lUOLS Wiai'INOS OK.
JAMES, EPISTLE OF; said, according to Eusebius {r/ist. Eccles. ii, 23), to be the first of the so-called Cath- olic epistles ((ca^oXiKwi), as being addressed to classes of Christians rather than to individuals or particular communities. See Epistles, Catholic.
I. A utkorship — As the writer simjily styles himself "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ," the question as to whom this may designate has been a subject of keen and proloiiged controversy, since, as Eu- sebius has again remarked, there were "several of this name. James the Great, or the son of Zebedee, was put to death under Herod Agrippa about the year 44. and, tlierefore, the authorship cannot with any "proprie- ty be ascribed to him, thougli a Syriac MS., "published by Wi(hnan(l.sta(lt, and an old Latin version, publishod by Martianay and Sabatior, make the assertion. The authorship lias been assigned by not a few to James
the Less, 6 /xikooc, the son of Alphaeus or Cleophas, and by others to James, the Lord's brother. IMany, how- ever, maintain that the two names were borne by the same individual, James being called the Lord's bruthor either as being a cousin or adoptive brother of Jeeiis (Lange, art. Jacobus in Herzog's EncyUopddie), or as a son of Joseph by a Levirate connection with the widow of Cleophas — the opinion of Epiphanius and Theopiiy- lact ; or as a son of Joseph by a former marriage — the view of St. Chrysostom, Hilary, Cave, and Basnage. On the other hand, it is held by some that James, son of Alphteus, and James, brother of our Lord, were distinct persons, the latter being a uterine brother of Jesus, and standing, according to the representation of the Gospels, in the same relation with him to their common mother Mary — as in Matt, xii, 47; xiii, 55; Mark vi, 3; John ii, 12 ; Acts i, 14. On the whole, we are inclined to the former hypothesis, but we cannot enter into the ques- tion, referring the reader to the previous article, and to that on Brotheks of our Lord. There are also three excellent monographs on the sidiject : Blom, Thtol. iJis- sert. de tdIq aStXcpolc Kvpiov (Lugd. Bat. 1 839) ; Schaff, Has Verhaltniss des Jacobus Bruders des Herrn (Berlin, 1842); Wijbelingh, Qms est epistoke Jacohi Scj-ipior? (Groningen, 1854). For the other side, see IMill on the Mi/ihical Interpi-etatio'd of the Gospels, p. 219, ed. sec, 18G1. Dr. Mill held the perpetual virginity of IMary, or that she was, in ecclesiastical language, utnrapQ'tvog, and thus virtually forecloses the entire investigation. It serves little purpose to sneer at those who hold the opposite theor}' as having their prototypes in the Anti- dicomarianites or Helvidians of the 4th century.
According to our view, the author of this epistle was the Lord's brother, and an apostle, or one of the twelve. In Gal. ii, 9, Paul classes him with Peter and John, all three being pillars {nrvXai). He is said by Hcgcsippus (Eusebius, //isMi, 23) to have received the government of the Church, ptru tC<jV aTrooToAoji', not post aposto- los, as Jerome wrongly renders it, but aloiir/ with the ajMstles — as the natural rendering is — or was received by them into a collegiate relation. In the pseudo-Clem- entines, and in the Apostolical Constitutions, however, he is traditionalh' separated from the apostles. It is quite groundless on the part of Wieseler {Studitn vnd Kritiken, 1842), Stier, and Davidson to argue that the James mentioned in the first chapter of (ialatians is a different person from the James referred to in the sec- ond chajitcr. Again, we have Paul distinctly acknowl- edging the high position of the brethren of the Lord when he ranges them between "other apostles" and " Cephas" in 1 Cor. ix, 5. By universal consent James was called o ^iKaioc, and, being martyred, was succeed- ed by a cousin, Svmeon, second of the cousins of the Lord, and a son of Alphteus (ovrn a}n\(/wv rov Kvpiov <^a'>T(poi'). Thus James was the superintendent of the Church at Jerusalem, and, ]irobably on account of con- tinuous residence, possessed of higher influence there than Peter, the apostle of the circumcision, who could only be an occasional visitor. "Certain from James" {rivig c'lTTo 'laic(o/3ov) went down to Antioch, before whom Peter i^revaricated, as if he had stood in awe of the stricter Judaic principles of James and his ]iarty (Acts XV ; Gal. ii). It seems, therefore, very natural that one occupying this position in the theocratic mc- tro]wlis should write to his believing brethren cf the Dispersion. He sympathized so strongly with the myr- iads of the Jews who believed and yet ^vere zealous of the law — uijXwrai tov vojim} — that for their sakes, and to ward off their hostility, he advised the apostle Paul to submit to an act of conformity. This conservative spirit, this zeal for the law at least as the moral rule of life, and this profession of Christianity along Avith uni- form obedience to the "customs," seem to us character- istic elements of the epistle before us.
The opinion that the author of this epistle was differ- ent from James, the son of Alpha?us, and not an apostle, is held by Clement, Herder, De Wette, Neander, Keni,
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Schaff, "Winer, Stier, Eothc, and Alforil. Davidson, while holding the opinion that the Lord's brother and James the apostle are different persons, ascribes the epistle to the latter. But the theory seems to violate all the probabilities that may be gathered from the early fathers and historians. That James, the Lord's brother, is James the apostle, is an opinion maintained by Baro- nius, Lardner, Pearson, Gabler, Eichhorn, Hug, Guericke, Meier, Gieseler, Theile, and the most of other writers.