III. The Persons for whom the Epistle is intended. — The salutation is addressed "to the Twelve Tril)es which are scattered abroad" (r«tc C^SiKa fvXa'iq toIq iv Tij Siaffirop^'). They were Jews, dhXrpol — brethren or believing Jews, and they lived beyond Palestine, or in the Dispersion. Such are the plain characteristics, national and religious, of the persons addressed. There are, however, two extremes of religious opinion about them. Some, as Lardner, ]Macknight, Theile, Credner, and Hug, imagine tliat the epistle is meant for all Jews. But the inscription forbids such a supposition. The tone of the epistle implies that " the servant of the Lord Jesus Christ" addressed fellow-believers — " brethren" — "begotten" along with himself (j//iac) "by the word of truth," and all of them bearing the " good name" (icaXuv iij'o^rt). The first verse of the second chapter implies also that they held "the faith of our Lord Jesus Ciirist, the Lord of Glory," and they are exhorted not to hold it inconsistently, along with manifest respect of persons, or showing unfoimded social preferences. They are told besides, in v, 7, to exercise patience, 'icog riig irapov-
JAMES
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aiac rou Kvpiov, till the public promised advent of the Lord their Saviour. The rich men denounced in v, 1 may not have belonged to the Church in reality, but this startling denunciation carried in it warning to them and comfort to the poor and persecuted. May there not be, in a letter to a church, holy invective against those without it, who annoy and oppress its unresisting mem- bers? Dean Alford, after Huther, inclines to include in the ciatTTTOpd Jews also in Palestine— Judsea being re- garded as the centre. He refers to the phrase, Acts viii, 1 {iriwrec Si Ciiinrdfjt)(Tav Kara rag x*^?"? Tiii:'lovSa- tag Kai S.afiapdag'). But the use of the verb here in its general sense and in an easy narrative cannot modi- fy the popular meaning of SiaaTropd as the technical or geographic title of Jews beyond Palestine.
On the other hand, it has been maintained by Kiister {Studieii ti. Kritiken, 1831), Kern, Neudecker, and De Wette, that the title in the inscription is a symbolic one, and signifies simply Christians out of Palestine, as the true Israel of God. A modification of this view is held by others, viz., that while the epistle is addressed to be- lieving Jews, believing heathen and unconverted Jews are not excluded. But the phrase in the inscription, as in Acts xxvi, 7, is to be taken in its natural sense, and with no spiritualized meaning or reference. The entire tone and aspect also are Jewish. The place of ecclesi- astical meeting is auvaytuyi] ; the law, vojxoq, is of su- ])reme authority. The divine unity is a primary and distinctive article of faith, the ordinary terms of Jewish obtestation are introduced, as is also the prophetic epi- thet symbolizing spiritual unfaithfulness, juot^a^'^fC (i'^'i 4). Anointing with oil is mentioned, and the special re- gard to be paid (i, 27) to orphans and widows finds its basis in repeated statutes of the jNIosaic law. The errors refuted also are such as naturally arose out of Pharisaic pride and formalism, and the acceptance of the jiromised Christ in a spirit of traditional carnality. The fact that the Dispersion was found princiiially in the East — that is, in Syria and a>.jacent countries — countenances the presumption that this epistle is found in the Peshito at so early a jieriod because it had immediate circulation in that region, and there had proved the fitness and use- fulness of its counsels and warning. Josephus says of the Dispersion, that the Jews were scattered everywhere, -TrXnffrov Si ry ^vpia dvaf^Kfiiy}.iivov {War, vii, 3, 3). The persons addressed were poor; the rich were their persecutors, their own partialities and preferences were worldly and inciinsistent ; thej' wanted perfect confidence ill (iod, and stiiiiihled at the divine dispensations; sins of tlie tongue were common, eagerness to be public teachers was an eindemic among them; they spoke rashly and hardly of one another; and they felt not the connection between a living faith and a holy life. So- ciety was under a process of apjiarent disintegration, wars and fightings were frequent, with loss of life and property. Its extremes were the rich and the poor, with no middle class between ; for, though tradings and journeyings quite in Jewish style are referred to (iv, 13, 14), the principal occupation was husbandry, with no social grade between those who owned and those who reaped the fields. See Dispersion.
IV. Time and place of writing the Epistle.— The place most probal)ly was Jerusalem, where James had his res- idence. Many allusions in the epistle, while they ajjply to almost any Eastern locality, carry in them' a pre- sumption in favor of that country, in the metropolis of which James is known to have lived and labored. These allusions are to such natural phenomena as parching winds, ver. 1-1 1 ; long drought, v, 17, 18 ; the early and latter rain, v, 7 ; saline springs, iii, 12 ; proximity to the sea, i, 0; iii, 4 (Hug's Kinleitimrf, ii, 439). Naturally from the holy capital of Jud.Tja goes forth from the " servant of the Lord Jesus Christ" a solemn circular to all the believing brethren in the Dispersion — for to them James was a living authority to which they bow- ed, and Jerusalem a holy centre that stirred a thousand loyal associations within them.