It is well known that in early days lists were drawn up containing the names of those bishops at least who had presided over the chief sees, along with the duration of their episcopates. Since some apostles had acted as bishop in certain cities for a length of time, while others—as, for example, St Paul—never settled down for long in one place, the former, in addition to their martyrdom, had a yet further claim to be commemorated. This is the case with St Peter, St James the Less, and St Mark.

St James the Less, son of Alpheus or Clopas, immediately after Christ’s death was entrusted with the office of Bishop of Jerusalem by the other apostles, which he held for thirty years.[630] His death was caused by the High Priest Ananias II., who availed himself of the interregnum that intervened between the death of Porcius Festus and the arrival of the new procurator Albinus. Gessius Florus succeeded Albinus in A.D. 64. St James’s death, according to St Jerome’s precise statement, fell in the seventh year of Nero. According to St Jerome’s way of reckoning, which agrees with the official method, Nero reigned fourteen years and a half, and his seventh year corresponds with the sixtieth of the Christian era.[631]

St James was commemorated in the East on the 27th December. This is his date in the Arian martyrology, which is followed by the very ancient Carthaginian Calendar. Although the latter incorrectly adds that he was killed by Herod, it is evident that St James the Less is intended, for all the Eastern documentary sources place the commemoration of St James the Less in the Christmas season. They differ as to the day, some commemorating him on the 26th, some on the 28th, the Neapolitan and Mozarabic Calendars on the 29th, and the Syrian lectionary has his name both on the 28th December and on the 23rd October.

In accordance with these ancient witnesses we would willingly place his death on the 27th December, but there are strong reasons against this. First, in these documents he is coupled for the most part with St John the Evangelist, and it is unlikely that both of them died on the same day. Secondly, in the most ancient document of all, the Arian martyrology, immediately after St James and St John, on the 28th December, come St Peter and St Paul, who suffered death on a different date altogether; the compiler simply placed the chief personages connected with our Lord on the days after Christmas. Thirdly, the church built by Helena on the Mount of Olives, in which St James and St John received special veneration, was dedicated on the 27th December.[632] Here again, as in so many other cases, the date of the church’s consecration became the date of the festival of the saint specially connected with it. Of course it may be thought that the church was consecrated on the day of the saint’s death, but for this there is, at any rate, no proof concerning this particular church. And so we must give up the 27th December as the real day of St James’s death. It may have been the day of his appointment to the episcopate.[633]

That this is so is further confirmed by the accounts written by pilgrims, in which it is stated that St James was buried in the church on the Mount of Olives, and that he had owned a house in Jerusalem and a burial place, in which he had buried Zachary and Simeon.[634] It is true that later Latin authorities expressly give his dies natalis, i.e. the actual day of his death, on the 27th December,[635] but their evidence is not conclusive. In marked distinction from the Eastern tradition, the Hieronymianum gives his death on the 25th March: “Hierosolyma passio Jacobi Justi,” or, as in the Bern codex, “fratris Domini.” This date coincides strikingly with the statement of Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., 2, 23, 11), that the death of St James happened during the season of Easter.

The Constantinopolitan authorities, like the Roman, take an independent line. The most ancient among the former do not mention St James the Less, but the Basilianum names him on the 23rd October and the 30th April, both times with the title then only given to martyrs (ἄθλησις). We shall have occasion to refer elsewhere to the arbitrary and singular character of this work.

With regard to the Roman service-books and those derived from them, they agree, beginning with the Gelasianum, in placing St James along with St Philip on the 1st May. This is owing to the fact that in the sixth century a church was erected in honour of these two apostles in Rome, which is known at the present day as the Basilica of the Apostles. Pope Pelagius I. (556-561) commenced the erection of the church, which was completed by his successor John III.[636] It was dedicated on the 1st May, and so it came to pass that the commemoration of these two apostles is celebrated in the Roman rite on this day. Later on, the 1st May came incorrectly to be considered their dies natalis.

The commemoration of St Philip in the menology of Basil, and in the Neapolitanum, is on the 14th November. A monastery of St Philip existed in Constantinople as early as 511.

(7) ST JOHN

As regards St John the Apostle and Evangelist, we have seen his commemoration was joined with that of St James the Less, on the 27th December, although this was not the date of their deaths. In course of time St John gradually eclipsed St James and gained possession of this day for himself alone; yet in the Hieronymianum and in the Gothico-Gallic missal, ascribed by Mabillon to the eighth century, St John and St James are still commemorated together (Natalis Jacobi et Joannis). In the Gelasianum, and also in later Roman and Frankish martyrologies, and in Bede, St John alone is commemorated, as at the present day.