1

by birth, in all likelihood, he lives and writes in an age when these parties are neither included nor excluded; they are simply transcended. A fusion has taken place in the church. The Christianity in vogue is not now Paulinism, it is a diffused Gentile Christianity which no longer needs to remain in opposition to the semi-legal conception of the faith, but is permeated with Hellenising influences (A. Meyer, Die moderne Forschung über d. NT, pp. 54-56) analogous to those stirred in the ethical revival of the first century by the Cynic "street-preachers" of the age, and by the fascination exerted by the Hellenic mysteries upon those who were dissatisfied with the superstition and moral impotence of current religions. The influence of this atmosphere on Christianity only began to be felt to any great extent as the new faith moved out into the Empire, certainly not before the third quarter of the first century.

To the writer, impatient and distrustful of theorising, Christianity then appears quite in the second-century manner as a law, "the perfect law" (15), i.e. the fulfilment of Judaism. The Christian is he who by a practical and consistent life obeys that royal law (28 Just. Apol. 112), and is thus a perfect man. Here, as in the later literature, the first notes of Protestantism are heard, though the author reminds us also of the Humanists in his taste for older literature. Contemporary religion had already developed far enough to be liable to aberrations which, in this man's view, were best remedied by a sharp recall to the primitive elements, and especially to the forgotten commonplace that a divorce between faith and conduct is ruinous to both. His polemic implies that Paul's original conceptions of faith and works were being misapprehended and abused. But he is no pupil of Paul's, eager to re-state the distinctive Pauline doctrines, much less an opponent who writes with the ulterior and covert purpose of refuting such positions. To this author Christianity is not, as it was to Paul, an overpoweringly new spirit. It is the legal and moral heir of all that was best in Judaism. Of grace, of the Messiahship of Jesus, the burning question of the primitive church,—of the hope of eternal life, there is as little mention as of circumcision and the Mosaic law, or of man's personal union with Jesus Christ. These are not the writer's world. His ideal is "the truth," "the wisdom,"practically equivalent to a good, moral life, which is an observance of God's law. Of God's Fatherhood and kingdom, truths which were the very life of Christ's first disciples, there is but the slightest mention. So far as distinctiveness and characteristics go, this document is to early Christianity pretty much what writings like those of pseudo-Phokylides are to the Judaism of the first century; both are genuine products, but tend to concentrate their attention upon the general moralistic features of the faith in question, instead of upon its particular tenets (cp. Jacoby, NT Ethik, pp. 151-201).

1 With this sublimated conception of "law," which proved so influential in early Christianity, there may be compared the post-exilian attitude to the Hebrew Law, with its nourishment of rich and genuine piety (cp. Montefiore's Hibbert Lectures, chap. ix., and I. Abrahams, "Jewish Life under the Law," Jewish Quart. Review, July 1899, pp. 626-642). Fourth Maccabees is an example of the stress laid on this piety (os) by Judaism, when touched by a Stoical devotion to ethics.

2 Cp. Holtzmann, Einl. pp. 333-335. That the readers were specifically JewishChristian is maintained by several scholars (e.g. Reuss, Weizsäcker, Klöpper, Schmiedel). That they were liable to risk from some form of ultra-Paulinism seems indisputable. Cp. van Manen (Theol. Tijdschrift, 1894, pp. 478-496).

3 Familiarity with the terminology of the Greek mystics (e.g., as Hilgenfeld has shown with the Orphites 36, whom Dr. Gardner finds already behind a passage like

While the address implies an oecumenical Christianity which is viewed under the comprehensive and idealised symbols of the OT (the twelve tribes, 11, being equivalent to God's people, an ideal number like Apoc 7* 141, or 1 P 11), the letter bears distinct marks of a local and concrete situation. But it is no longer possible to reconstruct a picture of it. The generic term ó dikaios (56, cp. Wisd Sol 212-20), however, corroborates the other evidence of the epistle by indicating that the writer felt in greatest sympathy with the class represented by the TXο of Pss. Sol, or the "mansueti et quiescentes" of 4 Esdras (1132), the suffering lower classes who represented by their Puritanism the true piety of the age. How far this is due to the archaic style of the writer, and how far to his actual environments, it is hard to say. If the latter hypothesis were pressed, the indications might point to Syria or Palestine, as in the case of the Didachê. But in all probability the tone of the letter represents the author's ideal. His sympathies revolted from the ostentatious religion of the better classes and clung to an Essene-like character, which resemblesit has been suggested-the simplicity and winsomeness of Francis the great Poverello. The connection of the writing with Romans, Hebrews, and Hermas has led several scholars (e.g. Brückner and von Soden) to think of Rome as the locus of the epistle; but indeed certainty on this matter is unattainable, and conjectures are simply guesswork.

It is equally impossible to discover who the unknown James was, who wrote the letter. There is not any sufficient reason for holding it a pseudonymous document. Had the writer wished to pose as the first bishop of the Jerusalem church, he would (like the author of 2 P) have taken care to introduce unmistakable allusions to his traditional character. As it is, no one would dream that the apostle James was meant by the James of ver. 1, merely by reading the contents of the epistle. More local colour and detail would certainly have been necessary to produce this conviction among the first readers and authenticate the epistle. Had the writer intended to represent himself as the brother of the Lord-and much more, if he had actually been so-he would have emphasised his self-designation in the title and contents of the writing.2

1 Pet 318; Explor. Evangelica, chap. xxi.), certain echoes of Philonic phraseology and the reproduction of ideas and sentences from Wisd. Sol. and Ecclus. (Spitta, Ure. ii. pp. 14-155, a rich series of parallels), do not in this practised scholar and writer affect the question of the date much more than the use of apocalyptic quotations in the Epistle of Judas. They merely tell against apostolic authorship. "Cet helléniste familier avec les ressources de la rhétorique est en même temps un philosophe, fusion des deux types alors commune et en honneur dans le monde grec. On se rappelle son système dualiste" (Massebieau). Cp. Jülicher, pp. 170, 177.

It will scarcely do, I fear, to regard the warning and denunciation of 413-56 as an apostrophe addressed to “the rich as a class" (Adeney, BI, p. 436). Surely here, as throughout the epistle, the author speaks as one who has known, suffered with and from, studied and lived beside, the individuals who prompt his utterances?

2 How inconclusive and improbable all attempts at a biography are, made from the side either of internal evidence or of later tradition, may be seen from what is their best statement in Zahn, Einl. i. pp. 72-88. Bacon thinks 11 a mere scribal conjecture, added by the local Roman church addressed in this homily, which was composed c. 90 A.D., and consists of "a series of somewhat disconnected homiletical excerpts" (INT, pp. 158-165). This corroborates in part von Soden's idea that 31-18 (the essay of an Alexandrian scribe) and 411-56 (a triple fragment of Jewish apocalypse) represent pieces of alien origin and style incorporated by this Christian teacher into a homily of his own (op. cit. pp. 172-174). On the "rich" in early Christianity, see the passages quoted by Weinel (Wirkungen des Geistes u. der Geister, p. 14).

[105-125 A.D.]

JAMES

The author of this epistle seldom quotes Scripture, but he works with it. He has a particular liking for the prophetic tone, which passes with him not infrequently into the tone of Jewish apocalyptic. He lives in the religious outlook of the later Judaism. Free from every kind of mysticism, no less than from any interest in speculation, so bent upon the practical that he scarcely allows any independent value to the specifically religious element, he is bitter in his censure, rugged in his descriptions, a realist who plunges straight into daily life, and paints with a broad brush, a man of clear-cut diction when he unfolds his own ideas, the Jeremiah of the NT. The further we

go down, the more intelligible become not merely the conditions which the epistle presupposes amongst Christians, e.g. the significance of the persecutions, and the limitation of miraculous power to the officers of the congregation, but also the ethical nature of the writing, its complete divergence from the main ideas of the Pauline preaching, its conception of Christianity as a law, and lastly its relations to the early Christian literature.-von Soden.

JAMES

JAMES, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,

to the twelve tribes in the dispersion: greeting.

Reckon it all joy, my brothers, when you fall among manifold trials,
As you know that the testing of your faith results in endurance:
Now let endurance come to perfection,

That you may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing.

But if anyone of you lacks wisdom, let him ask from the God who gives to all generously and without reproaching,

And it shall be given him.

But let him ask in faith, with never a doubt;

For the doubter is like the surge of the sea, wind-swept and tossed
to and fro.

Let not that man suppose he will receive anything from the Lord,
Double-minded that he is and restless in all his ways.

Let the humble brother exult in his exaltation;

But the rich in his humiliation,

Because like the flower of the grass he shall pass away.

For up comes the sun with the scorching wind and withers the

grass,

And the flower of it falls off and the beauty of its appearance is ruined:

So shall the rich man also fade in his pursuits.

Happy the man who endures trial!

For after he has been tried he shall receive the wreath of life which
He has promised to those who love him.

Let no man who is being tempted say, "My temptation is from God";
For God is not to be tempted himself by evil, and he tempts

no man.

Every one is tempted by his own lust, lured away and beguiled:
Then lust conceives and gives birth to sin,

And when sin is matured, it brings forth death.

Be not misled, my beloved brothers.

"Every gift that is good and every gift that is perfect" is from above,

Coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no shifting or shadow of change.

He willed to bring us forth by the word of truth,

To be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

You know that, my beloved brothers.

Now let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger:
For man's anger does not produce the uprightness of God.

22

23

24

Therefore, putting away all the filthy dregs of malice,

Accept with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your

souls.

Prove yourselves obedient to the word,

Instead of merely hearing--and so deluding yourselves.

For if anyone hears the word and obeys not,

He is like a man looking at his natural face in a mirror :

He looks at himself and is off,

And immediately forgets what kind of man he is.

25 But he who gazes into the perfect law- the law of freedom-and remains

26

there,

Proving himself no forgetful hearer but actively obedient,

This man shall be happy in his obedience.

If any man imagines that he is religious, and does not bridle his 27 tongue, but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is futile. Religion pure and undefiled before our God and Father is this:

21

to care for orphans and widows in their distress,

to keep oneself unstained from the world.

My brothers, hold not the faith of [our] Lord of majesty [Jesus 2 Christ], with respect of persons. For if a man enters your gathering with gold rings and splendidly dressed, and a poor man also enters in a dirty 3 dress, and you favour him who wears the splendid dress and say, "Sit here in comfort," and say to the poor man, "Stand there!" or "Sit under 4 my footstool"-have you not made distinctions among yourselves and 5 shown that you judge with evil designs? Listen, my beloved brothers. Has not God chosen those who are poor in this world to be rich in faith, and to be heirs of the realm which he has promised to those who love 6 him? Now, you have insulted the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you? and is it not they who drag you to the courts? Is it not 8 they who blaspheme the noble Name by which you are called? If, however, you fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy 9 neighbour as thyself, well and good. But if you have respect of persons 10 you are committing sin; the law convicts you as transgressors.

For

whoever shall keep the law as a whole and yet stumble in a single point, 11 is guilty of everything. For he who said, Commit no adultery, said also, Do not murder. Now, if thou committest no adultery but murderest, thou 12 hast become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act, as those who 13 are to be judged by a law of freedom. For judgment is merciless to him 14 who has shown no mercy: mercy exults over judgment.

What is

the use, my brothers, of a man saying he has faith, without having deeds? 15 Can his faith save him? If a brother or a sister be ill-clad and in lack of 16 daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, get warmed and

fed!" without giving them the necessaries of the body, what is the use of 17, 18 it? So too with faith; unless it brings deeds, it is dead in itself. But will some one say, "Hast thou faith-thou!"? Yes, and I have deeds as well. Show me thy faith apart from deeds, and I will show thee my 19 faith by my deeds. Thou believest in one God?1 well and good. The 20 daemons also believe and shudder. Wilt thou understand, O empty man, 21 that faith is useless apart from deeds? Was not our father Abraham 22 justified by deeds, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar? Thou seest that faith was working along with his deeds, that by deeds faith 23 was perfected, and that the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Now Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as uprightness, and he was 1 Reading εἷς θεὸς ἔστιν ;