of the sacrifice he had made in refusing to follow his old chief in his new departure lent great weight to his advocacy of the Unionist cause in the country. He was one of the leading counsel for The Times before the Parnell Commission, and from 1892 to 1895 was attorney-general to the prince of Wales. From 1895 to 1902 he was a member of the Unionist ministry as chancellor for the duchy of Lancaster, and in 1895 he was made a peer as Baron James of Hereford. In later years he was a prominent opponent of the Tariff Reform movement, adhering to the section of Free Trade Unionists.
JAMES, EPISTLE OF, a book of the New Testament. The
superscription (Jas. i. 1) ascribes it to that pre-eminent “pillar”
(Gal. ii. 9) of the original mother church who later came to be
regarded in certain quarters as the “bishop of bishops” (Epist.
of James to Clement, ap. Clem. Hom. Superscription). As such
he appears in a position to address an encyclical to “the twelve
tribes of the dispersion”; for the context (i. 18, v. 7 seq.) and
literary relation (cf. 1 Pet. i. 1, 3, 23–25) prove this to be a figure
for the entire new people of God, without the distinction of carnal
birth, as Paul had described “the Israel of God” (Gal. vi. 16),
spiritually begotten, like Isaac, by the word received in faith
(Gal. iii. 28 seq., iv. 28; Rom. ix. 6–9, iv. 16–18). This idea of the
spiritually begotten Israel becomes current after 1 Pet., as
appears in John i. 11–13, iii. 3–8; Barn. iv. 6, xiii. 13; 2 Clem.
ii. 2, &c.
The interpretation which takes the expression “the twelve tribes” literally, and conceives the brother of the Lord as sending an epistle written in the Greek language throughout the Christian world, but as addressing Jewish Christians only (so e.g. Sieffert, s.v. “Jacobus im N.T.” in Hauck, Realencykl. ed. 1900, vol. viii.), assumes not only such divisive interference as Paul might justly resent (cf. Gal. ii. 1–10), but involves a strange idea of conditions. Were worldliness, tongue religion, moral indifference, the distinctive marks of the Jewish element? Surely the rebukes of James apply to conditions of the whole Church and not sporadic Jewish-Christian conventicles in the Greek-speaking world, if any such existed.
It is at least an open question whether the superscription (connected with that of Jude) be not a later conjecture prefixed by some compiler of the catholic epistles, but of the late date implied in our interpretation of ver. 1 there should be small dispute. Whatever the currency in classical circles of the epistle as a literary form, it is irrational to put first in the development of Christian literature a general epistle, couched in fluent, even rhetorical, Greek, and afterwards the Pauline letters, which both as to origin and subsequent circulation were a product of urgent conditions. The order consonant with history is (1) Paul’s “letters” to “the churches of” a province (Gal. i. 2; 2 Cor. i. 1); (2) the address to “the elect of the dispersion” in a group of the Pauline provinces (1 Pet. i. 1); (3) the address to “the twelve tribes of the dispersion” everywhere (Jas. i. 1; cf. Rev. vii. 2–4). James, like 1 John, is a homily, even more lacking than 1 John in every epistolary feature, not even supplied with the customary epistolary farewell. The superscription, if original, compels us to treat the whole writing as not only late but pseudonymous. If prefixed by conjecture, to secure recognition and authority for the book, even this was at first a failure. The earliest trace of any recognition of it is in Origen (A.D. 230) who refers to it as “said to be from James” (φερομέγη ἡ Ἰακώβου Ἐπιστολή), seeming thus to regard ver. 1 as superscription rather than part of the text. Eusebius (A.D. 325) classifies it among the disputed books, declaring that it is regarded as spurious, and that not many of the ancients have mentioned it. Even Jerome (A.D. 390), though personally he accepted it, admits that it was “said to have been published by another in the name of James.” The Syrian canon of the Peshitta was the first to admit it.
Modern criticism naturally made the superscription its starting-point, endeavouring first to explain the contents of the writing on this theory of authorship, but generally reaching the conclusion that the two do not agree. Conservatives as a rule avoid the implication of a direct polemic against Paul in ii. 14–26, which would lay open the author to the bitter accusations launched against the interlopers of 2 Cor. x.–xiii., by dating before the Judaistic controversy. Other critics regard the very language alone as fatal to such a theory of date, authorship and circle addressed. The contents, ignoring the conflict of Jew and Gentile, complaining of worldiness and tongue-religion (cf. 1 John iii. 17 seq. with James ii. 14–16) suggest a much later date than the death of James (A.D. 62–66). They also require a different character in the author, if not also a different circle of readers from those addressed in i. 1.
The prevalent conditions seem to be those of the Greek church of the post-apostolic period, characterized by worldiness of life, profession without practice, and a contentious garrulity of teaching (1 John iii. 3–10, 18; 1 Tim. i. 6 seq., vi. 3–10; 2 Tim. iii. 1–5, iv. 3 seq.). The author meets these with the weapons commanded for the purpose in 1 Tim. vi. 3, but quite in the spirit of one of the “wise men” of the Hebrew wisdom literature. His gospel is completely denationalized, humanitarian; but, while equally universalistic, is quite unsympathetic towards the doctrine and the mysticism of Paul. He has nothing whatever to say of the incarnation, life, example, suffering or resurrection of Jesus, and does not interest himself in the doctrines of Christ’s person, which were hotly debated up to this time. The absence of all mention of Christ (with the single exception of ii. 1, where there is reason to think the words ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ interpolated) has even led to the theory, ably but unconvincingly maintained by Spitta, that the writing is a mere recast of a Jewish moralistic writing like the Two Ways. The thoughts are loosely strung together: yet the following seems to be the general framework on which the New Testament preacher has collected his material.
1. The problem of evil (i. 1–19a). Outward trials are for our development through aid of divinely given “wisdom” (2–11). Inward (moral) trials are not to be imputed to God, the author of all good, whose purpose is the moral good of his creation (12–19a; cf. 1 John i. 5).
2. The righteousness God intends is defined in the eternal moral law. It is a product of deeds, not words (i. 19b–27).
3. The “royal law” of love is violated by discrimination against the poor (ii. 1–13); and by professions of faith barren of good works (14-26).
4. The true spirit of wisdom appears not in aspiring to teach, but in goodness and meekness of life (ch. iii.). Strife and self-exaltation are fruits of a different spirit, to be resisted and overcome by humble prayer for more grace (iv. 1–10).
5. God’s judgment is at hand. The thought condemns censoriousness (iv. 11 et seq.), presumptuous treatment of life (13–17), and the tyranny of the rich (v. 1–6). It encourages the believer to patient endurance to the end without murmuring or imprecations (7–12). It impels the church to diligence in its work of worship, care and prayer (13–18), and in the reclamation of the erring (19–20).
The use made by James of earlier material is as important for determining the terminus a quo of its own date as the use of it by later writers for the terminus ad quem. Acquaintance with the evangelic tradition is apparent. It is conceived, however, more in the Matthaean sense of “commandments to be observed” (Matt. xxviii. 20) than the Pauline, Markan and Johannine of the drama of the incarnation and redemption. There is no traceable literary contact with the synoptic gospels. Acquaintance, however, with some of the Pauline epistles “must be regarded as incontestably established” (O. Cone, Ency. Bibl. ii. 2323). Besides scattered reminiscences of Romans, 1 Corinthians and Galatians, enumerated in the article referred to, the section devoted to a refutation of the doctrine of “justification by faith apart from works” undeniably presupposes the Pauline terminology. Had the author been consciously opposing the great apostle to the Gentiles he would probably have treated the subject less superficially. What he really opposes is the same ultra-Pauline moral laxity which Paul himself had found occasion to rebuke among would-be adherents in Corinth (1 Cor. vi. 12; viii. 1–3, 11, 12; x. 23 seq., 32 seq.) and which appears still more marked in the pastoral epistles and 1 John. In rebuking it James unconsciously retracts the misapplied Pauline principle itself. To suppose that the technical terminology of Paul, including even his classic example of the faith of Abraham, could be employed here independently of Rom. ii. 21–23, iii. 28, iv. 1; Gal. ii. 16, iii. 6, is to pass a judgment which in every other field of literary criticism would be at once repudiated. To imagine it current in pre-Pauline Judaism is to misconceive the spirit of the synagogue.[1] To make James the coiner and Paul the borrower not only throws back James to a date incompatible with the other phenomena, but implies a literary polemic tactlessly waged by Paul against the head of the Jerusalem church. Acquaintance with Hebrews is only slightly less probable, for James ii. 25 adds an explication of the case of Rahab also, cited in Heb. xi. 31 along with Abraham as an example of justification by faith only, to his correction of the Pauline scriptural argument. The question whether James is dependent on 1 Peter or conversely is still actively disputed. As regards the superscription
- ↑ Nothing adduced by Lightfoot (Comm. on Gal. Exc. “The faith of Abraham”) justifies the unsupported and improbable assertion that the quotation James ii. 21 seq. “was probably in common use among the Jews to prove that orthodoxy of doctrine sufficed for salvation” (Mayor, s.v. “James, Epistle of” in Hasting’s Dict. Bible, p. 546).
