gebhardt  and  Harnack  on  Hermas,  Mand.  viii,  10. 

iv  ry  dXi-yjrei  avrcov^  i.  e.  the  afifliction  of  their  bereavement. 
CJ.  Jn.  ii^^,  and  Edersheim,  Jewish  Social  Life,  pp.  172  /.,  for 
the  Jewish  custom. 

aairikov, ''  unstained."  For  the  same  phrase,  nipelv  aarnXov, 
cf.  I  Tim.  614. 

aTTo,  see  Buttmann,  §  132,  5. 

ToO  Kocr/jiov.     Cf.  4'^  r}  (piXia  rod  Koafiov,  2^. 

This  twofold  statement  of  a  moral  ideal,  compactly  expressed 
in  the  latter  half  of  this  verse,  is  elaborated  at  great  length  in 
Hermas,  Mand.  viii.  The  comparison  is  instructive  and  points 
clearly  to  current  religious  modes  of  expression  among  the  Jews. 

KocTjXQ'i  in  the  ethical  sense  in  which  it  represents  the  world 
as  opposed,  or  at  least  alien,  to  God  is  found  only  in  Paul, 

*InMt.  6'  the  reading  6  fleo?  6  irarjjp  vij.utv  of  Codd.  N*B  and  sah.  vers,  is  probably  an 
emendation  for  6  Trarnp  vy-uiv  of  all  other  authorities,  while  Jn.  6"  8"  are  different. 


1, 27-11, 1  185 

James,  2  Peter,  and  the  Gospel  and  First  Epistle  of  John.  In 
the  writings  of  John  this  sense  is  pushed  to  an  extreme  of  sharp 
opposition.  The  usage,  which  is  evidently  wholly  familiar  to 
James  and  his  readers,  must  have  its  origin  in  Jewish  modes  of 
thought  {cf.  the  use  of  uT\';^  and  i^9  =5^  ^^  ^^^^^  Jewish  literature 
for  K6(rfxo<i^  not  merely  for  alcov),  but  the  history  of  the  ethical 
sense  of  the  word  has  not  been  worked  out. 

See  HDB,Sirt.  '"World";  Pi?E,  art.  "Welt";  Dalman,  D/f 
Worte  Jesu,  i,  1898,  pp.  132-146  (Eng.  transl.  pp.  162-179). 

CHAPTER  II. 

1-7.  To  court  the  rich  and  neglect  the  poor  in  the  house  of  wor- 
ship reverses  real  values. 

In  2^-^  the  thought  of  the  supreme  importance  of  conduct, 
stated  in  i"^-""-',  is  further  illustrated  by  an  instance  from  a  situa- 
tion of  common  occurrence.  With  this  instance  the  writer  con- 
nects his  reply  to  two  excuses  or  pretexts  (w.  ^-^^^  14-26)^  which 
are  perversions  of  true  reUgion,  and  in  so  doing  he  is  led  to 
enter  upon  broader  discussions.  Ch.  2  is  more  original  and  less 
a  repetition  of  current  Jewish  ideas  than  any  other  part  of  the 
epistle. 

1.  a8e\(f)0i  fiov,  marking  transition  to  a  new  topic,  cf.  i^' 
2^^  3^  5^  and  see  note  on  i^ 

iv  7rpo(T(07ro\r}iJ,\pLai^  "with  acts  of  partiaHty."  Trpoacoiro- 
Xi]fx\pM  (found  also  Rom.  2",  Eph.  6^  Col.  3^5,  Polyc.  Phil.  6), 
toge'ther  wdth  the  cognate  words  TrpocrwTroXi] /xTrrecv  (Jas.  2'), 
7rpoaQy7ro\rjfi7rTr]<i  (Acts  10^^),  aTrpoaoyrroXrj/jLTrTO^  (ecclesiasti- 
cal writers),  airpoaooTroXijixTnw'i  (i  Pet.  i^',  Clem.  Rom.  i^. 
Barn.  412),  is  a  compound  formed  from  the  LXX  translation  of 
the  O.  T.  phrase  D''^2  ^*^^,  Xa/jL^dveiv  Trpoaoiirov ^  Lev.  19^^, 
Ps.  82^,  etc.  (For  an  analogous  compound,  cf.  ifioa^OTroujaav, 
Acts  7^0-  These  words  were  of  course  used  only  among  per- 
sons acquainted  with  the  Greek  0.  T.,  that  is,  Jews  and  Chris- 
tians. 

This  group  of  expressions  has  had  a  history  not  unlike  that 
of  English  "favour,"  "favouritism,"  etc.,  and,  having  often  had 


1 86  JAMES 

originally  an  innocent  sense,  came  in  the  0.  T.  to  mean  "respect 
of  persons"  in  the  sense  of  improper  partiality.  The  early  uses 
related  chiefly  to  partiality  on  the  part  of  a  judge.  In  later 
use  any  kind  of  improper  partiality  might  be  meant,  whether 
judicial  favouritism  or,  as  here,  selfish  truckling  to  the  powerful. 
For  the  meaning  of  the  Hebrew  expression,  see  Gesenius,  The- 
satirus,  s.  v.  '^'^^,  p.  916 ;  cj.  Lightfoot  on  Gal.  2^,  and,  for  some 
similar  O.  T.  expressions.  Mayor  on  Jas.  2^. 

The  plural  denotes  the  several  manifestations  of  favouritism ; 
cf.  Winer,  §  27,  3  ;  Hadley- Allen,  §  636 ;  cJ.  2  Cor.  1220,  Gal.  5^0, 
I  Pet.  43. 

ev  denotes  the  state,  or  condition,  in  which  the  act  is  done; 
here  the  acts  with  which  the  action  of  the  main  verb  is  accom- 
panied. Cf.  2  Pet.  3^1  vTrdp')(eLV  ev  evae^eiai^^  Col.  3^^  vTraKovere 
.  .  .  fir)  iv  6(f)da\fJLoBovXiai<ij  Jas.  i^^  iv  Trpavrrjri. 

Warnings  against  contempt  of  the  poor  are  common  in  the 
V  O.  T.,  cf.  Lev.  19!^  Prov.  22^2,  Ecclus.  lo^^,  etc. 

fir)  €X€T€.  Not  interrogative  (R.V.  mg.,  WH.),  but  impera- 
tive (A. v.,  R.V.  text),  as  is  better  suited  to  the  gnomic  style  of 
the  epistle  (cf.  i^-  22  -^i  ^u^  etc.),  and  to  the  following  context. 

The  question  "  Do  ye,  in  accepting  persons,  hold  the  faith  of  our 
Lord?"  would  express  doubt  whether  a  faith  accompanied  by  this  fault 
is  true  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  at  all. 

But  this  makes  a  weak  and  unnatural  opening  to  the  paragraph,  is 
too  subtle  and  indirect  for  so  straightforward  a  writer,  and  does  not 
suit  so  well  the  transition  to  the  following  sentence  with  yap.  This 
writer  (e.  g.  in  vv.  ^'  «■  ')  uses  the  question-form  rather  in  argument 
than  in  exhortation.  Note,  too,  the  directness  with  which  his  other 
paragraphs  open,  e.  g.  !-■  '  3^  $''■  Moreover,  such  a  surprisingly  drastic 
denial  that  the  readers  were  Christian  behevers  would  require  a  clearer 
form  of  statement. 

e^ere  jrjv  TrlarLv.  Cf.  2"- 1^  314^  Mt.  1720  2121,  Mk.  1122, 
Lk.  17^  Acts  14^,  Rom.  1422,  i  Tim.  i^^,  Philem.  5.  e^;©  is  used 
in  its  natural  sense,  with  reference  to  "having"  an  inner  qual- 
ity. This  is  a  Greek  usage,  see  L.  and  S.  s.  v.  e^ft)  A.  I.  8.  Cf. 
rrjpelv  rrjv  ttlo-tiv,  2  Tim.  4^,  Rev.  14^2  Yot  the  whole  phrase, 
cf.  Herm.  Mond.  v,  2^  tcov  rrjv  tticttlv  eyovrwv  oKokXijoov, 


II,  I  187 

TTjv  ttIo-tlv.  The  "subjective"  faith,  not  the  later  idea  of  a 
body  of  doctrine  to  be  believed ;  so  throughout  this  epistle,  i^-^ 
2  5,  14-26  ^i5_  Faith  in  Jesus  Christ  is  the  distinctive  act  which 
makes  a  man  a  Christian.  See  A.  Schlatter,  Der  Glaube  im 
Neuen  Testament,  1896. 

Tov  Kvpiov.  Objective  genitive,  cf.  Mk,  11--,  Gal.  2^^;  Her- 
mas,  Sim.  vi,  i-,  etc. 

The  view  of  Haussleiter,  Der  Glaube  Jesu  Christi  mid  der  christUche 
Glaube,  1891,  and  James  Drummond,  Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  1893,  p. 
91,  that  these  genitives  after  muiiq  are  subjective,  not  objective,  is 
unnatural,  and  seems  disproved  by  both  Mk.  11"  and  Gal.  2^^.  See 
Sanday  on  Rom.  322.  Hort  paraphrases  :  the  faith  "which  comes  from 
Him  and  depends  on  Him,"  but  this  is  unnecessary. 

T?}9  S6^r]<i.  "Glory"  is  the  majesty  and  brightness  of  light 
in  which  God  dwells,  and  which  belongs  also  to  the  Messiah; 
see  Sanday  on  Rom.  3^3,  G.  B,  Gray,  art.  "Glory,"  in  HDB ; 
A.  von  Gall,  Die  Herrlichkeit  Gottes,  1900. 

The  interpretation  now  most  commonly  given  for  this  diffi- 
cult expression  is  probably  right,  t?)?  So^t;?  is  genitive  of  char- 
acteristic {cf.  Lk.  16^  18^,  Heb.  9^  Xepov^elv  So'^7/9),  limiting 
the  whole  preceding  phrase  tov  icvpCov  rj/jicbv  'I'>]aov  X/atcrroO, 
i.  e.  "our  glorious  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  The  expression  is  a  not  (3 
altogether  happy  expansion  of  6  Kvpio^  T7]<;  So^t]^  (i  Cor.  2^),  cf. 
6  ^609  T?}?  So'l?;?,  Ps.  29^,  Acts  7-,  6  irarrjp  r?}?  Sofr;?,  Eph.  i^'. 
By  its  solemnity  the  writer  may  intend  to  emphasise  the  in- 
consistency between  the  great  privilege  of  Christian  faith  and 
this  petty  discrimination  between  rich  and  poor. 

No  convincing  objection  can  be  made  to  this  interpretation,  although 
there  is  no  complete  parallel  to  it.  Among  the  other  interpretations 
the  following  deserve  mention  : 

(i)  Talq  xpoa(j)itoXT)[nJ^tat<;  ir}<;  h6^t]q,  "partiality  arising  from  your 
own  opinion,"  or  "partiality  arising  from  external  glory"  {admiratio 
hominuin  secundum  externum  splendorem,  Michaelis).  But  the  separa- 
tion of  the  words  is  too  great,  and  the  meaning  "glory"  for  S6?a  in  this 
context  too  obvious,  to  permit  this  interpretation,  and  it  is  now  held 
by  no  one. 

(2)  t9)v  xfaTtv  TTjc;  So^T)?,  "faith  in  the  glory  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ" 
(Pesh.),  or  "Christ-given  faith  in  the  glory"   {i.e.  the  glory  which 


1 88  JAMES 

we  are  to  receive,  Rom.  S^'),  or  "the  glorious  faith  in  Christ."  But  the 
last  two  of  these  are  forced,  and  the  first  involves  too  strange  an  order 
of  words  to  be  acceptable,  in  spite  of  such  partial  analogies  as  Acts  4", 
I  Thess.  2".  Cf.  Buttmann,  §  151,  III;  Winer,  §  61,  4;  for  many  illus- 
trations of  hyperbaton  from  LXX  and  secular  authors,  see  Heisen,  Novae 
hypotheses,  pp.  768  Jf. 

(3)  Various  interpretations  separate  off  some  part  of  the  phrase  Toij 
xupfou  -^[i-wv  'IirjaoO  XptaxoO,  which  is  then  connected  with  -zriq  So^t}?, 
and  the  two  together  taken  as  in  apposition  with  the  rest  of  the  phrase. 
The  least  objectionable  of  these  is  perhaps  that  of  Ewald,  "our  Lord, 
Jesus  Christ  of  glory";  but  this  division  is  unnecessary,  and  it  seems 
impossible  that  the  writer  should  not  have  meant  to  keep  together  the 
whole  of  the  familiar  designation. 

(4)  A.V.  and  R.V.  supply  toO  xupi'ou,  and  translate  "the  faith  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  Lord  of  Glory."  There  are  abundant  parallels 
for  this  latter  phrase,  but  none  for  such  a  singular  omission. 

(5)  Bengel,  Mayor,  Hort,  WH.  mg.,  and  others  take  -u^q  So^t]?  as  in 

i  apposition  to  the  preceding  and  as  referring  to  Christ  (perhaps  as  the 
Shekinah)  under  the  title  of  "  the  Glory."  But  the  evidence  that  this 
is  a  possible  use  of  ■^  So^a  (see  the  full  note  of  Mayor',  pp.  ^gf.,  cf. 
Lk.  2",  Eph.  I",  Tit.  213,  Heb.  i^  is  inadequate. 

(6)  Spitta  and  Massebieau  think  the  words  -^[xtov  'IiQaoO  Xptaxoij  an 
interpolation  by  the  Christian  editor.  This  would  leave  the  expression 
"the  Lord  of  glory,"  referring,  as  in  Enoch,  to  God.  Beyschlag's  an- 
swer to  this,  that  an  interpolator  would  not  have  broken  the  phrase  toij 
xupt'ou  TTj?  S6?T)s,  is  not  quite  satisfactory,  since  the  natural  words  to 
follow  Tou  xupt'ou  are  -^iawv  TiQaoiJ  XpiaroO.  But  the  interpolation  is 
not  sufl&ciently  obvious  to  justify  itself  apart  from  the  general  theory 
to  which  it  belongs.     See  the  long  note  in  Mayor. 

2.  ydp  explains  the  warning  by  pointing  out  that  respect  of 
persons  is  easily  recognisable  as  sin.  '^dp  introduces  ov  Sie- 
KpiOrjre  ktX.,  v.  ■*. 

elcreXOrj,  cf.  i  Cor.  1423-25, 

avva<yQ)yi]v  means  "meeting,"  and  it  is  not  necessary  here  to 
distinguish  between  the  "meeting"  as  an  occasion  and  as  an 
assembled  body  of  persons.  It  is  the  proper  word  for  a  Jewish 
religious  meeting,  but  is  occasionally  used,  chiefly  by  writers 
having  some  Jewish  or  Syrian  connection,  for  a  Christian  meet- 
ing; cf.  Herm.  Mand.  xi,  g  orav  ovv  eXOrj  6  dvdpoyiro<i  6  e^f^v 
TO  TTvev/xa  ro  delov  et?  avvwyoyyrjv  avSpcov  SiKaitov  •  Ign.  Polxc. 
4-;    Iren.  Hcer.  iv,  31^'^;    Epiph.  HcBr.  xxx,  18  (Tvva<yoiyrfv  8e 


n,  1-2  189 

ovTOL  [the  Ebionites]  Kokovat  ttjv  iavTcov  iiCKXr](Tiav^  koI  ov')(l 
eKKXrjaiav.  The  Christian  Palestinian  Aramaic  dialect  used  a 
single  word  [KHB^'^iD]  as  well  for  "synagogue"  as  for  "church." 
In  view  of  this  wide-spread  occasional  use,  no  trustworthy  in- 
ference as  to  the  place  of  writing  of  the  epistle,  still  less  any 
conclusion  as  to  its  Jewish-Christian  authorship,  or  as  to  the 
nationahty  of  the  persons  addressed,  can  be  drawn  from  the 
occurrence  of  this  word  here. 

The  material  is  fully  collected  and  well  discussed  by  Zahn, 
Einleitung,  i,  §  4,  note  i ;  Harnack  in  his  long  note  on  Hermas, 
Hand,  xi,  9;    Schiirer,  GJV,  ii,  §  27,  notes  11  and  12. 

The  meaning  "place  of  meeting,"  "meeting-house,"  natural  if  this 
were  a  Jewish  synagogue,  is  wholly  unhkely  for  a  Christian  writing. 
The  only  parallel  to  be  adduced  would  be  the  inscription  (from  a 
locality  not  far  from  Damascus)  IluvaywYT)  Mapxtwvta-uwv,  xu[x(Tg<;)  Ae- 
^apwv  ToCi  x(upto)u  5tal  a((i)T^)p(os)  'lTf)(aoO)  XprjaToO,  Tcpovotg:  ITauXQ'j 
•3cp£aP(uxepou),  toO  Xx'  etous,  Le  Bas-Waddington,  Inscript.  grccques  cl 
lat.  iii,  no.  2558.    The  date  is  a.d.  318-319. 

XPv<7oSaKTv\Lo<;,  cf.  Lk.  15-,  also  Gen.  3818' ^^  4142^  ig,  321- 
and  see  note  in  Mayor'',  p.  83,  and  "Ring,"  in  EB,  HDB,  and 
Didt.  Antt.  for  details  of  the  custom  of  wearing  rings. 

For  similar  description  of  a  rich  gentleman,  cj.  Epictet.  i,  22^^ 
ri^ei  TK  yepcov  7ro\L6<;  'x^pvaov<i  haicTvkiov;  e%ft)y  ttoXXou?,  Sen- 
eca, Nat.  qucBst.  vii,  31  exornamus  amdis  digitos,  in  omni  arti- 
culo  gemmam  disponimus. 

XPUCToSaxTuXto;;  is  found  only  here,  but  is  correctly  formed,  cf. 
Xpuuoxetp  in  the  same  sense,  xpuaoaxdipavoi;,  xpuuoxaXtvoi;,  etc. 

iv  iaOijTL  XafiTrpa^  cf.  Lk.  23^^ 

The  term  \afi7rp6<;  seems  here  to  refer  to  elegant  and  luxuri- 
ous, "fine,"  clothes  (cf.  Rev.  181"),  but  it  can  also  be  used  of 
freshness  or  cleanness  (Rev.  1^^)  without  reference  to  costliness, 
and  sometimes  (Acts  lo^")  appears  to  mean  "shining."  Its  nat- 
ural opposite  in  all  these  senses  is  pvirapos,  "dirty,"  "shabby," 
as  below,  cf.  Philo,  De  Joseph.  20,  avrl  pviroacrri';  Xap/irpav 
ia-dijra  avriS6vre<i.  Mayor  gives  other  instructive  references. 
See  also  Lex.  s.  -cv.  Xaprnpo^  and  pvirap6<i. 

For  the  same  construction  as  vv.  2.  3^  cf.  vv.  1^-". 


190  JAMES 

3.  e7n/3\€\J/T]T€,  "look,"  i.e.  with  favour,  "have  regard." 
eTrt^Xeireiv  has  this  sense  also  in  Lk.  i"**  9^^,  apparently  through 
the  influence  of  the  LXX  usage ;  cf.  i  Sam.  i"  9^^,  Ps.  25*^  69^^, 
Job  3^,  Judith  13*,  etc.  The  development  of  this  sense  in  an 
appropriate  context  is  a  natural  one ;  but  in  classical  usage 
only  Aristotle,  Eth.  Nic.  iv,  2,  p.  11 20,  is  cited. 

eLirrjre.  Doubtless  the  speaker  is  one  of  the  dignitaries  of 
the  congregation,  cf.  to  vTroTroBiov  fiov. 

Kadov.  This  form  of  the  imperative  (for  the  more  hterary 
Kcidrjcro),  found  uniformly  in  O.  T.  and  N.  T.,  was  doubtless 
in  ordinary  colloquial  use,  as  is  attested  by  its  occurrence  in 
comic  writers  of  the  fifth  and  fourth  centuries  B.C.  and  in  post- 
classical  usage.  See  Lex.  s.  v.  and  Winer-Schmiedel,  §  14,  3, 
note  3. 

KaXay;.  Usually  explained  as  meaning  "in  a  good  seat," 
"comfortably."  But  the  usage  does  not  fully  justify  this  (see 
Mayor's  citations),  and  some  polite  idiom  in  the  sense  of 
"please,"  "pray,"  is  to  be  suspected.  In  various  Greek  liturgies 
the  minister's  direction  to  the  worshipping  congregation,  (Ttm- 
Hev  /caXco?,  presents  the  same  difficulty  and  suggests  the  same 
explanation.  See  F.  E.  Brightman,  Liturgies,  Eastern  and 
Western,  vol.  i,  Oxford,  1896,  pp.  43,  49,  383,  471.  The 
Syrian  liturgies  sometimes  merely  carry  this  over,  "Stomen 
kalos,"  but  also  render  by,  "Stand  we  all  fairly,"  ibid.  pp.  72, 
74,  104.  On  the  Jewish  custom  of  distinguished  places  in  the 
synagogue,  cf.  Mt.  23'',  Mk.  12^^,  Lk.  11"  20*^,  and  see  "Syna- 
gogue," in  EB  and  HDB. 

A  noteworthy  commentary  on  these  verses  is  offered  by  a  passage 
found  in  various  ancient  books  of  church  order.  Its  oldest  form  is 
perhaps  that  in  the  Ethiopic  Statutes  of  the  Apostles  (ed.  Horner,  1904, 
pp.  195  /.)  :  "And  if  any  other  man  or  woman  comes  in  lay  dress  [/.  e. 
in  fine  clothes],  either  a  man  of  the  district  or  from  other  districts, 
being  brethren,  thou,  presbyter,  while  thou  speakest  the  word  which 
is  concerning  God,  or  while  thou  hearest  or  readest,  thou  shalt  "not 
respect  persons,  nor  leave  thy  ministering  to  command  places  for  them, 
but  remain  quiet,  for  the  brethren  shall  receive  them,  and  if  they  have 
no  place  (for  them)  the  lover  of  brothers  or  of  sisters,  having  risen,  will 
leave  place  for  them. 


II,  3-4  191 

"...  And  if  a  poor  man  or  woman  either  of  the  district  or  of  the 
(other)  districts  should  come  in  and  there  is  no  place  for  them,  thou, 
presbyter,  make  place  for  such  with  all  thy  heart,  even  if  thou  wilt 
sit  on  the  ground,  that  there  should  not  be  respecting  the  person  of 
man  but  of  God." 

See  also  the  Syriac  Didascalia  apostolorum,  12;  Apostolic  Constitutions, 
ii,  58  ;  E.  V.  d.  Goltz,  "  Unbekannte  Fragmente  altchristhcher  Gemein- 
deordnungen,"  in  Sitzungsberichte  der  kgl.  preuss.  Akademie,  1906,  pp. 
141-157.  There  is  no  sufficient  indication  that  the  passage  is  dependent 
on  James. 

aTrjOi^  in  contrast  to  fcdOov. 

ffT^Ot  Tj  xa6ou  ex.el]  B  fif. 

oT^Gt  T]  xaOou]  sah. 

oT^et  sxet  TJ  xczGou]  A  S3  minn  Cyr  vg  Jer  Aug  syr"^"*. 

aiTjOt  exst  ri  xaOoLi  wSe]  t<C'-KLP  minn  boh  syrp«=''. 

cx^9i  iv.tl  x,al  xa6ou]  C*. 

The  reading  of  B  ff  makes  the  rough  words  an  invitation  to  stand  or 
to  take  a  poor  seat.  So  the  Sahidic,  which  thus  on  the  whole  supports 
B  ff.  The  readings  of  A  al  and  {^  al  seem  to  be  different  emendations, 
both  due  to  the  wish  to  make  ffT^6t]]explicit  and  so  to  create  a  better 
parallelism.  But  since  the  indefinite  sxsl  does  not  in  itself  imply  any 
disrespect  to  the  visitor,  the  effect  is  to  lessen  rather  than  intensify 
the  rudeness  of  or-r^Ot,  and  the  product  is  a  weaker  text  than  that  of 
B  ff  (sah).  The  text  of  B  ff  is  thus  on  both  external  (see  p.  85)  and 
internal  grounds  to  be  preferred. 

^  KciOov  mel  viro  to  viroTrohLov  /xov,  i.  e.  in  a  humble  place. 
This  is  a  sorry  alternative  to  standing.  Cf.  Deut.  ;^;^^  vtto  ere, 
"at  thy  feet,"  Lk.  8^^  lo^^  Acts  22^  irapa  row  Tro'Sa?, 

These  persons  who  come  into  the  meeting  are  visitors,  who 
may  be  won  for  the  church,  and  the  treatment  of  them  at  this 
critical  moment  reveals  the  real  feeling  of  the  members  toward 
the  relative  worth  of  the  different  classes  in  society.  The  vis- 
itors seem  clearly  distinguished  from  the  members  of  the  con- 
gregation; and  nothing  indicates,  or  suggests,  that  they  are 
members  of  sister  churches.  They  are  undoubtedly  outsiders, 
whether  Jews  or  Gentiles. 

ux6]  B'  P  33  minn  have  emendation  to  the  easier  Ixt. 

4.  oj]  Omitted  by  B  ff  minn.  The  repetition  of  — ov  OY  might 
suggest  either  the  insertion  or  the  omission  of  the  word  in  transcrip- 


lg2  JAMES 

tion.     The  attestation  and  the  greater  intrinsic  vigour  of  the  sense 
speak  for  the  omission. 

KLP  minn  read  xal  ou,  the  Y.«i  being  added  to  indicate  the  apodosis. 

Bi6KpidrjTe.  "Ye  have  wavered,"  "doubted,"  i.e.  "practi- 
cally, by  your  unsuitable  conduct,  departed  from  and  denied 
the  faith  of  v.  ^,  and  thus  fallen  under  the  condemnation  pro- 
nounced in  I'^-s  against  the  SlxJ/v^o^.'"  Cf.  i*^  and  note,  3^^ 
aScaKpiTO^-^  and,  for  the  mode  of  argument,  i*  hlypv^o^,  4^ 
d/iiaprcoXoLj  hiypv')(pi. 

Of  the  various  meanings  proposed  for  StcxptOriTs  this  one,  which  is 
common  in  the  N.  T.  although  not  attested  in  secular  Greek,  yields  in 
the  present  context  the  best  sense,  being  especially  recommended  by 
the  allusion  to  the  "  waverer  "  of  i=.  CJ.  Mt.  21=',  Mk.  ii^^,  Rom.  14-', 
Jas.  i«,  and  the  kindred  sense  " hesitate"  in  Acts  10=",  Rom.  4-". 

Other  interpretations  which  have  been  given  are  classified  as  fol- 
lows by  Huther,  whose  elaborate  note,  as  reproduced  with  additions 
by  Beyschlag,  pp.  103  /.,  should  be  consulted  for  the  history  of  the 
exegesis. 

Sta/,ptv£a9at  =  (i)  scparare; 
'  (2)  discrimen  faccre ; 

(3)  judicare; 

(4)  dubitare  ("hesitate"). 

Under  each  of  these  senses  several  interpretations  are  possible  accord- 
ing as  the  verb  is  taken  as  an  afi&rmation  or  a  question,  and  under  sev- 
eral of  them  a  choice  between  an  active  and  passive  meaning  is  possible. 
Most  of  the  interpretations  are  too  remote  from  the  natural  suggestion 
of  the  context,  or  any  natural  meaning  of  the  verb,  to  be  worth  consid- 
ering, and  none  suits  on  the  whole  so  well  as  the  interpretation  given 
above. 

The  renderings  of  A.V.,  "Are  ye  not  then  partial?"  and  R.\'.  mg., 
"Do  ye  not  make  distinctions? "  are  based  on  (2),  the  verb  being  given 
an  active  sense.  This  corresponds  to  the  view  of  Grotius  and  others, 
and  is  perhaps  not  impossible,  even  with  the  passive  aorist,  but  at  best 
it  would  be  unusual,  it  runs  counter  to  all  N.  T.  usage,  and  it  gives  an 
inherently  weak  and  tautologous  sense.  To  R.V.  text,  "Are  ye  not 
divided?"  no  objection  from  the  ordinary  meaning  of  the  verb  can 
be  brought,  but  it  is  less  idiomatic  and  pointed  than  the  rendering 
"waver." 

/c/otrat"  means  "judges";  it  cannot  mean  "approvers"  (as 
Wetstein  takes  it). 


II,  4-5  193 

Kpiral  BtaXoyicriJbMv  Trovrjpcov,  "judges  with  evil  thoughts," 
gen.  of  quaHty.  Evidently,  like  BieKpidrjre,  this  describes  in 
language  already  famiHar  an  admittedly  wrong  attitude.  There 
is  a  play  on  words  in  Sie/cptl^T^re,  KpnaC,  which  cannot  be  imi- 
tated in  English,  and  which  goes  far  to  account  for  the  intro- 
duction of  Kptrai into  a  context  to  which  the  idea  of  "judging" 
in  any  proper  sense  is  foreign.  That  TrpoacoTroXrjixtpia  is  the 
characteristic  sin  of  the  bad  judge  may  also  have  had  its  influ- 
ence. The  sentence  must  be  taken  to  mean  :  "  You  have  passed 
judgments  {i.  e.  on  rich  or  poor)  prompted  by  unworthy  mo- 
tives." 

For  SiaXoYtffti.wv  xovYjpuv,  cf.  Mt.  15'',  Mk.  7-',  and  Ps.  56'.  StaXo- 
YtopLoq  (like  narnc)  is  in  Biblical  usage  a  general  word  which  includes 
purpose  as  well  as  deliberation.  See  Lightfoot  on  Phil.  2'^;  Hatch, 
Essays,  p.  8. 

5-7.  The  poor  are  the  elect  heirs  of  God,  whereas  the  rich 
are  your  persecutors. 

These  verses  are  intended  to  reinforce  the  exhortation  of  v.  * 
by  pointing  out  how  peculiarly  heinous  in  the  readers'  case  is 
partiality  in  favour  of  the  rich. 

5.  aKovcrare,  as  in  diatribes,  cf.  Bultmann,  Stil  der  pauli- 
nischen  Predigt,  p.  32,  with  foot-notes. 

aSeX^ol  iiov  a'^airr^Toi^  inserted  here  for  emphasis,  cf.  i^"  3^^. 

0  6eo^  i^eXe^aro.  Election  is  a  Jewish  idea,  cf.  e.  g.  Deut. 
4^^  Ps.  Sol.  9^ ;   see  Sanday,  Romans,  pp.  244  /.  248  f. 

Tois  TTTW^ou?  rat  Koafiw,  "  the  poor  by  the  standard  of  the  ^ 
world,"  TO)  Koa-fim  is  dative  of  reference,  or  "interest,"  cf.  Acts 
720  a<7Teto9  Tu)  dew,  2  Cor.  10^,  see  Hadley- Allen,  §  771  ;  Winer, 
§  31,  4,  a.     Cf.  I  Tim.  6i^*-,  on  which  Schottgen  quotes  *''^y^ 
n^iy,  Baba  bathra  8,  2 ;   D^yn  "l^lTj;,  ibid.  4,  i. 

Others  (Weiss,  etc.)  take  xy  x.6a[jicp  as  naming  the  possession  which 
the  poor  lack.  But  the  poor  lack  not  "the  world"  but  the  world's 
goods. 

The  election  of  the  poor  to  privileges  is  not  here  said  to  be 
due  to  any  merit  of  their  poverty,  but,  in  fact,  poverty  and 
election  coincide.    This  does  not  deny  that  an  occasional  rich 


194  JAMES 

man  may  have  become  a  Christian,  nor  affirm  that  all  the  poor 
/     have  been  chosen,  cf.  i  Cor.  1 26-28^  Mt.  ig^^-^s, 

Iv  T())  x,6at«.(p]  minn. 

£v  Touxcp  Ttp  y.6ff;x(j)]  min*. 

ToO  xoff^jLou]  A^C^KLP  minn. 

Tou  xoafiou  TOUTOu]    minnp*"". 

owj  mini. 

The  reading  of  the  older  uncials  easily  accounts  for  all  the  others. 

TrXovaiovi  iv  iTLcrTet,  "rich  in  the  sphere  of  faith,"  "in  the 
domain  where  faith  is  the  chief  good" ;  i.  e.  rich  when  judged 
by  God's  standards.  Cf.  Lk.  1221,  j  ^or.  is^  i  Tim.  i^  6^*,  Eph. 
^  2^;  and  rabbinical  "rich  in  the  law"  (i.  e.  learned),  Wajjikra 
r.  33  on  Prov.  29^'  (Wetstein),  Tanchuma  34,  3  (Schottgen  on 
I  Tim.  61^). 

The  contrast  of  poor  and  rich  in  different  spheres  is  a  natural 
one.  See  quotations  in  Mayor^,  p.  86,  and  Spitta,  p.  63 ;  cf. 
Rev.  2  9,  Test.  XII  Patr.  Gad  f. 

Other  modes  of  analysis  of  the  meaning  of  Iv  xtaTst  do  not  affect 
the  general  sense  of  the  phrase,  but  they  seem  less  adapted  to  the  con- 
text.   Thus : 

(i)  "rich  by  reason  of  faith"; 

(2)  "rich  in  having  an  abundance  of  faith,"  cf.  Eph.  2*,  i  Cor.  i^ 
I  Tim.  6'8.     This  unduly  Hmits  the  range  of  the  "  riches." 

K\7]pov6fjLOv<;  tt}?  /SacnXeLa^. 

This  expression  corresponds  to  Mt.  25^^  i  Cor.  6^-  i"  15^" 
(KXrjpovofxelv  ^aaiXetav),  Gal.  5^1,  as  well  as  to  KXrjpovofielv 
^corjv  aloiVLOv  in  Mt.  ig-'^  25^'',  Mk.  lo^^  Lk.  10-'^  18^**  {cf. 
Dalman,  Worte  Jesti,  i,  pp.  102-104;  E.  Tr.  pp.  125-127. 

"Heirs"  are  persons  who  are  appointed  to  receive  the  in- 
heritance. The  kingdom  is  here  thought  of  as  still  future  (as 
is  shown  by  eTrrjyyeiXaro).  The  kingdom  is  not  further  de- 
scribed, nor  does  James  use  the  term  again,  and  it  is  possible 
to  say  of  the  term  here  only  that  it  denotes  the  great  blessing 
which  God  offers  to  his  chosen,  being  thus  practically  equivalent 
1^    to  salvation.     Cf.  Mt.  53.  "  Lk.  12^^  '-. 


n,  5-6  195 

See  Westcott's  note  on  Heb,  6^2  for  the  history  of  the  use  of 
the  term  Kk7]pov6fxo<i. 

gaatXetat;]  AC  read  £xaYY£X[£]ta?. 

7}<i  i7rr}yyeL\aT0  T0T9  ayaTraxriv  avrov.  On  the  expression, 
cj.  2  Tim.  4^^,  Ep.  ad  Diogn.  10. 

Cf.  1^'-,  Tov  (TT€(j)avov  tt}?  ^ft)?}?  kt\.,  with  note.  Life  and  the 
kingdom  are  practically  identical. 

eTrrjyyeiXaro  does  not  refer  to  any  one  specific  occasion,  and 
hence  is  better  translated  "has  promised."  Cf.  Burton,  Syn- 
tax of  the  Moods  and  Tenses  of  N.  T.  Greek,  §§  46,  52.  The 
"promise"  was  implicit  in  the  very  conception  of  the  kingdom. 

6.   '^Ti/xdaaT€,  "dishonoured,"  i.  e.  by  your  truckling  to  the  :> 
rich.     On  aTtfid^etVj  cf.  Prov.  14-^  0  arifxdi^wv  irevqra'i  afiaprd- 
veL^  22^2,  Ecclus.  io23,  Acts  5^1. 

A.V.  "despised"  is  a  possible  translation  {cf.  Field,  Notes  on  the  Trans- 
lation of  the  New  Testament  {Otium  now.  iii-),  1S99,  p.  236,  for  good 
examples),  but  the  context  (v.  3)  makes  the  R.V.  "dishonoured"  pref- 
erable. 

TOV  Tnoaxov,  generic.     Mayor  well  recalls  i  Cor.  11 22  for  an-  | "" 
other  case  of  dishonour  to  the  poor  in  early  Christian  life.  1 

KaTaBwaarevovaiv,  "oppress,"  cf.  Wisd.  2I",  Amos  8^  Jer. 
7«,  Ezek.  1812. 

For  examples  of  such  oppression,  cf.  Jas.  5^-  '',  and  references 
in  Spitta,  p.  64,  notes  9,  10,  and  11;  also  Lucian,  Nee.  20. 
^H^ISMA.  'ETretSr/  TroWd  Kal  Trapdvo/xa  ol  ifKovaLOi  hpoicrt 
irapd  TOV  ^lov  dpird^ovTe^  Kal  fita^ofievoi  Kal  irdvTa  TpOirov 
T(ov  TrevrJTOJV  KaTacfipovovvTe';  kt\. 

avToi,  "Is  it  not  they  who,"  etc.  Similarly,  v.  \  On  avTO'i 
in  nominative  as  personal  pronoun  with  no  intensive  force, 
cf.  Lex.  s.  V.  avTO'i,  II,  2. 

eXKOvaLV,  so  Acts  i6i^  of  "dragging"  into  court,  cf.  Lk.  12^8 
KaTaavpeiv  7rpb<;  tov  KptTr^v,  Acts  S'*  (crvpcov),  Acts  17";  a  usual 
meaning,  see  Lexx. 

This  does  not  seem  to  refer  to  religious  persecution,  which 
was  at  least  as  likely  to  proceed  from  the  side  of  the  poor  as 


196  JAMES 

of  the  rich,  but  to  other  oppression,  with  legal  action,  arising 
from  the  ordinary  working  of  social  forces  in  an  oriental  com- 
munity and  having  to  do  with  wages,  debts,  rents,  and  the  like. 

Many  think,  indeed,  of  religious  persecution  (as  Acts  6'-)-  But  this 
is  not  naturally  suggested  by  xaxaotjvaaxeuouatv  (instead  of  which  we 
should  in  that  case  expect  Stw/.oLi(jcv,  cf.  Mt.  5'°,  Lk.  2V-,  Acts  7^-,  Gal. 
I").  Nor  is  it  made  necessary  by  pXotfftp-rjtxouatv,  which  seems  to  refer 
to  a  different  act  of  hostility  and  is  properly  so  punctuated  by  WH. 

€49  KpnrjpLa,  "before  judgment-seats,"  "into  courts,"  cf. 
Sus.  49.  On  established  courts  throughout  Palestine,  see  EB, 
"Government,"  §§  30,  31;    Schiirer,  GJV,  §  23,  II. 

7.  ^Xaa(f)r}iJLOvaiv.  Blasphemy  is  injurious  speech,  especially 
irreverent  allusion  to  God  and  sacred  things. 

For  blasphemy  from  the  Christian  point  of  view,  i.  e.  against 
Christ,  cf.  Acts  i3''5  18"  26^1,  i  Tim.  i^\  i  Cor.  12^,  Justin,  Dial. 
§  117  (KpiaTOv)  ovofxa  (Be^rfkayOrivai  Kara  nraa-av  rrjv  yrjv  ical 
p\.aa(^r]ixe1a6ai  ol  a/j^ie/aet?  tov  Xaov  v/jlmv  kol  hihaaKaXoi 
elpyda-avTO,  Pliny,  Ep.  x,  97^;  Polyc.  Mart.  9''  Xoihoprjaov 
TOV  X-piarov.  Cf.  Hermas,  Sim.  ix,  19^  (of  apostates).  On 
blasphemy  against  God  by  the  rich  among  the  Jews,  cf.  Enoch 
5^  94*  ^-  and  other  passages  collected  by  Spitta,  p.  65. 

It  is  not  natural  to  take  this  of  "  those  who  profess  to  know  God  but 
by  their  works  deny  him"  (Mayor),  cf.  Tit.  i^s;  Hermas,  Sim.  viii,  6^. 
Rom.  2-*  (Is.  52^)  Tb  yap  ovofxa  tou  GeoO  8t'  b\Kdiq  ^Xaa^TQtAecxat  Iv  lolc, 
eBysaiv,  and  the  cognate  passages,  2  Pet.  2^,  i  Tim.  6',  Clem.  Rom. 
I',  2  Clem.  Rom.  13,  etc.,  are  all  of  a  different  tenor,  although  the 
language  is  similar ;  the  verb  is  there  in  the  passive,  and  the  blasphemy 
comes  from  the  discredit  which  is  thrown  upon  the  Christian  religion 
by  the  faults  of  those  who  profess  it. 

TO  KaXbv  ovo/xa  to  iiriKXTjOev  i(f)   vpba'i. 

This  means  the  name  of  Christ,  to  whom  his  followers  belong, 
cf.  I  Pet.  414-16.  Cf.  2  Sam.  i2-»,  Amos  912,  Is.  4S  2  Mace.  S^^ 
eveKa  r?}?  eV  avTOv<;  iinKX-qaeco';  rod  crefivov  Kal  /xejaXoTrpe- 
TToO?  ovop^aTo^  avTov,  4  Ezra  10--  et  nomen  quod  nominatum  est 
super  nos  profanatum  est,  etc.  For  more  references,  see  Mayor^, 
p.  88,  Spitta,  p.  65.  In  all  these  passages  the  reference  is  to 
Israel,  dedicated  to  God  by  receiving  his  name.     This  idea  was 


n,  6-8  197 

naturally  transferred  to  the  Christians,  with  a  reference  in  their 
case  to  the  name  of  Christ,  Cf.  Hermas,  Sim.  viii,  6^  ro  ovofia 
Kvpiov  TO  iTriKXrjOev  iir  auTov?,  and  other  cases  of  the  use  of 
ovoiia  in  Hermas,  Sim.  viii,  ix,  and  xi,  given  in  Heitmiiller, 
Jm  Namen  Jesu,  1903,  p.  92.  The  phrase  does  not  necessarily 
refer  to  baptism,  nor  to  any  definite  name  {e.  g.  ^pi(TTiavo{) 
by  which  Christians  were  known.  See  Harnack's  note  on 
Hermas,  Sim.  viii,  6^. 

6-7.  It  is  very  evident  that  "the  rich"  here  are  not  Chris- 
tians. Those  who  maintain  the  opposite  are  driven  to  give 
to  ^\aa(f)7]iMva-i,v  the  meaning  rejected  above.  The  rich  are 
plainly  neighbours  who  do  not  belong  to  the  conventicle  but 
may  sometimes  condescend  to  visit  it. 

No  word,  however,  hints  that  the  two  classes  do  not  worship 
the  same  God,  and  the  whole  tone  of  the  passage  seems  to  imply 
a  less  complete  departure  from  the  dominant  religion  of  the 
community  than  would  have  been  the  case  in  Rome  or  any 
heathen  city.  If  the  whole  surrounding  population  were  hea- 
then, the  argument  would  have  to  be  differently  turned.  Con- 
trast the  tone  of  Phil.  2^''  ^■,  Eph.  4^'-^^  Col.  3^  i  Cor.  6'-K 

A  settled  and  quiet  state  of  things  is  indicated,  in  which  the 
normal  relations  of  the  different  classes  of  society  prevail.  The 
sense  of  missionary  duty  is  not  prominent. 

The  situation  is  thus  that  of  a  sect  of  some  sort  living  in  a 
community  whose  more  powerful  members,  though  worshipping 
the  same  God  as  the  sect,  do  not  belong  to  it. 

8-11.  The  law  of  Love  is  no  excuse  for  respect  of  persons.  The 
cancelling  of  one  precept  by  another  is  not  permissible,  for  the 
whole  law  must  be  kept.  The  royal  law  is  therefore  not  a  license 
to  violate  other  parts  of  the  law. 

These  verses  are  a  reply  to  a  supposed  excuse,  viz.  that  the 
Christian  is  required  by  the  law  of  love  to  one's  neighbour  to 
attend  to  the  rich  man.  This  excuse  by  the  pretext  of  "love" 
is  parallel  to  the  excuse  by  the  pretext  of  "faith,"  w.  "-". 
Cf.  also  i^^'  26.  Like  Mt.  5^^^-,  this  passage  is  opposing  a  wrong 
and  self-indulgent  use  of  the  principle  that  the  law  of  love  cov- 
ers the  whole  law. 


198  JAMES 

8.  €i  /xevToi,  "if  now,"  "if  indeed."  The  particle  /xevroi, 
besides  its  common  adversative  force,  *'but,"  "nevertheless" 
(so  Prov.  54  i625.  26  229  2612,  Jn.  4^?  713  12^2  20^  21",  2  Tim.  2^^), 
has  a  "confirmative"  meaning,  as  a  strengthened  /^eV,  hardly 
to  be  translated.  In  such  cases  it  indicates  an  implied  contrast, 
which  appears  in  the  present  instance  in  the  correlative  Se  of 
V.  9.  Cf.  Jude  8,  and  see  Kiihner-Gerth,  Grammatik  der  griech. 
Sprache\  §  503,  3,  g. 

vofjiov  ^aaiXiKov,  "the  royal  law."  v6/xo<i  means  the  Law  of 
God,  as  known  to  the  readers  through  the  Christian  interpreta- 
tion of  the  O.  T.  The  article  is  probably  omitted  because  v6fio<; 
is  treated  as  a  quasi-proper  noun,  as  in  2"-  ^^  4" ;  cf.  \0701?,  Jas. 

j22,   23^ 

Most  take  the  "royal  law"  to  be  identical  with  the  jpacfirj 
{legum  regina)  quoted  immediately.  But  W/xo?  is  not  used  in 
the  sense  of  cvtoXt]  (cf.  Mt.  22^^  iroia  ivroXr]  fjLeydXr}  iv  to. 
vofiQ)),  and  it  is  therefore  better  to  take  ^ao-iXcKov  as  a  deco- 
rative epithet  describing  the  law  as  a  whole,  of  which  the  fol- 
lowing precept  is  a  part.  The  expression  Kara  Tr)v  ypacji'^v 
icrX.  implies,  indeed,  that  the  perfect  observance  of  this  pre- 
cept covers  the  observance  of  the  whole  law,  as  in  Mk.  12^^, 
Rom.  138,  Gal.  5",  cf.  Lev.  ig^"",  Jn.  1512. 

It  is  thus  not  necessary  to  make  an  unnatural  distinction  between 
v6[xo?  here  and  in  v.  ^ 

^aaikLKov^  i.  e.  "supreme."  Cf.  Philo,  De  justitia,  4  ^acriXi- 
Krjv  he  etdiOev  ovofid^eiv  M.(ov(Trj<;  oBov  rrjv  fiea-qv^  De  congress, 
erud.  grat.  10 ;  4  Mace.  14^.  The  term  either  goes  back  to  the 
tradition  that  kings  are  supreme  sovereigns,  or  else  is  drawn 
from  the  use  of  jSacrtXevs  to  mean  the  Roman  emperor. 

At  the  same  time  there  may  be  here  an  allusion  to  the  Stoic 
conception  of  the  wise  as  "kings,"  parallel  to  the  lurking  allu- 
sion in  i^s  to  the  conception  of  the  wise  as  alone  "free."  The 
Law  of  Christians  is  alone  fit  for  "kings."  Cf.  the  similar  appli- 
cation of  the  word  lBaai\iK6<i  in  Clem.  Al.  Strain,  vi,  18,  p.  825; 
vii,  12,  p.  876,  and  the  other  passages  quoted  by  Mayor^,  p.  90; 
also  I  Pet.  2'.     See  Knowling's  good  note,  p.  49,  Zahn,  Einlei- 


II,  8-IO  199 

tung,  i,  §  6,  note  i,  and  for  the  Stoic  paradox  the  references 
in  Zeller,  Philosophie  der  Griechen*,  III,  i,  p.  256,  note  5. 

As  in  1^5,  so  here,  the  attribute  of  the  law  is  decorative  and 
suggestive  only ;  it  is  not  meant  specifically  to  distinguish  the 
true  law  from  some  other  inferior  one. 

The  interpretation  of  PaatXtx6v  as  "given  by  the  King"  (God  or 
Christ)  has  nothing  to  recommend  it.  Equally  little  has  Calvin's  in- 
genious reference  to  "the  king's  highway,"  "plana  scilicet,  recta,  et 
aquabilis." 

Tr)U  'ypa(^r}V^  i.  e.  "passage  of  Scripture"  (Lev.  19^^) ;  cf.  Mk. 
i2i°,  Jn.  19-^,  Lightfoot  on  Gal.  3--. 

Tov  ttXtjctCov.  Properly  "neighbour,"  in  LXX  for  Hebrew 
J?"^," friend,"  "fellow  countryman,"  or  "other  person"  generally, 
and  so,  under  the  influence  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus  (Lk.  lo^^-"), 
equivalent  to  0  erepo^  {cf.  especially  Rom.  13^'  ^^  15^). 

9.  aaaprCav  ipyd^eade,  cf.  i^  and  note.  Such  conduct  is 
sin,  directly  forbidden  by  the  law,  and  hence  cannot  be  excused 
as  a  fulfilment  of  the  royal  law.  y 

i\€'y')(pfi€Vot  inro  rov  vofxov.  Cf.  Lev.  19^^  ov  \')]/x\pr]  irpocroj- 
TTOV  TTTco'^ou  ovSe  duvfidaet^  TTpocrooTrov  Svpciarov,  ev  BiKaiocvvrj 
Kpivei'i  Tov  7r\i]aiov  a-ov,  Deut.  i^"  i6^^ 

10.  6a-TL<i  .  .  .  rrjpija-r},  with  av  omitted.  Cf.  Burton,  Moods 
and  Tenses,  307,  Blass-Debrunner,  §  380. 


TTip^oT)]  BSC  minn       1^       ^^^ 
t:t]pti(tecJ  KLr  mmnp''^''  ) 


xXTjpwffsi]  A  minn. 

Tikripdiaxq  TTjpTjast]  33. 

TsX^ast]  minn,  cf.  v.  '. 
The  future  is  probably  an  emendation  called  out  by  the  absence  of  av. 
The  same  thing  has  happened  to  %xxlaT],  for  which  KLP  minnp'»f  have 
TUTat'ffst.     The  synonyms,  and  the  conflation  in  ^Sy  3-re  interesting. 

Trraia-rj,  in  sense  of  "sin,"  Rom.  ii",  Jas.  3^,  cf.  Deut.  7-^ 
See  M.  Aur.  Anton,  vii,  22  thtov  dvOpoiirov  (fnXetu  koX  rov<i 
inaiovTa^,  Maximus  Tyr.  Diss.  26  rt?  he  ctvrjp  dyadb^  w? 
SieXdelv  ^iov  aTrraiaroyi ; 

iv  ivi,  "in  one  point,"  neuter,  since  vdfio^  is  not  used  of 
single  precepts. 


U 


200  JAMES 

TrdvTcov  evo')(p<i.     iravrav  is  neuter,  and  the  genitive,  as  in 
0  ]  classical  Greek,  denotes  the  crime.     This  is  a  rhetorical  way 
of  saying  that  he  is  a  transgressor  of  "the  law  as  a  whole" 
(irapa/SaTT]'?  vo/jlov^  v.  "),  not  of  all  the  precepts  in  it. 

For  similar  emphasis  on  the  several  individual  precepts  which  make 
up  the  law,  cf.  Mt.  51',  and  especially  Test.  XII  Patr.  Aser  2°-i'> 
(Charles's  translation):  "Another  stealeth,  doeth  unjustly,  plundereth, 
defraudeth,  and  withal  pitieth  the  poor :  this  too  hath  a  twofold  aspect, 
but  the  whole  is  evil.  He  who  defraudeth  his  neighbour  provoketh 
God,  and  sweareth  falsely  against  the  Most  High,  and  yet  pitieth  the 
poor :  the  Lord  who  commandeth  the  law  he  setteth  at  nought  and 
provoketh,  and  yet  he  refresheth  the  poor.  He  defileth  the  soul  and 
maketh  gay  the  body ;  he  killeth  many,  and  pitieth  a  few :  this  too 
hath  a  twofold  aspect,  but  the  whole  is  evil.  Another  committeth 
adultery  and  fornication,  and  abstaineth  from  meats,  and  when  he 
fatteth  he  doeth  evil,  and  by  the  power  of  his  wealth  overwhelmeth 
many;  and  notwithstanding  his  excessive  wickedness  he  doeth  the 
commandments :  this,  too,  hath  a  twofold  aspect,  but  the  whole  is 
evil.  Such  men  are  hares ;  for  they  are  half  clean,  but  in  very  deed 
are  unclean.  For  God  in  the  tables  of  the  commandments  hath  thus 
declared." 

The  roots  of  this  verse  evidently  lie  in  rabbinical  modes  of  empha- 
sising the  importance  of  certain  special  precepts  and  of  every  precept. 
Thus  Shemoth  rabba  25  fin.,  "The  Sabbath  weighs  against  all  the 
precepts";  Shabbath,  70,  2,  "If  he  do  all,  but  omit  one,  he  is  guilty 
for  all  severally."  Schottgen  and  Wetstein  give  many  sayings  of  sim- 
ilar tenor  from  rabbinical  writings  of  various  dates. 

Augustine,  Ep.  167  ad  Hier.,  draws  a  comparison  with  the  Stoic  doc- 
trine of  the  solidarity  of  virtues  and  vices.  The  Stoic  doctrine  is  that 
virtue  is  an  indivisible  whole,  a  man  is  either  virtuous  or  vicious.  The 
wise  (or  virtuous)  _is  free  from  fault,  the  foolish  (or  vicious)  does  no  right 
act;  hence  Vaa  xd  djiapxTjixaTa  xal  xd  xaxopGwixaxa.  The  character  of 
every  act  depends  on  the  controlling  inner  purpose  and  disposition. 
See  Zeller,  Philosophie  der  Griechen*,  III,  i,  pp.  251-263,  with  abun- 
dant references.  This  doctrine  has  plainly  nothing  to  do  with  that  of 
James. 

11.  /A^  fji,0L)(^ev(r7}<i  .  .  .  ixrj  (fiOvevcrr)<i.  Ex.  20^^-  ^^,  Deut.  5^^*-. 
This  order,  in  which  the  seventh  commandment  is  mentioned 
before  the  sixth,  is  perhaps  due  to  the  order  found  in  the  LXX 
(Cod.  B,  not  AF)  of  Ex.  20.  So  Lk.  iS^",  Rom.  13',  Philo,  De 
deed.  12,  24,  32,  De  spec.  leg.  iii,  2  ;   but  not  so  Mt.  s^^-  ^\ 


II,    IO-I3  20I 

C  minnp*""'  syr'»''i  arm  have  conformed  the  text  to  the  usual  order 
by  putting  murder  first.  In  the  following  sentence  this  is  done  by 
minnp'""='  arm. 

ov  fjLocx€vet<i.  ov  follows  the  regular  N.  T.  usage  in  present 
simple  conditions.  Cf.  Buttmann,  §  148 ;  Burton,  §  469 ;  J. 
H.  Moulton,  Prolegomena,  pp.  170/.;  Winer,  §  55,  2,  c  (where 
it  is  said  that  el  ov  makes  the  negative  emphatic).  Here,  since 
the  negative  belongs  only  to  a  part  of  the  protasis  (fJi^Lx^vei<i) 
and  not  to  the  rest  {^ovev€i<i),  ov  is  in  any  case  necessary. 

12-13.  General  exhortation  to  remember  the  Judgment,  which 
is  the  sanction  of  the  law ;  together  with  special  inculcation  of  the 
precept  of  mercy,  violated  by  their  respect  of  persons. 

12.  XaXeTre,  Troietre,  cf.  i^^-  23-25, 25^  ^  section  which  seems  to 
be  in  mind  in  this  summarising  exhortation. 

The  collocation  is  very  common,  e.  g.  Test.  XII  Patr.  Gad  6^, 
cf.  Acts  i^  722  eV  Xoyoi^  koI  epjoi,<;  avTov  (and  commentaries), 
I  Jn.  31*,  and  Lex.  s.  v.  epjov,  3. 

8ia  v6/xov  e\ev6epia<i,  "under  the  law  of  liberty."  Cf.  i^S; 
^Lo,  here  indicates  the  "state  or  condition  in  which  one  does  or 
suffers  something"  ;  see  Lex.  s.  v.  8cd,  A.  I.  2  ;  cf.  e.  g.  Rom.  2^' 
Slo,  vojjuov  KpidrjcrovTaL. 

13.  'yap  introduces  the  reason  why  the  sin  of  respect  of 
persons  will  be  punished  with  special  severity.  It  involves  a 
breach  of  the  law  of  mercy,  and  that  has  as  its  consequence 
unmerciful  punishment. 

apeXeo<;.  Found  only  here  for  the  usual  avT]\€i]<i,  dj^eXe?;?, 
but  regularly  formed  from  the  noun  eXeo?;  see  Moulton  and 
Milligan,  Vocabulary  of  the  Greek  Testament. 

L  minnps™"  read  avfXewc;. 

On  the  thought,  cf  Mt.  5^  6^^  71  iS^^-^^,  Ps.  iS^^-  2",  Ecclus. 
282  ff-,  Test.  XII  Patr.  Zab.  5  and  8.  Jer.  Baba  q.  viii,  10, 
"Every  time  that  thou  art  merciful,  God  will  be  merciful  to 
thee;  and  if  thou  art  not  merciful,  God  will  not  show  mercy 
to  thee,"  Rosh  hash.  17  a,  "To  whom  is  sin  pardoned?  to  him 
who  forgives  injury." 

KaratcavxaraL  eXeo'i  Kpiaeco^,  "mercy  boasts  over  (or  against) 


202  JAMES 

judgment."     e\eo?  is  human  mercy  shown  in  practise,  /c/aio-etB? 

^  is  God's  condemnatory  judgment,  cf.  Jas.  5^2^  Jn.  5^4.  This 
gives  the  converse  of  the  previous  sentence.  As  the  unmerciful 
will  meet  with  no  mercy,  so  a  record  of  mercy  will  prevent  con- 

udemnation.  Cf.  520  and  Ecclus.  3^0  40",  Tob.  49-".  The  doc- 
trine (and  need)  of  God's  forgiving  mercy  is  here  assumed  in 
regular  Jewish  fashion. 

On  the  great  importance  ascribed  to  mercy  as  a  virtue  in  Jewish 
thought,  see  Bousset,  Religion  des  Jiidentums-,  pp.  162  /. 

The  contrast  of  God's  opposing  attributes  of  mercy  and  justice  does 
not  seem  to  be  in  mind  here.  The  contrast  of  eXeoq  and  xpfan;  is  a 
natural  one,  and  is  found  in  both  Greek  and  Jewish  sources,  cf.  Diog. 
Laert.  ii,  3%  references  to  Bereshith  r.  in  Wetstein,  and  the  references 
in  Spitta,  p.  70,  note  6. 

/.a-raxauxatott  is  found  elsewhere  only  in  Jas.  3'^,  Rom.  ii"^,  Zech. 
1012,  Jer.  5o[27]'>  x.aTsxocux^'^Os  Stapxat^ov-rs-  x-fjv  7,XT)povo[j.cav  [jlou, 
5o[27]38.  It  does  not  occur  in  secular  writers,  i  Cor.  15^^  well  illus- 
trates the  meaning  of  this  word. 

xoETajtauxaxat]  B  ( — re)  i<KL  minnp'"  fif  m  vg  Aug  boh. 

f.a.-za.7.0Luyjk<s%tji\  A  33  minnP''"". 

•f.<xx(x%(xuya'3^A  C-  syrp^"!". 

xai:a>tauxau9e  is  insufficiently  attested  and  is  probably  due  to  an 
error.  xo;Tg^ux«'^9<">  's  the  harder  reading,  but  the  group  A  2,2,  points 
to  an  emendation. 

eXso?  xpiffsw?]  CKL  minn  read   eXsov  xpfasw?.     Since   the  accusa- 
tive yields  no  sense,  this  must  ^ve  been   understood  as  xb  g'Xsov, 
attested  by  Ps.-Herodian,  Epimerismoi,  ed.  Boissonade,  1819,  p.  235, 
^nd  not  found  elsewhere. 

14-26.  Neither  does  the  possession  of  Faith  give  any  license 
to  dispense  with  good  works. 

This  touches  another  case  of  substitution  of  a  sham  for  the 
reaUty ;  cj.  122-25, 26  f.  38  f..  As  an  e.xcuse,  faith  is  worth  no  more 
than  love. 

The  fundamental  idea  of  a  warning  against  sham  is  common 
enough  to  all  moralists.  The  special  interest  here  is  that  James 
makes  his  contrast  not  between,  e.  g.,  sayings  and  doings,  but 
between  two  terms  important  in  Christian  thought,  viz.,  faith 


II,  13-14  203 

and  works,  and  that  in  the  course  of  his  argument  he  uses  other 
theological  terms  and  reveals  an  acquaintance  with  many  diverse 
theological  conceptions  and  modes  of  thought. 

14.  Faith,  if  it  does  not  lead  to  good  works,  is  impotent  to 
save. 

Ti  o^eXo9,  cf.  V.  1^  I  Cor.  1532,  and  (ti?  w^eXia)  Ecclus.  203" 
41^^,  Job  21^^  o(f)e\o^  is  found  in  LXX  only  once  (Job  15'). 
Cf.  tC  yap  (or  ovv,  or  Be)  6(f)€\o^  (note  absence  of  the  article,  as 
here),  Philo,  De  poster.  Cain.  24,  Quod  deus  immut.  33,  De  agric. 
30;  Teles  (ed.  Hense),  p.  27  tl  ovv  6(^e\o<i  to  ovT(o<i  e^et^;  ri 
o(/)eXo9  was  a  common  expression  in  the  vivacious  style  of  the 
moral  diatribe.  See  Bultmann,  Stil  der  paulinischen  Predict, 
P-  33- 

ogsKoq]  EC*  102 ;  cf.  V.  "  (sine  ^6,  BC*),  i  Cor.  15"  (sine  z6,  DFG). 
•zh  oqjeXo?]  SAC^KL  minnf^'^  0"°,  probably  emendation. 

a8€X(f)0i  fiov.     Marks  a  new  paragraph"^  cf.  2^,  -etc. 

iriaTLv.  Introduced  without  the  article  as  a  new  idea;  cf. 
r]  irCaTL'i,  v.  ^^,  and  i^-  ^'  ^^ 

Cf.  1^'  "  2^'  ^'  "-"  51^.  Faith  (c/.  especially  2^)  is  here  assumed 
to  be  the  fundamental  attitude  of  the  Christian  adherent,  which 
makes  him  a  Christian.  No  ground  exists  for  thinking  that 
this  assumption  was,  or  could  be,  doubted  b}^any  one.  All 
Christians  (cf.  inaTOi,  "believers,"  Acts  16^  2  Cor.  6^^  i  Tim. 
S^f^)  have  faith,  and  Jam^s  uses  the  term,  without  any.  attempt 
at  the  formation  of  an  exadrpsychological  concept  of  the  con- 
tents of  faith,  merely  as  the  ordinary  term  familiar  to  all  for  a 
well-known  inner  state.  The  cases  of  the  demons,  Abraham, 
and  Rahab  all  present  an  analogy  to  Christian  faith  which, 
while  inadequate,  is  yet  valuable  for  argument — the  more  so 
that  Abraham  and  Rahab  were  recognised  on  all  hands  to  have 
been  "justified." 

Xeyrj,  "say,"  in  presenting  his  claim  to  be  approved  of  men 
and  of  God.  So  i^''  firjSeU  XeyeTco,  cf.  2^.  This  word  is  not  to 
be  too  much  emphasised,  as  if  it  meant  "pretend,"  and  as  if 
doubt  were  seriously  thrown  on  the  man's  actual  possession  of 
faith.     The  inadequate  and  empty  "faith"  which  produces  no 


204  JAMES 

works  may  be  hardly  worthy  of  the  name,  but  it  is  not  necessa- 
rily a  deliberate  hypocrisy. 

The  contrast  is  not  between  saying  (Xey?;)  and  doing  {epya 
'^XV)j  s-s  it  was  in  i^^  between  hearing  and  doing;  it  is  rather 
between  mere  adherence  to  Christianity  and  conduct,  or  between 
church-membership  and  life  {iriaTiv  ei^eti',  ep'ya  exeiv). 

epya,  cf.  i". 

€p<ya  seems  here  a  recognised  term  for  "good  deeds."  Cf.  Mt. 
5^^  23^,  Rom.  2^,  Jn.  320,  Tit.  i^^  etc.,  etc.,  where  to.  epya  means 
"conduct,"  which  is  made  up  of  an  infinite  number  of  separate 
epya.  For  the  use  of  the  word  in  moral  relations,  cf.  Prov.  2412 
09  aTToStScoaiv  mdaTU)  Kara  ra  epya  avrov,  Ps.  62^-,  Apoc. 
Bar.  ^i'^  "saved  by  their  works,"  4  Ezra  7^\  Pirke  Aboth,  iii, 
14;  iv,  15,  and  many  other  passages  referred  to  by  Spitta,  pp. 
72-76. 

On  the  expression  epya  ex^iv,  Triariv  e\;eti',  cf.  4  Ezra  7" 
g32  j^-is  "even  such  as  have  works  and  faith  toward  the  Al- 
mighty," Apoc.  Bar.  1412  (the  righteous)  "have  with  them  a 
store  of  works  preserved  in  treasuries." 

The  epya  here  do  not  appear  as  specifically  €pya  vopov ;  the 
word  merely  denotes  conduct  as  contrasted  with  faith.  This 
contrast  cannot  be  original  with  this  writer  {cf.  4  Ezra  9^  i3^0- 

The  contrast  of  faith  and  works  will  appear  wherever  faith 
is  held  to  be  the  fundamental  characteristic  of  the  true  members 
of  the  religious  community,  while  at  the  same  time  a  body  of 
laws  regulating  conduct  is  set  forth  as  binding.  It  is  inevitable 
that  by  some,  whether  in  practise  or  in  theory,  the  essential 
underlying  unity  of  the  two  absolute  requirements  will  be  over- 
looked and  one  or  the  other  regarded  as  sufficient.  This  will 
always  call  out  protests  like  that  of  James,  who  represents  the 
sound  and  sensible  view  that  not  one  only  but  both  of  these 
requirements  must  be  maintained. 

In  the  discussions  of  the  Apostle  Paul  the  contrast  is  the  same 
in  terms,  but  its  real  meaning  is  different  and  peculiar.  Paul's 
lofty  repudiation  of  "works"  has  nothing  but  the  name  in  com- 
mon with  the  attitude  of  those  who  shelter  their  deficiencies  of 
conduct  under  the  excuse  of  having  faith.     Paul's  contrast  was 


II,  14  205 

a  novel  one,  viz.  between  the  works  of  an  old  and  abandoned 
system  and  the  faith  of  a  newly  adopted  one.  His  teaching  was 
really  intended  to  convey  a  doctrine  of  forgiveness. 

Our  author,  on  the  other  hand,  with  nothing  either  of  Paul's 
subtlety  or  of  his  mystical  insight  into  the  act  of  faith  and 
glorification  of  faith's  contents,  is  led  to  draw  the  more  usual 
contrast  between  the  faith  and  works  which  are  both  deemed 
necessary  under  the  same  system.  Hence,  while  faith  is  the 
same  thing  with  both — an  objective  fact  of  the  Christian  life, 
the  works  of  which  they  speak  are  different — in  one  case  the  con- 
duct required  by  the  Jewish  law,  in  the  other  that  demanded 
by  Christian  ethics.  That  the  two  in  part  coincided  does 
not  make  them  the  same.  One  was  an  old  and  abandoned  fail- 
ure, impotent  to  secure  the  salvation  which  it  was  believed  to 
promise,  the  other  was  the  system  of  conduct  springing  from 
and  accompanying  a  new  life. 

But  this  distinction,  while  it  makes  plain  that  James  is  not 
controverting  what  Paul  meant,  yet  does  not  insure  the  full 
agreement  of  James  and  Paul,  for  Paul,  although  he  would  have 
heartily  admitted  the  inadequacy  of  a  faith  which  does  not 
show  itself  in  works,  would  never  have  admitted  that  justifica- 
tion comes  e|  epjoiu.  James  has  simply  not  learned  to  use 
Paul's  theology,  and  betrays  not  the  slightest  comprehension 
of  the  thought  of  Paul  about  faith  and  the  works  of  the  Law. 

The  contrast  between  reliance  on  membership  in  the  religious 
community  and  on  conduct  is  as  old  as  Amos  and  the  Hebrew 
prophets,  and  comes  out  in  the  words  of  John  the  Baptist,  and 
of  Jesus  in  the  Synoptics  and  John.  All  that  James  adds  to 
these  is  the  term  ''faith,"  to  denote  the  essential  element  in  the 
membership,  and  then  an  elaborate  discussion  in  which  the  terms 
and  instances  of  later  Jewish  theology  are  freely  employed. 

The  use  (see  below)  of  the  same  formula  which  Paul  seems  to 
have  created  indicates  that  Paul  had  preceded  James,  but  it  is 
plain  that  James  had  made  no  study  of  Paul's  epistles,  and  these 
formulas  may  have  come  to  his  knowledge  without  his  having 
read  Paul's  writings,  which,  we  must  remember,  the  Book  of 
Acts  does  not  even  mention.    See  Introduction,  supra,  pp.  35  /. 


2o6  JAMES 

fir}  BvvaTaL  rj  iriaTL';  aSiaat  auroV;    cj.  i^*  (and  note)   4" 

This  question  is  presented  as  if  it  admitted  of  but  one  an- 
swer, and  that  a  self-evident  one. 

15-17.  Illustration  from  the  emptiness  of  words  of  charity 
as  a  substitute  for  deeds. 

This  is  not,  like  the  closely  similar  verses,  2'-  f-,  a  concrete  in- 
stance of  James's  contention,  but  a  little  parable ;  for  another 
parable  to  the  same  purport,  cf.  2^^.  The  illustration  is  ab- 
ruptly introduced,  as  in  3"'  ^^. 

The  comparison  has  itself  a  moral  significance,  and  the  same 
thought  is  found  in  other  Uterature,  e.g.  Plautus,  Epid.  116/. 
nam  quid  te  igitur  rettulit  beneficum  esse  oratione  si  ad  rem  aux- 
ilium  emortuomst? 

15.  IAv]  Bt<  2>S  69  minn  ff  m. 

lav  8^]  ACKL  minnp'"  vg  syrpe^h-  hoi. 
lav  ifap]  sah. 

0  ryvfivoi^  "naked,"  in  the  sense  of  "insufficiently  clad";  cf. 
Job  22^  "stripped  the  naked  of  their  clothing,"  Is.  20^'  ^  58^, 
Jn.  21'^  (without  the  eirevhvTrj'i) ,  Mt.  25^6  ff-.  Acts  iq^'^;  see  ref- 
erences in  L.  arid  S. 

The  plural  after  singular  subjects  connected  by  V  is  in  ac- 
cord with  the  occasional  usage  of  good  Greek  writers.  See 
Hadley-Allen,  §608;  Blass-Debrunner,  §  135.  Buttmann  and 
Blass  ascribe  the  plural  here  to  the  fact  that  the  two  nouns  are 
of  different  genders,  but  this  is  not  the  case  in  all  the  examples 
from  secular  Greek. 

i(f)r}/x€pov  Tpo(f)r]<;,  "food  for  the  day,"  "the  day's  supply  of 
food." 

The  word  i(f)i]fi€po<i  is  not  in  the  0.  T.,  but  this  whole  phrase 
is  found  in  Diod.  iii,  32 ;  Dion.  Hal.  viii,  41;  Aristides,  xhx,  ed. 
Dindorf,  p.  537.  It  is  an  expression  natural  to  secular  Greek, 
and  used  here,  much  like  the  English  "daily  bread,"  to  describe 
the  poor  person's  need  as  urgent ;  cf.  Philo,  In  Flacc.  1 7  TrevrjTe^ 
ia/jLev  Koi  /Ji,6\i<;  to  icp^fiepov  et?  avra  to,  avajKala  iropi^eiv 
Bvvdfxeda,  Ps.-Plutarch,  An  vitios.  p.  499  C  TrpoaaiTijaLU  ij)r}- 


II,  14-17  207 

fiepov  rpo^ri<i.  Other  extracts  may  be  found  in  Mayor',  p.  97, 
and  Field,  Notes  on  the  Translation  oj  the  New  Testament,  1899, 
pp.  236/.  ^ 

16.  vTrdyere  iu  elpiqvrj,  "good  bye,"  a  Jewish  expression; 
cf.  Acts  i636,  Mk.  5^^  Lk.  ;«*,  Judg.  iS^,  i  Sam.  i^^  20*2,  2  Sam. 
^5^  ;  ^/-  J-  Friedmann,  Der  gesellschaftliche  Verkehr  und  die 
Umgangsformeln  in  talmudischer  Zeit,  Berlin,  1914,  p.  34. 

depfiaivecrOe  koI  xoprd^ea-Oe.  The  context  requires  that  these 
be  taken  as  passive ;  and,  indeed,  in  order  to  say  "  warm  and 
feed  yourselves"  it  would  be  necessary  in  the  late  usage  of 
the  N.  T.  to  use  the  active  with  a  reflexive  pronoun,  u/xa? 
ayroi)?,  leairroy? ;  cf.  e.g.  i^-  7rapa\o<yt,^6fji,evot  eavTOv<i.  Cf. 
Blass-Deb runner,  §  310. 

That  Gspixatvetv  was  commonly  used  of  the  effect  of  warm  clothes 
is  shown  by  Job  31-",  Hag.  i%  but  also  by  Plut.  QucbsL  conviv.  vi,  6, 
p.  691  D,  and  a  curious  passage  (quoted  by  Wetstein)  in  which  Galen 
(De  vir.  medic,  simpl.  ii)  criticises  the  common  neglect  of  writers  to 
observe  the  distinction  between  that  which  warms  and  that  which 
merely  keeps  off  the  cold. 

Ba)Te,  plural  after  rt?,  which  is  treated  as  a  kind  of  collective. 
See  Hadley-Allen,  §  609  a ;   Kriiger,  §  58,  4,  A.  5. 

Ta  iiTLTijSeLa,  "the  necessaries  of  life."  Not  elsewhere  in 
the  N.  T. ;  occasionally  in  LXX,  but  with  no  corresponding 
Hebrew  word. 

otfzkoi;]  sine  to  BC*;  cf.  v. '<. 

17.  ovTOJ^,  making  the  application  of  the  parable,  cf.  Lk.  151" 
171". 

iap  fit]  exo  epya,  cf.  vv.  ^^'  '^'  -^  17  7riaTL<;  %w/3t9  [tmu]  epywu. 

Faith  is  said  to  "have"  works,  perhaps  in  the  sense  of  "at- 
tendance or  companionship"  (Lex.  s.  v.  e%w  I,  2,  c). 

v6Kpd,  cf.  V.  2^.  The  two  things  which  are  opposed  are  not 
faith  and  works  (as  with  Paul)  but  a  living  faith  and  a  dead 
faith.  The  dead  faith  is  also  called  apy^  (v.  -°) ;  cf.  i^^  fxdTato<;. 
It  is  not  denied  that  faith  can  exist  without  works,  but  it  is  the 
wrong  kind  of  faith. 

On  the  figurative  use  of  ve/cp6<i  for  "inactive  and  useless," 


2o8  JAMES 

Rom.  6"  78,  Heb.  6^  9^^  cj.  Epict.  Diss,  iii,  23^8  koI  firjv  av  firj 
Tavra  (sc.  a  conviction  of  sin)  efiiroLjj  6  tov  (j)i\oar6(}30v  X070?, 
V€Kp6<;  iaTL  koI  avTO<i  icai  6  Xeycav. 

Ka6'  kavTrjv^  "in  itself"  (R.V.),  strengthens  veKpd,  "inwardly 
dead";  not  merely  hindered  from  activity,  but  defective  in  its 
own  power  to  act;  see  2  Mace.  13^^,  Acts  28^'^,  Rom.  14-2,  and 
secular  references  in  Lex.  s.  v.  Kara,  II,  i,  e,  cf.  Gen.  30^  43 3^. 

Of  the  various  renderings  proposed  the  only  other  one  deserving 
mention  is  that  of  Grotius  and  others,  who  give  it  this  meaning  of  "by 
itself,"  "alone"  (ff  sola),  but  interpret,  "faith  without  works  is  dead, 
being  alone."  This  involves  a  tautology,  and  in  strictness  would 
require  the  addition  of  the  participle  oiHaa. 

18.  A  possible  rejoinder  in  behalf  of  the  censured  persons, 
and  its  refutation. 

Supposed  bringer  of  excuses:  "One  has  pre-eminently 
faith,  another  has  pre-eminently  works." 

James:    "A  live  faith   and  works  do  not  exist  sepa- 
rately." 
a\X'  epel  tl^.    An  objection  or  defense  suggested,  as  in  i^^ 
2*-".     For  the  half-dialogue  form,  cf.  Rom.  9^*  ii^^,  i  Cor.  15^^ 
aXka  ipel  tl^^  4  Mace.  2 2^,  Ep.  Barn.  9^,  and  innumerable  pas- 
sages in  the  Greek  morahsts.     See  Introduction,  supra,  p.  12. 

The  future  here  "denotes  a  merely  supposable  case"  (Lat.  dicaf), 
Winer,  §  40,  b,  p.  280;  Buttmann,  §  139,  18;  Viteau,  Grec  dii  N.  T., 
Le  verbe,  §  43.    Cf.  Heb.  11'-. 

In  reply  to  the  censure  upon  those  who  rely  on  faith  and 
neglect  conduct,  it  is  here  suggested  that  one  person  has  faith 
{cf.  I  Cor.  12^  irepq)  iriaTv^  iv  rw  avrw  irvev/xaTL),  another 
works,  doubtless  not  in  either  case  with  perfect  exclusiveness 
but  in  pre-eminent  degree.  This  is  a  defense  which  suggests 
antinomianism,  but  includes  a  curious  tolerance.  While  ob- 
viously weak — a  weaker  position,  indeed,  than  downright  anti- 
nomianism— ^it  has  a  certain  plausibility,  and  very  likely  fairly 
expresses  the  underl)dng  unformulated  philosophy  of  not  a  few 
persons. 

The  objector's  words  are  contained  in  one  sentence;    then 


II,    17-18  209 

James  replies  with  Sei^ov  fwi  kt\.  This  sentence  is  e\ddently 
from  the  point  of  view  of  vv.  ^^-'^  and  is  intended  flatly  and 
comprehensively  to  deny  that  faith  and  works  are  separate 
gifts,  like,  for  instance,  prophecy  and  healing. 

o-v,  Kayo).  The  pronouns  do  not  refer  to  James  and  the 
objector,  but  are  equivalent  to  et<?,  erepo^;,  "one,"  "another," 
and  are  merely  a  more  picturesque  mode  of  indicating  two 
imaginary  persons.  Very  much  the  same  is  true  of  "thou" 
and  "I"  in  the  second  half  of  the  verse,  where  James  has  no 
idea  of  emphasising  his  own  superior  uprightness. 

ou  cannot  be  made  to  refer  to  James  (i)  because  James  is  contend- 
ing not  for  faith  but  for  works,  and  (2)  because  James's  personality  has 
up  to  this  point  been  so  little  prominent  (the  first  person  has  been  only 
used  in  the  conventional  address  dSeX9ot  [xou),  that  some  clear  indi- 
cation of  such  a  direct  contrast  between  him  and  the  objector  would 
be  expected,  at  least  igel  -ziq  Ifxoi  instead  of  epst  xiq. 

For  a  similar  usage  cf.  the  quotation  from  Bion  in  a  fragment  of  the 
Cynic  Teles  (ed.  Hense^,  pp.  5/.,  from  Stobaeus,  Anthol.  iii,  i,  98  [Mein. 
V)  67]),  [lY)  oi!iv  ^ouXou  S£UTepoX6Yo<;  wv  tb  xpwToXoYou  xpoawicov  '  et  Ss  \}A], 
av(jl:p(i,0ffT6v  xi  Ti:otT)aet<;.  au  jxev  apxetq  xaXu?,  ey(!j  Ss  apxonat,  cpT]ffl  {sc.  6 
Bt'wv),  xotl  ai  [Asv  icoXXwv,  eytl)  Ss  Ivb?  toutoui  xatSaYwybq  yevoiJievoq,  xal 
au  [jlIv  euxopoq  Yev6[JL£V0(;  St'Swq  IXeuOepfox;,  eytl)  Ss  Xaix^avw  eu6apffti>(; 
xapa  aoG  oux  utcotcixtwv  ouSe  ayevvti^uv  ouBs  [ji,e[jii|it(j.otp(I)v. 

Teles  (c.  230  B.C.),  quoting  his  predecessor  Bion,  is  urging  that  every 
man  must  play  the  part  that  Fortune  assigns  him,  and  says  :  "If,  then, 
you  are  a  second-class  actor,  don't  envy  the  role  of  the  first-class  player. 
If  you  do,  you  will  commit  blunders.  You  are  a  ruler,  I  am  a  subject 
(says  [Bion]);  you  have  many  under  you,  I,  as  a  tutor,  but  this  one; 
and  you  grow  prosperous  and  give  generously,  while  I  cheerfully  receive 
from  you  without  fawning  or  degrading  myself  or  complaining." 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  in  the  first  sentence  from  Teles  au  is  the  man 
with  the  inferior  actor's  part,  while  in  the  rest  of  the  passage  au  is  the 
more  prosperous  man,  in  contrast  to  the  speaker,  who  modestly  pre- 
sents himself  as  the  representative  of  lesser  worldly  fortune.  This  is 
not  unlike  the  way  in  which  James  (see  below)  fails  to  preserve  strictly 
the  r61es  of  his  fragmentary  dialogue. 

On  the  "ideal"  second  person  in  Greek  (equivalent  to  ziq),  see  Gil- 
dersleeve.  Syntax  of  Classical  Greek,  i,  igoo,  p.  41,  with  many  examples. 

e;)(;ei9.     To  be  taken  as  an  affirmation  not  a  question.     ^X^^? 
and  e^oi  are  manifestlv  parallel. 
14 


2IO  JAMES 

iriaTiv  means  ttIcttiv  %&)/ot9  tmv  epycov,  or,  at  least,  with  a 
minimum  of  €pya,     epya  is  epya  with  a  minimum  of  TTLcrTif. 

Sel^ov,  "show,"  "prove,"  "demonstrate,"  cf.  Jas.  3'^  Here 
begins  the  reply  addressed  to  the  objector.  James  replies,  first, 
by  a  challenge  to  the  objector  to  produce  a  case  of  faith  stand- 
ing by  itself  without  accompanying  works.  This  challenge  rests 
on  the  assumption  that  such  a  "dead"  faith  is  really  no  faith 
at  all.  James,  however,  does  not  pursue  that  aspect  of  the  mat- 
ter, but  proceeds,  secondly  (Kcfyo)  aoi  Sei^o)),  with  the  converse 
of  the  first  challenge,  in  the  form  of  an  offer  to  show  that  any 
case  of  works  supposed  to  stand  by  themselves  without  under- 
lying faith  is  merely  deceptive  and  really  implies  a  co-existent 
faith. 

On  the  form  of  expression,  by  challenge  and  offer,  cf.  Theoph. 
Ad  Autol.  i,  2  Set^ov  /ml  tov  avdpwirov  aov  Kayo)  croi  Sei^o)  tov 
6e6v  fiov,  Epictet.  i,  6*^  eyfo  aoi  hei^oi  ,  ,  .  ai)  B'  ifiol  SeiKVve 
and  other  references  in  Bultmann,  p.  33. 

Xwpfc]  BJ^ACP  minn  ff  vg  boh  sah  syrp''='>-  •><■'  arm. 

I/.]  KL  minn'°°s«  p'".  An  unfortunate  conformation  to  the  follow- 
ing clause,  which  spoils  the  sense. 

It  is  interesting  that  in  the  EngUsh  A.V.  the  influence  of  the  Vulgate 
(sine)  led  to  the  rendering  "without,"  which  is  not  a  correct  translation 
of  the  Received  Greek  Text,  which  reads  ex. 

Xwpl?  Tuv  ?pYO)v]  CKL  minnp'"  add  aou,  doubtless  part  of  the  same 
emendation  which  produced  ex. 

Kayo)  croi  Sei^o).  "From  the  very  existence  of  righteous  con- 
duct the  fact  of  faith  can  be  demonstrated,  for  without  faith 
I  could  not  do  the  works."  Note  the  elegant  construction  of 
this  sentence  in  which  the  chiastic  order  irlaTiv — epyoav^  epycov 
— TTiartv  well  corresponds  to  the  natural  emphasis. 

xayw  ffot  Set'^w]  BS  minn. 

xayo)  Sef^w  aoi]  ACKL  minn  vg.  A  weakening  conformation  to 
order  of  preceding  oeisov  [loi. 

ex  Twv  epywv  [kou]  ff  vg  syr''"'  omit  (Jiou,  by  a  conformation  to  their 
text  of  the  preceding  clause. 


II,   l8  211 

icfaTiv  3°]  Bi<C  s^  minn  ff. 

lutaxiv  (iou]  AKLP  minnp'«''  vg  boh  sah  syrps^b-  hci.     Conformation  to 

Tl^jV  Xl'aTtV  ffOU. 

The  interpretations  of  this  difificult  verse  are  very  numerous  and  for 
the  most  part  highly  subtle  and  unsatisfactory.  The  interpretation 
presented  above,  which  was  given  by  Pott  in  Koppe's  Novum  Testa- 
mcntiim',  1816,  and  by  H.  Bouman,  Commcntariits  perpetuus  in  Jacohi 
epistolam,  Utrecht,  1865,  differs  from  others  in  taking  au  and  lyw  in 
the  defense  as  referring  merely  to  two  representatives  of  different  types 
of  religion,  not  to  the  writer  of  the  epistle  and  the  objector  himself. 
Thereby  one  of  the  chief  difficulties  of  the  exegesis  is  overcome,  namely, 
the  difficulty  that  06  and  eyw  in  the  objection  (v.  '^a)  ^q  not  suit  well 
the  corresponding  iixoi,  tiou,  and  aou,  aoi,  in  the  retort  of  James  (v.  '">). 
With  any  other  mode  of  interpretation  it  seems  impossible  to  gain  a 
satisfactory  sense  from  the  passage. 

The  interpretations  are  divided  into  two  main  groups,  according  as 
dXk'  ipel  iiq  is  taken  (i)  as  interposing  a  reply  in  defense  of  the  ten- 
dency censured  in  vv.  '^-i',  or  (2)  as  introducing  the  reinforcement  of 
an  ally  who  adds  his  word  in  the  same  contention  as  that  of  James. 

I.  11c,  as  an  objector. 

This  interpretation  (which  I  adopt)  finds  its  support  chiefly  in  the 
argument  used  above,  that  this  is  the  only  natural  meaning  of  the  phrase 
aXk'  spsc  Tt<;  in  such  a  context.  Under  this  view  the  words  introduced 
by  ipel  will  not  extend  beyond  s'xw,  v. '« »,  for  Sel^ov  x-cX.  is  evidentlj' 
spoken  in  the  interest  of  James's  main  contention.  As  to  how  the 
words  ('*  ^)  can  express  an  objection,  and  what  that  objection  is,  opin- 
ions have  been  various.  The  first  and  most  obvious  difficulty  in  this 
view  has  always  been  that  the  objector  seems  to  declare  that  James 
has  faith,  while  the  objector  himself  has  works.  That  would  reverse 
their  respective  parts,  and  the  difficulty  has  been  met  in  three  ways. 

1.  Since  the  objection  is  quoted  by  James,  au  is  taken  as  if  from 
James's  point  of  view  and  lyw  as  if  referring  to  James :  "But  someone 
will  say,  'Thou  (/.  c.  the  representative  of  the  class  just  censured)  hast 
faith,  while  I  (James)  have  works.'  "  This  is  taken  either  (a)  as  a  de- 
fense of  the  class  censured,  on  the  ground  that  several  types  of  religion 
are  alike  admissible,  or  (b)  as  an  attack  upon  James,  who  is  declared 
to  have  only  works  (which  are  inferior  to  faith),  whereas  the  person 
attacked  has  faith,  the  superior  quality  (so  Weiss).  To  this,  under 
either  form,  (a)  or  (&),  James  replies  that  faith  cannot  exist  alone. 

Both  these  explanations  are  exposed  to  the  fatal  difficulty  that  the 
objection  of  the  defender  is  given  in  direct  discourse  (as,  e.  g.,  in  2^)  so 
that  syci  cannot  possibly  refer  to  James;  the  interpretation  of  Weiss 
is  exposed  to  the  further,  equally  fatal,  objection  that  it  is  impos- 
sible to  suppose  that  James  could  have  introduced,  in  the  mouth  of  a 


212  JAMES 

supposititious  defender,  such  an  insulting  personal  attack  on  himself. 
The  rhetorical  device  of  the  objector's  defense  is  very  characteristic  of 
Greek  popular  moral  exhortation  of  this  period,  and  is  always  adopted 
solely  in  order  to  state  vividly  a  possible  point  of  view,  in  itself  not 
wholly  unreasonable,  but  liable  to  the  crushing  rejoinder  with  which 
the  author  follows  it.  It  must  be  assumed  as  intended  to  aid,  not  to 
hinder,  the  development  of  the  main  contention.  To  withdraw  the 
reader's  mind  from  the  main  subject  by  raising  the  question  of  the 
author's  own  character  and  principles  would  be  a  strangely  inept  turn. 
Moreover,  for  Weiss's  view  the  precise  bearing  of  the  attack  (through 
the  supposed  inferiority  of  works  to  faith)  would  have  to  be  more  clearly 
expressed.  James  nowhere  lays  himself  open  to  the  accusation  that  he 
thinks  works  can  exist  without  faith. 

2.  A  second  way  of  meeting  the  difficulty  is  that  of  von  Soden,  WH. 
mg.,  and  others,  who  take  gxet<;  as  a  question,  by  which  doubt  is  ex- 
pressed of  James's  possession  of  faith ;  thus  : 

James:  "Faith  without  works  is  dead." 

Opponent:  "Hast  thou  any  faith?" 

James:  "1  have  works.  Show  me  thy  faith  without  works,  and  I 
will  prove  that  I  have  faith." 

Apart  from  the  fact  that  this  interpretation  gives  the  passage  too 
much  the  character  of  personal  debate,  with  an  argumentmn  ad  hominem, 
to  suit  the  style  proper  to  general  hortatory  moral  writing,  this  theory 
fails  because  it  does  violence  to  the  Greek.  For  (a),  in  order  to  call  in 
question  James's  faith,  the  opponent  would  have  had  to  say  \^'ii  au  Tcfartv 
?xet? ;  (c/.  e.  g.  V.  •*)•  The  present  form  of  the  question  would  be  wholly 
weak  and  unnatural,  {h)  The  theory  neglects  the  obvious  parallelism 
of  aCt  e'xeti;,  xiyfi)  s'xg),  in  which  the  presence  of  /.at  and  the  lack  of  any 
sufficient  introduction  to  the  second  part  make  it  impossible  to  assume 
that  we  have  a  question  and  answer. 

3.  (a)  In  despair  of  any  other  solution,  Pfleiderer,  Urchrislentiim, 
»i887,  p.  874 ;  2igo2,  ii,  p.  547 ;  E.  Y.  Hincks  {Journal  of  Bibl.  Literature, 
xviii,  1899,  pp.  199-201),  Baljon,  Katholieke  Brieven,  1904,  p.  42,  have 
declared  the  text  corrupt,  and  propose  to  read  against  all  Mss.  (except 
the  Latin  Codex  Corbeiensis  [ff],  the  reading  of  which  is  admittedly  a 
secondary  correction)  au  'igf<x  ^x^'?  y-iyiii  xiaiiv  sx<i). 

The  meaning  will  then  be,  as  in  the  explanation  defended  above,  an 
appeal  by  the  opponent  to  the  equal  value  of  various  religious  gifts, 
faith  and  works  both  being  good  in  their  own  way.  In  the  text  as  re- 
constructed each  gift  will  be  assigned  to  the  right  person,  faith  to  the 
opponent,  works  to  James. 

But  (i)  this  reconstruction  of  the  text  is  too  violent  a  procedure  to 
be  acceptable  so  long  as  any  other  explanation  can  be  found,  and  (2) 
the  resulting  text  is  unsatisfactory.  For  James's  own  character  and 
principles  have  not  been  in  question,  and  to  represent  the  defender  as 


II,  i8  213 

here  drawing  a  sharp  contrast  specifically  between  James  and  himself 
is  to  make  the  words  amount  to  an  attack  on  James.  Thus  this  solu- 
tion is  exposed  to  the  same  objections  as  that  of  Weiss  already  discussed. 

(b)  Of  the  same  violent  sort  is  the  suggestion  of  Spitta,  followed  by 
HoUmann,  that  the  objection  originally  introduced  by  ocXk'  epel  xtq 
has  fallen  out,  so  that  originally  au  iziaziy  e'xet^  constituted  the  first 
words  of  James's  rejoinder. 

But  such  a  rejoinder,  in  which  the  writer  declares  that  he  possesses 
these  highly  prized  works,  would  be  very  unnatural,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  fact  that  James  would  not  have  admitted  voluntarily  and  gratu- 
itously that  his  own  faith  required  proof.  And  Spitta's  attempt  to 
reconstruct  the  objection  introduced  by  spec  Tt^;  is  weak  ("Aus  dem 
Fehlen  gewisser  Werke  konne  nicht  geschlossen  werden,  der  Glaube  sei 
nicht  lebendig,  und  die  Werke,  auf  welche  Jakobus  poche,  konnten 
den  Mangel  der  xiotk;  nicht  ersetzen,"  p.  79). 

Hollmann's  attempt  is  equally  unconvincing  :  "  Allein  da  wird  jemand 
sagen :  [Was  niitzen  Werke  ohne  Glauben  ?  Ich  aber  habe  Glauben !] 
Du  hast  Glauben  und  ich  habe  Werke?  Zeige  mir  deinen  Glauben" 
(in  J.  Weiss,  Schriftcn  des  N.  T.  ii,  1908,  p.  10). 

4.  The  interpretation  defended  above  is  not  open  to  any  of  these 
objections. 

n.  Tti;  as  an  ally. 

The  unsatisfactoriness  of  the  more  usual  of  the  interpretations  above 
described  has  led  a  second  group  of  interpreters  to  take  the  sentence 
introduced  by  aXX'  Ipet  Tt?  as  coming  not  from  an  opponent  but  from 
a  third  party,  who  is  an  ally  of  James.  The  sentence  au  xta-utv  sxetq 
xiyd)  epya  s'xw  is  then  taken  to  be  merely  the  introduction,  establish- 
ing a  basis  for  argument,  while  Ssc^ov  [lot  y.i\.  contains  the  real  gist 
of  the  utterance  of  Tt? :  "Nay,  someone  will  say,  'Thou  (the  person 
censured  by  James)  hast,  or  art  supposed  to  have,  faith,  while  I  (the 
ally  of  James  now  speaking)  really  have  works ;  in  fact  thy  faith  (since 
it  cannot  be  demonstrated  by  works)  is  not  only  dead  but  practically 
non-existent,  while  my  recognized  works  prove  that  I  have  faith  as 
well.'  " 

Where  the  quotation  from  the  imaginary  ally  stops  is  less  easy  to 
determine,  and  that  is  not  very  important,  since  in  most  forms  of  this 
theory  the  point  of  view  of  the  ally  and  of  James  are  identical.  Some 
make  it  stop  with  v.  i«,  others  carry  the  interjected  remarks  on  to  the 
end  of  V.  -^.  This  latter  view  has  the  great  disadvantage  of  separating 
the  example  of  Abraham  from  the  parallel  instance  of  Rahab. 

1.  Under  the  more  common  form  of  this  view  (De  Wette,  Beyschlag, 
Mayor)  the  interrupting  ■ztq  is  thought  of  as  another  Christian ;  aXXdc 
is  taken  as  like  linmo  vera  (cf.  Jn.  i6=,  Phil,  i",  Lk.  12'  16") ;  aii  xwtiv 
s'X£t<;  is  given  the  meaning  "thou  pretendest  to  have  faith,"  a  pretense 
which  is  shown  to  be  false  in  the  sentence  Ssi^ov  ti.oi  xtX. 


214  JAMES 

But  the  natural  sense  of  xXk'  spec  iiq  is  too  clear  to  permit  here  this 
meaning  of  aXka ;  and  it  is  not  justifiable  to  make  e%et<;  equivalent  to 
XeYetq  e'xetv.  Further,  the  introduction  of  an  ally,  representing  the 
same  point  of  view,  is  wholly  uncalled  for,  and  cannot  be  accounted 
for  on  the  ground  either  of  "modesty"  (Mayor)  or  of  "dramatic  vivid- 
ness" (Beyschlag).  It  would  have  to  be  made  more  obvious  by  the 
context.  James  cannot  thus  boast  of  works,  nor  has  he  occasion  to 
defend  himself  against  any  charge  of  lack  of  faith.  This  interpretation, 
although  widely  held,  cannot  be  accepted. 

2.  A  more  plausible  form  of  this  theory,  or  rather  an  important  ad- 
vance upon  it,  is  the  interpretation  of  Zahn  (Einleikmg,  i,  §  4,  note  4), 
based  upon  the  view  of  Hofmann  and  Stier.  Zahn  accepts  the  view  that 
•ct?  is  a  kind  of  ally,  but  finds  that  the  only  ally  that  would  suit  the 
conditions  is  an  unbelieving  Jew,  whose  supposed  words  run  through 
v.  " :  "Nay,  if  you  maintain  your  practices,  some  Jew  will  say,  'Thou, 
as  a  Christian,  hast  thy  faith,  and  I,  as  a  Jew,  my  works ;  but  thy  con- 
duct gives  the  lie  to  thy  professions  of  faith,  whereas  my  conduct  shows 
that  I  have  all  the  faith  a  man  needs.  Thy  vaunted  faith  is  no  more 
than  that  of  the  demons.'  "  This  is  concrete  and  has  advantages  over 
most  other  interpretations.  But  the  difiiculty  remains  that  akX'  spsl  th; 
is  more  naturally  taken  as  introducing  not  a  reinforcement  of  James's 
position,  but  an  objection  or  defense  of  those  censured.  Further,  in 
the  general  style  of  this  epistle  (which  is  not  a  true  letter  addressed 
to  a  definite  body  of  readers)  such  a  reference  to  Jewish  Christian  argu- 
ment would  have  to  be  made  more  explicit  and  clear.  And,  finally, 
there  is  no  evidence  that  faith  and  works  were  ever  the  accepted  party 
cries  of  Jews  and  Christians.  On  the  contrary,  faith  characterised  the 
Jew,  and  not  epya  but  vo'^oq  and  •jrepiTofjiT)  were  what  he  claimed  as 
his  distinction,  cf.  Rom.  g*'  ^,  Phil.  3'.  And  the  content  of  faith,  as 
indicated  in  v.  i',  is  a  monotheism  which  Jew  and  Christian  shared. 
If  faith,  as  such,  were  here  thought  of  as  that  which  distinguishes 
Christian  from  Jew,  v.  "  could  not  possibly  have  been  written. 

Similar  is  the  view  of  E.  Haupt  (Sliidlen  und  Krilikeii,  vol.  hi,  1883, 
p.  187),  who  substitutes  a  non-christian  moralist  for  the  Pharisaic  Jew. 
This  is  open  to  the  same  objections  as  Zahn's  view,  and  to  the  additional 
one  that,  especially  in  Palestine,  the  defender  of  "mere  morahty"  seems 
less  appropriate  in  such  a  tract  than  the  polemical  Jew. 

For  criticism  of  various  views,  besides  the  commentaries  see  Holtz- 
mann,  Lehrh.  d.  neutest.  Theologie^,  191 1,  ii,  p.  374,  note  2. 

19-26.  Argument  from  the  instances  of  the  demons  and  of 
Abraham  and  Rahab. 

(a)  V.  ^^.     Faith  by  itself  can  be  exerted  by  demons. 

(b)  vv.  -°"2^     In  Abraham's  case,  faith  had  to  be  com- 
pleted by  works  in  order  to  secure  justification. 


II,  i8-i9  215 

(c)  V.  2\     Likewise  Rahab  was  justified  by  works. 

(d)  V.  26.     Thus  faith  without  works  is  dead. 

19.  Faith  (even  the  supreme  faith  in  One  God)  can  be  ex- 
erted by  demons,  who  are  not  thereby  saved. 

James,  after  refuting  the  excuse  of  the  objector,  proceeds  with 
his  main  argument.  The  point  made  in  v.  ^^  is  in  support  of 
the  original  proposition  of  w.  "•  ^^  that  faith  without  works 
is  dead ;  v.  ^^  is  thus  an  argument  parallel  to  that  of  vv.  ^^■'^\ 

7rtcrT€V€i<;.  Perhaps  better  taken  as  afl&rmation  than  (Tdf. 
WH.)  as  question. 

oTL  eh  6eo<i  eaTiv. 

This,  the  existence  and  unity  of  God,  is  doubtless  thought  of 
as  the  chief  element  in  faith,  but  it  is  going  too  far  to  represent 
it  as  including  the  whole  of  James's  conception  of  faith.  Cf. 
the  emphasis  on  monotheism  (with  reference  to  Christ  added) 
in  I  Cor.  8^-  «,  Eph.  4«,  i  Thess.  i*. 

The  emphasis  on  monotheism  as  the  prime  article  of  the  Jewish  creed 
is  to  be  seen  in  the  Shema  (Deut.  6*),  "Hear,  O  Israel,  the  Lord  our 
God  is  one  Lord"  (cf.  Mk.  1229),  and  may  be  illustrated  from  Philo, 
De  opif.  miindi,  61  ;  De  nobilitale,  5  ;  Leg.  ad  Gaium,  16.  See  Bousset, 
Religion  des  Judentums,  ch.  15. 

That  a  strong  perception  of  the  fundamental  and  distinctive 
significance  of  monotheism  passed  over  into  the  early  church 
may  be  illustrated  from  Hermas,  Mand.  i,  TrpatTov  irdvTwv  irCa- 
Tevaov  OTL  eh  eariv  6  ^eo? ;  it  was  not  peculiar  to  Jewish 
Christians.  Cf.  Harnack,  Mission  und  Ausbreitung  des  Christen- 
tums,  Buch  ii,  Kap.  9. 

Sxt  elq  Oeb?  laxtv]  BC  {h  Osos)  minn^  ff  Priscill. 
8t[  el<;  laxtv  h  6e6c;]  J<A  min'  vg. 
8xt  6  bsbc,  elq  ejxiv]  KL  minnp'«''. 

Some  other  minor  variations  in  a  few  minuscules  are  due  to  the 
omission  of  the  article  before  Geo?.     The  Latin  versions  are : 
ff  quia  units  deiis  ; 
Priscillian  quia  umis  dens  est; 
vg  quoniam  unus  est  dens. 
The  text  of  KL  has  probably  put  h  Oeos  first  in  order  to  give  it  a  more 
emphatic  position.     As  between  the  other  two  readings,  that  of  B  is 
less  conventional  (see  Mayor's  note,  p.  100),  hence  more  likely  to  be 
original.     The  parallel  412  probably  exhibits  the  same  tendency,  for 


2l6  JAM£S 

there  also  the  reading  of  B  (with  P,  which  is  here  lacking)  is  probably 
right  as  against  an  emender  who  inserted  the  article. 

/caXM<i  iroiet'i,  cf.  v.  ^  KoKm  TroieiTe.  "This  is  good  as  far 
as  it  goes,"  perhaps  said  with  a  sUght  touch  of  irony,  as  in  Mk.  7'. 

TO,  SatfiovLa.  The  evil  spirits  whose  presence  and  power  is 
so  often  referred  to  in  the  Gospels ;  cf.  3^^ 

This  is  better  than  to  think  of  the  gods  of  the  heathen,  whom  nothing 
here  suggests. 

TTia-TevovcTLv.     For  illustration  of  this,  cf.  Mt.  S-^,  Mk.  i^^. 
(^piao-ovaiv^  "shudder  in  terror."     This  word  properly  means 
"bristle  up,"  cf.  Latin  horreo,  horresco. 

The  "shuddering  awe"  of  demons  and  others  before  the  majesty  of 
God  was  a  current  idea,  cf.  Dan.  71=*,  Or.  Man.  4,  Jos.  B.  J.  v,  lo^ ;  Justin 
Martyr,  Dial.  49,  Xptaxo)  ov  xal  Tct  8at(i.6vta  (fpiaaBi  {cf.  Dial.  30  and 
121),  Test.  Abrah.,  Rec.  A,  16;  Xen.  Cyr.  iv,  2^^ ;  the  Orphic  fragment 
(nos.  238,  239)  found  in  Clem.  Alex.  Strom,  v,  14,  p.  724  P.  oai'tJiovcs  3v 
(ppwaouat ;  and  passages  quoted  by  Hort,  ad  loc. 

Here  the  thought  is  of  a  fear  which  stands  in  contrast  to  the 
peace  of  salvation.  A  faith  which  brings  forth  only  this  result 
is  barren.    Cf.  Deissmann,  Bihelstudien,  pp.  42/.,  E.  Tr.  p.  288. 

20-24.  The  argument  from  reason  of  v.  ^^  is  followed  by  an 
argument  from  Scripture.  In  the  great  case  of  Abraham  faith 
and  works  co-operated  to  secure  justification. 

20.  6eK.eL<i  Se  <yv(ovai.  Introducing  this  new  argument :  "Do 
you  desire  a  proof?"  Like  the  similar  Rom.  13^  (see  Lietz- 
mann,  ad  loc.  in  Handbuch  zum  Neuen  Testament,  1906),  this 
can  be  taken  as  an  aflirmative  sentence  with  little  difiference  of 
meaning. 

a)  avOpcoTre  Keve.  This  address  to  a  single  person  corresponds 
with  V.  ^^  v.  1',  and  v.  ^2.  In  v.  '^^  the  writer  falls  out  of  the 
singular  into  the  more  natural  but  less  forcible  and  pungent 
plural,  perhaps  because  he  is  there  giving  a  summary  statement 
in  conclusion.  Direct  address  in  the  singular,  and  in  harsh  tone, 
is  characteristic  of  the  diatribe,  so  &  TaKaiircope^  raX,a<?,  aav- 
viwv^  A'cope,  Trovrjpe,  Infelix,  miser,  stulte  ;  cf.  Bultmann,  p.  14. 

Kev6<i  means  "empty,"  i.  e.  "deficient,"  and  is  used  here  much 


n,  19-21  217 

like  "fool";  cf.  the  Aramaic  N*p'''l.  paKci,  Mt.  522,  also  Paul's 
dcfipov,  "thou  fool,"  I  Cor.  15^6,  and  «  avdpayire,  Rom.  2^  g^". 
See  Trench,  Synonyms,  §  xlix,  and  Mayor^,  p.  102.  It  is  used  as 
a  common  term  of  disparagement  in  obvious  senses  in  Hermas, 
Mand.  xi,  passim.  The  strong  expression  is  called  out  by- 
James's  abhorrence  of  this  sham  faith. 

The  view  of  Hilgenfeld  and  others,  that  the  Apostle  Paul  is  meant 
as  the  av9p(oxo<;  xev6<;  hardly  needs  to  be  referred  to. 

apyr),  "ineffective,"  "barren"  (R.V.),  "unprofitable,"  "un- 
productive of  salvation,"  cf.  Mt.  12^^  2  Pet.  i»,  Wisd.  14^ 
(with  Grimm's  note) ;  this  sense  is  common  in  classical  Greek, 
where  a/3709  is  connected  with  such  words  as  X^P^>  ^V,  XPV' 
fiara,  86pv,  %/3oVo9,  haTpi^rj.  Cf.  vcKpo^,  vv.  i^-  ?«,  in  much 
the  same  sense. 

There  is  possibly  a  little  play  on  words  here,  between  x^pk  twv  epYwv 
and  dpy-fj  (from  d-spYT)^). 

apyifi]  BC*  minn  fF  sah. 

vexpi]  KAC^KLP  minnp'"  boh  syrp«'''-  ^oi.     Conformation  to  v.  2«. 

21.  'Afipaafi  6  irarrjp  ri/icov.  Cf.  Mt.  3^  Rom.  41,  4  Mace. 
i62o  176  (Codd.  NV,  and  better  reading),  Pirke  Aboth,  v,  4',  etc. 
On  Abraham  as  the  supreme  example  of  faith,  see  EB  and 
JE,  art.  "Abraham,"  Lightfoot,  Galatians,  pp.  154-164. 

The  use  of  this  phrase  suggests  that  the  writer  was  a  Jew,  but  is  not 
wholly  conclusive,  for  the  Christians  held  themselves  to  be  the  spiritual 
children  of  Abraham  (cf.  Gal.  3^  Rom.  4'=  f ).  Cf.  1  Cor.  10',  Clem. 
Rom.  312,  which  were  addressed  to  readers  not  of  Jewish  extraction. 

ehKaicoOr).  Used  here  as  a  familiar  and  current  term  sub- 
stantially equivalent  to  aojaai^  v.  !■*. 

hiKaiovv  means  "pronounce  righteous,"  "acquit"  {e.g.  Ex. 
23"),  and  hence  is  used  of  God  with  reference  to  the  great  assize 
on  the  day  of  judgment.  Like  aco^eiv^  however  (cf.  Acts  2", 
I  Cor.  1^1)  the  word  was  used  by  anticipation,  as  it  is  here  in 
James,  to  refer  to  the  present  establishment  of  a  claim  to  (or 


2l8  JAMES 

acceptance  of  the  gift  of)  such  acquittal  {e.  g.  Lk.  i8^^  Rom. 
8^°).  The  meaning  of  the  word  hucaiovv  in  Paul's  use  does 
not  differ  from  that  which  he  found  already  current,  although 
his  theological  doctrine  of  justification,  which  he  set  forth  with 
the  aid  of  the  word,  was  highly  original.  Nor  does  the  meaning 
in  the  present  verse  depart  at  all  from  the  ordinary.  The  justi- 
fication here  referred  to  is  not  anything  said  by  God  in  Genesis, 
but  is  the  fulfilment  of  the  promises  there  recorded.  See  Lex. 
s.v.  BiKaLoo);  HDB,  "Justification";  Sanday,  Romans,  pp. 
28-31. 

For  an  account  of  many  attempts  to  give  a  different  meaning  to 
IStxatwe-r),  see  Beyschlag,  pp.  132  /. 

ef  epyoyv. 

Cf.  Rom.  4,  especially  v.  2,  el  <yap  'A^paa/x  e|  epycov  iBiKatcoOrj^ 
e')(ei  Kav')(7]p,a  •  aXX'  ov  irpo^  6e6v  ktX,^  Rom.  3^°'  ^^,  Gal.  2^^  ov 
BiKaLOVTaL  av6poiTro<i  ef  epyoiv  vofiov  ktX.  The  contention  of 
James  corresponds  to  the  usual  Jewish  view  and  to  a  somewhat 
superficial  common  sense. 

Note  how  in  Rom.  4',  as  here,  the  case  of  Abraham  is  brought  in  as 
the  great  test  case  to  which  the  readers'  minds  are  likely  spontaneously 
to  turn  and  to  which  the  opponent  will  appeal.  In  each  case  the 
writer  has  to  argue  against  the  established  idea  of  his  readers,  Paul 
against  the  Jew,  James  against  the  Christian  who  is  using  the  justifica- 
tion of  Abraham  as  a  cloak  for  iniquity.  Hence  the  abruptness  of  the 
opening  in  both  cases. 

avevejKa'i  ktX.^  Gen.  22^'  ^. 

This  was  an  epyov^  and  is  here  presented  as  the  ground  of 
Abraham's  justification.     See  note  on  eiriaTevaev^  v.  ^3, 

That  Abraham  was  justified  and  saved  was  of  course  recog- 
nised by  all ;  that  his  justification  depended  not  merely  on  the 
initial  act  of  faith,  but  also  on  his  confirmatory  manifestation 
of  this  faith  under  trial  is  the  contention  of  James.  This,  he 
thinks,  becomes  clear  so  soon  as  reference  is  made  to  the  great 
incident  of  the  sacrifice  of  Isaac,  whereby  (Gen.  22^)  the  vital 
reality  of  Abraham's  faith  was  tested,  and  on  which  followed 
(Gen.  22^^'^*)  a  renewal  of  the  promise.     Abraham's  failure  to 


II,   21-22  219 

sustain  this  test  would  have  shown  his  faith  weak  and  doubt- 
less have  prevented  his  justification ;  thus  the  inference  from 
the  great  representative  case  of  Abraham  to  the  situation  of 
the  readers  themselves  was  unavoidable. 

At  the  same  time  James's  real  contention  in  vv.  20-22  ig  not 
so  much  of  the  necessity  of  works  as  of  the  inseparability  of 
vital  faith  and  works.  Not  merely  are  works  needed  in  order 
to  perfect  faith,  but  faith  likewise  aids  works.  This  is  all  said 
in  reply  to  the  suggestion  in  v.  ^^  that  faith  and  works  are  sep- 
arable functions  of  the  Christian  life. 

In  this  connection  note  the  singular,  jSXeTret?,  v.  ^2,  and  con- 
trast, V.  24,  opaTe. 

The  article  with  OvaiaaTrjpiov  has  reference  to  the  well-known 
altar  of  the  story  {cf.  Gen.  22^). 

avutcpepetv,  in  the  sense  of  "offer"  (as  a  religious  act),  appears  to 
be  foreign  to  secular  Greek  (which  uses  icpoacplpeiv),  and  due  to  the 
LXX,  where  it  is  common,  mainly  as  a  translation  for  ^'j'?^^.,  less  often 
for  i^apn.  In  the  LXX  xpoaipepetv  is  mainly  used  for  ^^"^PJ}.  See  West- 
cott's  note  on  Heb.  7-^ 

eufftczaTTjptov,  Ukewise,  in  the  sense  of  "altar,"  is  not  found  in  secular 
Greek  writers;   see  Westcott,  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  pp.  453-461. 

22.  on.  The  force  of  on  probably  runs  through  vv.  22 
and  2^'. 

rj  TTiaTL's.  The  existence  and  efificiency  of  Abraham's  faith 
(which  has  not  previously  been  mentioned)  is  assumed,  but 
alone  it  is  declared  not  to  have  been  adequate  to  secure  justi- 
fication. 

avv'qp'yet,  T0Z9  €pjOL<i  avrov. 

auviQPYet]  S*A  ff  read  auvepysi.  The  weight  of  ff  is  here  diminished 
by  the  fact  that  it  also  renders  sxsXsitoOri  (for  which  there  is  no  Greek 
variant)  by  the  present  tense  confirmatur. 

"Faith  helped  works,  and  works  completed  faith,"  sc.  toward 
the  end  of  justification,  as  v.  21  indicates.  In  this  general  state- 
ment the  mutual  relation  of  faith  and  works  is  made  plain — 
the  two  are  inseparable  in  a  properly  conducted  life  {cf.  v.  ^^^). 
It  is  thus  hardly  true  to  say  that  the  whole  emphasis  here 
rests  on  rot?  epyoi^.     Bengel :   duo  commata  quorum  in  priore  si 


2  20  JAMES 

illud,  fides,  in  altero  operibus  aim  accentu  pronunciaveris,  sen- 
tentia  liquido  percipietur,  qua  exprimitur,  quid  utravis  pars  alieri 
conferat. 

The  change  of  tense  (avv^pyeL,  ireXeKoOrj)  is  due  to  the  dif- 
fering nature  of  the  two  words  ("linear"  and  "punctiHar,"  cf. 
J.  H.  Moulton,  Prolegomena,  pp.  io8/.). 

rot?  epyoi<i,  dat.  of  advantage. 

avvepyelv  is  a  common  enough  Greek  word,  but  is  found  in 
the  LXX  only  in  i  Esd.  7^  and  i  Mace.  i2\  and  in  the  N.  T. 
only  Mk.  1620,  Rom.  8^8,  i  Cor.  i6i«,  2  Cor.  6\  It  means  "co- 
operate with,"  "assist,"  "help."  The  E.V.  "wrought  with" 
is  misleading,  because  it  tends  to  put  too  much  emphasis  on 
"wrought"  and  not  enough  on  "with." 

Grimm  (Lex.  s.v.  CTuvspyew)  interprets:  "Faith  (was  not  inactive, 
but  by  coworking)  caused  Abraham  to  produce  works,"  and  this  view 
is  held  by  many.  V.  "  does,  indeed,  suggest  that  James  had  reached 
this  conception  of  the  relation  of  faith  and  works  as  source  and  product, 
but  it  is  not  expressed  in  v.  ",  nor  is  it  directly  implied  there.  The 
persistent  attempts  to  find  it  in  v.  --  are  ultimately  due  to  Protestant 
commentators'  interest  in  the  doctrine  of  the  supremacy  of  faith.  Not 
the  power  of  vital  faith  to  produce  works,  but  the  inseparability  of  faith 
and  works  is  James's  contention  throughout  this  passage.  The  argu- 
ment is  directed  against  those  who  would  excuse  lack  of  works  by 
appealing  to  their  faith;  faith  alone,  it  is  declared,  is  ineffective  for 
securing  salvation. 

That  auvrjpYEt  is  used  in  conscious  contrast  to  apyTj  (a-epyr))  is  com- 
monly affirmed,  but  this  interpretation  spoils  the  sense.  James  does 
not  mean  that  Abraham's  faith,  being  accompanied  by  (auv-)  works, 
was  effective  (-rjpyeO,  but  that  faith  and  works  co-operated. 

ereXetco^T/,  "was  perfected,"  not  as  if  previously,  before  the 
works,  it  had  been  an  imperfect  kind  of  faith,  but  meaning  that 
it  "was  completed"  (almost  "supplemented"),  and  so  enabled 
to  do  its  proper  work.  If,  when  the  test  came,  the  faith  had 
not  been  matched  by  works,  then  it  would  have  been  proved 
to  be  an  incomplete  faith.  The  works  showed  that  the  faith 
had  always  been  of  the  right  kind,  and  so  "completed"  it. 

Schneckenburger  and  many  others  take  the  opposite  view,  "fides 
theoretica  imperjecta  est  donee  accedai  praxis"  ;   but  these  plain  people's 


II,   22-23  221 

faith  was  no  such  theologian's  theory.  Huther  and  Beyschlag  think 
of  faith  as  "perfected,"  in  the  sense  of  growing  strong  by  exercise  in 
works,  but  this  is  not  exactly  the  writer's  thought  here.  Calvin  and 
others  try  to  give  to  eTeXetwOiQ  the  unhkely  sense  "was  shown  to  be 
perfect."  Others  urge  that  the  process  was  the  complete  development 
of  what  faith  really  was.  The  difficulties  which  the  commentators  find 
are  due  partly  to  dogmatic  prepossession,  partly  to  their  error  in  sup- 
posing that  James  was  a  subtle  theologian  who  did  not  write  his  practical 
maxims  and  swift  popular  arguments  until  he  had  thought  out  the 
exact  definitions,  psychological  distinctions,  and  profound  and  elusive 
relations  involved  in  the  subject. 

23.  fcal  i7r\j]pa)6'rj.  Kai  introduces  the  result  of  evvrjp'yei 
Kol  eTekeLwOrj. 

rj  jpacf)')],  viz.  Gen.  15'',  quoted  accurately  from  the  LXX,  ex- 
cept that  all  but  two  of  the  chief  Mss.  have  Kal  iiricTTevaev 
for  eTTicTTevcrev  he. 

Paul's  quotation  in  Rom.  4'  has  31,  but  so  do  Philo,  De  mid.  noni. 
i^;  Clem.  Rom.  io«;  Justin  Martyr,  Dial.  92,  so  that  the  agreement 
need  not  be  significant  for  the  relation  of  James  to  Paul.  See  Hatch, 
Essays,  p.  156,  where  the  evidence  is  given  in  full. 

The  passage  Gen.  15^  {e\.o<yi<T6r]  kt\)  is  taken  as  a  prophecy. 
As  such,  it  was  really  fulfilled  by  Abraham's  conduct  set  forth 
in  Gen.  22.  ''And  so,  by  the  addition  of  conduct  (whereby 
his  faith  was  manifested)  his  faith  was  perfected,  the  Scripture 
promise  that  he  should  be  justified  was  fulfilled,  and  he  was 
called  God's  friend."  The  same  passage  of  Genesis  is  also  used 
by  Paul  (Rom.  4*,  Gal.  3®)  as  proof  of  his  doctrine  of  justifica- 
tion by  faith ;  James,  as  if  in  reply,  points  out  that  what  he  has 
been  saying  in  v.  ^^  shows  that  works  had  to  come  in  and  perfect 
this  faith  in  order  to  bring  about  the  desired  end  of  justification. 

eTTiarevcrev. 

In  Gen.  15^  the  object  of  Abraham's  faith  is  that  God  will 
fulfil  the  promise  just  given  and  grant  him  an  heir.  In  i  Mace. 
2^2,  'AfSpaa/x  ovK  ev  ireipaafiw  evpeOrj  Trtcrro?,  Kol  iXoyiadi] 
avrm  SiKaioavvq  (Codd.  i<V  ei9  SiKaioavvrjv) ,  Gen.  15''  is  al- 
luded to,  and  the  signal  exhibition  of  this  faith  in  the  sacri- 
fice of  Isaac  (Gen.  22,  note  22^)  appears  to  be  in  mind.  So  here 
in  James  the  sacrifice  of  Abraham  is  the  act  which  manifests 


2  2  2  JAMES 

the  faith,  cf.  Gen.  22^^-^^;  and  this  seems  to  follow  the  ordinary 
Jewish  understanding  of  the  matter.  In  other  passages  of  the 
N.  T.  the  case  is  various.  Rom.  4^^  ^-  refers  to  the  belief  of 
God's  promise  of  a  son ;  Heb.  11*  ^-  to  the  faith  shown  by  Abra- 
ham's departure  for  an  unknown  country;  Heb.  11^  to  his 
residence  in  Canaan;  Heb.  ii*' ^-  to  the  sacrifice  of  Isaac. 
Clem.  Rom.  31  connects  the  sacrifice  of  Isaac  with  Abraham's 
righteousness  and  faith;  Gen.  15^  is  quoted,  but  the  precise 
nature  of  Abraham's  faith  is  not  indicated. 

iXoycaOr]  avTa>  eh  StKaioavvrjv.     From  Gen.  15^. 

The  same  expression  is  found  (of  Phinehas)  in  Ps.  106^°-  ^^ ; 
cf.  Gen.  15"^  (with  Skinner's  note),  Deut.  24^^,  ''it  shall  be  right- 
eousness unto  thee  before  the  Lord,  thy  God,"  Deut.  6"^^,  Prov. 
27^*.  It  means  that  God  accounted  the  act  (here  an  act  of  faith) 
to  be  righteous,  i.  e.  righteous  in  special  and  distinguished  meas- 
ure. The  developed  use  of  SiKaioa-vprj  to  denote  the  possession 
of  God's  approval  on  the  whole,  and  not  merely  with  reference 
to  a  single  act,  necessarily  enlarged  the  meaning  of  the  expres- 
sion, which  in  the  N.  T.  is  treated  as  equivalent  to  iSiKaiwdr] . 

The  name  of  God  is  avoided  in  the  LXX  translation  by  recasting  the 
sentence  and  using  the  passive  voice  eXoYiaOr)  for  the  active  verb  of 
the  Hebrew  (see  Dalman,  Worte  Jesit,  i,  pp.  183  Jff.,  Eng.  transl.,  pp. 
224-226).     Similarly  in  Ps.  10630 '-,  i  Mace.  2^'^. 

Kol  (/)iXo9  6eov  mXr^drj. 

This  sentence,  which  is  not  to  be  included  as  a  part  of  i) 
7/9a^?7,  is  parallel  to  r)  TTtVrt?  iTeXetoidi]  Kal  iirXTjpcodr)  rj  ^pac^rj^ 
"In  this  fact  (i.  e.  iKXtjdrj)  the  promise  implied  in  iXoyiadi]  was 
fulfilled."  The  reward  was  greater  than  in  the  case  of  the 
justification  and  salvation  of  ordinary  men. 

"Friend  of  God,"  i.e.  "beloved  by  God,"  appears  to  have 
been  a  designation  commonly  applied  to  Abraham.  So  Is.  41* 
(A^paa/x  ov  '^ydirrjcraj  Aq.  ayaTrtjTov  fiov,  Sym.  rov  (f)L\ov 
fiov) ;  Philo,  De  sobr.  11,  M.  p.  401  (where  in  quoting  Gen.  18^^ 
<^C\jov  fwv  is  substituted  for  TratSo?  /jlov),  Jubilees  ig^  302°, 
Test.  Abraham,  passim.  The  same  idea  is  expressed  in  different 
language  in  2  Chron.  20^  {'q^yairr) ixevo<i) ^  Dan.  3^^^,  4  Ezra  3^^ 


II,   23-24  223 

Philo,  De  Abrahamo,  19  (^eot^tX?;?),  and  Abraham's  love  to 
God  is  emphasised  in  Pirke  Aboth,  v,  4,  Among  modern  Arabs 
the  common  designation  of  Abraham  is  "the  friend  of  God," 
el  khalil  Allah,  or  el  khalil  (cf.  Koran,  sura  iv,  124),  and  the  name 
is  even  given  to  Hebron,  his  burial-place ;  cf.  Hughes,  Dictionary 
of  Islam,  1885,  p.  269. 

In  view  of  this  evidence  it  can  only  be  said  that  Clem,  Rom. 
10*  (A^pad/x^  6  (f)i\o<;  irpoaa^opevdei^) ,  172,  Tertullian,  Adv. 
JiidcBos  2,  unde  Abraham  amicus  dei  deputatus?  do  not  furnish 
proof  of  the  dependence  of  Clement  of  Rome  and  Tertullian  on 
James.  In  Iren.  iv,  16^,  ipse  Abraham  sine  circumcisione  et  sine 
observatione  sabbatorum,  credidit  deo,  et  reputatum  est  illi  ad  jus- 
titiam,  et  amicus  dei  vocatus  est,  the  similar  combination  of  Gen. 
15^  and  this  sentence  is  probably  a  mere  coincidence.  See  In- 
troduction, pp.  87,  90/. 

It  seems  more  likely  that  James  writes  here  with  the  title  already 
commonly  applied  to  Abraham  in  mind  than  that  he  uses  91X0?  as  merely 
equivalent  to  StxatwGst'?,  as  many  {e.  g.  Spitta,  pp.  82  /.)  hold.  Yet 
the  repeated  use  in  the  Book  of  Jubilees  (chs.  19,  30)  of  the  expression 
"written  down  as  a  friend  of  God,"  in  the  sense  of  "having  been  granted 
salvation,"  and  the  connection  in  one  instance  (ch.  30)  of  this  expression 
with  the  phrase,  "it  became  righteousness  to  them,"  gives  some  plausi- 
bility to  such  a  view.  In  any  case  (pi'Xo?  OsoO  £xXtj6t)  and  eBtxatw8Tf) 
relate  to  the  same  act  of  God,  whether  the  former  is  a  mere  equivalent 
of  the  latter  or  has  a  larger  meaning. 

But  to  assume  that  James  was  thinking  of  the  "heavenly  tablets" 
when  he  wrote  s-^XtjGt)  is  gratuitous.  Jewish  thought  knew  of  other 
ways  by  which  God  could  give  a  name  besides  inscribing  it  in  a  book. 

24.  6paT€,  direct  address  in  plural,  as  everywhere  in  the 
epistle  except  vv.  ^^-^^,  cf.  4  Mace.  12'',  Clem.  Rom.  12^ 

KL  minnp'"''  add  toi'vuv. 

e'/c  TTio-reco?  fiovov^  i.  e.  without  the  aid  and  co-operation  {cf. 
V.  22)  of  works.  This  is  a  formal  and  conclusive  reply  to  the 
question  of  v.  1*. 

It  is  not  to  be  inferred  that  James  held  to  a  justification  by  works 
without  faith.  Such  a  misunderstanding  is  so  abhorrent  to  his  doctrine 
of  the  inseparability  of  faith  and  works  that  it  does  not  occur  to  him 


224  JAMES 

to  guard  himself  against  it.  And  the  idea  itself  would  have  been 
foreign  to  Jewish  as  well  as  to  Christian  thought.  The  fate  of  the 
heathen  does  not  come  into  the  question. 

25.  An  additional  argument  from  Scripture:  Rahab's  jus- 
tification came  from  works. 

'Faal3  rj  iropvrj,  so  Josh.  6^'-  "•  ^s;  cf.  Josh,  s^-^i  6^^-  22-25^  Heb. 
ii^i,  Mt.  i'',  Clem.  Rom.  12. 

Older  writers  tried  to  soften  the  reference  by  taking  x6pvT)  in  some 
unnatural  sense,  as  cook,  landlady  (here  following  Jewish  guidance), 
or  idolater ;  but  the  literal  sense  is  the  only  possible  one ;  see  Lightfoot's 
note  on  Clem.  Rom.  12. 

In  Jewish  midrash  of  various  ages  Rahab  was  the  subject  of 
much  interest.  She  was  believed  to  have  become  a  sincere 
proselyte,  to  have  married  Joshua,  and  to  have  been  the  ances- 
tress of  many  priests  and  prophets,  including  Jeremiah  and 
Ezekiel.  Her  faith  as  implied  in  Josh.  2"  was  deemed  notably 
complete,  and  was  said  to  have  evoked  the  express  recognition 
of  God  himself ;  and  she,  with  certain  other  proselyte  women, 
was  called  "the  pious."  See  JE,  "Rahab."  This  evidence  of 
special  Jewish  attention  to  Rahab,  although  the  actual  rabbin- 
ical passages  are  some  of  them  late,  fully  justifies  the  assump- 
tion that  the  references  to  Rahab  in  Hebrews  and  Clement  of 
Rome  are  independent  of  this  verse  in  James ;  cf.  Introduction, 
pp.  22,  87.  It  is  noteworthy  that  none  of  the  words  used  to 
describe  Rahab's  conduct  are  the  same  in  Hebrews  and  in 
James.  Clement  of  Rome  may,  of  course,  here  as  elsewhere, 
be  dependent  on  Hebrews. 

e|  epywv.  The  works  consisted  in  the  friendly  reception 
(vTroSe^afxevrj)  and  aid  in  escaping  (i/c^akovaa)  given  to  the 
spies,  as  described  in  Josh.  2.  The  faith  to  which  an  opponent 
might  have  pointed  (cf.  Heb.  ii^S  Clem.  Rom.  12)  is  displayed 
in  Rahab's  words.  Josh.  2^-^^,  especially  v.  "  ore  Kvpio^  6  6eb<i 
v^oiv  6eo<;  (so  Cod.  A)  iv  ovpava>  avw  koX  cttI  r^?  77}?  kclto). 

The  choice  of  Abraham  and  Rahab  as  examples  here  is  prob- 
ably to  be  explained  by  observing  that  the  one  was  the  accepted 
and  natural  representative  of  faith  and  justification,  while  the 


II,  24-26  225 

other  is  an  extreme  case,  where,  if  anywhere,  James's  argument 
might  seem  to  fail.  Notice  KaC,  and  a  certain  emphasis  on  17 
TTopvr},  "  even  though  a  harlot."  These  two  instances  thus  cover 
the  whole  wide  range  of  possibilities.  This  is  better  than  the 
view,  long  ago  suggested,  that  the  mention  of  Rahab,  a  prose- 
lyte from  the  Gentiles,  shows  that  the  epistle  was  addressed 
to  Christian  communities  containing  Gentiles  as  well  as  Jews 
(Zahn,  Einleitung,  §  4,  Eng.  transl.  i,  p.  91). 

dyy^^o'Js]  CK™8L  minn  ff  boh  syrP"!"-  '»<=•  read  xaiaox6xou<;,  cf. 
Heb.  II". 

eK^aXova-a,  "sent  out,"  with  no  thought  of  any  violence  of 
action,  cf.  Mt.  9'^«  12^5,  Lk.  6"  lo^^ 

26.  Concluding  statement. 

waxep.  The  deadness  of  faith  without  works  is  illustrated 
from  a  dead  body.  With  works  absent,  faith  is  no  more  alive 
than  is  a  body  without  the  irveufxa. 

The  comparison  is  sometimes  said  to  halt,  because,  whereas  the  death 
of  the  body  is  caused  by  the  departure  of  the  spirit,  the  deadness  of 
faith  is  not  caused,  but  only  recognised,  by  its  failure  to  produce  works ; 
and  it  is  suggested  that  faith,  as  the  soiu"ce  of  activity,  could  better  be 
compared  with  the  spirit,  and  works  with  the  body.  But  to  the  mind 
of  James  faith  and  works  co-operate  to  secure  Justification,  and  by 
works  faith  is  kept  alive.  So  the  body  and  the  spirit  co-operate  to 
secure  continued  Hfe,  and  by  the  spirit  the  body  is  kept  alive.  When 
V.  "  is  given  its  true  meaning,  the  parallel  is  seen  to  be  better  than  is 
often  thought. 

Yap]  B  syrps'""  arm  omit.     £E  renders  autem. 

TrveviJ.aTo<i.  This  is  most  naturally  taken  of  "  the  vital  prin- 
ciple by  which  the  body  is  animated." 

A  less  probable  interpretation  takes  TCveujia  as  meaning  "breath," 
which  the  body  is  thought  of  as  producing.  This  makes  a  more  com- 
plete parallel  to  the  relation  of  faith  and  the  works  which  it  ought  to 
produce,  but  is  forced.  Cf.  Ps.  104",  Tob.  3S  Q-  Curtius  Rufus,  x, 
19  illud  scire  debetis  militarem  sine  diice  turbam  corpus  esse  sine  spiritu. 


IS 


2  26  JAMES 

II.    ON  THE  TEACHER'S  CALLING  (31-"). 
CHAPTER  III. 

Ch.  3  relates  to  the  Teacher  and  Wise  Man.  That  the  two 
are  treated  as  substantially  identical  is  significant.  It  is  inter- 
esting to  compare  the  directions  for  leaders  of  the  Christian 
community  given  in  the  Pastoral  Epistles  or  in  the  Didache. 

The  main  thought  in  vv.  ^-^^  is  the  greater  responsibility  of 
teachers  and  the  extremely  dangerous  character  of  the  instru- 
ment which  they  have  to  use.  In  vv.  ^-^^  the  noble  possibili- 
ties of  the  tongue  are  presented  as  a  motive  for  checking  its 
lower  propensities.    This  passage  naturally  connects  itself  with 

jl9  f .   26    2l2_ 

In  vv.  ^^'^^  the  discussion  springs  from  the  same  abhorrence 
of  sham  which  gives  rise  to  so  much  of  ch.  i  (vv.  ^■^'  22-27)^  ^^(j 
controls  the  thought  throughout  ch.  2. 

1-3.  Against  overeagerness  to  be  teachers ;  in  view  of  the  great 
responsibility  involved,  and  of  the  difficulty  of  controlling  the  tongue. 

1.  /XT)  TToWol  SiBdaKaXoi  yivecyde,  "Do  not  many  of  you 
become  teachers."  ttoXXoi  is  to  be  regarded  either  as  subject 
or  as  in  apposition  with  the  proper  subject  (in  that  case  I'/^et?) ; 
8t,8d<7Ka\oL  is  predicate ;   cf.  Heb.  7-^ 

TToXXof]  L  by  a  not  unusual  corruption  reads  xoXXu.  This  does  not 
point  to  a  reading  xoXu,  and  has  no  relation  to  the  mistranslation  of 
m  noliie  muUiloqui  esse  {cf.  Mt.  6'). 

Bi,Bdafca\o<i  means  rabbi  {cf.  Mt.  23^  Lk.  2^^,  Jn.  i^^  20^^  31°; 
see  references  in  Lex.  s.  vv.  Bi8daKa\o<i  and  pajSjSi)^  and  the 
teachers  here  referred  to,  if  in  Jewish  Christian  churches,  would 
naturally  have  occupied  a  place  not  unlike  that  of  rabbis  in  the 
synagogues.  This  would  apply  both  to  the  dignity  of  the  po- 
sition and  to  a  part  of  the  duties  of  the  rabbis.  Among  Chris- 
tians the  term  was  used  both  for  a  teacher  resident  in  a  church 
(Acts  13^  Antioch)  and  for  a  travelling  missionary  (Didache 
jjif.  j^2  j^2)^  Nothing  in  the  text  indicates  whether  James's 
reference  was  limited  to  one  or  the  other  of  these  classes.    The 


m,  I  227 

position  of  teacher  was  the  function  of  a  specially  gifted  person, 
not  a  standing  office,  and  it  was  plainly  possible  for  a  man  who 
beUeved  himself  competent  for  the  work  to  put  himself  forward 
and  take  up  the  activities  of  a  teacher.  James  is  himself  a 
teacher  (kijfjLxJ/o/jLeda,  v.  ^),  and  points  out  the  moral  dangers  of 
the  teacher's  life,  with  special  insistence  on  the  hability  to  opin- 
ionated disputatiousness  (w.  ^^-^»).  A  good  concrete  impres- 
sion of  the  nature  of  the  meetings  at  which  they  spoke  may  be 
gathered  from  i  Cor.  14.  The  Epistle  of  James  itself  will  give 
an  idea  of  one  of  the  types  of  early  Christian  "teaching." 
Teachers  were  important  from  the  earhest  times  (Acts  13^  i  Cor. 
12^8,  Eph.  4")  and  were  found  in  the  Christian  churches  of  many 
lands.  The  references  of  this  epistle  would  seem  appHcable  in 
any  part  of  the  world  and  during  any  part  of  the  period  which  is 
open  for  the  date  of  the  epistle. 

An  interesting  expansion  of  this  exhortation  of  James  found 
in  the  first  pseudo-clementine  Epistle  to  Virgins,  i,  11,  is  prob- 
ably from  Palestine  or  Syria  in  the  third  century,  and  vividly 
illustrates  the  same  situation  even  at  that  late  time  (text  in 
Funk,  P aires  apostolici,  vol.  ii;  Eng.  transl.  in  Ante-Nicene 
Fathers,  Buffalo,  1886,  vol.  viii). 

On  teachers  in  the  early  church,  see  articles  in  DD.BB.,  and 
especially  Harnack,  Mission  und  Ausbreitung  des  Christentums, 
"1906,  pp.  279-308;  Eng.  transl.  -igo8,  i,  pp.  333-366,  where  a 
great  amount  of  interesting  material  is  collected  and  discussed. 

aBeXcJML  fwv,  introducing  a  new  section,  cf.  i^-  ^'  2^'  ^*  5''  ^^. 

etSo're?,  "for  you  know,"  presenting  a  motive. 

fiel^ov  Kpifia,  "greater  condemnation";  cf.  Mk.  12^"  (Lk. 
20''^)  ofJTOi  \riii\povTai  TrepicrcroTepou  Kpifia^  Rom.  13-.  The 
teacher's  condemnation  (or,  as  we  should  say,  his  responsibility) 
is  greater  than  that  of  others  because  having,  or  professing  to 
have,  clear  and  full  knowledge  of  duty,  he  is  the  more  bound  to 
obey  it,  cf.  Lk.  12^^ '-. 

\T)lx\p6fi€da,  i.  e.  at  the  last  day.  Notice  that  James  includes 
himself  as  a  SiSdaKaXo^ . 

The  Vulgate  (sumilis)  and  the  Bohairic  version  have  altered  this  to 
the  second  person. 


228  JAMES 

To  this  warning  no  good  earlier  or  Jewish  parallel  has  been 
produced.  The  sayings  about  the  dangers  of  speech  apply,  in- 
deed, to  the  teacher,  but  they  are  in  most  cases  of  an  entirely 
general  cast. 

2-12.  The  Hellenistic  associations  of  the  following  passage,  vv.  ^-^-, 
are  shown  in  the  references  in  the  notes.  The  more  striking  parallels 
have  been  effectively  put  together  by  J.  Geffcken,  Kynika  und  Ver- 
wandtes,  1909,  pp.  45-53.  Geffcken  thinks  that  James  here  betrays  de- 
pendence on  a  written  tract  on  calumny,  or  some  such  subject,  which 
he  has  adapted  and  expanded.  This  is  not  impossible,  but  the  infelicities 
in  the  sequence  of  James's  thought  in  the  passage,  on  which  Geffcken's 
theory  rests,  are  not  quite  sufficient  to  prove  anything  more  than  de- 
pendence on  ideas  which  had  been  worked  out  for  a  different  purpose 
by  others,  and  were  familiar  commonplaces  of  popular  moral  preaching. 

2.  TToXka  yap  vraio/jbev  airavT€<i.  This  gives  the  reason 
{yap)  for  the  warning  of  v.  ^.  All  men  stumble,  and  of  all  faults 
those  of  the  tongue  are  the  hardest  to  avoid.  Hence  the  pro- 
fession of  teacher  is  the  most  difficult  mode  of  life  conceivable. 

On  the  universality  of  sin,  cj.  Rom.  3^-1*,  i  Jn.  i*,  Eccles.  7-°, 
Ecclus.  19^'^,  2  Esd.  8^^,  and  the  similar  observations  of  Greek 
and  Latin  writers  collected  by  Wetstein,  Schneckenburger,  and 
Mayor,  e.  g.  Seneca,  De  clem,  i,  6  peccavimus  omnes,  alii  graviora 
alii  leviora. 

The  besetting  danger  of  sins  of  speech  and  of  the  misuse  of 
the  tongue  was  clearly  seen  and  often  mentioned  by  ancient 
moralists.  Noteworthy  0.  T.  passages  (among  many  others) 
are  Prov.  is^'^-  ^-  '^'  *«•  ^s,  Ecclus.  s"-6i  22^^  2812-6. 

€t  ou,  see  note  on  2". 

OVTO<i^  cJ.   1-3. 

TekeLO<i  avrjp^  cJ,  1*  and  note.  Used  of  moral  perfection, 
"blameless,"  cf.  Mt.  5^^  1^21^  Col.  i^s  412,  Wisd.  96,  Gen.  ()\ 
Ecclus.  44^^  The  same  Hebrew  word  2'*'?^,  used  in  the  same 
sense,  is  translated  in  Gen.  6^  by  re\eLO<i,  in  Gen.  17^  by 
a/z.e/A7rT0?. 

hvvar6<i  kt\.     Expands  the  idea  of  re'XeiO?. 

'XpikivayijoyrjaaL,  "hold  in  check,"  cJ.  1"^  and  note. 

oiXov  TO  (Tcofjia,  i.  e.  the  whole  man.  The  contrast  of  the 
tongue  and  the  body,  as  of  a  part  and  the  whole,  has  led  here  to 


Ill,  1-3  229 

a  mode  of  expression  which  seems  to  imply  that  sin  does  not 
exist  apart  from  the  body.  But  the  writer  shows  himself  to 
be  fully  aware  that  sin  resides  in  the  inner  man,  although  on  the 
whole  its  more  conspicuous  manifestations  are  prominently  con- 
nected with  the  body.  The  body  is  thought  of  as  providing 
the  man  with  his  organs  of  expression  and  action.  It  is  a  natu- 
ral and  popular,  not  a  philosophical  or  theological,  mode  of  ex- 
pression.   Cf.  V.  '^  iv  TOt<?  fieXeo-Lv,  4I,  Rom.  8'^ 

3.  It  is  with  men  as  with  horses:  control  their  mouth  and 
you  are  master  of  all  their  action. 

tSe,  "behold,"  introduces  an  illustration,  cf.  l8ov  vv.  *-  ^  ^*' ". 

On  IBe^  ISov,  see  Moulton's  Winer,  pp.  318/.  note  5;  J.  H. 
Moulton,  Prolegomena,  p.  11,  note. 

iM]  CP  minnp'"'  *"  sah  syr'*"!  arm. 

fSou]  minn"'  ^id  pauo, 

dhk  ydtp]  X*  syrp*^''. 

ei  3e]  BAKL  minn"  £f  vg  boh  {if). 

Of  these  readings  ESou  {cf.  3*-  '  5^'  ')  and  the  addition  of  y&p  may  be 
at  once  rejected  as  emendations;  the  latter,  however,  is  significant 
because  it  impUes  that  e!oe  was  understood  as  equivalent  to  Bi.  As 
between  iM  and  ec  3i,  the  external  evidence  is  strong  for  the  latter, 
although  P  when  it  departs  from  KL  is  an  excellent  witness.  But  in 
this  instance  the  variant  reading  is  likely  to  be  due  to  a  misspelling  and 
not  to  deliberate  emendation,  whereas  the  excellence  of  B's  text  de- 
pends solely  on  its  freedom  from  emendation,  not  in  any  accuracy  of 
speUing.  In  such  a  case  "intrinsic  evidence"  from  the  sense  is  the 
only  guide;  and  this  speaks  strongly  for  ioi,  which  is  therefore  to  be 
accepted. 

TMV  iTTTTOiV,  Dcpcnds  on  Tov<;  'xaXtvov^,  but  is  put  iirst  be- 
cause it  contains  the  new  and  emphatic  idea. 

'XpXLVo'i  is  used  of  the  "bridle"  proper  (or  "reins"),  of  the 
"bit,"  and,  as  perhaps  here,  of  the  whole  bridle,  including  both. 
The  figurative  use  of  "bridle"  in  English  does  not  extend  in  the 
same  degree  to  "bit,"  and  hence  "bridle"  (A.V.,  R.V.)  is  pref- 
erable as  the  English  translation  here. 

^dWofiev,  "put,"  cf.  Philo,  De  agric.  21  ^aXtfw  eViSaXoVre? ; 
Xen.  De  re  equestr,  vi,  7 ;  L\,  9 ;  Ael.  F.  //.  ix,  16  "inroo  ifi(3ci\- 


230  JAMES 

If  e?  M  is  read  (with  WH.),  y-al  has  to  be  taken  as  introducing  the 
apodosis,  as  often  in  Hebrew. 

/j^rdyofiev,  "guide,"  "direct"  (E.V.  "turn  about"). 

Cf.  Philo,  De  opif.  mundi,  (29)  88  (the  charioteers)  f)  oiv  lOIXtoatv  aiixo; 
a'Youot  Twv  Tjvtwv  iv£ikri[L[Kiwt. ;  Aristippus  in  Stobasus,  Anthol.  (ed. 
Hense),  iii,  ch.  17,  17  xpatet  :qSovo<;  oux  6  dcirex6[Ji.evo<;  dXX'  6  yj^u^^xz^^oq 
[xev  (A-f)  xotpexipepotJLevo?  M,  waxep  xal  vecix;  xotl  Vxtcou  oux  0  [Ji-?j  xpu^Jievoq 
dcXX'  6  [ji.ext5:Y0)v  bxot  ^oiiXeTat. 

The  comparison  turns  on  the  importance  which  the  tongue 
has  because  control  over  the  whole  creature  can  be  exercised 
through  it,  as  through  the  horse's  mouth.  The  smallness  of 
the  member  hardly  comes  into  consideration  here. 

4-12.   The  dangers  of  the  tongue. 

4-6.  The  tongue,  though  small,  is  as  powerful  as  a  little  rudder 
on  a  great  ship,  ajui  as  dangerous  as  a  little  fire  in  a  great  forest. 

4.  Kal  TO,  TrXoTa,  "ships  also,"  like  horses.  The  article  is 
generic.  The  parallel  of  ship  and  horse  is  emphasised  by  the 
repetition  of  fierdr/eiv^  a  repetition  characteristic  of  James, 
cf  i^^  ^-  2^*'  ^®  2^^'  ^^ 

cKkripoiv,  "harsh,"  "stiff"  ;  hence  here  of  winds,  "strong"  ; 
the  adjective  heightens  the  contrast  with  the  Httle  rudder. 

For  the  phrase,  cf.  Dio.  Chrys.  De  regno,  iii,  p.  44  K\vh(avo^ 
a^piov  KoX  'xaKe'KOv  vto  avefjicov  orKXrjpcov  fxeTa^aXXofievov, 
Prov.  271*5  aK\7)pb<i  dve/jio<;  (where  the  difference  from  the  He- 
brew is  instructive),  and  other  references  in  Wetstein,  Mayor, 
and  Schneckenburger. 

opfii],  "impulse,"  "desire."  Used  in  N.  T.  only  here  and 
Acts  14^,  and  not  in  this  sense  in  O.  T.,  but  common  in  classical 
Greek  writers.  See  Trench,  §  Ixxxvii,  and  see  L.  and  S.  for  full 
references,  e.  g.  Xen.  Anab.  iii,  2^  fiia  opfxfj-^  Plato,  Fhil.  35  D, 
where  op/w.?)  is  parallel  to  eTriOvfiia. 

Others  take  this  of  the  pressure  of  the  steersman  on  the  helm,  but 
without  any  sufficient  reason. 

Tov  €v0vvovTO<; ,  "the  one  who  directs  it."  Cf.  Philo,  De 
conf.  ling.  23  ^t\eT  yap  eariv  ore  ')(Oipl<i  7)vl6')(c>)v  re  Kal  kv- 


in,  3-4  231 

fiepvr}Toiv  6  re  irXoik  koX  6  Sp6/jU)'i  evdvvecdac ;    also  Prov.  20^^, 
Ecclus.  37^^ 

The  twin  figures  of  the  control  of  horse  and  of  ship  are  fre- 
quently found  together  in  later  Greek  writers,  as  the  following 
passages  show.  In  some  of  the  instances  the  point  of  the  com- 
parison is  the  smallness  of  the  instrument  which  controls  so 
great  a  body.  James  is  evidently  acquainted  with  the  forms  of 
current  Greek  popular  thought. 

In  the  following  the  figures  of  ship  and  horse  are  characteristically 
combined : 

Plutarch,  De  and.  poetis,  12,  p.  S3  F  "Tpoxo?  eaO'  6  x£i6a)v  toO  \i-(oy- 
Toq,  ou  Xiyo?  ■ "  xal  igoizoq  [iky  ouv  xal  "kdyoq '  ri  Tpoxoq  Sta  Xoyou,  xot- 
GdcTcep  tirxsij?  Sea  xaXtvoO  y.a\  Side  xYjSaXiou  -/.u^spv^xY]?. 

Plutarch,  De  genio  Socratis,  20,  p.  588  E. 

Aristippus,  in  Stobaeus,  A^tthol.  iii  (ed.  Hense),  17,  17  (quoted 
supra) . 

Philo,  De  opificio  mundi,  29  (xapxupe?  S'tjv'oxo'  '^"^  xu^spviiTat  •  ol  [xsv 
•/ap  uaieptl^ovxsi;  xuv  uxoi^uYi'wv  xal  xaxoxtv  auxuv  l^exat,6[j.evot  ^  av  eOeXw- 
atv  auxa  a'YOuat  xwv  Tjvtwv  lv£tXT)[jLtJ^£Vot  xal  xoxe  [lev  sytevxe?  xpb?  ^^uv 
cp6yi,ov  x6x£  8'dvaxa[xii^ovx£q,  £t  tpopo:  xoij  Seovxoc;  xXeiovc  6£0t  •  o't  S'  aii 
xu^EpvYJxott  xpb?  xb  xij?  veu?  Ejxa'^ov  /wptov  xpuytvav  xap£X66vx£(;  xivxwv 
w?  £Xo<;  £tx£tv  Etatv  aptffxoi  xwv  eixxXeovxiov,  ax£  xfjc;  v£w?  xal  xwv  Iv  auxjj 
XT)v  awxTjpfotv  £V  XSP"^^  '^<^'?  auTwv  £XOVX£(;. 

Philo,  Lfg.  alJeg.  iii,  79  ;  Z)c  agricult.  15  ;  Oe  cow/z<s.  //wg.  23  ;  In 
Place.  5. 

For  the  figure  of  the  ship's  rudder,  cf.  Lucretius,  De  rer.  nat.  iv, 
863-868 

quippe  etenim  ventus  subtili  corpore  tenuis 
trudit  agens  magnam  magno  molimine  navem, 
et  manus  una  regit  quanto  vis  impete  euntem 
atque  gubernaclum  contorquet  quolibet  unum, 
multaque,  per  trocleas  et  tympana,  pondere  magno 
commovet  atque  levi  sustollit  machina  nisu. 

The  often-quoted  passage  from  Ps.-Aristotle,  Mechanica,  5,  is  not 
apt,  since  there  the  rudder  is  mentioned  not  as  a  literary  figure,  but  as 
one  example  of  the  principle  of  the  lever. 

For  the  figure  of  the  horse,  cf.  Sophocles,  Antig.  477/. 

fft^txpw  xaXivw  0'  oi5a  xout;  6uixouyL^voui; 
Yxxou?  xo(xapxu6^vxo(<;. 


232  JAMES 

5.  fieydXa  avx^i  is  equivalent  to  fieydXavxei,  "  be  haughty," 
which  has  here  been  separated  into  its  component  parts  in  order 
to  make  a  good  parallel  to  fiiKpov  /leXo?  eariv.  The  phrase  is 
here  used  in  the  sense  not  of  an  empty  boast,  but  of  a  justified, 
though  haughty,  sense  of  importance  ;  cf.  Moulton  and  Mil- 
ligan.  Vocabulary  of  the  Greek  Testament,  p.  94. 

The  usual  associations,  however,  of  [xsyaXauxsTv  are  bad,  as  here. 
A  boasting  compatible  with  proper  humiljty  would  probably  be  ex- 
pressed by  xczuxaa6ai.  Cf.  Zeph.  3",  Ezek.  i65o,  Eccles.  48",  2  Mace. 
1532,  4  Mace.  2>5. 

Perhaps  the  alliteration  i^iicpov^  fi^Xo<i,  fieydXa  is  intentional, 

cf.  V.  '. 

[jLsyaXa  u\)X£i]  BAC*P  ff  vg  boh. 

[ASYaXauxsi]  KC^KL  minn.  This  seems  to  be  emendation  to  a  more 
familiar  word. 

5''-6.  The  tongue  is  as  dangerous  as  a  fire.    Cf.  Ecclus. 

7}\iK0v,  "how  small." 

^Xfxov]  BNACP  vg. 

6>v(yov]  A*C2KL  minn°°"»  ^'J  fif  m  syr"*'  boh  sah.     Emendation. 

rfkiK'qv^  "how  much."  For  the  double  question,  cf.  Mk.  15^*, 
Lk.  19^^,  and  see  Winer,  §  66,  5.  3. 

v\r}v.  The  abundant  references  in  ancient  Hterature  to  for- 
est fires,  sometimes  with  direct  reference  to  the  smallness  of  the 
spark  which  leads  to  vast  destruction,  and  the  repeated  use 
of  this  comparison  in  ethical  discussions  make  it  likely  that 
vK-qv  here  means  "forest"  rather  than  "fuel." 

In  Homer,  II.  ii,  455 

fjUT£  TcOp  diSiQXov  k%i(fki'{ti  aaxETOV  uXigv 

the  comparison  is  to  describe  the  glitter  of  the  armour  of  a  great  host ; 
in  the  similar  verse   //.  xi,  155,  it  is  the  rout  of  a  fleeing  army. 

Pindar,  Pyth.  iii,  36-37 

ivoXXiJv  t'  2pst  "TCup  I?  Ivbi; 
(jTclpjxocTOi;  IvGopbv  diarwaev  uXav, 


in,  5-6  233 

Euripides,  Ino,  fragm.  411 

ticxpoO  Y«p  ex  "koii^Tzxrigoc,  'iSatov  XixoiZ 
TcpTJaeiev  av  xtq. 

Ps.-Phocylides,  Poema  admonitorium,  144 

e^  okiyou  ffTctvGijpo?  dBeacpaToq  otTOsxat  uXtj. 

Philo,  Z)e  (feca/.  32,  M.  p.  208  [IxtOutAca]  oloc  (f^hc,  Iv  uXy]  v^fAETott  5«- 
Ttavwaa  xav-ra  xotl  ^Ostpouca. 

The  above  quotations  refer  to  a  forest  fire.  The  following  are  sig- 
nificant in  using  with  similar  purpose  the  figure  of  a  great  conflagration 
in  a  city  or  in  general. 

Philo,  De  niigr.  Abr.  12,  M.  p.  455  axtvSifjp  yap  xocl  6  ppaxuxaxo?  Ivtu- 
!p6[JLsvo(;,  oTav  xaxaicveuaOsli;  ^wTuupigOfi,  tisydXigv  s^diuxEt  itupdv. 

Seneca,  Controversiarum  excerpla,  v,  5,  nesciebas  quanta  sit  potentia 
ignhim  .  .  .  quemadmodum  tolas  absumat  urbes,  quam  levibus  initiis  ori- 
antur  incendia. 

Diogenes  of  Oinoanda  (Epicurean  philosopher,  second  century  after 
Christ),  fragm.  xxxviii,  3  (ed.  William,  Leipzig,  1907,  p.  46)  xal  axtv6^pt 
[xetxpw  ravu  Tr;}^tx6v8s  Exe^ixxsTat  xup,  tjXi'xov  xaxaqiX^yEt  XtfA^vaq  xal 
x6>.£tt;. 

Among  Hebrew  writers,  Is.  9''  io>',  Ps.  831*  use  the  figure  of  a  forest 
fire;  and  Ecclus.  ii=-  uses  the  figure  of  the  small  spark  which  kindles 
"a  heap  of  many  coals."  The  tongue  is  compared  with  a  fire  in  Ps. 
i2o'f-,  and  in  Midrash,  Leviticus  rabba,  16:  R.  Eleasar  in  the  name  of 
R.  Jose  b.  Zimra  :  "What  fires  it  [the  tongue]  kindles  !"  (see  Schottgen, 
Horae  hebraicac,  pp.  102 1  /.).  But  the  specific  parallels  make  it  seem 
plain  that  this  comparison  is  drawn  from  a  standing  simile  of  current 
Greek  popular  philosopliy. 

6.  /cat  y  yXcoaaa  irvp  sc.  icmv.  This  applies  the  com- 
parison made  in  the  preceding  sentence. 

f)  YXwaca  2"]  P  minnpi"''  syr'"''  ''•  *  prefix  o'u'xwi;  xat;  L  min  prefix 
ouxu?.     Conformation  to  v.  K 

6  Kocrixoii  TYj^  aSt/cta?.  As  the  text  stands,  no  satisfactory 
interpretation  is  possible  for  this  phrase  in  this  context. 

For  the  expression  taken  by  itself  "the  iniquitous  world"  is 
the  most  probable  sense.  aSt/cia?  is  then  genitive  of  quality, 
cf.  i23,  25  212^  Lk.  i6«-  9  186,  Enoch  48",  "this  world  of  iniquity." 

On  Koarfio'i,  cf.  Jas.  i-^  2'-  4'*,  and  see  note  on  i-'. 

Other  meanings  have  been  suggested ;  on  the  history  of  the  exegesis, 
see  Huther's  and  Mayor's  notes.    Thus  Vg  translates  "the  whole  of 


234  JAMES 

evil,"  universitas  iniquitatis.  But  the  sense  "the  whole"  for  b  x6a[xoi; 
is  attested  only  Prov.  17^  oXo?  6  xoajjio?  -cwv  XPW^"^^"^)  smd,  moreover, 
the  meaning  does  not  suit  our  passage  well. 

Another  interpretation  is  "the  ornament  of  iniquity."  This  is  ca- 
pable in  itself  of  an  intelligible  sense,  as  referring  to  the  use  of  rhetorical 
arts  by  designing  speakers  (Wetstein  :  malas  actiones  et  suadet  el  excusat), 
but  that  seems  foreign  to  the  circle  of  thought  in  which  the  writer  is 
here  moving.  This  sense  was,  however,  a  favourite  one  with  Greek 
interpreters.  From  Isidore  of  Pelusium,  Epist.  iv,  10,  who  gives  it  as 
one  possible  meaning,  it  is  taken  into  Cramer's  Catena,  p.  21,  and  it  is 
also  found  in  "CEcumenius,"  on  vv.  --\  and  in  Matthai's  scholia  (eitt- 
xoa[J.et  Yap  pT)(jLocffiv  saO'  oxe  dtStxtav). 

As  the  text  stands,  x6apio<;  cannot  easily  be  connected  with  what  pre- 
cedes, whether  as  appositive  of  xOp  or  as  a  second  predicate,  parallel 
to  Tcup  and  after  sariv  understood,  for  neither  of  these  constructions 
yields  a  recognisable  sense.  If  connected  with  what  follows,  a  colon 
being  put  after  xijp  instead  of  a  comma,  we  get  the  best  sense  of  which 
the  passage  seems  capable,  viz. :  "The  tongue  stands  as  {i.  e.  represents) 
the  unrighteous  world  among  our  members ;  it  defiles  the  whole  body, 
itself  having  direct  connection  with  hell"  (so  E.V.).  6  x6ayio<;  is  then 
taken  as  predicate  after  xaOwTaxat.  So  the  free  Latin  version  in  the 
Speculum :  ita  et  lingua  ignis  esl :  et  mundus  iniquitatis  per  linguam 
constat  in  memhris  nostris  quae  maciilat  totam  corpus. 

Even  this  interpretation,  however,  is  awkward  and  unsatisfactory, 
and  it  is  probable  that  the  text  is  corrupt.  The  context  calls  for  some 
word  in  place  of  6  /.datJios  which  should  yield  the  meaning  "produc- 
tive of,"  or  "the  tool  of,"  or  "representative  of"  wickedness.  The 
phrase  would  then  aptly  explain  in  what  way  the  tongue  is  in  fact  a 
fire. 

The  Peshitto  inserts  uXrj  after  aStxtaq  and  thus  makes  of  6  xoafioq 
XT)?  aoixfaq  an  independent  sentence  parallel  to  -^  yXwaaa  icGp;  "the 
wicked  world  is  a  forest."  This  is  a  possible  conjecture;  it  seems  to 
rest  on  no  Greek  evidence.  A  simpler  and  better  conjecture,  often 
made,  is  to  exclude  6  xoaiio?  x^q  dtScxi'a?  from  the  text  altogether  as  a 
gloss. 

Spitta,  following  others,  conjectures  that  -fj  yXwaaa  xCip  6  x6a[io? 
xj\q  ciSixfaq  is  all  a  gloss.  He  holds  that  the  words  were  written  as 
the  title  of  3 '-4'-  (which  form  the  Euthalian  chapter),  and  then  wrongly 
introduced  from  the  margin  into  the  text,  while,  as  a  result  of  this  in- 
terpolation the  words  ■?]  airiXouffa  oXov  xb  au(j,o(  were  also  added.  These 
are  appropriate  to  the  idea  of  6  xoa^jioi;  {cf.  i"),  but  not  to  that  of  a 
fire;  and  are  not  very  naturally  suggested  by  the  idea  of  the  tongue, 
breaking  the  forcible  simplicity  of  the  original  context  which  Spitta 
thus  reconstructs.  Exegesis  by  leaving  out  hard  phrases  is  an  intoxi- 
cating experience. 


in,  6  235 

KadLO-Tarai,  "presents  itself"  ;   see  on  4*. 

rj  (TTiXovaa,   ''which  defileth,"  "staineth";    justifying  the 
preceding  statement.    The  tongue  defiles  the  body  by  lending  • 
itseK  to  be  the  organ  of  so  many  sins. 

Cf.  i"  ciaTikov  ctTTo  Tov  Koa-fwv,  Test.  XII  Patr.  Aser  2^  [0 
irXeopeKTMv]  tt)v  \pv')(rjv  airiKoZ  koL  to  (xcb/xa  Xa/xTpvpei. 

ij  axtXouaa]  S  boh  read  (by  emendation)  xal  axtXoOoa. 

okov  TO  (TOiiia^  cf.  V.  ^  which  is  here  in  mind. 

^Xoyi^ova-a,  "setting  on  fire,"  "kindhng" ;  cf.  v.  ^  avaTTei. 
This  returns  to  the  figure  of  fire  and  completes  the  interrupted 
application  of  that  comparison. 

axtXoGv  and  (fko-xCQziv  are'each  used  a  very  few  times  in  the  Bible, 
and  are  not  common  {<f'ko-^i'C,sf.y  being  mainly  poetical)  in  secular  Greek. 

TOV  Tpcypv  Trj<i  yev€a-€0}<;,  "the  wheel  of  nature." 

TTj?  YEv^aew?]  t<  minn  vg  syrp^'^^  add  Tjyiwv ;   probably  emendation. 

The  grammarians  distinguish  between  xpoxo?,  "course,"  and  Tpox6i;, 
"wheel,"  but  in  view  of  the  derived  senses  of  the  latter  word  the  dis- 
tinction is  unimportant. 

yeueaa  is  here  to  be  taken  (cf.  i'^  and  note)  as  substantially 
equivalent  to  ktlctl';,  "creation."  As  a  spark  can  set  a  great 
forest  fire,  so  the  tongue  kindles  the  whole  world  into  flame. 
The  description  of  nature  as  a  "wheel"  is  made  comprehensible 
by  some  of  the  parallels  given  below  under  2  (c).  Here  it  is 
used  to  suggest  the  continuousness,  and  so  the  far-reaching 
vastness,  of  the  damage  done,  but  the  whole  phrase  is  native 
to  other  contexts,  and  the  writer's  idea  is  not  to  be  too  precisely 
defined.  Of  course,  what  is  actually  enkindled  by  the  tongue 
is  mankind  and  human  society,  in  which  the  evil  results  of  wrong 
speech  are  manifest  and  universal ;  the  actual  phrase  is  more 
inclusive,  but  in  such  a  rhetorical  expression  the  exaggeration 
is  pardonable. 

For  full  accounts  of  the  various  commentators'  guesses  at  the 
exact  meaning,  see  Heisen,  Novae  hypotheses,  pp.  819-880  (with 
great  collections  of  illustrative  material,  mostly  not  apt) ;  D.J. 
Pott,  Novum  Test,  grcsce,  editio  Koppiana,   Gottingen,   1810, 


236  JAMES 

vol.  ix,  pp.  317-329;  Huther,  ad  loc.  Much  material  is  given 
in  Mayor^,  ad  loc.  pp.  114-116;  Windisch,  ad  loc;  and  Hort, 
St.  James,  pp.  72-74,  106/.  The  only  critical  discussion  of  the 
evidence  is  that  of  Hort,  whose  own  interpretation,  however, 
(  is  impossible  to  accept,  being  based  on  Ezek.  i^^-". 

The  translations  are  as  follows : 

syr  the  successions  of  our  generations,  which  run  like  wheels. 
boh  the  wheel  of  the  birth. 
ff    rotam  nativitatis. 
vg    rotam  nativitatis  nostras. 
m    rotam  geniturae. 

Cf.  Priscillian,  ed.  Schepss,  p.  26  (deus)  sciens  demiitationem  firma- 
menti  et  distruens  rotam  geniturae  reparatione  haptismatis  diem  nostrae 
nativitatis  evicit.  The  phrase  rota  geniturae  is  here  used  in  the  sense  of 
astrological  fatalism,  and  is  equivalent  to  6  Tpoxo?  xfiq  av^YXT)?.  The 
relation  of  m  to  Priscillian's  text  of  James  makes  it  probable  that  in 
this  version  of  James  rota  geniturae  was  intended  to  have  that  sense, 
and  hence  geniturae  substituted  for  an  earlier  nativitatis. 

The  interest  of  the  phrase  lies  not  so  much  in  the  determina- 
tion of  its  exact  meaning  as  in  the  fact  that  it  cannot  be  ac- 
counted for  from  Jewish  modes  of  expression  and  implies  con- 
tact with  (though  not  understanding  of)  Greek  thought.  It 
does  not,  however,  betray  knowledge  of  any  particular  system 
of  thought  (Orphic  or  other),  or  any  closer  contact  with  Hellen- 
ism on  the  part  of  the  writer  of  the  epistle  than  can  be  inferred 
from  other  ideas  and  expressions  which  he  uses.  This  is  true 
in  spite  of  the  occurrence  in  Greek  writers  of  the  exact  phrase 
6  Tpo')(o<i  ri)^  yeveaeoo^   and  its  equivalent  0  kvkKo^  t?}?  ye- 

The  two  characteristics  of  the  wheel  which  mainly  attracted  the  at- 
tention of  the  ancients  were  (i)  its  constant  change  of  position  and  (2) 
its  circular  figure  and  motion.  In  tracing  the  meanings  it  should  be 
noticed  that  "wheel"  (xpoxd?)  and  "circle"  (xuxXo?)  are  frequently 
used  with  little  or  no  distinction. 

1.  That  any  revolving  motion  is  full  of  change  caused  the  wheel  to 
be  a  sjonbol  of  the  changeableness  of  human  fortune,  now  up,  now  down. 
Thus  Tpoxi<;  T3:  dvOpwzivo! '  tjtoi  £u|AeTi:poXa  was  a  proverb  (Leutsch 


m,  6  237 

and  Schneidewin,  Corpus  pammiographorum,  u,  Gottingen,  1851,  p. 
87,  with  many  references,  cf.  also  ii,  p.  223  (Macarius  Chrysoc.  cent,  viii, 
58) ;  and  from  Cicero's  time  the  wheel  became  a  regular  attribute  of 
Fortune. 

So  Anacreon,  iv,  7  Tpox^?  apfxa-roi;  fOLg  ota  ^t'oxos  -zgiyti  xuXtaOefi;. 

Orac.  sibyll.  ii,  87  (Ps.-Phocyl.  27)  xotva  xaOfj  xavxwv "  gt'oxoi;  xpoxo?- 
affxaToq  oXpo?. 

Herodotus,  i,  207  6?  xuxXo?  twv  dv6pa)xi^t(i>v  eaxl  TupTjyfJKiTwv  xspt- 
<pep6tJi,£voi;  Be  oux.  sot  atel  xou?  auxoCx;  s'jtux^s'v. 

For  other  illustrations,  see  Gataker's  notes  on  Marcus  Aurelius,  ix,  28 ; 
Mayor',  pp.  116-118;  Hort,  5/.  Jaines,  p.  107.  But  nothing  in  James 
(not  even  i'"  4")  indicates  that  the  writer  had  in  mind  here  this  aspect 
of  the  "wheel  of  nature." 

2.  Another  aspect  of  the  turning  of  a  wheel  is  that  it  goes  round 
and  round  on  its  own  axis,  making  no  real  progress  and  finding  no 
given  termination  of  its  motion ;  or,  to  state  the  same  thing  from  a  differ- 
ent point  of  view,  that  its  figure  is  circular,  and  so  continuous,  returning 
on  itself,  without  beginning  and  without  end.  Hence  arose  various 
derived  senses  for  both  "wheel"  and  "circle."  Thus  the  rhetoricians 
and  grammarians  speak  of  the  "circle  of  the  period,"  much  as  we 
might  say  the  "rounded  period,"  and  of  the  closed  "circle"  of  an  argu- 
ment ;  a  verse  beginning  and  ending  with  the  same  word  was  called  a 
"circle,"  and  so  was  a  continuous  series  of  myths  (especially  the  "epic 
cycle").* 

For  instance.  Ocellus  Lucanus  (neo-py thagorean) ,  LibeJI us  de  universi 
natura,  i,  15  (Mullach,  Fragmcnta  philoso phomm  grceconim,  i,  p.  394), 
Yi  xs  Y<ip  ToiJ  ax-f}[L(xxoq  tSea  XIJX.X01; '  ouxo?  Se  xavxo9ev  'iooq  xal  '6[t.oio<; . 
Stoxep  avapxo?  xal  axsXsJXTjxoi;. 

In  physiology  the  continual  cycle  of  breathing  in  and  out  is  described 
by  Plato  {Tim.  79  B)  as  olov  xpoxoij  x£ptaYO[A£vou  {cf.  also  Galen,  De 
placitis  Hippocratis  et  Platonis,  p.  711).  More  important  to  be  con- 
sidered here  are  the  following  uses : 

(a)  In  general,  "wheel"  and  "circle"  are  used  of  the  round  of  human 
life,  the  cycle  of  successive  generations  which  endlessly  are  born  and 
disappear;  and  the  same  mode  of  thought  was  applied  to  the  whole 
universe,  all  parts  of  which  are  subject  to  endless  succession  of  forma- 
tion and  decay.f 

Thus  Euripides,  I  no,  fragm.  415,  fragm.  419,  ed.  Nauck  (in  Plutarch, 
Consol.  ad  Apollonium,  6,  p.  104  B) : 

xuxXo?  yap  auihc,  xapicifiot?  xe  -{y]q  (puxot?, 
Ovrjxwv  x£  ysvea  "  xuv  (jlIv  ot-j^sxat   ^t'o?, 
xwv  Se  (pOi'vEi  X£  y.tx\  6ep{l^£xat  xdXtv. 

*  See  Stephanus,  Thesaurus,  or  Liddell  and  Scott,  s.  v.  kvkKo<;. 

t  Of  a  different  order  is  the  mechanical  conception  of  the  revolving  universe,  used  with 
great  ingenuity  by  Plato,  e.  g.  Polil.  ii-14,  PP-  269-271 ;  Leg.  x,  8,  p.  8g8. 


2SS  JAMES 

A  good  statement  of  the  same  idea  (but  without  the  word  x6xXo<;)  is 
that  of  Plutarch  {Consol.  ad  A polloniiim,  lo,  p.  io6  E)  in  a  neighbouring 
context  to  that  in  which  he  cites  the  above  fragment  (p.  104  B).  He 
refers  to  the  doctrines  of  Heraclitus,  and  compares  the  progress  of  the 
generations — our  grandparents,  our  parents,  ourselves — to  the  con- 
tinuous flow  of  a  river  (6  t^<;  yeveaedx;  xoTotixb?  outo?  evSeXex^?  p^wv 
oiJ'xoTs  ax-^aexai),  while  in  the  opposite  direction  flows  the  correspond- 
ing river  of  death  (xal  xaXtv  kq  svavxtac;  kutm  6  ttj?  (fGopa?).  But  here 
the  contrast  of  -^hsaiq  and  96opd  shows  that  yeveati;  has  its  proper 
sense  of  "coming  into  being,"  not  the  meaning  which  we  have  to  as- 
sume for  it  in  James. 

Simplicius  (c.  500  a.d.)  Comm.  in  Epicteti  enchiridion,  ed.  Didot, 
ch.  8,  p.  42,  uses  the  phrase  "  the  endless  circle  of  becoming"  (tSyiXtiAo? 
.  .  .  TM  axepavTM  t^?  Ysv^ffeu?  xuxXtj),  Sta  touto  Ix'  axetpov  xpo'tovTc,  8ta 
•rb  TTjv  aXXou  9eopav  aXXou  ysveutv  slvat),  and  similarly,  ed.  Didot,  ch.  27, 
p.  76  (quoted  by  Hort,  St.  James,  p.  73).* 

These  passages  well  illustrate  that  conception  of  the  circle  itself 
which  is  probably  the  basis  of  James's  use  of  Tpox6<;,  but  in  them  yevsuk; 
means  not  "nature,"  in  the  sense  of  tj  xxcat?,  but  "becoming,"  "origi- 
nation," as  the  context  shows.  Thus  the  close  similarity  of  expression 
to  that  of  James  turns  out  to  be  mainly  accidental,  and  the  passages 
are  not  directly  available  for  the  interpretation  of  the  phrase  in  the 
epistle. 

In  accordance  with  this  general  method  of  thought  Isidore  of  Pelu' 
sium  (t  c.  440),  Ep.  ii,  158,  interprets  the  phrase  in  James  (which  he 
misquotes  xbv  xpo^bv  Tfjq  Cw^?)  to  mean  "time"  and  says  oxt  xbv  xpo- 
^bv  xbv  xpovov  sxdXsffS  8ta  xb  xpoxosiSs?  xal  xuxXtxbv  C5yr\\xct,  zlq  eauxbv 
Yotp  dtveXfxxexat.f  His  general  interpretation  is  on  the  right  track,  but 
the  phrase  in  the  epistle  does  not  mean  "time." 

(&)  In  connection  with  the  Orphic  and  Pythagorean  doctrine  of  the 
transmigration  of  souls  to  new  bodies  after  death,  the  term  "wheel," 
or  "circle, "  was  naturally  used  to  describe  the  unending  round  of  death 
and  rebirth.  Metempsychosis,  which  in  its  primitive  Thracian  form 
had  been  a  means  of  gaining  after  death  a  full  life,  such  as  was  incon- 
ceivable apart  from  a  body,  became  for  Greek  religious  thought  a  form 
of  purifying  punishment,  from  whose  dismal  cycle  salvation  could 
come  only  from  the  god  and  to  those  alone  who  had  pursued  the  ascetic 
practises  of  the  "  Orphic  life."  %  To  "  cease  from  the  Wheel  and  breathe 
again  from  ill"  (xuxXou  x'  av  XiQ^at  xal  avaxveiiaat  xa7.6xir]xo<;,  Or  ph.  fragm. 
226,  Proclus,  In  Plat.  Tim.  comm.  v,  p.  330  B)  was  the  goal  of  the  relig- 

*  See  also,  for  similar  phrases,  the  index  to  Proclus  Diadochus,  In  Plalonis  Timmum  comm. 
ed.  Diehl,  igo6,  s.  v.  kvk\o<;. 

t  This  has  gone  into  Cramer's  Catena,  pp.  20/. 

X  See  E.  Rohde,  Psyche^,  1903,  ii,  pp.  121-131,  133-136,  165,  note  2,  217-219  /. ;  Jane  E. 
Harrison,  Prolegomena  (as  cited  below);  Lobeck,  Aslaophamus,  1829,  ii,  pp.  795-806. 


Ill,  6  239 

ious  life  of  the  Orphic  initiate,  and  in  the  ritual  a  wheel  seems  to  have 
played  a  part.  "The  first  article  in  the  creed  or  confession  of  the 
Orphic  soul  is  xuxXou  S's^eicTotv  PapuicevSeo^  apyaXeoto,  'I  have  flown 
out  of  the  sorrowful  weary  wheel.'  "  * 

This  Orphic  round  of  birth,  death,  reincarnation,  over  and  over  again 
repeated,  is  described  as  "the  wheel  of  fate  and  birth"  (6  -cij?  elfiapiilvTjs 
x£  xal  •^eveasiiiq  xpox6?)t  a^^d  "the  circle  of  birth"  (6  xuxXoq  t^<;  ys- 
v^a£(i)?).t  The  phrase  "compulsory  circle"  (/.U/.X01;  avayxr)?)  is  also 
foimd  in  a  statement  of  the  kindred  transmigration  doctrine  attrib- 
uted to  Pythagoras. §  But  the  phrases,  although  almost  identical 
with  that  of  Jas.  3%  do  not  throw  any  light  upon  it.  To  think 
of  the  tongue  as  enflaming  the  "wheel"  of  metempsychosis  is  non- 
sense; and,  on  the  other  side,  nothing  could  be  more  opposed  to 
James's  robust  doctrine  of  moral  responsibility  than  the  idea  of  a 
fatalistic  circle. 

It  is  therefore  impossible  to  draw  the  inference  that  the  author  of 
the  epistle  had  direct  contact  with  Orphic  mysteries  and  ideas.  The 
resemblance  of  language  may  well  be  a  mere  accident,  and  even  if 
we  suppose  that  he  had  picked  up  and  misused  a  chance  phrase,  that 
would  be  fully  accounted  for  by  acquaintance  with  Cynic  popular 
preachers,  or  Stoic-cynic  writers  of  diatribes,  who  must  have  given 
currency  to  such  catch-words  incidentally  to  their  satirical  attacks  on 
the  ideas  which  the  phrases  conveyed.il 

(c)  Similar  expressions  are  used  of  fatalistic  necessity.  So  Philo, 
Dc  sonin.  ii,  6,  p.  664,  xuxXov  xal  xpoxov  avayxiQ?  aTeXsux-^xou.  In  the 
magic  literature  are  found  such  expressions  as  x6y.Xa  xij?  avayxiQ? ;  see 
O.  Gruppe,  Griech.  Mylhologie  iind  Religions geschichte,  1906,  p.  1086, 
note  I. 

In  this  connection  it  may  be  observed  that  ysvecrtt;  in  later  philo- 
sophical use  means  "necessity"  (for  instances,  see  Clementine  Recogni- 
tions, viii,  2,  4,  6,  7,  etc.).  But  this  whole  field  of  fatalistic  thought  is 
diametrically  opposed  to  everything  that  James  held  dear. 

*The  verse  is  from  the  Compagno  tablet,  Kaibel,  Inscr.  Ilal.  et  Sicil.  641,  p.  158.  Sec 
Jane  E.  Harrison,  Prolegomena  to  the  Study  of  Greek  Religion,  Cambridge,  1903,  pp.  586, 
589-594,  668-671;  and  note  the  similar  use  of  <TTe<f>avos  in  other  verses  of  the  same  in- 
scription. 

t  Simplicius,  In  Arisl.  de  ccbIo  comm.  ii,  p.  168  b  (ed.  Heiberg,  p.  377). 

'  Produs,  In  Plat.  Tim.  comm.  v,  p.  330  A;  cf.  also  Orphica,  fragmm.  222,  223,  225,  ed. 
Abel,  1885,  pp.  244-246. 

§  Diogenes  Laert.  viii,  14,  Vila  Pythag.  npaiTov  <j>a<Ti.  tovtov  [Pythagoras]  airotjyrjvai  tiji' 
tfivx^v  kvk\ov  avdyKr]^  afjiei^ovcrav  aWoTe  aAAois  evSeiaOai,  C^cuotj. 

II  See  A.  Dieterich,  Nekyia,  Leipzig,  1893,  p.  141. 

In  any  case  a  mere  accidental  coincidence  seems  to  be  involved  in  the  fact  that  Simpli- 
cius's  "  wheel  of  fate  and  birth  "  is  an  allegorical  interpretation  of  Ixion's  wheel,  and  that 
Ixion's  wheel  was  sometimes  represented  as  fiery.  As  a  rationalising  interpretation  of  James's 
language,  parallel  to  this,  may  be  mentioned  the  idea  of  a  wheel  catching  fire  from  a  "  hot 
box  "  at  the  axle,  which  is  seriously  offered  by  many  commentaries  1 


240  JAMES 

virb  rr}?  yeeuvrj^.  Gehenna,  a  term  elsewhere  used  in  the 
N.  T.  only  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  here  means  the  place  of 
punishment  of  the  wicked.  It  was  naturally  associated  with 
lire,  cf.  Mt.  522  18^,  Mk.  g^^,  and  see  HDB,  "Gehenna." 
Observe  the  sudden  intrusion  of  a  purely  Jewish  idea  into  a 
notably  Greek  context. 

7-12.  The  tongue  is  untamable;  Us  use  in  blessing  God  gives 
no  security  against  its  abuse  later  for  cursing  men;  this  is  wrong 
and  contrary  to  nature. 

7.  7ap,  explains  how  the  extreme  statement  of  v.  ^  is  justi- 
fied. The  dreadful  character  of  the  tongue  comes  from  its 
untamableness. 

Oripiwv  re  /cat  TereLvooy  epirerxoy  re  koI  evoKicov^  "beasts 
and  birds,  reptiles  and  fishes."  CJ.  Deut.  4I"'  ^^,  i  Kings  4^^, 
Acts  10^2  jj;6^  which  all,  like  the  present  passage,  have  more  or 
less  direct  reference  to  Gen.  i^o-  24.  26^ 

eVaXtW,  i.  e.  fishes.  This  word  is  not  found  elsewhere  in  the 
Bible,  but  is  common  in  secular  Greek,  both  poetry  and  late 
prose. 

Bafict^erat  koL  BeSdfiaaTat,  "is  from  time  to  time,  and  has 
actually  been,  tamed."     Cf.  Schmid,  Atticismus,  ii,  p.  276. 

Trj  <f>va-eL  rji  avOpfOTLvrj.  The  dative  is  used  in  the  sense  of 
"in  subjection  to."  The  term  itself  means  "human  kind" 
{cf.  L.  and  S.  s.  v.  and  references  in  Wetstein),  andjs  used 
here  instead  of  the  more  natural  toT?  avOpooiroL^  in  order  to 
make  a  little  play  with  iracra  ^vai<;. 

The  control  of  animals  by  man  was  a  familiar  Hebrew  obser- 
vation, cf.  Gen.  i28  g-,  Ps.  8^-*,  Ecclus.  17*;  it  was  also  a  com- 
mon subject  of  Greek  and  Roman  comment  and  moralising, 
see  references  in  Mayor. 

8.  ovSek  Safidcrat  Bvvarai.  Notice  the  alliteration  with  S, 
cf.  V.  ^  and  4  Mace.  15",  where  k  is  repeated  six  times. 

avdpoiTQiu.     Belongs  with  ouSei?  ;   alludes  to  auOpcoTLur). 

This  is  not  meant  to  be,  as  Augustine  {De  not.  el  gral.  ch.  15)  and  others 
since  have  thought,  in  contrast  with  the  divine  power  which  can  do  ail 
things,  but  is  a  popular  way  of  saying  that  complete  control  of  the 
tongue  is  not  to  be  expected ;   cJ.  v.  =  tiXetot;  dvi^p. 


Ill,  6-9  241 

The  Pelagian  interpretation,  which  took  this  as  a  question,  in  order 
to  avoid  a  proof-text  for  universal  sinfulness,  is  unacceptable  because 
opposed  to  the  context. 

aKardaTaTov  KaKoi',  "a  restless,  forthputting,  evil";  best 
taken  (because  of  fiea-Trj)  as  nominative  absolute;  cf.  Mk.  12^*. 
aKaTd(7TaTo<i  is  the  opposite  of  BeSa/xaafiei^o^; ;  see  on  i*,  and 
cf.  3"  aKaraaraaia.  Cf.  Hermas,  Mand.  ii,  3  irourjpa  rj  /cara- 
XaXtctj  cLKardaTaTOV  Saifioviov  iariv. 

dy.3£TacTTaTov]  CKL  minnp''^''  m  syrut'  Cyr  read  axaTiaxsTov  ;  more 
commonplace,  hence  probably  an  emendation. 

lov  davaTT](f)6pov,  "deadly  poison,"  probably  with  allusion  to 
the  poison  of  the  serpent's  tongue.  Cf.  Ps.  140',  quoted  in 
Rom.  3".  Cf.  Lucian,  Fugit.  19  lov  fieaTou  avToi'i  to  aTo/xa. 
The  figure  of  poison  was  a  common  one  among  the  Greeks, 
used  for  various  hateful  things  (references  in  Mayor). 

9.  Continues  thought  of  v.  *.  Even  good  use  of  the  tongue 
now  gives  no  security  against  misuse  later. 

eV  avTjj,  "by  it,"  cf.  Rom.  15^  This  might  be  the  Hebrais- 
tic instrumental  eV  (see  Blass,  §  41.  i,  J.  H.  Moulton,  Pro- 
legomena, pp.  11/.,  61/.,  104),  but  is  more  probably  an  ex- 
tension of  Hellenistic  usage  for  which  good  parallels  are  found 
only  in  very  late,  Byzantine,  writers  (see  Stephanus,  Thesaurus, 
ed.  Hase  and  Dindorf,  s.  v.,  coll.  963  /.). 

This  twofold  use  of  the  tongue  is  frequently  mentioned.  Philo,  De 
decal.  19,  p.  196  ou  yAp  offiov,  St'  ou  <sxb\^at.'zoc,  xb  kpcotaxov  3vo[ji,a  xpo- 
(pIpETaf  Ttq,  8ta  TOUTOU  qjOeYYeaOac  tc  twv  ataxpwv. 

Plutarch,  De  garridUate,  8,  p.  506  C  oBsv  6  rTcxxaxb?  ou  xaxw?,  tou 
AtYuxxt'wv  ^aaiX^w?  TC^[jnj*avxo<;  tepetov  auxw,  xal  xeXsijaavxoq  xb  xa>>A!axov 
Y.(x\  xb  x£'Pt<J'rov  e^sXetv  xpiaq,  £Tce[jnJ;sv  I^eXmv  x-f)v  yXcixxav,  wg  opyavov 
txev  dtyaOwv,  opyavov  Ss  xwv  xaxwv  xwv  lAsy  faxwv  ouaav.  Substantially  the 
same  story  is  told  in  Levit.  rabba,  ^7,  pr.  on  Prov.  iS^'  (Schottgen, 
Horae  heb.  i,  p.  1024)  of  R.  Simeon  b.  Gamaliel,  who  sent  his  servant 
to  market  to  buy  first  good  and  then  bad  food,  and  found  himself 
both  times  supplied  with  tongues.  See  other  references  in  Mayor  and 
Windisch,  and  cf.  the  passages  in  which  SfYXu(jao<;  occurs,  Prov.  ii'^^ 
Ecclus.  s'.  "  6'  28",  Orac.  Sib.  iii,  37. 

€v\oyoufM€v.    Doubtless  with  reference  both  to  the  Jewish 

custom  of  adding  "Blessed  be  He,"  whenever  the  name  of  God 
16 


242  JAMES 

was  mentioned  {cf.  Rom.  i-""  9-^  2  Cor.  ii^O)  and  to  other  litur- 
gical ascriptions  of  praise.  For  the  latter,  cf.  2  Cor.  i^,  Eph.  i^, 
I  Pet.  i^  Ps.  i45^S  and  the  Shemone  Esre  (Schiirer,  GJV,  §  27, 
Anhang) . 

Tov  Kvpiov  KOI  irarepa.  Both  words  refer  to  God.  See  on  2^ ; 
cf.  i".  The  expression  has  no  complete  parallel ;  cf.  i  Chron. 
2910,  Is.  631s  Mt.  ii25,  Ecclus.  231'  ". 

Karapcofieda^  cf.  Job  31^",  Ps.  10^  62^  109-^,  Lk.  6^8,  Rom. 

Test.  XII  Patr.  Benj.  6  r}  ayaOr]  Bidvoia  ovk  e^et  Bvo  <y\(oa- 
cra?  €v\ojLa<;  /cat  /carapa?. 

Tov<;  Ka6'  ofioioocrtv  Oeov  yeyovora';.  Cf.  Gen.  i'^^  9®,  Ecclus. 
17^  Wisd.  2-^.  Cf.  Bereshith  r.  24  (Wetstein),  quoted  by 
Hort. 

10.  ou  XPV-     Used  only  here  in  N.  T, 

11-12.  The  contrary  example  of  springs  and  trees.  What 
takes  place  with  the  tongue  would  be  impossible  in  nature. 
For  the  same  thought,  cf.  Enoch  2-5^. 

11.  V  T^vyV-  T^vyv  has  the  article  as  the  representative  of 
its  class;   see  Winer,  §  18.  i. 

jSpuet,  "gush."  "Send  forth"  (E.V.)  is  an  exact,  but  prosaic, 
rendering  of  this  mainly  poetical  word,  which  is  not  used  else- 
where in  O.  T.  or  N.  T.  It  means  "teem,"  "be  full  to  burst- 
ing," and  is  ordinarily  used  intransitively,  with  dative  or  geni- 
tive, of  the  swelling  buds  of  plants  and  so,  figuratively,  of  vari- 
ous kinds  of  fulness.  Here  the  context  shows  that  the  thought 
is  of  the  gushing  forth  of  the  water. 

TO  ykvKV  KOl  TO  TTlKpOP. 

Cognate  accusatives,  as  in  Justin  Martyr,  Dial.  114  xerpa? 
.  .  .  ^Mv  vhcop  ISpvovaTj'i.  Mayor  gives  many  other  references, 
in  some  of  which,  as  here,  the  cognate  accusative  occurs. 
yXvKv  means  "fresh,"  iriKpov  {cf.  v.  1-  akvKov),  "brackish." 
Cf.  Ex.  1523-25  {TTiKpov^  ijKvKciuOi]) ,  Jer.  23^^ 

This  occurrence  is  prophesied  as  a  portent  in  4  Ezra  5'  in  diilcibus 
aqtds  salsae  invenientiir.  "Only  in  the  times  of  the  End,  in  the  days 
of  the  sinners,  when  all  nature  reverses  its  order  and  shows  itself 
ripe  for  destruction,  does  such  a  phenomenon  appear"  (Spitta,  p.  104). 


in,  9-13  243 

12.  a8e\(j)0i  fwv.  Here  inserted  to  add  emphasis,  not,  as 
more  often,  to  mark  a  transition;  so  i^^  2*. 

avKYj^  i\aia<i^  afnr€\o<i. 

The  fig,  the  oHve,  and  the  vine  are  the  three  characteristic 
natural  products  of  warm  countries  about  the  Mediterranean. 
For  the  figure,  cf.  Mt.  7"  I23''  ;  Plutarch,  De  tranquill.  anim.  p. 
472  F  rrjv  dfiTeXov  avKa  ^epetv  ovk  a^iov/jLev  ov8e  Trjv  ekaiav 
^6Tpv<i;  similarly,  Seneca,  Ep.  8f^,  De  ira  ii,  10'= ;  Epict.  Diss. 
ii,  20^*. 

ovT€  seems  to  be  an  error  for  ovSe,  but  the  constant  inter- 
change of  these  words  in  the  Mss.  by  textual  corruption  makes 
it  hard  to  be  sure  that  good  ancient  writing  did  not  exercise 
more  freedom  in  the  use  of  them  than  the  grammarians  would 
sanction  ;  see  Radermacher,  N eutestamentliche  Grammaiik,  p. 
172. 

aXvKov,  sc.  vSoop,  "salt  water";  i.e.  a  salt  spring.  There 
were  salt  springs  or  brine-pits  on  the  shore  of  the  Dead  Sea, 
and  the  hot  springs  of  Tiberias  are  described  as  bitter  and  salt ; 
see  Robinson,  Biblical  Researches  in  Palestine,  1856,  ii,  p.  384. 

j\vKv  TTOLrjaai  vSoop,  sc.  Biivarat  (as  is  shown  by  the  parallel 
first  half  of  the  verse). 

No  application  of  these  illustrations  is  made,  and  James  turns 
abruptly  to  another  aspect  of  the  matter.  The  passage  well 
illustrates  his  vividness  and  fertility  of  illustration,  as  well  as 
his  method  of  popular  suggestiveness,  rather  than  systematic 
development  of  the  thought. 

oSts  dXuxJjv  Y^uxu]  BAC  minn. 

ouTox;  ou-ue  [ouSs  ^  minn]  aXuxbv  yXuxu]  XC'  minn  ff  vg  syrp«»'»  boh 
Cyr. 

ouTw<;  ouSs(x{a  xrjy?)  aXuxbv  xal  yXuxu]  KLP  (outs)  minnp'"  syr*";'  <••* 
(syrtci  tit  om  ou-uox;). 

13-18.  The  true  Wise  Ma?i's  wisdom  must  he  meek  and  peace- 
able ;  such  wisdom  alone  comes  from  above,  and  only  peaceable 
righteousness  receives  the  divine  reward. 

13.  The  Wise  Man  must  by  a  good  life  illustrate  the  meek- 
ness which  belongs  to  true  wisdom. 


244  JAMES 

Ti?.  For  similar  rhetorical  questions,  see  Ps.  33^2  107''^,  Is. 
50^°,  Ecclus.  6^^,  etc.  These  short  interrogative  sentences  (fre- 
quent in  Paul)  are  characteristic  of  the  diatribe;  Bultmann, 
pp.  14/. 

It  is  not  necessary  here,  although  it  would  be  possible,  to  take  liq 
in  the  sense  of  oaxiq.  See  Buttmann,  §  139  (Thayer's  translation,  p. 
252) ;  Blass,  §  50.  5  ;  J.  H.  Moulton,  Prolegomena,  p.  93  ;  Winer,  §  25.  i. 

co^6<i.  The  technical  term  for  the  Teacher  (c/.  v.  ^) ;  in 
Jewish  usage  one  who  has  a  knowledge  of  practical  moral  wis- 
dom, resting  on  a  knowledge  of  God.  The  words  of  James  re- 
late to  the  ideal  to  be  maintained  by  a  professional  Wise  Man 
and  Teacher,  not  merely  to  the  private  wisdom  of  the  layman. 

iinaT'j/jLOiVj  "understanding,"  with  a  certain  tone  of  superi- 
ority, like  our  "expert."  Cf,  Ecclus.  proL,  Dan.  i*  veaviaKOVi 
.  .  .  eTrL(TTrjiM)va^  iu  irdcrr)  ao(f)ia. 

aocf)6^  and  iTia-Tijfjicop  are  used  as  synonyms  in  Deut.  i^^'  ^^ 
4^,  Dan.  5^2,  cf.  Philo,  De  pram,  et  pcenis,  14  (ro(f)6v  dpa  yeva 
Kal  e'inaT7}fxovLKOiTaTov, 

Sei^ciTO}  m  Trj<i  KaKr]<;  avaarpo^r]';  rd  epya  avrov  eV  irpav- 
Tr]Tt  o-o^tia?,  "let  him  by  his  good  life  show  that  his  works  have 
been  done  in  the  meekness  appropriate  to  wisdom." 

The  relation  of  the  parts  of  the  sentence  must  be  interpreted 
by  the  aid  of  2^^,  Sei^co  e/c  tcov  epyoov  ixov  Tr]v  TrCariv.  The  wise 
Man  is  here  called  on  to  prove  not  (as  many  commentators 
suppose)  his  wisdom  (which  would  require  Bei^drco  ttjv  croipiav), 
but  his  meekness.  For  Jewish  examples  of  the  tendency  of 
learned  discussion  to  excite  passion,  see  J.  Friedmann,  Der  ge- 
sellschaftliche  Verkehr  und  die  Umgangsformeln  in  tahmidischer 
Zeit,  1 9 14,  pp.  58/. 

It  is  better  to  take  ev  xpaijTT^Ti  aocpte?  in  this  way  than  as  if  it  were 
used  in  deprecation  of  the  possible  ostentation  implied  in  Set^ixw 
("Let  him  point  to  his  good  works,  but  let  him  do  so  with  due  meek- 
ness such  as  befits  wisdom").  This  would  have  to  be  indicated  more 
clearly,  as  by  inserting  dXX4  before  Iv. 

The  reason  for  rejecting  the  (at  first  sight  simpler)  interpretation, 
"Let  him  prove  his  wisdom  by  his  good  life"  (Clem.  Rom.  38=  6  ao^bc; 
lvS£txvuff6co  T-?jv  ao^fav  aOxoG  [j.-?]  sv  Xdyoti;  dtXX'  sv  spyoK;  ayaOoft;),  which 


in,  13-14  245 

many  commentators  have  adopted,  has  been  indicated  above.  It  does 
not  do  justice  to  the  text  of  v.  '^  and  does  not  give  to  "meekness" 
the  emphasis  that  is  needed  in  order  to  prepare  for  v.  '^ 

eV  TrpavTTjTij  cf.  i^^  (of  the  hearer,  as  here  of  the  teacher). 

"Meekness"  is  the  opposite  of  arrogance  and  of  the  quahties 
referred  to  in  v.  " ;  see  Trench,  Synonyms,  §  Ixii.  Pirke  Aboth, 
iv,  II,  "He  that  is  arrogant  in  decision  is  foolish,  wicked,  and 
puffed  up  in  spirit,"  is  a  maxim  which  refers  to  this  besetting 
danger  of  rabbis ;  see  Taylor's  Sayings  of  the  Fathers'^,  p.  69, 
notes  13  and  14,  with  quotation  from  R.  Jonah,  and  cf.  Pirke 
Aboth,  iv,  12,  14. 

14.  And  if  your  heart  enkindle  with  fierce,  obstinate,  and 
divisive  zeal  for  your  own  views,  do  not  let  such  passion  come 
to  expression. 

Be,  "  and,"  in  continuation  of  v.  ^^  not  in  contrast. 

WH.'s  period  before  d  oe  is  too  strong  a  punctuation ;  a  colon  is 
suflScient. 

^rjXou  TTiKpov,  "harsh  zeal."  Because  of  epiOlav  this  mean- 
ing for  ^rfKov  is  better  than  the  meaning  "jealousy"  (in  the 
ordinary  sense  of  personal  jealousy),  and  corresponds  well  to 
the  general  thought.  The  idea  is  of  a  fierce  desire  to  pro- 
mote one's  own  opinion  to  the  exclusion  of  those  of  others. 

This  sense  of  "fanatical  zeal"  (as  distinguished  from  "emulation" 
and  "jealousy")  is  not  wholly  foreign  to  Greek  usage,  but  has  been 
made  specially  common  by  the  influence  of  the  LXX,  where  X^r^koq 
stands  in  all  cases  for  nxjp,  "jealous  devotion  to  a  cause,"  "fanatical 
ardoiur,"  as  I^tjXouv  does  in  nearly  all  cases  for  the  verb  njp. 

It  is  the  virtue  of  the  religious  "zealot,"  cf.  i  Kings  ig^"-  ",  Ecclus. 
48'  (Elijah),  I  Mace.  2".  "^  4  Mace.  i8'=  (Phinehas),  Phil.  3'  (Paul), 
Gal.  I",  Acts  212".  But  it  also  becomes  the  vice  of  the  fanatic;  and 
hence  its  special  danger  for  the  religious  teacher. 

In  secular  use  'C^Xo?  generally  means  "heat,"  as  expressed  in  "emula- 
tion," "rivalry" — whether  good  or  bad;  see  below,  note  on  4'.  The 
Biblical  sense  brings  it  near  to  the  Hellenic  aTCouSr),  which,  starting  from 
another  side  ("haste,"  "exertion"),  acquired  a  wide  range  of  meanings 
including  "zeal"  and  "rivalry." 

See  Trench,  Synonyms,  §  xxvi,  Lightfoot  on  Clem.  Rom.  3.  Note  the 
connection  of  ^^Xo?  and  a/.aTa3-:acj{a  in  v.  ",  and  cf.  Clem.  Rom.  3  2. 


246  JAMES 

epidiaVj  "selfish  ambition."  The  word  denotes  the  inclina- 
tion to  use  unworthy  and  divisive  means  for  promoting  one's 
own  views  or  interests,  cf.  Rom.  2*,  2  Cor.  12^°,  Gal.  5™  (and 
Lightfoot's  note),  and  references  in  Mayor,  together  with 
Hort's  valuable  note,  ad  loc.  pp.  81-83;  ^^epidia  really  means 
the  vice  of  a  leader  of  a  party  created  for  his  own  pride :  it 
is  partly  ambition,  partly  rivalry"  (Hort). 

eV  TTj  KapSia  vfiwv  has  a  certain  emphasis,  in  contrast  with 
KaraKavxaade.  The  meaning  is:  "If  you  have  these  quaHties 
in  your  heart,  do  not  let  them  come  to  expression." 

fiT)  KaTaKav^acrde  {sc.  twv  aXKo)v)  koI  \pev8ea6e  Kara  r?}? 
aXijdeia'i.  "Do  not  boast  and  be  arrogant,  and  thus  prove 
false  to  the  Truth."  That  would  be  the  natural  fruit  of  the 
spirit  of  ^^Xo?  and  epidia  in  the  heart;  and  it  must  be  sup- 
pressed. KaraKavxaa-de  (cf.  note  on  2^^)  seems  here  to  relate 
to  the  browbeating  on  the  part  of  the  Wise  Man  who  haugh- 
tily forces  his  own  views  on  others. 

Others  connect  [x-f)  xaxaxauxasGe  directly  with  xaxa  ttj?  aXirjOeca?, 
see  Winer,  §  54.  5,  note  (Thayer's  transl.  p.  470,  note  3).  The  sense 
then  would  be:  "Do  not  boast  over,  and  lie  against,  the  truth."  But 
the  idea  of  "boasting  over  {or  against)  the  truth"  is  out  of  place  in  the 
context,  and  is  itself  unnatural.  xai;axayxaj6ac  xaia  -ccvo?  is  a  con- 
struction which  nowhere  occurs. 

Kal  xJ/evBecrOe  Kara  r?}?  oKrjdeia^.  "And  thus  play  false 
against  the  truth,"  i.  e.  by  your  conduct  (KaraKavxaa-dai) 
prove  false  to,  and  belie,  the  truth  which  you  as  a  Wise  Man 
profess  to  have  and  utter. 

Cf.  4  Mace.  5^<  oj  '^leuaofxai  as,  xoctSeuTa  vojAe,  13*';  see  L.  aiid  S. 
s.v.  for  examples  of  (J'suSoiJ-a'  with  accusative,  meaning  "prove  false 
to"  an  oath,  a  treaty,  a  marriage,  an  aUiance,  a  threat,  a  promise. 

See  also  Zahn,  GnK,  i,  p.  792,  note,  and  J.  Weiss,  Der  crsle  Korinlher- 
bricf,  p.  354,  note,  for  examples  of  /.otxaij'eijSeaOat,  "speak  falsely  to 
the  injury  of  someone." 

T77?  a\r]0eia<;.  Cf.  i^^  Xo^oj  aXT^^em?,  519  TKavrjOrj  airo  r^? 
akrjOela^i.  This  means  the  Christian  truth  which  the  Wise 
Man  knows — truth  of  both  practical  morals  and  religion.     See 


Ill,  14-15  247 

the  fuller  discussion  in  the  note  on  5^^.  The  conduct  here  cen- 
sured is  contrary  to  and  forbidden  by  this  truth ;  hence,  if  the 
Wise  Man  is  guilty  of  that  conduct,  he  is  false  to  the  truth  of 
which  he  is  the  representative. 

If  the  phrase  <\>z()is<jQe  xxzi  Tfjq  iXTjOeias  stood  alone,  a  simpler  in- 
terpretation would  perhaps  be  "do  not  lie,  violating  the  truth"  {cf. 
Ecclus.  4=''  [i-^  ivxiXeYS  xf)  a>vT)8et(j:,  Test.  XII  Patr.  Gad  5'  XaXwv  xaxa 
T^s  a>.iQ0eias),  but  that  would  be  alien  to  the  context  here,  and  it  is 
in  itself  not  wholly  acceptable  since  it  makes  xaxd  ti^q  ii.'kt]Qd(xq  a  mere 
redundancy. 

IJiT)  xxxx-KauxiaQs  xal  iJ^EuSeaOe  xaxoc  T^q  d'ki]Qei(xq]  S  syrp*^'^  read  [ir] 
xaTaxaux«<j6s  [^s'^+  y.axa]  Tfjs  ctXTjOstas  y-oA  (J^euSeaGe.  Doubtless  an  emen- 
dation due  to  the  apparent  incompleteness  of  xaiaxauxaaGe  alone. 

15.  avTr]  rj  cro</)ia,  "  that  wisdom,"  i.  c.  the  professed  wisdom 
which  is  accompanied  by  s'r}Xo9  inKpo^,  ipidia^  /cara/cav^T/crt?, 
and  lacks  irpavn]^. 

duoodeu  Karepxo/Ji'ei^r),  i.e.  divine,  from  God,  cf.  i^-";  cf. 
Philo,  De  prof.  30  ao<piav  avoodev  o/x^pijdelcrav  a-w  ovpavov,  Be 
congr.  erud.  grat.  7,  De  prcem.  et  pcen.  8;  Hermas,  Mand.  ix,  11, 
xi,  5 ;  and  Schottgen,  Horae  hehraicae,  ad  loc,  for  many  rabbin- 
ical instances  of  what  was  plainly  a  common  Jewish  expres- 
sion. The  phrase  is  contrasted  with  the  following  three  ad- 
jectives. 

For  the  divine  origin  of  true  wisdom,  cf.  c.  g.  Prov.  2^  8---",  Wisd.  7" 
g*'  ="■,  Ecclus.  !'-<  24' ff-,  Enoch  42,  Philo,  as  above,  i  Cor.  V^-2'. 

iircyem,  "earthly,"  cf.  Phil,  s'^  Col.  3-,  i  Cor.  15",  Jn.  3^1 
823. 

CTT 176609  seems  to  mean  here  "derived  from  the  frail  and 
finite  world  of  human  life  and  affairs."  Cf.  Philo's  contrast  of 
oupdvto^  and7T;tVo9,  Leg.  all.  i,  12,  and  the  far-reaching  dualism 
on  which  it  rests. 

\pvxc/c-^,  "natural"  (Latin  animalis,  E.V.  "sensual"),  i.e. 
pertaining  to  the  natural  life  {^vxn)  which  men  and  animals 
alike  have;  i  Cor.  2^*  1^44-46^  Jude  19. 

Cf.  Rev.  8'  ('^u/Tj  of  animals).  See  Philo,  Leg.  all.  ii,  7  and  13,  Quis 
rer.  div.  her.  11,  and  E.  Hatch,  Essays,  p.  124,  cf.  pp.  11 5-1 20. 


248  JAMES 

The  word  was  intelligible  and  familiar  in  this  sense  to  Paul's 
readers,  and  does  not  imply  later  gnostic  usage ;  see  J.  Weiss, 
Der  erste  Korintherbrief ,  1910,  pp.  69/.,  371-373 ;  R.  Reitzen- 
stein.  Die  hellenistischen  Mysterienreligionen,  19 10,  pp.  42-47, 
109,  112,  151/. 

The  curious  resemblance  to  the  gnostic  designation  of  the  two  lower 
grades  of  men  as  -/jA-mI  and  t^uyj'/.oi  is  probably  not  significant.  Yet 
see  Pfleiderer,  Urchristentum^,  ii,  p.  546.  Useful  references  will  be 
found  in  Mayor. 

8aifiovico8r]<;,  "resembling,"  or  "pertaining  to"  ("proceeding 
from"),  an  evil  spirit,  cf.  2*^,  i  Tim.  41.  This  word  has  been 
pointed  out  elsewhere  only  Sym.,  Ps.  91^,  and  Schol.  on  Aris- 
tophanes, Ran.  293,  (fydvTaafxa  8aifxovto)Ses  vto  '^Karrjs  iiri- 
irejjLirofJLevov. 

These  three  words,  "earthly,  sensual,  devilish,"  describe  the 
so-called  wisdom,  which  is  not  of  divine  origin,  in  an  advancing 
series — as  pertaining  to  the  earth,  not  to  the  world  above ;  to 
mere  nature,  not  to  the  Spirit ;  and  to  the  hostile  spirits  of  evil, 
instead  of  to  God.  Hermas,  Mand.  ix,  11,  xi,  8,  show  a  variety 
of  resemblances  to  this  passage  of  James,  but  there  is  no  evi- 
dence of  Hterary  dependence. 

The  church  speedily  and  permanently  used  this  conception  of  Satanic 
origin  to  account  for  the  gnostic  "wisdom" ;  cf.  e.  g.  Justin,  Apol.  i,  58. 
In  James,  however,  it  is  not  the  substance,  but  the  temper,  of  the 
"wisdom"  that  makes  it  false.  James  is  not  attacking  systems  of 
false  teaching.  See  Weinel,  Wirkungen  des  Geistes  und  der  Geiste,  pp. 
i3/->  16-18,  20/. 

16.  7«'p.  Introduces  proof  that  v.  ^^  is  true.  "For  such  a 
temper,  even  on  the  part  of  one  who  claims  to  be  a  Wise  Man, 
leads  to  every  evil." 

oirov  .  .  .  e'/cet.  For  this  rhetorical  turn,  cf.  i  Cor.  3^  and 
Epict.  Diss,  iii,  22"  (Mayor). 

aKaraaraaLa,  "disorder,"  "disturbance,"  "trouble."  Cf.  i» 
38  aKaTd(TTaTo<;. 

The  word  seems  to  have  something  of  the  bad  associations  of 
our  word  "anarchy,"  and  has  to  bear  much  weight  in  this  sen- 
tence.    Cf.  Prov.  26^8,  I  Cor.  14^^,  2  Cor.  12-"  t^Xo?,  epiOiai, 


Ill,  15-17  249 

KaraaTao-iai ;  and  the  similar  list  of  evils,  Gal.  5^0,  which  has 
i'vAof,  iptdiai,  8t%oo-Tao-iat ;  Lk.  21*,  Clem.  Rom.  i^.  See 
Hatch,  Essays,  p.  4:  "The  political  circumstances  of  Greece 
and  the  East  after  the  death  of  Alexander  had  developed  the 
idea  of  poHtical  instabiUty,  and  with  it  the  word  aKaraar atria, 
Polyb.  I.  70.  I." 

(pavKov,  "vile,"  see  Trench,  Synonyms,  §  Ixxxiv.  ^aOXo?  is 
found  only  ten  times  in  the  LXX,  five  instances  being  in  Prov- 
erbs, the  others  in  Job,  Ecclesiasticus,  and  4  Maccabees. 

17.  Cf.  Wisd.  7"-25. 

TrpoiTOv  fxev  dyvrj,  "first  pure,"  i.  e.  "undefiled,"  free  from  any 
faults  such  as  the  ^r]\o<;  and  ipiOia  above  mentioned.  Nothing 
which  shows  itself  as  half-good,  half-bad,  can  be  accounted 
wisdom,  Wisd.  7-^. 

See  Trench,  §  Ixxxviii  and  references  in  Lex.  s.  v.  ayio<;.  Cf. 
Phil.  4*,  I  Pet.  32.  In  the  LXX  ayvoi;  is  found  eleven  times,  of 
which  four  instances  are  in  Proverbs  and  four  in  4  Maccabees. 
See  Moulton  and  Milligan,  Vocabulary  of  the  Greek  Testament, 

P-S- 

e-weiTa    introduces    the    following    adjectives,    which,    thus 

grouped,  stand  over  against  a<yvq^  the  quality  from  which  they 

all  proceed. 

dpr}VLKi],  "peaceable,"  cf.  Mt.  5'. 

iineiK7]<;,  "reasonable,"  "considerate,"  "moderate,"  "gentle" 
(E.V.).  See  Trench,  Synonyms,  §  xliii:  "We  have  no  words  in 
English  which  are  full  equivalents  of  the  Greek."  See  Light- 
foot  on  Phil.  4^,  and  Mayor's  note,  p.  131. 

This  is  a  distinctively  Greek  virtue ;  the  word  £xtetx,Tf)?  and  its  deriva- 
tives are  found  but  a  few  times  in  LXX,  e.  g.  Ps.  86=,  2  Mace.  9=^  In 
the  N.  T.  2  Cor.  lo',  Phil.  4=,  i  Tim.  3',  Tit.  3-,  i  Pet.  2^\  Acts  24^ 

€iT€t6i]^,  "obedient,"  "ready  to  obey";  here  perhaps  "will- 
ing to  yield,"  the  opposite  of  "obstinate"  (Philo,  Dc  fortitud.  3). 

Only  here  in  the  N.  T.  In  O.  T.  only  4  Maccabees,  and  in  strict 
sense  of  "obedient." 

/xea-Tt],  cf.  Rom.  i-^  15",  2  Pet.  2^\  The  word  is  not  common 
in  LXX. 


2  so  JAMES 

eXeow,  "mercy,"  a  compassion  which  leads  to  practical  help, 
not  the  mere  emotion  of  pity,  cf.  2^^.  See  Trench,  Synonyms, 
§  xlvii ;  and  Lex.  s.  v.  eKeelv. 

Kap-KMV  a'yaOSiv,  i.  e.  good  works,  cf.  Mt.  21*^  Gal.  5",  Eph. 
5«,  Phil.  ill. 

aOLUKpiTO^,  "undivided,"  i.  e.  unwavering,  whole-hearted, 
with  reference  to  the  evil  situation  described  in  vv.  ^-^°. 

Cf.  I*  &  8iaxptv6[ji£V0(;,  2*  disxpi^fjxs.  Only  here  in  N.  T. ;  in  O.  T. 
cf.  Prov.  25'  (aStixptTO'.),  and  there  the  sense  is  doubtful.  See  Ign. 
Trail,  i'  a\x(x)\i.oy  Sicivototv  x,al  aStdxpixov  ev  uizo^Lovfi  eyvwv  u[t.aq  'iyovzaq, 
Rom.  inscr.,  Philad.  inscr.,  Magn.  15;  Clem.  Alex.  Pad.  ii,  3,  p.  190 
liSiaxptTw  "TCtaTet. 

The  Latin  translations  (Vg.  non  judicatis;  Cod.  Corb.  sine  dijudi- 
catlone)  seem  to  have  missed  the  meaning  of  this  word,  as  have  many 
interpreters.  Thus  Luther  translates  " imparteiisch" ;  so  A.V.,  R.V. 
mg.  "without  partiality." 

avvTTOKpiTo^,  "without  hypocrisy." 

In  O.  T.  only  Wisd.  51'  iS'S;  in  N.  T.  Rom.  12=,  2  Cor.  6^,  i  Tim.  i', 
2  Tim.  1 5,  I  Pet.  i",  in  sense  of  "sincere."  Elsewhere  only  as  adverb 
(avuTcoxpfTcog),  e.g.  2  Clem.  Rom.  12'. 

These  characteristics  of  true  wisdom  are  selected  in  pointed 
opposition  to  the  self-assertive,  quarrelsome  spirit  characteristic 
of  the  other  sort.  Apart  from  the  fundamental  dyprj  they  fall 
into  three  groups : 

elprjVLKrj^  eTneiKr]^^  eviretO^^  • 

fiecTTrj  eXeoL"?  /cat  Kapiroiv  af^aOoiV  • 

aBiaKpLTOf^  apvTTOKpiToi; . 

18.  Kapiro^  SLKaioa-vu7}<; ,  "the  fruit  of  righteousness,"  i.e. 
the  reward  which  righteous  conduct  brings,  cf.  Heb.  12"  Kapivov 
elprjviKov  BtKatocrvvr]'; ,  Phil,   i^^  ireTrXrjpo^fiePOL  Kapirov  SiKato- 

That  the  expression  "fruit  of  righteousness"  has  the  sense  "product 
of  righteousness  "  is  shown  by  those  O.  T.  passages  which  seem  to  have 
given  it  its  currency,  and  in  which  it  is  used  with  a  variety  of  applica- 
tions. Cf.  Prov.  3"  (LXX),  1 1 3°  ex  xapicou  StxaioaiiviQ?  ^uasxat  SevSpov 
l^wTji;,  i.  e.  "righteousness  brings  long  life,"  13 ^  (LXX),  Amos  612.     In 


Ill,  17-18  251 

all  these  cases  8txatoauvT)<;  indicates  the  source  of  the  "fruit."  Similarly 
Is.  32I' :  "And  the  work  of  righteousness  (idc  epya  t'O?  5t3<.atoffuvY)s)  shall 
be  peace;  and  the  effect  of  righteousness  quietness  and  confidence 
forever."  For  the  figure  of  sowing,  cf.  Prov.  ii^'  (LXX),  6  3e  oTcsi'pwv 
Si5tatoauvY)v  XT^fJuJ^sxott  [xtaOov,  Hos.  lo'^  Job  4^  Test.  XII  Patr.  Levi, 
13',  etc. 

iu  elpijurj  o-ireipeTat,  "sown  in  peace,"  and  in  peace  only; 
i.  e.  a  righteousness  capable  of  gaining  its  due  reward  must  be 
peaceable;  cf.  i^°.     The  sower  is,  of  course,  the  righteous  man. 

For  the  slightly  inaccurate  expression  "sow  the  fruit,  or  crop"  (in- 
stead of  the  seed),  cf.  Apoc.  Bar.  ;^2\  "Sow  the  fruits  of  the  law," 
Plutarch,  De  vitando  are  alieno,  4  axsipovuss  oux  ^t^spov  xapxov,  Antiph- 
anes.  Fab.  inc.  iv,  4  axst'pstv  xapxbv  xaptTo<;. 

rot<?  TTOLoixTLv  elpr]VT]v. 

To  "do  peace"  {cf.  Eph.  2^^,  Col.  i-"  elptjvoroteco ;  Mt.  5' 
eiprji'OTroio'i)  means  not  merely  to  conciliate  opponents,  but  to 
act  peaceably.    It  is  the  complete  opposite  of  f^Xo?  and  epiOla. 

The  interpretation  of  v.  '«  here  given  may  be  paraphrased,  with  a 
change  of  figure,  thus:  "The  foundation  which  righteousness  lays  for 
eternal  Hfe  can  be  laid  only  in  peace  and  by  those  who  practise  peace." 
This  is  equivalent  to  saying  that  righteousness  includes  peaceableness. 

Another  common  interpretation  takes  xapicbs  3(/.ato(j6vY)s  as  mean- 
ing "the  fruit  which  consists  in  righteousness."  The  source  will  then 
be  the  true  wisdom,  of  which  righteousness  is  the  product.  The  evi- 
dence for  this  would  be  Heb.  12",  where  righteousness  seems  to  be  itself 
the  fruit,  and  the  parallelism  of  Jas.  3'^,  where  the  product  of  "Qqkoz  and 
eptOi'a  is  said  to  be  djcaxaffxaaia  and  xav  cpauXov  xpayi^-a-  Phil,  i",  to 
which  appeal  is  often  made,  is  ambiguous,  and  cannot  be  taken  as 
meaning  that  righteousness  is  the  fruit  except  by  giving  to  Siz-acoauvrj 
its  pecuHar  Pauline  sense. 

But  the  O.  T.  passages  referred  to  above  create  a  strong  presumption 
against  this  interpretation;  the  simple  meaning  of  the  phrase  speaks 
against  it;  and,  further,  righteousness  is  more  naturally  thought  of 
(apart  from  Pauline  theology)  as  the  condition  of  receiving  divine  re- 
ward, not  as  the  reward  itself.  The  general  drift  of  the  verse  would  be 
the  same  under  either  interpretation. 


252  JAMES 

III.    WORLDLINESS    AND   THE   CHRISTIAN   CON- 
DUCT OF  LIFE  CONTRASTED   (4^520). 

CHAPTER  IV. 

1-12.  The  cause  of  the  crying  evils  of  life  is  the  pursuit  of  pleas- 
ure, an  aim  which  is  in  direct  rivalry  with  God  and  abhorrent  to 
him. 

1-2**.  Quarrels  and  conflicts  are  due  to  the  struggle  for 
pleasure  and  for  the  means  of  pleasure. 

The  paragraph  is  written  not  so  much  to  censure  the  quarrels 
as  to  set  forth  the  evil  results  of  aiming  at  pleasure ;  in  nowise 
is  it  introduced  in  order  merely  to  give  an  abstract  analysis 
(irodev)  of  the  ultimate  source  of  the  quarrelling. 

Some  have  taken  4"^-  cf  difficulties  between  the  teachers  (cf.  i^-^i 
3''))  but  this  is  not  indicated  in  the  text,  and  is  an  unnatural  limita- 
tion. 

We  have  here,  doubtless,  a  glimpse  of  the  particular  com- 
munities with  which  the  writer  was  acquainted,  but  the  exhor- 
tation assumes  that  all  communities  show  substantially  the 
same  characteristics.  The  addition  of  ep  vfuu,  v.  ^,  recalls  the 
thought  from  the  ideal  pictures  in  the  preceding  verse  to  the 
actual  situation  in  the  world — and  even  in  the  Christian  church. 
Cf.  Philo,  De  gig.  11:  "For  consider  the  continual  war  which 
prevails  among  men  even  in  time  of  peace  (rw  iv  dprjvri  avve'^^rj 
TToXefwv  audpoiTTicp),  and  which  exists  not  merely  between  na- 
tions and  countries  and  cities,  but  also  between  private  houses, 
or,  I  might  rather  say,  is  present  with  every  individual  man; 
observe  the  unspeakable  raging  storm  in  men's  souls  that  is 
excited  by  the  violent  rush  of  the  affairs  of  life;  and  you 
may  well  wonder  whether  any  one  can  enjoy  tranquillity  in 
such  a  storm,  and  maintain  calm  amid  the  surge  of  this  bellow- 
ing sea." 

The  opening  of  this  paragraph  and  of  the  two  following,  4^-1'  5»-«, 
lacks  the  usual  aSsX^of  [xou. 


IV,  I  253 

iroXefWt,  "feuds,"  "quarrels";  fJ^ax^^^  "conflicts,"  "conten- 
tions." The  two  words  cover  the  chronic  and  the  acute  hos- 
tiUties  in  the  community. 

xoXefjLo?  and  (aczxt)  are  so  frequently  combined  in  Homer  as  to  elicit 
comment  from  Eustathius  more  than  once.  See  especially  Eustathius 
on  //.  i,  177.  In  later  writers  they  became  a  standing  combination;  see 
references  in  Wetstein,  e.  g.  Epict.  Diss,  iii,  13'.  Hence  the  combined 
phrase  is  naturally  used  here  with  no  great  distinction  between  the  two 
terms. 

For  TuoXeiiog  used  of  private  quarrel,  cf.  Test.  XH  Patr.  Gad  5,  Dan 
S«,  Sim.  4',  Ps.  Sol.  12^  Jos.  Antiq.  xvii,  2*,  Ps.-Diog.  Ep.  28,  Clem. 
Rom.  465.  For  (xcixiO  referring  to  private  strife,  cf.  Neh.  13",  Prov. 
17S  Ecclus.  6'  27'\  2  Tim.  2"'  -\  2  Cor.  7=,  Plat.  Tim.  88  A  tidxcf? 
Iv  Xdyoi?  xocecaSat,  Epict.  Diss,  i,  ii'',  ii,  12'^  iii,  121=,  iv.  5=. 

eK  Toiv  rjBovcoVj  "because  you  make  pleasures  your  aim," 
SovXevourei;  eTTt^v/iiai?  Kal  rjSoval'i  Trot/ctXai?  (Tit.  3^).  Over 
against  pleasure  as  the  great  end   stands   submission  to  God 

TMv  cTpaTevofievwv  ev  to'l<;  jxeKeaiv,  "which  are  at  war  with 
one  another,  having  their  seat  in  your  bodily  members,"  and 
which  so  bring  about  conflicts  among  you.  The  war  is  between 
pleasures  which  have  their  seat  in  the  bodies  of  several  persons, 
not  between  conflicting  pleasures  throwing  an  individual  into 
a  state  of  internal  strife  and  confusion.  Since  the  pleasures 
clash,  the  persons  who  take  them  as  their  supreme  aim  are  nec- 
essarily brought  into  conflict,  arparevofjieixiop  makes  the  con- 
nection between  rjSovaL  and  iroKefxot. 

By  some  interpreters  the  warfare  is  thought  of  as  merely  directed 
toward  the  winning  of  gratification,  by  still  others  as  a  war  against  the 
soul  (i  Pet.  2"),  or  against  the  voO?  (Rom.  7"  ;  see  passages  from  Philo 
cited  by  Spitta,  p.  113,  note),  or  against  God.  But  it  is  entirely  fit- 
ting, and  makes  much  better  sense,  to  understand  it,  as  above,  with  ref- 
erence to  the  natural  activity  of  pleasures — necessarily  conflicting  with 
one  another,  and  so  leading  to  the  outbreak  of  conflict.  The  point  of 
James's  attack  is  pleasure  as  such,  not  lower  physical  pleasure  as  dis- 
tinguished from  higher  forms  of  enjoyment.  The  passage  from  Plato, 
PJi(edo,p.  66,  often  cited,  and  given  below  (p.  258),  is  therefore  not  an 
apt  illustration  here. 

Pleasure  is  not  here  equivalent  to,  nor  used  by  metonymy  for, 
Ixt6u[jita,  "desire."     But  the  two  are  of  course  closely  related;   e.g. 


2  54  JAMES 

Philo,  De  pram,  et  pxn.  3  xaTax£?p6vT)xsv  ■JjSovuv  xal  IxtBujJLtwv,  4  Mace. 
I--  xpb  tJ.£v  oOv  T^q  YjSovfiq  saxlv  extGuiJiia,  5"  ;  Stobaeus,  ii,  7,  10  (ed. 
Wachsmuth,  p.  88)  Tjoovfjv  [jlev  [IxtY'TveaOai]  oxav  TuyX'^'^^f'Sv  <I)v  Ixe- 
6u[JLoO[jLev  ri  l>t{puy(i)[j,ev  a  s^opouiJieOa.  The  underlying  conception  is  the 
same  as  in  Jas.  i",  although  no  expUcit  reference  to  yjSovt^  is  there 
made. 

On  eu  Toi<i  /xeXeo-iv,  cf.  3®.  James  thinks  of  pleasure  as  pri- 
marily pertaining  to  the  body.  Cf.  the  frequent  use  of  "mem- 
bers" for  "body,"  Rom.  6^'-  "  j'-  ^\  Col.  3^  Apoc.  Bar.  833. 

The  resemblance  to  i  Pet.  2"  is  probably  accidental ;  nor  is  there 
probably  any  direct  allusion  to  Rom.  7". 

2.  V.  2  explains  in  detail  the  connection  between  rjhovai  and 
TToKefWL  /cat  fid'XjO.i.  Ungratified  desire  leads  to  <^6vo<i ;  zeal 
for  pleasure  unable  to  reach  its  end,  to  fJ'f^X'^  ^^<i  iroXefw^. 

oiv.  ?xsTe  hi&]  BAKL  mirm  vgf". 

y.<x\  oux  'iyeze  Sta]  XP  minn  ff  vg»™  boh  syr"*'. 

oux  exETs  Se  Sta]  minn.     So  Textus  Receptus. 

The  short  reading  is  probably  original. 

Under  the  reading  adopted,  the  last  clause,  oix  Ixexe  Sti  zh  ^lii 
acTsTaOat  b[>.a:q,  belongs  with  v.  ^  (so  WH.).  R.  Stephen's  verse-divi- 
sion, which  connects  v.  2  <=  with  the  preceding  instead  of  the  following, 
and  the  punctuation  of  the  A.V.  are  due  to  the  Textus  Receptus. 

eTidvueXre^  /cat  ovk  e^ere  •  cfiovevere.  /cat  ^rjXovre^  /cat  ou 
hvvaade  iirtTvx^elv  •  fid')(e<r6e  koI  iroXe/jLetre. 

This  punctuation  alojie  (so  WH.  mg.  and  many  commentators) 
preserves  the  perfect  parallelism  between  the  two  series  of  verbs, 
which  is  fatally  marred  by  the  usual  punctuation  {<^ovevere  /cat 
^rfKovre^  /cat  ov  Svpaade  iirLTvxelv^  so  Tisch.  WH.  etc.).  The 
abruptness  is  then  not  greater  than  in  2^^  5^'  "  '-.  For  the  asyn- 
deton, cf.  2^2'  2*.  These  passages  mark  the  extreme  of  the  abrupt- 
ness which  in  various  forms  is  a  quality  of  James's  style.  The 
usual  punctuation  is  made  additionally  unacceptable  by  the 
impossible  anticlimax  4>ovever6  Kal  ^rj\ovTe  {cf.  Plato,  Menex. 
242  A). 

eTtOvfieLTe,  not  a  new  idea  but  necessarily  suggested  by 
rjSovcbv  (v.  ^).     Pleasure  and  desire  are  correlative;  see  on  v.  K 

(fiovevere^   "kill,"  "murder."     No  weaker  sense  is  possible, 


IV,  1-2  255 

and  none  is  here  necessary,  for  James  is  not  describing  the  con- 
dition of  any  special  community,  but  is  analysing  the  result  of 
choosing  pleasure  instead  of  God.  The  final  issue  of  the  false 
choice  is  flagrant  crime,  -q^vri  implies  eTndvfila  ;  eiviBv^xia  is 
often  unsatisfied ;  in  such  a  case  its  outcome,  if  unrestrained, 
is  to  cause  the  murder  of  the  man  who  stands  in  its  way. 

eTnOvixeire^  e%ere,  (j)OU€veTe  are  practically  equivalent  to 
a  conditional  sentence,  in  which  iiridv/xelTe  Kal  ovk  e^ere 
forms  the  protasis,  (jiovevere  the  apodosis;  cf.  3^^  5^^*-,  Bult- 
mann,  pp.  14/.  In  the  use  of  the  second  person  plural  the 
writer  is  taking  the  readers  as  representative  of  the  world  of 
men  in  general. 

On  the  "universal,"  or  "gnomic,"  present,  see  Gildersleeve,  Syntax  of 
Classical  Greek,  i,  §  190;  Winer,  §  40.  2.  a;  on  asyndetic  sentences  of 
the  nature  of  a  condition,  cf.  Buttmann,  §  139.  28 ;   Winer,  §  60.  4.  c. 

The  same  idea  that  murder  is  the  horrible  outcome  to  be  expected 
from  actually  existing  conditions,  unless  their  natural  tendency  is 
somehow  checked,  is  found  in  Didache  32  iat]  ytvou  opyiXo? '  oStjysT  jacp 
T)  fipY"?)  xpb<;  Tbv  <p6vov  '  tXY]§e  ^TjXwT-fj<;  [i,T)Se  Iptff-utxbq  [L-qhk  Qu[ii.y.6q '  iv. 
ydp  -couTuv  dxavTwv  <p6vot  •{syvdyzoii. ;  cf.  also  Clem.  Rom.  4''  ',  quoted 
below,  Test.  XII  Patr.  Sim.  3^  xivToxe  [6  ipOovo?]  uiuo^aT-Xst  dveksXv 
Tbv  <p6ovoij(ji.evov.  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  to  cause  a  death  in- 
directly is  often  called  murder,  and  that  even  downright  murders  have 
not  been  unknown  in  otherwise  respectable  communities.  Cf.  Acts  9^' 
2o3  23'- 'f-,  Jas.  5^  s^ovsuaaTs,  i  Pet.  4^^  oovsu^,  Ecclus.  34". 

Kal  ^T^XoOre,  Kal  ov  Bvvaade  eTTirvx/iv  •  /xa%eo-^6  /cat  TroXe- 
/Ltetre. 

Having  established  the  connection  between  ■qhovri  and  ^6vo<i^ 
the  writer  presents  another  chain,  still  hypothetical  and  general, 
but  showing  that  the  origin  of  the  prevailing  state  of  iroKefioi 
Kal  fid'xo.t  (v.^)  is  l^^o<i,  which  when  it  cannot  attain  its  cov- 
eted prize  regularly  leads  to  fighting  and  strife. 

James,  writing  to  no  one  community,  but  to  the  whole  Chris- 
tian world,  is  speaking  of  general  tendencies,  not  of  the  sins  of 
any  particular  local  group.  Hence  his  strong  language  has  no 
personal  sting. 

The  underlying  principle  is  not  the  same  as  that  of  Mt.  5" '-,  although 
there  is  obvious  resemblance.     There,  as  in  Mt.  5^=^  the  point  is  that 


256  JAMES 

it  is  the  inner  passion  of  the  heart  which  God  considers,  not  merely  the 
carrying  out  of  an  angry  thought  in  murder.  Here  in  James  the  wicked- 
ness and  dangerousness  of  the  end  sought,  viz.  pleasure,  is  exposed  by 
showing  to  what  an  awful  issue,  if  uninhibited,  it  surely  leads. 

I  Jn.  3'^  xa?  6  (jiKjwv  xbv  aSeX^bv  aiixoij  dcvOpwrcoxxovoi;  kGT:iv  comes 
nearer,  but  is  still  different. 

To  the  mistaken  idea  that  James  is  here  giving  a  description  of  the 
particular  communities  which  he  addressed  is  due  the  conjecture  960- 
vsTte  for  tpovEUETe,  which  was  printed  in  the  second  edition  of  Erasmus 
(1519),  was  supported  by  Calvin,  translated  by  Luther  {ihr  hasset), 
and  has  been  adopted  by  many  other  commentators,  both  older  and 
more  recent.  Various  other  instances  of  the  textual  corruption,  (p6voq 
for  (pBovoq,  can,  indeed,  be  adduced  (see  Mayor^,  p.  136) ;  but  there 
is  no  manuscript  evidence  for  the  reading  here.  The  conjecture  is 
unnecessary,  and  it  obliterates  the  careful  parallelism  of  the  two 
series. 

Interpreters  who  have  been  unwilling  to  emend  the  text,  and  yet 
have  felt  bound  to  see  in  9ov£ueT£  an  actual  description  of  the  Chris- 
tian community  addressed,  have  been  driven  to  various  expedients. 
The  more  usual  methods  have  been  either  to  reduce  the  meaning  of 
(poveiisTE  to  "hate,"  or  else  to  assume  an  hendiadys,  by  which  "murder 
and  envy"  becomes  "murderously  envy"  (Schneckenburger  :  ad  necem 
usque  invidetis).     Both  methods  are  linguistically  impossible. 

Kol  ^rjKovre.     Kai  connects  the  two  series. 

^r)\ovT€,  ''hotly  desire  to  possess,"  "covet,"  cf.  Ecclus.  51*8, 
Wisd.  i'^  I  Cor.  1221  141.  ^\  Gal.  4''  '■,  Demosth.  01  ii,  15  o  fxev 
B6^r]<;  iTndvfiei  Kal  rovro  e^rfKo^Ke.  The  meaning  is  different 
from  that  of  T'J^os  in  31^. 

Xfiikac,  and  i;-r)X6(i)  start  with  the  fundamental  meaning  of  "  hot  emo- 
tion." For  the  peculiar  Hebraistic  and  Biblical  meaning  "zeal,"  see 
note  on  Jas.  2>^y  In  secular  use  the  meanings  are  developed  on  two 
sides,  desire  to  surpass  ("emulation,"  "rivalry")  and  desire  to  possess 
("envy,"  etc.).  In  either  sense  the  words  may  refer,  according  to  cir- 
cumstances, to  either  a  good  or  an  evil  desire.  See  Trench,  Synonyms, 
§  xxvi. 

In  our  verse  liciTuxetv  shows  that  the  desire  is  for  possession ;  but 
X,xi\wxz  may  then  mean  either  "envy"  (the  possessor)  or  "covet"  (his 
possessions).  "Covet"  (so  R.V.;  A.V.  "desire  to  have"),  as  being 
the  more  general  idea  and  a  better  parallel  to  extBuixsiTS,  is  to  be  pre- 
ferred. 

The  English  word  "jealousy"  is  derived  from  i;^Xo<;  through  French 
jalousie,  Latin  zelus,  but  in  most  of  its  meanings   "jealousy"  corre- 


IV,   2  257 

spends  rather  to  (fUvoq,  the  "begrudging"  to  another,  indicating  pri- 
marily not  the  desire  to  possess,  but  the  unwillingness  that  another 
should  have. 

ndyeaOe  Kal  TroXe/ietre,  i.  e.  against  those  who  possess  what 
you  wish  to  take  from  them.  The  connection  of  either  barren 
envy  or  ungratified  covetousness  with  strife  is  so  natural  that 
it  hardly  needs  to  be  illustrated ;  but  cf.  Clem.  Rom.  3-6  (where 
the  Biblical  and  secular  meanings  are  not  distinguished),  with 
Lightfoot's  note  on  3',  Philo,  De  deed.  28;   Iren.  iv,  iS''. 

This  passage  is  made  more  intelligible  by  passages  from  Greek 
and  Roman  writers,  which  show  that  not  only  the  connection 
of  pleasure  and  desire,  but  that  of  desire,  conflict,  and  war,  was 
a  commonplace  of  popular  moraUsing  in  the  Hellenistic  age. 
See  Zeller,  Die  Philosophie  der  Griechen\  iii,  i,  pp.  221-225. 

Thus  Philo,  De  deed.  28,  M.  pp.  204/.:  "Last  of  all  he  forbids  desire 
(extOuyietv),  knowing  desire  (-ctjv  ext9u[ji.tav)  to  be  productive  of  revolu- 
tion and  addicted  to  plots.  For  all  the  passions  of  the  soul  (xa  ^^yjlZ 
•TCiieT))  are  bad,  exciting  it  and  agitating  it  unnaturally,  and  destroying 
its  health,  but  worst  of  all  is  desire.  .  .  .  The  evils  of  which  the  love 
of  money  or  of  a  woman  or  of  glory  or  of  any  other  of  those  things 
that  produce  pleasure  is  the  cause — are  they  small  and  ordinary  ?  Is 
it  not  because  of  this  passion  that  relationships  are  broken,  and  thus 
natural  good- will  changed  into  desperate  enmity?  that  great  and  pop- 
ulous countries  are  desolated  by  domestic  dissensions?  and  land  and 
sea  filled  with  novel  disasters  by  naval  battles  and  land  campaigns? 
For  the  wars  famous  in  tragedy,  which  Greeks  and  barbarians  have 
fought  with  one  another  and  among  themselves,  have  all  flowed  from 
one  source:  desire  (eTCiGuixia)  either  for  money  or  glory  or  pleasure. 
Over  these  things  the  human  race  goes  mad." 

Ibid.  32,  M.  p.  208  TiltXTCTov  3e  [i.e.  the  fifth  commandment  of  the 
second  table]  ih  (xvzip'^oy  ttjv  twv  aStXTjtiaxwv  xrjyiQV,  sTrt9u(i.tav,  icp*  f^q 
plouatv  a'l  TCtzpavotJLWTaTac  xpa^etc;,  'c'Stat  xal  xotvotf,  [xtxpal  xotl  [xeYotXat, 
leoal  xal  ^i^rfkoi,  xspt  ts  awtJiaxa  xal  <\iuxdcq  xal  xa  XeYotAsva  ex.x6<; "  Sta- 
cpeuY£t  t^p  ouBdv,  0)1;  X3(l  itpoxepov  iXi'/Qt],  xtjv  exi6u[j,{av,  dXX'  ola  (fkh^  ev 
uX'n  v^tJiexac  Saxavwaa  xd:vxa  x.al  cpOst'pouaa. 

Philo,  De  Josepho,  11,  M.  p.  50;  Z?e  posteritale  Cain,  i,  34,  M.  pp. 
247/.;  De  migratione  Abr.  12;  Lucian,  Cynic.  15,  xiivxa  y«P  "^^  r.oLf.di 
xotq  divBpwxotq  ex  x'^<;  xouxuv  exc6u(i,(ac;  tpiiovxat,  xal  axdiasci;  xal  xoXefAot 
xctl  extPouXotl  %a\  acpayaf.  xauxl  xcivxa  %-(]'{-^v  I'xet  x9)v  IxtOu'^iav  xou  xXsfo- 
vo<;;  Cicero,  De  finibiis,  i,  13  ex  cupiditatibus  odia,  dissidia,  discordiae, 
seditiones,  bella  nascuntiir  ;  Seneca,  De  ira,  ii,  35  ista  quae  appetilis  quia 
17 


258  JAMES 

exigua  sunt  nee  possunt  ad  alteriim  nisi  alteri  erepta  Iransferri,  eadem 
affectaniibus  pugnam  et  jiirgia  excitant.  Cf.  Plato,  Phcedo,  p.  66  C  xal 
yap  xoXijjLoui;  xal  axdaet?  xal  (x<ixa<;  ouSev  aXXo  xap^xet  13  xb  awjAa  xal  al 

TOUTou  eTCt6u[jL(at. 

See  note  on  i",  and  cf.  Wendland  and  Kern,  Beitrdge  zur 
Geschichte  der  griech.  Philosophie  und  Religion,  pp.  36-37;  J. 
Drummond,  Philo  JudcBus,  ii,  pp.  302-306. 

In  contrast  to  pleasure  stands  God.  So  Philo,  Leg.  all.  ii,  23, 
M.  p.  83,  says  that  it  is  impossible  to  master  pleasure  except 
by  complete  submission  to  God.  4  Mace.  5^2  6'*  represent,  in 
more  secular  fashion,  reason  (Koyi(T/x6<;)  and  sound  principles 
(^L\o(TO(f)ia)  as  able  to  control  pleasure  and  desire;  but  Test. 
XII  Patr.  Benj.  6  shows  true  Jewish  character  in  the  sharp 
contrast  which  it  draws :  "  [The  good  man]  delighteth  not  in 
pleasure  ...  for  the  Lord  is  his  portion."  This  section  of 
the  Testament  of  Benjamin  is  full  of  parallels  to  James. 

2*^-3.  Bv  aiming  at  pleasure  men  cut  themselves  off  from 
the  only  sure  source  01  irue  satisfaction. 

ovK  e^ere  returns  to  the  matter  of  the  unsatisfied  desire 
(eTLOvfieiTe  /cat  ovk  e%ere)  in  order  to  point  out  another  as- 
pect of  the  futility  of  pleasure  as  a  supreme  end.  So  long  as 
men  allow  their  lives  to  be  governed  by  17  eTndvfiCa  tcov  -qhovtav, 
their  desire  is  sure  to  be  unsatisfied.  The  only  sure  source 
from  which  men  can  always  receive  is  God.  By  choosing  pleas- 
ure as  their  aim,  men  cut  themselves  off  from  this  source,  for 
they  do  not  ask  God  for  gratifications  such  as  these,  or,  if  they 
do,  only  find  that  their  prayers,  aiming  at  their  own  pleasures 
and  not  at  his  service,  are  unacceptable,  and  that  they  ought 
not  to  have  offered  them. 

James's  principle  is :  Make  the  service  of  God  your  supreme 
end,  and  then  your  desires  will  be  such  as  God  can  fulfil  in  an- 
swer to  your  prayer  {cf.  Mt.  6^^"^').  Then  there  will  be  none  of 
the  present  strife.  Pleasures  war,  and  cause  war.  Desire  for 
pleasure,  when  made  the  controlling  end,  leads  to  violence,  for 
longings  then  arise  which  can  only  be  satisfied  by  the  use  of 
violence,  since  God,  from  whom  alone  come  good  things  (i^^, 
will  not  satisfv  them. 


IV,  2-3  259 

It  should  be  needless  to  point  out  that  o5x  exe-vs  is  not  thought  of 
as  the  rcsiiU  of  [lixsaQe  xal  xoXs^JieiTs. 

Sia  TO  firj  alTela-dac  vfjLd<i.    The  vfia^;  is  unnecessary,  but  not 

emphatic.     Cf.  i^^  4^^     alreladat  here  means  prayers  to  God. 

3.   alretre,  cf.  Jas.  i"^'-,  Mt.  7'  2122,  Mk.  ii^",  Lk.  ii^,   Jn. 

I4I3    157.  16,    l623  f.    26      I    Jn.    322      ^14  f.. 

Here,  as  often  in  secular  Greek  (cf.  L.  and  S.),  no  difference 
in  meaning  is  perceptible  between  the  active  and  middle  of 
aLTetv.  Cf.  I  Jn.  5^^'^'^  alrcofieOa^  yr^JKUfiev ,  alTrjcreL,  Mk.  6"^^'  ^* 
alTTjCTOv^  alT'^aoiiixat,  and  other  examples  quoted  by  Mayor. 

That  there  was  once  a  distinction  in  use  is  likely,  but  even  the  state- 
ments quoted  by  Stephanus,  Thesaiir.  s.  v.,  that  aETsiaBat  means  to 
ask  (xex'  Ixeafoti;  or  [asto:  xapax>.Y)aew<;  do  not  make  the  matter  intelli- 
gible. See  J.  H.  Moulton,  Prolegomena,  p.  160 ;  J.  B.  Mayor,  in  Expos- 
itor, 8th  series,  vol.  iii,  1912,  pp.  522-527;   Hort,  ad  loc. 

KaKw,  "wrongly,"  cf.  Wisd.  1429.  s",  4  Mace.  6".  The  fol- 
lowing clause  explains  this  to  mean:  "with  the  selfish  purpose 
of  securing  pleasure,  not  of  serving  God,"  cf.  Mt.  6^2.  For  rab- 
binical ideas  of  bad  prayers,  see  Schottgen  on  Jas.  4'. 

The  promises  are  that  the  prayers  of  the  righteous  and  the 
penitent  will  be  heard ;  cf.  Ps.  34^^""  145^*..  Prov.  lo^'*,  Ps.  Sol. 
6«,  Lk.  18^-",  Jas.  i«ff-,  I  Jn.  s^\  Hermas,  Sim.  iv,  6. 

'iva  eV  rat?  r)8ovaX'i  vfioiv  Bairav^arjTe.  "ip  marking  the 
realm  in  rather  than  the  object  ow"  (Lex.  s.  v.  SaTavdo)).  The 
distinction  is  thus  not  in  the  things  prayed  for,  but  in  the  pur- 
pose with  which  they  are  to  be  used,  and  for  which  they  are 
desired — i.  e.  whether  pleasure  or  the  service  of  God.  Hence 
probably  the  unusual,  though  not  unexampled,  preposition. 

ha-KavTqarire^  "spend";  not  necessarily  "waste,"  nor  "squan- 
der"; cf.  Acts  2i2^,  2  Cor.  12^^,  I  Mace.  1432.  The  object  of 
Sairav^cnjTe  is  the  means  of  securing  enjoyment  for  which  they 
pray;  throughout  the  passage  money  is  especially  in  mind. 

Saxav^ffT]Te]  J^'AKLP  minno""  ^'^. 

Baxavfjaexs]  B. 

xaTaSaicavfjasTs]   S*. 

B  and  J<  have  both  fallen  into  error. 


26o  JAMES 

4.  /AOi^aXiSe?,  "adulteresses,"  i.e.  "renegades  to  your 
vows."  God  is  the  husband  to  whom  the  Christian  is  joined 
as  wife.  The  figure  arose  with  reference  to  Israel  as  the  wife 
of  Jahveh;  cf.  Is.  54^  Jer.  320,  Ezek.  16,  23,  Hos.  9I,  Wisd.  3^^, 
Mt.  i2»8  i6S  Mk.  8^8;  and  see  Heb.  Lex.  s.  v.  nJT. 

To  this  corresponds  the  position  of  the  church  as  the  bride 
of  Christ  (2  Cor.  iii-  2,  Eph.  521-28^  Rev.  19^  2i9).  The  term 
is  often,  as  here,  applied  to  individual  members  of  the  people 
of  God ;  cf.  Ex.  34^^  Num.  15^^,  Ps.  73^^  iravra  top  Topvevaavra 
airo  aov,  Hos.  4^'^.  The  feminine  fwi'x^a\i<;  is  alone  appropriate 
in  this  sense,  since  God  is  always  thought  of  as  the  husband. 

The  harsh  word  comes  in  abruptly ;  it  anticipates  and  sum- 
marises the  thought  expressed  in  the  verse  itself.  For  the  sever- 
ity, and  the  direct  address,  cf.  i*  4.^^  5^ 

The  word  is  fully  explained  by  the  figurative  sense :  to  take  it  liter- 
ally (Winer,  Spitta,  Hort,  and  others)  is  to  violate  the  context  and  to 
introduce  a  wholly  foreign  and  uncalled-for  idea.  Moreover  the  femi- 
nine used  alone  is  then  inexplicable. 

[AotxotXfSs?!  BS*A  33  ff  ifornicatores)  vg  (adulteri)  boh  {adulterers) 

Syrpesh_ 

[jLotxol  xal  [AOtxaXfSsql  X°KLP  minn  syri"=>.     Plainly  emendation. 

ovK  o'ihare.  The  idea  which  follows  is  at  any  rate  familiar 
to  the  readers,  whether  or  not  these  words  (as  Spitta  thinks) 
introduce  a  quotation. 

(f>Lkia,  "friendship,"  the  usual  meaning  {cf.  L.  and  S.)  of  this 
word,  which  is  a  common  one  in  the  Wisdom-literature  and  in 
I,  2,  and  4  Maccabees;  cf.  Wisd.  7^*. 

Tov  Koafiov.  Objective  genitive,  "friendship  for  the  world." 
Cf.  I"  (and  note),  2^,  Jn.  is^^f-,  i  Jn.  2^\ 

To  make  pleasure  the  chief  aim  is  to  take  up  with  57  ^tXia 
TOV  Koa-fiov.  To  be  "a  friend  of  the  world"  is  to  be  on  good 
terms  with  the  persons  and  forces  and  things  that  are  at  least 
indifferent  toward  God,  if  not  openly  hostile  to  him.  It  does 
not  imply  "conformity  to  heathen  standards  of  living"  (Hort), 
and  is  entirely  appropriate  in  connection  with  a  Jewish  com- 
munity. 


IV,  4-5  26i 

CJ.  2  Tim.  3^  <j)t\i]Bouot  fidWou  rj  ^CkoOeoi,  Philo,  Leg.  alleg. 
ii,  23,  yeyove  <f)i\'q8ovo<i  avrl  (fjiKaperov. 

The  precise  sense  of  t)  tptXi'a  tou  xoa^iou  is  much  discussed  in  the 
commentaries.  For  summary  of  views,  see  Beyschlag,  who  himself 
takes  it  in  the  active  sense  of  "love,"  as  given  above. 

ex^po-  Tov  deov^  "  enmity  as  regards  God."  The  accentuation 
e%^pa,  not  e%^P«,  is  required  in  order  to  preserve  the  sharp- 
ness of  the  contrast.  CJ.  Rom.  8'  exOpa.  et?  deov^  Rom.  51°  ii^s, 
Col.  i-i,  in  which  passages,  however,  rather  more  of  mutual  re- 
lation is  implied. 

It  is  to  be  observed  that  a  state  of  enmity  between  men  and  God 
differs  from  a  state  of  enmity  in  ordinary  human  relations  in  that  the 
permanent  attitude  of  love  on  God's  part  is  not  thereby  interrupted. 

0?  edv  for  o?  dv  is  characteristic  of  vernacular  Greek,  and  is 
shown  by  the  papyri  to  have  been  ''specially  common"  in  the 
first  and  second  centuries  after  Christ.  See  J.  H.  Moulton, 
Prolegomena,  pp.  42-44,  234,  where  references  to  other  discus- 
sions will  be  found ;  also  Winer,  §  42  fin.,  Biass,  §  26.  4,  and  the 
references  in  Mayor's  note,  pp.  139/. 

o3v]  om  L  33  minn  boh.  The  weakness  of  attestation  here  counter- 
balances the  presumption  in  favour  of  the  shorter  reading.  Possibly 
OYN  fell  out  by  accident  after  ean. 

(fii\o<;  Tov  KocTfxov.     Cf.  2^^  (^lAo?  deov. 

Ka6 l(TT ar at /'sta.nds,"  cf.  3^  Rom.  5^^  2  Pet.  i^  The  word 
suggests  a  lasting  state.  But  see  J.  de  Zwaan,  in  Theol.  Stu- 
dien,  1913,  pp.  85-94. 

5-6.  Remember  the  Scripture  which  declares  that  God  is  a 
jealous  lover  and  suffers  no  rival  for  the  loyalty  of  the  human 
spirit;  and  observe  that  God  gives  grace  to  fulfil  his  require- 
ments, and  that  this  grace  is  bestowed  on  the  humble,  not  on 
those  proud  of  their  worldly  success. 

5.  V,  introducing  "a  question  designed  to  prove  the  same 
thing  in  another  way"  (Lex.) ;   cf.  Mt.  122',  i  Cor.  6^^,  etc. 

Kevw,  "emptily,"  i.e.  "without  meaning  all  that  it  says." 
Cf.  Deut.  32*^  oTL  ovxi  Xo'70<?  /cei'o?  ovTo<i  vixlv  kt\. 


262  JAMES 

77  ypafjit].  See  2^^  and  note.  The  term  must  refer  to  "Holy- 
Scripture."  The  quotation  which  follows  is  not  found  in  the 
O.  T.,  and  either  the  writer  has  quoted  (perhaps  by  mistake) 
from  some  other  writing  or  a  paraphrase,  or  else  the  Greek  O.  T. 
in  some  one  of  its  forms  had  a  sentence  like  this.  The  sentence 
seems  to  be  a  poetical  rendering  of  the  idea  of  Ex.  20^. 

Aeyei.     The  formula  is  frequent;   cf.  Rom.  4^  9^^  10"  ii^. 

Various  unsuccessful  attempts  are  made  to  explain  this  sentence  as 
not  meant  to  be  a  quotation. 

(i)  The  usual  method  is  to  take  the  two  sentences  icpb?  <p06vov 
IztxoOst  -cb  xv£ij(xa  S  xaTuxiasv  ev  b[i.lv  •  [izil^oyx  Ss  BfSwatv  x<xpiv,  as  a 
parenthesis  (Hofmann,  B.  Weiss,  and  others).  Against  such  an  idea 
speaks  the  technical  introductory  formula,  which  here  prepares  for 
the  quotation  with  unusual  elaboration.  Such  a  formula  is  generally 
(cf.  V.')  followed  at  once  by  the  quotation  (Rom.  11--^  is  no  excep- 
tion to  this  rule).  Moreover,  if  what  follows  is  not  quoted,  "kifzi. 
would  have  to  be  given  the  somewhat  imusual  meaning  "speaks"  (as 
in  Acts  24").  Such  a  parenthesis  would  introduce  confusion  into  the 
thought  of  an  otherwise  well-ordered  and  forcible  passage  and  make 
the  Sto  of  V.  «  imaccountable. 

(2)  Equally  futile  is  the  theory  that  James  is  merely  summarising 
the  thought  of  the  O.  T.  without  intending  to  refer  to  any  specific  pas- 
sage, e.  g.  (Knowling)  Gen.  6^-\  Deut.  32i'"-  »'•  ^i,  Is.  62,^-^^,  Ezek.  36'', 
Zech.  i'^  8^2.  The  following  sentence  would  then  become  merely  the 
utterance  of  the  writer,  and  against  this  speaks  conclusively  the  formula 
of  citation  (yj  ypayr)  Xdyet).* 

(3)  Neither  can  the  sentence  be  accounted  for  as  an  inexact  citation 
of  such  passages  as  Ex.  20^  lyw  y«P  e'S^-'  xupto?  6  6£6i;  aou,  Oeb?  i^TjXtoxr)?, 
although  the  sense  is  akin. 

(4)  The  attempt  to  make  Xeyst  refer  vaguely  to  the  substance  of 
V.  *  is  also  vain. 

(5)  Unacceptable  are  also  the  textual  conjectures  by  which  various 
scholars  have  tried  to  eliminate  a  supposed  gloss :  thus  Erasmus  and 
Grotius  would  excise  Stb  Xeyst  .  .  .  xap'v  {cf.  i  Pet.  5O;  Hottinger 
and  Reiche,  \x.zl'C,ma.  8e  St'Suatv  xaptv '  Stb  X^yet  (with  the  insertion  of 
li  before  e£6<;). 

Trpo?  (jiOovov,  "jealously,"  or,  more  exactly,  " begnidgingly." 

•7cp6i;  with  accusative  is  a  regular  periphrasis  for  the  adverb ;  so  lupb? 
^catav   for  piat'o)?,  icpbc;  opyijy,   "angrily,"   •xpb?  euiriXetav,   "cheaply," 

*  The  objection,  however,  that  this  interpretation  makes  it  necessary  to  take  17  ypa-<i>ri  to 
mean  "the  Scriptures"  as  a  whole  is  not  conclusive,  cf.  Lightfoot  on  Gal.  3«,  Hort  on  i 
Pet.  2«. 


IV,  5  263 

•Tcpb?  iqSovtjv  xal  z<ip'v,  "pleasantly  and  graciously"  (Jos.  Anl.  xii,  lo'). 
See  L.  a>id  S.  s.  v.  xp6<;  C.  III.  7 ;  Lex.  s.  v.  xp6<;  I,  3.  g.  This  idiom  is 
not  found  elsewhere  in  the  N.  T. ;  see  Schmid,  Allicismus,  iv,  Index. 

In  the  sense  of  "jealously,"  icpb?  l^fjXov  would  have  been  more  in 
accord  with  LXX  usage,  cj.  Num.  5'*  icveutia  i^TiXwaeus,  Ex.  20°,  Prov. 
6"  27<,  Cant.  8«,  Ecclus.  9',  so  2  Cor.  ii^;  but  this  meaning,  "ardent 
desire  for  complete  possession  of  the  object"  as  in  the  case  of  the 
husband  (Hebrew  ^^<Jp),  seems  to  be  foreign  to  l^^Xo?  in  general  Greek 
usage,  which  denotes  that  emotion  by  (p66vo?,  as  here,  xpb.;'  tpOovov  is 
thus  a  phrase  drawn  from  Hellenic  models,  not  founded  on  the  lan- 
guage of  the  LXX. 

906vos  means  primarily  "ill  will,"  "malice,"  due  to  the  good  fortune 
of  the  one  against  whom  it  is  directed,  >vuxr)  ex'  iWozgioxq  ayaOoIs 
(Diog.  Laert.  vii,  63.  11 1;  see  other  similar  definitions  in  Trench, 
Synonyms,  §  xxvi).  This  begrudging  spirit  may  be  shown  in  the  re- 
fusal either  to  give  or  to  share  (so  especially  the  verb  ^Oov^w) ;  or  in 
the  jealous  ill  will  of  the  gods  toward  overfortimate  mortals;  or  in 
other  ways  corresponding  to  some  of  the  meanings  of  English  "envy" 
and  "jealousy,"  neither  of  which,  however,  is  in  meaning  wholly  co- 
terminous with  (yBovoc;.  See  Trench,  I.  c. ;  L.  aiid  S.  s.  vv.  ifiGovoi;, 
(fOovdo),  acpOovoq,  d?6ovfa.  So,  like  English  "jealousy,"  yOovoq  is  used 
in  a  bad  sense  of  the  ill  will  felt  toward  another  with  whom  one  has 
to  share  a  prized  object,  but  it  does  not  seem  ever  to  be  qujte  equiva- 
lent to  the  EngUsh  term  for  the  lover's,  or  husband's,  "jealousy"; 
the  object  of  the  emotion  seems  always  to  have  been  found  in  the 
hated  possessor,  not  (as  often  in  the  English  word)  in  the  prized  object. 

The  Latin  equivalent  of  996vo<;  is  invidia,  from  which  comes  English 
"envy."  But  the  English  word  is  in  modern  times  often  used  in  a 
milder  sense,  with  reference  only  to  the  desire  for  equal  good  fortune 
with  another  and  with  no  thought  of  ill  will.  It  thus  approaches 
more  nearly  the  sense  of  '(,'qkoq,  just  as  the  English  "jealousy"  (see  on 
3"  4'),  though  derived  from  i^^Xo?,  zelus,  has  acquired  much  of  the 
peculiar  meaning  of  966V01;. 

7rpo9  (}>d6vov   limits   eTnirodeZ.     To   connect   it  with  Xe^et 
yields  but  a  poor  sense. 

When  connected  with  XeY£t,  xpo?  is  usually  taken  in  the  sense  of 
"with  reference  to,"  or  "against"  (so  Spitta).  But  there  has  been  no 
previous  mention  of  <p06vo<;  in  this  paragraph  to  account  for  the  intro- 
duction of  such  a  quotation  relating  to  it.  If  the  phrase  is  connected 
with  Xdyet  and  taken  in  the  sense  "enviously,"  as  explaining  xevdx;, 
it  lacks  the  proper,  and  indispensable,  conjunction  to  connect  it  with 
xEvw?  (inserted  by  "  OEcumenius"  in  his  paraphrase  :  ou  yap  xsvwq  15x01 
tiaxato)!;,  13  xpJx;  <p66vov),  and  the  general  sense  is  less  satisfactory. 


264  JAMES 

eiriToOel,  "yearns,"  ''yearns  over,"  of  the  longing  affection 
of  the  lover.  See  Lightfoot  on  Phil.  i^.  Cf.  2  Cor.  g^\  Phil,  i*, 
Deut.  if  32",  Jer.  131".  In  Ezek.  2^-  ^-  »  (Aq.)  it  has  the 
lower  sense  of  "dote  on." 

As  subject  of  iinTrodei  we  may  supply  6  ^eo'?,  and  then  take 
TO  Tvvevixa  as  object  of  the  verb ;  or  to  ivvevtia  may  be  taken  as 
subject  and  'r]jxa<i  supplied  as  object.  In  the  former  case  to 
TTvevjxa  means  the  human  spirit  breathed  into  man  by  God  (c/. 
Gen.  2^,  Is.  42^,  Eccles.  12^,  Num.  16-2  27^^  Zech.  12S  Heb.  12'). 

This  has  the  advantage  that  iTnroOet  and  KaTcpna-ep  then 
have  the  same  subject,  and  seems  on  the  whole  better,  /caro)- 
Ktaev  contains  a  hint  of  God's  rightful  ownership  through 
creation. 

On  the  other  hand,  ih  xveiJiia  as  subject  would  mean  the  Holy  Spirit, 
to  whom  this  would  be  the  only  reference  in  the  epistle.  In  favour  of 
this  is  the  fact  that  the  conception  of  the  Holy  Spirit  as  dwelling  in  man 
is  repeatedly  found  in  the  N.  T.  and  in  early  Christian  literature.  Cf. 
Ezek.  36'',  Rom.  8"'-,  i  Cor.  3'^  Tb  xveOti-a  tou  6eoiJ  ev  u[xlv  oixef, 
Hermas,  Sim.  v,  6',  Mand.  iii,  i,  v,  2,  Z)e  aleatoribus,  3. 

Weinel,  Wirkungen  des  Geistes  tmd  der  Geisle,  p.  159,  suggests  that 
IxixoGsi  here  (like  Xutcite,  Eph.  4'°)  refers  to  the  idea  of  Hermas,  Sim. 
V,  6',  ix,  32,  that  God  has  given  us  as  a  deposit  a  pure  spirit,  which  we 
are  bound  to  return  to  him  unimpaired.  "  God  jealously  requires  back 
the  spirit,  pure  as  he  gave  it."  But  this  interesting  interpretation  is 
not  supported  by  any  clear  indication  in  the  context. 

If  taken  thus  as  a  declarative  sentence,  the  quoted  passage 
means  "God  is  a  jealous  lover."  This  obviously  suits  perfectly 
the  preceding  context. 

By  some  the  sentence  is  taken  interrogatively.  It  will  then  mean, 
"Does  the  Spirit,  set  within  us  by  God,  desire  to  the  extent  of  becom- 
ing jealous  ? "  and  will  express  the  incompatibility  of  the  Spirit  with 
the  sin  of  jealousy.  But  (i)  this  would  require  \i.-Ti  to  introduce  the 
question;  (2)  996vo(;  is  too  weak  a  word  after  icoXeyiot,  lA^xotc,  qjoveuexe; 
and  (3)  the  general  meaning  of  the  sentence  becomes  altogether  far 
less  suited  to  the  context. 

Mayor',  pp.  141-145  gives  a  convenient  and  full  summary  of  the 
various  views  held  about  this  verse,  relating  to  (i)  the  construction  of 
Tcpbs  966VOV,  (2)  the  meaning  of  izphq  (p66vov,  (3)  the  subject  of  eitticoOet. 
A  large  amount  of  material  is  to  be  found  in  Heisen,  Novae  hypotheses. 


IV,  5-6  265 

pp.  8S1-928.  Pott,  "Excursus  IV,"  pp.  329-355,  and  Gebser,  pp.  329- 
346,  who  gives  the  views  of  commentators  at  length.  See  also  W. 
Grimm,  Studicjt  mid  Krilikcn,  vol.  xxvii,  1854,  pp.  934-956;  and  Kirn, 
Sludicn  und  Krilikcn,  vol.  Lxxvii,  1904,  pp.  127-133,  593-604,  where 
the  conjecture  nPO2TON0N  for  nPOS4)0ONON  (first  proposed 
by  Wetstein,  1730)  is  elaborately,  but  unconvincingly,  defended,  and 
the  quotation  explained  as  a  combination  of  Ps.  42'  and  Eccles.  I2^  P. 
Corssen,  Goltingischc  gclehrte  Anzeigen,  1893,  pp.  596  /.,  defends  the 
conjecture  IxtxoOstTe,  and  the  sense:  "In  envy  ye  desire:  but  the 
Spirit  which  God  hath  put  within  you  giveth  greater  grace;  sub- 
ject yourselves,  therefore,  to  God." 

xax(pxtaev]  Bi>sA  minnP^"". 

xaxwxTQffev]  KLP  minnpi^f  ff  vg  boh  syr"*■^  The  weight  of  external 
evidence  leads  to  a  (somewhat  doubtful)  decision  for  xaxtpxcaev. 

6.  fieil^ova  Be  SiScocTiZ^  %«pij'.  God  makes  rigorous  require- 
ments of  devotion,  but  gives  gracious  help  in  order  that  men 
may  be  able  to  render  the  undivided  allegiance  which  he  ex- 
acts. The  subject  of  SiSucriv  is  clearly  0  ^eo?  (cf.  fcarmKicrev). 
That  the  phrase  is  drawn  from,  and  directly  prepares  for,  the 
quotation  from  Proverbs  which  follows  makes  it  unlikely  that 
this  sentence  is  part  of  the  quotation  of  v.  ^. 

ixel^ova.  The  comparative  is  most  naturally  taken  as  mean- 
ing "greater  grace  in  view  of  the  greater  requirement." 

Another  interpretation  is  that  of  Bede :  "  majorem  gratiam' dominus 
dat  quam  amicitia  mundi" ;   so  also  many  other  commentators. 

Xo-Pi-V-  The  context  seems  to  require  that  this  be  under- 
stood of  the  "gracious  gift"  of  aid  to  fulfil  the  requirement  of 
whole-hearted  allegiance.  Cf.  i  Pet.  3^,  Eph.  4^  On  the  mean- 
ing of  %api?,  cf.  J.  A.  Robinson,  Ephesians,  pp.  221  f. 

Those  who  take  x'^P''"  in  the  sense  of  "favour,"  i.  e.  not  the  means 
of  complying,  but  a  reward  for  complying,  have  difficulty  with  {xed^ova, 
which  is  then  inappropriate ;  and  the  idea  itself  suits  the  context  less 
well. 

hio  \eyec,  sc.  v  ypo.(t>V  or  6  ^€09.  A  regular  formula  of  quo- 
tation, Eph.  4*  51*,  Heb.  3' ;  8l6  {cf.  Gen.  10*,  Num.  2ii^)  means 
that  the  truth  just  affirmed  has  given  rise  to  the  sacred  utter- 
ance to  be  quoted.  On  the  formula,  see  Surenhusius,  Bt^Xo? 
KaraXXttY?}?,  17 13,  p.  9. 


266  JAMES 

The  quotation  from  Prov.  3^^  illustrates  and  confirms  the 
main  position  of  the  preceding  passage,  vv.  ^-^  viz.  that  God  will 
not  yield  to  Pleasure  a  part  of  the  allegiance  of  men's  hearts,  but 
that  by  his  grace  he  enables  men  to  render  to  him  undivided 
allegiance.  "So  says  the  Scripture:  'God  is  opposed  to  the 
proud  and  worldly,  it  is  the  humble  who  receive  his  gift  of 
grace.'  Hence  (vv.  ''^■)  to  gain  his  favour  we  must  humble 
ourselves  before  him."  The  quotation  thus  has  the  important 
fimction  of  making  the  transition  from  the  negative  to  the  posi- 
tive aspects  of  the  subject,  cf.  the  use  of  it  in  Clem.  Rom.  30^. 

The  quotation  is  taken  verbatim  from  the  LXX  of  Prov.  3'S  except 
that  6  6e6<;  is  substituted  for  /.liptos.  This  is  also  the  case  in  the  same 
quotation  in  i  Pet.  5^  and  Clem.  Rom.  30,  and  is  probably  due  to  a 
common  form  of  popular  quotation. 

On  the  theory  of  Oort  (1885)  and  Gratz  (1892-94),  that  the  ob- 
scure Hebrew  dk  in  the  passage  quoted  is  a  corruption  of  a''n'7N,  which 
has  been  preserved  in  James,  i  Peter,  and  Clem.  Rom.,  see  Toy  on 
Prov.  3'*. 

vTepr](f)dvoi<;,  "haughty  persons,"  here  applied  to  those  who, 
despising  the  claims  of  God,  devote  themselves  to  worldly  pleas- 
ures and  position,  and  insolently  look  down  on  others,  especially 
on  the  humble  pious.  They  are  haughty  both  toward  God  and 
toward  men,  and  are  here  identified  with  the  "friends  of  the 
world."    Cf.  ii"  2'-'  5IA 

On  vTrepr)<^avLa,  cf.  Ps.  31-^  Ecclus.  lo^-  ^2.  is^  2  Mace.  9"*  ", 
Ps.  Sol.  2^^  (where  Pompey  is  described  as  setting  himself  up 
against  God),  4^*,  and  see  Trench,  Synonyms,  §  xxix. 

avTLTaa-aeTai,  "opposes,"  cf.  v.  *  and  Acts  i8«,  Rom.  13", 
Jas.  5«. 

TttTretJ'ot?,  "humble  persons."  Here  applied  primarily  to 
those  who  are  humble  toward  God  {cf.  v.  ^  vTOTciyijTe,  v.  ^^ 
TaTeLV(oOr]Te  iucoinov  Kvpiov),  but  not  without  thought  of  the 
same  persons'  lowly  position  in  the  community,  cf.  i^"  2^. 

Spitta  (pp.  1 1 7-1 23)  has  ingeniously  argued  that  the  unidentifiable 
quotation  in  v.  ^  is  from  the  apocryphal  book  "  Eldad  and  Modad  "  (cf. 
Num.  11=*-=').    This  work  is  referred  to  by  Hermas  {Vis.  ii,  30>  a.nd 


IV,  6-7  267 

Lightfoot  suggests  that  the  quotation  given  as  ypa^Tj  in  Clem.  Rom.  23'  '■ 
and  as  6  xpo(pT)Ttx,b<;  Xoyo?  in  2  Clem.  Rom.  11--^,  as  well  as  the  one 
in  Clem.  Rom.  17%  come  from  it.  Spitta  believes  that,  besides  furnish- 
ing the  quotation,  it  has  also  influenced  the  context  here  in  James. 

The  basis  of  his  view  is  an  exegesis  which  translates  the  passage  thus : 
"Think  ye  that  the  Scripture  says  in  vain  concerning  envy:  'It  (i.  e. 
envy)  longeth  to  possess  the  Spirit  which  He  hath  made  to  dwell  in  us ; 
but  He  giveth  (because  of  that  envy)  greater  grace  (to  us) '  ?  " 

This  suggests  to  Spitta,  following  Surenhusius  and  Schottgen,  the  situ- 
ation of  Num.  II-*-",  where  Eldad  and  Modad  are  complained  of  by  the 
envious  Joshua  because  they  have  the  spirit  of  prophecy,  which  no 
longer  rests  on  him  and  the  others  of  the  Seventy  Elders.  The  haggadic 
development  (Wunsche,  Midrasck  Bemidbar  Rabba,  pp.  408/.)  em- 
phasised the  greater  grace  granted  to  Eldad  and  Modad,  which  is  ex- 
plained by  R.  Tanchuma  (Bemidbar  r.  15)  as  due  to  their  greater 
humility,  since  they  modestly  declined  to  be  included  in  the  number 
of  the  Seventy. 

The  resemblance  is  here  striking,  provided  the  underlying  exegesis 
of  James  be  once  accepted.  But  that  requires  the  conjecture  (peovette 
for  ipoveueis  in  v.  -,  and  the  consequent  understanding  of  the  whole 
passage  as  dealing  primarily  with  ^Odvo?  as  its  topic.  It  would  thus 
make  necessary  a  wholly  different  apprehension  of  the  author's  purpose 
from  that  presented  above. 

Some  of  the  confirmatory  resemblances  which  Spitta  finds  between 
James  and  passages  that  may  be  supposed  to  have  some  connection 
with  Eldad  and  Modad  are  curious.  Thus,  Hermas,  Vis.  ii,  3^  cf.  Jas. 
4';  Clem.  Rom.  23  (2  Clem.  Rom.  11),  cf.  Jas.  4''-  S{4'uxo'»  laXacxop-^- 
aaie,  3'«  dtxa-uaaxaata,  1=  5'"- ;   Clem.  Rom.  17^,  cf.  Jas.  4'<  ax\Llq. 

Spitta  would  also  connect  with  Eldad  and  Modad  the  unlocated  quo- 
tation in  Clem.  Rom.  46=,  in  which  he  finds  some  resemblance  to  the 
story  of  Korah,  Num.  16.  And  he  compares  Hermas,  Vis.  iii,  6  Sim. 
viii,  8,  which  seem  to  him  to  allude  to  this  passage. 

But  the  evidence  collected  is  not  sufficient  to  overturn  the  more 
natural  interpretation  of  the  general  course  of  thought  in  the  context. 
Spitta's  theory  introduces  a  whole  series  of  incongruous  ideas,  which 
have  no  good  connection  with  what  precedes  and  lead  to  nothing  in 
what  follows ;  and  it  must  be  pronounced  fantastic. 

7-10.  Practical  exhortation  to  the  choice  of  God  instead  of 
pleasure  as  the  chief  end. 

These  verses  are  addressed  to  the  whole  body  of  Christians, 
who  are  all  subject  to  these  moral  dangers,  and  some  of  whom 
may  be  supposed  to  be  liable  to  the  reproach  contained  in 
vT€p7](fiavoL^  djjLapTQiXoi^  Sixl/vxpt, 


268  JAMES 

It  is  interesting  to  notice  how  James's  religious  ideal  of  penitent  de- 
votion to  God  here  diverges  from  the  Stoic  ideal  of  reason  as  ruler 
over  all  passion  and  desire,  which  is  given  as  the  teaching  of  the  Jewish 
law  in  4  Mace.  5-'. 

7.  ovv^  "in  view  of  the  relation  of  God  and  his  service  to 
the  pursuit  of  worldly  pleasures."  Cf.  for  similar  grounding  of 
practical  exhortations,  Rom.  i3i'2  14^^,  Gal.  5^  61",  Eph.  4-^  {816) 

51%    Col.    2I6   3I,    5.   12_ 

vTroTdryr]T€,  "submit  yourselves"  (A.V. ;  better  than  R.V.  "be 
subject"),  i.  e.  "become  Taireivoc^'  (v. ^),  cf.  TaireivdiOrjTe,  v.  i". 

On  this  and  the  eight  following  aorist  imperatives,  the  more 
"pungent"  form,  see  note  on  i^ 

On  the  passive  aorist  with  the  significance  of  the  middle  voice,  which 
is  a  common  phenomenon  of  the  late  language,  cf.  Buttmann,  §  113.  4 
(Eng.  transl.  p.  51);  Winer,  §  39.  2  ;  J.  H.  Moulton,  Prolegomena,  pp. 
152-163,  especially  p.  163;    note  iJiapav6T)a£Tat  i",  TaiuetvuOirjTs  4'". 

uxoxaaaofxat  is  used  elsewhere  in  the  N.  T.  of  volimtary  submission 
to  God  only  in  Heb.  12',  where  the  analogy  of  submission  to  earthly 
fathers  has  occasioned  the  use  of  the  word.  It  is  also  found  in  Ps.  37' 
62>'  \  Hag.  2i^  2  Mace.  9'=,  in  the  sense  of  general  submission  of  the 
whole  soul  to  God.  Submission  is  more  than  obedience,  it  involves 
humiUty  (Calvin). 

avTio-Trjre  Be  rw  Sia^oKcp.  "Take  a  bold  stand  in  resisting 
temptations  to  worldliness  sent  by  'the  prince  of  this  world' 
(Jn.  143°),  and  you  will  be  successful." 

This  idea  seems  to  have  been  a  commonplace  of  early  Christian 
thought;  cf.  I  Pet.  58.  \  where,  as  here,  the  quotation  of  Prov.  ^^* 
precedes,  but  where  it  is  better  not  to  assume  literary  connection  with 
James.  For  the  conception  of  a  fight  with  the  devil,  cf.  Eph.  6"  '■  and 
see  Weinel,  Wirkungeu  des  Geslcs  uiid  der  Geisle,  pp.  17/. 

The  following  passages  may  be  compared  : 

Hennas,  Matid.  xii,  5^  Suvaxat  6  Sta^oXoi;  avTncaXatuat,  xaTctxaXal- 
cat  8e  06  Suvaiai.  eov  ouv  devTtaTaO^TS  auTw,  nxriQeXq  ^eu^e-rat  dip'  6(j.(i>v 
xaTi)oxu!J-(iivo(;. 

Test.  XII  Patr.  Nephth.  ?,*  Idv  ouv  xal  ufist?  epyciffYiaGe  ih  f.oCK(>w  .  . 
h  Sti^oXo?  (peuqExat  d?'  uiJLWv,  Issach.  7'  TaOxa  %a\  Citielq,  t^xvk  (jlou,  tcoc- 
eiT£,  xal  xdv  xvsupLa  xou  BeXtap  ^eu^exat  dy'  ujjlwv,  Benj.  5^,  Dan  5'. 

In  these  passages  from  Test.  XII  Patr.,  however,  the  thought  is 
different ;  good  conduct  is  there  the  means  by  which  the  devil  is  driven 


IV,  7-8  269 

off,  and  the  idea  is  that  right  action  diminishes  the  chance  of  being 
tempted  later  on.  James,  on  the  other  hand,  is- merely  saying  that 
boldness  will  avail  against  the  tempter. 

8.  iyyiaare,  as  those  who  wish  to  be  in  the  closest  possible 
relation  to  God. 

It  is  assumed  throughout  that  the  ostensible  purpose  of  the 
persons  addressed  is  right.  They  intend  to  be  God's  servants, 
but  by  yielding  to  natural  inclinations  they  are  in  practise 
verging  toward  a  state  of  exdpa.  tov  deov. 

To  draw  near  to  God  is  used  of  the  priests  in  the  temple, 
Ex.  1922,  Ezek.  44^^  It  is  half  figurative  in  Ex.  24^,  Is.  29^^, 
and  wholly  so  in  such  passages  as  the  following:  Hos.  12^, 
Wisd.  619  (20)^  Judith  8",  Heb.  71^  {cf.  4I6) ;  cf.  Ps.  145I8,  Deut.  4, 
and  Philo's  comment  in  De  migr.  Abr.  11,  M.  p.  445.  Test. 
XII  Patr,  Dan  6^  iyyiaare  tw  Oew,  is  an  instructive  parallel. 

iyyicrei  corresponds  to  fxei^ova  SiScoaip  x^P^'^i  v.  ^;  as  well 
as  to  4>€v^€Tai,  V.  ^ 

Cf.  Zech.  I',  on  which  James  is  very  likely  dependent,  2  Chron.  1$-, 
Mai.  3',  Ps.  i4S>«. 

Kadapiaare  x^Tpa?,  "make  your  outward  conduct  pure." 
From  the  ritual  washing  to  make  fit  for  religious  duties  (e.  g. 
Gen.  352,  Ex.  301^-21),  which  was  perfectly  famihar  in  N.  T. 
times  {cf.  Mk.  7 3),  sprang  a  figurative  use  of  language,  e.  g.  Is. 
ii^  Job  173  22'°,  I  Tim.  2^,  Clem.  Rom.  29^  In  Ps.  23^  ada)0<i 
Xepcrlp  /cat  Ka6ap6<;  rfj  KapSia,  and  in  Ecclus.  3810  the  combina- 
tion foimd  in  James  is  already  complete. 

;)^;eTpa<?,  KapSia?.  For  the  omission  of  the  article,  cf.  Schmie- 
del-Winer,  §  19.  7,  where  it  is  explained  under  the  rule  that 
pairs  of  nouns  often  omit  the  article, 

a/xaprcoXot.  A  sharp  term  is  used  to  strike  the  conscience  of 
the  reader,  and  is  then  partly  explained  by  the  parallel  ^(ypvxoi. 
Half-hearted  Christians,  such  as  James  desires  to  stir  to  better 
things,  are  in  reality  nothing  but  "world's  people " — a  reproach 
meant  to  startle  and  sting.  8i\l/vxoi,  "doubters,"  is  entirely 
parallel. 


270  JAMES 

The  word  dixapxwXo?  is  very  rare  in  secular  Greek,  but  there,  as  in 
the  O.  T.  and  N.  T.,  has  the  sense  of  "hardened  sinner,"  "bad  man," 
cj.  Plutarch,  Dc  and.  poet.  7,  p.  25  C,  the  standing  phrase  Te>.(I)vat  xal 
&[L(xpi(i)koi,  Mt.  9'"  f-,  etc.,  and  the  application  of  x^Locp-zoikoq  to  heathen, 
I  Mace.  I",  Gal.  2",  etc.  Cf.  Enoch  5«  38^  45  =  94"  952. 3,  7  ^gi,  2, 4, 
Suidas  defines  dpiapTwXoi  as  ol  izoigayo^^icf  auCijv  xpoocipoutJLevot  xal  ^lov 
Ste(p6ap[Ji£vov  dtaxalI,6[j.£vot. 

djviaare  KapSta?.  0.71^09  means  "clean,"  "pure,"  ceremo- 
nially (Jn.  11^^),  and  so  morally.  The  latter  development  had 
already  been  made  (otherwise  than  in  the  case  of  a<yLO^)  in 
secular  Greek  use. 

Cf.  I  Pet.  I"  Td?  (puxd?  ufAwv  -fiYvtKOTsq  ev  t^  uxaxoij  T^q  dtX-rjOefag, 
Is.  i'",  and  especially  Ps.  24*  73". 

Bi\l/vxoc.  It  is  here  implied  that  St\j/vx^<^  involves  some  de- 
filement from  the  world,  cf.  Hermas,  Mand.  ix,  7  KaOdpiaov  ttjv 
Kaphlav  aov  airb  r^9  Bixpvx^f^'i.  Test.  XII  Patr.  Aser  3^,  01 
BLTTpoacjjTTOt  ovK  elcrl  Tov  deov  aWa  rat?  iinOvixiai^  avrcov 
BovXevovcnv,  is  an  excellent  commentary  on  this  verse. 

9.  "  Make  yourselves  wretched,  mourn,  lament ;  that  is  a 
state  of  mind  more  suited  to  a  Christian  than  worldly  gaiety 
and  joy!" 

This  is  primarily  a  call  to  repentance ;  but,  more  than  that, 
it  is  a  vehemently  expressed  recommendation  of  sober  earnest- 
ness as  the  proper  mood  of  a  Christian,  in  contrast  to  a  light 
and  frivolous  spirit.  The  writer  was  a  sober  man  who  felt  the 
seriousness  of  living,  and  wished  that  others  should  feel  and 
express  it;   in  a  word,  a  Puritan. 

The  force  of  James's  exhortation  must  not  be  reduced  by  in- 
terpretation, nor  its  range  unduly  limited.  There  is  positive 
emphasis  on  the  sadness,  and  even  anguish,  which  is  appropri- 
ate to  the  readers'  actual  situation,  and  which  they  ought  to 
seek,  not  try  to  avoid,  cf.  Mt.  5^.  Yet  neither  must  the  words 
be  misunderstood  as  representing  that  a  cheerfulness  founded 
on  the  joy  of  faith  is  wrong  for  a  soul  which  knows  itself  at  one 
with  God  (cf.  i-f).  James  is  not  giving  a  complete  directory 
for  conduct  at  all  times,  but  is  trying  by  the  unexpected  inten- 
sity of  his  language  to  startle  half-hearted  Christians  into  a 


rv,  8-9  271 

searching  of  heart  and  a  self-consecration  which  he  believes 
essential  to  their  eternal  salvation. 

For  the  same  mood,  due  to  a  different  cause,  cf.  Eccles.  y^-*,  cf.  also 
Ecclus.  21="  27".  Jer.  4"  '■  g'^f-  and  some  of  the  other  prophetic  par- 
allels, such  as  Joel  i^'>^-,  Mic.  2\  Zech.  iiS  have  some  resemblance, 
but  differ  in  that  in  those  passages  the  impending  punishment  is  made 
prominent.    They  are  nearer  to  Jas.  5'  {cf.  especially  Zech.  11''). 

TaXatTrajpT/care  "make  yourselves  wretched,"  cf.  5^ 

The  word  TaXat'xwpoc;  and  derivatives  are  employed  both  in  secular 
and  Biblical  use  of  misery  and  wretchedness,  whether  strictly  physical 
or  general,  often  representing  some  form  of  Hebrew  tib*;  cf.  Tob.  13", 
2  Mace.  4^',  4  Mace.  16',  Ps.  12^,  Mic.  2\  Ps.  38^  Jer.  1212,  Rom.  7", 
Rev.  3'',  Clem.  Rom.  23'  TaXottxwpoi  eiacv  o\  St'4'uxot. 

raXatTTcopew  in  itself  is  not  limited  to  mental  anguish,  nor  to 
repentance.  It  is  here  used  in  order  to  make  a  sharp  contrast 
with  the  pleasures  which  the  persons  addressed  are  seeking. 
They  had  better,  says  James,  make  wretchedness  their  aim,  and 
so  humble  themselves  in  penitence  and  obedience  before  God. 

The  paraphrase  of  Grotius,  "affligite  ipsos  vosmet  jejuniis  et  aliis  cor- 
poris (TxXr)paYG)Y{ati;,"  which  corresponds  to  the  view  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  commentators  (e.  g.  Est :  opera  pcenalia  subite)  goes  further 
than  the  text. 

Trevdr}aaTe  Kol  KXavaare,  "mourn  and  lament."  Cf.  2  Sam. 
191,  Neh.  89,  Mt.  s\  Mk.  161",  Lk.  6^',  Rev.  i8"-  ^'-  ^K 

irevdelv  "expresses  a  self-contained  grief,  never  violent  in 
its  manifestations"  {Lex.);  see  Trench,  Synonyms,  §  Ixv.  But 
the  two  words  are  here  used  merely  to  secure  a  forcible  fulness 
of  expression. 

There  is  no  ground  for  taking  xev8T)ffaT£  specifically  of  an  outward 
garb  of  mourning. 

TCEverjaaTe  xotl  /.XauaaTs]  KA  omit  xal ;  perhaps  by  accidental  confu- 
sion of  KAI  with  KAA — .  The  omission  would  connect  TOveriffcrre  with 
the  preceding,  and  separate  it  from  xXauaaxe  in  a  very  unnatural  way. 

0  7eXco?  vfjLMV,  pertaining  to  their  present  easy  ways.  This 
sentence  makes  the  preceding  words  more  intelligible. 


272  JAMES 

€t?  Trev6o<i,  cf.  Amos.  S^",  Tob.  2«,  Prov.  1413,  i  Mace,  i^^  9«. 

fxerarpaT'^Tco,  a  poetical  word  which  "  seems  not  to  have  been 
used  in  Attic"  (L.  and  S.).  In  the  Greek  O.  T.  it  is  used  in 
4  Mace.  6*,  and  by  Aquila  in  Ezek.  i^,  Symmaehus  in  Ezek.  10". 

[iSTaTpa-rci^Tw]  BP  minn. 

li,£TaffTpa<})T)Tw]  J<AKL  minnp•«^    Apparently  an  emendation,  sub- 
stituting a  more  familiar  verb. 

KaT'^cpeiav^  ''dejection,"  "gloominess,"  from  KaT-q^r)^,  "of  a 
downcast  look."  In  accordance  with  its  origin  the  word  refers 
primarily  to  the  outward  expression  of  a  heavy  heart,  cf.  the 
pubHcan  in  Lk.  18^^  The  word  (not  found  in  LXX;  nor  else- 
where in  N.  T.)  is  frequently  used  of  dejection  due  to  shame, 
and  this  association  may  have  governed  the  choice  of  it  here. 
Cf.  Lex.,  L.  and  S.,  Wetstein,  for  many  examples ;  and  see  Field, 
Notes  on  the  Translation  of  the  N.  T.,  p.  238. 

10.  raxett-w^T/re  "humble  yourselves."  James  here  returns 
to  the  starting-point  of  his  exhortation  (v.  ^  raxetwt?),  and 
sums  up  in  TairetvcoOrjTe  the  several  acts  directed  in  vv.  "'. 
This  act  implies  single-hearted  faith,  and  such  a  soul  has  a  sure 
reward  from  God,  cf.  i^.  See  references  in  Lex.  s.  v.  Taireivo- 
<^po<Tvv7]j  and  cf.  Ecclus.  2^^  ol  (^o^ovixevoi  Kvpiov  .  .  .  evwinov 
avTOv  raTreLvaxJOvcTLV  rd?  xpvx^a^  avToyv^  3I8  yiv^  raTreiPoco 
means  "to  confess  and  deplore  one's  spiritual  littleness  and 
unworthiness  "  (Lex.) . 

On  the  use  of  the  passive  aorist,  cf.  note  on  vTOTdyrjTe,  v.  '. 

evwTTLOv  KvpCov.    Kvplov  here  means  God ;   cf.  vv.  ^-  ''•  *. 

v\pa)(TeL,  i.  e.  morally  and  spiritually,  by  his  presence  (w.  ^'  ''•  * 
and  i^) ;  and  in  the  glory  of  eternal  life  (i^^  5^);  cf,  Lk.  i", 
Mt.  2312,  Lk.  14"  181*,  2  Cor.  II'  ifxavTou  raTreivoiv  tW  vp.el<i 
v^l/codrjTe. 

I  Pet.  5^  bears  close  resemblance  in  form,  and  is  noticeable  because 
of  the  complicated  resemblance  of  the  context  in  Jas.  4  and  i  Pet.  5. 
But  the  meaning  is  different.  Here  in  James  it  is  a  humbling  of  the 
soul  before  God,  with  repentance,  and  is  in  contrast  to  uiceptitpavfa. 
I  Peter  is  exhorting  to  a  spirit  of  submissiveness  to  God  (t9jv  xpotTatdv 
XeTpa  ToiJ  Gsou),  even  when  his  providence  appears  in  the  hardships 
of  persecution  (v.  '  t9)v  [ilptfAvav  ujawv  lxtp((i'avTei;  Ix'  aux6v),  cf.  also 
I  Pet.  I"  3"  4'2  «  . 


IV,  9-II  273 

11-12.  "Do  not  talk  harshly  of  one  another.  He  who  judges 
his  brother,  sets  himself  above  the  law  of  love,  and  infringes  on 
the  prerogative  of  God,  who  alone  is  lawgiver  and  judge." 

Vv. "  and  i-  come  in  as  a  sort  of  appendix,  much  as  s^'''^  is 
attached  as  an  appendix  after  the  whole  epistle  has  received 
a  fitting  conclusion  in  5".  The  thought  of  the  writer  reverts 
(cj.  1^6  3I-10)  to  those  facts  of  life  which  had  given  him  the  text 
for  his  far-reaching  discussion  and  exhortation  (4^"^°),  and  be- 
fore passing  to  other  matters  he  offers  an  example  of  how  one 
particular  form  of  M^X*/  is  at  variance  with  a  proper  attitude  to 
God.  The  writer  still  has  fully  in  mind  the  great  opposition 
of  the  world  and  God,  and  hence  probably  arises  the  somewhat 
strained  form  in  which  the  rebuke  of  vv.  ^^-^'  is  couched. 

Criticism  of  others  is  often  occasioned  by  a  supposed  moral 
lapse,  and  it  may  well  be,  as  Schneckenburger  suggests,  that 
this  was  what  James  had  here  specially  in  mind.  If  that  were 
the  case  these  verses  would  be  a  very  neat  turning  of  the  tables, 
quite  in  the  style  of  this  epistle  (cf.  2-^),  and  the  peculiar  form 
of  the  rebuke,  and  its  attachment  as  an  appendix,  would  also  be 
partly  accounted  for.  To  this  would  correspond  the  address 
dSeX<^oi,  V.  ",  to  which  MO^XCtXt'Se?,  v.  ",  ajiapToiKoi^  SixJ/vxpL, 
V.  *,  present  a  marked  contrast  but  no  real  contradiction.  This 
passage  in  James  would  then  correspond  closely  with  the  mode 
of  thought  of  Rom.  14I'',  where  the  KaToXaXtd  rebuked  is  occa- 
sioned by  laxity  and  by  intolerance,  and  where,  as  here,  the 
reader  is  told  that  such  judgment  may  safely  be  left  to  God  the 
Judge. 

11.  /caraXaXetre,  "talk  against,"  "defame,"  "speak  evil" 
(A, v.),  usually  applied  to  harsh  words  about  the  absent. 

On  the  present  imperative,  cf.  Winer,  §  43,  3,  §  56,  i,  b; 
Buttmann,  §  139,  6 ;  Gildersleeve,  Syntax,  §  415.  Contrast 
the  aorists  of  w.  ^-1°.  The  present  is  here  appropriate  in  the 
sense  "desist  from."  KaToKaXid  is  habitual  and  should  be 
stopped. 

The  word  is  used  in  this  sense  in  writers  of  the  Koine  (Polyb.  Diod. 
C  7.  G.  1770;   see  L.  and  S.)  and  in  the  Greek  O.  T. ;    cf.  Ps.  ioi», 
where  -cbv  xaxaXaXoOvaa  XaOpa  tov  xXtjacov  auxou  evidently  refers  to 
18 


274  JAMES 

a  generally  recognised  type  of  evil-doer,  also  Ps.  50'".     Cf.  2  Cor.  12" 
eptOc'at,  /.axaXaXtaf,  (J*t6upta[Ji.ot,  i  Pet.  2',  Rom.  i'". 

See  Clem.  Rom.  30!'  '  35^,  etc.,  2  Clem.  Rom.  4^  Hermas, 
Sim.  vi,  55,  viii,  7^,  ix,  26^;  Mand.  ii,  2;  Barn.  20;  Test.  XII 
Patr.  Gad  3^  5^. 

What  is  meant  here  is  indulgence  in  unkind  talk.  Nothing  indicates 
that  anything  more  is  intended  than  the  harsh  criticism  common  in 
ancient  and  modern  daily  hfe.  It  is  not  directed  especially  against 
the  mutual  backbiting  of  the  teachers  (4^^  ^■).  For  such  a  view  as,  e.  g. 
Pfleiderer's,  that  this  is  a  polemic  against  Marcion's  attitude  of  superi- 
ority to  the  Jewish  law,  there  is  no  more  reason  (note  the  address  aSeXtpot) 
than  for  the  idea  (Schneckenburger)  of  a  rebuke  of  those  who  tore  Paul's 
character  to  pieces  behind  his  back. 

aBeXcfiOL  marks  a  transition,  but  here,  as  in  i^'  2^,  a  minor 
one. 

aSe\(fiov^  TOP  aSeX^bv  auroO,  with  a  certain  pathetic  emphasis. 
So  in  I  Jn.  2'  4'^°. 

Kpivwv^  cf.  Mt.  7^,  and  note  that  this  is  interpreted  in  the 
parallel  Lk.  6"  by  the  substitution  of  KaraBiKci^eiP,  "con- 
demn," cf.  Rom.  2^.  For  similar  cases  of  two  participles  under 
one  article,  cf.  i^^,  Jn.  5 2*. 

KaToKoKet  vofxov  Kal  Kpivet  vofxov,  i.  e.  in  so  far  as  he  thereby 
violates  the  royal  law  of  love  (2*,  note  the  context  preceding 
the  precept  in  Lev.  19^*),  and  so  sets  himself  up  as  superior  to 
it.     Speaking  against  the  law  involves  judging  the  law. 

vojxov,  i.  c.  the  whole  code  of  morals  accepted  by  the  readers, 
as  i"  2^.  voixo'i  without  the  article  does  not  here  differ  from 
o  v6(xo^.  The  particular  clause  in  question  is  evidently  the 
"second  great  commandment,"  cf.  the  phrase  top  Tr\r}crioVj  v.  ^2. 

TroirjTT)'?  vonov,  cf.  i"'-  (and  note),  Rom.  2",  i  Mace.  2". 
These  are  the  only  cases  in  the  Bible  of  this  phrase,  which  in 
secular  Greek  means  "lawgiver,"  not  "doer  of  the  law." 

KpLTrj<;^  thus  claiming  a  superiority  to  the  law  such  as  belongs 
to  God  alone.  The  judge  is  here  thought  of,  not  as  himself 
acting  under  law,  but  more  as  the  royal  judge,  the  fountain  of 
right,  i.  e.  such  a  judge  as  God  is — an  idea  of  KpLTi]<i  which  in- 
cludes voixo0€ri]<i. 


IV,  11-13  275 

xptxT),;  is  not  to  be  expanded  into  xptxr)^  w[lou,  "critic  of  the  law" 
(cf.  v6(j.ov  xptveii;),  as  is  done  by  many  commentators,  for  that  idea 
has  already  been  fully  expressed,  while  in  xpnra  we  have  evidently  a 
new  idea  and  a  step  forward  in  the  argument. 

V.  "  bears  a  close  relation  to  the  thought  of  Rom.  2^  14^,  but 
the  resemblance  does  not  imply  literary  dependence. 

12.  eh.  "One  is  lawgiver  and  judge,  He,  namely,  who  is 
able,"  etc.     Cf.  Mt.  19"  eh  earXv  6  ajaOo';. 

eh  is  the  subject,  voixoOerr]^  Kal  KpiTtj'i  the  predicate;  o 
BvudfX€vo<;  is  in  apposition  with  eh. 

God,  not  Christ,  appears  clearly  intended  here;  0  KpiTrj'^  in 
5^  is  not  decisive  against  this,  and  voixodeTTjij  is  far  more  likely 
to  be  used  of  God,  while  eh  eariv  unequivocally  means  God. 
eh  is  used  in  order  to  emphasise  the  uniqueness,  not  the  unity, 
of  the  lawgiver. 

vojxodeTr]<i .  Elsewhere  in  the  Bible  only  Ps.  g^".  See  2  Esd. 
7«'  \  Cf.  POfxoOeTcov,  2  Mace.  3^^  4  Mace.  5^^,  Heb.  7"  8\ 
Very  frequent  in  Philo. 

The  word  is  here  added  to  KpiTij^  because  the  latter  does  not 
fully  express  the  idea  of  complete  superiority  to  the  law. 

voiLobixriq]  BP. 

b  voExoOsTT^q]  all  others. 

The  reading  without  the  article  makes  vo\xoU-L-qc,  predicate  and  is 
more  expressive.  The  article  was  probably  inserted  to  bring  an  un- 
usual expression  into  conformity  with  the  more  common  type  of  sen- 
tence. 

xal  xpt'u-^<;]  cm  KL  minn.  External  evidence  here  outweighs,  on  the 
whole,  the  authority  of  the  lectio  brevior. 

6  hvvdixevo^  acoaai  Kal  a-woXeaai.  Cf.  Mt.  10'-'*.  God's  al- 
mighty power,  to  which  we  are  wholly  subject,  gives  him  the 
right  to  judge.  Cf.  Hermas,  Mand.  xii,  6^  rov  irdvTo.  Zvvdjievov^ 
aayaat  Kal  airoXeaai^  Sim.  ix,  23^  &)?  hvvdjxevo^  a-KoKeaai  7} 
crcoaac  avrov.  Cf.  Ps.  682",  Deut.  3239,  i  Sam.  2«,  2  Kings  5^. 
This  description  of  God  must  have  been  common  in  Jewish  use. 

Th  el     C/.  Rom.  920  144,  Acts  III',  Ex.  3".  ^^ 

13-17.  The  practical  neglect  of  God  seen  in  the  trader's  pre- 
sumptuous confidence  in  himself ;  and  the  futility  of  it. 


276  JAMES 

After  the  discussion  of  the  fundamental  sin  of  choosing  pleas- 
ure and  not  God  as  the  chief  end  of  life,  two  paragraphs  follow 
illustrating  by  practical  examples  the  neglect  of  God.  Both 
paragraphs  are  introduced  by  the  same  words,  and  lack  the 
address,  aSe\<^ot' 

The  persons  in  mind  in  vv.  "-^^  may  or  may  not  be  Christians. 
V.  ^^  implies  that  these  presumptuous  persons  know  better.  The 
type  of  travelling  traders  referred  to  was  common  among  Jews. 
The  ease  of  travel  in  ancient  times  is  amply  illustrated  by  the 
Book  of  Acts  and  the  epistles  of  Paul.  Cf.  C.  A.  J.  Skeel, 
Travel  in  the  First  Century  after  Christ,  1901;  Zahn,  "Weltver- 
kehr  und  Kirche  wahrend  der  drei  ersten  Jahrhunderte, "  in 
Skizzen  aus  dem  Leben  der  alten  Kirche-,  1898. 

13.  a7e  J'Of,  "come  now,"  "see  here,"  c/.  5^  ^76,  like  «^epe, 
or  Latin  age,  is  usually  an  insistent,  here  a  somewhat  brusque, 
address,     vvv  increases  the  insistency. 

a7e  is  wholly  non-biblical  in  its  associations,  Judg.  19'^,  2 
Kings  4^*,  Is.  43^  being  the  only  instances  of  the  idiom  in  the 
O.  T. 

ol  Xe70J're9,  i.  e.  in  their  hearts,  cj.  i"  2^^. 

\  auptov]  BX  minn  ff  vg  boh  syrp^i"  Jerome. 

xal  aupiov]  AKLP  minn  syr^":!  Qy^  (fj_  lj^   j;_j32  f.^^ 

A  decision  is  possible  only  on  external  grounds. 

xopeuaojAsOa,  irof^aofjiev,  l[Ji.'7cop£ua6[A£Ga,  xepSiQaofJiev.  The  future  in- 
dicative is  the  consistent  reading  of  Bt<  (except  xotT^aw^Aev)  P  minn 
f[  vg  boh  Cyr. 

The  aorist  subjunctive  (■rcopeuawfAsOa,  etc.)  is  read  in  each  case  by 
KLS'F  minn.    A  has  TcopsuawiJisOa,  xoifjawji-ev,  esjixopsuaotAsOa,  x,£pSi^ao[ji.£v. 

The  context  speaks  on  the  whole  for  the  future  indicative.  In  such 
a  case  external  evidence  has  little  weight  {cj.  Rom.  5'). 

rr]vhe  Tr)V  iroXiv,  "this  city";  not  "such  a  city"  (A.V. ; 
Luther:  "m  die  und  die  Stadt" ;  Erasmus:  in  ha  no  ant  illam 
civitatem) . 

17017)0-0 jxev,  "pass,"  "spend."  See  Lex.  s.  v.  roteo)  II.  d,  for 
examples  of  this  meaning,  which  is  said  to  be  confined  to  later 
Greek. 

ifXTTopevaoideOa,  "traffic,"  "do  business." 


IV,  13-14  277 

This  word  is  not  very  common  in  the  Greek  O.  T.,  and  is  found  only 
a  few  times  in  this  sense  (e.  g.  Gen.  34'°  42'*).  In  secular  Greek  it  is 
used  in  this  sense:  cf.  Thuc.  vii,  13,  and  other  references  in  L.  and  S. 

KepS-^aofxeu.  That  travel  is  for  the  purpose  of  gain  was  ob- 
vious to  Greek  thought,  cf.  Anthol.  palai.  ix,  446  aypb^;  Tep\ptv 
dyeLj  KepSo'i  ttXo'o?. 

The  word  is  used  absolutely,  as  here,  "to  get  gain,"  in  secular  writers, 
e.  g.  Hdt.  viii,  5,  but  is  not  found  in  LXX  (once  in  Symmachus). 

14.  ocrive<i,  with  full  classical  meaning,  "of  such  a  nature 
that."    For  the  loose  grammatical  attachment,  cf.  i^  ^-  avrjp 

TO  r?}?  avpiov.  Cf.  Prov.  27^  m^  Kav^f^  tcl  et<f  avpiov^  ov  yap 
yLvdiaK€L<i  Tt  re^erai  57  iiTLOvaa,  also  Ecclus.  ii^^^-,  Lk.  12^^ '^•. 
For  a  good  parallel  from  Debarim  rabba  9,  see  Schottgen  or 
Wetstein  on  Jas.  4^^.  Many  parallels  are  to  be  found  in  Philo 
and  in  Greek  and  Latin  writers  (see  Wetstein),  e.  g.  Philo, 
Leg.  alleg.  iii,  80,  p.  132;    Pseudo-Phocylides,  116/.: 

OL'Set?  ytvoiCFKei  rl  jxer   avpcov  rj  ri  /xe^'  tdpa.v  ' 
daKOTTo^  icFTL  ^poTMv  ddvaTO^^  TO  he  p.e\\ov  dhifKov^ 

Seneca,  Ep.  loi,  especially  §§  4-6,  quam  stultum  est,  cetatem 
disponere  ne  crastini  quidem  dominum  .  .  .  nihil  sibi  quisquam 
de  futuro  debet  promittere,  etc.,  etc.  Other  passages  on  the 
uncertainty  of  life  are  collected  by  Plutarch,  Consolatio  ad 
Apollonium,  n,  p.  107,  and  in  Stobaeus,  Anthol.  iv,  cap.  31, 
"Oti  ajSe/3ai09  rj  twv  dvOpcaircov  evirpa^ta^  jueraxtTrroucTT/? 
pa8(oi<i  rr)?  tv^V^,  where  especially  the  tragedians  are  drawn 
on.  But  in  both  the  N.  T.  and  Philo  the  commonplace  is 
given  a  different  turn:  "let  the  uncertainty  of  Ufe  remind 
you  of  your  dependence  on  God.'^ 

TToia^  "Of  what  character?"  *'.  e.  "  Is  it  secure  or  precarious?" 
The  answer  is:  "it  is  a  mere  passing  mist." 

aTjik,  "vapour,"  cf.  i".  Cf.  Clem.  Rom.  17'^  (from  "Eldad 
and  Modad"?)  670)  (/.  e.  Abraham)  he  eijii  uTfxU  diro  Kvdpa^ 
("steam  from  a  pot").  For  the  comparison  of  the  Ufe  of  the 
wicked  to  smoke  and  vapour,  cf.  4  Ezra  7",  Apoc.  Bar.  82^ 


278  JAMES 

Whether  James  meant  "smoke"  or  "steam"  is  impossible  to  deter- 
mine. In  the  LXX  the  word  is  several  times  used  of  smoke,  Gen.  19=', 
Lev.  16",  Ecclus.  22^4  (?)  24^'%  Hos.  133  (?),  although  it  properly  means 
vapour,  in  distinction  from  xaicvoq ;  cf.  Aristotle,  Meteor,  ii,  4,  p.  359  b. 
The  very  similar  passage  Wisd.  2*  uses  StAi'xXif],  "mist."  Cf.  Ps.  102' 
e^^Xtxov  wael  -/.axvb?  a\  -fjyi^pac  [aou,  Ps.  37'"'. 

Seneca,  Troad.  401,  compares  human  life  to  smoke  {calidis  Jumus 
ah  ignibus). 

yap  introduces  the  answer  to  iroia  \'tX,,  and  also  the  reason 
for  the  whole  rebuke  contained  in  w.  ^^  '•. 

^avTOtxevrj ^  eirecTa  Kal  acfjavL^ofxepr]^  "appearing  and  then 
disappearing,"  with  a  more  delicate  play  on  words  than  is  quite 
reproducible  in  the  English  rendering. 

The  same  contrast  and  play  is  found  in  Aristotle,  Hist.  an.  vi,  7, 
Ps.-Aristotle,  De  mundo,  vi,  22,  and  evidently  was  a  turn  of  expression 
common  in  Greek  usage. 

The  best  text  for  this  verse  is  the  following : 

oYxivei;  oOx  i-ziuiau^s  xb  tt]<;  auptov  xota  tj  i^wrj  u[Ji,uv;  (5x^x1?  Yap  ears 
[rjl  Tzphq  oXtyov  (p(xivo\xivrj,  sxetxa  xa'.  a{pavti^o[j.evT). 

The  various  readings  here  adopted  are  attested  by  cither  B  or  {<,  or 
both.     The  following  variants  require  comment: 

"zh  TTj?  auptov]  SKL  minnp'^'  ff  vg  sah  syrp«3h. 

Toc  zriq  aupcov]  AP  33  minn  syr^ci  boh. 

xric,  auptov]  B. 

The  external  evidence  is  strongly  for  xb  tt]?  auptov,  in  view  of  the  ten- 
dency of  B  to  omit  articles  and  the  demonstrably  emended  character 
of  A  ^$  (cf.  Prov.  27\  which  may  have  been  in  the  emender's  mind). 

The  "intrinsic"  evidence  of  fitness  also  speaks  for  the  retention  of 
TO.  In  the  text  of  B  (oux  STctaxaaGs  xfj?  auptov  xota  l^w?)  u[j.{I)v)  the 
writer  would  declare  that  the  censured  traders  do  not  know  what  are 
to  be  to-morrow  the  conditions  of  their  life — e.  g.  whether  sickness  or 
health,  fair  weather  or  foul.  In  fact,  however,  the  latter  part  of  this 
same  verse  (dtxtJit?  xxX.)  and  v.  '=  (l^-^aojjiev)  show  that  the  uncertainty 
of  life  itself  is  what  he  has  in  mind.  Hence  xot'a  cannot  be  connected 
with  ext'axaaOe  to  form  an  indirect  question,  but  must  be  a  direct  in- 
terrogative introducing  a  direct  question  to  which  dx[i,f<;  xxX.  gives  the 
answer. 

TCofa]  BK*  1518  syrhci  boh™d. 

•Tcofa  yap]   S^AKLP  minnp'"  vg  boh  syrps'i^. 

quae  autem]  S. 

The  shorter  and  better  attested  reading  is  to  be  accepted, 


IV,  14-15  279 

f)  ^o)iq]  B  omits  f),  doubtless  by  error. 

dx[uq  yap]  A  ^t,  vg  boh  omit  yap.  Doubtless  emendation  to  avoid 
introducing  the  answer  by  ydp.  t>s  omits  the  whole  clause  dT^ilq  yip 
eaxe. 

ea-re]  B  minn  syr'"''  Jerome. 

ea-cat]  AKP  minn. 

ia-ziv]  L  minn  ff  vg  boh  (was). 

Either  eaxat  or  eaxs  may  well  have  originated  in  an  itacistic  corrup- 
tion of  the  other ;  the  evidence  for  the  two  together  far  outweighs  that 
for  laxcv.  As  between  iaxs  and  eaxat,  external  evidence  (t<  is  lacking) 
speaks  on  the  whole  for  saxe. 

•^  -Kpbq  oXtyov]  BP  omit  tj.  The  question  is  difficult  to  decide  and 
unimportant  for  the  sense.  An  accidental  agreement  here  between  B 
and  P  is  possible,  but  a  little  improbable.* 

15.   avrl  Tov  \eyeiv  properly  belongs  with  'KeyoPT€<i,  v.  ". 
iav  6  KvpLO'i  de\r],  "deo  volente" ;   cf.  Acts   iS^^,  i   Cor.   419 
16',  Rom.  iio,  Phil.  219.  24,  Heb.  6K 

The  expressions  lav  Gsb?  OIXt),  o5v  Oew,  Sswv  pouXofjievMv,  xwv  6ewv 
esXovxwv,  or  the  equivalent,  were  in  common  use  among  the  an- 
cient Greeks.  For  references  to  papyri,  see  Deissmann,  Neue  Bibel- 
studien,  1897,  p.  80;  see  also  Lietzmann  on  i  Cor.  4".  C/.  Plato, 
Alcib.  I.  p.  135  D,  Hipp,  major,  p.  286  C,  Laches,  p.  201  C,  Leges,  pp. 
688  E,  799  E,  etc.,  Thecet.  p.  151  D,  Aristophanes,  Pint.  1188,  Xeno- 
phon,  Hipparchicus,  9,  8  (Mayor  quotes  many  of  the  passages) .  Similar 
expressions  were  also  in  familiar  use  by  the  Romans,  from  whom  the 
modern  deo  volente  is  derived.  Cf.  Lampridius,  Alex.  Sever.  45  si  dii 
voluerint,  Minucius  Felix,  Ociavius,  18  "si  dens  dederit"  vidgi  iste  tiatu- 
ralis  sermo  est,  Sallust,  Jug.  14,  19  dels  volentibus,  Ennius  ap.  Cic.  De  off. 
i,  12,  38  volentibu'  cum  magnis  diis,  Plautus,  Capt.  ii,  3,  94  si  dis  placet, 
id.  Poen.  iv,  2,  88  si  di  volent,  Liv.  ix,  19,  15,  absit  invidia  verba.  See 
other  references  in  B.  Brisson,  De  formtdis  et  solemiibus  popidi  Romani 
verbis,  rec.  Conradi,  Halle,  1731,  i,  116  (pp.  63/.) ;  i,  133  (p.  71) ;  viii, 
61  (p.  719). 

The  corresponding  formula  inshallah,  "if  God  will,"  has  been  for 
many  centuries  a  common  colloquial  expression  of  modern  Arabic,  cf. 
Lane,  Manners  and  Customs  of  the  Modern  Egyptians,  ch.  13.  It  is 
not  unlikely  that  the  Mohammedans  derived  it  from  the  Syrians,  and 
that  these  had  it  from  the  Greeks.  The  Jews  do  not  seem  to  have  com- 
monly used  any  such  formula  either  in  Biblical  or  in  Talmudic  times. 

*0n  this  whole  passage,  see  Corssen,  Gottlngische  gdehrte  Anzeigen,  1893,  pp.  578/.;  B. 
Weiss,  Zeitschrift  fiir  wissenschaflHche  Theologie,  vol.  xxxvii,  1894,  pp.  434/.  The  view  taken 
above  is  substantially  that  of  Corssen.  The  resulting  text  is  the  s^^me  as  that  underlying 
the  translation  of  the  English  R.V. 


28o  JAMES 

The  use  of  such  formulas  "was  introduced  to  the  Jews  by  the  Moham- 
medans" (L.  Ginzberg,  /£,  art.  "Ben  Sira,  Alphabet  of"). 

The  statement  often  found  that  the  practise  recommended  was  a 
part  of  Jewish  customary  piety  in  N.  T.  times  goes  back  at  least  to  J. 
Gregory,  whose  Notes  and  Observations  on  Some  Passages  of  Scripture, 
first  published  in  1646,  are  reprinted  in  Latin  in  Critici  sacri,  1660, 
vol.  ix.  He  quotes  from  the  "Alphabet  of  Ben  Sira"  (written  not  ear- 
lier than  the  eleventh  century ;  see  JE,  I.  c.)  a  Jewish  instance  of  the 
formula,  and  evidently  based  his  statement  {"mos  erat  inter  JudcBOs") 
on  this,  with,  perhaps,  some  knowledge  of  the  ways  of  mediaeval  and 
later  Jews.  For  the  passage  from  the  "Alphabet,"  see  Schottgen, 
Horac  hebr.  pp.  1030/.;  the  earliest  use  of  it  to  illustrate  Jas.  4'^  is  prob- 
ably J.  Drusius,  Qucestiones  hebraicae,  iii,  24,  1599  (reprinted  in  Critici 
sacri,  vol.  viii). 

The  origin  of  this  t3T)e  of  "apotropaic"  formula  among  the  Greeks 
and  Romans  is  to  be  sought  in  the  notions  of  divine  vengeance  for  human 
presumption,  to  be  averted  by  thus  refraining  from  a  positive  assertion 
about  the  future. 

It  thus  appears  that  James  is  here  recommending  to  Chris- 
tians a  Hellenistic  pious  formula  of  strictly  heathen  origin.  His 
own  piety  finds  in  it  a  true  expression  of  Christian  submission 
to  divine  providence. 

Kal  .  .  .  Kai,  "both  .  .  .  and." 

Others  take  the  first  v.(xl  as  introducing  the  apodosis.  But  the  more 
natural  suggestion  of  the  repeated  xa(  speaks  for  the  view  given  above. 

Z,-f}ao[t.sy,  Tjotviffopi.ev]  BJ<AP  minn  ff. 

!^iQaa)[A£v,  xotTQawfisv]  KLS*F  048  minnp■«^  Probably  emendation  due 
to  a  mistaken  notion  that  these  verbs  were  included  under  ixv. 

See  Beyschlag  for  references  to  older  discussion  of  this  variant.  The 
two  Mss.  (181,  328)  alleged  (by  Wetstein  and  later  critics)  to  contain 
the  reading  l^-^ffuyisv  .  .  .  TCOf^aotiev  both  read  — w —  in  both  cases. 

.16.  vvu  Se,  "but  actually,  in  point  of  fact,"  in  contrast  to 
what  they  ought  to  do. 

KavxpLcrOe  iu  rat?  aKa(^oviai<;  vfxcov^  "glory  in  these  your  acts 
of  presumption."  Kavx^'O'de  is  thrown  into  strong  emphasis 
by  vw  Se.  Instead  of  humility  toward  God,  their  attitude  is 
one  of  boasting. 

a\a^oviat<i  refers  to  the  attitude  described  in  v.  ^^  (ot  \eyov- 
T€?),  Kavxa<T0e  (which  carries  the  emphasis)  signifies  an  aggra- 
vation of  it,  viz.  the  pride  which  they  take  in  their  own  over- 


rv,  15-17  281 

weening  self-confidence  and  presumption.     eV   indicates   that 
aXa'^oviat  are  the  ground  of  the  glorying,  cf.  i^ 

Another  view  takes  xauxauBs  of  the  arrogant  talk  itself,  described 
in  V.  ",  and  understands  ev  as  merely  giving  the  presumptuous  manner 
of  it  (Mayor  :  "the  manner  in  which  glorying  was  shown,  'in  your  self- 
confident  speeches  or  imaginations'  =  i>>al^oveu6[Asvot"),  cf.  Clem.  Rom. 
21 5  dv6pwxot<;  EYxauxwtJiEvoti;  Iv  dXx^ovta  tou  Xoyou.  This  is  possible, 
but  is  repetitious,  and  gives  no  such  advance  in  the  thought  as  the 
emphatic  vQv  S^  seems  to  call  for. 

ciXa^ovia,  "braggart  talk,"  or,  more  inclusively,  ''presump- 
tuous assurance,"  "vainglory"  (so  i  Jn.  2^^  [R-V.]) ;  much 
like  vTreprj(f)aviaj  with  which  it  is  frequently  associated,  cf. 
Rom.  1^0,  2  Tim.  32,  2  Mace.  9*  (v.  I.). 

It  is  stronger  than  KavxacrOac,  and  has  the  idea  of  emptiness 
and  insolence,  cf.  Wisd.  2^^  5^  4  Mace,  i^e  2^^  S^^  rrju  Kevoho^iav 
ravT-qv  Kol  oKedpo^opov  oKa^oviav,  See  the  full  discussion 
in  Trench,  Synonyms,  §  xxix.  aka^oiv  and  its  derivatives  are 
found  twelve  times  in  the  Greek  O.  T.  Cf.  Test.  XII  Patr. 
Dan  I^  Joseph  17*;   Teles  (ed.  Hense-),  p.  40. 

TTOvripd,  "wrong."  Cf.  Jas.  2*,  Mt.  151^,  Jn.  31^  f,  i  Jn.  3^2^ 
Col.  1 21,  Acts  25I8. 

There  is  no  distinction  drawn  in  vv.^''"  between  xovTjpa  and  &\i<xp'zla. 

17.  This  is  a  maxim  added  merely  to  call  attention  to  the 
preceding,  and  with  no  obvious  special  application.  It  is  almost 
like  our  ^'verbum  sap  sat,"  and  means,  "You  have  now  been 
fully  warned."  For  the  same  characteristic  method  of  capping 
the  discussion  with  a  sententious  maxim,  cf.  1^^  2^^  3^^. 

There  is,  however,  a  certain  pointedness  in  v.  ^^  by  reason 
of  its  relation  to  James's  fundamental  thought.  "You  Chris- 
tians have  in  your  knowledge  of  the  law  a  privilege,  and  you 
value  it  {cf.  the  reliance  on  faith  in  21^  f^) ;  this  should  spur  you 
to  right  action."  Cf.  Rom.  2^'^--^,  of  the  requirement  of  conduct 
imposed  on  the  Jews  by  their  superior  knowledge. 

ovv,  "so  then,"  serving  to  introduce  this  summary  conclud- 
ing sentence,  which  is  applicable  to  the  whole  situation  just 
described;   see  Lex.  s.  v,  ovv^  d;   cf.  Mt.  i^'  7^^,  Acts  26", 


282  JAMES 

KoXov,  "good,"  opposed  to  Tropr]p6<i  {cf.  v.  ^^).  So  nearly 
always  in  N.  T.  (only  Lk.  21''  in  sense  of  "beautiful"),  cf.  Jas. 
27  ^13^  ]y[t_  ^16  i;jj,(aif  Ta  KoXa  epja. 

dfxapTia  avTO)  earCv^  sc.  to  koXou,  i.  e.  the  good  thing  which 
he  does  not  do. 

On  avTa)j  cf.  Clem.  Rom.  44^,  and  the  similar  expression  eartv 
eV  aol  a,uapr ta,  which  is  a  standing  phrase  in  Deut.,  e.g.  15^ 
2321  f.  2415. 

CHAPTER  V. 

1-6.  The  practical  neglect  of  God  seen  in  the  cruelty  and  luxury 
of  the  rich;  and  the  appalling  issue  which  awaits  it. 

1.   a'ye  vvv  ol  ifkoixJiOL,  cf.  on  4^^. 

ol  T^ovaiOL,  cf.  1^°  f-  2--*'.  The  chief  question  here  is  whether 
"the  rich,"  who  are  attacked  and  warned,  were  Christians  or 
not. 

In  i^"  f-  the  rich  man  referred  to  seems  certainly  to  have  been 
a  Christian  brother  (see  note) ;  in  2^  f-  the  rich  visitor  is  appar- 
ently not  a  Christian,  so  "the  rich"  of  2^.  In  the  passage  be- 
fore us  the  rich  as  a  class  are  apostrophised,  without  reference 
to  their  religious  profession,  in  order  to  make  clear  to  the  Chris- 
tian readers  the  folly  of  admiring  or  striving  after  riches.  Those 
who  possess  riches,  runs  the  argument,  do  not  present  an  at- 
tractive example,  so  soon  as  the  real  character  of  their  posses- 
sions and  prospects  is  understood.  Like  pleasure  (4^"^°),  so 
also  wealth — which  is  sought  after  in  order  to  gain  pleasure — 
is  a  false  aim.  The  tone  is  thus  not  of  an  appeal  to  evil-doers 
to  reform  (contrast  4^-1"  and  even  4.^^'^^),  but  of  a  threatening  of 
judgment;  and  the  attitude  ascribed  to  the  rich  is  that  of  2^^-, 
rather  than  of  i^^^-.  Some  of  the  rich  may  be  Christians,  but 
it  is  not  as  Christians  that  they  are  here  addressed.  The  pur- 
pose of  the  verses  is  partly  to  dissuade  the  Christians  from  set- 
ting a  high  value  on  wealth,  partly  to  give  them  a  certain  grim 
comfort  in  the  hardships  of  poverty  (cf.  5^-"). 

The  passage  is  highly  rhetorical  and  in  detail  recalls  the  de- 
nunciations of  the  O.  T.  prophets.     Many  of  the  ideas  are  found 


IV,  I7-V,  I  283 

in  Wisd.  2,  where  the  customary  arrogance  and  selfishness  of  the 
rich,  the  transitoriness  of  their  prosperity,  and  their  treatment 
of  the  righteous  are  set  forth.  Lk.  6^^  f •  also  forms  a  close  par- 
allel.    Cf.  Enoch  94'-"  96^-8  973-10  984-16  9911-16  1006-13  J035-8, 

The  only  important  argument  for  supposing  these  "rich"  to  be  Chris- 
tians is  that  they  are  in  form  directly  addressed.  For  a  full  statement 
of  the  arguments,  see  Zahn,  Einleiking,  i,  §  4.  But  the  form  is  the 
same  as  that  of  the  prophetic  denunciations  of  foreign  nations,  e.  g.  Is. 
13 s  (Babylon),  15^  (Moab) ;  cf.  Mt.  23  (the  apostrophe  against  scribes 
and  Pharisees),  and  the  regular  form  of  Biblical  "Woes." 

/cXavcrare,  "lament."  Cf.  4^;  but  there  the  lamentation  is 
connected  with  repentance,  here  it  is  the  wailing  of  those  who 
ought  to  look  forward  to  an  assured  damnation.  CJ.  Rev.  6i^-i^ 
(note  ol  ir^ovaioij  v.  1^),  Joel  i^  K'Xavcrare. 

oKo\v^ovTe^,  "with  howls  of  mourning."  Cf.  Is.  13^  (against 
Babylon)  oXoXv^ere^  iyyv';  yap  r/fxepa  Kvpiov,  Is,  152.  3 
(against  Moab)  irdvTi';  oXoXvl^ere  jxera  Kkavd/jiov,  Amos  83 
(note  the  following  context),  Zech.  11 2,  Is.  iqI"  1431  (against 
Philistia),  16^  (Moab),  231  (Tyre),  231-  ^'  (ships  of  Tarshish), 
651^  Jer.  4820,  Ezek.  2112. 

6XoX61^6)  and  dtXaXiil^ti)  both  mean  "cry  aloud"  (onomatopoetic),  and 
both  refer  in  earHer  secular  Greek  to  Joyful  crying,  or  to  a  cry  raised 
to  the  gods  in  worship,  seldom  to  a  mere  wail  of  grief  or  pain. 

In  the  LXX  oXoXu'Cw  is  the  ordinary  representative  of  ^^^  and  means 
"howl,"  especially  in  distress  or  from  repentance.  It  is  used  only  in 
the  prophetic  books,  and  nearly  always  in  the  imperative. 

dXaXdl^w  is  the  regular  representative  of  Hebrew  >in,  except  in  Jere- 
miah, where  in  all  the  four  cases  of  its  use,  4'  29  (47)2  30  (49)'  32",  it 
stands  for  h^y,  cf.  also  iXoLkixyiJ.oq,  Jer.  2o'8,  for  r^^^\  It  means  "cry" 
— with  joy,  triumph,  battle  fury,  by  way  of  sounding  alarm,  or  the 
like. 

Thus  in  the  Greek  O.  T.  there  is  a  differentiation  of  meaning  between 
the  two  words  oXoXu^w  and  dXaXdl^w.  In  the  N.  T.  oXoXul^w  only  occurs 
once,  while  dXaXd!;^  is  found  but  twice,  Mk.  5''  (xXat'ovrcts  xal  dXaXd- 
^.ovTa?,  in  the  sense  of  a  cry  of  grief),  and  i  Cor.  13 ^  (xujjL^aXov  iXaXi^oy). 
The  explanation  of  the  facts  seems  to  be  that  in  later  Greek  usage 
fiXoXut^w  took  the  special  sense  of  "cry  in  distress,"  while  dXciXdJ^w 
retained  a  wider  range  of  meaning. 


284  JAMES 

TaXat7rcop/at9,  "miseries,"  i.  e.  the  sufferings  of  the  damned, 
cf.  vv.  '•  \  Rev.  18^  f-  218,  Ps.  14010,  Enoch  6310  99"  103^ 

For  the  denunciation  of  future  punishment  against  oppressors, 
cj.  2  Mace,  yi"'  i^-  i^-  ^\  4  Mace.  93-  ^^  10"  n^.  23  -^2^-'  la  1315. 

The  reference  found  here  by  many  older,  and  some  more  recent, 
commentators  to  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  is  wholly  uncalled  for ; 
it  is  equally  wrong  to  apply  this  to  the  distress  preceding  the  Last 
Judgment;  and  still  worse  to  think  merely  of  the  loss  of  property  by 
the  rich. 

iirepxoiJ.euaK,  "impending,"  cf.  Eph,  2^,  Lk,  2126,  Hermas, 
Vis.  iii,  9^;  iv,  i^ 

2-3.  Your  wealth  is  already,  to  any  eye  that  can  see  reali- 
ties, rotten,  moth-eaten,  and  rusted.  The  rust  of  it  will  testify 
to  you  in  the  Day  of  Judgment  how  valueless  it  and  your  con- 
fidence in  it  are.  And  the  worthlessness  of  your  wealth  will 
then  be  your  ruin,  for  you  have  been  storing  up  for  yourselves 
only  the  fire  of  hell. 

2.  aeatjirep,  "has  rotted,"  "is  rotten,"  i.  e.  of  no  value.  The 
word  is  here  used  to  apply  (literally  or  figuratively)  to  every 
kind  of  wealth. 

On  the  general  idea,  cf.  Mt.  6^^  In  James  it  is  not  the  per- 
ishabihty  but  the  worthlessness  of  wealth  that  is  referred  to. 
The  property — no  matter  what  its  earthly  value,  or  even  its 
earthly  chance  of  permanence — is  worthless  if  measured  by  true 
standards. 

This  and  the  following  verbs  in  the  perfect  tense  (yeyovev, 
KaTMTai)  are  picturesque,  figurative  statements  of  the  real 
worthlessness  of  this  wealth  to  the  view  of  one  who  knows  how 
to  estimate  permanent,  eternal  values.  The  perfect  tense  is 
appropriately  used  of  the  present  state  of  worthlessness. 

Others  take  the  perfect  tense  in  these  verbs  as  describing  by  prophetic 
anticipation  {cf.  Is.  60O  what  will  inevitably  happen  with  the  lapse  of 
time.  But  this  is  unnecessary,  and  the  change  to  the  future  in  iaxxt 
makes  it  unlikely.  Notice  also  that  the  mention  of  the  "rusting"  of 
gold  and  silver  points  to  a  figurative  meaning. 

The  view  taken  of  these  perfects  carries  the  decision  for  a  series  of 
exegetical  problems  in  vv.  ■'  '  which  are  discussed  in  detail  in  the  notes. 


V,  1-3  28s 

A  different  view  can  be  made  clear  by  the  following  paraphrase,  based 
on  Huther's  interpretation : 

"Your  wealth  will  all  perish  in  the  Day  of  Judgment.  The  rust  of  it 
will  testify  to  you  beforehand  of  your  own  coming  destruction,  and  the 
Judgment,  when  it  has  destroyed  your  possessions,  will  afterwards  fall 
on  you.  You  have  been  amassing  treasure  in  the  very  days  of  the 
Judgment  itself!" 

The  idea  that  alu-oicev  y.iX.  gives  the  first  specification  of  the  actual 
sin  of  the  rich,  who  show  their  rapacity  by  treasuring  up  wealth  and 
letting  it  rot  instead  of  using  it  to  give  to  the  poor  or  as  capital  to  pro- 
mote useful  industries  ("GEcumenius,"  Calvin,  Homejus,  Laurentius, 
Grotius,  Bengel,  Theile),  is  needless  and  far-fetched. 

TO,  l/jidTLa.  On  garments  as  a  chief  form  of  wealth,  cf.  Mt. 
6^9,  I  Mace.  ii24,  Acts  20^3,  also  Hor.  Ep.  i,  6,  lines  40-44, 
Quint.  Curt,  v,  6^ 

arjTo^poira,  cf.  HDB,  "Moth,"  and  EB,  "Moth." 

The  word  is  found  elsewhere  in  the  Bible  only  in  Job  13^8  w?  \[L<kxiov 
OTiTogpwTov.  In  secular  Greek  it  has  been  observed  only  Orac.  Sib. 
ap.  Theoph.  Ad  Autol.  ii,  36  (fragm.  3,  1.  26),  aYjToPpwTa  SlSopxe  (of 
idol-images).    Cf.  Is.  51'  50',  Mic.  ^*  (LXX),  Job  32"  (LXX). 

3.  /v'aricorat,  "rusted,"  "corroded."  The  preposition  Kara- 
has  a  "perfective"  force,  almost  like  "rusted  out,"  or  "rusted 
through,"  cf.  the  only  other  Biblical  instance,  Ecclus.  12" 
el?  Te\o^  KaTMaev.  Hence  R.V.  "utterly  rusted."  See  J.  H. 
Moulton,  Prolegomena,  pp.  in  f.  The  word  is  found  in  Epict. 
Diss,  iv,  6*^  but  is  rare. 

In  fact,  silver  does  not  easily  corrode  so  as  to  become  worthless  (cf., 
however,  Ecclus.  291°  f),  and  gold  not  at  all.  On  ancient  knowledge  of 
the  freedom  of  gold  from  rust,  see  references  in  Wetstein.  In  the  ap- 
parent references  to  the  rusting  of  gold  in  Ep.  Jer.  11  and  24,  tarnishing 
is  probably  meant.  But  James's  bold  figure  has  nothing  to  do  with 
such  expressions.  He  means  that  even  the  most  permanent  earthly 
treasure  has  no  lasting  value.  "Have  rusted"  is  equivalent  to  "are 
worthless,"  and  the  writer  is  thinking  of  the  present,  although  the  pres- 
ent is  illuminated  by  what  he  knows  about  the  future. 

Cf.  Chaucer,  Prologue  to  Canterbury  Talcs : 

"And  this  figure  he  addide  yit  therto, 
That  if  gold  ruste,  what  shulde  yren  doo?" 


286  JAMES 

ek  jxaprvpiov,  used  in  various  relations  in  the  N.  T.,  Mt.  8* 
(Mk.  I",  Lk.  5"),  iQi^  241-',  Mk.  611  (Lk.  9^),  13^  (Lk.  2113), 
Heb.  3^  It  seems  to  mean  "for  a  visible  (or  otherwise  clear 
and  unmistakable)  sign." 

It  is  derived  from  an  O.  T.  expression,  found  in  Gen.  ai^o  31"^  Deut. 
2ii9.  26j  Josh.  24",  in  all  which  cases  it  represents  i;?.'?  or  .tij;.V,  which 
means  "to  be  a  sign,"  or  "pledge,"  or  "symbol,"  usually  with  reference 
to  some  material  object,  a  book,  a  stone,  a  group  of  animals.  See  also 
Job  16'  (Job's  sickness  as  [i-apTupiov  of  his  guilt),  Mic.  i=.  In  Josh. 
22S7,  28,  34^  Ruth  4'  [AapTijpcov  is  used  in  a  different  grammatical  rela- 
tion but  in  the  same  sense.  In  i  Sam.  9^^,  Prov.  29'^,  Hos.  2^-,  Mic.  7'', 
zlq  yLapxuptov  is  found,  due  to  a  mistranslation  but  probably  intended 
by  the  translator  in  the  same  sense. 

So  here  the  rust  is  the  visible  sign  and  symbol  of  the  real 

state  of  the  case — of  the  perishability  of  riches  and  hence  of 

the  certain  ruin  awaiting  those  who  have  no  other  ground  of 
hope. 

Others  take  s.lq  [jiapTuptov  to  mean  "for  witness  of  your  rapacity" 
(see  above  on  a^aTjxsv)  or  "of  your  own  coming  destruction."  The 
latter  view  corresponds  with  that  which  takes  the  perfects  a^uYjicev  /.xX. 
in  a  future  sense  as  prophetic  of  the  Judgment. 

v}xlv,  "to  you,"  "giving  you  proof  of  the  facts." 

This  is  better  suited  to  the  context  than  "against  you,"  viz.  in  the 
judicial  process  of  the  Last  Day.  Cf.  Enoch  96*  for  parallel  to  this 
latter. 

(f)dyeTai  Ta<i  adpKa<;  v/jlcov,  "shall  consume  your  fleshly  parts," 
i.  e.  "the  perishability  of  your  riches  will  be  your  ruin,"  "you 
and  your  riches  will  perish  together."  The  idea  is  of  rust  cor- 
roding, and  so  consuming,  human  flesh,  like  the  wearing  into 
the  flesh  of  a  rusty  iron  chain — a  terrible  image  for  the  disas- 
trous results  of  treating  money  as  the  reliance  and  the  chief 
aim  of  life.     For  a  somewhat  similar  turn,  cf.  Ecclus.  34(3 1)^ 

ip^YETat  is  used  as  future  of  saGiM  in  LXX  and  N.  T. 

ea6((i)  is  found  in  secular  writers  of  the  devouring  of  a  fire  (Horn.  //. 
xxiii,  182),  the  eating  of  a  sore  (^sch.  Philoctdes,  fragm.),  the  effect  of 
caustics,  and  the  like. 


V,  3  28; 

crapK-a?.  The  plural  is  used  from  Homer  down,  also  by  Attic 
writers  and  Plato,  in  a  sense  not  distinguishable  from  that  of 
the  singular.  So  Lev.  2629,  2  Kings  9^6,  4  Mace.  15^^  Rev.  lyi^ 
igi*-  ",  Lk.  24"  (Tischendorf). 

0)9  wvp  ed-qaavpiaare,  ''since  you  have  stored  up  fire,"  i.  e. 
the  fire  of  Gehenna.  There  is  a  play  in  the  word  idrjaavptaare 
{cf.  vv.  ^^■),  as  in  Mt.  6" ;  cf.  a  curiously  similar  play  in  Ecclus. 
29".  Prov.  16"  aPTjp  dcfypcov  opvacrei  eavra  KaKo,^  eivX  he  ro)V 
eairrov  'x^eiKeoiv  drjaavpi'^ec  irvp.  On  the  fire  of  hell,  cf.  Is. 
30",  Judith  i6i^  Mt.  522,  and  see  P.  Volz,  Jiidische  Eschato- 
logie,  pp.  280  /.  285  /. ;  W.  Bousset,  Die  Religion  des  Juden- 
tunis^,  p.  320. 

On  w?  with  the  meaning  "since,"  see  Lex.  s.  v.,  I,  4,  b.  (not 
quite  adequate),  L.  and  S.  s.  v.,  B,  IV. 

(Sx;  zup  would  more  naturally  be  connected  with  the  preceding  (so 
WH.  fng.),  cf.  Is.  30"  xal  t)  opY'^  xoO  6utAou  wi;  ■rcjp  eSexac.  But  this 
leaves  i^ricauplaaie  without  an  object,  which  is  impossible,  unless, 
indeed,  the  text  is  defective  and  a  word  has  dropped  out.  Windisch 
conjectures  opyTjv,  cf.  Rom.  2K  Syr  omits  wg  and  connects  xup  with 
the  following  sentence.  Latin  vt  and  vg  connect  with  the  preceding ; 
but  a  wide-spread  alteration  (Cod.  Amiat.,  not  Cod.  Fuld.)  has  relieved 
the  difl&culty  by  adding  tram  after  Ihesaurizasiis. 

Cf.  Mt.  6'^  19",  Mk.  10=',  Lk.  18",  Rom.  2^  6T]aaup(!^£t<;  aeotUTw 
dpY'Jlv  ev  ii[i.ig(f  6pY'0<;,  Prov.  i»'  (LXX),  2',  Tob.  4'  ee[j,a  -(xp  dyaObv 
6T)a3tup(^et<;  aeauT(p  et<;  ■f)[j.^pav  avaYXT)(;,  4  Ezra  6'  7"  "a  treasure  of 
works  laid  up  with  the  Most  High,"  Apoc.  Baruch  24',  and  Charles's 
note,  Test.  XII  Patr.  Levi  13=,  and  Charles's  note. 

eV  ia'x^a.TaLi;  T^juepat?,  i.  e.  "which  shall  be  in  the  last  days." 
The  last  days  are  the  days  of  judgment,  when  punishment  will 
be  awarded.  Cf.  the  same  phrase  in  2  Tim.  3^  and  (with  the 
article)  Acts  2^',  Didache  i6^ 

For  the  omission  of  the  article  with  a  superlative,  cf.  Winer-Schmiedel, 
§  19.  9.  Other  similar  phrases  are  xfj  saxaxYj  i)\xipq:  (Jn.  6"  '■,  etc.), 
lax<4xT]  upa  (i  Jn.  2"),  Iv  xatptp  eaxa'^tp  (i  Pet.  i^,  £x'  lax'i'^ou  xp^vou 
(Jude  18,  etc.) ;   see  Lex.  s.  v.  'iaxocioq,  i  and  2,  a. 

The  same  expressions  are  found  in  the  O.  T.,  cf.  Nimi.  24",  Deut.  4", 
Is.  2=  41",  Jer.  232",  Ezek.  38",  Dan.  2-',  Hos.  3^  4  Ezra  13". 

Other  interpretations  are  possible  for  the  last  sentence  of  v.  M 


288  JAMES 

(i)  With  the  punctuation,  as  above,  by  which  w?  TcOp  is  connected 
with  the  following,  w^  can  be  taken  in  the  sense,  "as,"  "as  it  were." 
But  this  is  less  forcible,  since  the  writer  who  wrote  the  preceding  and 
following  denunciation  would  not  be  likely  to  hold  back  from  the  out- 
and-out  threat  of  "fire." 

(2)  d)?  TuOp  can  be  connected  with  the  preceding  sentence,  and  IGtj- 
aaupiaaxs  made  to  begin  a  new  sentence  (so  A.V.,  R.V.,  WH.  mg.,  fol- 
lowing Old  Latin  and  Vg).  In  that  case  we  must  read:  "The  rust  of 
them  will  be  for  a  witness  and  will  eat  your  flesh  like  fire.  You  have 
laid  up  treasure  in  the  Last  Days,"  etc.  This  makes  a  fairly  suitable 
context  for  (oq  xOp.  But  the  following  sentence  is  left  mutilated,  for 
eBTjejaupiaare  requires  an  object;  and  the  sense  is  weakened.  Under 
this  interpretation  the  "Last  Days"  have  to  be  understood  as  already 
here. 

4.  As  an  example  of  the  way  in  which  the  rich  have  been 
treasuring  up  fire  for  themselves,  James  specifies  injustice  to 
farm  labourers,  a  conspicuous  form  of  oppression  from  early 
O.  T.  times  down.  Cf.  also  v.  ^.  Hermas,  Vis.  iii,  g'^,  has  many 
points  of  similarity. 

fXLdOo'ij  cf.  Deut.  24^^  au6r]iJ,epov  cnroScaaeLS  top  ixtaOov  avrov 
.  .  .  oTc  .  .  .  KaTa^orjaerai  Kara  crov  irpos  Kvpiov^  Lev.  ig^^, 
Mai.  3^  Tovs  airoaTepovvTas  ixiadov  jiiadoiTOv,  Ecclus.  31 
(34)2^-",  Tob.  4!^  Ps.-Phocylides,  19  ixiaOov  iioxOvcravrL  BiBov  • 

ipyaTwu,  "labourers,"  especially  used  of  farm  labourers. 

In  O.  T.  only  Wisd.  17",  Ecclus.  19'  40",  i  Mace.  3^  Ps.  94"  (Sym.). 
The  word  has  thus  almost  no  LXX  associations.  In  the  N.  T.,  beside 
this  passage  in  James  it  is  used  freely  by  Matthew  (six  times)  and  by 
Luke  and  Acts  (five  times) ,  and  four  times  in  the  Pauline  and  Pastoral 
epistles. 

ctfxrjadvTcap,  "reap."  Only  here  in  N.  T.  Cf.  Lev.  25",  Deut. 
2413,  Is.  175  3730,  Mic.  615. 

;y;c6pas,  "estates,"  "farms,"  cf.  Lk.  121^  2121,  Jn.  4^^,  Amos 
39.  10. 11,  2  Mace.  8^  E.V.  "fields"  suggests  too  small  a  plot 
of  ground ;  X^P^  means  not  a  fenced  subdivision  but  the  whole 
estate  under  one  ownership. 

a(f)vaT€p7]fxe^'o^,  "kept  back,"  an  appropriate  word,  rare  in 
Biblical  Greek.     Cf.  Neh.  g'^^ ;  used  intransitively  in  Ecclus.  14.^*. 


V,  3-5  289 

afpuatepTfj^Levog]  B*S- 
axsaTsprjtJLsvoc;]  B'AP  minnpi<". 
axooTspTjtJiivoi;]  KL. 

The  rare  word  found  in  B*t<  has  been  emended  to  a  more  familiar 
one,  c/.  Mai.  3^  Ecclus.  4'  296  31(34)". 

a(f)'  vfxwv,  "by  you,"  cf.  i^^  See  Lex.  s.  v.  cnro,  II,  2,  d.  bb. 
col.  sg^.  Cf.  Winer,  §  47  (Thayer's  translation,  p.  371),  Butt- 
mann,  §  147.  6  (Thayer's  translation,  pp.  325/.). 

Kpd^ei,  cf.  Deut.  241^;  Gen.  4i«  (blood  of  Abel),  iS^o*-  19" 
(sin  of  Sodom),  Enoch  47^  (prayer  and  blood  of  the  righteous). 

et9  TO,  a>Ta  Kvpiov  aafiacod,  cf.  Is.  5^  rjKovadr]  'yap  ek  ra  a>Ta 
Kvpiov  aa^aoid  raina  (i.  e.  the  aggressions  of  the  rich),  Ps.  i8^ 

Kvpiov  aajSacod,  "Lord  of  Sabaoth,"  "Lord  of  Hosts," 
riii<3^  mn\  This  term  originally  referred  to  Jahveh  as  the 
god  of  the  armies  of  Israel,  then  as  ruler  of  the  "hosts  of  heaven," 
i.  e.  the  stars  and  heavenly  powers.  In  LXX  usually  represented 
by  iravTOKpaTup  (see  Lex.  s.  v.),  but  in  all  cases  in  Isaiah  and 
in  nine  others  transHterated,  as  here  and  Rom.  g^a.  See  HDB, 
"Lord  of  Hosts,"  EB,  "Names,"  Smith,  DB,  "Sabaoth,"  San- 
day  on  Rom.  g^a.  The  term  is  here  used  (after  Is.  5*)  to  sug- 
gest the  almighty  power  and  majesty  of  Him  who  will  make  the 
cause  of  the  labourers  his  own,  so  in  3  Mace.  6^^ ' ■. 

5.  Your  luxurious  life  on  this  earth  is  nothing  in  which  you 
can  take  satisfaction,  it  is  but  the  preliminary  to  a  day  of 
punishment. 

Cf.  Lk.  i6"-3i  (Dives  and  Lazarus),  Lk.  62"  f-  12I6-21.  Cf. 
Enoch  98"  102  ^ 

iTpv(f)')](TaTe,  "you  have  lived  in  luxury,"  "lived  delicately" 
(R.V.).  Derived  from  dpvTVTQ),  to  "break  down,"  "enervate"  ; 
it  denotes  soft  luxury,  not  necessarily  wanton  vice.  Cf.  Neh. 
925  Kal  icpdjoaav  Kal  iveifKrjcxdricrav  kol  eknrdi'drjcrav  Kal  er- 
pv^rjcav,  Ecclus.  14'' ;  and  for  rpvcf)-)]  Lk.  7",  2  Pet.  2^^,  Ecclus. 
14!^  Cf.  Hermas,  Sim.  vi,  i^  Tpv(^(avTa  rjv  /cat  Xiav  (nrara- 
\SiVTa^  Lk.  16"  eu(f>paLv6iJLeuo<;  Kad''  rj/xepav  Xa/X7rp&)9. 

The  aorist  is  "constative"  or  summary  (cf.  J.  H.  Moulton, 
Prolegomena,  p.  109),  and  is  properly  translated  by  the  English 
perfect  (A.V.,  R.V.). 
19 


290  JAMES 

iirl  T)7?  77;?,  in  contrast  to  heaven,  or  the  next  world;  €i> 
riixepa  (T(f)ayr]<;  is  the  day  which  introduces  the  next  world.  Cf. 
Mt.  619. 

6(7 Trar aX T^crare, "  given  yourselves  to  pleasure."  R.V.  "  taken 
your  pleasure"  is  weaker  than  the  original,  and  not  so  good  as 
the  antiquated  "been  wanton"  of  A.V.  Cf.  i  Tim.  5^,  Ecclus. 
21". 

axaxaXav  is  a  less  literary  word  than  Tputpaw,  having  worse  associa- 
tions in  secular  use,  and  suggesting  positive  lewdness  and  riotousness. 
This  word  and  its  cognates,  axa'zakoq,  (jTztxToki),  y.axxaTzxxoc'kioy,  are 
each  used  a  few  times  in  LXX,  Sym.  and  "alii."  Cf.  Barn.  lo',  Varro 
ap.  Non.  p.  46.  12  spatula  cviravit  omncs  Veneri  vaga  piieros.  Hort,  pp. 
107-109,  assembles  many  instances  of  the  word  from  the  LXX  and 
other  sources. 

edpeypare  Tas  naphias  vfXMV  eu  rjixepa  a<f)ay7]s,  "you  have 
fattened  your  hearts  for  the  day  of  slaughter,"  This  declares, 
with  a  hard,  ironical  turn,  what  has  been  the  real  nature  of  the 
Tpv(pdv  and  (nraToXdv,  the  life  of  luxurious  pleasure;  it  is 
merely  a  fattening  of  the  ox  that  he  may  be  fit  for  slaughter, 

Cf.  Jer.  46^1  (ocfwep  ix6(T')(pL  airevToi  Tpec^ojxevoi^  Xen.  Mem. 
ii,  1^2  Te6pap.p.evrj  els  TroKvaapKiap,  Philo,  In  Flacc.  20  (Tvt la 
/XOL  Kal  TTOTa  Kaddirep  rots  dpenixaaLV  eVl  a^ayrjv  SiSorac, 

KapStas,  i.  e.  the  heart  as  the  seat  of  pleasures,  appetites, 
passions.  See  Lex.  s.  v.  KapSia^  2.  b.  8.  Cf.  Mt.  151^,  Lk.  21=**, 
Acts  14!^  Ps.  1041^,  Judg,  19^'  *,  Hermas,  Sim.  v,  3^, 

iv  riiJ.€pa  crcjiajris,  "for  (i.  e.  so  as  to  be  fat  in)  the  day  of 
slaughter."  On  this  use  of  eV,  cf.  i  Thess.  3^^.  The  rendering 
of  A.V,,  R.V.,  "a  day  of  slaughter,"  is  wrong,  cf.  Rom.  2^, 
I  Pet.  212.  The  article  is  omitted,  as  often  in  compact  prepo- 
sitional expressions,  Blass-Debrunner,  §  255.  Cf.  Jer.  12^  ad- 
poLcrop  avTovs  cos  irpo^ara  eis  cr(f)a'y)]P^  ayvLcrov  avTOvs  els 
i)fx€pap  a(f)ajris  avTMv,  ^o",  Is.  342-  ^,  Ezek,  2Il^  Ps,  44^2, 
Orac.  Sib.  v,  377-380.  The  Day  of  Judgment  is  meant.  Cf. 
Enoch  94^  "Ye  have  become  ready  for  the  day  of  slaughter," 
98'°  99«,  Jer.  2534. 

Many  interpreters  think  that  Iv  7);j.£p<?  afxyfic  must  refer  to  the  time 
in  which  e6p£<j;aTe  has  been  going  on.     Then  the  sense  will  be:  "You 


V,  5-6  291 

have  been  occupied  with  pampering  yourselves  in  the  very  day  when 
you  will  be  finally  cut  off."  But  this  is  unnecessary,  and  the  words 
become  less  pregnant  and  significant,  while  it  is  not  natural  to  speak  of 
the  present  time  as  if  the  Day  of  Judgment  itself  (near  though  it  may 
be)  had  already  come. 

£v  ^tiepi?]  BK*P  S3  mimi  ff  vg  boh. 

£V  ri[iip(xt<;]  A. 

wq  ev  T)[xep?]  K^KL  048  minnp'"  syr"*'  Cyr. 

A's  reading  is  unsupported  error.  The  prefixing  of  ox;  changes  and 
weakens  the  sense  because  of  failure  to  note  the  allusion  to  the  Day  of 
Judgment  in  iQixspo:  atpayfis-  This  reading  with  w>;  is  correctly  enough 
paraphrased  by  aeth  (ed.  Piatt)  id  qui  sagiftat  bovcm  in  diem  mactationis. 

6.  By  your  oppression  you  are  guilty  of  the  blood  of  right- 
eous men ;   do  you  not  find  them  your  enemies  ? 

KareSiKdaare,  "condemned."  Cf.  Mt.  la^- ^^^  Lk.  6".  The 
rich  are  judges,  or  at  any  rate  control  the  courts. 

e(^oj^eyo-aTe,  "murdered."  C/.  2"  4-.  Oppression  which  un- 
justly takes  away  the  means  of  life  is  murder.  Cf.  Ecclus.  4^ 
31(34)"-": 

apros  eTiSeoiJieuoiP  fco^  tttw^mv^ 
0  aToarepoJv  avrrjv  dvdpcoTros  aljxdTMV ' 
^vevoiv  TOP  irXrjaiov  6  d^ai,povjievos  avix^LOidiv 
Kol  iK'x^euv  at/itt  6  airocTTepcov  ixiaBov  fxicrdlov. 

Here,  however,  every  kind  of  cruel  conduct  leading  to  the 
death  of  the  poor  and  righteous  is  doubtless  meant,  including 
in  some  cases  actual  murder — whether  violent  or  judicial  (e.  g. 
the  execution  of  Stephen). 

Cf.  Enoch  9915  loo^  103I1-15,  Wisd.  2™,  Ps.  37^^  Is.  57S  Mt.  2335. 

Tov  SkaLOP,  singular,  representing  the  class. 

Cf.  Is.  3"''  "  571  (note  v.^  iperpvcfi'jaaTe),  Wisd.  2^-,  Enoch  95^. 
The  oppressed  and  the  righteous  are  evidently  the  same  persons. 
The  rich  here  are  not  thought  of  as  Christians.  Cf.  Amos  a^-  ^ 
51-  8^  where  the  poor,  the  oppressed,  and  the  righteous  are  the 
same. 

In  Lk.  23",  Acts  3'^  7==  231^  i  Jn.  2'  {cf.  i  Pet.  3I8),  0  Stx,atoq  is  used 
of  Christ,  cf.  Enoch  38-  53".  It  is  not,  however,  likely  that  Christ 
would  here  be  referred  to  so  vaguely,  although  his  death  might  natu- 


292  JAMES 

rally  be  included  in  the  writer's  mind  under  IcpoveiaaTs.  The  attack  is 
upon  the  rich  as  a  class,  and  their  misdeeds  are  thought  of  as  character- 
ising their  whole  history.  Mt.  23"  is  an  excellent  parallel;  cf.  also  the 
reproaches  in  Acts  751-53. 

ovK  avTLTdaaeraL  vfxiv -^  "does  not  he  (sc.  6  SiKaios)  resist 
you?" 

avTLTciacreTaL  {cf.  Jas.  4"^,  i  Pet.  5^  Rom.  13^,  Acts  i8^  Prov. 
3")  evidently  relates  to  a  highly  formidable  resistance,  and 
probably  the  witness  of  the  poor  at  the  Day  of  Judgment  is 
meant.    Cf.  Enoch  91^^  (and  Charles's  note)  98^^  104^. 

In  Hos.  i«  dvTtTacCTEaSat  is  contrasted  with  sXesIv,  to  "show  mercy"; 
in  Prov.  3'*  with  Stoovat  %aptv,  "be  favourably  inclined."  It  seems 
to  be  used  of  active  opposition  or  resistance,  not  of  a  merely  hostile 
attitude.     So  Esther  3^,  Prov.  3'^  4  Mace.  16=3  (Cod.  t^). 

Other  interpretations  of  v. «  are  to  be  rejected  : 

(i)  If,  with  many  interpreters,  oux  avrtxaaffsxat  is  taken  as  a  positive 
statement  instead  of  a  question,  it  must  probably  refer  to  the  dehber- 
ate  non-resistance  of  the  righteous  on  principle,  as  in  Is.  53',  i  Pet.  2-^. 
But  (a)  this  sense  is  wholly  unsuited  to  the  context,  (b)  the  asyndeton 
after  St'xatov  then  becomes  well-nigh  impossibly  violent,  and  (c)  to  end 
this  powerful  passage  of  triumphant  denunciation  with  a  brief  reference 
to  the  submissive  non-resistance  of  the  righteous  would  be  strange  in- 
deed. 

(2)  For  this  last  reason  the  view  that  the  meaning  is,  "he  offers  you 
no  effective  resistance,"  is  almost  equally  unacceptable. 

(3)  Hofmann  and  others  take  ivTixiaaeToet  as  impersonal  passive, 
"no  opposition  is  made,"  cf.  v.  ^K  But  (Mayor)  "it  is  the  middle,  not 
the  active,  which  means  to  resist." 

(4)  Some  interpreters  would  supply  6  Oso?  as  the  subject  of  avTitaa- 
o£Tat,  taking  the  latter  interrogatively.  This  would  be  in  accord  with 
the  Jewish  avoidance  of  the  name  of  God  wherever  possible,  and 
would  form  an  allusion  to  4' ;  but  it  seems  here  unnecessary  and  un- 
natural.   

In  the  interest  of  this  last  interpretation  Bcntley  conjectured  OKC 
for  OYK ;   like  most  N.  T.  conjectures,  it  is  unnecessary. 

(5)  By  those  who  take  xbv  Bfxatov  to  refer  to  Jesus  Christ,  oix  dtvTt- 
z&aaezai  is  interpreted  either  interrogatively,  as  a  warning  of  the  Day 
of  Judgment  (cf.  Mt.  25"  ' ),  or  affirmatively,  in  the  light  of  i  Pet.  2". 

7-11.  Encouragement  to  patience,  and  constancy,  and  to  mu- 
tual forbearance,  in  view  of  the  certainty  and  nearness  of  the  Com- 


V,  6-7  293 

ing  of  the  Lord,  and  in  view  of  the  great  examples  of  the  prophets 
and  Job,  and  of  their  reward. 

With  V.  ^  begin  the  Counsels  for  the  Christian  Conduct  of 
Life,  which  occupy  the  rest  of  the  chapter  and  are  contrasted 
with  the  censure  of  Worldliness  in  4^-5  ^ 

7.  naKpodviJLijaaTe,  "be  patient."  This  word  has  more  the 
meaning  of  patient  and  submissive,  vTo^xeueiv  that  of  stead- 
fast and  constant,  endurance.  But  the  two  words  are  nearly 
synonymous.  Cf.  i''-^'  5",  Col.  i"  3''  (with  Lightfoot's 
notes),  I  Cor.  i^'-  ^  2  Cor.  6^-  «,  Heb.  6"f- '',  2  Tim.  3".  See 
Trench,  Synonyms,  §  liii. 

lAaxpoOutietv  is  rare  in  secular  Greek,  but  is  common  (as  verb,  noun, 
and  adjective)  in  the  LXX,  partly  with  reference  to  God's  attribute 
of  long  suffering  (c.  g.  Ps.  86'^,  partly  in  passages  commending  the 
virtue  to  men,  e.  g.  Prov.  19",  Ecclus.  29',  Baruch  4"  -rlxva,  [Aotxpo- 
Ou^JL-^aaTe  (suffer  patiently)  t'Jjv  icctpoi:  tou  Osou  IxeXOouaav  ufAlv  opyrjv- 

Enoch  961'  '  97^-^  1031-5  are  good  parallels,  combined,  as  they 
are,  with  the  series  of  Woes  to  which  vv.^-^  are  so  closely  similar. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  the  evil  and  hardship  which  are  to  be 
borne  with  patience,  and  which  call  out  groans  (v.  '),  are  not 
necessarily  persecution,  or  unjust  oppression,  but  may  well  be 
merely  the  privations,  anxieties,  and  sufferings  incident  to  the 
ordinary  life  of  men.  Note  the  reference  to  the  example  of 
Job  (whose  misfortunes  were  grievous  sickness  and  the  loss  of 
children  and  property),  and  the  special  precepts  about  conduct 
in  sickness,  vv.  ^*  ^■.  Notice  also  KaKOTradet,  v.  ^^  a  general 
word  for  being  in  trouble. 

ovv  presents  the  exhortation  as  a  direct  corollary  from  the 
declaration  in  vv.  ^-®  that  judgment  awaits  the  rich ;  but  the 
paragraph  as  a  whole  is  related  to  the  main  underlying  thought 
of  4^-5^,  not  exclusively  to  5^-®.     Cf.  2  Thess.  i^-  \ 

aBe\(f)oij  possibly  in  contrast  to  ol  irXovaioi^  v.  ^ 

T7}s  irapovaias  tov  Kvptov,  "the  coming  of  the  Lord."  Cf. 
Mt.  243.  -'■  ",  39^  I  Thess.  3'3  41^  5^3,  2  Thess.  2\  2  Pet.  i»«  t,\ 
I  Cor.  is-\  I  Thess.  2^\  2  Thess.  2»,  i  Jn.  2'-\  cf.  Mk.  i4«2. 

TOV  Kvplov  refers  to  Christ,  cf.  i^  2^  5",  2  Pet.  3^-. 


294  JAMES 

The  word  xapouaia  is  found  but  five  times  in  the  LXX  (Neh.  2« 
(Cod.  A),  Judith  lo's,  2  Mace.  8'-  15=',  3  Mace.  3"),  and  until  the  N.  T. 
wc  do  not  find  it  used  with  reference  to  the  Messiah  at  all.  Nor  does 
God's  coming  to  redemption  and  judgment  appear  to  be  referred  to  in 
Jewish  sources  by  this  term.  Its  natural  associations  in  such  use  are 
with  the  "advent,"  or  visit  (xapojat'a),  of  Greek  kings  to  the  cities  of 
their  realm;  c/.  Deissmann,  Licht  vom  Osten-,  pp.  278  _^.,  Light  from  the 
Ancient  East,  pp.  372  J'.,  and  especially  Brooke's  full  note  on  i  Jn.  2-^. 

Test.  XII  Patr.  Jud.  22-,  sax;  irjq  xapouai'ai;  6eo0  zijc;  Btxatoaiivrj^ 
is  probably  a  Christian  addition ;  it  is  not  found  in  the  Armenian  ver- 
sion. It  refers  to  Christ  with  the  naive  patripassianism  characteristic 
of  these  interpolations.  The  quotations  given  by  Spitta  (p.  137)  from 
the  Testament  of  Abraham  are  of  Christian  origin,  and  refer  to  the 
TCotpouat'a  of  Christ  (cf.  Schiirer,  GJV,  §  32,  V,  6). 

iSov  6  7ecop7os. 

"The  farmer  has  to  wait,  and  to  be  patient" ;  a  comparison 

used  as  an  argument,  and  introduced  abruptly,  as  in  2^^  3*-  '". 

This  comparison  does  not  bear  any  special  relation  to  the  occu- 

^/  pation  of  the  readers.     0  yecopyos   refers  to  the  independent 

t   farmer,  not  to  the  ipydrrjs. 

We  are  here  reminded  of  the  parables  of  the  Gospels,  where  the  con- 
summation of  all  things  is  repeatedly  compared  to  a  harvest,  e.  g.  Mt. 
^  I  13'°;  cf.  also  Ecclus.  6",  Ps.  1268'  «.     For  the  thought,  cf.  (Wetstein) 

Tibullus,  ii,  6.  21/.  and  the  apocryphal  fragment  quoted  in  Clem.  Rom. 
23'-=  and  2  Clem.  Rom.  ii^-*. 

Tov  TijJLLOv  KapiTov,  "the  precious  crop"  for  which  he  longs. 
TifXLOs  is  added  in  order  to  make  the  comparison  complete. 

ctt'  avTa>,  "over  it,"  "with  reference  to  it." 

Cf.  the  use  of  eVl  with  TrapaKoKelv^  "console,"  in  2  Cor.  i*, 
I  Thess.  3^,  and  with  fxeravoetp,  2  Cor.  12^1;  also  the  more 
general  use,  Jn.  12^^,  Rev.  22^^. 

€(os  \dfirf  sc.  0  Kap-wos.  So  R.V.  A.V.  and  R.V.  mg.,  with 
some  interpreters,  supply  "the  farmer"  as  subject. 

xp6'ttAov]  B  048  (minnpa"")  vg  sah. 

u£Tbv  xpoc'tiov]  AK  (LP  minnpis"')  syrp^'i"  syr>><:i'»t. 

xapxbv  Tbv  xp6t[i.ov]  S*(S''  om  -rdv)  min  ff  syrtcimg  boh. 

The  shortest  reading  is  to  be  preferred ;  the  others  represent  two  dif- 
ferent methods  of  completing  a  supposedly  defective  text.  It  should  be 
Stated  that  B^KL  minnp'""'  read  xpwitJiov,  the  more  usual  fornj  of  the  word, 


V,  7  295 

Another  possibility  would  be  that  the  Syrian  reading  with  uexov, 
which  clearly  gives  the  best  sense,  is  original;  and  either  (i)  that  ustov 
was  accidentally  omitted,  so  as  to  produce  the  text  of  B,  and  by  a 
secondary  conjecture  (xapicov)  that  of  t>,  or  else  (2)  that  for  uexov, 
not  understood  outside  of  Palestine  and  Syria,  xapxov  was  directly 
substituted,  so  that  the  editor  of  the  text  of  B,  having  to  choose 
between  two  rival  readings,  cut  the  knot  by  refusing  to  accept  either. 
But  against  this  stands  the  weight  of  the  external  testimony  to  the 
omission,  together  with  the  argument  from  the  shorter  reading.  In 
any  case  the  reading  xapxov  is  secondary. 

irpoinov  Kal  6\pLixov  sc.  verou,  "the  early  and  late  rain."  On 
the  ellipsis,  to  which  there  is  no  complete  parallel,  cf.  3". 

To  fill  the  ellipsis,  xapxov  is  sometimes  supplied  from  the  preced- 
ing (so  many  interpreters  from  Cassiodorius  to  Spitta),  and  then  the 
reference  will  perhaps  be  to  the  succession  of  barley  and  wheat,  Ex.  9"  f  • ; 
cf.  Stephanus,  Thesaur.  s.  v.  %giii\x.oc,;  Geoponica,  i,  12".  37^  with  similar 
distinction  of  01  ■KpMiiJ.ot  xapxol  xal  ol  o<\iv^of.  ...  01  Zk  [liaoi ;  Xen. 
CEc.  i7«. 

The  sentence  would  then  mean,  "until  he  receive  it  early  and  late," 
and  would  emphasise  the  continuance  of  the  farmer's^anxiety  until  all 
the  harvests  are  complete.  But  this  does  not  well  suit  the  comparison 
with  the  Parousia,  where  it  is  the  event  itself,  not  the  completion  of  a 
series  of  processes,  that  is  significant.  Moreover,  the  O.  T.  parallels 
tell  strongly  against  this  interpretation,  and  there  is  no  evidence  that 
such  a  distinction  had  any  place  in  popular  usage. 

The  use  of  these  terms  for  the  two  critical  periods  of  rain  is 
found  in  Deut.  ii^S  Jer.  52",  Joel  2^3,  Zech.  iqi  (LXX)  ;  cf.  Jer. 
33,  Hos.  6^.  The  comparison  is  drawn  from  a  matter  of  in- 
tense interest,  an  habitual  subject  of  conversation,  in  Palestine, 

The  "early  rain"  normally  begins  in  Palestine  in  late  October  " 
or  early  November,  and  is  anxiously  awaited  because,  being 
necessary  for  the  germination  of  the  seed,  it  is  the  signal  for 
sowing.  In  the  spring  the  maturing  of  the  grain  depends  on 
the  "late  rain,"  light  showers  faUing  in  April  and  May.  With- 
out these  even  heavy  winter  rains  will  not  prevent  failure  of  the 
crops.  Thus  the  farmer  is  anxious,  and  must  exercise  [xaKpo-  .• 
6viJ.La,  until  both  these  necessary  gifts  of  Heaven  are  assured. 

The  special  anxiety  about  these  rains  seems  to  be  character- 
istic of  the  climate  of  Palestine  and  southern  Syria,  as  distin-  i 


296  JAMES 

guished  from  other  portions  of  the  subtropical  region  of  the 
Mediterranean  basin.  Elsewhere,  although  the  dry  season  and 
rainy  season  are  quite  as  well  marked,  the  critical  fall  and 
spring  months  are  pretty  certain  to  secure  a  sufficient  rainfall, 
as  in  Italy,  or  else  there  is  no  hope  of  rain  in  them,  as  in  northern 
Egypt  in  the  spring.  But  in  Syria  these  rains  are  usual  yet 
by  no  means  uniform  or  certain ;  hence  only  there  do  they 
take  so  prominent  a  place  in  the  life  and  thought  of  everybody. 
See  J.  Hann,  Handhuch  der  Klimatologie^,  iii,  191 1,  pp.  90-96, 
especially  the  instructive  tables,  pp.  12/.,  93  ;  H.  Hilderscheid, 
"Die  Niederschlagsverhaltnisse  Palastinas  in  alter  und  neuer 
Zeit,"  in  Zeitschrift  des  Deutschen  Paldstinavereins,  xxv,  1902, 
especially  pp.  82-94 ;  E.  Huntington,  Palestine  and  Its  Trans- 
formation, 191 1 ;  EB,  "Rain." 

It  is  instructive  to  observe  that  the  v.  I.  uexov  belongs  to  the  "  Syrian" 
(Antiochian)  text,  the  framers  of  which  were  familiar  with  a  similar 
climate,  while  in  Egypt  x.apx6v  (S  boh,  etc.)  or  else  the  shorter  reading 
with  no  noun  at  all  (B  sah)  was  prevalent.  The  reading  xapxov  (or 
the  corresponding  interpretation)  was  hkewise  natural  from  the  point 
of  view  of  Italy  and  the  western  Mediterranean  (ff  Cassiodorius). 

The  question  arises  whether  this  may  be  a  purely  hterary 
allusion,  drawn  from  the  O.  T.  passages  and  made  without  any 
personal  knowledge  of  these  rains  and  their  importance.  That 
is  made  unlikely  by  the  absence  of  any  other  relation  here 
(apart  from  the  names  of  the  two  rains)  to  the  language  or 
thought  of  any  one  of  the  O.  T.  passages.  The  author  uses  a 
current  phrase  as  if  he  were  himself  familiar  with  the  matter 
in  question.  To  suppose  that  to  him  and  his  readers  this  was 
a  mere  BibUcal  allusion  to  a  situation  of  which  they  knew  only 
by  literary  study  would  give  a  formal  stiffness  and  unreality 
to  the  passage  wholly  out  of  keeping  with  the  intensity  and 
sincerity  of  the  writer's  appeal. 

The  resemblance  here  to  the  O.  T.  is  in  fact  less  close  than 
to  the  tract  Taanith  of  the  Mishna,  where  the  date  is  discussed 
at  which,  if  rain  have  not  yet  begun,  it  should  be  prayed  for. 
The  tract  shows  in  many  ways  how  deeply  these  seasons  of  rain 
entered  into  all  the  life  of  the  people.     See  also  JE,  "Rain." 


V,  y-io  297 

The  Apostolic  Fathers  and  the  apologists  contain  no  reference 
to  these  terms  for  the  rains  of  Palestine,  and  the  names  do 
not  seem  in  any  way  to  have  become  part  of  the  early  Christian 
religious  vocabulary. 

8.  'v'ctt,  as  often  in  comparisons.  Cf.  Jn.  6",  Mt,  6^^,  i  Cor. 
15",  Phil,  i^o;  ouTcos  K'at,  Jas.  i^^  3^. 

(TTrjpL^areras  KapSias  vjjlmp,  "make  your  courage  and  pur- 
pose firm."  Cf.  I  Thess.  t,^^,  Ps.  112*,  Ecclus.  6^'  22^^,  Judg. 
iq5,  8_  (XTTjpL^eLu  is  common  in  N.  T.,  cf.  i  Pet.  5",  2  Thess.  2^^, 
Lk.  2232,  Acts  i823,  Rom.  i",  etc. 

TJyyiK€v,  cf.  I  Pet.  4^  Mk.  i^^,  Mt.  32. 

9.  iJirf  arevd^ere  Kar  aXkrfKoiv^  "do  not  groan  against  one 
another."  (Treva^eiv  does  not  mean  "murmur,"  but  "groan," 
"complain  of  distress,"  cf.  Heb.  13'".  It  is  frequently  used 
in  the  LXX  for  the  utterance  of  various  kinds  of  pain  and 
grief. 

The  more  emphatic  words  here  are  Kar  aXkrfKmv,  and  the 
sentence  means:  "Do  not  blame  one  another  for  the  distress  of 
the  present  soon- to-be-ended  age."  This,  it  is  pointed  out,  is 
both  wicked  (tva  /jlt)  KpLdrjTe)  and  needless  (IBoi)  6  Kptr^s  vrpo 
TMU  dvpoiv  edTrjKev).  We  ought  to  cultivate  patience  in  general, 
and  we  ought  not  to  blame  one  another  for  our  unmerited  dis- 
tress, for  we  should  recognise  that  it  is  part  of  the  inevitable 
and  temporary  evil  of  the  present  age. 

The  translation  "grudge"  (A.V.)  means  "complain";   cf.  Ps.  59" 
(A. v.),  Shakespeare,  i.  Henry  VI,  iii,  i,  176. 

lua  p.7)  KpLdr]T€.  They  are  themselves  in  danger  of  judgment, 
if  they  commit  the  sin  of  complaining  of  their  brethren.  Cf. 
212  f.  ^12  ^12^  also  Mt.  7^  (but  there  is  here  in  James  nothing  of 
the  idea  that  judging  brings  Judgment).  As  in  4^^,  so  prob- 
ably here,  God  is  the  judge,  and  with  the  coming  of  the  Lord 
{i.  e.  Christ),  v.  ^  God's  judgment  appears;  cf.  Rom.  2^^ 

The  sentence  means  hardly  more  than  "for  that  is  wrong," 
cf.  v.  12. 

irpo  Twv  Bvpoiv^  cf.  Mk.  1329,  Mt.  24", 

10.  vTToSeLjfxa  Xd^ere^  "take  as  an  example."    Cf.  Ecclus. 


298  JAMES 

44^^  2  Mace.  62»'  ^i^  4  Mace.  i7-\  Jn.  13^^;  i  Pet.  2^1,  vToypa/jL- 

flOP. 

rrjs  KaKoiradias  hcal  rrjs  jiaK pod vjjl {as,  "of  hardship  coupled 
with  patience,"  i.  e.  "of  patience  in  hardship,"  easily  understood 
as  a  form  of  hendiadys. 

Cf.  4  Mace.  9^  Sta  rrjaSe  Trjs  KaKowadlas  Kal  vTrofxovrjs, 
"through  this  patient  endurance  of  hardship." 

KaKoiradia  and  KaKoirade'co  are  somewhat  rare  words;  they 
correspond  well  to  English  "hardship."  Cf.  Mai.  i^^,  Jonah  4^0, 
2  Mace.  2^6  f-,  Ep.  Arist.  492s,  also  Sym.  in  Gen.  3'',  Ps.  12^  16^ 
127^ 

Toiis  xpo^T^ras.  Cf.  Mt.  5^2  2334,  37^  ^cts  7^2,  Heb.  ii^^, 
I  Thess.  2i^  Lk.  11  "9,  2  Chron.  361". 

It  is  noteworthy  that  the  example  of  Christ's  endurance  of 
suffering  is  not  here  referred  to,  as  it  is  in  i  Pet.  2^1  »-. 

oi  i\ci\7]aav  iu  ra  opofxari,  KvpCov.  Cf.  Dan.  9^  (Theod.)  ot 
iXdXovu  iu  rm  ouofxari  aov,  Jer.  20'  44^^.  0?  iXdXrjaav  kt\.  is 
added  in  order  to  point  out  that  even  the  most  eminent  ser- 
vants of  God  have  been  exposed  to  suffering  and  hardship, 
cf  Mt.  512. 

Iv  Tw  6v6|j.aTi]  BP  minn""'*'. 

ev  6v6[j.a-i'.]  t<. 

Ixl  TM  ovoixaxt]  rain. 

T(p  6v6[j.aTt]  AKL  048  minnp'"''. 

DiflScult  to  decide ;  external  authority  is  here  against  lectio  brevior. 

11.  fxaKapi^ofxeu  tovs  viroyiiivavTas.  Cf.  i^-  ^-,  Dan.  12^2 
IxaKapcos  6  vTro}x4v(jdv,  4  Mace,  i^''  722,  dhm  otl  to  hia  ttjv 
apeTrjv  Tcivra  ttovov  virop.eviiv  jxaKcipiov  ianv,  Mt.  241^. 

(xaKapi'^ofxev  refers  to  the  prevalent  habitual  estimate  of  the 
worth  of  constancy.  It  sounds  as  if  James  had  in  mind  some 
well-known  saying  like  Dan.  1212. 

rovs  viro/jLeipavras,  "  those  who  have  proved  themselves  con- 
stant"— a  general  class,  not  specific  individuals. 

toiIk;  u%o\ielvaYVxz]  BJ^AP  minn  ff  vg  syrpe^''-'":!. 

Touc;  b%o[Livovx(z<;]  KL  048  minnp''^"'  sah. 

External  evidence  rau^t  decide ;  the  nieaning  differs  by  only  a  shade. 


V,  lO-II  299 

Tr]v  vTVOnovr)P  'Ift)/3. 

This  virtue  was  seen  in  Job's  refusal  to  renounce  God,  Job  \  o 
1 21  f-  2^  *•  13^*  16^^  192^  *f-.  It  had  evidently  already  become  a  ' 
standing  attribute  of  Job  in  the  popular  mind ;  in  Tanchuma, 
29.  4  (Schottgen,  Home  hebraicae,  pp.  1009/.)  Job  is  given  as  an 
example  of  steadfastness  in  trial  and  of  the  double  reward  which 
that  receives.  Cf.  Clem.  Rom.  17'  26^,  2  Clem.  Rom.  6^;  this 
verse  is  the  only  mention  of  Job  in  the  N.  T.,  and  has  doubtless 
given  rise  to  the  modern  saying,  "as  patient  as  Job." 

rJKOv(TaTe.     Perhaps  in  the  synagogue;  cf.  Mt.  ^^^-  2^-  ^^-  ^^-  ", 

TO  reXos  Kvpiov,  "the  conclusion  wrought  by  the  Lord  to 
his  troubles."  Cf.  Job  4210-1%  especially  v.  12  6  Se  Kvpios  ev- 
Xo7?;cre  to,  ea'x^ctTa  'IwjS. 

•ub  T^Xo<;  xupi'og  is  taken  by  Augustine,  Bede,  and  many  later  inter- 
preters to  mean  the  death  of  Christ.  But  in  that  case  not  the  mere 
death,  but  the  trimnph  over  death,  would  have  had  to  be  made  promi- 
nent. The  suggestion  is  at  variance  both  with  what  precedes  and  with 
what  follows ;  and  the  death  of  Christ  is  not  likely  to  be  introduced 
so  ambiguously.  "If  xfkaq  is  supposed  to  refer  to  the  Resurrection 
and  Ascension,  the  main  point  of  the  comparison  (suffering)  is  omitted : 
if  it  refers  to  the  Crucifixion,  the  encouragement  is  wanting"  (Mayor). 

ziXoc,  sometimes  means  "death,"  as  Wisd.  3",  cf.  2''  [xaxapt^st 
I'axa'^at  Stxat'wv.     But  it  is  not  necessary  to  give  it  that  meaning  here. 

ecSere,  i.  e.  in  the  story  of  Job.  Cf.  Heb.  319,  Test.  XII 
Patr.  Benj.  4^  tSere  ovv^  reKva  fxov.  rod  ayadov  avSpbs  to  reXos 
(i>.  I.  eXeos). 

To\v(nr\a'y'xy6s  ecxTiv  6  Kvpios  KaX  olKTipfxcov. 

Cf.  Ps.  103'*  (note  v.  '  ovk  els  TeXos  opyiadrjaeTai),  11 1* 
145*,  Ex.  34^,  Ecclus.  2'-",  Ps.  Sol.  lo^,  Test.  XII  Patr.  Jud.  19% 
Zab.  g'. 

T:^'k(i^'£k(x-^y\oq  means  "very  kind."  Apart  from  far  later  Chris- 
tian use  (c.  g.  Theod.  Stud.  p.  615,  eighth  century)  it  is  elsewhere  found 
only  in  Hermas,  Sim.  v,  7<,  Mand.  iv,  3.  Cf.  izo'kuaTz'Ka-^xyix,  Hermas, 
Vis.  i,  32,  ii,  28,  iv,  2',  Mand.  ix,  2,  Justin  Mart.  Dial.  55;  luoXusua- 
icXotYX^o?,  Hermas,  Sim.  v,  4^ ;  xoXusuaxXaYx^'ot,  Hermas,  Sitn.  viii,  6'. 

It  seems  to  be  equivalent  to  LXX  icoXuiXeoq.  Like  other  words  from 
axXiyx^^  (o^'rOl)  it  must  be  of  Jewish  origin.  This  group  of  words 
is  rather  more  strongly  represented  in  the  N.  T.  than  in  the  LXX,  and 
seems  to  have  come  into  free  popular  use  in  the  intervening  period. 


300  JAMES 

oIktlphwv,  "merciful."  In  classical  Greek  only  a  poetic 
term  for  the  more  common  iXeij/jLcav  (Schmidt,  Synonymik  der 
griech.  Sprache,  iii,  p.  580).  Frequent  in  the  LXX  for  D''Ipni ; 
nearly  always  used  of  God ;  in  the  majority  of  cases  combined 
with  ekerjixoiv.     Cf.  Lk.  6^^ 

12-18.  Do  not  break  out  into  oaths.  Instead,  if  in  distress, 
pray  ;  if  well  of,  sing  a  psalm  to  God ;  if  sick,  ask  for  prayer  and 
anointing,  and  confess  your  sins.  Prayer  is  a  mighty  power ; 
remember  Elijah's  prayer. 

The  exhortation  relating  to  oaths  appears  to  be  parallel  with 
1X7]  arevd^ere.  "Do  not  put  the  blame  for  your  hardships  on 
your  brethren :  do  not  irreverently  call  upon  God  in  your  dis- 
tress." Vv.  ^2'^*  all  relate  to  the  religious  expression  of  strong 
emotion. 

12.  Trpo  iravTOiv  8e,  "but  especially,"  emphasising  this  as 
even  more  important  than  ixrj  arevd^ere. 

For  the  use  of  this  formula  near  the  end  of  a  letter,  cf.  i  Pet. 
4^,  and  see  examples  from  papyri  quoted  in  Robinson,  Ephe- 
sians,  p.  279. 

Hrj  oixviiere.  A  reminiscence  of  Mt.  5^^-"  (note  especially 
V.  "  and  the  reference  to  ovpavos  and  7^  in  vv.  ^*  *•). 

Tov  ovpavov.  The  accusative  is  the  ordinary  classical  con- 
struction after  ojjlvvijLL-^  eV  with  the  dative,  as  found  in  Mat- 
thew is  a  Hebraism. 

^Vco,  for  eVrco.  See  references  in  Lex.  and  Winer-Schmiedel, 
§  14.  I,  note;  also  Mayor's  note,  p.  167,  J.  H.  Moulton,  Pro- 
legomena, p.  56. 

7]T(j)  Be  vjxSiv  TO  val  vaC,  "let  your  yea  be  yea"  (and  nothing 
more). 

This  is  simpler,  and  in  every  way  better,  than  to  translate,  "Let 
yours  be  the  'Yea,  yea,'"  i.  e.  the  mode  of  speech  commanded  by  the 
Lord  in  Mt.  5". 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  James  had  in  mind  any  question 
of  the  lawfulness  of  oaths  in  a  law-court  in  a  Jewish  or  Chris- 
tian country.  To  any  oriental  such  a  saying  as  this,  or  Mt.  5", 
would  at  once  suggest  ordinary  swearing,  not  the  rare  and 


V,   II-I2  301 

solemn  occasions  about  which  modern  readers  have  been  so 
much  concerned. 

The  commentators  are  divided  on  this  point.  Huther  (Beyschlag) 
names  many  who  hold  that  James  meant  to  forbid  all  oaths,  but  a 
still  larger  number  who  think  that  only  frivolous  swearing  was  in  his 
mind.  Huther's  own  argument  is  that  if  he  had  meant  to  forbid  se- 
rious oaths  he  would  have  had  to  mention  exphcitly  the  oath  by  the 
name  of  God. 

The  form  here  differs  from  that  of  the  saying  in  Mt.  5"  earo) 
Be  6  X070S  vfXMv  pal  vai^  and  it  is  a  singular  fact  that  the  words 
of  Jesus  are  quoted  substantially  in  the  form  found  in  James 
by  many  early  writers,  including  Justin  Martyr,  Apol.  i,  16, 
Clem.  Alex.  Strom,  v,  14,  99,  p.  707,  vii,  11,  67,  p.  872. 

The  form  in  James  is  simpler  and  seems  to  correspond  to  a 
current  Jewish  mode  of  describing  truthfulness.  Similar  lan- 
guage is  found  in  Ruth  rabba  3,  18,  "With  the  righteous  is  their 
'yes,'  yes,  and  their  'no,'  no,"  ascribed  to  R.  Huna  (f  297  a.d.), 
quoting  his  contemporary  R.  Samuel  bar-Isaac,  and  doubtless 
independent  of  the  N.  T. 

The  fact  probably  is  that  at  an  early  date  the  text  of  Mt.  5" 
was  in  the  East  either  modified  or  misquoted  by  the  influence 
of  the  more  familiar  current  phrase,  which  also  appears  in 
James.  In  the  later  quotations,  however,  direct  influence  from 
Jas.  51-  is  very  likely  to  have  come  in.  The  theory  that  we  have 
here  in  James  and  in  these  early  writers  the  traces  of  an  oral 
form  of  the  sayings  of  Jesus  preserved  independently  of  Mat- 
thew's Greek  gospel  is  unlikely,  and  unnecessary.  For  a  con- 
venient presentation  of  the  facts,  see  A.  Resch,  Aussercanonische 
Paralleltexte  zu  den  Evangelien,  ii,  Matthaeus  und  Marcus,  1894 
(Texte  und  Unters.  x),  pp.  96/. 

The  commonness  of  oaths  (often  half-serious,  half-profane)  in  daily 
speech  in  the  ancient  world,  both  Jewish  and  Gentile,  does  not  need 
to  be  illustrated,  cf.  Eccles.  9=.  The  censure  of  the  moralists  seems  to 
have  proceeded  both  from  the  tendency  to  untruthfulness  which  made 
an  oath  seem  needed  (and  which  it  intensified) ,  from  the  dishonest  dis- 
tinctions between  the  valid  and  the  invalid  oath,  and  from  the  irrever- 
ence of  profanity  (Philo,  De  decal.  19  ^ue-uat  yap  ex  xo'Kuopv.ixq  ijieu- 


302  JAMES 

SopxJa  y.ct\  iae^eta).  To  these  motives  should  be  added  the  dread 
among  the  Greeks  of  an  oath  which  might  commit  to  unexpected  ob- 
ligations perhaps  tragic  in  their  result. 

From  Jewish  sources  there  are  consequently  many  sayings  recom- 
mending either  complete  abstinence  from  swearing  or  at  least  the 
greatest  possible  restriction  of  the  custom.  Thus  Ecclus.  23'-'!  27X. 
Philo  discusses  oaths  in  De  decal.  17-19,  and  De  spec.  leg.  ii,  1-6.  His 
principle  is  that  oaths  are  to  be  avoided  when  possible,  that  oaths 
should  be  taken  by  lower  objects  ("the  earth,  the  sun,  the  stars,  the 
universe")  rather  than  by  "the  highest  and  eldest  Cause,"  and  he 
praises  the  man  who  by  any  evasion  (cf.  English,  "Oh  My!")  avoids 
the  utterance  of  the  sacred  words  of  oaths.  His  abhorrence  of  oaths 
is  due  to  their  profane  impiety  and  unseemliness,  but  he  also  lays  stress 
on  truthfulness  and  on  the  wickedness  of  false  swearing  and  of  swear- 
ing to  do  wrong. 

Rabbinical  teaching  was  to  much  the  same  effect,  with  varying  de- 
•^ '  grces  of  rigour.  Nedarim  20  a,  "Accustom  not  thyself  to  vows,  for 
sooner  or  later  thou  wilt  swear  false  oaths";  Midrash  Bemidbar  r. 
22,  "Not  even  to  confirm  the  truth  is  it  proper  for  one  to  swear,  lest 
he  come  to  trifle  with  vows  and  swearing,  and  deceive  his  neighbour 
by  oaths"  ;  Midrash  Wajjikra  r.  6  {cf.  Shebuoth  47  a),  where  all  swear- 
ing is  forbidden.  See  A.  Wiinsche,  Ncue  Beitrdge  zur  Erldiiterung  der 
Evangelien  aiis  Talmud  und  Midrasch,  1878,  pp.  57-60,  and  E.  Bischoff, 
Jesus  und  die  Rabbinen,  1905,  pp.  54-56. 

In  particular  the  Essenes  refrained  from  oaths;  Josephus,  BJ,  ii,  8^: 
I  "  Every  statement  of  theirs  is  surer  than  an  oath ;  and  with  them  swear- 
ing is  avoided,  for  they  think  it  worse  than  perjury.  For  they  say  that 
he  who  is  untrustworthy  except  when  he  appeals  to  God,  is  already 
under  condemnation,"  cf.  Ant.  xv,  io<.  Philo,  Quod  omn.  prob.  liber,  12, 
mentions  among  the  doctrines  of  the  Essenes  ih  dvw{j.0Tov,  xb  d<^euMq. 

Similar  reasons  led  to  the  discouragement  of  oaths  by  Greek  moral- 
ists. Pythagoras  himself  is  said  (Diog.  Laert,  Pythag.  22,  Jamblichus, 
Vita  Pythag.  9  and  28)  to  have  taught  (jlyjS'  6[jLv6vat  Qzodq,  daxetv  yap 
aurbv  Secv  dt^tdxtaxov  Tcotpsxetv,  and  this  was  certainly  a  principle  of  the 
Pythagoreans.     See  also  Diodor.  Sic.  x,  fragm.  9^ 

From  the  Stoic  side  comes  the  saying  of  Epictetus,  Enchir.  33%  opxov 
•rcapxfxTjaat,  et  jjiev  olov  xe,  ec's  aicav,  s\  SI  \Lri,  ex.  xwv  evovxwv,  and  that  of 
the  Stoically  influenced  Eusebius,  in  Stobseus,  Anthol.  iii,  27,  13  o\ 
xoXXol  xoi?  dcvBpwxoiat  xb  suopxoui;  elvat  auxots  xapatvdouaiv,  eyo)  SI  xotl 
xb  ipZ'^v  tJiTjS'  euitexlox;  ©(xvuvat  oaiov  d-iuotpafvoixat. 

For  other  Greek  sayings,  cf.  Choerilus  of  Samos  (fourth  century  B.C.), 
Spxov  S'  oux'  dtStxov  xpewv  6fjivuvat  oCxe  Stxatov  (in  Stobaeus,  Anthol. 
iii,  27,  i);  Menander,  Sail.  sing.  441  opxov  SI  <peuYe  xal  Stxat'ws  xa- 
Sfxtoi;;  the  statement  of  Nicolaus  Damascenus  (Stob.  Anth.  iv,  2,  25), 
•i'puYe'i    opxot?  oij   xpwvxat,    oiix'    6[ji.viivte?,    ou'xe    t^XXoui;    s^opxouvxs?; 


V,  12-13  303 

Sosiades*  maxims  of  the  Seven  Sages,  in  Stobaeus,  Anlhol.  iii,  i,  173 

5pX(,)  [AT)  xpw- 

See  R.  Hirzel's  excellent  monograph,  Der  Eid,  1902 ;  L.  Schmidt, 
Die  Ethik  dcr  alien  GriecJien,  1882,  ii,  pp.  i-ii;  references  in  Mayor 
and  Wetstein  on  Mt.  5";   Stobaeus,  Anlhol.  iii,  c,  27  Ilepl  opxou. 

With  early  Christian  writers  the  objection  to  oaths  was  further  in- 
creased by  reason  of  the  necessary  association  with  heathen  worship 
and  formulas.  The  subject  is  discussed  by  TertuUian,  Clement  of 
Alexandria,  Chrysostom,  Augustine.  See  references  in  Mayor,  K.  F. 
Staudlin,  Geschichte  der  Vorstellungen  and  Lehren  vom  Eide,  1824, 
"Oaths,"  in  DC  A. 

iva  fxr)  vTTo  KpicTLV  ireffTjTe^  cf.  v.  ^,  with  the  same  meaning. 

(ixh  xptutv]  BSA  minn  ff  vg  boh  sah  syr"f. 

dq  xpt'atv]  minn=. 

et?  uxoxpiatv]  KLP  048  minn'""'''. 

The  reading  of  KLP  is  a  superficial  emendation. 

13-15.  The  negative  precepts  for  behaviour  under  the  trials  \ 
of  earthly  existence  (m^  crevd^eTe  Kar  aWi^Xcov^  ixrj  oiivvere) 
are  followed  by  positive  precepts  for  the  conduct  of  life  in  the 
shifting  scenes  of  this  world.  In  trouble  and  joy,  and  in  sick- 
ness, the  first  thought  and  the  controlling  mood  should  be 
Prayer. 

13.  Ka/co7ra0et  Tts ;  "is  any  in  trouble?"  Cf.  note  on  ^■a- 
KoiraQias,  v.  1° ;  the  word  refers  to  calamity  of  every  sort, 
and  is  not  to  be  limited  to  the  opposite  of  eWvixCa. 

These  short  sentences,  with  question  and  answer,  are  characteristic 
of  the  diatribe;   cj.  Teles,  ed.  Hense^,  p.  10.     See  Introduction,  p.  12. 

evOvfxel  Tts;  "is  any  in  good  spirits?"  evdvtxtlv^  evOvjiia 
are 'not  found  in  LXX,  evdvidos  only  in  2  Mace.  11 28,  In  the 
N.  T.  they  are  found  elsewhere  only  in  Acts  241"  27^2-  25,  36 — [^ 
both  cases  in  passages  of  a  distinctly  Hellenic  character. 

rpaWero}^  "let  him  sing  a  hymn." 

Cf.  Eph.  519,  Rom.  159,  I  Cor.  14.'^;  \pa\iJi6s,  i  Cor.  1426,  Eph. 
519,  Col.  3i«. 

Properly  "play  the  harp,"  hence  frequent  in  0.  T.,  especially  in 
Psalms  (forty  times),  for  nrr,  "sing  to  the  music  of  a  harp,"  e.g. 
Ps.  7"  98^.  But  the  word  does  not  necessarily  imply  the  use  of  an 
instrument. 


304  JAMES 

14.  acrdeuei  rts  ;  "is  any  sick?"  Cf.  Mt.  io»,  Jn.  4*^,  Acts 
9^',  Phil.  226  £., 

rovs  Trpecr/Si/repofs  rf/s  iKK\7]<Tias,  definite  oflEicers,  not  merely 
the  elder  men  in  general,  cf.  Acts  20^'. 

Presbyters  as  church  oflSicers  are  mentioned  in  the  N.  T.  in  Acts  1 1 3° 
1423  151,  6.  22,  23  i64  201'  2111,  I  Tim.  5^-  2.  17.  19  (?)^  Tit.  I^  i  Pet.  s'^, 
2  Jn.  I,  3  Jn.  I.  Jewish  villages  also  had  presbyters.  On  the  origin 
and  history  of  the  Christian  office  of  presbyter,  see  EB,  "Presbyter," 
"Bishop,"  "Ministry";  HDB,  "Bishop,"  "Church,"  "Church  Govern- 
ment," "Presbytery." 

The  solemn  visit  here  described  gives  a  vivid  picture  of  the  customs 
of  a  Jewish  town.  James  recomm^ends  it  not  as  anything  new,  nor  as 
J  excluding  all  other  therapeutic  methods.  Visiting  the  sick  (cf.  Mt.  25") 
was  enjoined  by  the  rabbis:  Nedarim  39,  "He  who  visits  the  sick 
lengthens  his  hfe,  and  he  who  refrains  shortens  it" ;  cf.  Sanhedrim  loi,  i 
(Wetstein),  where  R.  Elieser  is  visited  in  sickness  by  four  rabbis ;  Shab- 
bath  127b;  Sota  14  a.  See  Edersheim,  Jewish  Social  Life,  pp.  167  /. ; 
S.  Schechter,  Skidies  in  Judaism,  second  series,  Philadelphia,  1908, 
pp.  99/.  and  note  42,  p.  311. 

The  following  interesting  passages  have  been  brought  to  the  atten- 
tion of  N.  T.  scholars  by  the  aid  of  Dr.  S.  Schechter  (see  Fidford,  St. 
James,  pp.  117/.):  Samachoth  Zutarti  (ed.  Chaim  M.  Horowitz, 
Uraltc  Tosefta's,  Mainz,  1890,  pp.  28-31),  "From  the  time  when  a  man 
takes  to  his  bed,  they  come  to  him  and  say,  'Words  neither  revive  one, 
nor  do  they  kill. '  [After  exhorting  the  sick  man  to  set  his  worldly  affairs 
in  order,  as  Isaiah  did  Hezekiah,  2  Kings  201,  if  he  sees  that  the  sick 
man  is  dangerously  ill,  the  visitor  says],  'Confess  before  thou  diest,  for 
there  are  many  who  have  confessed  and  died  not ;  others  who  did  not 
confess  have  died.  Again  perhaps  on  the  merit  of  thy  confession  thou 
wilt  recover.'  If  he  can  confess  with  his  mouth,  he  does  so.  If  not, 
he  confesses  in  his  heart.  Both  the  man  who  confesses  with  his  mouth 
and  the  man  who  confesses  in  his  heart  are  alike,  provided  that  he 
directs  his  mind  to  God  and  his  understanding  is  clear."  T.  B.  Shab- 
bath  13  b,  "He  who  comes  to  a  sick  man  says,  'May  the  Lord  have 
mercy  on  you.'"  "He  who  comes  to  pay  a  visit  to  a  sick  man  must 
not  sit  on  a  bed  or  on  a  chair;  but  let  him  wrap  his  mantle  round  him, 
and  pray  the  mercy  of  God  for  the  man.  There  is  a  divine  presence 
at  the  head  of  the  sick  man." 

Closely  like  the  verse  in  James  is  Baba  bathra  116  a,  "Let  him  into 
whose  house  calamity  or  sickness  has  come,  go  to  a  wise  man  (/.  c.  a 
rabbi)  that  he  may  intercede  for  him  with  God." 

iKKKy]aias,  cf.  note  on  avvayiioynv,  2^,  and  EB,  "Church." 
irpoffev^dadoio-au.     Cf.  Ecclus.  38"-  ^\ 


V,  14  305 

akei^avTes  eXato),  cf.  Mk.  G^l 

The  aorist  participle  does  not  imply  that  the  anointing  is  to 
precede  the  prayer ;  cf.  Burton,  Aloods  and  Tenses,  §§  139-141 ; 
Blass-Debrunner,  §  339 ;   Moulton,  Prolegomena,  pp.  130-132. 

The  Jews,  as  well  as  other  ancient  peoples,  used  oil  as  a  common 
remedial  agent.  In  many  cases,  doubtless,  the  application  had  thera- 
peutic value;  often,  however,  in  the  lack  of  scientific  knowledge  it 
must  (like  many  other  remedies,  ancient  and  modern)  have  owed  its 
efficacy  wholly  to  influence  on  the  patient's  mind.  Cf.  Is.  i^  Lk.  lo^S 
and  the  evidence  collected  by  Mayor;  and  see  "Oil"  and  "Anointing," 
in  EB,  and  HDB.  Galen,  Med.  letup,  ii,  calls  oil  "The  best  of  all  rem- 
edies for  paralysis  (irol<;  i^t]p(x\j.[i.iwiq  %a\  auxt^wSeai  autxajtv)," 

Talm.  Jems,  in  Berakoth  3.  i,  "R.  Simeon,  the  son  of  Eleazar,  per- 
mitted R.  Meir  to  mingle  wine  and  oil  and  to  anoint  the  sick  on  the 
Sabbath.  And  he  was  once  sick,  and  we  sought  to  do  so  to  him,  but 
he  suffered  us  not."  Tahn.  Jerus.  in  Maasar  Sheni  5,3.  3,  "A  tradition  : 
Anointing  jon  the  Sabbath  is  permitted.  If  his  head  ache,  or  if  a  scall 
comes  upon  it,  he  anoints  it  with  oil."  Talm.  Bab.  in  Joma  77.  2,  "If 
he  be  sick,  or  scaU  be  upon  his  head,  he  anoints  according  to  his  man- 
ner." Talm.  Jerus.  in  Shab.  14.  3,  "A  man  that  one  charmeth,  he 
putteth  oil  upon  his  head  and  charmeth." 

With  these  Jewish  ideas  may  be  compared  the  notion  of  the  oil  which 
flows  from  the  tree  of  life  in  paradise  and  bestows  physical  and  spiritual 
blessings  (Apoc.  Mos.  9,  Vita  Adae  et  Evae  36,  Evang.  Nicod.  19). 

This  use  of  oil  for  heahng  was  combined  with  the  appeal  to  spiritual 
forces,  as  we  can  see  in  Jas.  5^^  and  as  is  hinted  in  Mk.  6''.  The  refer- 
ence in  James  is  to  an  accepted  popular  custom,  and  the  writer  would 
hardly  have  been  able  to  distinguish  the  parts  played  in  the  recovery 
by  the  two  elements,  or  perhaps  even  to  give  any  theory  of  the  function 
of  the  oil.  It  is  possible,  as  has  often  been  suggested,  that  one  motive 
for  James's  exhortation  is  to  counteract  the  habit  of  seeking  aid  from 
superstitious,  often  heathenish,  incantations  and  charms.  The  verse  is 
often  quoted  to  that  end  by  later  Christian  writers  (see  references  ^w/ra). 

The  same  therapeutic  use  of  oil  {oleum  infinnorum)  in  combination 
with  reUgious  rites  continued  in  the  earlier  centuries  of  the  Christian 
era,  and  is  there,  as  among  the  Hebrews,  carefully  to  be  distinguished 
from  that  anointing  {oleum  cateckutnenorum,  chrisma  principale,  etc.) 
which  was  the  symbol  of  the  conveyance  of  a  character  or  grace. 

The  story  told  by  Tertullian  {Ad  Scapulam,  4)  is  often  quoted : 

"Even  Severus  himself,  the  father  of  Antoninus,  was  graciously 
mindful  of  the  Christians;  for  he  sought  out  the  Christian  Proculus, 
sumamed  Torpacion,  the  steward  of  Euhodias,  and,  in  gratitude  for 
his  having  once  cured  him  by  anointing,  he  kept  him  in  his  palace  till 
the  day  of  his  death." 


io6  JAMES 

Besides  this  case  Puller,  Anointing  uf  the  Sick,  has  collected  a  large 
number  of  narratives  of  cures  through  the  administration  of  holy  oil, 
written  at  various  dates  from  the  third  to  the  seventh  century,  and  at- 
tested by  contemporary  or  nearly  contemporary  evidence.  Many  of 
theiri  are  cases  of  paralysis  or  blindness,  and  may  weU  have  been  of  an 
hysterical  nature  (see  P.  Janet,  The  Major  Symptoms  of  Hysteria,  1907). 
During  this  period  of  church  history  it  does  not  appear  that  the 
therapeutic  anointing  with  oil  was  generally  thought  of  as  also  hav- 
ing spiritual  efficacy.  Origen,  Horn,  ii  in  Levit.  4,  uses  the  passage  in 
James  to  illustrate  the  remission  of  sin  through  penitence,  but  seems 
to  pay  no  attention  to  the  reference  to  anointing.  Likewise  Chrysos- 
tom,  De  saccrd.  iii,  6,  quotes  James  to  prove  the  authority  of  priests 
to  forgive  sins,  but  seems  to  take  no  thought  of  the  anointing.  Other 
writers  also  make  it  plain  that  they  think  of  the  oil  merely  as  a  means 
of  securing  bodily  health. 

The  value  in  the  Christian  church  of  such  a  popular  substitute  for 
pagan  magic  was  felt  at  this  time.  Cyril  of  Alexandria,  De  adorat. 
in  spir.  et  ver.  vi,  p.  211,  urges  his  readers  to  avoid  the  charms  and 
incantations  of  magicians,  and  fittingly  quotes  Jas.  5'^"'S  and  likewise 
Caesarius  of  Aries  more  than  once  quotes  the  verses  on  occasions  when 
he  is  warning  his  people  against  the  common  recourse  to  sorcerers  and 
superstitions,  instead  of  which  he  recommends  the  consecrated  oil.  Cf. 
Append,  serm.  S.  Augustini,  serm.  265,  3,  Migne,  vol.  xxxix,  col.  2238, 
and  serm.  279,  5,  col.  2273;  also  the  Venerable  Bede,  Exposit.  super  div. 
Jacob,  epist.,  Migne,  vol.  xciii,  col.  39. 

From  the  fourth  century  on  there  are  Greek  and  other  oriental  litur- 
gies containing  forms  for  blessing  the  holy  oil,  for  instance  in  one  of  the 
oldest,  the  Sacramentary  of  St.  Serapion  (fourth  century,  Egypt),  ed. 
Brightman,  Journal  of  Theol.  Studies,  i,  1899-1900,  pp.  108,  267/. 

The  Latin  forms  are  to  the  same  effect.  During  these  centuries  the 
therapeutic  use  of  oil  consecrated  by  a  bishop  or  a  priest  or  a  wonder- 
working saint  was  permitted  to  any  person  without  distinction.  The 
letter  of  Pope  Innocent  I  to  Decentius  {Ep.  25,  8,  Migne,  vol.  xx,  cols. 
560/.),  dated  March  19,  416,  says  that  sick  believers  "have  the  right  to 
be  anointed  with  the  holy  oil  of  chrism,  which,  being  consecrated  by 
the  bishop,  it  is  lawful  not  for  the  priests  only,  but  for  all  Christians 
to  use  for  anointing  in  case  of  their  own  need  or  that  of  members  of 
their  household." 

Before  the  end  of  the  eighth  centurj^,  however,  a  change  came  about 
in  the  West,  whereby  the  use  of  oil  was  transformed  into  an  anoint- 
ing of  those  about  to  die,  not  as  a  means  to  their  recovery,  but  with  a 
view  to  the  remission  of  their  sins,  and  in  connection  with  the  giving 
of  the  viaticum.  How  far  the  change  in  the  church  may  have  been  in- 
fluenced by  coexisting  popular  customs  and  ideas,  which  now  forced 
themselves   into  legitimate  usage,  is  not  known.     For  instance,  Ire- 


V,  14  307 

liaeus,  i,  21^,  says  that  the  gnostic  Marcosii  anointed  the  dying  with 
oil  and  water  as  a  protection  of  their  souls  against  the  hostile  powers 
of  the  spirit-world. 

In  any  case  this  history  shows  the  transformation  of  a  wide- 
spread popular  practise,  having  religious  associations  but  purely  me- 
dicinal aims,  into  a  strictly  religious  rite,  limited  to  priestly  adminis- 
tration and  carefully  ordered  with  fixed  forms  and  estabhshed  rules. 
The  \vithdrawal  of  the  rite  from  the  sphere  of  popular  medicine  was 
doubtless  fundamentally  due  to  the  advancing  control  of  rational  in- 
telligence in  the  affairs  of  the  church  and  to  a  sound  progress  in  re- 
ligious conceptions.  It  was  felt  that  religious  observances  should  have 
a  spiritual  purpose.  But  by  retaining  the  physical  element,  and  ascrib- 
ing to  it  spiritual  efficacy  ex  opcre  operato,  there  was  brought  about  a 
different  and  more  far-reaching  intrusion  of  the  physical  into  the  sphere 
of  the  religious. 

The  sacrament  of  Extreme  Unction  is  first  mentioned  by  name  as 
one  of  the  seven  sacraments  of  the  church  in  the  twelfth  century.  It 
was  fully  discussed  by  the  schoolmen,  and  received  authoritative  defini- 
tion in  the  decree  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  which  declares  that  holy 
unction  of  the  sick  was  estabhshed  as  a  sacrament  by  Christ  our  Lord, 
"  implied  {insiniiatmn)  in  Mark,  and  commended  and  promulgated  to 
the  faithful  by  James  the  Apostle  and  brother  of  the  Lord"  (Sess.  xiv, 
Doctrina  dc  sacr.  extr.  unct.  cap.  i).  Since  that  time  such  a  view  as 
that  of  Cardinal  Cajetan,  that  James  does  not  refer  to  the  sacramental 
anointing  of  extreme  unction  {"nee  ex  verbis  nee  ex  efeetu  verba  haec 
loqimnlur  de  sacramentall  imctione  extremae  unctionis,"  Co7nment.  in 
ep.  S.  Jacobi,  dated  1539),  has  been  illegal  in  the  Roman  church. 

In  the  Greek  church  the  mystery  of  anointing  (euxsXacov)  has  re- 
tained in  part  its  original  purpose  as  a  therapeutic  process,  and  is  ad- 
ministered to  the  sick  while  there  is  still  hope  of  recovery.  In  the 
Russian  use  the  recovery  to  health  is  the  chief  point,  with  the  Greeks 
the  main  emphasis  is  on  the  forgiveness  of  sins. 

F.  Kattenbusch,  "Olung,"  in  Herzog-Hauck,  PRE,  1904;  F.  W. 
Puller,  Tkc  Anointing  of  the  Sick  in  Scripture  and  Tradition,  =1910; 
"Oil"  and  "Unction,"  in  DCA. 

ev  Tw  ov6p.aTi  tov  KvpLov.  Belongs  with  aKeCypavres,  "  anoint- 
ing with  oil  with  the  use  of  the  name";  see  Heitmiiller,  Im 
Namen  Jesu,  1903,  pp.  86/.  The  use  of  ''the  name"  made 
this  anointing  a  partly  religious  act  and  not  a  merely  medicinal 
application. 

Tou  xupiou]  B  omits.  This  is  probably  an  error,  but  on  "the  Name," 
with  no  genitive,  cj.  3  Jn.  7,  Acts  $",  Lev.  24",  2  Clem  Rom.  13  (and 
Lighlfoot's  note),  Ign.  Eph.  3  (and  note),  Pirkc  Aboth,  iv,  7,  cJ.  Jas.  2'. 


3o8  JAMES 

15.  r)  evxn.  The  prayer  is  the  more  important  part  of  the 
process,  but  of  course  is  not  thought  of  as  exclusively  oper- 
ative.    Intercessory  prayer  was  a  familiar  idea  to  Jews. 

eijX"n  is  elsewhere  in  the  N.  T.  used  of  a  vow.  In  secular  Greek,  vow 
and  prayer  are  in  many  cases  not  easily  distinguished ;  eux'O  has  there 
the  meaning  "wish"  also.  In  the  LXX  it  means  "vow"  in  the  vast 
majority  of  cases,  but  in  Prov.  158.  29  has  the  sense  of  "prayer."  eu'xotAac 
is  regularly  used  for  "pray"  as  well  as  "vow." 

rrjs  TTto-recos,  cf.  i®. 

aaxret,  i.  e.  restore  to  health,  cf.  Mt.  9^1  f-,  Mk.  6^^  Diod. 
Sic.  i,  82  Kciv  [oi  larpol]  aSvuaTTjacoaL  awcrai  top  KaixvovTa. 

Some  interpreters,  both  Protestant  scholars  (as  von  Soden)  and 
Catholic  (as  Trenkle),  have  given  this  the  meaning  "save  to  eternal 
life,"  while  others  have  tried  to  include  both  ideas.  But  the  natural 
meaning  of  the  word  in  this  context  is  decisive  (so,  among  Roman 
Catholics,  Belser). 

Tov  KcifxvoPTa,  "the  sick  man,"  cf.  acfOevel,  v.  ^*. 

xayivstv  is  common  in  secular  Greek  in  this  sense,  but  is  not  found 
in  LXX  nor  elsewhere  than  here  in  N.  T.  It  is  used,  e.  g.  of  gout  and 
of  disease  of  the  eyes  (xtSttxvscv  tou?  o^OaXfjiouq),  and  there  is  no  reason 
whatever  for  taking  -rbv  xitAvovcot  to  mean  "the  dying"  (von  Soden). 

iyepel.  The  word  means  "raise  from  the  bed  of  sickness 
to  health,"  and  is  a  virtual  repetition  of  awa-ei ;  cf.  2  Kings  4^^ 
Ps.  411°,  Mk.  i3i. 

•ifepel  cannot  refer  here  either  to  the  awakening  of  the  dead  to  Kfe 
or  to  the  resurrection. 

0  Kvpios.  If  TOV  KvpLOv,  V.  ^*,  is  genuine,  and  refers  to 
Christ,  0  Kvptos  may  have  the  same  meaning.  It  would  be 
more  natural  that  it  should  mean  "God." 

Kau^  "and  if,"  cf.  Mk.  i6i^  Lk.  13',  and  many  other  passages 
quoted  in  Lex.  s.  v.  xav. 

afxapTia^,  i.  e.  sins  which  have  occasioned  the  sickness. 

Sickness  was  generally  held  to  be  due  to  sin,  cf.  Mk.  2'=^-, 
Jn.  92  f-  S^S  I  Cor.  ir™,  Deut.  28^2.  27^  pg.  ^g,  Is.  38I',  Ecclus. 
j819-2i^  Nedarim,  fol.  41.  i,  "No  sick  person  is  cured  of  his  dis- 


V,  15-16  309 

ease  until  all  his  sins  are  forgiven  him,"  Test.  XII  Patr.  Rub. 
i\  Sim.  2^2,  Zab.  s\  Gad  s^^-. 

a^edrjaeraLj  impersonal  passive,  cf.  Mt.  7^' '',  Rom.  lo^",  Blass- 
Debrunner,  §  130,  Gildersleeve,  Syntax,  §  176.  This  seems  to  re- 
fer not  to  general  forgiveness  but  to  the  special  sins  in  question. 

16.   i^o/JLoXoyetade,  Tvpoaevx^c^d^. 

The  confession  is  by  the  sick,  the  prayer  by  the  well  for  the 
sick.  The  value  of  confession  is  as  an  expression  of  penitence, 
and  as  thus  furnishing  ground  for  the  others'  prayers.  On  con- 
fession in  Jewish  piety,  see  S.  Schechter,  Some  Aspects  of  Rab- 
binic Theology,  ch.  18,  and  on  the  history  of  confession,  see 
DC  A,  "Exomologesis,"  "Penitence,"  EB,  "Confess." 

ow,  since  this  is  the  method  of  securing  healing  (ottcos 
iadi)Te). 

aXK'q^oLS,  not  necessarily  restricted  to  the  presbyters. 

OTTCOS  iadfjTe  refers  to  bodily  healing,  as  is  clearly  shown  by 
the  context  {cf.  v.  ").  The  subject  of  ta^Tyre  is  "you  who  are 
prayed  for."  The  sick  persons'  own  prayers  for  themselves  are 
not  in  mind. 

SerjcTLs,  "prayer,"  with  especial  thought  of  petition,  common 
in  LXX  and  not  infrequent  in  N.  T.,  e.  g.  Phil.  i^'.  Cf. 
Trench,  Synonyms,  §  li,  Lightfoot  on  Phil,  4^,  Ellicott  on 
Eph.  6^^,  commentaries  on  i  Tim.  2*. 

Bi.K.alov,  cf.  V.  '^  rj  ev')(ri  tt/'s  iriCFreoiS,  1^  ^■. 

evtpyovixevT)^  "when  it  is  exercised,"  "exerted,"  "put  forth." 
The  meaning  is:  "A  righteous  man's  praying  has  great  effect 
when  he  prays."  The  participle  adds  but  little  to  the  sense; 
for  more  significant  participles  in  the  same  construction,  see  i^^ 

On  the  verb  evtpyelv^  see  J.  A.  Robinson,  St.  PauVs  Ep.  to 
the  Ephesians,  pp.  241-247,  Mayor,  ad  loc.  The  word  is  used 
intransitively  to  mean  "be  active,"  and  transitively  (as  here)  in 
the  sense  of  "effect,"  "carry  out,"  "do."  In  certain  instances 
in  Paul  (notably  i  Thess.  2^^,  2  Thess  2^,  2  Cor.  4^^,  Gal.  5^, 
Rom.  7^,  Eph.  32'',  cf.  2  Cor.  i^,  Col.  i^^)  it  is  used  in  the  passive, 
and  the  subject  is  an  agent  or  power,  which  is  "made  active," 
"set  at  work,"  "made  to  work."  This  is  a  step  beyond  the 
usual  meaning,  but  such  an  explanation  of  these  instances  is 


3IO  JAMES 

better  than  (with  Lightfoot)  to  take  them  as  middle,  which 
neither  accords  with  usage  nor  follows  inner  fitness. 

The  Greek  commentators  on  James  take  the  word  as  passive, 
in  the  sense  "being  made  effective."  This  is  thought  of  as 
accomplished  either  by  the  virtues  of  the  one  who  prays  or  by 
the  ensuing  good  conduct  of  him  for  whom  the  prayer  is  offered. 
Maximus  Confessor,  in  Qucestiones  ad  Thalassium,  57  (Migne, 
vol.  xc,  cols.  589-592,  also  Cramer's  Catena)  offers  both  ex- 
planations. "CEcumenius"  gives  only  the  latter,  as  does  Mat- 
thaei's  scholiast,  who  writes  crvvepyovixevri  vro  t?}s  tov  Seo- 
jxevov  [i.  e.  the  needy  man's]  <yu(oiJLi]s  Kal  Trpa^ecos.  Modern 
commentators  sometimes  interpret:  "when  actuated  by  the 
Spirit,"  but  it  is  not  legitimate  here  to  assume  this  altogether 
later  use,  from  which  the  term  energumen,  "possessed  person," 
comes.  Others  take  it  as  meaning  "made  active,"  "energised," 
and  so  as  about  equivalent  to  ivepyijs,  "effectual,"  or  eKrevrjs, 
''earnest."  But  the  writer  would  hardly  have  desired  to  re- 
strict the  power  of  a  righteous  man's  prayer  to  exceptional 
cases  where  it  showed  more  than  ordinary  intensity;  the  sen- 
tence owes  its  whole  force  to  being  an  unqualified  statement. 
Moreover  there  is  no  good  evidence  that  the  word  was  capable 
of  bearing  this  sense. 

The  Latin  ff  has  frequens,  vg  assidua,  Luther,  wenn  es  ernst- 
lich  ist.  Of  the  English  versions  Wiclif  and  the  Rhemish  fol- 
low the  Vulgate  with  "continual";  Tyndale,  the  Great  Bible, 
the  Geneva  version,  and  the  Bishops'  Bible  follow  Luther  with 
"fervent."  A.V.  has  the  combination  "effectual  fervent,"  * 
while  R.V.  (under  the  influence  of  Lightfoot)  takes  the  parti- 
ciple as  middle  and  translates  "in  its  working." 

17.  Vv.  1^  f-  confirm  by  the  example  of  Elijah  the  statement 
TToKv  i(T')(yeL. 

'HXems,  cf.  i  Kings  171  iSi-  "^ff.. 

The  importance  in  Jewish  popular  thought  of  Elijah's  rela- 
tion to  the  famine  is  illustrated  by  Ecclus.  481-^,  4  Ezra  7^'. 

Vv.  ^^'  ^*  are  dependent  on  midrashic  tradition  in  the  foUow- 

*  Lightfoot,  On  a  Fresh  Revision',  1891,  p.  203,  thinks  the  word  "effectual"  was  introduced 
by  inadvertence  from  a  note  in  L.  Tomson's  N.  T.  of  1376, 


V,  i6-i7  311 

ing  respects  (c/.  the  similar  dependence  on  Jewish  tradition  in 
Jas.  2"  511) : 

(i)  Elijah's  prayer  that  it  might  not  rain,  i  Kings  17^ 
speaks  only  of  a  prophecy.  The  idea  of  a  prayer  was  an  in- 
ference from  the  words,  "  God,  before  whom  I  stand,"  in  i  Kings 
17I;  note  also  the  prominence  given  to  Elijah's  prayer  in  his 
other  great  miracle,  i  Kings  i']'^'^--'^,  cf.  4  Ezra  7^^  This  embel- 
lishment followed  regular  Jewish  methods  of  interpretation ; 
e.  g.  the  Targum  to  Gen.  18^^  19-'  translates  "stood"  by  "min- 
istered in  prayer."  That  EUjah  procured  the  drought  is  di- 
rectly stated  in  Ecclus.  48*. 

(2)  The  period  of  "three  years  and  six  months."  The  same 
statement  is  made  in  Lk.  4^5  err]  rpia  koI  ixTjvas  e^,  and  is  found 
in  Jalkut  Shimoni,  fol.  32,  col.  2,  on  i  Kings :  "In  the  thirteenth 
year  of  Ahab  there  was  a  famine  in  Samaria  for  three  years  and 
a  half"  (text  in  Surenhusius,  BijSXos  KaraWayris,  Amsterdam, 
1713,  p.  681).  The  O.  T.  basis  for  this  midrash  was  i  Kings  18^ 
("many  days,"  "in  the  third  year").  Various  explanations  for 
the  precise  definition  of  three  years  and  sLx  months  are  sug- 
gested by  J.  Lightfoot,  Horae  hebraicae  on  Lk.  4-^,  and  by 
Surenhusius,  pp.  680-682.  For  other  Jewish  estimates  of  the 
length  of  the  drought,  cf.  Ruth  rabba  i,  4  (Wetstein),  "fourteen 
months,"  and  W.  Bacher,  Die  Agada  der  Tannaiten  tind  Amorder; 
Bibelstellenregister,  on  i  Kings  17^  i8K 

It  is  possible,  but  not  demonstrable,  that  the  apocalyptic  number  of 
the  half-week,  three  and  one-half,  may  have  had  influence  on  the  num- 
ber here;   cf.  Dan.  7"  12",  Rev.  ii-'  '■  '  i2«'  '^  I3^ 

(3)  V.  i«  Kal  ttoXlv  7rpoji]v^aTO  is  perhaps  justified  by  i 
Kings  18^-. 

oixoiOTtadrj'i  ^IXLV,  "suffering  the  like  with  us,"  i.  e.  "a  man 
like  us."  This  should  encourage  us  to  take  the  example  to 
heart,  and  is  perhaps  occasioned  by  the  current  tendency  to 
emphasise  superhuman  traits  in  Elijah;  cf.  Ecclus.  48^-22  for 
earlier,  and  JE,  "Ehjah,"  for  later  developments  in  that  direc- 
tion. 

TTpoaev^^  Tpoaijv^aro, " prayed  a  prayer."    It  was  the  prayer 


312  JAMES 

of  Elijah,  not  any  magic  wrought  by  a  superhuman  being, 
which  brought  about  the  noteworthy  result. 

xpoaeuxTJ  throws  into  relief  the  important  idea  of  the  sentence,  much 
as  in  the  classical  analogies  Y<4txw  YeYa^nQxcIx;,  "marry  in  true  wedlock," 
Demosth.  p.  1002,  12,  or  the  figurative  and  frequent  (peuystv  (puy^, 
"flee  with  all  speed,"  Plato,  Symp.  p.  195  B,  etc.  These  and  other 
examples  of  the_^gMra  etymologica  (some  of  which  are  also  given  in  the 
grammars)  are  to  be  found,  together  with  valuable  distinctions  and 
classifications,  in  Lobeck,  Paralipomena  grammaticae  grcecae,  1837,  pp. 
523-527.  Speaking  of  the  LXX  idiom,  which  he  does  not,  however, 
trace  to  its  source  in  the  Hebrew  infinitive  absolute,  Lobeck  says,  "hand 
aliena  ilia  ab  emphasis  ratione,  sed  aliena  tamen  a  Grcecorum  grcBcensiuni 
consuetiidine,"  that  is  (J.  H.  Moulton),  they  are  "possible,  but  unidio- 
matic"  expressions. 

In  the  LXX  the  idiom  is  much  overworked,  having  been  one  of  sev- 
eral convenient  methods  of  representing  the  Hebrew  infinitive  absolute ; 
cf.  Gen.  2^'  Oavaxo)  dcxoOavsTaOott,  Gen.  31^°  exiGu[Jn'qc  eictGuin^asti;  (so  Lk. 
22>5),  etc.,  etc.  Such  a  case  as  Jn.  3"  x^P?  X^^P^t  is  to  be  regarded  as 
imitative.  Acts  5 2'  xapaYyeXiqt  T:ixpr)'{fd'k(x[Lev  is  probably  a  transla- 
tion from  Aramaic. 

See  Blass-Debrunner,  §  198,  Buttmann,  §  133.  22,  Winer,  §  4,  §  44, 
Rem.  3,  §  54.  3,  J.  H.  Moulton,  Prolegomena,  pp.  75  /. 

It  may  well  be  that  James's  phrase  is  directly  or  indirectly  affected 

by  this  familiar  Biblical  idiom,  but  the  A.V.  "prayed  earnestly,"  R.V. 

"prayed  fervently,"  although  they  would  be  legitimate  translations  of 

a  corresponding  Hebrew  phrase,  introduce  into  this  Greek  verse  what 

'^      is  not  properly  to  be  found  there. 

Tov  fxr]  jSpe^at. 

The  infinitive  with  tov^  like  other  expressions  of  purpose  (cf. 
Phil,  i^  TrpoaevxojJ-o.t'  tVa),  is  often,  as  here,  reduced  to  the  force 
of  an  object  clause.  Cf.  i  Kings  i^'',  Is.  5^,  Acts  1520.  See  J. 
H.  Moulton,  Prolegomena,  pp.  216-218,  Blass-Debrunner,  §  400, 
Winer,  §  44.  4,  Buttmann,  §  140.  16. 

eirl  Tris  7?}s,  "on  the  earth,"  cf.  Lk.  4^5  eirX  irdaav  Trjv  yrjv^ 
Gen.  7'2  (of  the  flood)  eVt  rrjs  7?)?,  i  Kings  18^  eVt  Tpocrcoirop 
T7]S  yr]S. 

18.  KO.I  0  ovpavos  verop  ehoiKev.  For  verov  hihovai,  cf.  i 
Sam.  12",  I  Kings  iS^,  Acts  14",  in  all  which  cases  the 
subject  is  "God." 

For  similar  instances  of  the  efficacy  of  prayer  in  bringing  a 


severe  drought  to  an  end,  cj.  Jos.  Antiq.  xiv,  2^,  in  the  case 
of  Onias,  hkaios  koI  6eo(})L\i]s,  and  Epiphanius,  Hcsr.  Iviii 
(Ixxviii),  14,  in  a  story  of  James  himself. 

19,  20.  Conclusion.  Final  saying  on  the  privilege  of  being  in- 
strumental in  the  restoration  of  an  erring  brother  to  the  way  of 
triith. 

This  seems  to  be  a  general  appeal,  equally  related  to  all  the 
preceding  discussions  of  specific  tendencies  and  dangers.  As 
such,  it  forms  a  fitting  conclusion  and  gives  the  motive  of  the 
whole  tract. 

With  this  conclusion  Spitta  well  compares  that  of  Ecclus.  51 3". 

19.  a8e\(f)0i  jxov.  In  the  first  place  in  the  sentence,  as  else- 
where in  2^  only.  In  both  cases  there  is  an  abrupt  change  of 
subject. 

■jrXaurjdy,  "err,"  "wander." 

The  figurative  use  of  "wander"  and  "cause  to  wander,"  with  refer- 
ence to  "erring  from  truth  and  righteousness,"  is  common  in  the  O.  T. 
especially  in  the  prophets  and  Wisdom-literature.  Cf.  Wisd.  5^  sx- 
XaviQOY]tAev  axb  oSou  dXTjOet'ac;,  Is.  9'^  Ezek.  34^  to  xXava)[j.evov  oux  axsa- 
Tp|i|jotT£  {v.  I.  i%zaigi<\KX'ze) ,  etc.  Also  in  the  N.  T.,  cf.  Heb.  5=,  2  Pet. 
2>5,  2  Tim.  3",  Rev.  18^',  and  Polyc.  Phil.  6'  s'3naTp£(}!0vx£<;  idc  axoicex- 
XavT)[j,£va.  In  Test.  XII  Patr.  the  evil  spirits  are  called  •rcveutJ.aTa  xfiq 
■jcXavYjs,  and  Beliar,  their  chief,  is  6  apxtov  xr]?  Tc'k&yqq,  cf.  Charles's 
note  on  Test.  XII  Patr.  Rub.  2'. 

arb  Trjs  aXrjdeias,  cf.  1^^  3^^  and  notes. 

"The  truth"  is  here  the  whole  code  of  religious  knowledge 
and  moral  precept  accessible  to  the  members  of  the  Christian 
church.  To  err  from  it  means  any  departure  from  the  right 
path  in  thought  or  conduct.  Various  examples  of  such  erring 
have  occupied  the  attention  of  the  writer  throughout  his  epis- 
tles ;  here,  however,  grave  sin  (v.  ^o)  seems  to  be  chiefly  in  his 
mind. 

The  use  of  tj  dtXf)6eca  in  this  comprehensive  sense  is  not  founded  on 
the  O.  T.  nrs,  njirs,  which  ordinarily  mean  "stabihty,"  "faithful- 
ness," or  else  "conformity  to  fact,"  while  in  many  cases  in  the  O.  T 
"truth"  is  hardly  to  be  distinguished  from  practical  "righteousness," 


314  JAMES 

e.  g.  Hos.  4>.  Yet  in  Dan.  8'-  g'^  xal  rofj  auvtlvat  Iv  xitrn  dtXTf)6£t(j(  aou, 
and  the  Apocrypha,  rj  dXifi9eta  is  occasionally  employed  in  a  sense  more 
like  that  of  Greek  writers ;  so  Ecclus.  4=',  3  Mace.  416,  4  Mace.  5'". 

For  the  Greek  usage,  cf.  Dion.  Hal.  De  Thiic.  jud.  3,  ttj?  ytXoaocpou 
Oewpt'aq  axoxov;  Icttiv  t)  TTi<;  dXifjOefaq  yvwcjtg,  Plutarch,  Gryll.  p.  986  A 
nevbv  ayaObv  xaJ  sVowXov  ivxl  'z'qq  iXipziaq  Stwxwv. 

In  the  N.  T.  this  sense  of  "a  body  of  true  principles"  is  found  in 
Paul  (e.  g.  2  Thess.  210,  Gal.  5',  2  Cor.  42,  Eph.  42*),  often  in  John  (e.  g. 
8^2  1613  18",  I  Jn.  3"),  and  elsewhere.  Yet  even  here  the  influence  of 
the  O.  T.  is  to  be  seen  in  the  strong  moral  element  included  in  the  con- 
ception. The  truth  is  not  merely  an  object  of  knowledge,  as  in  secular 
usage,  but  a  moral  and  religious  ideal,  God's  revealed  will,  to  which 
the  loyalty  of  the  heart  must  be  given.  Cf.  Rom.  22°  s'xovtoc  ttjv 
[Jiopcpwffiv  TTJi;  yvwcrswq  xal  Trie;  dCkT\%Eiaq  sv  tm  v6[Xw,  Jn.  3^1  6  Ss  xottov 
TT)v  aXiTjOetav. 

See  Cremer,  Worterhuch  der  neutcst.  GracitdP,  1902,  s.  v,  aCkrfiziai., 
Wendt,  "  Der  Gebrauch  der  Worter  aXifjOsta,  oikri%-i\c,  und  aXT39cv6s  im 
Neuen  Testament,"  in  Stiidien  und  Kritiken,  1883,  PP-  5ii"547 ;  V.  H. 
Stanton,  "Truth,"  in  IIDB. 

eTnaTpe^r),  "turn,"  i.  e.  from  error  to  the  way  of  truth. 

The  norm  of  departure  and  return  is  sufficiently  shown  by  the  con- 
text; there  is  here  no  necessary  indication  that  the  word  itself  had 
already  acquired  the  technical  religious  meaning  of  the  modem  verb 
"convert,"  although  such  passages  as  Mt.  13'^  (Is.  61°),  Lk.  i'«  22^-, 
Acts  313  i4'5,  I  Thess.  i'  show  that  that  process  had  already  begun. 
See  Mai.  2\  Dan.  123,  Ecclus.  18",  Ezek.  34^  (Cod.  A),  Polyc.  Phil.  6, 
Apost.  Const,  ii,  6,  cf.  i  Pet.  2^5. 

It  is  used  in  the  sense  of  "turn  from  an  error"  by  Lucian,  De  hist, 
conscr.  5,  cf.  Plut.  Ale.  16.  Cf.  Test.  XII  Patr.  Zab.  9',  Dan  5",  Benj. 
45 ;  for  other  passages,  see  Charles's  index. 

The  sense  "turn  back,"  which  the  word  seems  to  have  here,  is  not 
wholly  foreign  to  Greek  usage  {cf.  Hippocr.  135  E,  of  a  fever,  "recur"), 
but  it  is  rare,  while  in  the  LXX,  following  air,  that  sense  is  very 
common.     Cf.  Mt.  i2<<. 

20.  yivcoffKeTO).  If  the  alternative  reading,  yiPaiaKere,  is 
adopted,  it  is  to  be  taken  as  probably  imperative,  cf.  2^  3^ 
S',  etc. 

Yivwaxlxci)  oTi]  ^AKLP  minn  vg  boh. 

Ytvcoj/.s-re  oxt]  B  69  1518  syri""!. 

om]  ff  sah. 

The  omission  by  ff  sah  is  rnere  freedoni  of  translation.     As  between 


V,  I9-20  3i5 

YtvuaxlTO)  and  Ytvoiaxste,  the  latter  might  have  arisen  from  an  attempt 
to  eliminate  the  hard  question,  necessarily  present  with  the  reading 
Yivwax^Tw,  as  to  who  (the  converter  or  the  converted)  was  the  subject 
of  the  verb.  The  address  dos'k'foi  justified  the  change  to  the  unam- 
biguous, but  colourless,  Y(vujx.eTe.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  unlikely 
that  the  influence  of  xiq  should  have  led  to  the  change  from  the  wholly 
unobjectionable  yivwaxsxe  to  yivwaxixo).  The  reading  of  {<  is  accord- 
ingly the  "harder"  reading,  and  to  be  preferred.  This  is  one  of  the 
rare  instances  of  an  emended  reading  in  B. 

See  P.  Corssen,  Gottingische  gelehrtc  Anzeiger,  1893,  p.  585,  B.  Weiss, 
Zeilschriftfiir  wisscnschaftlichc  Theologic,  vol.  xxxvii,  1804,  pp.  439-440. 

e/c  7r\dvr]S  oSov  avrov,  "from  the  error  of  his  way,"  cf.  i  Jn. 
4«  for  contrast  of  a\7]deia  and  irXctvi]. 

aayaet.  For  instances  of  cro)^eLV  in  this  sense  with  a  human 
subject,  cf.  Rom.  IIl^  i  Cor.  f\  i  Tim.  4^^ 

awjet]  For  this  reading  (supported  by  all  Greek  witnesses,  and  by 
vgam  fu  Ambrst  Cassiodor)  ff  with  certain  Vulgate  Mss  and  Orig'^' 
reads  salval. 

Similarly  xaXuis-.  is  translated  with  the  present  tense  by  vg  and 
Origiat  (but  not  by  ff). 

^v')(r)v  avTov,  i.  c.  the  erring  brother's  soul,  cf.  i^^  and  note. 

i|iuxT)v]  BKL  minnp'"''  fi  sah. 

i^^ux'Tjv  auTou]  SA  ("^V  '>JX"nv  aJToG)  P  minn  vg  boh  syr"". 

In  the  same  connection  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  B  ff  read  ly.  6avi:Tou 
aiTou  for  the  i/.  Oava-uou  of  nearly  all  other  witnesses.  In  both  cases 
the  shorter  reading  is  to  be  preferred. 

€K  Oavdrov.  The  force  of  the  sentence  depends  on  this  word, 
which  expresses  the  seriousness  of  the  situation  when  a  man 
wanders  from  the  truth,  a  seriousness  which  may  easily  be  over- 
looked and  forgotten.  This  sentence  is  no  platitude,  provided 
Oavdrov  receives  its  proper  emphasis.  On  davdrov,  cf.  1^^  and 
3C  yeei'i'i]s.     Note  how  here,  as  in  i^',  death  is  the  result  of  sin. 

KaKv\J/eL  TvXrjdos  djiapTccav.  KaXinrreLV  in  connection  with 
sins  usually  means  "cause  them  to  be  forgotten,"  "procure  par- 
don," and  that  is  the  meaning  here.  Cf.  Ps.  321^-  85-  (quoted 
Rom.  4^),  Neh.  4",  Ep.  ad  Diogn.  9. 

dfjLapTicbv  means  the  sins  of  the  converter  (so  Roman  Catholic 
comrnentators  and  some  others) ;   to  refer  it  to  the  sins  of  the 


3l6  JAMES 

converted  person,  as  many  do,  makes  a  bad  anticlimax.  See 
Origen,  Horn,  in  Levit.  ii,  5  where  converting  a  sinner  is  in- 
cluded as  one  method  of  securing  forgiveness  of  one's  own  sins. 

Cf.  Sohar  92.  18,  "Great  is  the  reward  of  him  who  leads  back  sinners 
to  the  way  of  the  Lord,"  2  Clem.  Rom.  15  [xtaOb?  y^P  ^^'^  eaxtv  [xtxpb? 
TC>vav(i)ti,£VT)v  4"JXV  '^<^'  axoAXutieviQv  ixoaTps^'a'  £'<;  tb  ffwGfjvat,  Pistis 
Sophia,  ch.  104,  Pirke  Aboth,  v,  26,  "Whosoever  makes  the  many 
righteous,  sin  prevails  not  over  him." 

I  Pet.  4^  has  a  closely  similar  sentence,  ayd-wq  KaKvirreL 
T\7]dos  ajiapTioiv^  introduced  as  if  a  familiar  aphorism.  It  is 
also  found  in  Clem.  Rom.  49,  2  Clem.  Rom.  16.  See  Light- 
foot's  notes  on  both  passages. 

Both  I  Peter  and  James  are  usually  held  to  be  dependent 
on  the  Hebrew  of  Prov.  lo^-,  ''Hatred  stirs  up  strife,  but  Love 
hides  all  transgressions"  (Toy).  There,  however,  the  sense  is 
not  exactly  "forgive"  (as  in  the  above-mentioned  passages  from 
the  Psalms,  etc.),  but  rather  "hide,"  "turn  attention  away 
from,"  other  men's  sins,  as  kindly  feeling  would  suggest,  cf. 
I  Cor.  13". 

Similar  is  the  meaning  in  the  rabbinical  passages  quoted  by  Wet- 
stein,  where  it  is  a  question  of  keeping  quiet  about  another's  sin,  of 
refraining  from  gossip,  not  of  forgiveness.  So  Prov.  17^  Sq  xpuxte 
dt8c/,T3tJ.o(Ta  'CTQiet  cpiXi'av. 

Moreover,  the  LXX  of  Prov.  10^2  (TcivTas  Be  tovs  fxr]  <j>lKo- 
peLKOvvras  KoXvirreL  <^tXia)  is  wholly  unlike  the  N.  T.  passages, 
and  the  resemblance  of  James  to  even  the  Hebrew  text  is  too 
slight  to  justify  the  idea  of  direct  influence  upon  him  from  that 
soiurce.  The  sentence  in  i  Pet.  4^  may  possibly  have  been  in- 
fluenced by  Proverbs,  but  it  is  more  likely  that  some  familiar 
Greek  aphorism  (all  the  associations  of  which  can  no  longer  be 
traced)  has  been  used  by  i  Peter,  while  a  part  of  the  same  form 
of  words  has  been  independently  used,  in  a  very  different  sense, 
by  James. 

See  Lightfoot  on  Clem.  Rom.  49  and  2  Clem.  Rom.  16,  Resch, 
Agrapha,  pp.  248/.,  Ropes,  Die  Spriiche  Jesu  die  in  den  kanoji- 
ischen  Evangelien  nicht  iiberliefert  sind,  pp.  75/. 


INDEX. 


Andreas  of  Crete,  73. 
Apocalypse,  22,  152/. 
Apocryphal  gospels,  69/. 
Apostolic  Fathers,  37/.,  87-90. 
Armenian  church,  use  of  epistle,  95. 
Astrology,  164,  236. 

Beatitudes,  150. 

C^SAREA,  49. 

Catholic  epistles,  order  of,  103  /. 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  54,  56,  12, 

91 /• 
Clement  of  Rome,  20,  87/.,  222-224. 
Clementine  Recognitions,  70/.,  72. 
Commentaries  on  James,  patristic 

and  mediaeval,  110-113;  modern, 

113-115- 
Crowns,  150-152. 

Dante,  45. 
Deo  volente,  279/. 
Diatribe,  3, 17;  history,  10-12;  char- 
acteristics, 12-16. 

Ecclesiasticus,  17,  19. 
Eldad  and  Modad,  266/. 
Ephraem  Syrus,  96/. 
Epiphanius,  54,  58/.,  60,  71-73. 
Epistles,  6-10,  127/. 
Eusebius,  44,  64,  71/.,  94/-,  103. 

Faith,  30-32,  35/.,  135,  140/.,  1S7, 

203/.,  2t8/. 

Gnosticism,  36/.,  155,  248. 
Greek  church,  history  of  epistle  in, 
92-95- 


Hebrews,  Epistle  to  the,  22. 

Gospel  according  to  the,  68/. 
Hegesippus,  54,  64-68,  71,  72. 
Helvidius,  55,  57. 
Hermas,  88-90. 

Iren^us,  90,  179,  223. 

James,    New    Testament    persons 
named,  53/. 

James  son  of  Alphaeus,  45/.,  53. 

James  son  of  Zebedee,  45/.,  53,  62. 

James,  St.,  festival  of,  73/. 

James  the  Lord's  brother,  44-46, 
50-52,  53-74- 

James,  Epistle  of:  origin,  i;  pur- 
pose, 2;  contents,  2-5;  literary 
type,  6-18;  relationship  to  other 
writers,  18-24;  language,  24-27; 
vocabulary,  25;  relation  to  LXX, 
25/.;  Aramaic  origin,  theory  of, 
27;  ideas,  Jewish,  28-31;  ideas, 
Christian,  31-34;  Spitta's  theory, 
32-33;  relation  to  Paid,  34-36; 
relation  to  Gnosticism,  36/.;  re- 
lation to  Gospels,  38/.;  relation 
to  x\postolic  Fathers,  20,  37;  rela- 
tion to  Matthew,  39;  situation, 
39-43;  authorship  (views  on),  43- 
47;  authorship,  47-52;  date,  43, 
49;  pseudonymity,  51;  history  in 
the  church,  86-109. 

Jerome,  44,  52,  56,  57/-,  60/.,  68/., 

71,  72/.,  84,  102/.,  160. 
Josephus  on  James,  64. 
Justification,  35/.,  217/.,  222. 


317 


3i8 


INDEX 


Law,  29,  30,  35,  37,  4^,  50/-.  167, 
173,  198,  274;  of  liberty,  177/-. 
201. 

Luther  on  James,  45,  59,  105-109. 

Oaths,  300/. 
Oil,  anointing  with,  305/. 
Origan,  i,  51/.,  54,  56,86,92-94. 
Orphic  doctrine,  238/. 

Paul,  relation  to,  34-36,  48,  204/., 

217,  221. 
Persecution,  not  implied  in  epistle, 

4,  40,  43,  133,  153,  195/- 
Peter,  First  Epistle  of,  22/. 
Philo,  20,  24,  31. 
Polycarp,  88. 

Protevangelium  Jacobi,  55,  69,  73. 
Protrepticus,  18. 
Proverbs,  Book  of,  16/.,  19. 

Reformation,  history  of  epistle  in 

and  after,  105-109. 
Rich,  the,  in  the  epistle,  31,  40/., 

43,  145-148,  193-197,  282/. 
Russian    literature    on    James    the 

Lord's  brother,  56/. 


Steps  of  James,  71,  73. 
Symeon  Metaphrastes,  73. 
Syrian  church,  history  of  epistle  in, 
96-100. 

Temptation,  153^. 

TertuUian,  91,  223. 

Testaments  of  XII  Patriarchs,  20/. 

Text  of  epistle,  74-86;  Greek  Mss., 
74-75;  Egyptian  versions,  76-78; 
Ethiopic  version,  78;  Syriac  ver- 
sions, 78-80;  Armenian  version, 
80;  Latin  versions,  80-84;  use  of 
authorities,  84-86. 

Tobit,  17. 

Trent,  Council  of,  46,  105,  307. 

Virgins,  pseudo-clementine  epistles 
to,  1,42,  51/-,  94,  227. 

Western  church,  history  of  epistle 

in,  100-103,  104/. 
Wisdom  of  Solomon,  17,  19. 
Wisdom-literature,  16/.,  18/.,  132. 
Word,  word  of  truth,  167,  172/. 
Works,  2sf;  204/. 


11 


Note. — A  complete  list  of  the  Greek  words  occurring  in  the  epistle  may 
be  found  in  Mayor^  pp.  239-258. 


dSeXqid?,  131/. 
ahiti),  259. 

dxaTaaxaafa,  ixaTaaxaTOs,  144,  248/. 

dXaXaJ^w,  283. 

dXi^eeta,  246/.,  313/. 

dxapx"^,  167. 

dxXw?,  dxXoxYis,  139/. 

dicoffxfaatAa,  165. 

^XaaipT];jL£(i>,  196. 

-ihtaiq,  176,  235/. 

Staxpt'voiiac,  141,  192,  250. 

Staaxopd,  120  Jff. 
StSaaxaXoi;,  226/. 
St4<uzos,  143/- 
86^a,  187. 
SouXo?,  117/. 

lxxXif)a{a,  119. 

ItifUToc;,  172/. 

evepYeti),  309/. 

eTciBuixta,  156,  253  f.,  257/. 

£PYa>204/. 

'Ct)Xos,  'CirjXow,  245,  255/.,  2(33. 

YjooviQ,  253/. 

OpTjaxsfa,  6pY)ax6^,  181  ^. 

xaXw?,  190. 
xaxaxauxdoiAat,  202,  246. 


xauawv,  148. 

xauxdo[i,ac,  145. 

xdoilo?,  184/.,  193,  233/. 

P-i^XTj,  253. 

oXoXui^d),  283. 

xapaXXayi^,  162. 
xaq,  129/.,  158. 
7cetpaffti6q,  132/.,  153/. 
icoixfXoq,  134. 
TOXefio?,  253. 
xoXuaxXaYX"*"^^!  299. 
xpot'tAOs  xal  0(|ii[j.O(;,  295 _^. 
xpoacoxoXit5[j.4"'a,  185/. 

pcxii;w,  141/. 

aoipfa,  139,  247. 
aoyd?,  244. 
(jxiipavoc;,  150^. 
ffUvaywYiQ,  188/. 
auvepY^w,  220. 

TeXeio?,  138,  159,  177,  228. 
xpoxiQ,  164/. 
■^poX^s,  235/. 

uxonovT^,  13s/.,  299. 

q>06vo(;,  263. 
(ffXoi;  6sou,  222/. 
90veu(i),  254/. 


319 


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ST.   PETER  and  ST.  JUDE 

By  CHARLES  BIGG,  D.D., 

CANON   OF    CHRIST   CHURCH,    AND   REGIUS   PROFESSOR   OF    ECCLESIASTICAL 
HISTORY   IN  THE   UNIVERSITY  OF   OXFORD. 

'A  first-rate  critical  edition  of  these  Epistles  has  been  for  a  long  time  a  felt 
want  in  English  theological  literature  .  .  .  this  has  been  at  last  supplied  by 
the  labours  of  Dr.  Bigg.  His  notes  are  full  of  interest  and  suggest! veness.' — 
Guardian. 

In  the  Press. 

JAMES 

By  JAMES   H.   ROPES,   D.D., 

BUSSEY   PROFESSOR   OF    NEW   TESTA.MENT    CKITICIS.M    IN    HARVARD    UNIVERSITY 

In  post  Bvo  (pp.  342),  price  9s.  net, 

THE  JOHANNINE  EPISTLES 

By  ALAN   E.   BROOKE,   B.D.,  D.D., 

FELLOW,    DEAN    AND   DIVINITY   LECTURER    KINO's    COLLEGE,    CAMBRIDGE. 

'  This  volume  deserves  the  best  possible  welcome.  It  combines  a  high  type  of 
scholarship  with  thoroughness  of  treatment,  and  its  manner  of  expression  is  as  lucid  as 
can  be  desired.' — Athenceuiit. 


THE  INTERNATIONAL  CRITICAL  COMMENTARY. 


For  Detailed  List  of  the 
TWENTY-SEVEN  VOLUMES  NOW  READY 

See  Previous  Pages. 


The  following  other  Volumes  are  in  course  of  preparation : — 
THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

Exodus.  A.  R.  S.  Kennedy,  D.D.,  Professor  of  Hebrew,  University  of  Edinburgh. 

Leviticus.  J.  F.  Stbnning,  M.A.,  Fellow  of  Wadham  College,  Oxford  ;  and  the  late 

H.  A.  White,  M.  A.,  Fellow  of  New  College,  Oxford. 
Joshua.  George  Adam  Smith,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Principal  of  Aberdeen  University. 

Kings.  Francis  Brown,  D.D.,  Eitt.D.,  LL.D.,  Professor  of  Hebrew  and  Cognate 

Languages,  Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York. 

Ruth,  Song  of  Songs    C.  A.  Brigos,  D.D.,  Professor  of  Theological  Encyclopaedia  and  Symbolics, 
and  Lamentations.         Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York. 

Isaiah,  chs.  28-66.  G.  Buchanan  Gray,  D.D.,  Mansfield  College,  Oxford  ;  and  A.  S.  Peake, 

D.D.,  University  of  Manchester. 

Jeremiah.  A.  F.  Kirkpatrick,  D.D.,  Dean  of  Ely. 

EzelfieL  G.  A.  Cooke,  D.D.,  Fellow  of  Oriel  College,  and  C.  F.  Burnby,  D.Litt., 

Fellow  and  Lecturer  in  Hebrew,  St.  John's  College,  Oxford. 

Daniel.  John    P.    Peters,   D.D.,    late  Professor  of   Hebrew,    P.    B.    Divinity 

School,  Philadelphia,  now  Rector  of  St.  Michael's  Church,  New  York. 


Synopsis  of  the 

Four  Gospels 

John. 

Acts. 


Galatians. 

The  Pastoral  Epistles. 
Hebrews. 

James. 
Revelation, 


THE   NEW   TESTAMENT. 

W.  Sanday,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Lady  Margaret  Professor  of  Divinity,  and 
Canon  of  Christ  Church,  Oxford  ;  and  W.  C.  Allen,  M.A.,  Principal 
of  Egerton  Hall. 

John  Henry  Bernard,  D.D.,  Dean  of  St.  Patrick  and  Lecturer  in  Divinity, 

University  of  Dublin. 

C.  H.  Turner,  M.A.,  Fellow  of  Magdalen  College,  Oxford;  and  H.  N. 
Bate,  M.A.,  late  Fellow  and  Dean  of  Divinity  in  Magdalen  College, 
Oxfoid,  now  Vicar  of  St.  Stephen's,  Hampstead,  and  Examining 
Chaplain  to  the  Bishop  of  London. 

Ernest  D.  Burton,  D.D.,  Professor  of  New  Testament  Literature, 
University  of  Chicago. 

Walter  Lock,  D.D.,  Dean  Ireland's  Professor  of  Exegesis,  Oxford. 

Jamks  Moffatt,  D.D.,  Professor  in  the  United  Free  Church  College, 

Glasgow. 
James  H.  Ropes,  D.D.,  Bussey  Professor  of  New  Testament  Criticism  in 

Harvard  University.  [In  the  Press. 

Robert  H.  Charles,  D.D.,  D.Litt.,  Fellow  of  Merton  College,  Oxford, 
Gi-infield  Lecturer  on  the  Septuagint  and  Speaker's  Lecturer  in 
Biblical  Studies. 

Other  engagements  will  he  duly  announced , 


T.  &  T.  OLARK, 


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