400 Introduction

there was really nothing to induce St. James to learn Greek; there is no evidence for supposing that he extended his evangelistic efforts beyond the confines of Palestine; on the contrary, the evidence is in the other direction; as overseer of the Church in Jerusalem his activity must have been almost, if not altogether, exercised among those of his own race. Moreover, it is certain that the Palestinian Jewish teachers altogether discouraged everything that tended to the spread and influence of the Greek spirit, for they rightly (from their point of view) regarded it as a menace to orthodox Judaism (see Bergmann, Fiidische Apologetik im neutestamentlichen Zeitalier, Ρ. 80, etc.); and for a Jew to go to heathen assemblies to learn was, to say the least, improbable in Palestine. As an apostle of the circumcision (Gal. ii. 9) in Palestine the various dialects of the Palestinian vernacular were amply sufficient for St. James’ purposes. It must also be confessed that, even granting that St. James knew Greek, the large acquaintance with some of the Pauline Epistles. which the writer of our Epistle shows is against the authorship of St. James; for how was St. James to gain such an intimate know- ledge of these without having them before him? It is certain that in those early days there were not many copies of them, and what- ever copies there were would be needed outside of Palestine rather than inside ; nor is it quite clear why St. J@mes should have required them at all. These Epistles must have been treasured by the Churches addressed as their special possession; copies of them are not likely to have been circulated generally until they had become authoritative documents in the Church at large, and this can scarcely have been the case until close upon the end of the first century at the earliest. The two Epistles that come into considera- tion are Romans, written from Corinth in ο. 58 Α.Ρ., and Galatians, probably slightly earlier, perhaps from Antioch (or Ephesus ?) ; these are the earliest dates that can be assigned to them, aad as St. James was martyred probably in 63 Α.Ρ., there certainly does not appear to have been sufficient time for them to have reached that stage of importance in the eyes of Christians generally for copies to have been circulated outside of the particular congrega- tions addressed. This argument does not appeai, of course, to those who hold that St. Paul was indebted to St. James’ Epistle.. On the other hand, the analogy of the letter inspired by St. James in Acts xv. suggests the possibility that something of the same kind may have been repeated; but in this case we should look for some- thing more homogeneous than the Epistle (in its entirety) which at present bears his name.