TUB CAMBRIDGE BIBLE
FOR SCHOOLS & COLLEGES
IP GENERAL EPISTLE OF
ST: JAMES
&.H.PLUMPTRE.i>,D,
GENERAL BJ>ITOn
BISHOP OF WORCESTER
J
tihravy of t:Ke 'theolo0tcal ^cminavy
PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY
PRESENTED BY
Edward Bates Turner
{
W\)t Cam!)ritise Mhlt for ^cI)odIs
THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF
ST. JAM ES
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Zijt Camftntrjje MW for ^ti)oolfi
antr Collejjes*
General Editor ;— J. J. S. PEROVVN,fct§cOQF PWJ^g>>^
Bishop of Worcestkr. /iv^ ^
THE GENERAL EPISTLEX^OGlGAlSt^^
ST. JAM ES,
IVITH NOTES AND INTRODUCTION
BY THE LATE
E. H. PLUMPTRE, D.D.
DEAN OF WELLS.
EDITED FOR THE SYNDICS OF THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
STEREOTYPED EDITION.
<2rambrfijge :
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
1895
lAll Rights reserved.^
First Edition 1878.
Repi'inted 1^']'^ [six times), 1879, 1882 (i'ze^zV^), 1883, 1884,
1886, ib88, 1890, 1892, 1893, 1895
PREFACE
BY THE GENERAL EDITOR.
The General Editor of The Cambridge Bible for
Schools thinks it right to say that he does not hold
himself responsible either for the interpretation of
particular passages which the Editors of the several
Books have adopted, or for any opinion on points of
doctrine that they may have expressed. In the New
Testament more especially questions arise of the
deepest theological import, on which the ablest and
most conscientious interpreters have differed and
always will differ. His aim has been in all such
cases to leave each Contributor to the unfettered
exercise of his own judgment, only taking care that
mere controversy should as far as possible be avoided.
He has contented himself chiefly with a careful
revision of the notes, with pointing out omissions, with
ST JAMES
PREFACE.
suggesting occasionally a reconsideration of some
question, or a fuller treatment of difficult passages,
and the like.
Beyond this he has not attempted to interfere,
feeling it better that each Commentary should have
its own individual character, and being convinced
that freshness and variety of treatment are more
than a compensation for any lack of uniformity in
the Series.
Deanery, Peterborough.
CONTENTS.
II.
Introduction. pages
Chapter 2. The Author of the Epistle 5 — 34
Chapter II. To whom was the Epistle addressed 35 — 39
Chapter III. The date of the Epistle 40—4 5
Chapter IV. Analysis of the Epistle 43— 4 5
Text and Notes 47—107
INTRODUCTION.
CHAPTER I.
THE AUTHOR OF THE EPISTLE. .
I. The name of Jacobus or 7^r^3— which, after passing
through various chances and changes of form, Spanish lago
and Portuguese Xaytne (pronounced Hay me) and Itahan Gia-
como and French Jacques and Jaint^ and Scotch Hainish, has
at last dwindled into our monosyllabic James— was naturally,
as having been borne by the great Patriarch whom Israel claimed
as its progenitor, a favourite name among the later Jews\ In
the New Testament we find two, or possibly three, persons who
bore it : (i) James the son of Zebedee. (2) James the son of
Alphseus. Both of these appear in all the lists of the Twelve
Apostles. (3) There is a James described as the son of a Mary
and the brother of a Joses or Joseph (Matt, xxvii. 56, Mark
XV. 40), and a comparison of that passage with John xix. 25,
defines this Mary as the wife of C/Spas (not Cleophas as in
the English Version) and possibly also (though the con-
struction is not free from ambiguity) as the sister of our
Lord's mother. To his name is attached the epithet, not
of "the less" as in the EngHsh version, as though it indi-
cated difference in age or position, but of the " little," as an
1 It is not without a feeling of regret, that I adopt in this volume the
form in which the historical associations of the name have entirely dis-
appeared. Usage, however, in such a matter, must be accepted as the
jus et norma loquendi.
6 INTRODUCTION.
epithet descriptive in his case, as in that of Zacchasus (Luke
xix. 3), of his stature. (4) There is a James whose name
appears, together with Joses and Simon and Judas, in the
Hsts of the "brethren" of the Lord, in Matt. xiii. 55, Mark vi. 3,
and who is so described by St Paul in Gal. i. 19. St Paul's way of
speaking of him there and in Gal. ii. 9, 12, leaves not a shadow
of doubt as to the identity of this James with the one who
occupies so prominent a position in the Church at Jerusalem in
Acts xii. 17, XV. 13, xxi. 18.
The Epistle of St James may have been written, as far as the
description which the writer gives of himself is concerned, by
any one of these four, reserving the question whether the descrip-
tions connected with (2), (3) and (4) give us any grounds for
believing that the three accounts refer to two or even to one
person only.
II. The hypothesis that the son of Zebedee, the brother of
the beloved disciple, was the writer of the Epistle, has commonly
been dismissed as hardly calling for serious consideration. It
is not, however, without a certain amount of external authority,
and has recently been maintained with considerable ability by
the Rev. F. T. Bassett in a Commentary on the Epistle (Bag-
sters, 1876). It may be well therefore to begin with an inquiry
into the grounds on which it rests.
(i) The oldest MSS. of the earlier, or Peshito, Syriac version,
ranging from the 5th to the 8th century, state, in the superscrip-
tion or subscription of the Epistle, or both, that it is an Epistle
" of James the Apostle." Printed editions of the Syriac Version
state more definitely that the three Epistles (James, i Peter, and
I John) which that version includes, were written by the three
Apostles who were witnesses of the Transfiguration, but it is
uncertain on what MS. authority the statement was made. As
far then as this evidence goes, it is of little or no weight in
determining the authorship. It does not go higher than the
fifth century, and leaves it an open question whether "James
the Apostle" was the son of Zebedee, or the son of Alphseus, or
the brother of the Lord, considered as having been raised to the
office and title of an Apostle.
INTRODUCTION.
(2) A Latin MS. of the New Testament, giving a version of
the Epistle prior to that of Jerome, states more definitely that it
was written by "James the son of Zebedee," but the MS. is not
assigned to an earlier date than the ninth century, and is there-
fore of little or no weight as an authority. Neither this nor the
Syriac version can be looked on as giving more than the con-
jecture of the transcriber, or, at the best, a comparatively late
and uncertain tradition.
(3) Admitting the weakness of the external evidence, Mr
Bassett rests his case mainly on internal. It was, he thinks, d
priori improbable that one who occupied so prominent a place
among the Apostles during our Lord's ministry, whose name
as one of the " Sons of Thunder" (Mark iii. 17) indicates con-
spicuous energy, should have passed away without leaving any
written memorial for the permanent instruction of the Church.
It is obvious, however, that all cl priori arguments of this nature
are, in the highest degree, precarious in their character, and
that their only value lies in preparing the way for evidence of
another kind.
(4) The internal coincidences on which Mr Bassett next lays
stress are in themselves so suggestive and instructive, even if
we do not admit his inference from them, that it seems worth
while to state them briefly.
{a) There is, he points out, a strong resemblance between
the teaching of the Epistle and that of John the Baptist, as is
seen, e. g., in comparing
James 1.-22, 27 with Matt. iii. 8
ii. 15, 16 ... Luke iii. 11
ii. 19, 20 ... Matt. iii. 9
V. I — 6 ... Matt. iii. 10 — 12.
And he infers from this the probability that the writer had been
one of those who, like Peter, John and Andrew, had listened to
the preaching of the Baptist.
{b) There are the frequently recurring parallelisms between
the Epistle and the Sermon on the Mount, which strike the
attention of well-nigh every reader.
INTRODUCTION.
James i. 2 compared with Matt. v. lo — 12
...... i. 4 V. 48
i. 5. V. 15 vii. 7—12
i. 9 V. 3
i. 20 V. 22
ii. 13 vi. 14, 15, V.
ii. 14 vii. 21 — 23
iii. 17, 18 V. 9
iv. 4 vi. 24
iv. 10 V. 3, 4
iv. II vii. I — 5
V. 2 y\. 19
V. 10 V. 12
V. 12 V. 33—37-
It is urged that the son of Zebedee vi^as certainly among our
Lord's disciples at the time the Sermon on the Mount was deli-
vered, while there is no evidence that the son of Alphseus had
as yet been called, and a distinct statement, assuming the bro-
ther of the Lord not to be identical with the son of Alphasus,
that he at this time did not believe in Jesus as the Christ.
(John vii. 5.)
(c) The writer finds in St James's description of Jesus as "the
Lord of Glory" a reference, parallel to those of 2 Pet. i. 16 — 18
and John i. 14, to the vision on the Mount of Transfiguration
which had been witnessed by Peter and the two sons of
Zebedee.
(d) In the emphasis with which the writer of the Epistle
condemns the sins of vainglory and rivalry and self-seeking
ambition Mr Bassett finds a reference to the disputes and
jealousies which during our Lord's ministry disturbed the har-
mony of the Apostohc company (comp. ch. i. 9 — 12, iii. 14 — 16
with Matt, xviii. i, Mark ix. 34); in his protests against the
"wrath of man" (ch. i. 19, 20), a reminiscence of his own pas-
sionate desire to call down fire from heaven, as Elijah had done
of old (Luke ix. 54). With this and with Elijah's loss of patience
(i Kings xix. 4 — 10), he connects the statement that " EHas
was a man of like passions with ourselves" (ch. v. 17).
(e) Stress is laid on the language of the Epistle as to the
"coming of the Lord" as agreeing with what our Lord had said
INTRODUCTION.
on the Mount of Olives in the hearing of the sons of Zebedee
and of Jona (Mark xiii. 3). Compare
James ii. 6, 7 with Mark xiii. 9
iv. I ... Mark xiii. 7
iv. 13, 14 ... Mark xiii. 32
V. 9 ... Mark xiii. 29
V. 7 ... Matt. xxiv. 27.
It is inferred that here also he was reproducing what he had
himself heard.
(/) The not unfrequent parallelisms between this Epistle
and I Peter are next brought to bear on the question. They
are given as follows : —
James i. 2 with i Pet. i. 6 — 9
i. 10 i. 24
i. 21 ii. I
iv. 6, 10 V. 5
V. 20 IV.
It is urged that these coincidences of thought and phrase are
just what might be expected in those who like the son of Zebe-
dee and the son of Jona had been friends and companions in
the work of disciples and Apostles.
(5) Interesting and suggestive as each of these lines of
thought beyond question is, the evidence does not appear, on
the whole, to warrant the conclusion which has been drawn
from it. It would be a sufficient explanation of {a) and {b) that
the writer of the Epistle had been one of the hearers of the
Baptist and of our Lord, or had read or heard what we find re-
corded in St Matthew's Gospel. Of {c) it must be said that the
epithet " of glory" was far too common (Acts vii. 2 ; Eph. i. 17 ;
Col. i. 27 ; Heb. i. 3, ix. 5) to prove what it is alleged to prove. The
faults mentioned under {d) were too much the besetting sins of
the whole people to sustain any conclusion based on the suppo-
sition that they applied specially to the writer. It is obvious
that the teaching of our Lord as to His " Coming," under {e),
must, from a very early period, have become, at least to the
extent to which the Epistle deals with it, the common property
of all believers. Lastly, as to the parallelisms of (/) it must be
lo INTRODUCTION.
remembered that there is as much evidence that another James
was for many years in constant communication with St Peter,
as there is for the earlier friendship of that Apostle with the son
of Zebedee.
On the whole, then, it is believed that this hypothesis, inter-
esting and ingenious as it is, must be dismissed as not proven.
III. The name of the second Apostle who bore the name of
James comes next under consideration. Can we think of the
son of Alphasus as the writer of the Epistle ? Here a prelimi-
nary question meets us : Are we to think of the son of Alph^us
as identical with the brother of the Lord, and with "James the
little," the son of Mary, the wife of Clopas, and the sister of our
Lord's mother ? The view that one and the self-same person is
described in these different ways has been so widely held that it
is necessary to examine the grounds on which it rests.
(a) It has been supposed that Clopas in John xix. 25 is ano-
ther form, somewhat nearer to the Hebrew {Chalpi), of the name
which is represented in the first three Gospels by Alphaeus.
This is in itself probable enough, but it is a question whether the
same person would have been likely to have been known by
both forms of the name in the same company of the disciples.
The natural tendency, where the same names abound in any dis-
trict, is that the men who bear them become known by distinct
forms, or by epithets attached. Prima facie, therefore, we should
expect to find the Alphaeus, who is the father of Levi or Mat-
thew and of James, and possibly of the Judas who is connected
with James in the list of the Twelve, a different person from
Clopas. There is at any rate far more ground for assuming the
identity of the father of Matthew with the father of James (the
name being the same in each case) than for looking on the two
as distinct persons, and the latter as the same as Clopas.
{b) The inference is, it is supposed, strengthened by the fact
that Mary the wife of Clopas is apparently identical with "Mary
the mother oi Joses" (Mark xv. 47) and of James (Mark xvi. i,
Luke xxiv. 10), of James the little and of Joses (Mar'k-xv. 40),
and that these two names appear in conjunction with Judas in
the list of the brethren of the Lord (Mark vi. 3). It is assumed
INTRODUCTION.
that the words of John xix. 25 refer the terms "his mothers
sister" and "Mary the wife of Clopas" to the same person, and
that the James and Joses who were her sons were identical
with the two who bear those names in the list of the four
"brethren" of the Lord in Matt. xiii. 55, Mark vi. 3, and that
they are called "'brethren," though really only cousins.
Against this conclusion however we have to set the facts :
(i) that it is by no means certain that in St John's enumeration
of the women who stood by the Cross, " his mother, and his
mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magda-
lene," even when taken by itself, warrants the inference that
" his mother's sister " was identical with " the wife of Clopas ; "
and (2) that a comparison with Matt, xxvii. 56, and Mark xv. 40,
makes it far more probable that she was the same as Salome, the
mother of the sons of Zebedee. ''3) In Acts i. 13, the " brethren"
are named after the Eleven Apostles, and clearly as distinct from
them; St Paul, in i Cor. ix. 5, in like manner distinguishes them
from the Apostles. It is prz'md facie utterly improbable that
the two writers should so have spoken had three, or even two,
of the " brethren " been enrolled in the company of the Twelve.
(4) Yet more important in its bearing on the question is the
part taken by the "brethren of the Lord " throughout His
ministry. They come, with the mother of Jesus, to check His
preaching, and are contrasted by Him with His disciples as His
true brethren (Matt. xii. 46—50; Mark iii. 31—35; Luke viii.
19 — 21). The tone in which the men of Nazareth speak of them
(Matt. xiii. 55 ; Mark vi. 3) is hardly compatible with the thought
that they had accepted Him as the Christ. As late as the last
Feast of Tabernacles before the Crucifixion, St John definitely
quotes words as spoken by them which imply doubt and distrust,
and states that they did not then beheve on Him (John vii, 5).
It is surely scarcely conceivable that those of whom such things
are said could have been among the Twelve who were sent forth
to proclaim their Lord as the Head of the Divine Kingdom. On
these grounds, therefore, in spite of the authority of many great
names which might be cited in its favour, we are, I believe,
compelled to reject the hypothesis that James the son of
12 INTRODUCTION.
Alphaeus was identical with the brother of the Lord, and except
on that hypothesis, there are absolutely no grounds whatever,
external or internal, to connect the former with the authorship
of this Epistle.
IV. It remains, therefore, that we should (i) consider the
claims of the last-named James, known as the brother of the Lord,
and (2) inquire into the nature of the relationship which that name
was intended to express. When these two points are settled we
can pass on, without further hindrance, to what we know of the
life and character of the writer.
It must be admitted that the evidence in this case begins at
a comparatively late date. Eusebius {Hist, ill. 25, circ. A.D.
330) reckons "the Epistle known as James's" among the
writings which, though accepted by the majority, were yet open
to question {antilegomend). It is clear from another passage
that by this James, the reputed author of the Epistle, he means
" the brother of the Lord," to whom the Apostles had assigned
the "throne" of the bishopric of Jerusalem {Hist. 11. 23). The
first of the Epistles known as Catholic was said to be his. He
adds, however, in his truthful desire of accuracy, " It should be
known that it is counted spurious by some. Not many of the
ancients, at anyrate, have made mention of it, as neither have they
of that of Judas, which also is one of the seven Catholic Epistles.
But nevertheless we know that these two have been publicly
read and received in very many Churches." Origen {Conifn. in
Joajift. xix. 6) had spoken of "the Epistle reputed to be by
James," and quotes from it as by him {Horn. Vlil. i^t Exod.)y but
does not specify to which James he assigns it. Jerome, whose
long residence at Bethlehem makes him the representative of
the Syrian as well as the Western tradition, takes up the language
of Eusebius. "James who is called the brother of the Lord,
known also as the Just, wrote one Epistle only, which is one of
the seven Catholic Epistles. Yet that too is said to have been
set forth by some one else in his name, though gradually, as time
went on, it gained authority." {Catalog. Script. Eccles.)
The very early list of the books of the New Testament, in
the Ambrosian Library at Milan, known, from the name of its
INTRODUCTION. 13
first editor, as the Muratorian Fragment, and referred to a date
about A.D. 190, though having no authority, except from its
antiquity, is remarkable as confirming the statement of Eusebius
that the Epistle of St James was not universally accepted. The
list includes, besides books about which there was no doubt,
the Epistle of Jude, and two Epistles of St John, the Apoca-
lypse of Peter (a book conspicuously apocryphal), the Shepherd
of Hermas, and even the Wisdom of Solomon^ but it makes
no mention of the Epistle of St James. After the time of
Eusebius, however, in spite of the doubting tone in which he
speaks, it won its way to general acceptance. It appears in
the list of the Council of Laodicea, c. 59 (A.D. 363), of the
third Council of Carthage, c. 39 (A.D. 397), of the so-called
Apostolic Canons. It is acknowledged by Cyril of Jerusalem
{Catech. IV. 33, A.D. 349), by Epiphanius of Cyprus {Adv. hcsr,
LXXVI. 5, circ. A. D. 403), by Athanasius {Epist. Test. 39, before
A.D. 373), by Gregory of Nazianzus. (A.D. 391), and no question
was raised as to its authority till the i6th century, when the
dogmatic bias of Luther and his school led them to revive the
old doubts as to its inspiration and canonicity.
.The conclusion from these facts would seem to be that the
Epistle of St James came somewhat slowly into general circu-
lation. It was natural that it should do so. Though addressed
to the Twelve Tribes of the Dispersion, it does not follow that
any very effectual measures were taken to secure its reaching
them. And so far as copies did find their way to distant cities,
they were addressed, we must remember, to the declining and
decaying party of the Church of the Circumcision. They came
from one whose name had been identified, rightly or wrongly,
with that party in its attitude of antagonism to the teaching of
St Paul and the freedom of the Gentile Churches. The writer^s
personal influence had not extended beyond the Churches of
Judea, and the Churches of the Gentiles did not feel the im-
pression made on those who knew him by the sainthness of his
fife and character. The writer of the Muratorian Fragment
represents this early stage of the history of the Epistle. He
does not reject it. He has obviously not heard of it. When the
14 INTRODUCTION.
letter becomes known to the students and scholars of the Church,
to men like Origen, Eusebius and Jerome, they naturally at first
speak of it with some hesitation. After a time inquiry leads
to a more prompt and unquestioning acceptance. The more
critical writers have no doubt that the James, whose name it
bears, was the brother of the Lord, and not the son of Zebedee;
and their judgment, as the result of inquiry and given in the
teeth of the natural tendency to claim an Apostolic authority for
any fragment of the Apostolic age, may well be looked on as
outweighing the conjecture of a Syrian transcriber in the 9th
century who yielded to that tendency, or the scarcely less con-
jectural inferences of recent writers.
V. So far, then, we have reached a fairly firm standing
ground, and may take a fresh start on the assumption that the
Epistle was written, not by the son of Zebedee, nor by the son
of Alphasus, but by James the brother of the Lord. A question
of great difficulty, however, once more meets us on the threshold.
What kind of relationship did that description imply.? Very
different answers have been given to that question.
(i) We have the view that the "brethren of the Lord" were
the sons of Joseph and of Mary, and therefore His younger
brothers. This has in its favour, the common and natural,
though not, it must be admitted, the necessary, meaning
of the Greek word for "brethren," perhaps, also, the prhnd
facie inference from Matt. i. 25. It was adopted by Helvidius,
a Latin writer of the 4th century, and has been revived by
some recent scholars of high reputation, among whom are
Dean Alford and Canon Farrar. It has against it the general
consensus of the Fathers of the third and fourth century, resting
on a wide- spread belief in the perpetual virginity of the mother
of the Lord, and the fact that Helvidius was treated as pro-
pounding a new and monstrous theory. It may be admitted
that the word does not necessarily mean that those who bore it
were children of the same mother, and that Matt. i. 25 does not
necessarily imply what, at first sight, it appears to mean. It is
scarcely likely, however, with such words at hand as the Greek
for "sister's son" (Col. iv. 10) or "cousins" (Luke i. 36), that it
INTRODUCTION. 15
would have been used to express either of those relationships.
Slightly weighing against it, perhaps, are (i) the action and tone
of the brethren in relation to our Lord (Matt. xii. 46 ; John vii.
3—5), which is that of elder rather than younger relatives, and
(2) the fact that the mother of our Lord is commended to the
care of John, the son of Zebedee and Salome (John xix. 26), and
not to those who, on this view, would have been her more natural
protectors. It is probable, however, as stated above, that the
wife of Zebedee may have been the sister of the Virgin, and if
so, then there were close ties of relationship uniting St John to
the latter. All that can be said is that the New Testament
writers, if their language does not exclude the alternative theories,
are, at least, not in any measure careful to exclude this.
(2) There is the theory that the "brethren" were the children
of Joseph by a former marriage. It need scarcely be said that
there is nothing in the New Testament to prove such a theory.
Indirectly it falls in with what has just been said as to their
tone towards our Lord, and the preference of a sister's son (as-
suming Salome to have been the "mother's sister" of John xix. 25)
to step-sons as a guardian and protector, would be sufficiently
in harmony with the practices of common life. In the second,
third, and fourth centuries this appears to have been the
favourite view. It met the reverential feeling which, rightly or
wrongly, shrank from the thought that the wedded life of the
mother of Jesus was like that of other women. It gave to the
word " brethren," without any violence, an adequate or natural
meaning. It was maintained by Epiphanius (A.D. 367), by
Origen {in Joatm. ii. 12, in Matt. xiii. 55), Eusebius {Hist. 11. i),
Hilary of Poitiers (A.D. 368), Gregory of Nyssa (a.d. 394), Cyril
of Alexandria {in Gen. vii. p. 221), and with the modification
that Joseph's first marriage was with the widow of his brother
Clopas, by Theophylact (Comm. on Matt. xiii. 55, Gal. i. 19).
It has been revived in our own time by Canon Lightfoot {Excursus
on "The brethren of the Lord" in Conunentary on Galatia?is),
and maintained as against the third hypothesis now to be men-
tioned, with arguments which seem to the present writer to
admit of no satisfactory answer.
i6 INTRODUCTION.
(3) Lastly, there is the theory already alluded to, that the
"brethren" were the sons of the wife of Clopas, who is identi-
fied with the sister of the Virgin, and that they were thus called
"brethren" in the wider sense in which that word may be
used of "cousins." Clopas is held (though this was an after-
thought of writers later than Jerome, who was the first to pro-
pound this view) to be identical with Alphaeus, and James
the brother of the Lord is held to be identical with James the
son of Alphaeus, in the list of the Apostles, and "Jude of
Janies^'' to be another of the brethren, and Simon, a third bro-
ther, is identified with Simon Zelotes, or the Canaanite. The
theory was first started by Jerome {Cafal. Vir. Illustr.; Adv.
Helvid.y in his eagerness to vindicate the perpetual virginity
of Mary against what seemed to him the heresy of Helvidius,
but though maintained vehemently at first, was afterwards
treated by him as a matter of comparative indifference (Light-
foot's Excursus^ tit supra). His influence, however, gave cur-
rency to the theory in the Western Church, and it was probably
received by Ambrose (whose language, however, is consistent:
with the Epiphanian theory) in his treatise De Institutio7ie
Vii'ginis^ and by Augustine {in Joann. xxviil., Enarr. in
Ps. cxxvii., Contr. Fatist, xxii. 35). The Western Church, ac-
cordingly, in her Calendar has recognised only two Saints of
the name of James, and has naturally been followed in this
respect by the Church of England, which gives July 25 to the
son of Zebedee, and May ist to St Philip and the- son of
Alphaeus. The choice of the Epistle for that day implies his
identification with the brother of the Lord. In the Greek
Church, on the other hand, we trace,, beyond the shadow of
doubt, the survival of the Epiphanian view, or perhaps of the
still older tradition on which it rested, Oct. 9th being dedicate-d
1 Dr Mill {Mythical Interp. p. 29 1) quotes a passage from a MS. of
the 14th century, ascribed to Papias, and maintaining Jerome's view as
proof of an almost apostolic antiquity for this theory. The occurrence
of "the mediseval " Star of the Sea," as applied to the Virgin, is, however,
in itself proof of a much later date than that of Papias of Hierapolis,
and Dr Lightfoot shews that it comes from a work by a writer of the
same name in the nth century.
INTRODUCTION. 17
to the son of Alphaeus, and Oct. 23rd to the brother of the
Lord. It is not probable, looking to the language of the Greek
Church as to the Virgin, that this distinction between the two
whom writers that follow the Roman view identify, rests on its
acceptance of the Helvidian view.
On the whole, then, in a question confessedly of considerable
difficulty, we may rest in the conclusions :
(i) That there is absolutely no ground for identifying James
the brother of the Lord with the son of Alphaeus, and therefore
none for. believing him to have been of the number of the
Twelve Apostles.
(2) That there is absolutely no ground for believing the
brethren of the Lord to have been the children of the Virgin's
sister, and therefore only cousins.
(3) That the first impression made by the language of the
New Testament is in favour of their being brethren in the fullest
sense of the word, but that this language is not incompatible
with the view that they were the children of Joseph by a
previous marriage.
VI. I have been reluctant up to this point to bring in the evi-
dence of apocryphal or spurious writings. But it will be admitted,
assuming the above conclusions as at least partly proved, that it
is an enquiry not without interest to ask what relation the
narratives of such writings bear to them.
In the Protevatigeliiiin yacobiy an apocryphal narrative,
dating probably from the second century, and therefore prior
to any of the theories which originated in the fourth, Joseph
appears as an old man with sons at the time of his espousals
(c. 9), but with no daughter (c. 17). The sons are with him at
Bethlehem at the time of the Nativity. James himself is repre-
sented as writing the book after the death of Herod the Great
(c. 25). The Gospel of the Pseudo- Matthew agrees as to the age
of Joseph (c. 8), and relates that James, "the first-born son of
Joseph," was bitten in the hand by a viper in his boyhood, and
was healed by the touch and the breath of Jesus (c. 31). Joseph,
Judas, and Simeon are named as the other brothers. Anna,
the mother of the Virgin, after the death of her first husband,
ST JAMES
i8 INTRODUCTION.
Joachim, marries Cleophas, and has by him a second daughter
Mary, who in her turn is married to Alphasus, and becomes the
mother of Phihp and James, the Apostles. The History of Joseph
(c. 3) gives the names of the four sons, and Assia and Lydia as
the names of the daughters, and relates that Joseph became a
widower when Mary was of the age of twelve, lived to the age of
iir; James and Judas remaining in the household till his death
(c. 14), and died with Jesus holding his hands, and receiving his
last sigh (c. 19). The Gospel of Thouias repeats the story of the
viper that bit James (c. 16). The. Arabic Gospel of the Infancy
tnakes James and Joses grown up while Jesus is yet an infant.
The Apocryphal Gospels thus referred to are so full of
frivolous and fantastic fables, that no single fact narrated in
them can claim, on that ground, the slightest degree of credi-
bility; but the uniform consent of so many books written in
various languages and countries, in adopting the Epiphanian
view as distinct alike from that of Helvidius and that of
Jerome, must be admitted as shewing what was in the second
and third centuries the current tradition of the Church. It was
not probable that writers aiming at attracting popular admira-
tion would run counter to any prevalent tradition that "the
brethren of the 'Lord" were really only His cousins.
VII. Leaving the region of legends, but keeping on the stratum
of truth which underlies them, we may venture to picture to our-
selves that household of Nazareth in at least the outline of its life.
We can think of the elder brothers watching with loving admi-
ration the growth of the Holy Child that "increased in wisdom
and in stature and in favour with God and man." Their training
had been after the pattern of that which prevailed in all devout
Jewish houses. They had known the Holy Scriptures daily.
They heard it read in the Synagogue on the Sabbath day. They
read it in their home. But in that village of Nazareth, as
throughout GaHlee, Greek was probably both spoken and read
familiarly, and thus they might become acquainted with the
teaching of books which the Alexandrian Jews had added to the
Hebrew Canon. Their father dies, and then they marry
(i Cor. ix. 5), and, it may well have been, leave their step-mother to
INTRODUCTION. 19
be maintained by the younger Half-Brother who was her own
son. So the years pass on till the preaching of the Baptist breaks
through the orderly routine with the energy of a new force. The
brothers go from Nazareth as others go from Capernaum, and
James learns the lessons which he afterwards reproduces in his
Epistle, and adopts the Nazarite rule, for the rigorous obser-
vance of which his life was afterwards conspicuous. And then
follows that which to him, as to the other dwellers in Nazareth,
was a marvel and a stumblingblock. The younger Brother
proclaims in the Synagogue, probably on the great Day of
Atonement, that the most glorious promises of the Prophets,
which were read on that day as the appointed lesson, were ful-
filled in Him. They have loved and honoured Him up to this
time, but they are not prepared for this. They fear the probable
effects of such a proclamation in raising the opposition of
Pharisees and Scribes or the jealous suspicion of the Tetrarch
Antipas. They hold back from joining the company of the
disciples. The oft-repeated words of Jesus, that " a prophet is not
without honour but in his own country, and among his own kin,
and in his own house" (Mark vi. 4; Matt. xiii. 57 ; Luke iv. 24;
John iv. 44), are spoken as with a plaintive reference to a definite
personal experience. They, too, are tempted to take up the
half-taunting words, "Physician, heal thyself," and to demand
that wonders as great as those of which they had heard at
Capernaum should be wrought in their presence in their own
city. They hear a few months afterwards that the Mission of
the Kingdom is going on at Jerusalem and throughout Gahlee,
that Scribes and Pharisees have come down from Jerusalem to
watch, and, if possible, to entrap the new Teacher (Luke v. 17)^
that they have coalesced with the Herodians against Him, and
are plotting against His life (Mark iii. 6). They and His mother
are anxious to protect Him against that danger. And so they
leave Nazareth, and appear on the outskirts of the crowd at
Capernaum at the very moment when the antagonism was
becoming more and more embittered, and the situation more
full of danger (Matt. xii. 46). They are anxious to utter their
words of warning, to restrain Him, while there is yet time, from
2 — 2
INTRODUCTION.
irrevocable words which may lead to a shameful death. They
hear in return the declaration, so full of blessing for others, so
full of warning and reproof for them, " Behold my mother and my
brethren ! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which
is in Heaven, the same is my brother and sister and mother"
(Matt. xii. 49, 50). " So far their efforts were frustrated ; but the
heart of the Brother yearns over the kindred and the neighbours
who were so slow of heart to believe, and He appears once again
in the Synagogue of Nazareth (Matt. xiii. 54—58). The
brothers listen, admiring but still not believing, and the
men of Nazareth appeal, as it were, to their self-esteem.
What was He in outward birth or condition, that He should
be more than they? "Is not this the carpenter's son, Himself
a carpenter? Is not His mother called Mary? Are not His
brethren, James and Joses and Simon and Judas, with us?"
(Matt. xiii. 55 ; Mark vi. 3). Once again the old sad proverb was
fulfilled, and He of whom these things were said could do but
few works of power there because of their unbeHef (Mark vi. 5).
The months passed on apparently with little or no change of
feehng. The Feast of Tabernacles came, the last that preceded
the Passion, and the brethren were going up with other Gali-
lasans to the Holy City. They turned to the Prophet in whom
they did not as yet believe with the measure of belief which He
required, in a tone of impatient expectation. Why remain in
Galilee if He were indeed the King of Israel? " Depart hence,
and go into Judaea, that thy disciples also" — obviously the
disciples in Jerusalem, of whom they had heard as listening to
Him in his previous visits — "may see the works that thou doest.
For there is no man that doeth any thing in secret, and he
himself seeketh to be known openly" (John vii. 3—5). "If thou
do these things," if thou canst heal the sick and give sight to the
blind and cast out devils, "shew thyself to the world," to that
world of which they thought as gathering in Jerusalem to
keep the coming Feast. That challenge He did not accept, for
it implied that they, and not He, were judges as to the time
and manner of His Manifestation. Their time was "always
ready," but His was mapped out for Him by a Wisdom higher
INTRODUCTION.
than theirs, and His time was not yet full come (John
vii. 8). They, we know, were present at the Feast, and they
found the thoughts of the men of Judaea concerning Him
fluctuating and uncertain. Some acknowledged Him as the
Prophet, some as the Christ, some spoke of Him as a deceiver
(John vii. 40, 41, 47). Attempts were made to seize Him, and
made in vain. The Feast ended as it began, in division, and
the last words which they may have heard were^ "He hath
a devil and is mad"— words which might almost seem to have
been an echo of their own thoughts, when they, or those whom
they had sent, said " He is beside Himself" (Mark iii. 21).
The last Passover came, and the brethren, we must believe,
were there, with the others who came from Galilee. Perhaps they
too thought that the long-delayed manifestation for which they
had crav'ed was at last to be granted, and that " the kingdom of
God was to immediately appear" (Luke xix. 11). But it is signi-
ficant that He eats the Passover, which was essentially the re-
ligious feast ofthe/ajfti/y, not with them, as would, under common
conditions, have been natural, but with the Twelve, to whom
He had pointed as being His true brethren. Then came what
would seem to them the fulfilment of all their worst forebodings,
the capture, the condemnation, and the death. It may be in-
ferred from John xix. 26 that it was the beloved disciple, the
nephew, and not the step-son, of the Mother of the Lord, who
accompanied her to the place of Crucifixion, but they too could
hardly have been absent from that awful spectacle. And then
came that which changed their doubt and hesitation into faith.
The risen Lord was seen of Cephas and of the Twelve, and then
of five hundred brethren at once, and after that, of James
(i Cor. XV. 5—7). When St Paul thus wrote, the one person of
whom his readers would think as thus referred to, was neither
the son of Zebedee, who was no longer among the living
witnesses of the Resurrection, nor the son of Alphseus, who was
to the Corinthians, as to us, hardly more than a name. He
could refer, they would say, to none other than the brother of
the Lord, whom they knew as the Bishop of Jerusalem, the head
of the Church of the Circumcision. A legend or tradition in
22 INTRODUCTION.
the Gospel according to the Hebrews^ which takes its place
among the more respectable of the New Testament Apocrypha,
and was translated by Jerome himself into both Greek and
Latin, connects this appearance with an incident sufficiently
suggestive to be worth inserting here. James had sworn, we
are told, that he would not eat bread from the hour in which he
had drunk of the Lord's cup until he should see Him rising
from the dead. "And the Lord went and appeared to him, and
said after a while, Bring hither a table and set bread on it ; and
He took bread and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to
James the Just, and said to him. My brother, eat thy bread
now, for the Son of Man hath risen from among those that
sleep." (Jerome, Catal. Script. Eccles.). The narrative presents,
it is obvious, so many analogies with other manifestations
recorded in the Gospels, that admitting the fact of the appear-
ance to James, on the strength of St Paul's statement, this may
well be received as giving what was probably the manner.
Some such appearance, at any rate, offers the only reasonable
explanation of the next fact in the life of St James recorded in
the New Testament. The Resurrection and the Ascension are
passed, and the " brethren " are with the Twelve in the Upper
Chamber in Jerusalem (Acts i. 14). They take part in the
election of Matthias, and are sharers in the marvellous gifts of
the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost (Acts ii. i — 4). From that
time they cast in their lot with the fortunes of the infant
Church, and their earthly relationship to the Lord of that
Church, the witness they were able to bear to the blameless
Youth and Manhood at Nazareth, no less than to the fact of the
Resurrection, must have given them a marked prominence in the
company of the disciples. They accepted the admission of the
Samaritans into the infant Church. On St Paul's return to
Jerusalem, three years after his conversion, he was received
by Peter alone of the Apostles, and by James the Lord's
brother (Gal. i. 18, 19) ^ It seems probable that on the death
^ It has sometimes been inferred from St Paul's way of speaking
("other of the Apostles saw I none save James the Lord's brother")
fJmt the one so named must have been among the Twelve, and therefore
INTRODUCTION. 23
of James the brother of John, his namesake, the brother of the
Lord, succeeded, either by direct election, or by tacit acceptance,
into the place thus left vacant. When the persecution under
Agrippa made it necessary for Peter to leave Jerusalem, the lan-
guage of the Apostle on his departure implies that James was left
as the guide and teacher of the Church (Acts xii. 17). It may
fairly be assumed that he was among the elders who received the
alms that had been collected by the Gentile converts at Antioch
(Acts xi. 30) for the disciples at Jerusalem. We may reason-
ably trace an allusion to that act of benevolence, and to the new
name of Christians which had been applied to the disciples at
Antioch (Acts xi. 26), in the language of the Epistle (see Notes
on ch. ii. 7, 16). It was, probably, one of the consequences
of the new position which he thus occupied, that in view of
the expansion of the Church, he wrote his Encyclical Epistle
to the twelve tribes of the Dispersion, addressing primarily
those among them that had embraced the faith of the Lord
Jesus Christ (ch. i. i, ii. i, v. 7), but indirectly calling all the
families of Israel to repentance, and faith, and holiness (see In-
trodMction ch. ii.). Then, after seventeen years had passed since
the conversion of St Paul, we find him presiding at the Council
of Jerusalem, recognised as, by age and position, the represen-
tative of the Church of the Circumcision (Acts xv. 13). The de-
votion, purity, asceticism of his life, his faithfulness and loving
observance of all rules which devout Pharisees practised,
had won for him the respect of that party as a whole. It
was not strange, perhaps, that those of its members who had
accepted the faith of Christ should look upon him as their ideal
Apostle, and present his life to the Gentile converts as the ex-
ample which they were bound to follow. He, they seem to have
said, would never sanction the baptism of uncircumcised prose-
lytes as members of the Church of Christ, nor their exemption
from the rules of the Law and the traditions of the Elders. He,
on his part, however, disclaims that inference from his conduct.
identical with the son of Alphaeus. The examples of a like con«;truction
in Luke iv. 26, 27 shew that no such inference is reliable. The woman
of Sarepta was not one of the widows of Israel, nor was Naaman one of
its lepers.
24 INTRODUCTION.
He had given no such commandment (Acts xv. 24). He had
learnt from the Prophet whose teaching he reproduces (comp.
Amos viii. 5, 10 with James iv. 13, v. i, 2 ; Amos vi. i — 6 with
James v. 5), in whom he found a Nazarite like himself (Amos
ii. II, 12), to welcome the conversion of the "residue of men,"
and to receive as brethren all "the Gentiles upon whom the
name of the'Lord is called" (Acts xv. 17). He suggests as the
right solution of the immediate problem, that the Gentile
Christians should be received on the footing which the more
liberal Pharisees had accepted as that of the Proselytes of the
Gate, bound to the precepts of Noah, but not to those of Moses
(Acts XV, 20). He gives to Paul and Barnabas the right hand
of fellowship (Gal. ii. 9), accepts in full the Gospel which they
had preached (Acts xv. 25, 26), and publicly gives his sanction to
the work they had done among the Gentiles. He recognises in
so doing that the Law which he himself continued to observe
with so much rigour, might be to others a yoke not easy and a
burden not light (Matt. xi. 29, 30), and that the only law of liberty
v;as the law of the true King, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour
as thyself" (Acts xv. 10, 19 ; James i. 25, ii. 8).
It is scarcely likely that, after this frank and full acceptance,
attested not by St Luke only, but by St Paul himself, in the
Epistle in which he is most eager to vindicate his entire inde-
pendence of the Church at Jerusalem, St James would have
taken up the position of antagonism which some recent writers
assign to him in the history of the Apostolic Church, which
they have constructed out of their inner consciousness, resting
on the assumption that the wild romances of the Clejnenthte
Homilies and RecogTiitions contain a more trustworthy his-
tory than the Acts of the Apostles. And the most natural
explanation of the fact that St Peter's conduct at Antioch,
in relation to the Gentiles, was altered for the worse when
"certain came from James" (Gal. ii. 12), is that then, as
before, his name was used by those to whom he had given
no such commandment, to enforce their interpretation of the
Concordat which had been adopted, on his proposal, at the
Council of Jerusalem. It is clear at any rate, that, while on the
INTRODUCTION. 25
one hand, his own life was such as to win the admiration of
those who were most zealous for the Law, he still continued,
on the other, to hold out to St Paul the right hand of fellow-
ship. He must have received him on the occasion of the visit
of which we have only the brief fragmentary record of Acts
xviii. 22. He welcomes him, when he comes once again, accom-
panied by many Gentile converts, confirms the terms of the
great Charter of Gentile freedom, and makes the characteristic
suggestion that St Paul should shew that he himself " walked
orderly and kept the Law," by doing partially, but as fully as
circumstances admitted, what he had done more thoroughly
before, and presenting himself in the Temple as one who had
upon him the vow of the Nazarite (Acts xxi. 18 — 25). Here, as far
as the New Testament is concerned, we take our leave of him,
and have to depend on the less certam guidance of later histoiy.
A brief narrative of his death is found in Josephus {Ant. XX.
9 § i), but it has been regarded by many writers as a Christian
interpolation. It states that when Albinus succeeded Festus
(Acts xxiv. 27) as Procurator of Judasa, the younger Ananus, or
Annas (son of the High Priest so named in Luke iii. 2 ; John
xviii. 1 3),- was himself High Priest, bold and daring in character.
He was of the sect of Sadducees (comp. Acts iv. 4, v. 17)
who were always conspicuous for harshness in all judicial
proceedings (comp. Joseph. Ant. xiil. 10 § 6, Wars, 11. 8 § 14).
And so, taking advantage of the interval between the death of
Festus and the arrival of Albinus, he called together a Council of
Judges (clearly the Sanhedrin), and "he brought before it the
brother of Jesus that was called Christ, whose name was James,
and certain others, and having charged them with transgressing
the law, delivered them to be stoned. Some of the most equit-
able in the city, however, and those who were most accurate in
their knowledge of the Law, were grieved at this. They sent
secretly to the King (the Agrippa of Acts xxv. J 3), begging him
to restrain Ananus from such acts of violence. Some of them
meet Albinus on his way from Alexandria, to tell him what
Ananus had done, and how it was unlawful for him to convene
the Council without his consent, and the result was that Albinus
26 INTRODUCTION.
wrote him a threatening letter, and that Agrippa deposed him
from the priesthood."
The story of his death is told in a more dramatic form, and
probably with some legendary admixture, by Hegesippus, the
historian of the Jews, who wrote in the third quarter of the
second century. The passage (quoted by Euseb. Hist. Ii. 23)
is so interesting, and in some respects so important, that it will
be well to give it at length.
"James the brother of the Lord receives the Church from
the Apostles, he who was called the Just from the Lord's time
even to our own; for many bore the name of James. This
man was holy from his mother's womb. He drank no wine nor
strong drink, nor did he eat any thing that lives. No razor
came upon his head, nor did he anoint himself with oil, nor use
the bath. He only was allowed to enter into the holy_place, for he
wore no woollen, but linen garments only. And he was Avont to
go alone into the sanctuary, and used to be found prostrate on his
knees, and asking forgiveness for the people, so that his knees
grew hard and worn, like a camel's, because he was ever kneel-
ing and worshipping God, and asking forgiveness for the
people. And on account of his exceeding righteousness he was
called the Righteous (or the Just), and Oblias, which means in
Greek 'the bulwark of the people' and 'righteousness,' as the
prophets shew of him. Some then of the seven sects of the
people, of those whom I have described in my Memoirs, were
wont to ask him. Who is the door of Jesus? And he was wont
to say that this was the Saviour. And of these some believed
• that Jesus is the Christ. But the sects of which I have spoken
did not believe either in the Resurrection, or in Him who
Cometh to give to every man according to his works. As many
then as believed did so on account of James. And when many
of the rulers also believed, there was a stir of the Jews and
Scribes and Pharisees, saying that the whole people were in
danger of looking for Jesus the Christ. They came together
and said to James: 'We entreat thee, restrain the people, for
they have gone astray to Jesus as though He were indeed the
Christ. We beseech thee to persuade all that come to the day
INTRODUCTION. 27
of the Passover concerning Jesus ; for we all hearken to thee.
For all of us bear thee witness, and all the people also, that
thou art righteous, and art no respecter of persons. Do thou
therefore persuade the multitude not to be led astray concern-
ing Jesus ; for we and all the people hearken unto thee. Stand
therefore on the pinnacle of the Temple, that thou mayest be
conspicuous aloft, and that thy words may easily be heard by
all the people, for by reason of the Passover all the tribes have
come together, and with them the Gentiles.' So the Scribes
and Pharisees before-mentioned placed James on the pinnacle
of the Temple, and they cried out to him, and said, *0 thou
Righteous one, to whom we are all bound to hearken, since the
people are all gone astray after Jesus that was crucified, tell us
what is the door of Jesus.' And he answered with a loud voice:
*Why ask ye me concerning Jesus the Son of man? He hath
sat down in Heaven on the right hand of the Great Power, and
is about to come .upon the clouds of Heaven.' And when many
were fully persuaded, and were glorifying God for the testimony
of James, and saying, ' Hosanna to the Son of David,' then again
the same Scribes and Pharisees said one to another, 'We did ill
in giving scope for such a testimony to Jesus, but let us go up
and cast him down, that they may fear and not believe him.'
And they cried out, saying, 'Ho, ho, even the Righteous is gone
astray !' And they fulfilled the scripture that is written in
Isaiah, Let us make away with the Righteous, for he is dis-
pleasing to us; therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their
works. And they went and cast the Righteous one down ;
and they said one to another, 'Let us stone James the Righteous.'
And they began to stone him, for when he was cast down he
did not die at once, but turned and fell on his knees, saying,
'O Lord God our Father, forgive them, I beseech Thee, for
they know not what they do.' And while they were thus
stoning him, one of the priests of the sons of Rechab the son of
Rechabim, of whom the Prophet Jeremiah bears record, cried
out and said, 'Cease ye: what is it that ye are doing.? The
Righteous one is praying for you.' And one of them, who
was a fuller, took the club wherewith he was wont to beat his
28 INTRODUCTION.
clothes, and smote the head of the Righteous one with it. And
so he bore his witness. And they buried him at the place
beside the Sanctuary, and his tombstone remaineth by the
Sanctuary. He was, and is, a true witness both to Jews and
Greeks, that Jesus is the Christ."
There is but little, if anything, in this narrative, that is in
itself improbable. The picture drawn of St James's life agrees
with the position occupied by him in Acts xx. 23 as the centre
of those who were all zealous of the Law, as giving prominence
to the Nazarite vow as an act of devotion, as wishing above all
things to stop the mouths of disputants and gainsayers. The
long-continued prayer in the Temple is but the natural develop-
ment of the teaching of the Epistle as to the power of effectual
fervent prayer. The use of linen garments only was after the
rule of .the Essenes (Joseph. Wars, il. 8 § 4). The abstinence
from wine and animal food was what might be expected in one
who had been a student of the prophet who gave such pro-
minence to the Nazarite vow (Amos ii. 11, 12; Acts xv. 16), who
had been also a follower of the Baptist, and so largely repro-
duced his teaching. The non-use of the bath need not be
understood of any neglect of the multiplied ablutions which
were practised by all Pharisees and devout Jews, above all,
by the Essenes (Joseph. Wars, II. 8 § 3), whose life approxi-
mated to the type presented by that of St James and of the
Baptist. The "bath" in the language of the writers of that
age was the Roman bath with its sudatorium, frigidarium,
shampooing, and other appliances, which was naturally looked
upon by those who were leading an ascetic life as an effemi-
nate luxury. Even the more startling fact, that the brother
of the Lord was allowed to enter into the Sanctuary, is not
without a parallel (assuming the term to point not to the Holy
of Holies, but to the Court of the Priests) in the privileges
which were granted to other Nazarites, and which led a later
Jewish writer (Maimonides, More Nevochim III. 43) to place
those who took that vow on them as a life-long obligation, on a
level with the High Priest ; and the mention of the priest of the
sons of Rechab, who naturally sympathised with one whose life
INTRODUCTION. 29
was like his own, is explained by the fact, sufficiently established
by the Targum of Jonathan and other evidence (see Dictionary
of the Bible, Art. ''Rechabites"), that they were adopted, after the
Captivity, into the tribe of Levi, perhaps into the family of Aaron,
and became entitled to their privileges. The tradition reported
by Epiphanius {Hcer. 78) that he, like St John at Ephesus
{Eus. v. 24), wore the neTaKov, or thin plate of gold, with the
words "Holiness to the Lord," which belonged to the High
Priest (Exod. xxviii. 36), represents, it is obvious, the same ideas,
and in spite of its apparent strangeness, need not be rejected as
in itself incredible^ The name Oblias^, with the explanation
which Hegesippus gives of it, represents the reverence felt by
the population of Jerusalem for one who was to them the last
surviving representative of the saintly life, and which shewed
itself in their feeling that when he was murdered their defence
was gone, and that the calamities that then followed in such
quick succession were the just punishment of that deed of blood
(Euseb. Hisi. 11. 23). The question which seems to us at first
scarcely intelligible, What is the door of Jesus ? connects itself
with the teaching of the Epistle that "the Judge standeth at the
door" (ch. V. 9). One who had those words often on his lips
as a warning against the selfish luxury of the generation in
which he lived, was likely enough to hear from Sadducean
priests, themselves foremost in that luxury, the mocking question,
1 It may be noted, in connexion with this statement, that the por-
trait of Josephus, commonly found in the English editions, represents him
with this petalon. I do not know from what picture the engraving was
made, but the fact seems to indicate that the practice was not so strange
as it appears to us. Josephus, it will be remembered, claimed descent
from the sons of Aaron, and it is not unlikely that both St John and the
brother of the Lord may have had alike claim (see Article "Priests" in
the Dictionary of the Bible). Jerome, whose personal knowledge goes for
something in such a matter, says that Josephus was in such favour with
Vespasian and Titus, that he had a public statue at Rome {Caial. Script.
Ilhist. ), so that there may have been some authority in the fourth century
for such a representation.
2 The probable Hebrew form of the word was Ophli-am ( = strong-
hold of the people), the first half of the word being identical with Ophel,
the tower on the south side of the Temple, which was the residence of
the Levites (Neh. xi. 21).
30 INTRODUCTION.
" What is that door of which we hear so much ? " They did not
hear anything, though the Judge was standing at the door and
knocked.
VI. Later traditions present features that are either dimmer
or more distorted. The party that had misrepresented St James
in his life continued their work after he was dead ; and in the
controversial romance known as the Homilies of the Pseudo-
Clement of Rome, Peter writes to the brother of the Lord, and
maintains the perpetual obligation of the Law of Moses against
the preaching of the man (obviously the forger of the letter
means St Paul) who was "his enemy," and James delivers the
record of his teaching to men who are at once "devout and
circumcised and faithful," and binds them by a solemn oath,
like that of the Freemasons or other secret societies, to absolute
secresy and obedience {Epistle of Peter, prefixed to the Clemen-
tine Ho77iilies). The Pseudo-Clement dedicates his work to "his
lord James, the bishop of bishops, who rules Jerusalem, the
Holy Church of the Hebrews" {Epist. of Clejuetit). In a second
romance known as the RecogJiitio7zs, ascribed to the same
writer, St James, the "Archbishop" of Jerusalem, sends Peter to
Caesarea to stop the work carried on by Simon the Sorcerer
{Recogn. I. 72, 'j'^, and stands for seven days on the steps of the
Temple proclaiming that Jesus is the Christ, while Saul, here
also represented as from first to last the "enemy" of Peter and
of James, is making havock of the Church. In the Apostolic
Co7istitutions, a work probably of the third or fourth century, he
appears with the Twelve (here also distinguished from the son
of Alphaeus), (Book VI. 14), and gives rubrical directions for the
lighting of lamps, and the Evening Prayer that was to accom-
pany it (Book VIII. 35 — 37), and for prayers for the departed
(Book VIII. 41). In accordance v/ith the hints there given, the
Eastern Churches, of which Antioch was the centre, claimed
him as having laid down the order and pattern of their worship,
and the Liturgy of James comes before us as one of the great
representatives of what was in the third, and possibly in the
second, century, the Eucharistic Service of the ancient
Church, and James is commemorated in it as the prince of
INTRODUCTION. 31
Bishops, Apostles, and Martyrs (Trollope's Liturgy of St Jajties,
p. 130). The "brother of the Lord" has become the ' h.bik(l>66ios ,
"the brother of the very God." {Ibid, p. 25.)
Wild and fantastic as are these imaginings, they are yet not
without interest as shewing how powerfully the personality of
James had impressed itself on the minds of his contemporaries
and followers. Legends gather round the memory of a great
man, not of a small one. And the character which is visible
through all of them is that of one who continued all his life a •
Hebrew of the Hebrews, zealous for the Law, and devout in its
observance, winning by his personal holiness the admiration
and reverence of all who knew him. It is refreshing, however,
to pass from the region of fables, and to tread on the safer
ground— safer, though here, too, we need the caution which
should attend all exercise of the historical imagination— of the
inferences that may legitimately be drawn from what the New
Testament writers tell us of the man, from what he tells us of
himself. We have, then, present before us one whose personal
work is limited to Jerusalem, who undertakes no far-distant
journeys. Such a life tends naturally to the devout, contem-
plative, ascetic pattern of religion. It keeps itself "unspotted
from the world." Its practical activity is limited to "visiting the
fatherless and widows in their affliction." The days pass by in
a calm unbroken order, and the outer stirrings of the world
scarcely ruffle it. And the life was spent in great part, at least,
in company with the two Apostles, St Peter and St John. We
can think of James as delighting in their converse, interchanging
thoughts with them, learning from them, and in his turn teaching
them, so that, as we have seen (p. 9), his words and phrases
are often theirs, and theirs are his. And there also, for part
of the time, must have been the Publican- Apostle, writing his
Gospel for the Hebrews, yet writing it, there seems reason
to believe, in Greek as well as Hebrew, for the twelve tribes
that were scattered abroad, to whom St James addressed his
Epistle. May we not think of the two as communing together
as the work went on; the brother of the Lord imparting to
the Evangelist the genealogy of the house of David, which
32 INTRODUCTION.
was treasured among the records of his lineage, and the
events, as he remembered or had heard them, of the Birth
and Infancy of the Christ, and reading the Sermon on the
Mount, in which he found the "royal law, the perfect law of
freedom ; " and of which accordingly we find so many echoes in
the Epistle (p. 8)? From time to time there appears in Jerusalem
one of wider thoughts and wider work, whom many of the
Church at Jerusalem hated and suspected, James does not
hate or suspect, and holds out the right hand of fellowship, but he
feels that he has a vocation and ministry of his own, and his
form of life and type of thought remain as they were, but little
influenced by the teaching of the Apostle of the Gentiles. And
Luke comes with St Paul, and the wide culture and sympathies
of the beloved physician enable him to understand, better than
others, the character of the Bishop of Jerusalem, outwardly so
different from, essentially so in harmony with, the character of
his friend, and he resolves that, as far as in him lies, the false
rumours of an antagonism between them which had gone
abroad and gained acceptance, shall be shewn to be not facts,
but the reverse of facts, engendered by the father of lies. And
the life thus calm and tranquil is naturally given to study as
well as prayer and good works. The Holy Scriptures are
naturally the chief object of those studies, but his early know-
ledge as a Galilaean, and his frequent intercourse with the
Hellenistic pilgrims of the Dispersion, who came up to keep
their Pentecost or other feasts at Jerusalem, made him familiar
with the Greek version of those Scriptures, and so with the
books which the Alexandrian Jews had added to the Hebrew
volume. His Epistle shews how much he valued the practical
teaching of one of those books, how he found in the Son of
Sirach one who, like himself, had sought for wisdom and had
not sought in vain. The parallelisms with that book are, as the
following table will shew, nearly as numerous as those with the
Sermon on the Mount.
James i. 5. Ecclus. xx. 15, xli. 22.
i. 8. i. 28, ii. 12.
i. 12. i. II, 16, iS.
INTRODUCTION. 33
James i. 12.
!• 19.
1- 23.
?:.^5.
in. 5.
Ecclus.
. XV. II.
. V, II, XX. 7.
xii. II.
xiv. 23, xxi. 23.
xxviii. 10.
iii. 6.
xxviii. iq (?).
Yet another book, the work, probably, of a contemporary,
written, as some, have thought^, by the Jew of Alexandria,
eloquent and mighty in the Scriptures, to whom many critics, .
from Luther onwards, have assigned the authorship of the
Epistle to the Hebrews, must have attracted him by its very
title, the Wisdom of Solomon, and with this also we find not a
few interesting and suggestive parallelisms.
James i. II. Wisd. ii. 8.
i- 12. V. 7.
i- i7« vii. 17 — 20.
i. 20. xii. 10.
i. •zs* vii. 26.
ii. 21. X. 5.
iv. 14. iii. 16, v. 9 — 14.
We picture such a man to ourselves as grave and calm, for
the most part silent, but when speaking, letting fall words that
were as seeds that germinated and took root in the souls of
others, indifferent to the luxuries and comforts of life, honouring
the poor more than the rich, visiting the fatherless and the
widow, accompanying the Elders of the Church when they
anointed the sick with oil in the hope of their recovery, slow to
judge, calming by his saintly meekness the angry passions of
contending parties, adopting the policy of non-resistance in
times of persecution. Not without cause did men speak of him
as emphatically the "just, or righteous, one" as presenting a type
of character after the pattern of His who was emphatically the
Just One, Jesus Christ the Righteous (Matt, xxvii. 19; Luke
xxiii. 47; Acts iii. 14, vii. 52; i John ii. i). The frequent oc-
currence of that title either in its Greek or Latin form (as in
1 See Two Papers on 7'he Writings of Apollos in Vol. i. of the
Exposiior.
ST JA>fES J
INTRODUCTION.
the Justus of Acts i. 23, xviii. 7; Col. iv. 11) seems to indicate
that it was used somewhat freely of those who aimed at a
higher righteousness than that of the Scribes and Pharisees.
So far as we may think of such a one as James the Just as
reeding refreshment after the strain of worship and of work,
some subtle touches in the Epistle lead us to think of that
refreshment as found by him, as by all pure and simple souls, in
the forms of life around him. To consider the lilies of the field,
to dwell lovingly on what he calls the comeliness, not of the
fashion, but of the face of each fair flower (see Note on i. 10),
to find a quiet joy, as St John is said to have done in his old age
(see note on ch. iii. 7), in the power of man to tame the wildness,
and even to win the affection, of bird or beast, — this also we may
think of as entering into the life of the brother of the Lord, and
teaching him new lessons in the wisdom which he sought. Chris-
tendom has presented many types of saintliness, more intense and
vehement, more mystic and spiritual^ with wider thoughts, or at
least a freer utterance, of the mysteries of God. It was well that
the Apostolic age should present one type such as this, in which
holiness appeared mainly as identical with Wisdom ; that this
should be as much the special characteristic of St James, as
Faith was of St Paul, and Hope of St Peter, and Love of the
beloved disciple. That type has happily not been without its
representatives in later ages of the Church. In Macarius of
Egypt, in Thomas k Kempis, in our own Bishop Wilson, w.e
trace the same ideal of life, the aim at that wisdom which.
Cometh from above, and is first pure and then peaceable, gentle,
and carrying with it the persuasive power of gentleness. The
life of St James was well characterised by Eusebius {Hist. Tl,
23), as marked by " the highest philosophy." The Liturgy of
the Greek Church as happily attaches the epithet "Wise "rather
than Just, to the "brother of the Lor.d," and commemorates
"the marvellous and ineffable mysteries" which were made
known to him by the " Wisdom of the incarnate Lord " who
vouchsafed to be his Teacher.
INTRODUCTION. 33
CHAPTER II.
TO WHOM WAS THE EPISTLE ADDRESSED?
I. The letter which bears the name of James purports to be
addressed to the "twelve tribes that are scattered abroad"
(literally in the dispersion. See note on ch. i. i). No other
Epistle takes so wide a range. St Peter's, which comes nearest
to it, does not extend beyond the section of the "dispersion"
that was to be found in the northern and central provinces of
Asia Minor. This contemplates nothing less than all the
families of Israel, and, as far as they are concerned, is, in the
fullest sense of the word, a Catholic or Universal Epistle.
On the other hand, there seems, at times, to be an implied
limitation. He writes to those who "hold the faith of the Lord
Jesus Christ" (ch. ii. i), who have His worthy (or noble) Name
called upon them (ch. ii. 7), who live in the expectation of His
coming (ch. v. 7). Seen from one point pf view, the Epistle
seems a call to the outward Israel, such as the preaching of the
Baptist had been, to be true to their calling, to live by the light
they had, to conquer the besetting sins of their race. Seen from
another, it is an earnest appeal to the Israelites who had ac-
cepted Jesus as the Christ, to be on their guard, lest those sins
should reappear in the new society of the Church of God. From
yet a third stand-point it seems to be addressed specially to
the Churches of Judaea. It speaks of forms of persecution and
oppression (ch. ii. 6, 7, v. 4), which obviously refer directly to
the acts of violence that followed on the death of Stephen (Acts
ix. 2), and were renewed under Herod Agrippa I. (Acts xii. i, 2).
2. We shall perhaps be better able to understand the
features which the Epistle thus presents to us, if we endeavour
to realise the position of the writer. The Church of Jerusalem
wus committed to his special charge. All the notices of his
life, historical, traditional, legendary, represent him as con-
3—2
36 INTRODUCTION.
fining himself to that special work, as never leaving the Holy
City, as being a constant worshipper in the Temple. But every
feast in every year brought to Jerusalern representatives of the
"dispersion" from "every nation under heaven" (Acts ii. 5).
Taking the list of those who were present on the day of Pente-
cost, we fin^ among them those of Parthia and Media and Elam
(Persia), who were descendants of the Ten Tribes that had been
carried into exile by the river of Gozan and in the cities of
the Medes by Shalmaneser (2 Kings xvii. 6) ; the dwellers of
Mesopotamia, who were of the children of the Babylonian
captivity (2 Kings xxiv. 14—16, xxv. 11) ; those of Egypt, who
traced their settlement in Alexandria to the invasion of Ptolemy-
Lagus (Joseph. Ant. xii. i) ; others, as in the case of the
eunuch of Acts viii. 27, who, in the reign of Manasseh, had
been carried off by Psammetichus (as in the history of the
Septuagint that bears the name of Aristeas), and were known,
even in the time of the prophet Zephaniah, as the people " of
the daughter of my dispersed beyond the rivers of Ethiopia"
(Zeph. iii. 10). Lastly, there were those whom the war with
Pompeius had scattered over every province of the Roman
Empire and had planted in large numbers in Rome itself,
those who had made jtheir way from Alexandria to the parts
of Libya about Cyrene, the more isolated settlements of Arabia
and of Crete. With some of these, at least, St James would
come into contact. In those who came from Egypt he might
find thoughts in some measure in harmony with his own. The
Therapeutae ( = "healers of the soul," or, perhaps, "followers of
the devout life"), who were leading a devout ascetic life on the
shores of the Lake Mareotis in the Delta of the Nile, never
tasting animal food nor wine, praising God in solemn chants
and antiphonal hymns (Euseb. Hist. II. 17); the disciples of
Philo, dwelling much on the attainment of a true philosophy as
the highest aim of man, and identifying the Divine Word or
Logos with the Giver of all wisdom and knowledge ; those who
brought with them the sapiential books which were studied
among the Alexandrian Jews, the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach,
and the more recent work known as the Wisdom of Solomon,
INTRODUCTION. 37
probably by a contemporary, possibly, as some have inferred
from numerous coincidences of thought and language, by the
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews prior to his acceptance of
the faith of Christ ^ These he would welcome as manifesting in
their various forms the search after the life of heavenly wisdom
to which he himself was devoted. But in most of those who
came he would note, with shame and sorrow, the same defects as
those which he found among his own countrymen, the same
greed of gain (ch. iv. i, 2), the same respect of persons (ch. ii.
I — 7), the same wrangling and bitterness in debate (ch. iii.
I — 12). They relied upon their faith in the dogma of Mono-
theism as a substitute for holiness of life (ch. ii. 19). They ab-
horred idols, and yet robbed their temples (Rom. ii. 22). They
pleased not God, and were contrary to all men (i Thess. ii. 15).
The name of God was blasphemed among the Gentiles through
their lamentable and shameful inconsistencies (Rom. ii. 24). In
view of these evils, we may believe, St James was led to write
to the Twelve Tribes of the Dispersion, to call them at least to
live up to the ideal of the faith of Israel. It lay in the nature
of the case, however, that those with whom he came most into
contact were those who held the faith which he held, that Jesus
was the Christ, and that being so. He was none other than the
Lord of Gloiy (ch. ii. i). Only in such as these could he find
those who would be the bearers of his letter to the several
centres of the Dispersion. Only among these could he feel any
assurance that his letter would, in the first instance, gain a
hearing. In these he saw those who were to be, in the Divine
purpose, a purpose which they might forward or frustrate, the
first-fruits of humanity (ch. i. 18). And therefore he writes, not
as a prophet or moralist only, but as " the servant of the Lord
Jesus Christ" (ch. i. i). He is above all anxious that they, in
their life as individuals and as a community, should not hold the
faith in the Lord Jesus as a mere barren dogma, but should
shew the fruits of their higher knowledge in "the meekness of
wisdom," in a nobler and purer life (ch. iii. 13). Because he is
writing to the Twelve Tribes at large, he does not dwell with any
^ See Note, p. ^7^.
38 INTRODUCTION.
fulness on the higher mysteries of the Kingdom, but is content
to call on them to live by the light they have, in the conviction
that in so doing they would be led to know of the doctrine
whether it were of God (John vii. 17). Because he is writing to
those who shared his faith and hope, he does not shrink from the
confession of his belief in Jesus as the Christ, or from pressing
on the minds of those who were to read his letter the solemn
thought that He was the Judge, and that His coming was not
far off (ch. v. 7). But one who lived as St James, in one spot,
the horizon of whose view was consequently within compara-
tively narrow limits, was certain to be impressed mainly with
what he himself heard and saw. He would dwell on the scenes
which he witnessed, or knew of as practised in the Christian
synagogues of Judaea (ch. ii. i — 3), to the persecutions of which
it had been the scene, and in which the wealthy aristocracy of
the Sadducean priest-party — always, as he himself experienced
and as Josephus testifies {A7it. xiil. 10. § 6; XX. 9. § i ; Wars,
II. 8. § 14), conspicuous for their judicial cruelties — had taken
the most prominent part (ch. ii. 6). He would point to the
indifference which the richer Jews shewed towards the suffer-
ings of the poor of Jerusalem at the time of the famine, and
contrast it with the liberality of the Gentile converts whom
they despised as outside the pale of the covenant of Israel (ch.
ii. 15-18).
Such, it is believed, is the conclusion to which the phas-
nomena of the Epistle lead. It will be seen that it takes in
whatever element of truth is to be found in the less complete
theories which look on it as addressed only to Jews as such
or only to Jewish Christians, or only to the Churches of Judasa.
We need not wonder, if we remember even the outlines of the
history of the Apostolic Church, that it should be comparatively
slow in finding its way into general acceptance, that though in
one sense Catholic in its aim, and in due time recognised by that
• title, it did not occupy, in the history of the Canon of the New
Testament, a position like that of the Gospels or the Epistles
of St Paul. Read in the first instance in the Churches of the
Circumcision only, bearing the name of the Teacher whom the
INTRODUCTION. 39
party of the Judaisers, developed afterwards into the sect of the
Ebionites, claimed as theirs, and whom they put forward, as in the
Pseudo- Clementine Homilies and Recognitio7is, as the antagonist
of St Paul, it was inevitable that its course should be more or
less retarded. We may, perhaps, trace some indirect reference to
its teaching in the Epistle to the Romans (ch. ii. 24 ; Rom. iii. 28),
yet more clearly in the Epistle to the Hebrews (ch. ii. 21, 25 ;
Heb. xi. 17, 31), and in that of Clement to the Church of
Corinth, as in his use of St James's word for " double-minded "
(c. 11), his quotation of the question, ''Whence come wars and
fightings among you ?" (c. 46), and of the maxim that love ''covers
a multitude of sins " (c. 49), in his reference to the sacrifice of
Isaac (c. 31), in his citation of the same words from Prov. iii. 34,
that are quoted by St James (c. 30), in the prominence which he
gives to the history of Rahab (c. 12), in his naming Abraham
the friend of God (c. 68). Irenasus (iv. 16) reproduces the pas-
sage about Abraham (ch. ii. 21), and there are many parallelisms
between its teaching and that of the Shepherd of Hermas. Comp.
Mand. xii. 5 with James iv. 7
xii. 6 iv. 12.
ix. I i. 8.
Vis. iii. 9 V. 4.
In the time of Origen it was known and read. The Peschito
Syriac version included it, and recognized the writer as an
Apostle. Eusebius, as we have seen, classed it among the
books that some looked on as spurious, nor was it included
in the Canon of the Muratorian fragment, though that list takes
in, as has been said above, such books as the Wisdotn ofSoio?non,
and the Shepherd of Hermas. Finally, however, with the other
Antilegomenay it won its way, as already stated, to a general
acceptance, was received into the Canon by the Council of
Laodicea, A.D. 320, and the third Council of Carthage, a.d. 397,
and is not now likely to be displaced, except by those who, led
by dogmatic prejudices, think lightly, as Luther once didi,of its
merits, or by whom the whole idea of an authoritative Canon of
inspired writings is more or less rejected.
1 The famous "Epistle of straw" appeared in a German' New
Testament in A.D. 1522, and though not formally retracted, was never
reproduced in any later edition.
40 INTRODUCTION,
CHAPTER III.
THE DATE OF THE EPISTLE.
1. I have assumed so far that the Epistle was written at a
comparatively early date, probably prior to the earliest of
St Paul's Epistles, or even to the Council at Jerusalem of
Acts XV. It remains, however, to give a more distinct view
of the facts that lead to that conclusion.
2. First, then, we note the absence of any reference to the
controversy as to the necessity of circumcision, which that
Council was summoned to decide. It is scarcely conceivable
that one writing after such a controversy had arisen, would, in
addressing himself to Jews and Jewish Christians throughout
the world, have refrained fro.m^ any reference to it. Writing
before, it would be perfectly natural that he should assume that
the position which had been assigned by the more liberal Rabbis
to the Proselytes of the Gate would be conceded to those also
who added faith in Jesus as the Christ to their acceptance of the
creed of Israel, and had been baptized in His Name and had
received the gift of the Spirit. The case of Cornelius (Acts x.
47) might well seem to have ruled the question once and for all
in the sense in which St James afterwards ruled it. Here then
we get probable limits for the date of the Epistle, in that con-
version on the one hand, in the Council of Jerusalem on the
other.
3. It may be noted that- on this view the Epistle itself sup-
plies a probable clue to the origin of the controversy, and
explains the language in which St James and the Apostles and
Elders repudiate the action of those who had originated it.
"Forasmuch as we have heard that certain which went out
from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls,
saying. Ye must be circumcised and keep the Law ; to whom we
gave no such commandvie7it^^ (Acts xv. 24). It lies on the sur-
INTRODUCTION. 41
face that there was one passage in the Epistle, which, though
written with no such purpose, might easily, interpreted as the
Pharisees would interpret it, seem to give a countenance to the
position which they maintained. St James had written, "Who-
soever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is
guilty of all " (ch. ii. 10). How easy it would be for the Judaisers
to lay hold of such words, and ignoring the fact that he was
speaking of the Law, new and yet eternal, the Law of the King,
and yet the Law of freedom, to represent him as insisting on
the observance of the whole Mosaic Code, as urging that the
neglect of circumcision and new moons and sabbaths stood on
the same footing as the violation of the great Laws of duty
which were not of to-day or yesterday !
4. The reference to the persecutions to which the brethren
were exposed in ch. ii. 6, is, it will be .noted, in the present
tense. It indicates a stage of suffering which has not yet
receded into the past of history. The two persecutions to which
the Churches of Judaea were exposed prior to the Council of
Jerusalem were, (i) that in which Saul, the Pharisee, made him-
self the tool of the Sadducean priesthood, and in which deeds of
violence were done precisely corresponding to St James's de-
scription (Acts ix. 2), and (2) that in which Herod Agrippa,
seeking probably to gain the support of that priesthood as well
as of the people, took a leading part (Acts xii. i, 2). It is on
the death of James the son of Zebedee in that persecution that
the brother of the Lord, as we have seen, first comes into a
new prominence, and it is not an improbable supposition that
it was in face of the new responsibilities thus imposed upon him,-
that he wrote the Epistle that bears his name.
5. Another coincidence will help us, it is believed, to ap-
proximate yet more closely to the date as to which we are
enquiring. If we believe, as is shewn in the notes on ch. ii.
15 — 18 to be probable, that the words which speak of the
contrast between the works of one who feeds the hungry and
clothes the naked, and the dead faith of one who rests in an
orthodox belief, refer, more or less directly, to the generous help
that had been given by the disciples at Antioch to the suffering
42 INTRODUCTION.
poor at Jerusalem, we find fresh grounds for the conclusion
already arrived at; and accepting the dates commonly received
for the chronology of the Acts, we have the years between
A.D. 44, the date of the help so given, and A.D. 51, the year of
the Council, as the limits within which we may place the com-
position of the Epistle. In all probability, i.e. it was written
while Paul and Barnabas were absent from Antioch on their
first missionary journey (Acts xiii.), and it was when they re-
turned from their labours that they found their work thwarted
and threatened by the false interpretation which had been
put upon its teaching. The probable reference to the name
of Christian in ch. ii. 7 is, it is obvious, in agreement with this
conclusion. It may be mentioned that the view here taken
agrees in the main with that maintained by Alford {Com-
mentary), by Neander {Pfianzung U7id Leitung, II. p. 576), and
most recent Commentators, and is accepted, as far as the date
of the Epistle is concerned, by Mr Bassett {IntroducHo7i to
Comme7tta7y). Bishop Wordsworth {I7it7'oductzo7i to St Ja77ies)y
following Lardner and De Wette and the school of Com-
mentators who see in St James's teaching that which was
intended to correct inferences drawn from St Paul's, places it
naturally after the Epistles to the Galatians and Romans, circ.
A.D. 61. It may be questioned, however, in addition to the
positive arguments for the earlier date and against the presence
of any* such purpose in St James's thoughts, whether copies
of those Epistles were likely to have found their way to Jeru-
salem during St James's life-time. Apostolical epistles were not
likely to be transcribed by the hundred and circulated broadcast
in that early age, and the burden of proof lies on those who
assume that copies of what was written for Rome or Galatia
would be at once despatched by a special courier to the Bishop
of Jerusalem. The date of A.D. 61 or 62, shortly before the
martyrdom of James in the latter year, must therefore be re-
jected, as supported by no adequate proof, and as being against
the balance of the circumstantial evidence which has been
here adduced.
6. As to the place of composition, there is not even the
INTRODUCTION. 43
shadow of a doubt. Even if there were not, as has been said
above, an unbroken consent of all historical, traditional, and
legendary notices as to the continued residence of the Bishop
of Jerusalem in the city which was, in modern language, his see,
the local colouring of the Epistle would indicate with sufficient
clearness where the writer lived. He speaks, as the prophets of
Israel had done, of the early and the latter rain (ch. v. 7) ; the
hot blast of the Kauso7i or Simoom of the desert (ch. i. 11), the
brackish springs of the hills of Judah and Benjamin (ch. iii. 11),
the figs, the olives, and the vines with which those hills were
clothed (ch. iii. 12), — all these form part of the surroundings
of the writer. Storms and tempests, such as might have been
seen on the sea of Galilee or in visits to Cassarea or Joppa, and
the power of man to guide the great ships safely through them,
have at some time or other been familiar to him (ch. iii. 4),
CHAPTER IV.
ANALYSIS OF THE EPISTLE.
The structure of the Epistle is, as every reader will feel,
altogether informal and unsystematic, and an analysis can
hardly aim at more than tracking the succession of topics and
indicating, where possible, the latent sequence of thought.
Chap. I. Writing to those of whom he thinks as exposed
to trials and "temptations, he opens with words of comfort as
to the work they are meant to do (i — ^4). That they may
accomplish that work men want the wisdom which learns the
lessons of experience, and wisdom is given to those who ask
for it in faith (5 — 7). In want of faith there is instability, and
the secret reason why faith is in most men so weak is that
they prefer the false riches to the true. Conquer that tempta-
tion, and trials lead straight on to the crown of life (8 — 12).
Nor must men think that they can plead destiny and God's
Will as an excuse for yielding to temptation. That Will is
44 INTRODUCTION.
absolutely righteous. Evil is found not in circumstances but
in man's lust and appetite (13 — 17). From God comes all
good and nothing but good, above all, the highest good of the
Word of truth which regenerates our life (18 — 21). Well for
us, if we receive that Word and do it ; woe for us, if we only
think we have received it, and substitute a ritual observance for
works of pitying love (22 — 27).
Chap. II. How hollow such a ritual religion may be is
seen even in the synagogues of believing Jews. They profess
faith in Him who was poor Himself and the Friend of the poor,
and in the very place where they meet to worship Him they
insult the poor and act with base servility towards the rich.
Small as men may think this fault, it is a wilful transgression
of the law of Christ by which we are to be judged (i — 13). It
will .profit such breakers of the Law little to say that they have
maintained the faith of Israel in the Unity of the Godhead
in the midst of the worshippers of Gods many and Lords many.
Faith without works is dead, and the ultimate acquittal and
acceptance of a man will depend not so much on what he has
believed as on the manner in which belief has influenced prac-
tice (14—26).
Chap. III. Nor was this the only evil of which the Chris-
tian synagogue was the scene. Men were struggling for pre-
eminence as teachers, each with his doctrine and interpretation.
Thence came wrangling and debate, and the tongue shot forth
the fiery arrows of bitter words (i — 8). To suppose that a
man could be wise or religious while he was uttering curses and
anathemas was as monstrous as any natural portent, salt and
sweet water gushing from the same spring, figs borne by olive-
trees, and the like (9 — 12). Far other than that was the true
wisdom that comes from above. Let men look first on this
picture and then on that, and so make their choice (13—18).
Chap. IV. In strong contrast with the life regulated by
such a wisdom is the unwisdom of those who think only of
gratifying the promptings of their lower nature. From those
promptings comes nothing but discords and confusion. Men
must choose once more between the friendship of the world
INTRODUCTION. 45
ami that of God, between the lower and the higher life (i — 8).
Repentance, humility, the temper that refrains from judging,
are the indispensable conditions of all true blessedness (9 — 12).
The eagerness that throws its selfish aims and plans into the
future, near or far, must be repressed by dwelling on the short-
ness and uncertainty of life (13 — 17).
Chap. V. As if conscious that he had nearly reached the
limit of his Epistle, the writer takes up the more solemn tone
of the older prophets in his warnings to the rich. They little
know the miseries which he foresees as close at hand, the swift
judgment that is coming upon the oppressors and persecutors
(i — 7). What is a thought of terror for them is, however, one of
encouragement and comfort for the patient sufferers. The "end
of the Lord" for such, will be as full of blessing as that of Job
and the prophets who had endured patiently in the days of
old (7 — 11). A few more rules of life are needed for men's
daily conduct. To abstain from rash and random oaths; to
find in prayer and psalmody the true utterance of sorrow or of
joy (12, 13); to trust to simple remedies and the prayer of faith
in times of sickness (14, 15) ; to confess faults, one to another,
in the behef that the prayer for forgiveness and other spiritual
blessings is as mighty now as was Elijah's prayer for drought
or rain (17, 18) ; to think not only or chiefly of saving ourselves,
but to aim by prayer and counsel and act, at saving others
(19, 20) — this is the true pattern of the life of Christ's disciples.
Having said this, the writer has nothing more to say, and the
Epistle ends.
J
ST. JAMES.
1-^4. Trials and their Purpose.
AMES, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, 1
to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.
1—4. Trials and their Purpose.
1. a servant of God and of the Lord yesus Christi The description
which the writer gives of himself throws no light on his identity. The
term "servant," better slave, as one who had been bought with
a price (i Cor. vi. 20, vii, 23), was used of themselves by both St
Peter (2 Pet. i. i) and St Paul (Rom. i. i ; Titus i. i). It might be
claimed by either of the Apostles who bore the name of James, or by
the brother of our Lord, or indeed by any believer, (i Pet. ii. 16).
It may be noted that this and ch. ii. i are the only passages in
which St James names our Lord, and that the form in which the Name
appears is identical with that in the Epistle from the Apostles and
Elders assembled under St James's presidency, in Acts xv. 26.
to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad] Literally, that are In
the dispersion. The superscription is interesting as shewing that the
ten tribes of the Kingdom of Israel, though they had been carried into
a more distant exile than Judah and Benjamin, were thought of, not as
lost and out of sight, but as still sharing the faith and hope of their
fathers. So St Paul speaks of "the twelve-tribed nation" as "serving
God day and night" (Acts xxvi. 7), and our Lord's promise that His
twelve disciples should sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel
(Matt. xix. 28), and the Apocalyptic vision of the sealing of the tribes
(Rev. vii. 5 — 8) imply the same belief. The legend as to the disappear-
ance of the Ten Tribes, which has given rise to so many insane dreams
as to their identification with the Red Indians of America or our Anglo-
Saxon forefathers, appears for the first time in the Apocryphal 2 Esdras
(xiii. 39 — 47), a book probably of about the same date as the Revelation
of St John.
The term, "the dispersion," the abstract noun. being used for the
concrete, had come to be a. technical term for the Hellenistic and other
Jews who were to be found within, or beyond, the limits of the Roman
Empire. So the Jews ask whether our Lord will go "to the disper-
sion of (i.e. among) the Greeks" (John vii. 35). So St Peter writes
to "the sojourners of the dispersion'^ in the provinces of Asia Minor
48 ST. JAMES, I. [vv. 2, 3.
8 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temp-
! tations ; knowing this^ that the trying of your faith worketh
(r Pet. i. i). The term had probably come into use from the LXX. of
Deut. xxviii. 25 ("There shall be a dispersion in all the kingdoms of
the world"). So in Judith v. 19, Judah and Benjamin are said "to
have come back from the dispersion,^' and the prayer of Nehemiah in 2
Mace. i. 27 is that "God would gather together his dispersion."
greetingX The salutation is the same as in the Epistle purporting to
come from the Church over which St James presided, in Acts xv. 23.
The literal meaning of the word is to rejoice, and the idiomatic use
of the infinitive is a condensed expression of the full "I wish you joy."
It was primarily a formula of Greek letter-writers, but it had been used
by the LXX. for the Hebrew "peace" in Isaiah xlviii. 22, Ivii. 21, and
appears in the superscription of the letters of Antiochus in 2 Mace. ix.
19. It is the word used in the mock salutations of the soldiers in the
history of the Passion, ''Hail, King of the Jews" (Matt. xxvi. 49,
xxvii. 29, xxviii. 9). In 2 John verses 10, 11 it is rendered by the
colloquial English of "bidding God speed." It is not used in any other
of the Epistles of the New Testament, St Paul and St Peter using the
formula " grace and peace. "
2. count it all joy... '\ We lose, in the English, the link which con-
nects the wish for "joy" merged in our "greeting," with the thought
which indicates how the wish may be realised even under conditions
that seem most adverse to it. The transition may^be noticed as character-
istic of the style of the Epistle. Other examples of a like method will
meet us as we go on. The Greek formula for "all joy" (literally,
every kind of joy) suggests the thought of the varied elements of joy
that were to be found in the manifold forms of trial.
into divers teinptationsX The word, as commonly in the New Testa-
ment, stands for trials that take the form of suffering, rather than for the
enticements of pleasure. Comp. Luke xxii. 28; Acts xx. 19; i Cor. x.
13; T Pet. i. 6. Its use implies accordingly that those to whom the
Epistle was written were passing through a time of adversity. This was
true, more or less, of the whole Jewish race, every^vhere, but it was
specially true of those who being of the Twelve Tribes, also held the
faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, and of those most of all who were most
within the writer's view. Comp. i Thess. ii. 14 ; Heb. x. 32, 33, for
the sufferings of Jewish and specially of Hebrew Christians. The word
for "fall into" implies an unlooked-for concurrence of adverse circum-
stances.
3. that the trying of your fait h'\ The word for "trjring" implies at
once a "test," and a "discipline" leading to improvement. The same
phrase meets us, in conjunction also with "divers temptations," in i
Pet. i. 7. Each was, perhaps, quoting what had become an axiom of
the Church's life.
worketh patience\ The Greek word always implies more than mere
passive submission, the '' endurance \xvA.o the end" of Matt. x. 22, xxiv. 13,
the perseverance which does not falter under suffering.
w. 4, 5.] ST JAMES, I. 49
patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye 4
may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
5 — 8. Wisdom^ and the Prayer that gains it. ,
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth s
to all meit liberally, and upbraideth not ; and it shall be
4. But let patience have her perfect worh] Better, and let endurance
have a perfect work, there being sequence of thought but not contrast.
The word for "perfect" expresses the perfection of that which reaches
its end, and so impHes, possibly, a reference to our Lord's words in
Matt. X. 22. The form of the counsel implies that the work might be
hindered unless the will of those who were called to suffer co-operated
with the Divine purpose. The sufferings must be borne joyfully as well
as submissively.
that ye may be perfect and entire"] The latter word implies complete-
ness in all parts or regions of the spiritual life, as the former does the
attainment of the end, the completeness of grovi^h. The corresponding
substantive is used for the "perfect soundness" of the restored cripple in
Acts iii. 16; the adjective, in a like spiritual application, in i Thess.
V. 23.
wanting nothing] The English is unfortunately ambiguous. Better,
failing or lacking in nothing.
6—8. Wisdom, and the Prayer that gains it.
6. If any of you lack wisdom] As before, in verses i and 2, the
prominent word of the preceding clause suggests the opening of the
next, the word for "lack" being the same as the "wanting" in the
previous verse. The prominence thus given to wisdom is characteristic
of the teaching of St James (comp. ch. iii. 13 — 17). It is as though
he had largely fashioned his thoughts of the spiritual life on the teaching
of the Book of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, perhaps also on the Wisdom
of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus. Wisdom, in its good sense, stands, in
New Testament language, as implying both a wider range of thought
and a more direct influence on conduct than knowledge (1 Cor. xii. 8 j
Col. ii, 3).
that giveth to all men liberally] Literally, simply, but as to give
simply, without reserve or arriere pensee, is to give freely, both the
adverb and the corresponding noun often carried with them the idea of
liberality (comp. Rom. xii, 8; 2 Cor. ix. 11, 13). The thought is that
God gives absolutely all good gifts to those that ask Him (Matt. vi. 11),
and the highest gift, that of the Spirit that imparts wisdom, is included
in the promise (Luke xi. 13).
and upbraideth not] The word implies a contrast with human givers
who too often, at the time or afterwards, mar their bounty with bitter
and reproachful speeches. There seems here a direct allusion to the
description in Ecclus. xx. 15, of "the gift of a fool," "He giveth little
and upbraideth much," to the counsel "after thou hast given, upbraid
not" (Ecclus. xii. 23). Not so, St James implies, does God give, though
ST JAMES ^
so
ST JAMES, I. [w.6, 7.
6 given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering : for
he that wavereth is Hke a wave of the sea driven with the
7 wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall
we are more open to His reproaches than any who are the objects of our
bounty can be to ours. , .
a7td it shall be given hinil An obvious echo of our Lord s promise in
Matt. vii. 7 ; Luke xi. 9. r • ^ ^
6. let him ask in faith'\ The prominence thus given to faith at the
very outset of the Epistle must be borne in mind in connection with the
subsequent teaching of ch. ii. 14—26. Faith, i.e. trust in God, as dis-
tinct from belief in a dogma, is with him, as with St Paul, of the very
essence of the spiritual life.
nothing wavering\ Better, "nothing doubting." Another echo from
our Lord's teaching (Matt. xxi. 21). The variations in the English
version hinder us from seeing that St Paul, when he said that "Abraham
staggered not at the promise of God... but was strong in faith" (Rom.
iv. 20), was reproducing the very thought and language of St James. The
primary idea of the verb used, as here, in the middle voice, is that of the
inner "debating" which implies doubt. It does not involve the absolute
negation of unbelief, though, as in Rom. iv. 20, it tends to this, but
represents the state of one who meets the question, " Will God keep
His promise ?" now with Yes, and now with No. The words of our
own poet,
"Faith and Unfaith can ne'er be equal powers,
Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all."
Tennyson's Merlin and Vivien.
reproduce the substance of St James's teaching.
he that wavereth is like a wave] Better, lie that doubtetli. The
English play upon the word, though happy in itself, has nothing corre-
sponding to it in the Greek. Wycliffe gives " doubt." Tyndal intro-
duced "waver" in the previous clause, but kept "doubteth" in this.
driven raith the wind and tossed] Better, driven by the winds and
blasts, both words describing the action of a storm at sea, the latter
pointing especially to sudden gusts and squalls. The image, true
at all times and for all nations, was specially forcible for a people to
whom, like the Jews, the perils of the sea were comparatively unfamiliar.
Comp. the description of the storm in Prov. xxiii. 34 and the comparison
of the wicked to the "troubled sea" in Isaiah Ivii. 20. Popular speech
likens a man who has no stedfastness to a ship drifting on the
troubled waves of life. St James goes one step farther and likens
him to the unresting wave itself. Now he is in the depths, now up-
lifted high. In Eph. iv. 14 the same image describes those who are
"carried about by every wind of doctrine." So far as St James wrote
from personal experience we trace, perhaps, a recollection of stormy
nights upon the Sea of Galilee. If we could identify him with the son
of Zebedee, we might think of him as remembering such a night as
that of Matt. viii. 24 or John vi. 18.
7. let not that man think...] Faith, undoubting faith, is then the
vv. 8, 9.] ST JAMES, I.
receive any thi7ig of the Lord. A double minded man isz
unstable in all his ways.
9 — 1 1 . Riches, and their perishahleness.
Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is ex- 9
condition of the prayer for wisdom, as of all other prayers, being heard
and answered. Without it, the No excludes the Yes, which yet the
man will not quite abandon.
of the Lo7'd] It is a question whether the Divine Title is used in the
Old Testament sense, for the Father, or, as generally, though not
exclusively, in the New Testament, for the Son. On the whole, look-
ing (i) to the meaning of the word in ch. v. 7, 14, 15, (2) and to the
frequent use of ''God" and ''the Father" where Christ is not meant,
there seems a balance of evidence in favour of the latter meaning.
Christ also, not less than the Father, is thought of as giving or not
giving, in answer to prayer. Possibly, however, the word was used
without the thought of a distinction between the Divine Persons.
8. A doicble minded man...] The context shews that the man so de-
scribed (the Greek word is not found in any earlier writer and may have
been coined by St James) is not the fraudulent man but the wayerer,
trying to serve two masters (Matt. vi. 24), halting between two opinions
(i Kings xviii. 21). It answers to the "double heart" (Heb. "a heart
and a heart") of Ps. xii. 1. In Ecclus. i. 28 we find the same thought,
though not the same word, "Come not unto the Lord with a dotible
heart" and again in Ecclus. ii. 12, where a woe is uttered against the
"sinner that goeth two ways" in company with "the fearful and faint-
hearted." Clement of Rome (i. 11) reproduces St James's word. The
construction of the sentence is doubtful, and may be taken either as
in the English text, or, with "he that doubteth" as the subject and
"double-minded, unstable" as predicates.
unstable] The Greek word is found in the LXX. of Isaiah liv. 1 1, where
the English version has "tossed with tempest." It is not found else-
where in the New Testament, except as a various reading in ch. iii. 8,
but the corresponding noun is often used both literally and figuratively
(Luke xxi. 9; i Cor. xiv. 33; 2 Cor. vi. 5, xii. 20; James iii. 16 and the
LXX. of Prov. xxvi. 28). There is a slight change of imagery, and
the picture brought before us is that of a man who does not walk
straight onward, but in "all his ways " goes to and fro, now on this side,
now on that, staggering like a drunken man.
9—11. Riches, and their perishableness.
9.. Let the brother of low degree] The Greek joins the sentence on to
the preceding with the conjunction which may be either "and," or "but,"
implying that there is a sequence of ideas of some kind. The train of
thought would seem to lie in the fact, as shewn in our Lord's words
(Matt. vi. 24) that the love of mammon is the most common source of
the *' double-mindedness" which St James condemns, both in the poor and
in the rich. The "brother" is used, as commonly in the New Testa-
4—2
52 ST JAMES, I. [w. lo, ii
10 alted : but the rich, in that he is made low : because as the
11 flower of the grass he shall pass away. For the sun is no
sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the
ment as meaning one of the brotherhood of Christ. The word Christian
had probably not as yet come into use in the Churches of Judoea, and
was, at any rate, used of the disciples by others rather than by them-
selves. *'Of low degree" is, perhaps, somewhat too narrow a render-
ing. Better, lie that is lowly or more simply "he that is low." The
contrast with the rich man shews that ** poverty" is the chief feature
in the low estate spoken of.
reJoice\ Better as elsewhere, glory, or exult.
in that he is exalted] Better, in Ms exaltation. His lowliness instead
of being a thing to be ashamed of, was his true title to honour. Christ
had marked him out as an heir of the Kingdom (Luke vi. 20 ; see ch. ii.
5). Man's estimate of honour and dishonour is reversed by God.
10. But the rich, in that he is made low] Better, in Ms humiliation
or lowliness. The context implies that the rich man also is a "brother."
Such an one was tempted to exult in his wealth as that which raised him
above his fellow-men. The view which Christ had taught him to
take was, that it placed him on a level lower than that of the poor. His
true ground for exultation would be to accept that lower position, to
glory in it, as it were, as St Paul gloried in his infirmities (2 Cor. xii. 9),
and to make himself, by the right use of his wealth, a servant of servants
unto his brethren. The two other interpretations which have been
given of the words, (i) that suggested by the English, that the rich man
is to rejoice when he is brought low by adversity, and (2) that the
sentence is to be filled up not by an imperative but an indicative, "but
the rich man" (on this assumption, not a "brother") "exults in what
is indeed his degradation," are, it is believed, less satisfying. Possibly,
still keeping the imperative, the words may be taken as ironical "let
him glory in his shame. " The whole passage, however interpreted, shews,
like chap. iv. i r ; i Pet. v. 6, the impression that had been made on the
minds of the disciples by the teaching of their Master in Matt, xxiii. 12;
Luke xiv. 11, xviii. 14.
becaiise as the flower of the grass he shall pass azvay] This, so the
train of thought runs, is that which is most humbling to the man of
wealth. ' His riches are transient. They vanish often during life. He
can carry nothing vidth him when he dies. For the third time in this
chapter we notice a close parallelism of thought and language with
St Peter (i Pet. i. 24), both drawing from Isai. xl. 6, as a common
source.
11. For the sun is no sooner risen . . . but it withereth] Better, for the sun
arose and withered. The Greek has nothing that answers to "no sooner, "
and the verbs are throughout in the past tense as in a narrative. It is as
thoucrh St James were using the form not of a similitude, but of a parable,
apparently not without a reminiscence of some features of the Parable of
the Sower (Matt. xiii. 6) and of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. vi. 30).
with a burning heat] Better, with the scorching heat, probably the
Simoom, or hot wind that blows from the desert in the early morning, as
^2] ST JAMES, I.
53
grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of
the fashion of it perisheth : so also shall the rich man fade
away in his ways.
12 — 15. Temptation^ and its history.
Blessed is the man that endureth temptation : for when
he IS tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the
in Luke xii. 55 The whole description comes, as above, from Isaiah
xl. 6. Comp. also Jonah iv. 8.
falleth... perisheth\ Better, as continuing the narrative, feU— perished
^^^are/^j/] Better, perhaps, as expressing the force of the Greek
passive, be blighted. The Greek verb is not found elsewhere in the
whTl. "''n'l^''^ ^^^^^ ^' ^" ^^'^ W^^^- of Sol. ii. 8, in a passage
which rnay well have been present to the mind of the writer. An ad-
jective derived from it is found in the "crown that fadeth not away,"
literally, the amaranthine crown, of i Pet. v. 4. See also i Pet. i. 4.
Ihe idea of the -fading" of earthly riches, the "unfading" character of
heavenly, was another thought common to the two writers
J,JT' "f^^'f"'^'}''^ ofit^ Better, the goodliness of its form, literally,
Testame^r' substantive is not found elsewhere in the New
m his ways] Literally, In Ms goings or joumeyings, as in Luke xiii.
J' perhaps with a special reference to the restlessness in trading which
shewed Itself in the money-making Jews of Palestine. "Going" and
;/ 1 ? rr (^^^^"^''^^^ and emporeuomai) made up the sum total of their
l^r "u ^°""P- ''^^P- ^^- ^3. A various reading gives "in his
S-emngs here, as a possible meaning, but the balance of evidence is
in lavour 01 goings.
12—15. Temptation, and its history.
12. B/essed is the man that endureth tejnptatio7{\ The mode of
teaching by Beatitudes reminds us at once of the Sermon on the Mount,
with which It will be seen afterwards, the Epistle has so many points of
contact. Stress is laid on "enduring" as distinct from simply "suffer-
mg, and the temptation" is prominently, as in verse 2, that of sufferine
coming from without. ^
for when he is tried] Better, when he has stood the trial, the Greek
adjective being applied, as in Rom. xiv. 18, xvi. 10, to one who has
been tested and approved.
the crown of life] The image of the "crown" or wreath of the con-
queror for the reward of the righteous is common both to St Peter who
speaks of 'the crown of glory" (i Pet. v. 4) and to St Paul who speaks
o\ the crown of righteousness" (2 Tim. iv. 8). The "crown of life,"—
1. e. ot eternal life, which is the crown, is, however, peculiar to St Tames.
Ihe figurative use of the word is characteristic of the Son of Sirach
(Jicclus 1. II, 16, 18, XXV. 6), and of the LXX. of Proverbs (i. o, iv. o).
In Wisd. V. 16, we have, in the Greek, the kindred word "diadem."
54 ST JAMES, I. [vv. 13, 14.
13 Lord hath promised to them that love him. Let no man
say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God : for God
cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any ma7i :
14 but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his
which the Lord hath promised to them that love him\ Here again it is
a question whether "the Lord" is to be taken in its special New Testa-
ment sense, or generally of God. As before (see Note on verse 7) the
balance turns in favour of the former, and the tense of the verb ( ' ' which
the Lord promised"), as if referring to some special utterance, may lead
us to think of such words as those of John xiv. 21, 23. A more general
promise of the same kind to those that love the Lord is found in Ecclus.
xxxiv. 1 6.
13. Let no ina7i say when Ju is tejnpted] The thought of trial as
coming from outward circumstances, and forming part of man's spiritual
education, leads to a deeper inquiry as to its nature, and so passes on to
the wider notion of temptation, which includes the allurements of desire
as well as the trials of adversity, In both cases men found refuge from
the reproof of conscience in a kind of fatalism. God had placed them
in such and such circumstances; therefore, He was the author of the sin
to which those circumstances had led. The excuse is one which presents
itself to men's minds at all times, but here also there is a special point
of contact with the Son of Sirach : "Say not thou, it is through the
Lord that I fell away" (Ecclus. xv. 11). It may be noted that the
popular Pharisaism, which taught a doctrine of necessity (Joseph. Ant.
XVIII. I. § 3; Wars, II. 8. § 14) while speculatively maintaining also
the freedom of man's will, was likely to develops into this kind of
practical fatalism.
/ a7)i tempted of God] The order of the Greek words is more em-
phatic, It is from God that I am tempted.
for God cannot be tempted with evil\ The English * * cannot be tempted "
answers to a Greek verbal adjective, not used elsewhere in the New Testa-
ment or in the LXX. version of the Old, and not found in Classical
Greek. Its meaning as used in later Greek writers, is simply "untried,"
and so "unversed in," and it has been maintained that it is so used here-,
but the context makes it almost certain that St James used it in the sense
of ^^untempted.'^'' At first it might seem as if this assertion did not meet
the thought to which it appears to be answer, but the latent premiss of
the reasoning seems to be that no one tempts to evil, who has not been
first himself tempted by it. If men shrank from the blasphemy of
affirming that of God, they ought to shrink also from the thought that He
could ever tempt them to evil. He who was absolutely righteous, could
not be the originator of sin. He tries men, but does not tejnpt them.
neither tempteth he any man] Better, and He (the pronoun is em-
phatic) tempteth no one.
14. when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed] Both the
participles are primarily used of the way in which animals are taken, the
first of capture by the hook or noose, as with fish or the crocodile
(Herod. 11. 70), the second of beasts or birds which are attracted by food
vv. 15-17.] ST JAMES, I. 55
own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it 15
bringeth forth sin : and sin, when it is finished, bringeth
forth death.
16 — 18. God a7id His perfect gifts.
Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and ^^
set for them as a bait. Both words had come to be used figuratively of
sensual passion, the latter twice by St Peter (2 Pet. ii. 14, 18), and the
imagery that follows here suggests the thought that St James had the
picture of the hirlot of Prov. vii. 6—23 present to his thoughts. There
the "young man void of understanding" yields to her allurements as " a
bird hasteth to the snare." "Lust," or rather, desire, in its widest sense,
including desire for safety, riches, ease, as well as sensual pleasure, is to
man's will as the harlot-temptress of that picture. The temptations of
which the earlier verses of the Chapter had spoken are thus, though no
longer prominent, not excluded. Adversity and persecution expose men
to the evil solicitations of their lower nature, to love of ease and safety,
no less than luxury and prosperity. In both "desire" tempts the will
to depart from what it knows to be the will of God.
15. zvhen hist hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin] The image
suggested in the previous verse is developed with an almost startling
boldness. The will that yields to desire in so doing engenders evil.
And as from that fatal embrace, there comes first the conception and
then the birth of sin. But sin also grows ; it has its infancy of purpose
and its maturity of act ; and so the parable is continued. Sin, in its
turn, grows up, and by its union with the will becomes the mother of a
yet more terrible offspring, and that offspring is Death, the loss of the
true life of the soul, which consists in its capacity for knowing God.
The second of the two words rendered "bringeth forth " (better, perhaps,
engenderetli) differs from the first, and seems, as a less common word,
to have been used for extraordinary or monstrous births (such e. g. as
a woman's bearing four or five children), and so is appropriate here.
The word occurs again in verse 18, where see note. In looking at
the allegory as a whole we note : ( i ) its agreement as to the relation of
sin and death, with the teaching of St Paul (Rom. v. 12); (2) its re-
semblance to like allegories in the literature of other nations, as in the
well-known Choice of Hercules that bears the name of Prodicus, in
which Pleasure appears \vith the garb and allurements of a harlot;
(3) its expansion in the marvellous allegory of Sin and Death in Milton's ■
Paradise Lost (B. II. 745 — 814), where Satan represents Intellect and
Will opposed to God, Sin its offspring, self-generated, and Death the
fruit of the union of Mind and Will with Sin. In the incestuous union
of Sin and Death that follows and in its horrid progeny, Milton seems
to have sought to shadow forth the shame and foulness and misery in
which even the fairest forms of sin finally issue.
16—18. God and His perfect gifts.
16. Do not err...] The absolute goodness of God had been
presented so far on its negative side as excluding aU origination of
56 ST JAMES, I. [v. 17.
every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from
the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither
evil. But the writer feels that that is but a partial view. It has a
brighter aspect, more full of hope and blessing, and the error against
which he protests is chiefly hurtful as excluding that aspect from its
due influence on faith and conduct.
17. Every good gift and every perfect gif] The two nouns are dif-
ferent in the Greek, the first expressing the abstract act of giving, the
second the gift as actually bestowed. The perfection of the one flows
from the goodness of the other. The "perfect gift" carries our thoughts
beyond all temporal blessings which, though good, have yet an element of
incompleteness, to the greater gifts of righteousness and peace and joy;
the gift, i.e. of the Holy Spirit, which is the crowning gift of all. Sin-
gularly enough, the axiom, if we may so call it, falls into the cadence of
a Greek hexameter, and it is conceivable that it may have been a
quotation from a poem, or possibly from an early Christian hymn.
Like instances of metre are found, besides the direct quotations in
1 Cor. XV. 33, Tit. i. 12, in the Greek of Heb. xii, 13 and Rev. xix. 12.
The whole passage reminds us once more of the Sermon on the Mount
(Matt. vii. 11) and of the parallel promise in Luke xi. 13.
is frojii above'] The perfect gifts come then, as the new birth of
the soul comes, from Heaven, not from Earth (comp. John iii. 3, as in the
margin), as does the true wisdom (chap. iii. 15, 17), The prominence
of the word and the thought in the Epistle is one of the links that
connect it with the (Gospel of St John, in which a like prominence is
traceable (John iii. 7, 31, xix. 11).
from the Father of lights] The plural is used to express the thought,
that light in all its forms, natural (as in the "great lights" of Ps.
cxxxv. 7), intellectual, spiritual, is an efflux from Him "who is light,
and in whom is no darkness at all" (i John i. 5). This axiom as to the
Divine Nature was also common to the two great teachers of the Church
of the Circumcision, as it was to the teaching of the Apostle of the
Gentiles, when he describes the children of God as being also "children
of light" (Eph. V. 8). There may possibly be a reference to the Urim
and Thummim, the "lights" and "perfections" which symbolised God's
gifts of wisdom in its highest forms (Exod. xxviii. 30; Lev. viii. 8;
Deut. xxxiii. 8). Comp. also Ps. xlviii. 3.
with whom is no variabletiess] The noun is primarily a scientific
term (our English parallax presents a cognate word) as expressing the
change of position, real or apparent, of the stars. Here it is apparently
suggested by the word " lights," which primarily conveyed the thought
of the heavenly bodies as the light-givers of the world. They, St James
seems to say, have their changes, but not so their Creator and their
Father.
shadow of turning] i.e. shadow caused by turning. The latter
word, from which we get our "/r^/^," and ^Uropic,^^ is applied, as in
the LXX. of Job xxxviii. 33 ; Deut. xxxiii. 14, to the apparent motion
of the lights of heaven, and so to any changes. The former is also a
quasi-scientific tenn, applied to the effect produced on the sun's disc
V. i8.] ST JAMES, I. 57
shadow of turning. Of his own will begat he us with the xj
word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his
creatures.
by the moon in an eclipse. St James does not appear to use the terms
with any very strict accuracy, but the fact that he employs them at all,
and that they occur nowhere else in the New Testament, is in itself
interesting as connecting him with the form of wisdom described in
Wisd. vii. 17 — 20, which deals with "the alterations of the turning of
the sun" (the two terms are nearly identical with those which St James
uses) and " the change of seasons." Science, he seems to say, deals
with the mutability of phaenomena. Faith, and therefore Wisdom, rest
on the immutability of God.
18. Of his own will begat he tis'\ The construction of the Greek
is participial, willing lie begat us, and is parallel to that of Col. ii. 18,
which, rightly rendered, runs " let no man willing, i.e. by the exercise
of his will, deprive you...." The word implies the rejection of the
thought either of a destiny constraining the Divine Will, or of chance
and, as it were, random impulses, and the reference of our higher
spiritual birth to His deliberate Will. Here again we have a parallelism
with St John "born.... not of the will of man, but of God" (John i. 13),
and with St Peter (i Pet. i. 23).
The word for "begat" is the same as the second "bringeth forth" in
verse 15, and is obviously used here, with the general sense of "engen-
dering" or "begetting," to emphasise the contrast between the process
which ends in death and that which issues in a higher life. Here also,
though the birth was not monstrous, it was out of the common course of
Nature, and therefore the unusual word was rightly employed again.
with the word of trtith'\ So our Lord makes Truth, tlae "word which
is truth," the instrument of the consecration or sanctification of His
people (John xvii. 17 — 19}. The "word of truth " cannot have here the
higher personal sense which the Word or Logos has in John i. i, but
it is something more than the written Word of the Old Testament
Scriptures, or even the spoken word of preachers. It is the whole
message from God to man, of which the written or spoken word is
but one of the channels, and which to those who receive it rightly is
the beginning of a higher life. Comp. Matt. xiii. 19 ; Mark iv. 14.
a kind of firstfruits of his creatures']. The meaning of the term is
traced back to the Jewish ritual of Lev. xxiii. 10; Deut. xxvi. 2. The
sheaf of the firstfruits was offered as part of the Passover celebration.
On their entry into Canaan the Israelites were to offer the firstfruits
of the land (Deut. xxvi, 2). In each case the consecration of the part
was a symbol and earnest of that of the whole. So St James speaks of
the "brethren" who have been bom to a higher life, not only as better
than others, but as the pledge of a fuller harvest. So St Paul speaks of
Christ being "the firstfruits of them that sleep" (i Cor. xv. 20), of a
convert being "the firstfruits of Achaia" (i Cor. xvi. 15). St John
agrees, as usual, more closely with St James, and describes "the re-
deemed from the earth" of Rev. xiv. 4 as "the firstfruits unto God
58 ST JAMES, I. [w. 19— 2t.
19 — 21. Man's wrath, and God's righteousness.
T9 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift
20 to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath : for the ^vrath of man
21 worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore lay apart
all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive
and to the Lamb. " Christians are called and made what they are by
the grace of God, that they may shew of what elevation humanity is
capable. Comp. Rom. xi. 16.
19—21. Man's wrath, and God's righteousness.
19. Wherefore\ The better MSS. give " Ye know this. ..but let every
man."
my beloved brethrejt\ The formula of address was common to all the
four great writers of the Apostolic Chui-ch. We find it in St Paul
(i Cor. XV. 58), in St Peter (2 Pet. iii. 14, 15), in St John (i John ii. 7,
iii. 2). In the last two instances, however, the word "brethren" is
wanting.
let every man be ST.uift to hear] From the general thought of the
high ideal of life implied in the new birth from God, St James passes
to the special aspect of that ideal which was most in contrast with the
besetting sin of his countr}^men. To him speech was of silver, and
silence of gold. In this as in many other passages of his Epistle,
he echoed the teaching of the sapiential books of the Old Testament
(Prov. xiii. 3, xiv. 29, xvii. 27; Eccles. v. 2) yet more, perhaps, of those
of the Apocrypha. So we find "Be swift to hear" in Ecclus. v. 11,
and maxims of a like nature in Ecclus. xx. 7. The "slow to wrath"
follows on "slow to speak" as pointing to the crucial test of character.
If it were hard at all times to be *' slow to speak, " it was harder than
ever when men were roused to anger.
20. the wrath of man...'] Better, A man's wratli, so as to represent
the absence of the article in the original. By "the righteousness of God"
— the phrase is common to St James and St Paul (Rom. x. 3 ; 2 Cor. v. 2 r ;
Phil. iii. 9) — is meant the righteousness which God requires and which
He also gives. The besetting sin of the Jews was to identify their own
anger against what seemed sin and heresy with the Will of God, to
think that they did God service by deeds of violence (John xvi. 2),
that they were thus working out His righteousness. The teaching is again
after the pattern of the purely ethical books of the Old Testament
(Eccles. vii. 9). The MSS. give two forms of the verb rendered
"work;" the commonly received one, which conveys the thought,
"does not work out or bring to completeness," and that of the better
MSS. which means simply, "does not work, or practise."
21. lay apart all filthiness...] The cognate adjective is found in its
literal sense in ch. ii. 2, and figuratively in Rev. xxii. 11. A kindred
noun appears in a like combination in " the putting away of the filth of
the flesh " of i Pet. iii. 21 and in the LXX. of Prov. xxx. 12. The word
V. 22.] ST JAMES, I. 59
with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save
your souls.
2^ — 25. Doers and Hearers.
But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, de- 22
ceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the 23
points not specifically to what we call **sins of impurity," but to every
form of sin, including the *' wrath" of the preceding verse, as defiling
the soul.
superfluity of naughtiness\ Better, excess of malice, i. e. excess charac-
terised by malice. The English "naughtiness," though used in the i6th
century, as by Latimer and Shakespeare, as equivalent to "sin" or
"wickedness," has gradually lost its sharpness, and has come to be
applied almost exclusively to the faults of children. The Greek word,
though, like the Latin word from which malice comes, originally generic
in its meaning, had come to be associated mainly (as in Eph. iv.
31; Col. iii. 8; i Pet. ii. i) with the sins that have their root in
wrath and anger, rather than with those that originate in love of pleasure,
and so carries on the sequence of thought.
receive with meek7iess the engrafted word'\ The order of the words, in the
original is more emphatic, but in meekness (as contrasted with wrath and
malice) receive ye. The "engrafted word" is that which was before re-
ferred to as the instrument by which the new and better life was en-
gendered. The English ' 'engrafted" suggests one process of growth some-
what too definitely, and implanted would be a better rendering. The
word is not found elsewhere in the New Testament (the Greek word in
Rom. xi. 17 is more specific), but, like so many of St James's phrases,
appears in the sapiential books of the Apocrypha (Wisd. xii. 10,
"their malice was bred in them"). We note the agreement of his
teaching with that of the Parable of the Sower, where the Seed is the
"Word," and the conditions of its fertility are found in "the honest
and good heart" (Matt. xiii. 23), free from prejudice and bitterness.
Moral discipline, the putting away of that which defiles, is the right
preparation for the highest spiritual life.
which is able to save your souls'\ The words express at once the power,
and the limits of the power. There was in the implanted word, taken
in its widest sense, the promise and the potency of salvation, yet it did
not work as by compulsion or by a charm, but required the co-operation of
man's will. So, later on, St James speaks of God Himself as being
^^ able to save" (chap. iv. 12).
22 — 25. Doers and Hearers.
22. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only"] The thought
is the same, though illustrated by a different similitude, as that of the
closing verses of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. vii. 24 — 28). The
reference to the " hearers of the word " confirms the explanation given
above of the Word of the Truth. It is not primarily the written word,
6o ST JAMES, I. [vv. 23, 24.
word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his
24 natural face in a glass : for he beholdeth himself, and goeth
for then we should have the "reader," not the "hearer," nor Christ as
the Incarnate Word, but the spoken message from God to the soul of
man — '■^Be ye doers;'''' literally, "become," as though life were a con-
tinued process of such "becoming," the condition not being that in
which men find themselves by nature.
deceiving your oivn selves] The word is etymologically more definite
than that commonly used for deceiving, and implies strictly the self-'
deception, if one may so speak, of bad logic. The hypocrite knew the
major premiss; "The doers, not the hearers, are blessed," but though
conscience supplied the minor, "I am a hearer, not a doer," he shut his
eyes to it and failed to draw the conclusion. The use of the word in
the LXX., as e.g. in Gen. xxxi. 7, 41 ; Exod. viii. 29, shews, however,
that it had come to be used in the general sense of "cheating" or
" defrauding," and it may be questioned, therefore, how far the special
sense is to be pressed here.
23. he is like tmto a man..."] The instance is chosen to illustrate
the nature of the paralogisin or fallacy by which the man deceived him-
self. It lies, as said above, in forgetting the self-knowledge which
should form a premiss in his argument, and reasoning as if it did not
exist.
beholding his natural face"] Literally, the face of his birth, that
which he was born with. The latter word might seem at first almost
superfluous, but it serves to point the spiritual interpretation. That
which the man sees in the mirror of the Divine Word, is the revelation
of himself, as he is by nature (comp. i Cor. xiv. 24, 25), weak, sinful,
"double-minded." That revelation is meant to lead him to seek for
supernatural strength to rise to the higher life. The word for "behold-
ing" implies more than a passing glance, the man contetnplates the reflec-
tion of his face (see Matt. vii. 3; Luke xii. 24),
in a glass] Better, in a mirror. The word is the same as in i Cor.
xiii. 12. The mirrors in use among the Jews, Greeks, and Romans
were of polished metal, and as these presented a less perfect image
than our modern mirrors, to see through, i. e. by means of, a mirror had
become among the later Rabbis, as well as with St Paul, a proverbial
phrase for man's imperfect knowledge of divine things. Here, how-
ever, stress is laid on the fact that the mirror does supply, in some
measure, the self-knowledge which the man could not attain without
it. The sapiential books of the Apocrypha present two interesting
illustrations drawn from the same source (Wisd. vii. 26; Ecclus. xii. 11).
It is possible, though it can hardly be insisted on, that there is an
emphasis on a mail's casual way of looking at a mirror, and the more
careful gaze supposed to be characteristic of a woman.
24. For he beholdeth hiviself...] The Greek gives a subtle variation
in the tenses. "For he beheld himself " (the momentary act), and hath
gone away (the completed departure continuing in the present), and
forgat (the oblivion coming and being completed in a moment). . The
vv. 25,26.] ST JAMES, I. 61
his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of 7nan he
was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of Uberty, and 25
continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a
doer of the work, this vian shall be blessed in his deed.
26, 27. T}'tce and false Religion.
If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth 26
mode of stating a similitude in the form of a narrative related as
belonging to the past is characteristic of St James's style. See note on
verse 11.
25. BtU whoso looketh.. !\ The word involves primarily the idea of
stooping down and bending over that on which we look, as with a fixed
gaze. See for its literal use Mark xvi. 5; Luke xxiv. 12, and for its
spiritual application, "which things the angels desire to look into,'''' in
I Pet. i. 12. In Ecclus. xiv. -23, it is used of the "prying in," the
eager gaze of the seeker after wisdom ; in xxi. 23 of the intrusive gaze of
the fool. Here it implies, like our word "attend," the fixing the
whole mind on that which the mirror of the Divine Word discloses to us,
but as the act itself might, like the "beholding" of the previous
verse, be but transient, St James adds the further condition, "and
continueth therein."
the perfect laiv of liberty] The words appear at first to be wide and
general, and to echo the language in which Psalmists and others had
spoken of "the law of the Eternal" (Pss. xix. 7, cxi. 7, cxix. i). On
the other hand, we have to remember that at the Council at which
St James presided, the law of Moses, as such, was described as "a
yoke " of bondage (Acts xv. 10), even as St Paul spoke of it (Gal. v. i),
and that our Lord had spoken of the Truth as that by which alone men
could be made "free indeed" (John viii. 32). It follows from this,
almost necessarily, that St James speaks of the new Law, the spiritual
code of ethics, which had been proclaimed by Christ, and of which the
Sermon on the Mount remains as the great pattern and example. That
Law was characterised as giving to the soul freedom from the vices that
enslave it. To look into that Law and to continue in it was to share the
beatitudes with which it opened. That the writer was familiar with
that Sermon we shall see at well nigh every turn of the Epistle.
being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the zaork] Literally, becoming
not a hearer of forgetfulness. The construction is the same as in the
"steward of injustice" for the "unjust steward" (Luke xvi. 8, xviii. 6),
the genitive of the characteristic attribute being used instead of the
adjective. As the one clause balances the other the words that follow
probably meant an active worker or "doer." In any case the article,
as in the Greek, should be omitted, "a doer of work."
this man shall be blessed in his deed] Once again, as if shewing on
what his thoughts had been dwelling, as the law of liberty, St James
returns to the formula of a beatitude, and brings together, in so doing,
the beginning and the end of the Sermon on the Mount.
62 ST JAMES, I. [v. 27.
not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this matCs
27 religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God
and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows
in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the
world.
26, 27. True and false Religion.
26. If any man a7nong you seem to be religious\ Better, If any man
thinks tliat lie is religious. The Greek adjective is one which expresses
the outward ritual side of religion, answering to "godliness" as the in-
ward. Comp. the cognate word rendered " tvorship of angels " in Col.
ii. 18. It is not easy to find an appropriate English adjective for it.
"Religious" in its modern sense is too wide, in its old pre-Reformation
sense, as meaning one who belonged to a monastic order, too narrow.
That sense can hardly be said to have attached to it at the time of the
Authorised Version, as the term is used both in the Homilies (e.g.
" Christ and his 7'eligion,'''' Hom. on Holy Scripture) and Bacon's Essays
(Of Unity in Religion) quite in its modern sense for a whole system
of faith and practice. "Devout," "pious," "reverent," suggest them-
selves, but all fail to express what the Greek beyond question expresses.
"Worshipper" would perhaps be the nearest equivalent. "Ritualist,"
which answers most closely to the strict meaning, has unfortunately ac-
quired a conventional and party meaning.
and bridleth not his tongue'] The image was a sufficiently common
one in the Greek poets and philosophers. St James returns to it in
iii. 1, 3. See note there.
deceiveth his own heart] Here the word is the more common one, as
distinguished from that which had been used in verse 22.
27. Ptcre religion] The word still presents the outward aspect of the
devout life. Better perhaps, pure worsliip.
undefiled] The term seems chosen with special reference to the
Pharisee's scrupulous care to avoid anything that caused ceremonial
defilement. Comp. John xviii. 28, "lest they should be defiled^'' where
the word is that commonly used in the LXX. for polluted, or being "un-
clean," as in Lev. v. 3, xi. 23. St James reproduces the teaching of our
Lord, that the real defilement comes from within, not from without, that
true purity is found in "giving alms of such things as we have " (Mark
vii. 20 — 23, Luke xi. 40).
before God and the Father] The last word seems chosen with a special
reference to the duty that follows. We worship the Father when we
are like Him in our care for the orphans (Ps. Ixviii. 5).
To visit] The Greek word implies somewhat more than that which we
commonly attach to the English; "to care for," "look after," as in
"God hath visited\i\% people" (Luke vii. 16).
the fatherless and widows] These were the natural and therefore pro-
verbial types of extremest affliction. Comp. Job xxix. 12, 13; Ecclus.
XXXV. 14. We find from Acts vi. i, that they occupied a prominent
place in what we may venture to call the "Charity Organisation" of the
Church of Jerusalem.. Comp. also Acts ix. 39 ; i Tim. v. 3 — ro.
vv. I, 2.] ST JAMES, II. 63
I — 13. Respect of Persons.
My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus 2
Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if 2
there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in
and to keep himself unspotted from the world'] The adjective is chosen
with special reference to the "undefiled." The "world" is used as in-
cluding all the circumstances that tempt to sin, especially perhaps, the
mass of unrenewed humanity out of which Christians are called, but
into which they are in danger of sinking back. The real defilement to
be guarded against was to be found in spiritual contact with that
" world," and not, as the Pharisee thought, in touching cup or garment
that was ceremonially unclean. Comp. chap. iv. 4. In this fullest
sense of the word, God alone can thus keep a man unspotted, but it is
characteristic of St James to lay stress on the co-operation of man's
will, even, we may add, as St Paul does in **keep thyself pure"
(i Tim. V. 22). The teaching of St James finds a striking parallel in
xhat of Philo, who speaks of those who practise **a ritual religion"
(using the same word as St James) "instead of holiness" (Philo, p. 173).
Comp. also Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, Aph. xxiii. "The outward
service [BprjcrKda) of ancient religion, the rites, ceremonies, and cere-
mouial vestments of the old law, had morality for their substance. They
weijfe the letter of which morality was the spirit ; the enigma of which
morality was the meaning. But morality itself is the service and cere-
monial {cultus exterior, 6pT)<TK€ia) of the Christian religion."
Ch. II. 1 — 13. Respect of Persons.
1. %ave not the faith...] Better, do not hold. The Greek for
"respedt of persons " (better, perhaps, acceptance of persons) is in
the plural* as including all the varied forms in which the evil tendency
might shew itself, and stands emphatically immediately after the nega-
tive. The name of "our Lord Jesus Christ" is used obviously with a
special force. He had shewn Himself, through His whole life on earth,
to be no " respecfer of persons " (Matt. xxii. 16), to have preferred the
poor to the rich. T^a,ere was a shameful inconsistency when those who
professed to hold the'ilaith which had Him as its object acted otherwise.
To the name ofvthe Lond Jesus is added the description ^^ the Lord of
Glory." The first t-wo wox'-ds are not repeated in the Greek, but the
structure of the English senten\ce requires their insertion. The motive
of the addition is clear. In believing in Him who was emphatically a
sharer in the Eternal Glory (John .xvii. 5), who had now returned to
that Glory, men ought to feel the infin.ite littleness of all the accidents of
wealth or rank that separate man fronl'-^raan. This seems the most
natural construction, but the position of ^.he words "of glory" is
anomalous, and some have joined it with "faith '.' either as a genitive of
the object "faith in the future glory, "or as a characterising attribute =
" the glorious faith. "
2. if tJiere come unto your assembly] Literally, In^ your syna-
gogue, the old familiar name as yet, in that early stage of tuie Church's
64 ST JAMES, II.
goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile
raiment ; and ye have respect to him that weareth the gay
clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place ;
life, being used for the Christian as for the Jewish place of worship.
What is noted presented the most glaring and offensive form which the
acceptance of persons had taken. Signs of the eagerness of men who
aimed at a high religious reputation to obtain such honours are seen in
Matt, xxiii. 6 ; and in a society so pervaded by worldliness as that of
Judaea, wealth, if accompanied by any kind of religiousness, was sure to
be accepted as covering a multitude of sins. What grieved St James
was that the same evil should have crept in even among the disciples of
the Lord of Glory.
a man with a gold ring\ Literally, a gold-ringed man, implying,
probably, more than one. The custom was one of the fashions of the
Empire, and had spread from Rome to Judoea. So Juvenal, in a port
which unites the two forms of ostentatious luxury noted by St Jam(
describes one who, though born as an Egyptian slave, appears
Tyrian robes upon his shoulders, and golden rings, light or heavy,
cording to the season {Sat. I. ■28. 30). So in Martial (XI. 60) we
of one who wears six rings on every finger, day and night, an(
when he bathes.
in goodly apparel] Better, in gorgeous, or bright appari
word is the same as that used of the robe placed upon our Lor
mockery (Luke xxiii. 11), and of that in which the Angel appe- - ■ '
Cornelius (Acts x. 30). The primary idea is that of "bri;
shining, and this effect was often produced by a combination
embroidery with Tyrian purple and crimson.
in vile raiment'] squalid is perhaps the nearest eqaivalent ro the
Greek word. It is used in the LXX. of Zech. iii. 4, of the " fiV' ' "
ments" of Joshua the High-Priest. In Rev. xxii. 11 it is us'^^'
ritual "filthiness," as is the cognate noun in chap. i. 21 of this L
3. And ye have respect to] Better, look witli respect' upoc i,-he
same word is used in Luke i. 48, ix. 38. The English version weakens
the dramatic vividness of the Greek. .'
the gay clothing] The English presents a needles^ variation from the
Greek, which has the same words as in the preceding verse. The trans-
lators would seem to have acted on their pri^iciple hi bringing in as
many English words as they could by way o!\ fairness. See Preface to
the Authorised Version.
Sit thou here in a good place] Tha- English paraphrases the Greek,
which runs literally, as in the margin, ^t here honourably. In practice
the seats most coveted among the ^ Jews were those near the end of the
synagogue which looked towajr'Sfs Jerusalem, and at which stood the ark
that contained the sacred toll of" the Law. - We do not know whether
the first meeting-places 'bf -the Christian society'followed the same arrange-
ments, or -s\lTether thi^n, as at a later period, the Table of the Lord took
the place M-^jch 'nad been occupied by the ark, and led them to covet
the pla< ■ ere near it, and therefore well placed for seeing and
hearin: ilins elder
w. 4—6.] ST. JAMES, II. 65
and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my
footstool : are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are 4
become judges of evil thoughts? Hearken, my beloveds
brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich
in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised
to them that love him ? But ye have despised the poor. 6
Stand thou there... '\ The Christian, probably the elder or deacon, is
supposed to point the poor man to his place at the other end of the
synagogue, far from sight and hearing, giving him, it may be, the alter-
native of a seat on the ground, just below what we should call the
"stall," in which the rich man was invited to take his place, with a stool
for his feet to rest on.
4. are ye not then partial in yourselves ?\ The verb is the same
as that translated "waver" in chap. i. 6 and elsewhere, as in Matt. xxi.
21 ; Mark xi. 23; Acts x. 20; Rom. xiv. 23 by "doubt." Nor is any
other meaning, such as that of "making distinctions," necessary, or
admissible, here. "When you acted in this way (the tense assumes that
the thing had been actually done) did you not doubt, as others doubt,
in your own hearts?" Faith in Christ's words as to the deceitfulness
of riches and the little honour due to them would have kept men from
such servility. They shewed by their words and acts that they were
half-hearted, or, in St James's sense of the word, " double-minded."
judges of evil thoughts?] The construction is the same as that of the
English phrase "a man of bad temper," and is precisely analogous to
that rendered "unjust judge" (literally, judge of injustice) in Luke
xviii. 6, and to the "forgetful hearer" or "hearer of forgetfulness "
in chap. i. 25. It means accordingly, " evil- thinking judges." In
acting as they did, men made themselves judges between rich and poor,
and with "base reasonings," or better, perhaps, what we call "base
calculations, " gave a preference to the former.
5. Hath not God ^osen...] Better, perhaps, did not God choose? as
referring to the special ^election of the poor by Christ as the heirs of
blessings and the messengers of His Kingdom (Matt. v. 3 ; Luke vi. 20 ;
comp. also i Cor. i. 27).
the poor of this world] Literally, in tMs world, i.e. "as far as this
world is concerned."
rich in faith] The construction of the words is (to use a technical
plirase) that of a secondary predicate, "God had chosen the poor in
this world as, i. e. to be, rich in faith, as in the region in which they lived
and moved," %
heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised...] Here, as before (ch. i.
12), it is scarcely possible to exclude a direct reference to the words of
Christ, as in Luke vi. 20, xii. 31, 32, and so we get indirect proof of a
current knowledge, at the early period at which St James wrote, of
teaching that was afterwards recorded in the written Gospels. Some
of the better MSS., however, give " heirs of the promise."
to the?n that love him 1] Care is taken not to lead men to suppose that
poverty itself, apart from spiritual conditions, was a sufficient title to the
ST JAMES e
6^ ST. JAMES, II. [v. 7.
Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the
7 judgment seats ? Do not they blaspheme that worthy name
inheritance. There must be the love of God which has its root in
faith. What is pressed is that poverty and not wealth was the true
object of respect ; partly as predisposing men to the spiritual condi-
tions, partly as having been singled out by Christ for special blessings,
6. But ye have despised the poor] Better, ye have dishonoured,
or done dishonour to, the word implying the outward act that ex-
pressed contempt. The Greek tense may point to the special instance
just given as a supposed fact, *'Ye dishonoured...." The pronoun is
emphatic, '*God chose the poor, j^ put them to shame."
Do not rich ??ien oppress you] Better, lord it over you. The word is
like, though not identical with, those used in Matt. xx. 25 ; i Pet. v. 3,
and means literally, to act the potentate over others. As a rule the
wealthier class in Judaea tended to Sadduceeism (Joseph. Ant. xiii. 10.
§ 6), and St James's reference to their treatment of the disciples agrees
with the part that sect took, including, as it did, the aristocracy of
the priesthood, in the persecutions of the earlier chapters of the Acts
(iv. 1,6, V. 17).
and draw you before the judgment seats?] Better, drag you to courts
of justice. The same noun appears in i Cor. vi. 2, 4. The Greek
verb implies violence, as in Acts xxi. 30. The words may point either
to direct persecutions, such as that of Acts ix. 1, 2, or to the indirect
vexation of oppressive lawsuits. In the Greek the verb is preceded by
an emphatic pronoun, "Is it not thty that drag you." There seems, at
first, a want of logical coherence. The rich man first appears as gaining
undue prominence in the assembly of Christians, and then as one of
a class of persecutors and blasphemers. This, however, is just the
point on which St James lays stress. Men honoured the rich Christian,
not because he was a Christian, but because he was rich, i. e. because
he was connected with a class, which, as such, had shewn itself bitterly
hostile to them.
7. £>o not they blaspheme that worthy nanie\ Better, Do not they re-
vile that noble Name? The pronoun is again' emphatic, Is it not they
that revile? The two senses of the Greek verb, the reviling which has man
for its object, and the blasphemy, in its modern sense, which is directed
against God, are in this instance so closely mingled that it is difficult to
say which predominates. Men reviled Christ as a deceiver, and in so
doing were, not knowing what they did, blaspheming the Son of God.
The Name can be none other than that of Jesus as the Christ, and the
epithet attached to it, " which is given ^you, or called upon you,^' is best
explained as referring to the name of Christian, which was beginning
to spread from Antioch into Palestine (Acts xi. 26). Where it had not
yet found its way, it was probable enough that the disciples of Jesus
would be known by the name out of which "Christian" sprang, as oi
XpLCToO, "Christ's people," "Christ's followers." The description re-
minds us of the account St Paul gives of his work in compelling the
saints to "blaspheme" (Acts xxvi. 11). The persecution in which he
thus took part was instigated, it will be remembered, by the Sadducean
vv. 8— II.] ST. JAMES, II. (^-j
by the which ye are called ? If ye fulfil the royal law ac- 8
cording to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour
as thyself, ye do well : but if ye have respect to persons, ye 9
commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors.
For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in ic
one pointy he is guilty of all. For he that said. Do not "
priests, who formed a wealthy aristocracy, rather than by the more cau-
tious Pharisees, who adopted the pohcy of Gamaliel (Acts v. 17, 34).
8. If ye fulfil the royal law accordhig to the scriptw'e'\ The Greek
gives a particle which is not expressed in the English, ' ' If, however, ye
fulfil..." Nothing that the writer has said in disparagement of wealth
and the wealthy is to lead men to anything at variance with the great
law of love ; that law embraces rich and poor alike. The position of the
verb in the Greek gives it a special emphasis. The "law" which follows
maybe called "royal" or "kingly," either (i) in the sense in which
Plato speaks {Minos ii. 566) of a just law as Icingly or sovereign, using
the same adjective as St James, or (2) as coming from God or Christ as
the true King and forming part of the fundamental code of the king-
dom. In a Greek writer the first would probably be the thought in-
tended. In one like St James, living in the thought of a Divine king-
dom, and believing in Jesus as the King, the latter is more likely to
have been prominent. This agrees too more closely with the uniform
use of the word in the LXX. in a literal and not a figurative sense.
The law which follows, from Lev. xix. 18, had been solemnly affirmed
by the true King (Matt. xxii. 39). One who accepted it in its fulness
was ipso facto not far from the Kingdom (Mark xii. 34). Believing this
to have been the main thought present to St James's mind, it is yet
probable enough that he chose the word so that those who were not as
yet believers in Christ might see in the commandment of love, the law
of God as the Great King.
ye do well] The words seem to point to those who, like the scribe in
Mark xii. 32, 33, were ready enough to accept the law in theory but
shrank from its practical application. We almost trace a tone of irony
in the words: "In that case, if you attain a completeness which
you never have attained, ye do well." "Right well," or "nobly,"
or more colloquially "excellent well," comes closer to the force of the
adverb.
9. dzit if ye have respect to persons] The Greek gives a compound
verb which is not found elsewhere. If ye be person-accepting.
ye commit sin] The Greek is more emphatic, "It is sin that ye
are working, being convicted by the Law. " However generally deco-
rous their lives might be, yet through this one offence they failed to meet
the requirements of the Law. The way in which they dealt with rich
and poor was, in the strictest sense of the term, a crucial test.
10. in one poitit] The noun, as the italics shew, is not in the Greek,
but the English is a satisfactory rendering. Guided by what follows we
might perhaps say "in one coynmandinent.^'*
he is guilty of all] Better, lie has become guilty, i. e. liable to con-
68 ST. JAMES, II. [vv. 12, 13.
commit adultery, said also. Do not kill. Now if thou
commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a trans-
12 gressor of the law. So speak ye, and so do, as they that
13 shall be judged by the law of liberty. For he shall have
demnation under an indictment which includes all the particular com-
mandments included in the great Law. This seems at first of the nature
of an ethical paradox, but practically it states a deep moral truth. If
we wilfully transgress one commandment we shew that in principle we
sit loose to all. It is but accident, or fear, or the absence of tempta-
tion, that prevents our transgressing them also. Actual transgression in
one case involves potential transgression in all. A saying of Rabbi
Jochanan is recorded in the Talmud {Sabbath, fol. 70) identical with
this in its terms, and including in its range what were classed as the
39 precepts of Moses. St James was urging upon devout Jews, whether
they believed in Christ or no, the highest ethical teaching of their own
schools. It is probable enough, that the Pharisees who misrepresented
the teaching of St James in the Church of Antioch, laid stress on these
words as including circumcision and the ceremonial Law, as well as the
precepts which were moral and eternal (Acts xv. i, 5, 24). See Intro-
duction, ch. III.
11. For he that said. Do not commit adtdfeiy..."] The two command-
ments are chosen as standing first in the Second Table, the fifth being
classed by most Jewish writers as belonging to the First, just as in Greek
and Roman ethics, duty to parents came under the head of EyVe/Seia and
Pietas, rather than under that of Justice (comp. i Tim. v. 4). This divi-
sion is recognised by Josephus {Ant. III. 6. § 6) and Philo {De Decal. i.),
and falls in better than the common one with the pentad and duad grouip-
ing that pervades the Law. It is singular that in all New Testament
quotations from the Second Table "Thou shalt not commit adultery"
precedes "Thou shalt not kill," Mark x. 19; Luke xviii. 20 ; Rom. xiii.
9 ; and the order is made the subject of direct comment by Philo {De
Decal. XII. 24). It may be inferred from this that there was, probably,
a traditional order varying from that at present found in the Hebrew
Pentateuch.
12. So speak ye, and so do'\ The thoughts of the teacher dwell, as
before (chap. i. 26) and afterwards (chap. iii. i— 12), on sins of speech
as no less tests of character than sins of act. In so doing he was echo-
ing the words of a yet greater Teacher (Matt. xii. 37).
the law of liberty] See note on ch. i. 25. The recurrence of the phrase
indicates a certain fondness for the thought which it expresses. As a
phrase it is peculiar to St James, but the idea is found in John viii. 32.
Verbally it presents something like a contrast to St Paul's language as
to the law "which gendereth unto bondage" (Gal. iv. 24), but the dif-
ference is on the surface only, St James speaking of the moral law when
the will accepts it as the guide of life, St Paul of its work as reproving
and condemning when the fleshly will resists it, and pre-eminently of
its merely ritual and ceremonial precepts, the days and months and
years of Gal. iv. 10.
V. 14.] ST. JAMES, II. 69
judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy ; an6
mercy rejoiceth against judgment.
14 — 26. Jicsiificatio7i by Faith and Works.
What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he h
13. For he shall have judgment] There is something more emphatic
in the actual structure of the sentence, For tlie judgment shall be mer-
ciless to him that wrought not mercy. The axiom presents one
aspect of the great law of divine retribution, and, like so much of
St James's teaching, is an obvious reproduction of that of the Sermon on
the Mount (Matt. vii. i). The reference to that discourse suggests the
thought that the "law of liberty" of which St James speaks is not the
law given by Moses, but the new Law, full of grace and truth, which
was given by Christ. See note on verse 8. On this assumption the
supposed contrast with St Paul dwindles into nothing.
mercy rejoiceth against judgment] The verb is found in Rom. xi. 18.
The^ abruptness of the original, where the maxim stands with no con-
necting particle, is singularly forcible, mercy glories over judgment.
The law holds good universally. It is true of man's judgment, but also
of God's, that mercy triumphs over severity, when it finds a willing
object. The truth has seldom found a nobler utterance than in the
familiar words which remind us that
•' Earthly power doth then shew likest God's,
When mercy seasons justice."
Shakespeare. Merchant of Venice, iv. i.
14—26. Justification by Faith and Works.
14. though a man say he hath faith] The section on which we now
enter has been the battle-field of almost endless controversies. It led
Luther in the boldness of a zeal not according to knowledge to speak of
the whole Epistle with contempt. {Preface to Gerjnan New Testai}ient,
1522; but see J. C. Hare's Vindication of Luther, p. 2 1 5. ) To him it was an
"Epistle of Straw," [Epistola straminea,) to be classed with wood, hay,
stubble, as compared with the teaching of St Paul, which it seemed to
him to contradict. It led Bishop Bull to write his Harmonia Apostolica
to prove the agreement of the two, by assuming, with many of the Fathers,
that St James wrote to correct the false inferences which men had drawn
from St Paul's doctrine, in itself and as taught by him a true doctrine,
as to Justification. In dealing with the problem presented by a com-
parison of the teaching of the two writers, it is obviously necessary to
start with what to the reader is an assumption, though to the writer it
may be the conclusion of an inquiry, as to the aim and leading idea of
the writer with whom we have to deal ; and the notes that follow will
accordingly be based on the hypothesis that the teaching of St James
was not meant, as men have supposed who exaggerate the diversities of
thought in the Apostolic age, to be antagonistic to that of St Paul, nor
even to correct mistaken inferences from it, but was altogether inde-
70 ST. JAMES, ir. [w. 15, 16.
15 hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him ? If a
i6 brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and
pendent, and probably prior in time, moving in its own groove, and
taking its own line of thought. If this view, as a theory, solves all
the phaenomena, and throws light upon what would otherwise be
obscure, it will be its own best vindication. At the close it may be
well to take a brief survey of other modes of interpretation.
We must remember then, to start with, that St James is writing pri-
marily to the Jews of the "dispersion." The disciples in Jerusalem
and Judaea were under his personal guidance, and therefore were not in
need of an Epistle. The faults which he reproves are pre-eminently
the faults of the race. Men dwelling, as those Jews dwelt, in the midst
of a heathen population, were tempted to trust for their salvation to
their descent from Abraham (comp. Matt. iii. 9) and to their maintain-
ing the unity of the Godhead as against the Polytheism and idolatry of
the nations. They repeated their Creed (known, from its first Hebrew
word, as the Shema\ "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord"
(Deut. vi. 4). It entered, as our Creed does, into the Morning and
Evening Services of the Synagogue. It was uttered by the dying as a
passport to the gates of Paradise. It was to this that they referred the
words of Habakkuk that the just should live by faith (Hab. ii. 4).
St James saw, as the Baptist had seen before him, how destructive all
this was of the reality of the spiritual life, and accordingly takes this as
the next topic of his letter.
No emphasis is to be laid on "though a man say." The argument of
St James assumes that the man has the faith which he professes. His
contention is that faith is not enough by itself, that unless it pass into
"works" it gives proof that it is ipso facto dead; and the "works"
of which he speaks are, as the next verse shews, emphatically, not
ceremonial, nor ascetic, but those of an active benevolence.
can faith save hif?i?'\ The pronoun, and, in the Greek, the article
prefixed to faith, are emphatic. " Can his faith save hi}7i, being such as
he is?" There is no slight cast upon faith generally, though the kind of
faith in the particular case is declared to be worthless.
15. If a brother or sister... "l The words are not necessarily used in
the sense in which they imply the profession of faith in Christ as they
are, e.g., in Acts x. 23, xi. i; i Cor. v. 11. Every Israelite was to see
a brother in every child of Abraham (Matt. v. 23; Acts ii. 29, iii. 17).
All that can be said is that where the reader of the Epistle was a
Christian, he would feel that the words brought before him those who
were of the same society or brotherhood.
naked, arid destitute of daily food] The picture drawn is one of
extremest destitution, and, like the teaching of the whole passage, re-
minds us of Matt. XXV. 36, 43. What was the faith worth which could
witness that suffering and not be stirred to help? The words are
applicable to all times and countries, but it gives them a special interest
to remember that the Church over which St James presided had suffered,
and was probably, at the very -time he wrote, suffering, from the famine
foretold by Agabus (Acts xi. 28 — 30). The Gentile disciples had, we read,
w. 17, 18.] ST. JAMES, II. 71
one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed
and filled ; notwithstanding ye give them not those thi7igs
which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even i-i
so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a 18
man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works : shew me
done their best to alleviate the distress of the Churches of Judaea. St
James's language, addressed to the Jews and Jewish Christians of the
dispersion, would seem to imply that they had shewn less forwardness,
and had wrapt themselves up in the self-satisfaction of professing the
orthodox faith of the sons of Abraham, while the Gentile converts
whom they despised were setting an example of self-denying charity.
16. Depart in peace\ The phrase was one of familiar benediction,
and had been used by our Lord to those who came to Him seeking
bodily or spiritual healing (Luke vii. 50, viii. 48; Acts xvi. 36). It
would naturally only be used where such wants, if they existed, had
been, or were going to be, relieved.
be ye warmed and filled\ The first verb refers obviously to the
naked, the second to those who are destitute of food. The Greek verbs
may be either in the imperative or indicative, **6et yourselves warmed
and filled," or " K^ are toarming and filling yourselves.'''' The former is
the more generally received interpretation, and represents the kind of
benevolence which shews itself in good advice. The idea of mere good
wishes is excluded by the use, on this assumption, of the imperative.
It may perhaps, however, be questioned whether the indicative does not
give a preferable meaning. The man whose faith was only the acceptance
and the utterance of a dogma, was mocking the souls of others when
he said "God is One — God is your Father," as much as if he said to
the naked or hungry, *' Ye are being warmed or filled." No amount
of faith on their part could turn that mockery of a feast into a reality,
unless they had the food and clothing they needed ; and the man who
gave a bare dogma to men without the reality of love, was mocking
them, — yes, and cheating himself, — in much the same manner.
notwithstanding ye give them not] Better, and y*? give them not.
The change to the plural generalises the individual case presented in
"one of you."
17. Even so faith, if it hath not works ..1 This then is St James's
objection to the faith of which he speaks. It is, while alone (literally, by
itself), with no promise or potency of life, and it is, therefore, dead, and
being so, as we scarcely call a corpse a man, is unworthy of the name
of faith. The assent to a dogma, beginning and ending in itself, has
no power to justify or save. St Paul's language in Rom. ii. 13 shews
that he was in substantial agreement with St James,
18. Yea, a man may say...] The objector thus introduced, after the
same manner as by St Paul in i Cor. xv. 35, is here the representative
neither of an opponent to be refuted, nor yet of the writer's own
thoughts, but rather, as we should say, of an outsider, the man of
common sense and practical piety, in this instance, of the Gentile
convert whom the orthodox Jew or Jewish Christian despised, who
72 ST. JAMES, II. [w. 19, 20.
thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith
19 by my works. Thou believest that there is one God ; thou
20 doest well : the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt
thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead ?
might be less expert in formulating the Truth, but lived by the Truth
which he beheved.
shew me thy faith without thy works] The reading followed by the
English version is at once more intelligible and supported by better MS.
authority, than the alternative * * by thy works, " which, in fact, destroys
the whole point of the antithesis. The man who relied on faith is
challenged to exhibit it, if he can, apart from works, as a distinct entity
by itself. It is assumed that no such exhibition is possible. If he is to
give any evidence that he has the faith that saves, it must be by having
recourse to the works which he neglects, and, it may be, disparages.
On the other hand, the challenger, starting with works, can point to them
as proofs of something beyond themselves. Deeds of love, implying a
victory over self, could not have been wrought without, not a dead
faith in the dogma of the Divine Unity, but a living trust in God.
19. Thou believest that there is one God...] The instance of the faith
in which men were trusting is important as shewing the class of Soli-
fidians (to use a term which controversy has made memorable) which St
James had in view. They were not those who were believing in the Son of
God, trusting in the love, the blood, in the language of a later age, the
merits, of Christ, but men who, whether nominally Christians or Jews,
were still clinging to their profession of the Creed of Israel as the
ground of all their hopes. It is scarcely probable that a writer in-
tending to correct consequences drawn from St Paul's teaching as to
faith would have been content with such a far-off illustration.
thozi doest zvell] The words have the character of a half-ironical con-
cession. Comp. note on verse 8. It is well as far as it goes, but the
demons can claim the same praise.
the devils also believe and tremble] Better "shudder." The general
bearing of the words is plain enough, but there is a special meaning
which is commonly passed over. The "devils" are the "demons"
or "unclean spirits" of the Gospels, thought of, not as in their prison-
house of darkness (Jude v. 6), but as "possessing" and tormenting
men. As such, they too acknowledged the Unity and Sovereignty of
God, but that belief, being without love, led only to the "shudder" of
terror, when the Divine Name was uttered in the formulae of exorcism.
(Comp. Matt. viii. 29; Mark ix. 20, 26.) Here then was an instance in
which belief in a dogma, as distinct from trust in a person, brought
with it no consciousness of peace or pardon, and what was true of the
" demons " might be true also of men.
20. wilt thou know, O vain ma7i...] The term, as applied to men, is
not found elsewhere in the New Testament, but is used with something of
the same significance in the LXX. of Judg. ix. 4. The idea is primarily
that of "emptiness," and the Greek adjective is almost literally the
vv. 21, 22.] ST. JAMES, II. 73
Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had 21
offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith 22
wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?
equivalent of our empty-headed, as a term of contempt. It answers
clearly to the Raca of Matt. v. 12.
that faith without works is dead] The MSS. vary between "dead "
and the adjective rendered "idle" in Matt. xii. 36, xx. 3. The meaning
is substantially the same. That which is without life is without the
activity which is the one proof of life.
21. Was not Abraham our father justified by works] The close"^
correspondence of phraseology with Rom. iv. 2 at first seems to favour
the view that St James is correcting or modifying St Paul's statement
It is obvious, however, that the agreement equally admits of the
explanation that St Paul is correcting or modifying the language of ^
St James. He presses the fact that "Abraham believed God,"^ and'
that this "was counted to him for righteousness," i. e. that he was justi-
fied prior to any act but that of simple trust. And the impression
left by a careful study of the passage referred to is that St Paul is there
referring to something that had been urged, as having a high authority,
against his teaching that a man is justified by faith. It is clear, at all
events, that no inference can be dra^vn from the two passages in favour
of the assumption that the Epistle of St James was later than that of St
Paul to the Romans. , ^^
The use of the word "justify" shews that its meaning is to "acquit'
or "count as righteous" (Matt. xii. 37 ; Acts xiii. 39-; Ecclus. xxvi. 29,
xxiii. 11).
The preposition used in the Greek points to "works" as being the
source rather than the instrument of justification.
7vhen he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?] Better, when he ^_
Offered Isaac, the two acts being thought of, not as successive, buf"
simultaneous. It is remarkable that the only scriptural references,
after Gen. xxii., to the sacrifice of Isaac, are found in Wisd. x. 5
and Heb. xi. 17. It is hardly likely that the latter could have been
known to St James, the internal evidence pointing to a later date ;
but the former, whether, as some have supposed, by the same author
as the Epistle to the Hebrews, or written fifty or sixty years earlier,
might well have come under his notice. In relation to St Paul's
teaching, as noticed above, it must be remembered that the_ one writer
speaks of the beginning of Abraham's course, the other of its consunr-
mation. St James might well urge that if Abraham had not shewn his
faith by his works, up to the crowning work of the sacrifice of his son,
it would have proved that his faith too was dead.
22. Seest thou how faith wrought with his works... ?] Better, per-
haps, not as a question. Thou seest that... Attention is called, not
as the English "how" suggests, to the manner of co-operation, but
only to the fact. The tense of the verb emphasises the continued
co-operation of Abraham's faith with his works. The one was all
along working together with the other. What St James presses is, not
74 ST. JAMES, II. [vv. 23, 24.
23 And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham
believed God, and it was imputed unto him for
righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.
84 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not
that works can justify without faith, but that faith cannot justify unless
it includes "the promise and the potency" of the life that shews itself
^ in acts.
by works was faith made perfect?] Here the tense is changed to that
which denotes completion in a single act. It was " by works" (i. e. otct
of as from the originating cause) that faith was brought to its completion.
The interpretation which sees in the words nothing more than that
faith was shewn to be perfect, must be rejected as one of the after-
thoughts of controversy. It may be added, however, as pointing to the
true reconciliation of St James and St Paul, that the very form of the
statement implies that the faith existed prior to the works by which it
/was made perfect.
23. And the scripture was fulfilled..^ The use of the words com-
monly applied to the fulfilment of prophetic utterances implies that St
lames saw in the statement of Gen. xv. 6 that which, though true at the
time, was yet also an anticipation of what was afterwards to be realised
more fully. Of that prophecy, as of others, there were, to use Bacon's
phrase, "springing and germinant accomplishments." What was then
reckoned as righteousness continued to be reckoned, as with an ever-
increasing value, which reached its maxi?num in the sacrifice of the son
who was the heir of the promise.
ajid he was called ike Friend of God] The words seem to refer, in the
English version of the Bible, to 2 Chron. xx. 7 and Isai. xli. 8, where
the term "my friend" is applied to Abraham by Jehovah. Singu-
larly enough, however, the term is not found in the Hebrew, nor in the
LXX. version, with which St James, writing in Greek, must have been
familiar, and which gives, in the first of the two passages, "Abraham thy
beloved," and in the second, "whom I loved." The distinctive title
first appears in Philo's citation of Gen. xviii. r {De resipisc. Noe, c. 11),
and, after St James, in Clement of Rome {Epist. ad Cor. i. 10). It was
probably the current phrase in the Jewish schools, and has descended to
the Arabs, with whom the name of El Khalil Allah (the friend of God),
or more briefly El Khalil, has practically superseded that of Abraham.
Even Hebron, as the city of Abraham, and so identified with him, has
become El Khalil, ' ' the friend. "
24. Ye see then] The better MSS. omit the then. The Greek
verb may be indicative, imperative, or interrogative. The English
Version is probably right in giving the preference to the first.
not by faith only] There is, it is obvious, a verbal contradiction
between this and St Paul's statement in Rom. iii. 28, but it is verbal
only. St James does not exclude faith from the work of justifying, i. e.
winning God's acquittal and acceptance, but only a faith which stands
"by itself," "alone," and therefore "dead," and assumes that
•' works" have their beginning in the faith which they ripen and com-
V. 25.] ST. JAMES, II. 75
by faith only. Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot 25
justified by works, when she had received the messengers,
plete. St Paul throughout assumes that faith will work by love and be
productive in good acts, while the works which he excludes from the
office of justifying are "works of the law," i.e. works which, whether
ceremonial or moral, are done as by a constrained obedience to an
external commandment, through fear of punishment, or hope of reward,
and are not the spontaneous outcome of love and therefore of faith. It
will be felt that St James presents the more practical, St Paul the
deeper and more mystical aspect of the Truth, and this is in itself a
confirmation of the view maintained throughout these notes, that the
latter was the later of the two, and therefore that so far as one corrects
or completes the popular version of the teaching of the other, it was to
St Paul and not to St James that that task was assigned.
25. was not Rahab the harlot...'] The question meets us, What led
St James to select this example ? St Paul does not refer to it, as he
probably would have done, had he been writing with St James's
teaching present to his thoughts, in any of the Epistles in which
his name appears as the writer. In the Epistle to the Hebrews
(xi. 31) it appears as one of the examples of faith, but this was most
probably after St James had given prominence to her name. In
the mention of Rahab by Clement of Rome (i. 12) we have an obvious
echo from the Epistle just named, with the additional element of
a typical interpretation of the scarlet thread as the symbol of the
blood of Christ, by which those of all nations, even the harlots and
the unrighteous, obtained salvation. A more probable explanation is
found in the connexion of St James with the Gospel according to St
Matthew. The genealogy of the Christ given in ch. i. of that Gospel
must have been known to "the brother of the Lord," and in it the
name of Rahab appeared as having married Salmon, the then " prince"
of the tribe of Judah (Matt. i. 5; i Chron. ii. 50, 51 ; Ruth iv. 20, 21),
The prominence thus given to her name would naturally lead him and
others to think of her history and ask what lessons it had to teach them.
If ' ' harlots " as well as ' ' publicans " were among those who listened to
the warnings of the Baptist and welcomed the gracious words of Christ
(Matt. xxi. 31, 32), she would come to be regarded as the typical repre-
sentative of the class, the Magdalene (to adopt the common, though, it
is believed, an erroneous view) of the Old Testament. A rabbinic
tradition makes her become the wife of Joshua and the ancestress of eight
distinguished priests and prophets, ending in Huldah the Prophetess
(2 Kings xxii. 14). Josephus [Ant. v. i. § 2), after his manner, tones
down the history, and makes her simply the keeper of an inn. Another
ground of selection may well have been that Rahab was by her position
in the history the first representative instance of the deliverance of one
outside the limits of the chosen people. In this instance also, St James
urges, the faith would have been dead had it been only an assent to
the truth that the God of Israel was indeed God, without passing into
action. _ The "messengers" are described in Josh, vi. 23 as "young
men," in Heb. xi. 31 as "spies".
1^ ST. JAMES, IT. [v. 26.
26 and had sent the7n out another way ? For as the body with-
out the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
26. For as the body withotct the spirit is dead...'] Some MSS. omit
the conjunction, but the evidence for retaining it preponderates. The
reasoning seems to refer Rahab's justification by works to the wider
law that faith without works is dead (as in verse 17) and therefore can-
not justify. Our usual mode of thought would lead us to speak of
works, the outward visible acts, as the body, and of faith as the spirit or
vivifying principle. From St James's standpoint, however, faith "by
itself" was simply the assent of the intellect to a dogma or series of
dogmas, and this seemed to him to be "dead" until it was vitalised by
love shewing itself in act. St Paul reproves the deadness of mere mo-
rality, St James that of mere orthodoxy. St James, it will be noted,
adopts the simple division of man's nature into "body and spirit,"
rather than St Paul's more philosophical trichotomy of "body, soul
and spirit." i Thess. v. -23. Comp. note on ch. iii. 13.
faith without works'] More literally, faith apart from works.
ON THE TEACHING OF ST PAUL AND ST JAMES.
The view which has been given in the notes seems to the writer
clear and coherent in itself, consistent with what we know as to the
relations between the two Apostles, and involving less violence of in-
terpretation than any other hypothesis. Two other views have, how-
ever, been maintained with arguments more or less plausible, and it will
be well to notice them briefly.
(i) There is the position assumed by some of the bolder critics of the
French and German Schools, that there was a real antagonism in the
Apostolic Church, not only between the Judaizing teachers and St Paul,
but between that Apostle and the three, Peter, James, and John, to whom
the Church of the Circumcision looked as its natural leaders. On this
assumption, the writer of the Acts of the Apostles strives to gloss over
the divergence of the two parties, and to represent an unreal unity.
The messages to the Seven Churches are "a cry of passionate hate
against St Paul and his followers" (Renan, St Paid, p. 367). When
St James says, "Wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without
works is dead,'" he is probably pointing at St Paul himself. From
the point of view of those who hold this theory it is, perhaps, a
small thing that it is inconsistent with the belief that the teaching
of St James and of St Paul had, as its source, the inspiration of
the Eternal Spirit, who, though working in many different ways and
with wide diversity of gifts, is yet the Spirit of the Truth which is
essentially one. But on simply historical grounds the theory is, it
is believed, untenable. St Paul himself acknowledges that after he
had privately laid before them the sum and substance of the Gospel
as he preached it, James, Cephas, and John gave to him the right hands
of fellowship (Gal. ii. 9). James appears as giving a public sanction to
that Gospel at the Council at Jerusalem (Acts xv. 13 — 21). Long after
ST. JAMES, II. 77
the Judaizing teachers had been doing their worst for years, the "right
hand of fellowship" is still held out by the one teacher to the other (Acts
xxi. 17 — 25). The question whether this hypothesis is as satisfactory an
explanation of the facts with which it deals, as that which I have here
given, I am content to leave to the judgment of the reader.
(2) The other theory has at least the merit of accepting the teaching
of each of the two writers as in itself inspired and true. It assumes that
St James wrote after St Paul, and aimed at correcting inferences that
had been wrongly drawn from his doctrine, that a man is justified by
faith without the deeds of the law. How to reconcile their statements
on this assumption is a problem which has been variously solved, {a) It
has been said that St Paul speaks of man's justification before God,
St James of the proof of that justification before the eyes of men ; but of
this there is not a shadow of proof in the language of either writer.
{b) It has been maintained that St Paul speaks of a true faith, St James
of that which is false or feigned ; but nothing in the language of the
latter, though he stigmatizes the faith which is without works as dead,
suggests the thought that it did not mean a real acceptance of the
dogma which it professed to hold. {c) It has been held that the
"works" of which St Paul speaks as unable to justify, are the ceremonial
works of the law of Moses, those on which the Pharisees laid stress;
but the width of St Paul's teaching as to the nature and office of
the law in Gal. iii., Rom. vii. scatters this view to the winds at once.
id) There is a nearer approximation to the truth in the solution which
finds in St James's faith the intellectual acceptance of a dogma, in St
Paul's the trust in a living Person as willing and able to save, and
therefore the confidence that salvation is attainable by him who so
trusts. This is, in the main, the view that has been taken in these
notes, with the exception of the point on which stress has been laid
above, that the Antinomianism which St James condemned was that of
ultra-Jewish teachers, who taught a justification by faith in Monotheism,
and not of an ultra-Pauline party. It agrees practically with the
distinction drawn by the Schoolmen that St James speaks of a fides
inforjnis, rudimentary and incomplete, St Paul of a fides formata, de-
veloped or completed by Love. Errors, however, assume subtle dis-
guises. Those who used St James's name in the Apostolic age dwelt so
much on outward acts apart from the motive that gives them life, as
sufficient for man's acceptance with God, that it was necessary for
St Paul to revive the truth which had been first distorted and then
denied, that "the just by faith shall live" (Hab. ii. 4; Rom. i. 17;
Gal. iii. 11). His teaching again, in its turn, led men to think that they
might be justified by faith, not in God who justifies, but in a dogma
about justification. It was well that both aspects of the truth should
have been presented then, and have been preserved for the guidance
of the Church in all ages, as completing each the other. We need not
fear to be as varied in our teaching as were those who were taught
of God, and to tell men, according to their variations in character, as
they require more deepening of the spiritual life, or more strengthening
for practical activity, now that they must be justified by faith, and now
that they must be justified by works.
78 ST. JAMES, III. [vv. 1—4.
I — 12. Si?is of Speech^ and their condemnation.
3 My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we
2 shall receive the greater condemnation. For in many things
we offend all. If any fnan offend not in word, the same is a
3 perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body. Be-
hold, we put bits in the horses' mouths, that they may obey
4 us ; and we turn about their whole body. Behold also the
Ch. III. I— 12. Sins of Speech, and their condemnation.
1. be not many masters] Better, **do not become, or do not get
into the way of being ;;m;z;/ teachers." The English word " master,"
though perhaps conveying the idea of a "schoohiiaster" in the sixteenth
century, and therefore used in all the versions from Wycliffe and
Tyndale onward, is now far too general in its meaning. What St
James warns his "brethren" against is each man's setting himself
up to be a teacher, and in this he echoes our Lord's command, (Matt,
xxiii. 8 — 10). In the Christian Church, as in the Jewish, there was
the peril of a self-appointed Rabbi-ship. The sages of Israel had
given the same caution, as in the maxim, Love the work, but strive
not after the honour, of a Teacher, [Pirke Aboth, I. 10).
knoiving that we shall receive the greater condemnatioti] The change
from the second person to the first is characteristic of the writer's
profound humility. He will not give others a warning without at
the same time applying it to himself. The Greek word for "con-
demnation", though literally meaning "judgment" only, is yet almost
always used in the New Testament for an adverse judgment, (e. g.
Matt, xxiii. 14 ; Rom. ii. 2, xiii. 2 ; i Cor. xi. 29, 34). The very
form of St James's phrase is as an echo of our Lord's words in the
first of the passages referred to.
2. we offend all] The word is the same as that in ch. ii. ro.
See note there.
a perfect man...] One who has attained the fulness of moral gi-owth,
as in I Cor. xiv. 10, Heb. v. 14, the same word denotes that of
physical growth. Control of speech is named, not as in itself con-
stituting perfection, but as a crucial test indicating whether the man
has or has not attained unto it.
able also to bridle the whole body] St James returns to the besetting
sin of those to whom he writes, uses the same phrase as in ch. i. 26, and
then proceeds to develope the metaphor which it suggests. The "whole
body" is used to sum up the aggregate of all the temptations which
come to us through the avenues of sense.
3. Behold, we put bits in the horses^ jnotiths] The thought of man's
power over brute creatures and natural forces, and of his impotence
in the greater work of self-government, present a singular parallelism
to that of the well-known chorus in the Antigone of Sophocles.
(332—350) :
V. 5.] ST. JAMES, III. 79
ships, which though they be so great, and are driven of fierce
winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm,
whithersoever the governor listeth. Even so the tongue is s
a Httle member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how
Many the forms of life
Full marvellous in might,
But man supreme stands out
Most marvellous of all.
**«**♦
He with the wintry gales,
O'er the foam-crested sea,
'Mid wild waves surging round,
Tracketh his way across.
******
He fastens firm the yoke
On horse with shaggy mane,
Or bull that walks untamed upon the hills.
So in another passage of the same drama :
"And I have known the steeds of fiery mood
With a small curb subdued." {Antig. 475.)
4. Behold also the ships. ..^ General as the thought is, we may
perhaps connect it, as we have done ch. i. 6, with personal recollections
of storms on the Galilean lake. It will be seen that this also has its
counterpart in Sophocles. The two images are brought together by
a writer more within St James's reach than the Greek tragedian.
With Philo, Reason in man, the Divine Word in Creation, are com-
pared both with the charioteer and the pilot. {De Conjf. ling. p.
336. De Abr. p. 360). In the latter the very word which St James
uses for "governor" is employed also by Philo. The same thoughts
appear in the beautiful hymn of Clement of Alexandria as describing
the work of Christ as the true Teacher. {Faedag. ad Jin.) ;
' * Curb for the stubborn steed
Making its will give heed.
* * * * *
Helm of the ships that keep
Their pathway o'er the deep.
whithersoever the governor listeth'] Better, the pilot or steersman.
This, which, the reader will hardly need to be reminded, is the primary
meaning of "governor", has, in the modern use of the word, all but
dropped out of sight. Literally the sentence runs, "wMthersoever
the impulse of the steersman may wish.
5. and boasteth great things'] The Greek verb is a compound word,
which does not occur elsewhere, but is used not unfrequently by
Philo. The fact is not without interest, as indicating, together with
8o ST. JAMES, III. [v. 6.
6 great a matter a little fire kindleth. And the tongue is a
fire, a world of iniquity : so is the tongue amongst our mem-
the parallelisms just referred to, St James's probable acquaintance
with that writer.
h(m) great a matter a little fire kindletkl The form of the Greek
is somewhat more emphatic. A little fire kindles how great a
mass of timber. The word translated "matter" means primarily "a
forest — wood in growth ;" and with this meaning, which is adopted
in the Vulgate ^^ silvam^\ the illustration would stand parallel to
Homer's simile :
"As when a spark scarce seen will set ablaze
The illimitable forest." Jliad II. 455.
So in Virgil, Geoj-g. II. 303, we have a fuller description of the spark
which, dropped at hazard, kindles the bark, and the branches, and
the foliage :
**And as in triumph seizes on the boughs,
And reigns upon the throne of pine-tree tops.
And wraps the forest in a robe of flame."
The word, however, had gradually passed into the hands of the
metaphysicians, and like the Latin materia, which originally meant
"timber" (a meaning still traceable in the name of Madeira, "the
well-tivibered island "), had come to mean matter as distinct from
form, and then passing back, with its modified meaning, into common
use, had been used for a pile, or heap of stuff, or materials of any
kind. On the whole then, while admitting the greater vividness of
the Homeric similitude, St James is likely to have meant a mass of
materials rather than a forest. Comp. Prov. xvi. 27, and Ecclus. xxviii. 10,
where we have exactly the same comparison. The Authorised Version
may be accordingly received as not far \vrong. Here again it may be
noted that Philo employs the same similitude to illustrate the growth
of goodness in the soul: "As the smallest spark will, if duly fanned,
kindle a vast pyre, so is the least element of virtue capable of growth
till the whole nature of the man glows with a new warmth and bright-
ness," (Philo, de Migr. Abr. p. 407). But he also frequently uses
the comparison in reference to the rapid extension of evil.
6. And the tongtie is a fire, a zuorld of iniqicity] The last words
are in apposition with the subject, not the predicate, of the sentence.
The tongue is described as emphatically that world — we should per-
haps say, that microcosm — of unrigMeousness. As uttering all evil
thoughts and desires, no element of unrighteousness was absent from
it, and that which includes all the elements of anything well deserves
the name of being its Cosmos.
so is the tongue among our members'] The particle of comparison
is not found in the best MSS., but is clearly implied, and is therefore
legitimately inserted in the translation, as it is in some later MSS.
The sentence strictly runs. The tongue is set in our members,
V. 7.] . ST. JAMES, III. 8i
bers, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the
course of nature ; and it is set on fire of hell. For every 7
referring of course not to a Divine appointment, but to its actual
position. It is, as a fact, that which "defiles", better perhaps spots
or stains, the whole body. Every evil word is thought of as leaving
its impress, it may be an indelible impress, as a blot upon the whole
character.
and setteth on fire the course of tiature\ The last words have no
parallel in any Greek author, and are therefore naturally somewhat diffi-
cult. Literally, we might render, the wheel of nature or of birth, just
as in ch. i. 23 we found "the face of nature," for the "natural face,"
that with which we are bom. The best interpretation seems to be
that which sees in the phrase a figure for "the whole of life from
birth;" the wheel which then begins to roll on its course, and con-
tinues rolling until death. The comparison of life to a race, or course
of some kind, has been familiar to the poetry of all ages, and in a
Latin poet, Silius Italicus (vi. 120), we have a phrase almost identical
with St James's,
"Talis lege Deum clivoso tramite vitae
Per varies praceps casus rota volvitur cBvii'''
** So. by the law of God, through chance and change,
The wheel of life rolls down the steep descent."
What is meant, if we adopt this view, is that from the beginning
of life to its close, the tongue is an ever-present inflammatory element
of evil.
As an alternative explanation it is possible that there may be a
reference to the potter's wheel, as in Jerem. xviii. 3, and Ecclus. xxxviii.
29, in the latter of which the same word for "wheel" is used. On
this view the tongue would be represented as the flame that by its
untempered heat mars the vessel in the hands of the potter. The
frequent parallelisms between St James and the Wisdom of the Son
of Sirach, are, as far as they go, in favour of this view, but the former
seems to me, on the whole, preferable. A third view, that the
words have the same kind of meaning as orbis terrai'um, and mean,
as in the English Version, the whole order or course of nature, i. e.
of human history in the world at large, has, it is believed, less to
recommend it.
and it is set on fire of hell\ The Greek participle is in the present.
The tongue that speaks evil is ever "being set on fire of Gehenna. St
James does not shrink from tracing sins of speech to their source.
The fire of man's wrath is kindled from beneath, as the fire that
cleanses is kindled from above. Bearing in our minds the wonder
of the day of Pentecost, it is hardly too bold to say that we have to
choose whether our tongue shall be purified by the fire of the Holy
Spirit or defiled by that of Gehenna.. The latter word is that em-
ployed in the Gospels, as here, for "Hell", wherever that word means,
not simply the place of the dead, which is expressed in the Greek
ST JAMES 6
82 ST. JAMES, III. [vv. 8, 9.
kind of beasts, *and of birds, and of serpents, and of thitigs
8 in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind : but
the tongue can no man tame ; it is an unruly evil, full of
9 deadly poison. Therewith bless we God, even the Father ;
by Hades, the unseen world, but the place of torment. Primarily,
the word is a Hebrew one, signifying the Valley of Hinnom.- As that
valley had been in the days of the idolatries of Judah the scene of
the fires of Moloch worship (2 Kings xxiii. 10; Jerem. vii. 31, xix. 5, 6),
and had in later times become the cloaca where the filth and offal
of the city were consumed in fires kept continually burning (so it is
commonly said, but the fact is not quite certain), it came to be among
the later Rabbis what Tartarus was to the Greeks, the symbol of the
dread penalties of evil. Comp. Matth. v. 22, Mark ix. 43.
7. every kind of beasts] Better, Every nature. This was, proba-
bly, intended by the translators, as being the old meaning of the word
"kind," as in the "kindly fruits" (=" natural products") of the Litany.
So Chaucer, "A beautie that cometh not of kinde,'" Rom. of Rose, 2288,
i. e. that is not natural. It may be noted that the Authorised Version in
this instance returns to Wycliffe, who used the word in its old sense, and
that all the intermediate versions give "nature." The fourfold classifi-
cation is obviously intended to be exhaustive — and "beasts" must there-
fore be taken in its common familiar meaning of "quadruped."
serpents'] is too specific for the third word, and it would be better to
give the rendering which it commonly h^ elsewhere, of "creeping
things."
is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind] Better, the word being
the same as in the first clause, "by the nature of man." The tense of
the first verb implies "is continually being tamed." The assertion may
seem at first somewhat hyperbolical, but the well-known cases of tame
rats and tame wasps, the lion of Androcles and the white fawn of
Sertorius, furnish what may well be termed "crucial instances" in
support of it. The story related by Cassian {Coll. xxiv. 2), that
St John in his old age kept a tame partridge, makes it probable that
St James may have seen, among his fellow- teachers, such an instance of
the power of man to tame the varied forms of animal life around him.
8. but the tongtie can no man tame] There is a special force in the
Greek tense for "tame", which expresses not habitual, but momentary
action. St James had learnt, by what he saw around him, and yet
more, it may be, by personal experience, that no powei's of the "nature
of man " were adequate for this purpose. He had learnt also, we must
believe, that the things which are impossible with man are possible
with God.
an um-uly evil] Literally, uncontrollable. Many of the better MSS.,
however, give the adjective which is rendered "unstable" in ch. i. 8,
and which carries with it, together with that meaning, the idea of
restlessness and turbulence. So in the Shepherd of Hermas (il. 2) calumny
is described as a " restless demon."
full of deadly poison] Literally, death-bringing. For the idea comp.
vv. lo— 12.] ST. JAMES, III. 83
and therewith curse we men, which are made after the simi-
litude of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing
and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.
Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water
and bitter ? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive ber-
ries ? either a vine, figs ? so can no fountain both yield salt
water and fresh.
*' the poison of asps is under their lips," Ps. cxl. 3. The adjective is
found in the LXX. version of Job xxxiii. 23, for *' angels or messengers
of death."
9. Therewith bless we God, even the Father. . . ] Many of the better MSB.
give "the Lord" instead of "God". The fact dwelt on comes in to
illustrate the strange inconsistency, even of men who professed faith in
God, in their use of speech. General as the words are, they pointed, we
may believe, especially to the feelings of Jews towards Christians, or of
the more bigoted section of Jewish Christians towards the Gentiles.
Such men were loud in their benedictions of the Eternal, the Blessed
One, yet they had not learnt to reverence humanity as such, as made
after the likeness of God. They cursed those who worshipped or be-,
lieved after a different manner from their own. The annals of Christen-
dom shew that the necessity for the warning has not passed away.
Councils formulating the faith, and uttering their curses on heretics;
Te Deums chanted at an Auto da F^, or after a Massacre of St Bar-
tholomew, the railings of religious parties who are restrained from other
modes of warfare, present the same melancholy inconsistency.
10. these things ought not so to be'] The verb, strictly speaking,
denotes not so much a state, as the coming into a state : these things
ought not to occur hi this way,
11. Doth a fountain] The Greek gives the article, the fountain, as
more emphatically generalising the question.
send forth at the same place .. .] Both verb and noun in the Greek are
more vivid. Our word spurt or gush, if it could be used transitively,
would answer to the former; our mouth, or ''source", or "orifice", to the
latter. The comparison, was a natural one in a country like Palestine,
where springs more or less salt or sulphureous are not uncommon.
Most of those on the eastern slope of the hill-country of Judah and
Benjamin are indeed brackish. Comp. the sweetening of the spring
which supplied the college of the Sons of the Prophets in 2 Kings, ii. 19,
and the symbolic healing of the waters in Ezek. xlvii. 9.
12. Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries ?...] The comparison
here also has an eminently local character. The court-yard of well-
nigh every house had its vine and fig-tree (2 Kings xviii. 31). The
Mount of Olives supplied the other feature. The idea, as a whole, is
parallel to that of Matt. vii. 16, 17, and may well have been suggested
by it.
so can no fountain both yield salt water andfresK] The better MSS.
give a somewhat briefer form. Neither can a salt (spring) jdeld sweet
6—2
84 ST. JAMES, ITT. [vv. 13, 14.
13 — 18. The false Wisdom and the true.
13 Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge amongst
you ? let him shew out of a good conversation his works
14 with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying
(the same adjective as in the preceding verse) water. The comparison
seems at first to break down, as the fact which it was meant to illustrate
was that " blessing and cursing." did issue from the same mouth. What
is meant, however, is that in such a case, the "blessing" loses its cha-
racter, and is tainted with the bitterness of the cursing. The prayers
and praises of the hypocrite who cherishes hatred in his heart, are worse
than worthless.
13 — 18. The false Wisdom and the true.
13. Who is a wise man and endtied with knowledge among you ?\ The
adjective corresponding to "endued with knowledge" (literally knowing
or understanding) is not found elsewhere in the New Testament, but
occurs in the LXX. of Deut. i. 13, 15; iv. 6; Isai. v. 21. So far as a
distinction is intended, it expresses the intellectual, as "wise" does the
moral, aspect of wisdom. Both qualities were required in one who
claimed to be, as in verse i, a " Master " or "Teacher," and St James, in
strict sequence of thought, proceeds to point out how the conditions may
be fulfilled.
out of a good conversation"] The tendency of modem usage to restrictthe
meaning of the substantive to "talk" is in this instance, where the im-
mediate context suggests some such meaning, specially unfortunate, as
lowering the range of the precept. Better by, or otct of, Ms good (the
word expresses the nobler form of goodness) conduct. Comp. the use of
the word in Gal. i. 13 ; i Pet. i. 15, 18, and elsewhere.
with meekness of wisdom] Better, in meekness, as expressing not some-
thing super-added, but the very form and manner in which -the noble
conduct was to be shewn. The "meekness" thus defined is thought of
as belonging to " wisdom " as its characteristic attribute. St James is
hence led back to the thought with which the Epistle opened, that wis-
dom is the crown and consummation of the character of a true believer ;
and lest a counterfeit wisdom should be taken for the true, he proceeds
to give the notes of difference between them.
14. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts] Better,
envy and rivalry. The latter substantive, formed from a word which
means a "day-labourer", expresses primarily the temper of competition
that characterised the class, and then more generally, faction and party-
spirit of any kind. It is significant that the word for "envy" is used by
St Luke as specially characterising the temper of the jews towards the
Gentile converts (Acts xiii. 45), and this, together with what we have
seen of the true bearing of ch. ii. 14 — 26, leads to the conclusion that
St James's warning is specially addressed to those of the Circumcision
who displayed that feeling. He is shewing himself not the antagonist,
vv. 15, 16.] ST. JAMES, III. 85
and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against
the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, 15
but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and 16
tut the supporter of St Paul's work, condemning the factious spirit
which was then, as afterwards at Corinth (2 Cor. xii. 20), in Galatia
(Gal. V. 20), and at Rome (Phil. i. 15), his chief hindrance. The word
"bitter" is perhaps added to "envy" because the Greek word "zeal"
was neutral, and admitted of a good meaning.
glory not\ The word expresses a relative, not an absolute glory-
ing, a glor5dng over some one, on the ground of superior privileges.
This was, it is obvious, likely to be the besetting sin of the party of the
Circumcision in relation to the Gentiles, and was therefore checked by
St James, just as afterwards, when the prospect of the rejection of
Israel was becoming a certainty, it became, in its turn, the sin of the
Gentile converts, and was then checked by St Paul (Rom. xi. 18).
lie not against the trutK\ It is clear that if the word "truth" were
only subjective in its meaning,- as meaning "truthfulness," the precept
would be open to the charge of tautology. We must therefore assume
that it is used with an objective force, as the truth of God revealed in
Christ. We ask what special truth thus revealed those to whom St
James wrote were most in danger of denying, and the answer lies on
the surface. They were claiming God as the God of the Jews only
(Rom. iii. 29), denying the brotherhood of mankind in Christ, "lying
against " the very truth of which they fancied that they were the exclu-
sive possessors.
15. This wisdom descendeth not from above'] St James returns to the
thought of chap» i. 5, that true wisdom was the gift of God, coming,
like every other good and perfect gift, from above (ch. i. 17). But this
was not "the wisdom" of which the "many teachers" of the party of
the Circumcision were boasting. It was, however, that of the Proverbs
of Solomon, and of the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach, on which so
much of St James's teaching was modelled. (Comp. Ecclus. i. i — 10.)
It was that which had been manifested to mankind in all its fulness in
Christ.
earthly, sensual, devilish"] Each word is full of meaning, (i) The
counterfeit wisdom is "earthly" in its nature and origin as contrasted
with that which cometh from above. (Comp. St Paul's "who mind
<?arM/)/ things, " Phil. iii. 19). (2) It is "sensual." The word is used
by classical writers for that which belongs to the "soul" as contrasted
with the "body." This rested on the twofold division of man's nature.
The psychology of the New Testament, however, assumes generally the
threefold division of body, soul, and spirit, the second element answer-
ing to the animal, emotional life, and the third being that which
includes reason and will, the capacity for immortality and for knowing
God. Hence the adjective formed from "soul" acquired a lower
meaning, almost the very opposite of that which- it once had, and
expresses man's state as left to lower impulses without the control of
the spirit. So St Paul contrasts the natural man with the spiritual
86 ST. JAMES, III. [v. 17.
17 strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. But the
wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable,
gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy _and good
(i Cor. ii. 14), the natural and the spiritual body (1 Cor. xv. 44, 46).
So St Jude describes the false teachers, whom he condemns as ''sen-
sual, having not the Spirit." "What St James says then of the false
wisdom is that it belongs to the lower, not the higher, element in man's
nature. It does not come from the Spirit of God, and therefore is not
spiritual. (3) In "deviUsh" we have yet a darker condemnation.
Our English use of the same word, "devil," for the two Greek words
diabolos and dcemonion, tends, however, to obscure St James's meaning.
The epithet does not state that the false wisdom which he condemns
came from the devil, or was like his nature, but that it was demon-like,
as partaking of the nature of the "demons" or "unclean spirits," who,
as in the Gospels, are represented as possessing the souls of men, and
reducing them to the level of madness. Such, St James says, is the
character of the spurious wisdom of the "many masters" of verse i.
Met together in debate, wrangling, cursing, swearing, one would take
them for an assembly of demoniacs. Their disputes were marked by
the ferocity, the egotism, the boasting, the malignant cunning of the
insane. St Paul's account of the " doctrines of devils," i. e. proceeding
from demons (i Tim. iv. 1), not from the Spirit of God, presents a
striking parallel. St James's previous allusion to "demons" (see note
on ch. ii. 19) confirms the interpretation thus given, as shewing how
much his thoughts had been directed to the ph?enomena of possession.
16. envying and strife'] Better, as before, envy and rivalry. See note
on verse 14. "
there is conficsion and every evil worh} On the first word see note on
verse 8. It describes here the chaotic turbulence of such an assembly as
that indicated in the preceding verse. Comp. Prov. xxvi. 28, where the
Greek word in the LXX. answers to the "ruin" of the English version.
The word for "evil" is not the common one, and expresses contempt as
well as condemnation. Better, every vile deed. It is the word used in
John iii. 20, v. 2 9.
17. Bz(t the wisdom that is from above is first ptire, then peaceable']
The sequence is that of thought, not of time. It is not meant, i. e. that
purity is an earlier stage of moral growth in wisdom than peace, but
that it is its foremost attribute. The "purity" indicated is especially
that of chastity of flesh and spirit (comp. 2 Cor. vii. 11, xi. 2; Tit. ii. 5),
and as such is contrasted with the "sensual" character of the false
wisdom. Here again we have the tone of one who has learnt from the
Masters of those who know, among the teachers of his own people, that
wisdom will not "dwell in the body that is subject unto sin " (Wisd. i.
4). The sequence which places " peaceful " after " pure " has its counter-
part in the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. v. 8, 9).
gentle\ and easy to be intreated] The word for "gentle "means literally,
forbearing. It describes, as in Aristotle [Eth. x. 6), the temper that
does not press its rights, that is content to suffer wrong (comp. Phil. iv.
V. i8.] ST. JAMES, III. 87
fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the
fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make
peace.
5 ; I Tim. iii. 3). The second adjective is used by classical writers,
both in a passive sense as liere, and active, (i) as meaning ^^" per-
suasive," "winning its way by gentleness," or (a) as '* obedient." Our
choice between the three meanings must depend on our view of what is
most likely to have been the sequence of St James's thoughts. . On the
whole, the second seems to me to have the most to commend it. True
wisdom shews itself, St James seems to say, in that subtle yet gentle
power to persuade and win, which we all feel when we come in contact
with one who is clearly not fighting for his own rights, but for the cause
of Truth.
full of mercy and good fruit s\ The train of thought is carried on.
Wisdom is suasive because she is compassionate. In dealing with
the froward she is stirred, not by anger, but by pity, and she over-
flows, not with ** every vile deed," but with the good fruits of kindly
without partiality] Here again we have a Greek word which admits
of more than one sense. The English version gives it an active sense, as
describing the temper which does not distinguish wrongly, which is no
respecter of persons. The sense in which the verb, from which the
adjective is formed, is used in ch. i. 6, ii. 4, is, however, that of "doubt-
ing," or "wavering;" and it seems, therefore, probable that St James
means to describe true wisdom as free from the tendency which he thus
condemns. That freedom goes naturally with the freedom _ from un-
reality which the next word expresses. Without vacillation is the con-
dition of ''without hypocrisy.'' Where the purpose is single there is no
risk of a simulated piety.
• 18. And the fruit of righteousness is so%vn in peace.. i\ It is commonly
said that "the fruit of righteousness" means "the fruit which is
righteousness." The analogy of a like structure, however, in Luke iii.^8
("worthy fruits of repentance"), Eph, v. 9 ("the fruit of the Spirit "),
and other passages, is in favour of taking it as the fruit which righteous-
ness produces. Every good deed is a fruit produced by the good seed
sown in the good soil, and not choked by thorns. And every such deed
is, in its turn, as the seed of a future fruit like in kind. It is " soAvn in
peace" (we must remember all the fulness of meaning which the Hebrew
mind attached to peace as the highest form of blessedness) either "by"
or " for " (the former is, perhaps, meant, but the phrase may have been
used to include both) those that make peace. We cannot fail to con-
nect these words with the beatitude on the peace-makers in the Sermon
on the Mount (Matt. v. 9). We can as little fail to note the resemblance
between this portraiture of the true wisdom and the picture which St
Paul draws in i Cor. xiii. of the excellence of Charity or Love. Differ-
ing, as the two teachers did, in many ways, in their modes of thought
and language, one fastening on the more practical, the other on the
more spiritual, aspects of the Truth, there was an essential agreement in
88 ^T. JAMES, IV. [vv. i, 2.
I — 7. God's giving aftd the World^s getti?ig.
4 From whence come wars and fightings among you?
co?ne they not hence, eveji of your lusts that war in your mem-
2 bers ? Ye lust, and have not : ye kill, and desire to have,
their standard of the highest form of the Christian character. A com-
parison of the two helps us to understand how the one teacher held out
the right hand of fellowship to the other (Gal. ii. 9), and to hope for a
like accord now among men who seem to differ in their conception of
Christian Truth, if only they agree in their ultimate aim and standard,
and feel, in the depth of their being, that Love is Wisdom, and that
Wisdom is Love.
Ch. IV. 1 — 7. God's giving and the World's getting.
1. whence cofne wars and fightings among yoti?...'\ One source of
discord had been touched in the "Be not many masters " of Chap. iii. i.
Sectarianism and all its kindred evils were destructive of peace, and
therefore of all true wisdom. Another besetting sin of the race which
St James addressed, from which indeed no race or nation is exempt,
now comes in view. "Wars," protracted or wide-spread disputes :
"fighting," the conflicts and skirmishes of daily life, which make up
the campaign, — "What do they come from?" the writer asks, and then
makes answer to himself A question so like in form to this as to
suggest the thought that it must be a conscious reproduction, is found in
the Epistle of Clement of Rome {c. 45).
eveji of your lusts that war in your members .?] Literally, from your
pleasures. The noun- is used as nearly equivalent to "desires." Com-
mon as the word "pleasure " was in all Greek ethical writers, it is com-
paratively rare in the New Testament. In the Gospels it meets us in
Luke viii. 14, and with much the same sense as in this passage. These
" lusts "or " pleasures " are, the next word tells us, the hosts that carry
on the conflict and perpetuate the warfare. They make our "members,"
each organ of sense or action, their camping ground and field of
battle. Hence, to extend the metaphor one step further, as St Peter
extends it, they "war against the soul" (i Pet. ii. 11).
2. Ye lust, and have not.,.] The genesis of evil is traced sornewhat
in the same way as in ch. i. 15. The genn is found in desire for what
we have not, as e.g. in the sins of David (2 Sam. xi. i) and Ahab
(i Kings xxi. 2 — 4). That desire becomes the master-passion of a
man's soul, and hurries him on to crimes from which he would, at
first, have shrunk.
ye kill, and desire to have...] The order strikes us as inverted, put-
ting the last and deadliest sin at the beginning. The marginal alterna-
tive of "envy" would doubtless give an easier sense, but this cannot
possibly be tlie meaning of the Greek word as it stands, and comes from
..a conjectural reading, suggested, without any MS. authority, by Erasmus
and Beza. If we remember, however, the state of Jewish society, the
bands, of robber- outlaws of whom Barabbas was a type (Mark xv. 7 :
vv. 3, 4.] ST. JAMES, IV. 89
and cannot obtain : ye fight and war, yet ye have not, be-
cause ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask 3
amiss, that ye may consume // upon your lusts. Ye adul- 4
terers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of
John x^^ii. 39), the "four thousand men that were murderers" of Acts
xxi. 38, the bands of Zealots and Sicarii who were prominent in the
tumults that preceded the final war with Rome, it will not seem so start-
ling that St James should emphasise his w arning by beginning with the
words " Ye murder.''^ In such a state of society, murder is often the first
thing that a man thinks of as a means to gratify his desires, not, as with
us, a last resource when other means have failed. Comp. the picture
of a like social condition in which "men make haste to shed blood"
in Prov. i. 16. There was, perhaps, a grim truth in the picture which
St James draws. It was after the deed was done that the murderers
began to quarrel over the division of the spoil, and found themselves as
unsatisfied as before, still not able to obtain that on which they had set
their hearts, and so plunging into fresh quarrels, ending as they began,
in bloodshed. There seems, at first, something almost incredible in the
thought, that the believers to whom St James wrote could be guilty of
such crimes, but Jewish society was at that time rife with atrocities of
like nature, and men, nominally disciples of Christ, might then, as in
later times, sink to its level. See note on next verse.
ye have not, because ye ask not\ This then was the. secret of the
restless cravings and the ever-returning disappointments. They had
never once made their wants the subject of a true and earnest prayer.
Here again we note the fundamental unity of teaching in St James and
St Paul. Comp. Phil. iv. 6. Prayer is with each of them the condition
of content or joy.
3. Ye ask, and receive not.. 7^ The words are obviously written as
in answer to an implied objection : "Not ask," a man might say ; "come
and Rsten to our prayers ; no one can accuse us of neglecting our de-
votions." Incredible as it might seem that men plundering and mur-
dering, as the previous verses represent them, should have held such
language, or been in any sense, men who prayed, the history of
Christendom presents but too many instances of like anomalies. Cornish
wreckers going from church to their accursed work, Italian brigands
propitiating their patron Saint before attacking a company of travellers,
slave-traders, such as John Newton once was, recording piously God's
blessing on their traffic of the year; — these may serve to shew how
soon conscience may be seared, and its warning voice come to give but
an uncertain sound.
that ye may consume it upon your lusts'] Better, that ye may spend it
in your pleasures. This then was that which vitiated all their prayers.
They prayed not for the good of others, nor even for their own true good,
but for the satisfaction of that which was basest in their nature, and
which they, as disciples of Christ, were specially called on to repress.
4. Ye adiilterers and adulteresses..^ The better MSS. give ye
adulteresses only. The use of the feminine alone in this cormexion.
90 ST. JAMES, IV. [v. 5.
the world is enmity with God ? whosoever therefore will be
5 a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do ye think
that the scripture saith in vain, the spirit that dwelleth in us
where the persons referred to are primarily men, is at first startling. It
has a partial parallel in our Lord's words " a« evil and adulterotis gene-
ration " (Matt. xii. 39), but it finds its best explanation in the thought,
not without its bearing on what follows, that the soul's unfaithfulness
towards God is like that of a wife towards her husband. It is as though
St James said '* Ye adulterous souls." There is, it may be, in the use of
such a term, a touch of indignant scorn not unlike that in Homer,
*Axct"5es, ovK€T 'Axacol. "Women, not men of Achsea " (//. II. 235),
or Virgil's '*0 vere Phrygise, neque enim Phryges " {A£jz. ix. 617).
In this subserviency to pleasures, St James sees that which, though
united with crimes of violence, is yet essentially effeminate.
the friendship of the world is enmity with God ?'\ Once more we have
a distinct echo from the Sermon of the Mount (Matt. vi. 24; Luke xvi.
13). Here, also, as in chap. i. 8, stress is laid on the fact that the
neutrality of a divided allegiance is impossible. In that warfare, there-
fore, we must choose our side. We take it, even if we think that we
do not choose it.
whosoever therefore will be a frieftd of the world...'] Literally,
Whosoever, wishes to he a friend. The inference is not a mere
repetition, but lays stress on the fact that the mere wish and inclination
to be on one side involves, ipso facto, antagonism to the other.
5. the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?] The words pre-
sent a two-fold difficulty : (i) They are quoted as Scripture, and yet no
such words are found either in the Canonical or even in the Apocryphal
Books of the Old Testament. (2) It is by no means clear what they
mean in themselves, or what is their relation to the context. If we can
determine the latter point, it may, perhaps, help us in dealing with the
former, {a) The better MSS., it may be noted, to begin with, give a
different reading of the first words : The Spirit which he planted (or
made to dwell) in us. If we adopt this reading, it makes it all but
absolutely certain that what is predicated of thef Spirit must be good,
and not, as the English version suggests, evil, {p) The Greek word for
"lusteth" conveys commonly a higher meaning than the English, and
is rendered elsewhere by "longing after " (Rom. i. 11 ; Phil, i. 8, ii. 26;
2 Cor. ix. 14), or "earnestly desiring" (2 Cor. v. 2), or "greatly desiring"
(2 Tim. i. 4). New .Testament usage is accordingly in favour of giving
the word such a meaning here. The verb has no object, but it is
natural to supply the pronoun "us." Taking these data we get as
the true meaning of the words. The Spirit which He implanted yearns
tenderly over us. (<r) The words that remain, "to envy," admit of
being taken as with an adverbial force. "In a manner tending to envy,"
enviously. The fact that ' ' envy " is elsewhere in the New Testament and
elsewhere condemned as simply evil, makes its use here somewhat startling.
But the thought implied is that the strongest human affection shews itself
in ajealousy which is scarcely distinguishable from "envy." We grudge
V. 6.] ST. JAMES, IV. 91
lusteth to envy ? But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he 6
saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace
the transfer to another of the affection which we claim as ours. We
envy the happiness of that other. In that sense St James says that the
Spirit, implanted in us, yearns to make us wholly His and is satisfied
with no divided allegiance. He simply treats the Greek word for
"envy" as other writers treated the word "jealousy," which though
commonly viewed as evil, was yet treated at times as a parable of the
purest spiritual affection (2 Cor. xi. 2; Gal. iv. 17, 18). The root-
idea of the passage is accordingly identical with that of the jealousy
of God over Israel as His bride (Jer. iii. i — 11 ; Ezek. xvi. : Hos. ii. 3),
of His wrath when the bride proved faithless. Those who had been ad-
dressed as "adulteresses" (verse 4), were forgetting this. All that
they read of the love or jealousy of God was to them as an idle tale.
For t'in vain" read idly, emptily.
There remains the question, in what sense does St James give these
words as a quotation from " the Scripture " ? No words at all like them
in form are found anywhere in the Old Testament, and we have to sup-
pose either ( i.) that they were cited from some lost book that never
found a place in the Hebrew Canon, a supposition, which, though not
absolutely impossible, is yet in a very high degree unlikely ; or, which
seems the more probable explanation, that St James having in his mind
the passages above referred to, and many others like them, and finding
them too long for quotation, condensed them into one brief pregnant
form, which gave the essence of their meaning. A like manner of
quoting as Scripture what we do not find in any extant book, is found
in Clement of Rome (c. 46), "It has been written, 'Cleave to the saints,
for they who cleave to them shall be sanctified.'" As points of detail it
may be noted (i). that the Greek word for "yearning" or "longing"
occurs in the LXX. version of Deut. xxxii. r r, and is followed in verses
13 — 19 by an account of the manner in which the love so shewn had
been turned to jealousy by the sins of Israel ; and (2) that Gen. vi. 5,
as in the LXX., "My spirit shall not abide for ever with men," may
have suggested the "indwelling" of which the first member of the
sentence speaks.
1 have given, what seems on the whole, the most tenable explanation
of a passage which is admitted on all hands to be one of extreme diffi-
culty. It does not seem desirable to discuss other interpretations at any
length, but two or three may be very briefly noticed, (i) The words
have been rendered "The Spirit (i.e. the Holy Spirit) that dwelleth in
us lusteth against envy," the contrast being assumed to be parallel to
that between the works of the Spirit and those of the flesh in Gal. v. 1 7.
There is no sufficient authority, however, for giving this meaning to the
preposition. (2) The " spirit " has been referred to man's corrupt will,
as "lusting to envy," in its bad sense, but the description of the
Spirit as* "implanted" or "dwelhng" in us, is against this view.
(3) In concurrence with the last interpretation, the question "Do ye
think that the Scripture speaks in vain?" has been referred to what
precedes the statement, that the friendship of the world is enmity with
92 ST. JAMES, IV. [w. 7, 8.
7unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God.
Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8 — 10. The Call to Repentance.
8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse
your hands, ye sinners ; and purify your hearts, ye double
God ; but this is at variance with the usual way in which quotations
from the Old Testament are introduced in the New.
6. But he giveth more grace] Following the explanation already
given, the sequence of thought seems to run thus : God loves us with a
feeling analogous to the strongest form of jealousy, or even envy, but
that jealousy does not lead Him, as it leads men, to be grudging in His
gifts ; rather does He bestow, as its result, a greater measure of His
grace than before, or than He would do, were His attitude towards us
one of strict un impassioned Justice.
Wherefore he saith...'] The nominative to the verb is not expressed,
and we may, with almost equal fitness, supply the Scripture, the Spirit,
or God.
God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the htcmble] The point
of the quotation lies in the last clause, as containing the proof of what
St James had just asserted, that God gave His grace freely to those who
thought themselves least worthy of it. It is to be noticed (i) that we
again find St James quoting from one of the great sapiential books of
the Old Testament (Prov. iii. 34), and (2) that St Peter also quotes it
(r Pet. v. 5). That maxim of the wise of old had become, as it were, a
law of life for the Community at Jerusalem. Clement of Rome follows
their example (c. 30).
7. Submit yotirselves the7'efore to God\ The forms of the Greek verbs
express a somewhat sharper antithesis than the English. God settetli
liimself against the proud, therefore, set yourselves as under God.
Resist the devil, and he will Jiee from yoji] ■ The nde seems to -point to
the true field for the exercise of the combative element which enters into
man's nature. Not in - strife and bitterness against each other, not in
setting themselves against the will of God, but in taking their stand
against the Enemy of God and man were the disciples of Christ to shew
that they were indeed men. We may, perhaps, trace in the form of the
precept an indirect reference to the histoiy of the Temptation in
Matt. iv. I— II.
8 — 10. The Call to Repentance.
8. Draw nigh to God, and he will dratv nigh to yoti\ The "near-
ness to God," to which the promi'Se is attached, is primarily that which
is involved in all true and earnest prayer, but it should not be forgotten
that it includes also the approximation of character and life. We are
to walk with God as Enoch walked (Gen. v. 24). The former sense is
prominent in the LXX. use of the verb employed by St James, as in
Hos. xii. 6, where in the English we have ^^wait on thy God con-
w. 9— ii.J ST. JAMES, IV. 93
minded. .Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep : let your 9
laugliter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall Uft =0
you up.
II — 12. Rebuke of Evil-speaki7ig,
Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh "
evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of
tinually," and Ps. cxix. 169. An illustration of its meaning in the second
clause is found in Job xix. 21, where it answers to the English "have
pity on me."
Cleanse your hands, ye sinners.. !\ The words contrast, with an
impHed reference to our Lord's teaching in Matt. xv. i — 9, the true
cleanness of hands, which consists in abstinence from the evil that defiles
(Ps. xxiv. 4 ; I Tim. ii. 8), with the merely ceremonial cleanness on
which the Pharisees laid stress. Comp. Ch. i. 27.
purify your hearts... '\ The verb implies the same kind of purity as
the adjective used in Ch. iii. 17, primarily, that is, chastity of heart and
life. It has here a special emphasis as contrasted with the "adul-
teresses " in verse 4, and with the special aspect of the " double-minded-
ness" which that word implied. See note on Ch. i. 8.
9. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep..."] The words are nearly sy-
nonymous, the first pointing to the sense of 'misery (as in "O wretched
man that I am " in Rom. vii. 24), the second to its general effect on.
demeanour, the last to its special outflow in tears. The two last verbs
are frequently joined together, as in Mark xvi. 10 ; Luke vi. -25 ;
Rev. xviii. 15. The words are an emphatic call to repentance, and
the blessedness which follows on repentance. Here, as so often in the
Epistle, we trace the direct influence of the teaching of the Sermon on
the Mount (Matt. v. 4). The contrast between the "laughter" and the
"mourning" in the clause that follows, makes the connexion all but
absolutely certain. The "laughter" is that of the careless, selfish,
luxurious rejoicing of the world, the "sport" of the fool in Prov. x. 23.
■ your joy to heaviness'\ The Greek for the latter word expresses literally
the downcast look of sorrow, and is as old in this sense as Homer,
"Joy to thy foes, but heavy shame to thee."
Iliad III. 51.
It exactly describes the attitude of the publican, who would not "lift up
so much as his eyes unto heaven " (Luke xviii. 13).
10. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you
up] Better, he shall exalt, so as to preserve the manifest allusion to
our Lord's words as recorded in Matt, xxiii. 12 ; Luke xiv. 12, xviii. 14.
Here again we have another striking parallel with St Peter's language
(i Pet. V. 6). There is, however, a difference as well as an agi-eement
to be noticed. While the other passages speak mainly of humility in
its relation to man, this dwells emphatically on its being manifested in
relation to God.
94 ST. JAMES, IV. [vv. 12, 13.
the law, and judgeth the law : but if thou judge the law,
12 thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one
lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy : who art thou
that judgest another ?
13 — 17. Man proposing^ God disposing.
13 Go to now, ye that say, To day or to jnorrow we will go into
such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and
11, 12. Rebuke of Evil-speaking.
IIJ Speak not evil one of another, brethref{\ The last word indicates
the commencement of a new section. It scarcely, however, introduces
a new topic. The writer dwells with an iteration, needful for others, and
not grievous to himself, (Phil. iii. i) on the ever-besetting sin of his
time and people, against which he had warned his readers in Ch. i. 19,
20, 26, and throughout Ch. iii.
speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law..."] The logical train of
thought seems to run thus. To speak against a brother is to condemn
him ; to condemn, when no duty calls us to it, is to usurp the function
of a judge. One who so usurps becomes ipso facto a transgressor of the
law, the royal law, of Christ, which forbids judging (Matt. vii. i — 5).
The "brother" who is judged is not necessarily such as a member of
the Christian society. The superscription of the Epistle includes under
that title every one of the family of Abraham, perhaps, every child of
Adam.
12. There is otie lawgiver^ who is able to save and to destroy...'] Here
again we have to trace a latent sequence of thought. The Giver of
the Law is, St James implies, the only true and ultimate Judge
(comp. I Cor. iv. 4, 5), able to award in perfect equity the sentence
of salvation or destruction. Men who are called by His appointment
to exercise the office of a judge do so as His delegates. ■ Those who
are not so called do well to abstain altogether from the work of judging.
The description of God as "able to destroy" presents a striking parallel
to Matt. X. 28 ; the question "Who art thou that judgest another?"
to Rom. xiv. 4. On this point at least St Paul and St James were of
one heart and mind. The word "destroy" does not necessarily either
include or exclude the idea of annihilation.
13 — 17. Man proposing, God disposing.
13. Go to no7v, ye that say...] The warnings pass on to another
form of the worldliness of the double-minded ; the far-reaching plans
for the future such as our Lord had condemned in the parable of the
Rich Fool (Luke xii. 16). It is significant that that parable follows
in close sequence upon our Lord's disclaimer of the office of a Judge.
The opening formula, "Go to," which meets us again in ch. v. i,
is peculiar to St James in the New Testament. It appears in the LXX.
in Judg. xix. 6; 2 Kings iv. 24. It is obvious that the warning is
vv. 14, 15.] ■ ST. JAMES, IV. 95
get gain : whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow : ^^
for what is your life ? It is even a vapour, that appeareth
for a Httle time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought is
to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.
addressed to Christians as well as Jews, so far as they were infected
by the taint of worldliness. The MSS. vary between "to-day or
to-morrow" and "to-day and to-morrow," the latter implying the
contemplation of a two days' journey.
into such a city^ Literally, into this city, that which was present
to the mind of the speaker.
14, Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow'] Literally,
the thing, or the event of to-morrow, the phrase being parallel to
"the things of the morrow" in Matt. vi. 34. St James partly repro-
duces that teaching, partly that of Pro v. xxvii. 1.
what is your life .?...] Literally, of what n2iXyxrQ your life is. The com-
parison that follows was one familiar to all the wise of heart who had
meditated on the littleness of man's life. It meets us in Job vii. 7 ;
Ps. cii. 3. A yet more striking parallel is found in Wisd. v. 9 — 14,
with which St James may well have been familiar. The word for
"vanishing away" occurs, it may be noted, in Wisd. iii. 16. It is
not without interest to note at once the agreement and the difference
between St James' counsel and that of the popular Epicureanism.
" Quid sit futurum eras, fuge quserere ; et
Quem Fors dierum cumque dabit, lucro
Appone." Horace, Od. i. 9.
"Strive ndt the morrow's chance to know,
And count whate'er the Fates bestow,
As given thee for thy gain."
It was not strange that those who thought only of this littleness,
should deem that their only wisdom lay in making the most of that
little in and by itself, and take "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow
we die " (i Cor. xv. 32) as their law of life. St James had been taught
to connect man's life with. a Will higher than his own, and so to take
the measure of its greatness as well as of its littleness.
15. For that ye ought to say...] Literally, Instead of saying, but
the English may be admitted as a fair paraphrase.
If the Lord will, we shall live...] This is the reading of the better
MSS. The Received Text gives "If the Lord will, and we hve, we
will do this or that." The sense is substantially the same with either,
but it is perhaps, more expressive to refer both life and action to
the one Supreme Will. It is better here to refer the word "Lord"
to God in His Absolute Unity, without any thought of the distinction
of the Persons. The reference of all the contingencies of the future to
one supremely wise and loving Will has been in all ages of Christendom
the stay and strength of devout souls. It has left its mark, even where
it has not always been received as a reality, in familiar formulae, such as
96 ST. JAMES, IV. V. [vv. 16, 17; i, 2.
16 But now ye rejoice in your boastings": all such rejoicing is
17 evil. Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth
// not, to him it is sin.
I — 6. Warnings for the Rich;
5 Go to now^ ye rich nien^ weep and howl for your
2 miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are cor-
**God willing," Deo Volente, or even the abbreviated D. V. There
is, perhaps, a special interest in noting that St Paul uses the self-same
formula as St James in reference to his plans for the future (i Cor.
iv. 19).
16. Btit now -ye rejoice in your boastingsl Better, ye exult in your
vain glories. If the words were not too familiar, ye glory in your
braggings Avould, perhaps, be a still nearer equivalent. The noun
is found in i John ii. 16 ("the pride of life"), and not elsewhere in
the New Testament. It is defined by Aristotle {Etk. Nico?n. iv. 13)
as the character of the man who lays claim to what will bring him credit
when the claim is either altogether false or grossly exaggerated. He
contrasts it with the "irony" which deliberately, with good or bad
motive, understates its claims. The "now" is more or less emphatic,
= "as things are."
17. Therefore to him that, knoweth to do good...'\ The law of
conscience is here enforced in its utmost width. To leave undone
what we know we ought to do, is sin, even though there be no outward
act of what men call crime or vice. The bearing of the general axiom
on the immediate context is obviously that though men assented then,
as we too often assent, to the abstract truth of the shortness of life and
the uncertainty of the future, they went on practically as before with
far-stretching calculations. Such men need to be reminded that this
inconsistency is of the very essence of sin.
Ch. V. 1 — 6. Warnings for the Rich.
1. Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl] The words are nearly
the same as those we have met with before in ch. iv. 9, but there 'is
in them less of the call to repentance, and more of the ring of prophetic
denunciation. The word for "howl," not found elsewhere in the
New Testament, is found in three consecutive chapters of Isaiah (xiii.
6, xiv. 31, XV. 3), which may well have been present to St James'
thoughts.
for your miseries that shall come upon yoti\ Literally, tliat are coming
upon you, in the very act to come. The context points to these as
consisting not merely in the cares and anxieties that come in the
common course of things upon the rich, but in the special troubles
that were to usher in the advent of the Judge. Historically, the words
had their primary fulfilment in the woes that preceded the destruction
of Jerusalem, but these were but the first in the series of "springmg
vv. 3, 4.] ST. JAMES, V. 97
rupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and 3
silver is cankered ; and the rust of them shall be a witness
against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire : ye have
heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire 4
of the labourers which have reaped down your fields, which
and germinant accomplishments " which will attain their completeness
before the final Advent.
2. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten\
The union of the two chief forms of Eastern wealth in this and the
following verse, reminds us of the like combination in Matt. vi. 19,
"where moth and rust doth corrupt." Comp. St Paul's **I have coveted
no man's silver, or gold, or apparel" (Acts xx. 33).
3. Your gold and silver is cankered] Literally, rusted, the
word being used generically of the tarnish that sooner or later comes
over all metals that are exposed to the action of the air.
shall be a witness against you... '\ Better, for a witness to you. The
doom that falls on the earthly possessions of the ungodly shall be,
as it were, the token of what will fall on them, unless they avert it
by repentance.
_ shall eat your flesh as it were fire\ The last words have been some-
times taken as belonging to the next clause, "as fire ye laid up
treasure," but the structure of the English text is preferable. The
underlying image suggested is that the rust or canker spreads from
the riches to the very life itself, and that when they fail, and leave behind
them only the sense of wasted opportunities and the memories of
evil pleasures, the soul will shudder at their work as the flesh shudders
at the touch of fire. We may perhaps trace a reminiscence of the
"unquenchable fire" devouring the carcases in Gehenna, as in Mark
ix. 44.
Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days] Better, Ye laid (or, ye
have laid) up treasure in the last days. The preposition cannot possibly
have the sense of "for." St James shared the belief of other New Testa-
ment writers that they were living in ' * the last days " of the world's history,
and that the "coming of the Lord" was nigh (i John ii. 18 ; i Cor. xv. 51 ;
I Thess. iv. 15). For those to whom he wrote the words had a very
real truth. They were actually living in the "last days" of the polity
of Israel. In the chaos and desolation of its fall their heaped-up
treasures would avail but little. They would be marked out in pro-
portion to their wealth, as the first to be attacked and plundered.
4. Behold, the hire of the labourers... "] The evil was one of old
standing in Judaea. The law had condemned those who kept back
the wages of the hired labourer even for a single night (Lev. xix. 13).
Jeremiah (xxii. 13) had uttered a woe against him "that useth his
neighbour's service without wages." Malachi (iii. 5) had spoken of
the SNvift judgment that should come on those who "oppressed the
hireling in his wages." The grasping avarice that characterized the
latter days of Judaism shewed itself in this form of oppression among
others.
ST JAMES ••
98 ST. JAMES, V. [vv. 5, 6.
is of you kept back by fraud, crieth : and the cries of them
which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of
5 sabaoth. Ye have hved in pleasure on the earth, and been
wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of
6 slaughter. Ye have condemned atid killed the just ; and he
doth not resist you.
are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaothi The divine Name
thus used was pre-eminently characteristic of the language of the
Prophets. It does not appear at all in the Pentateuch, nor in Joshua,
Judges, or Ruth ; and probably took its rise in the Schools of the
Prophets, founded by Samuel. Whether its primary meaning was that
Jehovah was the God of all the armies of earth, the God, as we say,
of battles, or that He ruled over the armies of the stars of heaven,
or over tie unseen hosts of angels, or was wide enough, as seems
probable, to include all three ideas, is a question which cannot be very
definitely answered. It is characteristic of St James that he gives
the Hebrew form of the word, as also St Paul does in citing Isai. i. 9
in Rom. ix. 29. For the most part the LXX. renders it by "Almighty"
(Pantokrator), and in this form it appears in Rev. iv. 8, where "Holy,
holy, holy, Lord God Almighty" answers to " Lord God of sabaoth,"
or "of hosts" in Isai. vi. 3. This title is specially characteristic of
Malachi, in whom it occurs not less than 23 times.
5. Ye have lived in pleasiire on the earth, and been wantonl Better,
Ye lived luxuriously and spent wantonly, the latter word emphasising
the lavish and profligate expenditure by which the luxury which the
former expresses was maintained.
ye have nourished your hearts^ as in a day of slaughter'] Many of the
best MSS. omit the particle of comparison, ye nouristied your heart
in the day of slaughter. With this reading, the "day of slaughter"
is that of the carnage and bloodshed of war, such a "sacrifice" as
that which the Lord of Hosts had, of old, by the river Euphrates
(Jerem. xlvi. 10), or the "great slaughter" in the land of Idumsea
(Isai. xxxiv. 6). The "rich men" of Judaea, in their pampered luxury,
were but fattening themselves, all unconscious of their doom, as beasts
are fattened, for the slaughter. The insertion of the particle of
comparison suggests a difi'erent aspect of the same thought. A sacrifice
was commonly followed by a sumptuous feast upon what had been
offered. Comp. the union of the two thoughts in the harlot's words
(" I have peace-offerings with me ; this day have I paid my vows")
in Prov. vii. 14. Taking this view St James reproaches the self-
indulgent rich with making their life one long continuous feast. The
former interpretation seems preferable, both on critical and exegetical
grounds.
6. Ye have condemned and killed the just] The words have been
very generally understood as referring to the death of Christ, and on
this view, the words "he doth not resist you " have been interpreted
as meaning, "He no longer checks you in your career of guilt; He
leaves you alone (comp. Hos. iv. 17) to fill up the measure of your sin."
V. 7.] ST. JAMES, V. 99
7 — II. Comfort and Counsel for the Poor.
Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the 7
Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious
St James, it has been inferred, uses the term "the Jvist One" as
Stephen had done (Acts vii. 52), as pointing emphatically to "Jesus
Christ the righteous" (i John ii, i). Fuller consideration, however,
shews that such a meaning could hardly have come within the horizon
of St James's thoughts, (i ) That single evil act of priests, and scribes,
and the rnultitude of Jerusalem, could hardly have been thus spoken of
in an Epistle addressed to the Twelve Tribes of the dispersion, without
a more distinct indication of what was referred to. To see in them,
as some have done, the statement that the Jews, wherever they were
found, were guilty of that crime, as accepting and approving it, or as
committing sins which made such an atonement necessary, is to read
into_ them a non-natural meaning. (2) The whole context leads us to
see in the words, a generic evil, a class sin, characteristic, like those
of the previous verse, of the rich and powerful everywhere. (3) The
meaning thus given to "he doth not resist you" seems, to say the least,
strained and unnatural, especially as coming so soon after the teaching
(ch. iv. 6) which had declared that "God does resist the proud. " (4) The
true meaning of both clauses is found, it is believed, in taking " the just "
as the representative of a class, probably of the class of those, who as
disciples of Christ the Just One, were reproducing His pattern of
righteousness. Such an one, like his Master, and like Stephen, St James
adds, takes as his law (note the change of tense from past to present) the
rule of not resisting. He submits patiently, certain that in the end he
will be more than conqueror. It is not without interest to note that that
title was afterwards applied to St James himself (Euseb. Hist. 11. 33).
The name Justus, which appears three times in the New Testament
(Acts i.^ 23, xviii. 75 Col. iv. 11), was obviously the Latin equivalent of
this epithet, and it probably answered to the Chasidi?n or Assideans
(i Mace. ii. 42, vii. 13, 2 Mace. xiv. 6) of an earlier stage of Jewish re-
ligious history. It is as if a follower of George Fox had addressed the
judges and clergy of Charles II. 's reign, and said to them, "Ye persecuted
the Friend, and he does not resist you." (5) It is in favour of this in-
terpretation that it presents a striking parallel to a passage in the
"Wisdom of Solomon," with which this Epistle has so many affinities.
There too the writer speaks of the wealthy and voluptuous as laying
snares for "the just" who is also "poor," who calls himself "the
servant of the Lord," and boasts of God as his Father (Wisd. ii. 12—16).
Comp. also the description of the ultimate triumph of the just man in
Wisd. V. I — 5.
7 — 11. Comfort and Counsel for the Poor.
7. Be patient therefore\ More literally. Be long'-suffering'. The
logical sequence implied in "therefore" is that the "brethren" whom
St James addresses should follow the example of the ideal "just man"
of whom the previous verse had spoken. There is a terminus ad quern
ST. JAMES, V. [vv. 8-
fniit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he
8 receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient;
stablish your hearts : for the coming of the Lord draweth
9 nigh. Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye
be condemned : behold, the judge standeth before the
ro door. Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken
for that long-suffering, and it is found in "the coming of the Lord."
Here, with scarcely the shadow of a doubt, it is the Lord Jesus who is
meant. St James had learned from the discourse recorded in Matt,
xxiv. 3, 37, 39, to think of that Advent as redressing the evils of the
world, and he shared the belief, natural in that age of the Church, that
it was not far off. It had already drawTi nigh (verse 8). The patient
expectation of the sufferers would not be frustrated. We see that the
hope was not fulfilled as men expected, but we may believe that even
for those who cherished it, it was not in vain. There was a judgment
at hand, in which evil-doers received their just reward, and which
made glad the hearts of the righteous.
hath long patience for it] The verb is the same as that just
translated *'be patient." Better, perhaps, is long-suflFering over it, as
implying a kind of watchful expectancy. The prevalence of a long-con-
tinued drought in Palestine when St James wrote (see note on verse i6)
gave, we can scarcely doubt, a very special emphasis to his words of
counsel.
until he receive the early and latter rain] The MSS. present a singu-
lar variety of readings, some giving "rain," some "fruit," and some no
substantive at all. "Rain" gives the best meaning. The "early
rain" fell in the months from October to February; the latter, from
March to the end of April. Comp. Deut. xi. 14; Jer. iii. 3, v. 24;
Joel ii. 23. An ingenious allegorising interpretation finds in the "early"
rain the tears of youthful repentance; in the "latter," those of age.
8. Be ye also patient] Better, long-suflFering ; as before.
stablish your hearts] Better, strengthen. The strength is to come
from the thought that the great Advent has come near, that there will be
a great Court of Appeal from all man's injustice. Here, as before, we
note a hope which was not fulfilled as men expected its fulfilment, and
yet was not frustrated. The promise of the second Advent has been
to believers in Christ what the promise of the first Advent was to
Abraham and the patriarchs. They saw the far-off fulfilment, knowing
not the times and seasons, and it made them feel that they were strangers
and pilgrims (Heb. xi. 13), and so purified and strengthened them.
9. Grudge not one against another...] Better, perhaps, complain
not. The primary meaning of the verb is "to groan." To indulge in
such complaints was to assume the office of the Judge, whose presence
they ought to think of as not far off, even "at the door," and so brought
with it the condemnation which He himself had pronounced (Matt
vii. i). The standing before the door presents a point of comparison
with Rev. iii. 20.
10. Take^ my brethren^ the prophets.. !\ Better, as representing the
vv. II.] ST. JAMES, V.
loi
in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering
affliction, and of patience. Behold, we count them happy i,
which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and
have seen the end of the Lord ; that the Lord is very pitiful,
and of tender mercy.
emphatic order of the Greek, As an example of affliction and long-
suffering take, my "bretliren, the prophets The first of the nouns
expresses simply the objective affliction, not the manner of enduring it.
the prophets zvho have spoken...'] Better, who spake. The words
point, perhaps, chiefly to the prophets of the Old Testament, as having,
with scarcely an exception, suffered persecution (Matt. v. 12), But we
must not forget that there were prophets also in the Christian Church
(i Cor. xii. 10, xiv. 24, 29; Eph. ii. 20, iv. 11 ; Rev. xxii. 9), and that
these were exposed to the same trials as their predecessors. It is to
their sufferings that St Paul probably referred in i Thess. ii. 15, and
St James may well have included them in his general reference. Stephen
and his own namesake, the son of Zebedee, may have been specially
present to his thoughts.
11. we count them happy which endure.. !\ Better, we call them
Wessed, the verb being formed from the adjective used in ch. i. 12.
Comp. Luke ii. 48. The words may contain a reference to Dan. xii. 12.
Ye have heard of the patience of Jobi Better, endurance, to keep
up the connexion with the verb. It is singular that, though the book is
once quoted (i Cor. iii. 19, Job v. 13), this is the only reference in the New
Testament to the history of Job. Philo, however, quotes from Job xiv. 4
{deMutat. Norn, xxiv.), and he is referred to by Clement of Rome (i. 17.
26). The book would naturally be studied by one whose attention had
been drawn, as St James's manifestly had been, to the sapiential Books
included in the Hagiographa of the Old Testament. It is obvious that
he refers to the book as containing an actual history, as obvious that his
so referring to it throws no light on the questions which have been
raised, but which it would be out of place to discuss here, as to its
authorship and date.
and have seen the end of the Lord] The words have received two
very different interpretations. (1) They have been referred to the
••end" which the "Lord" wrought out for Job after his endurance had
been tried, as in Job xliL 12. (2) The •'end of the Lord" has been
understood as pointing to the death and resurrection of Christ as the
Lord who had been named in verse 7, the highest example of patience
in the Old Testament being brought into juxtaposition with the Highest
of all Examples. On this view the passage becomes parallel with
I Peter ii. 19—25. The clause that follows is, however, decisively in
favour of (i), nor is there any instance of a New Testament writer using
the term ''end" of the passion and death of Christ. Matt. xxvi. 58,
which is the nearest approach to such a use, is scarcely in point.
that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy'] The first of the two
adjectives, of which the nearest English equivalent would be large-
hearted or perhaps tender-hearted, is not found in any other writer,
102 ST. JAMES, V. [w. 12, 13.
12. Oaths.
12 But above all things ^ my brethren, swear not, neither by
heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but
let your yea be yea ; and your nay, nay ; lest ye fall into
condemnation.
13 — 16. Affliction — Sickness — Confession.
13 Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry?
and may have been a coinage of St James's. The latter occurs in
Ecclus. ii. II, in close juxtaposition with a passage which we have
already found referred to in the Epistle (Ecclus. ii. 11), and which may
therefore have been present to St James's thoughts. In this instance
"the Lord" is clearly used in the Old Testament sense, and this, as
has been said, determines the meaning of the previous clause.
12. Oaths.
12. above all things, my brethren^ swear not...] The passage presents
so close a parallel with Matt. v. 33 — 37 that it is almost a necessary in-
ference that St James, if not himself a hearer of the Sermon on the
Mount, had become acquainted with it as reported by others. Comp.
Introductio7i, p. 8. The words condemn alike the rash use of oaths
in common speech, and the subtle distinctions drawn by the Scribes
as to the binding force of this or that formula (Matt, xxiii. 16 — 2-2).
That the condemnation does not extend to the solemn judicial use
of oaths we see in the facts (i) that our Lord answered when questioned
as on oath by Caiaphas (Matt, xxvi, 63, 64), and (2) that St Paul at times
used modes of expression which are essentially of the nature of an oath
(2 Cor. i. 23; Romans i. 9; Gal. i. 20; Phil. i. 8). It is not without
interest to note that in this respect also the practice of the Essenes, in
their efforts after holiness, was after the pattern of the teaching of
St James. They, too, avoided oaths as being no less an evil than
perjury itself (Joseph. Wars. II. 8. 85). They, however, with a some-
what strange inconsistency, bound the members of their own society by
"tremendous oaths" of obedience and secresy.
13—16. Affliction — Sickness— Confession.
13. Is any among you afflicted, let him pray...] The precepts point
to the principle that worship is the truest and best expression of both
sorrow and joy. In affliction men are not to groan or complain against
others, or murmur against God, but to pray for help and strength and
wisdom. When they are "merry" (better, of good cheer) they are
not to indulge in riotous or boastful mirth, but to "sing psalms."
The verb is used by St Paid (Rom. xv. 9; i Cor. xiv. 15; Eph.
V. 19). Primarily it was used of instrumental string music, but, as in the
word " Psalm," had been transferred to the words of which that music
was the natural accompanunent. It is, perhaps, specially characteristic
vv. 14, I5-] ST. JAMES, V. 103
let him sing psalms. Is any sick among you ? let him call 14
for the elders of the church j and let them pray over him,
anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord : and the is
of St James that he contemplates what we may call the individual
use of such music as well as the congregational, as a help to the spiritual
life. We are reminded of two memorable instances of this employment
in the lives of George Herbert and Milton. Compare also Hooker's
grand words on the power of Psalmody and Music {Eccl. Pol. v. 38).
14. Is any sick atnongyoti ? let him call for the elders of the chtirch'\ The
rule is full of meaning, (i) As regards the functions of the Elders of* the
Church. Over and above special gifts of prophecy or teaching, they
were to visit the sick, not merely for spiritual comfort and counsel, but
as possessing "gifts of healing" (i Cor. xii. 9). (2) The use of the term
"Elders" exactly agrees with the account of the Jewish Church in
Acts xi. 30, XV. 6, xxi. 18. In the Gentile Churches the Greek title of
Bishop {Episcopos=o\ex%etx) came into use as a synonym for "Elder"
(Acts XX. 28 ; Phil. i. i ; i Tim. iii. i ; Tit. i. 5, 7), but within the limits
of the New Testament the Church of Jerusalem has only "Apostles and
Elders." It may fairly be inferred from the position which he occupies
in Acts XV. that St James himself was reckoned as belonging to the first
of the two classes. St Paul's way of mentioning him naturally, though
not necessarily, implies the same fact (Gal. i. 19).
anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord] The context shews
that this was done as a means of healing. It had been the practice of
the Twelve during part, at least, of our Lord's ministry (Mark vi. 13).
The Parable of the good Samaritan gives one example of the medical
use of oil (Luke x. 34), another is found in Isai. i. 6. Friction with
oHve oil was prescribed by Celsus for fever. Herod the Great used oil-
baths (Joseph. Ajtt. XVII. 6. § 5). The principle implied in the use of
oil instead of the direct exercise of supernatural gifts without any medium
at all, was probably, in part, analogous to our Lord's employment of
like media in the case of the blind and deaf (Mark vii. 33, viii. 23;
John ix. 6). It served as a help to the faith of the person healed;
perhaps also, in the case of the Apostles, to that of the healer. The
position of the disciples was not that of men trusting in charms or
spells and boasting of their powers, but rather that of those who used
simple natural means of healing in dependence on God's blessing. A
sanction was implicitly given to the use of all outward means as not
inconsistent with faith in the power of prayer, to the prayer of faith as
not excluding the use of any natural means. "The Lord" in whose Name
this was to be done is here, without doubt, definitely the Lord Jesus.
Comp. Matt, xviii. 5 ; Mark ix. 39; Luke ix. 49; Acts iii. 16, iv. 10, 18,
30. The subsequent history of the practice is not without mterest. It
does not seem to have been ever entirely dropped either in the West or
East. In the latter, though miraculous gifts of healing no longer
accompanied it, it was, and still is, employed ostensibly as a means of
healing, and the term *' extreme unction" has been carefully rejected.
Stress is laid on the words of St James as pointing to the collective
I04 ST. JAMES, V. [v. 15.
prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise
him up ; and if he have committed sins, they shall be for-
action of the elders, not to that of a single elder, and the legitimate
number ranges from three as a minimum to seven. It is evident that
here the idea of united prayer working with natural means has, in theory
at least, survived. In the West, on the other hand, a new theory grew
up with the growth of Scholasticism. If bodily healing no longer
followed, it was because the anointing had become the sign and sacra-
ment of a spiritual healing, and the special grace which it conveyed
was thought of as being specifically different from that which came
through other channels, adapted to the needs of the soul in its last
struggles. So the term "Extreme Unction" came into use in the
twelfth century, and the Council of Trent {Catech. vi. 1. 9) limited its
use to those who were manifestly drawing near unto death, and gave it
the title of ^''sacramenhini exetmtium.^'' In the First Prayer Book of
Edward VI. the rite was retained, partly, it would seem, by way of
compromise ("if the sick person desire to be anointed"), partly, as the
language of the prayer that was to accompany the act seems to indicate
( ** our heavenly Father vouchsafe for His great mercy (if it be His
blessed will) to restore to thee thy bodily health"), with a faint hope of
reviving the original idea. In the Prayer Book of 1552, the "unction"
disappeared, and has never since been revived.
15. and the prayer of faith shall save the sick'\ The context leaves
no doubt that the primary thought is, as in our Lord's words to men and
women whom He healed, "Thy faith hath saved thee" — "thy faith
hath made thee whole" (Matt. ix. 22 ; Mark v. 34, x. 52 ; Luke vii. 50,
viii. 48, xvii. 19, xviii. 42), that the sick man should in such a case
"recover his bodily health." The "prayer of faith" was indeed not
limited to that recovery in its scope, but the . answer to that prayer in
its higher aims, is given separately afterwards in the promise of for-
giveness.
and the Lord shall raise him up} Here, as in verse 14, we have to
think of St James as recognising not merely the power of God generally,
but specifically that of the Lord Jesus, still working through His servants,
as He worked personally on earth. So Peter said to ^neas, "Jesus
Christ maketh thee whole" (Acts ix. 34).
if he have committed sins...] The Greek expresses with a subtle dis-
tinction, hard to reproduce in English, the man's being in the state pro-
duced by having committed sins. Repentance, it is obvious, is pre-
supposed as a condition, and the love of God in Christ as the fountain of
forgiveness, but the prayer of the elders of the Church is, beyond question,
represented as instrumental, as helping to win for the sinner the grace
both of repentance and forgiveness. It is noticeable that the remission
of sins thus promised is dependent not on the utterance of the quasi-
iudicial formula of the Absolvo te (that, indeed, was not used at all until
the 13th century) by an individual priest, but on the prayer of the elders
as representing the Church. Comp. John xx. 23, where also the promise
is in the plural, " Whosesoever sins ji? remit."
i6, 17.] ST. JAMES, V. 105
given him. Confess your faults one to another, and pray 16
one for another, that ye may be healed.
16 — 20. Prayer and Conversion.
The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth
much. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, 17
16. Confess your faults one to an other.. :\ Better, with the old MSS.
Therefore confess — and transgressions instead of faults. The noun
includes sins against God as well as against men : the words refer
the rule of this mutual confession to the promise of forgiveness as its
ground. In details the precept is singularly wide. The confession is
not to be made by the layman to the elder, more than by the elder to
the layman. In either case the question whether it was to be public or
private, spontaneous or carried on by questions, is left open. Examples
such as those of Matt. iii. 6 ; Acts xix. 18, 19, suggest the thought of the
public confession of individual sins, which was, indeed, the practice of
the Church of the third and fourth centuries, as it was afterwards that
of many Monastic orders. A later revival of the custom is found in the
"class-meetings" of the followers of John Wesley. The closing words,
that ye may be healed, have been thought to limit the counsel thus given to
times of sickness. It may be admitted that the words are to be taken
primarily of bodily healing, but on the other hand, the tense of the
imperatives implies continuous action. The writer urges the habit of
mutual prayer and intercession, that when sickness comes, there may be
a quicker work of healing in the absence of spiritual impediments to
the exercise of supernatural powers working through natural media.
16 — 20. Prayer and Conversion.
The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much"] The
words "effectual fervent" represent a single participle {energumenl),
which is commonly rendered (as in 2 Cor. i. 6 ; Gal. v. 6 ; i Thess. ii.
13) by "working." That accordingly may be its meaning here: A
righteous man's supplication is of great might in its working. The later
ecclesiastical use of the word, however, suggests another explanation.
The Energumeni were those who were acted, or worked, on by an evil
spirit, and the word became a synonym for the "demoniacs" of the New
Testament. It is possible that a like passive meaning may be intended
here, and that the participle describes the character of a prayer which is
more than the utterance of mere human feeling, in which the Spirit
itself is making intercession with us (Rom. viii. 26).
17. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are] The word is
the same as that used by St Paul in Acts xiv. 15. The reference to the
history of Elijah (i Kings xvii. i, xviii. i) is noticeable, as one of the
coincidences on which stress has been laid as suggesting the inference
that the Epistle was written by the son of Zebedee, whose thoughts had
been directed to the history of Elijah by the Transfiguration, and who
io6 ST. JAMES, V. [vv. 18—20.
and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain : and it
rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six
18 months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain,
and the earth brought forth her fruit.
19 Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one
20 convert him ; let him know, that he which converteth the
had himself referred to that history when he sought to call down fire from
heaven on the village of the Samaritans (Luke ix. 54). The inference
is, at the best, uncertain. It is, perhaps, more to the purpose to note that
the son of Sirach, with whose teaching that of the Epistle presents so
many parallels, had dwelt with great fulness on the history of Elijah
(Ecclus. xlviii. i — 12). It is remarkable that the Old Testament
narrative does not directly state that the drought and the rain came as
an answer to Elijah's prayer, and that this is therefore an inference
drawTi by St James from the fact of the attitude of supplication de-
scribed in I Kings xviii. 42. An interesting coincidence in connexion
with this reference to Elijah's history presents itself in the nan-ative
given in Josephus [A7it. xviii. 8, § 6) of the troubles caused by Caligula's
insane attempt to set up his statue in the Temple at Jerusalem. Pe-
tronius, the then Governor of Judaea, was moved by the passionate
entreaties of the people, and supported the efforts made by Agrippa I.,
who remained at Rome, to turn the Emperor from his purpose. It was
one of the years of drought that brought about the great famine foretold
by Agabus (Acts xi. 28). No rain had fallen for many weeks, and the
people — Christians, we may well believe, as well as Jews, though
Josephus, of course, makes no mention of the former — were " instant in
prayer," calling upon the Lord God of Israel to send rain upon the
earth. Suddenly rain fell in a plenteous shower from an almost cloud-
less sky. The earth w^as refreshed, and the pressing danger averted.
Petronius, Josephus relates, was much moved by this manifestation, this
Epiphaity, of the Divine Power, and looked upon it partly as an answer
to the prayers of the people, partly as the reward of the equity which he
had shewn in dealing with them. According to the date which, on
independent grounds, has here been assigned to St James's Epistle, the
event referred to must have happened but a few months before, or but
a few months after, it. If before, he may well have had it in his
thoughts. If after, it may well have been in part the effect of his
teaching. Students of Church History will remember the strikingly
parallel instance of the prayers of the soldiers of the Thundering Legion
in the Expedition of Marcus Aurelius against the Marcomanni (Euseb.
Hist. v. 5. Tertull. Apol. c 5).
19. if any ofyoic do err from the truth, and ofte convert hint.. .] Better,
as the verb is passive, if any of you be led astray. The *' truth " here
is obviously not the faith which was common to Jews and Christians,
but specifically "the truth as it is in Jesus," the truth which the
** brethren," who held the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ " (ch. ii. i),
had received as their inheritance. To convert one who had so strayed,
in thought or will, in belief or act, was to bring him back to the truth.
V. 20.] ST. JAMES, V. 107
sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from
death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.
20. from the error of his way} The noun always involves the
idea of being deceived as well as erring. Comp. 2 Pet. ii. 16, iii. 17;
I John iv. 6.
sha// save a sotil from death] The soul is obviously that of the
sinner who is converted. Death, bodily and spiritual, would be the
outcome of the error if he were left alone, and in being rescued from
the error he is therefore saved also from death.
arid shall hide a. fmdtittide of sins'] The phrase is one of those which
St James has in common with St Peter (i Pet. iv. 8). It occurs also in
the LXX. of Ps. Ixxxv. 2, and in a nearly identical form in Ps. xxxii. i.
The Hebrew, and English version, of Prov. x. 12 present a still closer
parallel, but the LXX. seems to have followed a different text, and gives
"Friendship covers all those that are not contentious." The context
leaves hardly any room for doubt that the "sins" which are thought
of as covered are primarily those of the man converted, and not those
of the converter. There is, however, a studied generality in the form
of the teaching, which seems to emphasise the wide blessedness of love.
In the very act of seeking to convert one for whom we care we must
turn to God ourselves, and in covering the past sins of another our own
also are covered. In such an act love reaches its highest point, and
that love includes the faith in God which is the condition of forgive-
ness.
The absence of any formal close to the Epistle is in many ways
remarkable. In this respect it stands absolutely alone in the New
Testament, the nearest approach to it being found in 1 John v. 21.
It is a possible explanation of this peculiarity, that we have lost the
conclusion of the Epistle. It is, however, more probable that the
abruptness is that of emphasis. The writer had given utterance to a
truth which he desired above all things to impress on the minds of
his readers, and he could not do this more effectually than by making
it the last word he wrote to them.
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THE CAMBRIDGE BIBLE FOR
SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES.
Genera/ Editors:
J. J. S. Perowne, Bishop of Worcester.
A. F. KiRKPATRiCK, ViX)., Regius Professor of Hebrew.
'''It is difficult to comviendtoo highly this excellent series" — Guardian.
''The modesty of the general title of this series has, we believe, led
many to misunderstand its character and underrate its value. The books
are well suited for study in the upper forms of otcr best schools, but not
the less are they adapted to the wants of all Bible students who are not
specialists. We doubt, indeed, tvhether any of the numerous popular
commentaries recently issued in this country will be found more sei-vice-
able for general use." — Academy.
" One of the 7nost popular and useful literary enterprises of the
nineteenth century." — Baptist Magazine.
" Of great value. The zvhole series of cojnments for schools is highly
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scholarly without being prete7ttious : and ijtformation is so given as to be
easily understood." — Sword and Trowel.
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ii7imense debt to the Cambridge University Press for its Bible for Schools
and Colleges. Take it for all in all, it is probably the most useful
commefttary alike on the Old Testatnent and on the New that has been
given us in recent years." — Sunday School Chronicle.
The Book of Judges. J. J. Lias, M.A. " His introduction is clear
and concise, full of the information which young students require."
Baptist Magazine.
II. Samuel. A. F. Kirkpatrick, D.D. "Small as this work is
m mere dimensions, it is every way the best on its subject and for its
purpose that we know of. The opening sections at once prove the
thorough competence of the writer for dealing with questions of criti-
cism in an earnest, faithful and devout spirit; and the appendices discuss
a few special difficulties with a full knowledge of the data, and a judicial
reserve, which contrast most favourably with the superficial dogmatism
which has too often made the exegesis of the Old Testament a field for
the play of unlimited paradox and the ostentation of personal infalli-
bility. The notes are always clear and suggestive; never trifling or
irrelevant; and they everywhere demonstrate the great difference in
value between the work of a commentator who is also a Hebraist, and
that of one who has to depend for his Hebrew upon secondhand
sources. " — Academy.
I. Kings and Ephesians. " With great heartiness we commend
these most valuable little commentaries. We had rather purchase
these than nine out of ten of the big blown up expositions. Quality is
far better than quantity, and we have it here."— ^w^/-^ and Trowel.
II. Kings. "The Introduction is scholarly and wholly admirable,
the notes must be of incalculable value to %\Md.^xi\.%." — Glasgow Herald.
"It would be difficult to find a commentary better suited for general
\x&^"— Academy.
2 CAMBRIDGE BIBLE FOR SCHOOLS ^ COLLEGES.
The Book of Job. "Able and scholarly as the Introduction is, it is
far surpassed by the detailed exegesis of the book. In this Dr Davidson's
strength is at its greatest. His linguistic knowledge, his artistic habit,
his scientific insight, and his literary power have full scope when he
comes to exegesis. ..." — The Spectator.
"In the course of a long introduction, Dr Davidson has presented
us with a very able and very interesting criticism of this wonderful
book. Its contents, the nature of its composition, its idea and purpose,
its integrity, and its age are all exhaustively treated of.... We have not
space to examine fully the text and notes before us, but we can, and do
heartily, recommend the book, not only for the upper forms in schools,
but to Bible students and teachers generally. As we wrote of a previous
volume in the same series, this one leaves nothing to be desired. The
notes are full and suggestive, without being too long, and, in itself, the
introduction forms a valuable addition to modern Bible literature." — The
Educational Times.
"Already we have frequently called attention to this exceedingly
valuable work as its volumes have successively appeared. But we have
never done so with greater pleasure, very seldom with so great pleasure,
as we now refer to the last published volume, that on the Book of Job,
by Dr Davidson, of Edinburgh.... We cordially commend the volume to
all our readers. The least instructed will understand and enjoy it ;
and mature scholars will learn from it." — Methodist Recorder.
Psalms. Book I. "It is full of instruction and interest, bringing
within easy reach of the English reader the results of the latest scholar-
ship bearing upon the study of this ever new book of the Bible. The
Introduction of eighty pages is a repertory of information, not drily but
interestingly given. " — Methodist Recordei'.
"It seems in every way a most valuable little book, containing a
mass of information, well-assorted, and well-digested, and will be useful
not only to students preparing for examinations, but to many who want
a handy volume of explanation to much that is difficult in the Psalter.
We owe a great debt of gratitude to Professor Kirkpatrick for his
scholarly and interesting volume." — Church Ti??ies,
"In this volume thoughtful exegesis founded on nice critical scholar-
ship and due regard for the opinions of various writers, combine, under
the influence of a devout spirit, to render this commentary a source of
much valuable assistance. The notes are 'though deep yet clear,' for
they seem to put in a concentrated form the very pith and marrow of all
the best that has been hitherto said on the subject, with striking freedom
from anything like pressure of personal views. Throughout the work care
and pains are as conspicuous as scholarship." — Literary Churchman.
Psalms. Books II. and III. "This second portion of the Psalter
maintains all the excellencies of the earlier volume. It is scholarly and
sympathetic, and, let us add, it is deeply interesting. The introduction
on the whole of the Psalter is prefixed to the present volume, and is a
triumph of comprehensiveness and clearness. Its learning is adequate,
and its attitude on disputed points at once reasonable and reverent." —
Independent.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
" The second volume of Professor Kirkpatrick's Commentary on
the Book of Psahns has all the excellent qualities which characterised
the first. ...It gives what is best in the philology of the subject. Its notes
furnish what is most needed and most useful. Its literary style is at-
tractive. It furnishes all that is of real value in the form of introduction,
and it has a studious regard for the devout as well as intelligent under-
standing of the Psalms." — Critical Review.
"This volume of the Cambridge Bible for schools and colleges is a
very valuable contribution to the expository literature of the Old Testa-
ment. The introduction, which occupies some 70 pages, is a compact
compendium of explanatory and critical information upon the whole
Psalter. The notes are brief, but full, and very suggestive."— .5a//w/.
Job— Hosea. "It is difficult to commend too highly this excellent
series, the volumes of which are now becoming numerous. The two
books before us, small as they are in size, comprise almost everything
that the young student can reasonably expect to find in the way of helps
towards such general knowledge of their subjects as may be gained
without an attempt to grapple with the Hebrew ; and even the learned
scholar can hardly read without interest and benefit the very able intro-
ductory matter which both these commentators have prefixed to their
volumes. " — Guardian.
Ecclesiastes; or, the Preacher. — "Of the Notes, it is sufficient to
say that they are in every respect worthy of Dr Plumptre's high repu-
tation as a scholar and a critic, being at once learned, sensible, and
practical..., Commentaries are seldom attractive reading. This little
volume is a notable exception." — The Scotsman.
Jeremiah, by A. W. Streane, D.D. "The arrangement of the book
is well treated on pp. xxx., 396, and the question of Baruch's relations
with its composition on pp. xxvii., xxxiv., 317. The illustrations from
English literature, history, monuments, works on botany, topography,
etc., are good and plentiful, as indeed they are in other volumes of this
series." — Church Quarterly Review.
Malachi. "Archdeacon Perowne has already edited Jonah and
Zechariah for this series. Malachi presents comparatively few difficulties
and the Editor's treatment leaves nothing to be desired. His introduction
is clear and scholarly and his commentary sufficient. We may instance
the notes on ii. 15 and iv. 1 as examples of careful arrangement,
clear exposition and graceful expression." — Academy.
" The Gospel according to St Matthew, by the Rev. A. Carr. The
introduction is able, scholarly, and eminently practical, as it bears
on the authorship and contents of the Gospel, and the original form
in which it is supposed to have been written. It is well illustrated by
two excellent maps of the Holy Land and of the Sea of Galilee." —
English Churchman.
"St Mark, with Notes by the Rev. G. F. Maclear, D.D. Into
this small volume Dr Maclear, besides a clear and able Introduc-
tion to the Gospel, and the text of St Mark, has compressed many
4 CAMBRIDGE BIBLE FOR SCHOOLS ^ COLLEGES.
hundreds of valuable and helpful notes. In short, he has given us
a capital manual of the kind required — containing all that is needed to
illustrate the text, i. e. all that can be drawn from the history, geography,
customs, and manners of the time. But as a handbook, giving in a
clear and succinct form the information which a lad requires in order
to stand an examination in the Gospel, it is admirable I can very
heartily commend it, not only to the senior boys and girls in our High
Schools, but also to Sunday-school teachers, who may get from it the
very kind of knowledge they often find it hardest to get. " — Expositor.
* ' With the help of a book like this, an intelligent teacher may make
'Divinity' as interesting a lesson as any in the school course. The
notes are of a kind that will be, for the most part, intelligible to boys
of the lower forms of our public schools ; but they may be read with
greater profit by the fifth and sixth, in conjunction with the original
text." — The Academy.
"St Luke. Canon Farrar has supplied students of the Gospel
with an admirable manual in this volume. It has all that copious
variety of illustration, ingenuity of suggestion, and general soundness of
interpretation which readers are accustomed to expect from the learned
and eloquent editor. Anyone who has been accustomed to associate
the idea of 'dryness' with a commentary, should go to Canon Farrar 's
St Luke for a more correct impression. He will find that a commen-
tary may be made interesting in the highest degree, and that without
losing anything of its solid value.. ..But, so to speak, it is too good for
some of the readers for whom it is intended." — The Spectator.
The Gospel according to St John. "The notes are extremely
scholarly and valuable, and in most cases exhaustive, bringing to the
elucidation of the text all that is best in commentaries, ancient and
modern." — The English Chwxhman and Clerical J oitrtial.
"(i) The Acts of the Apostles. By J. Rawson Lumby, D.D.
(2) The Second Epistle of the Corinthians, edited by Professor Lias.
The introduction is pithy, and contains a mass of carefully-selected
information on the authorship of the Acts, its designs, and its sources.
The Second Epistle of the Corinthians is a manual beyond all praise,
for the excellence of its pithy and pointed annotations, its analysis of the
contents, and the fulness and value of its introduction." — Examiner.
"The Rev. H. C G. Moule, D.D., has made a valuable addition
to The Cambridge Bible for Schools in his brief commentary on
the Epistle to the Romans. The 'Notes' are very good, and lean,
as the notes of a School Bible should, to the most commonly ac-
cepted and orthodox view of the inspired author's meaning ; while the
Introduction, and especially the Sketch of the Life of St Paul, is a model
of condensation. It is as lively and pleasant to read as if two or three
facts had not been crowded into well-nigh every sentence." — Expositor.
"The Epistle to the Romans. It is seldom we have met with a
work so remarkable for the compression and condensation of all that
is valuable in the smallest possible space as in the volume before us.
Within its limited pages we have ' a sketch of the Life^ of St Paul,'
we have further a critical account of the date of the Epistle to the
Romans, of its language, and of its genuineness. The notes are
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS
numerous, full of matter, to the point, and leave no real difaculty
or obscurity unexplained."— T:^^ Examiner.
' ' The First Epistle to the CorintMans. Edited by Professor Lias.
Every fresh instalment of this annotated edition of the Bible for Schools
confirms the favourable opinion we formed of its value from the exami-
nation of its first number. The origin and plan of the Epistle are
discussed with its character and gen\imeness."—TAe Nojicon/ormist.
Galatians. "Dr Perowne deals throughout in a very thorough
manner with every real difficulty in the text, and in this respect he has
faithfully followed the noble example set him in the exegetical master-
piece, his indebtedness to which he frankly acknowledges."— M7fl^<?rw
Church. , , , -, .•
"This little work, like all of the series, is a scholarly production;
but we can also unreservedly recommend it from a doctrinal standpoint;
Dr E. H. Perowne is one who has grasped the distinctive teaching of
the Epistle, and expounds it with clearness and definiteness. In an
appendix, he ably maintains the correctness of the A. V. as against the
R. V. in the translation of II. i6, a point of no small importance."—
English Churchman.
The Epistle to the Ephesians. By Rev. H. C. G. Moule, D.D.
" It seems to us the model of a School and College Commentary —
comprehensive, but not cumbersome; scholarly, but not pedantic."—
Baptist Magazine.
The Epistle to the PhiUppians. "There are few series more valued
by theological students than ' The Cambridge Bible for Schools and
Colleges,' and there will be no number of it more esteemed than that
by Mr H. C. G. Moule on the Epistle to the PhiUppians:'— Record.
Thessalonians. "It will stand the severest scrutiny, for no volume
in this admirable series exhibits more careful work, and Mr Findlay is
a true expositor, who keeps in mind what he is expounding, and for
whom he is expounding it." — Expository Times.
"Mr Findlay maintains the high level of the series to which he has
become contributor. Some parts of his introduction to the Epistles to
the Thessalonians could scarcely be bettered. The account of Thessa-
lonica, the description of the style and character of the Epistles, and the
analysis of them are excellent in style and scholarly care. The notes
are possibly too voluminous ; but there is so much matter in them, and
the matter is arranged and handled so ably, that we are ready to forgive
their fulness. ...Mr Findlay's commentary is a valuable addition to
what has been written on the letters to the Thessalonian Church."—
Academy. . ■, -r^ -k/t i
"Mr Findlay has fulfilled in this volume a task which Dr Moulton
was compelled to decline, though he has rendered valuable aid in its pre-
paration. The commentary is in its own way a model— clear, forceful,
scholarly— such as young students will welcome as a really useful guide,
and old ones will acknowledge as giving in brief space the substance of
all that they knew." — Baptist Magazine.
The Epistles to Timothy and Titus. "This is another contribution
to 'The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges,' and one that is
entirely true to the general idea of that excellent series. The pastoral
6 CAMBRIDGE BIBLE FOR SCHOOLS &- COLLEGES.
epistles have unusual difficulties, if they have also a very peculiar
ecclesiastical interest. They are well handled on the whole in both
these respects by Mr Humphreys The book is a good piece of work,
quite worthy of the place it occupies in the series." — TAe Daily Free
Press.
**The series includes many volumes of sterling worth, and this last
may rank among the most valuable. The pages evince careful scholar-
ship and a thorough acquaintance with expository literature; and the
work should promote a more general and practical study of the Pastoral
Epistles." — The Christian.
Hebrews. " Like his (Canon Farrar's) commentary on Luke it
possesses all the best characteristics of his writing. It is a work not
only of an accomplished scholar, but of a skilled teacher." — Baptist
Magazine.
The Epistles of St John. By the Rev. A. Plummer, D.D.
"This forms an admirable companion to the 'Commentary on the
Gospel according to St John,' which was reviewed in The Churchman
as soon as it appeared. Dr Plummer has some of the highest qualifica-
tions for such a task ; and these two volumes, their size being considered,
will bear comparison with the best Commentaries of the time." — The
Churchnian.
Revelation. "This volume contains evidence of much careful
labour. It is a scholarly production, as might be expected from the pen
of the late Mr W. H. SiMCOX. ...The notes throw light upon many
passages of this difficult book, and are extremely suggestive. It is an
advantage that they sometimes set before the student various interpre-
tations without exactly guiding him to a choice." — Guardian.
"Mr SiMCOX has treated his very difficult subject with that con-
scious care, grasp and lucidity which characterises everything he
wrote." — Modern Church.
W^i S>niaUer Ql^ambritrge iUibk for ^cftools.
' ' We can only repeat what we have already said of this admirable
series, containing, as it does, the scholarship of the larger work. For
scholars in our elder classes, and for those preparing for Scripture exami-
nations, no better com?nentaries can be put into their hands." — Sunday-
School Chronicle.
''Despite their small size, these volumes give the substance of the
admirable pieces ofwoi'k on which they are founded. We can only hope
that in many schools the class-teaching will proceed on the lines these com-
mentators suggest." — Record.
" We should be glad to hear that this series has been introduced into
many of our Stcnday-Schools, for which it is so admirably adapted." —
Christian Leader.
''All that is necessary to be known and learned by pupils in junior
and elementary schools is to be found in this series. Indeed, much more
is provided than should be required by the examiners. We do not know
what more could be done to provide sensible, interesting, and solid Scrip-
tural instruct ioti for boys and girls. The Syndics of the Cambridge
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
University Press are rendering great services both to teachers and to
scholars by the publication of such a valuable series of books, in which
slipshod work could not have a //a... "-Literary World
''For the student of the sacred oracles who utilizes hours of travel or
moments of waiting in the perusal of the Bible there is nothing so handy,
and, at the same time, so satisfying as these little books Nor ^^t anyone
suppose that, because these are f ^''^^■'^^^^^' /^^^<f %^^f /7 ^XX
the adult reader. They contain the very ripest results of the best Biblical
scholarship, and that in the very simplest form. -Chnstian Leader.
«' Altogether one of the most perfect examples of a Shi ling New Tes-^
tament commentary which even this age of cheapness is likely to produce.
— Bookseller.
Samuel I. and II. ' ' Professor Kirkpatrick's two tiny volumes on
the First and Second Books of Samuel are quite model school-books ;
the nites elucidate every possible difficulty with scholarly brevity and
clearness and a perfect knowledge of the ^^.^^c^..^ -Saturday Review.
- They consist of an introduction full of matter, clearly and succinctly
given, and of notes which appear to us to be admirable, at once full and
hrvt'i''— Church Times. , ,
KinffS I. " We can cordially recommend this little book. The Intro-
auction discusses the question of authorship and date_ in a plain but
scholarly fashion, while the footnotes throughout are bnef, pointed, and
helpful."— i?^^^^''?/"^^^^'^^-^- , ^ ,. 1 r 1 A V v^vc
St Matthew. "The notes are terse, clear, and helpful, and teachers
and students cannot fail to find the volume of great service. -
Publishers^ Circular. . r c*- ato-i,
St Mark St Luke. "We have received the volumes of St Mark
and St Luke in this series.... The two volumes seern, on the whole, well
aSapted for school use, are well and carefully printed., and have maps
and good, though necessarily brief, introductions. There is little doubt
^hatfws series Inll be found as popular and useM as the well-known
larger series, of which they are abbreviated editions -6^«ar«^.a;^.
St Luke. " We cannot too highly commend this handy little book
to all teachers."— Wesleyan Methodist Sunday-School Record.
St John "We have been especially interested in Mr Plummer's
treatment of the Gospel which has been entrusted to his charge. He is con-
cse,Tomprehensive, interesting, and simple. Youngstudentsofthismim-
itab e book, as well as elder students, even ministers and teachers may
use it with Advantage as a very serviceable handbook. "-Zz/.rary World.
"A model of condensation, losing nothing of its clearness and force
from its condensation into a small compass. Many ^^'ho have long sm^^^
completed their college curriculum will find it an invaluable handbook.
Methodist Times. ,. , •> '
Acts. "The notes are very brief, but exceedingly comprehensive
comprising as much detail in the way of explanation as would be needed
by young students of the Scriptures preparing for examination. We
again give the opinion that this series furnishes as much real h£lp as
would usually satisfy students for the Christian mmistry, or even mmis-
ters themselves."— Zz/^rarj/ World.
THE CAMBRIDGE GREEK TESTAMENT
FOR SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES
with a Revised Text, based on the most recent critical authorities,
and English Notes.
*' Has achieved an excellence which puts it above criticism.^'' — Expositor.
St Matthew. *' Copious illustrations, gathered from a great variety
of sources, make his notes a very valuable aid to the student. They
are indeed remarkably interesting, while all explanations on meanings,
applications, and the like are distinguished by their lucidity and good
sense."— /'a// Mall Gazette.
St Mark. ' ' Dr M aclear's introduction contains all that is known
of St Mark's life; an account of the circumstances in which the Gospel
was composed, with an estimate of the influence of St Peter's teaching
upon St Mark ; an excellent sketch of the special characteristics of this
Gospel ; an analysis, and a chapter on the text of the New Testament
generally. " — SatJtrday Review.
St Luke. **0f this second series we have a new volume by
Archdeacon Farrar on St Luke, completing the four Gospels. ...It
gives us in clear and beautiful language the best results of modern
scholarship. We have a most attractive Introductio}i. Then follows
a sort of composite Greek text, representing fairly and in very beautiful
type the consensus of modem textual critics. At the beginning of the
exposition of each chapter of the Gospel are a few short critical notes
giving the manuscript evidence for such various readings as seem to
deserve mention. The expository notes are short, but clear and helpful.
For young students and those who are not disposed to buy or to study
the much more costly work of Godet, this seems to us to be the best
book on the Greek Text of the Third Gospel." — Methodist Recorder.
St John. **We take this opportunity of recommending to ministers
on probation, the very excellent volume of the same series on this part
of the New Testament. We hope that most or all of our young ministers
will prefer to study the volume in the Cambridge Greek Testament for
Schools," — Methodist Recorder.
The Acts of the Apostles. "Professor Lumby has performed his
laborious task well, and supplied us with a commentary the fulness and
freshness of which Bible students will not be slow to appreciate. The
volume is enriched with the u»ual copious indexes and four coloured
maps." — Glasgow Herald.
I. Corinthians. "Mr Lias is no novice in New Testament exposi-
tion, and the present series of essays and notes is an able and helpful
addition to the existing books." — Guardian.
The Epistles of St John. "In the very useful and well annotated
series of the Cambridge Greek Testament the volume on the Epistles
of St John must hold a high position.... The notes are brief, well
informed and intelligent." — Scotsman.
CAMBRIDGE: PRINTKD BY J. AND C. F. CLAY, AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
Date Due
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