purpose, and therefore of small scope, such references cannot well be expected. The possibility 1s conceivable that a similar letter, though addressed to a different class of hearers, may have constituted the original form of the Epistle that now bears the name of St. James; in this case the absence of the references spoken of above would be quite comprehensible.
Another omission which is likewise difficult to account for on the assumption of the authorship of St. James, is that of any direct refer- ence to Christ as the Messiah of Old Testament prophecy. For ἃ δεν writing to Jewish-Christians in the earliest ages of Christianity such an omission is incomprehensible. The insistence on the Messiahship of our Lord would be the first step in the propagation of the faith among Jews; and if an Epistle of this length and comprehensive character in the subjects touched upon had been written by St. James he could scarcely have omitted some reference, though but a passing one, to the Messiah Whom he had seen and known. The question as to whether our Lord was the promised Messiah or not was one which was naturally surging in the minds of Jews in those early days ; the question, “ Art Thou He that should come 2’ per- plexed the minds of many others long after the time of the Baptist ; for Jews it was all-important, for everything depended upon it. The fact, therefore, that the Messiahship of Jesus is taken for granted in the Epistle (see i. 1, ii. 1) proves that these Jews of the Dispersion regarded this truth as axiomatic ; and this would be almost impossible to understand among Jews of the Dispersion in the earliest ages of Christianity, if the conditions of the time are taken into considera- tion; the only way whereby this could be brought within the bounds of probability would be to restrict the meaning of Dispersion, but this would be arbitrary and without justification, seeing that in our Epistle the word is used without qualification, and, therefore, evi- dently intended to mean what was ordinarily understood by it.
A further objection urged against the authorship of St. James is the improbability of one in such a humble walk in life as a Galilzean peas- ant, the son of Mary and Joseph, being able to pen an Epistle of this kind in Greek. The writer of the Epistle displays a considerable know- ledge of the Greek Wisdom literature, of various N.T. books, and ot other Greek writings. It may be said in reply that opportunities for learning Greek were not wanting in Palestine, and the fact of humble birth was certainly no hindrance to the acquiring of know- ledge among the Jews. But in a case like this, in which proof either for or against is not forthcoming, one must to a large extent be guided by a balance of probabilities. As far as our knowledge goes