The Books of the New Testament - Leighton Pullan

We conclude, therefore, that St. James was the son of St. Joseph.

The writer of the Epistle frequently colours his sentences with words from the Old Testament, and assumes a knowledge of it among his readers. He makes no allusion to the Gentiles. He writes in a tone of authority and without any self-advertisement. He briefly uses for illustration certain natural phenomena which would be familiar to the people of Palestine, such as allusions to "the early and latter rain" (v. 7), the effect on vegetation of the burning wind (i. 11), the existence of salt or bitter springs (iii. 11), the cultivation {226} of figs and olives (iii. 12), and the neighbourhood of the sea (i. 6; iii. 4). From such a cursory view of the character of this Epistle, it would seem reasonable to admit that it was written by a Palestinian Jewish Christian for the edification of Christians of the same race and locality.

We get the same impression when we study what is said by the writer about the readers. He speaks as though they had been under a law of bondage, but are now under a law of liberty (i. 25; ii. 12). They are in touch with men who are unbelievers, who blaspheme Christ and persecute Christians (ii. 6, 7). The believers are mostly poor (ii. 5); the few rich who are Christians are in danger of falling away through covetousness and pride (iv. 3-6, 13-16). The rich appear as oppressors, who luxuriously "nourish their hearts in a day of slaughter," and had even "killed the righteous" (v. 5, 6). The Church is ruled by "elders" (v. 14) like the Jewish synagogues, and the Christian "synagogue" is occasionally frequented by rich strangers (ii. 2). All this is well suited to the conditions of Christian life in Palestine. And it is difficult to find any locality equally appropriate. Even as late as the first part of the 2nd century rich Gentiles were reluctant to persecute Christians, and to describe them as blaspheming the name of Christ at any time within or near the apostolic age would be almost impossible. They regarded Christianity with good-natured contempt, not with blasphemous hostility. We have only to read Acts to see that among the Gentiles it was the poor and ignorant rather than the rich who began the persecution of the Christians. On the other hand, if we turn to the Jews, we find that the rich were the leaders of persecution. It was the wealthy Sadducee party in union with the influential Pharisees which harried the Church. The Gospels and Acts give repeated evidence on this point, and the evidence of the Jewish historian Josephus supplies the keystone of that evidence.

Against the Palestinian origin of the Epistle it is urged that {227} the Greek is too correct and rhetorical. The style is vivacious and forcible. It contains many rather unusual Greek words, including six which are neither in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament nor in the rest of the New Testament, a long list of words which are found in the Septuagint and not in the New Testament, and seven rare classical or late Greek words. The whole question of the style of the Epistle requires the most delicate handling. But the style is distinctly unfavourable to the theory that the Epistle was written at a late date in a centre of Gentile Christianity. The Greek is neither the flowing Greek of a Greek, nor the rough provincial Greek which St. Paul spoke and wrote. It is slow and careful, with short sentences linked by repetitions. One epithet is piled effectively on another (e.g. iii. 15, 17), and abstract statements are avoided. Galilee was studded with Greek towns, and in Jerusalem Greek was well known. The Epistle might well have been written by a Jew of Palestine who had made a good use of his opportunities. And the introduction of some rare words in the midst of a simple moral exhortation is by no means a proof of complete mastery over Greek. It points, not to a mastery over the language, but to a painstaking familiarity with it.

These facts seem compatible with the few details which we know about St. James. Their full significance can only be appreciated when we know the difficulties which have beset the commentators who assign to the Epistle a date outside his lifetime.

Before considering the question of the date more minutely, we may collect together some points of interest connected with St. James.

St. James, like the other "brethren" of our Lord, watched the development of our Lord's career, but was unconvinced of the truth of His mission. After the Resurrection, our Lord, St. Paul tells us, "was seen of James." Perhaps this was the turning-point of his life, he, like St. Thomas, "saw and {228} believed." The Gospel according to the Hebrews, one of the oldest of the Apocryphal Gospels, says that our Lord, after His Resurrection, "went to James and appeared to him—for James had sworn that he would not eat bread from that hour in which he drank the cup of the Lord, until he saw Him rising from the dead;—and again after a little while. 'Bring hither, saith the Lord, a table and bread.'" . . . "He brought bread, and blessed and brake it, and gave it to James the Just, and said unto him, 'My brother, eat thy bread, for the Son of man hath risen from the dead.'" There are other versions of the story which make the vow to be taken after the death of Christ. In spite of some absurdities in this Apocryphal Gospel, it is possible that the legend is true, and that the sublime death of the Redeemer began to effect the repentance of His brother. However this may be, before Pentecost, A.D. 29, we find him joined to the Christian community at Jerusalem, where he afterwards attained a foremost position. In Gal. i. we find that St. Paul visited St. James and St. Peter at Jerusalem. In Acts xii. 17 St. Peter, on escaping from prison in A.D. 44, desires that news of his escape should be taken to St. James. In Gal. ii. St. Paul speaks of "James and Cephas and John" as pillars of the Church at Jerusalem. From Acts xv. we find that at this time, A.D. 49, St. James acted as president of the Council which determined how far the Gentile Christians need conform to the customs of the Jews. It is remarkable that the speech of St. James in Acts xv. and the circular despatched from the Council show several coincidences of style with the Epistle. If these coincidences are due to forgery, the forger has certainly used consummate self-restraint and skill.

Again, when St. Paul paid his last visit to Jerusalem, in A.D. 56, and the Jews accused him of advocating the abandonment of the Law of Moses and "the customs," it is St. James and his presbyters who advise him to go up to the Temple and purify himself with four Nazirites, and so reassure the "myriads" of Christian Jews who were zealous for the Law. {229} Once more we cannot help observing how well this anxiety of St. James agrees with the very cautious tone of the Epistle with regard to distinctively Christian doctrine.

The end of St. James is recorded by Hegesippus and by Josephus. Hegesippus represents him living as a strict Nazirite, always frequenting the Temple, with knees as hard as a camel's because of his perpetual prayers.[1] He tells us that St. James was thrown from a pinnacle of the Temple, stoned, and clubbed to death at the order of the scribes and Pharisees for asserting that Jesus was on the right hand of God. From Josephus we learn that his martyrdom took place when a vacancy in the procuratorship caused by the death of Festus (in A.D. 62) gave the Sadducees the opportunity which they desired. He was dragged before the Sanhedrim, condemned and stoned. Josephus also gives us to understand that the more moderate Jews were not in sympathy with such a thoroughly unconstitutional proceeding, and that Agrippa deprived Ananus, the high priest, of his office for invading the rights of the civil power.