IL Canonical A uthoriti/. — The epistle is found in the Syriac Peshito in the 2d century, a version which cir- culated in the neighborhood of that country to which James and his reatlers belnnged, and the translator and his coadjutors must have had special historical reasons for inserting James in their canon, as they exclude the | Second and Third Epistles of John, the Epistle of Judc, and the Apocalypse. There are clauses in Clement of Rome (.!(/ Cor. xxxii) and in Hermas {Maudut. xii, 15) which probably may refer to correspondent portions of this epistle, though, perhaps, they may only allude di- rectly to the Septuagint. The quotation from the Latin version of Irenaius {Adceis. Jheres. iv, 1(5) appears to be more direct in the phrase "et amicus Dei vocatus est." But this phrase, found also in Clement, seems to have been a current one, and Philo calls Abraham by the same appellation. We cannot, therefore, lay such im- tnediate stress on these passages as is done by Kern, Wiesinger, and others, though there is a presumption in favor of the opinion that passages in the apostolical fathers, bearing any likeness of style or thought to the apostolical writings, were borrowed from them, as either direct imitations or unconscious reproductions. This epistle is quoted by Origen (/« Joan., in Opera, iv, 306) ; and the Latin version of Kulinus uses the phrase Jaco- bus apostolus as a preface to a quotation. This father quotes the epistle also as ascribed to James — iv ry <pi- (yofjei'y 'IrtKoi/Jou tTTiffToXy; though, as Kern remarks, Origen says that the doctrine " faith without works is dead" is not received by all — ov (tv/x'^P'1^^^- Clement of Alexandria does not quote it, but Eusebius says that he expounded all the catholic epistles, including, how- ever, in the range of his comments the Epistle of Bar- nabas and the so-called Apocalypse of Peter. Tertullian seems to make no reference to it, though Credner sup- poses an allusion to ii, 23 in the second book A doe?-sus Judceos {Opera, ed. Oehler, ii, 704). Eusebius places it among the Antilegoraena {llistor. Eccles. ii, 23; iii, 25), saying of the epistle, under the tirst reference, after he had just spoken of its author's death, larkov Si ojg vo- Ofutrai fi'tii, etc., "It is reckoned spurious — not many of the ancients have mentioned it;" subjoining, how- ever, that it and Jude were used in most of the church- es. In other places Eusebius quotes James without hesitation, calling the epistle by the sacred title of ypaif)!], and its author o upoc cnroaroXog. Jerome is very explicit, saying that James wrote one epistle, which some asserted had been published by another in his name, but that by degrees and in process of time (" paullatim tempore procedente") it obtained authority. Jerome's assertion may arise from the fact that there were several persons named James, and that confusion on this point was one means of throwing doubt on the epistle. Tliere seems to be also an allusion in Hippoly- tus (ed. Lagarde, p. 122) to ii, 13, in the words i) yap KOiffif diiKtMC tart rtp fii) Troiyjaai'Tt tXeog. It was at letigth received by the Council of Carthage in 397, and in that century it seems to have been all but universally acknowledged, both by the Eastern and Western church- es— Theodore of Mopsuestia being a marked exception, because of the allusion in it (v, 11) to the book of Job. At the period of the Reformation its genuineness was again called in question. Luther, in his preface to the N. T. in 1522, comparing it " with the best books of the N. T.," stigmatized it as " a right strawy epistle (eiiie recht stroherne Epistel), being destitute of an evangelic character." C.ml Lucar had a similar objection, that Christ's name was colillv mentioned, and that onlv once
or twice, and that it treated merely of morality— ("sola a la moralita attende" — Ltttres Anecdotes, p. 85, Amster- dam, 1718). Erasmus had doubts about it, and so liad cardinal Cajetan, Flacius, and the Magdeburg centuria- tors. Grotius and Wetstein shared in these doubts, and they are followed by Schleiermacher, Schott, De Wette, Reuss, the Tubingen critics Baur and iSchwegler, and Ritschl in his Kntstehung der Alt-katkol. Kirche, p. 150. These recent critics deny its apostolic source, and some of them place it in the 2d century, from its resemblance in some parts to the Clementine homilies. But it is plain that the objections of almost all these opponents spring mainly from doctrinal and not from critical views, being ratlier originated and sustained by tlie notion form- ed oltlic coiitcutsoftlie eiiistle than resting on any prop- er liistorical foundation. We have not space to go over the several olijeetioiis, such as the absence of the term ajio.ftk from the inscription, though this is likewise not found in several of Paul's epistles; the want of individ- uality in the document, though this may easily be ac- counted for by the circumstances of the author in rela- tion to his readers; and the apparent antagonism to the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith, which we shall afterwards consider. It is of no avail to object, with Wetstein and Theile, that James refers to the apocry- phal writings, a practice unknown till a later period, for Theile's array of passages {Prolet/omeiia, p. 4G) does not prove the statement, as Huther's reply to this and other similar objections has shown at length, and step by step. Nor, lastly, can it be said that the Greek style of the epistle betrays a culture which the author could not possess. The style is nervous, indeed, and is more He- braistic in its general structure than in its individual phrases, as in its short and pithy clauses, the absence of logical formuliB, the want of elaborate constructions, its oratorical fervor, and the simple and direct outflow of thoughts in brief and often parallelistic clauses. In- tercourse with foreign Jews must have been frequent in those days, and there are always minds which, froin nat- ural propensity, are more apt than others to actpiire a tasteful facility in the use of a tongue which has not been their vernacular. Taking all these things into account, we have every reason to accept the canonical authority of this epistle, the trial it has passed through giving us fuller confidence in it, since the princi]ial ob- jections are the offsjiring either of polemical prejudice, or of a subjective criticism based more on sesthetic ten- dencies than historical results. Rauch has faintly ob- jected to the integrity of the epistle, asserting that the conclusion of v, 12-20, may be an interpolation, because it is not in logical harmony with what precedes ; but he has had no followers, and Kern, Theile, Schnecken- burgcr, and others have refuted him — logical sequence being a form of critical argument wholly inapplicable to this epistle. (See Davidson, lutrod. to A'. T. iii, 331 sq.) See Antilegojiexa.