more than one perplexing feature. Itis at best a faute de mieux and, for the present, does not profess to be anything more.
§ 2. Internal Data.—The writer of the Epistle calls himself James, and in addressing the “ twelve tribes of the Dispersion’ shows him- self to have been a man of more than ordinary authority. According to the evidence of the New Testament, there was only one James who occupied a position of authority such as is implied in this Epistle, namely, ‘‘James, the Lord’s brother”; thus in Gal. i. 18, 19, St. Paul tells of how after the three years’ retirement which followed after his conversion, he went and saw St. Peter and ‘‘James the Lord’s brother”; in Acts xii. 17 we read that when St. Peter had been released from prison he said to his friends: “Tell these things unto James, and to the brethren’”’; again, in Gal. ii. 9 St. Paul recounts the action of ‘James, and Cephas, and John, who were reputed to be pillars,” and who, on seeing that grace had been given to him, offered to him and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, ‘‘that we should go unto the Gentiles, and they unto the circumcision ”’ ; and further, in the-same passage, ver. 12, the mention of certain men “ who came from James” marks him out asaleader. Then, and perhaps most important of all, there is the account in Acts xv. 4-29 of the council at Jerusalem, at which the leading part is taken by St. James.!_ Once more, in Acts xxi. 18 the position of importance which St. James occupied is again clearly seen in that when St. Paul and his companions had returned to Jerusalem after their missionary journey they were first received, apparently informally, by the brethren, and then on the following day ‘‘they went unto James, and all the elders were present ’’; these words plainly imply something in the nature of an official, formal reception. Lastly, in 1 Cor. xv. 7, St. Paul speaks of the special appearance of our Lord after His resurrection to St. James. It is certainly worth particular notice that among these references to St. James the most important are supplied directly or indirectly by St. Paul ; this fact should of itself be sufficient to show the improbability of any conscious antagonism between the teaching on the subject of faith and works as contained respectively in the Pauline Epistles and that of St. James—assuming the latter to be authentic. At all events, the leading position held by St. James which these passages reveal, makes it in the highest degree probable that the James_men- tioned in the opening verse of our Epistle is to be identified with ‘‘ James the Lord’s brother ’’.
Note how his very words in Acts xv. 20 are incorporated in the letter which he sent (verse 29).