THE EPISTLE OF JAMES

LIKE the book of Joel in the OT, the epistle of James must be dated either at the very outset or towards the close of the literature. The intermediate position (Schäfer, Einl. p. 304 f.; Trenkle, Einl. pp. 210, 211), i.e. in the seventh decade, as a correction of the Pauline doctrine of faith and works in some of its abuses, cannot any longer be held. The old notion that this writing contains any direct polemic against Paul, or that it could have been composed previous to 62 A.D., by James, the brother of Jesus, with any such intention, is one of the least defensible hypotheses in NT criticism, and is rightly abandoned by the majority of conservative and radical critics alike. Weizsäcker, however, still defends a modified form of it (AA, ii. pp. 27–32); and the traditional position is defended in this country by Farrar (Early Days of Christianity, pp. 309-311), Hort (Jud. Christianity, p. 148), and some others.1

But it is impossible that such a letter could be addressed by James after the Council of Jerusalem to Jewish-Christians of the Diaspora, without a reference to the relations between themselves and the GentileChristians; and that Communities existed at that time which were wholly free from proselytes or Gentile-Christians is an unproved assertion. The truth is

(1) In spite of all that is urged in favour of Galilean education, it is scarcely conceivable that a brother of Jesus should possess the wide culture, the fluent and idiomatic Greek style, and the powers of literary expression and allusion that mark this writing. (2) The tradition of the Jacobine authorship is very late; the epistle is absent from the Muratorian Canon, and unknown to Hegesippus and Eusebius, while even its first mention (by Origen in the third century) implies considerable doubt as to its authenticity. (3) There is nothing in the rest of the NT (Ac 2118-20) to suggest on the part of James such a violent polemic against Paul as that given in chap. 2 must be, when the writing is taken as written during Paul's Christian activity and lifetime. (4) The complete absence of allusions to the Resurrection or Messiahship of Jesus, the scanty and distant references to him at all, and the failure to introduce these where they might naturally have been expected, are irreconcilable with what we know of the primitive church and with what would justly have been looked for in a brother of our Lord. To him Jesus must have been of vital and absorbing importance, on the score of birth and faith alike. But in fact the whole hypothesis of the Jacobine authorship breaks down, whatever

3

1 Renan (L'antéchrist, chap. iii.) dates it c. 62 A.D. as an invective against Paulinism and also against the rich and overbearing Sadducees in Jerusalem, though he hesitates to relegate the manifesto to the apostle. Not very differently Jacoby (NT Ethik, p. 200 f.).

2 E.g., by Mayor (op. cit., chap. x.) and in Prof. Roberts' Greek the Language of Christ and his Apostles, chap. ix.

3 The rigidity of the Christian Jews in Jerusalem upon the question of the law would have made it impossible for anyone to attain repute and authority among

date be taken for the writing. The only position for which a case can really be stated, is to suppose that the question of faith and works was started not by Paul's preaching, but by the previous training of the early Christians in Jewish rabbinical discussions, and that the "epistle," as a literary form of Christian teaching, was due not to Paul but to this solitary apostle. In this case James would be the earliest writing in the NT.

This hypothesis of James as a pre-Pauline document, a product of Christianity while it was still within the synagogue with a primitive, undeveloped, theology, is still held by some scholars. Besides Mangold, Hofmann, and Lechler, the theory has been strongly urged by Erdmann, Mangold, and Weiss (INT, ii. pp. 100-128); but the champion of this date was Beyschlag (-Meyer) in Germany, until the recent appearance of Zahn (Einl. i. pp. 52-108). Cp. also F. H. Krüger, Revue Chrétienne (1887), pp. 605 f., 685 f.; P. Ewald, Das Hauptproblem (1890), p. 58; and Blanc-Milsand, Etude sur l'origine et le développement de la Theol. Apost. (1884), pp. 36–57. There is little pith or moment in such theories, but in this country the view has always been a favourite, from Alford and Bassett (1876) to Lumby (EB, article "James "), Salmon (INT, pp. 448-468), Carr (CGT (1896), and Meyrick (Smith's Dict. B. (2nd ed. 1893), pp. 1520-1522); the recent edition by Prof. J. B. Mayor (2nd ed. 1897; also in DB, ii. article "James") gives the weightiest and most elaborate statement of the case in English,1 and Bartlet (AA, pp. 217-250) ingeniously pleads for it in the endeavour to make James a liberal Jewish-Christian. Certainly Jewish Christianity was different from Paulinism, nor had the latter anything like a monopoly during the years 45-55. But it could not have been different to the point of what is an almost entire indifference to the characteristic hopes and motives of Jesus.

In addition, however, to the arguments already advanced, it may be urged that to date the epistle before the Council at Jerusalem (c. 50 A.D.) is to leave too little space for the development of the vices in the Christian situation. Such a doctrine of faith, such hollow piety and widespread worldliness, such indifference to the human life of Jesus and his heavenly glory, such a feeling of delay in regard to the second coming, are simply incredible upon the threshold of the young church. Further, if this letter with its meagre appreciation of Jesus represents the early Christian consciousness, as exhibited in a brother of Jesus himself, who was living at the centre of Christian tradition, the subsequent development of Christianity becomes a hopeless enigma. If such were the dominant and official ideas in the church, the later literature and life are inexplicable-grapes from thorns! But the positive and conclusive arguments against such a position are best given in a statement of what seem to be the true character and relationships of the writing in question. The literary history and connections of James suggest a post-Pauline origin. The writer's acquaintance with the Pauline writings seems to admit of no serious denial (against Feine, Jakobusbrief, pp. 100-122), and it is hard to understand why Sanday and Headlam, who allow the use them, who did not share their position generally; that James did so, is proved by Acts and Galatians, and corroborated by tradition. Comparative strictness was the atmosphere of the capital. The leader of the local Christians owed his rank to legal correctness and the prestige of birth. And these are the very points absent from the epistle of James-care for the Law or references to Jesus.

1 Cp. also Burton (RLA), Dr. J. B. Crozier (Intell. Development, i. pp. 331, 332), Adeney (BI, pp. 434-440), Stevens (NTTh, pp. 249-252), and Chase (DB, iii. p. 765). The last-named unconvincingly suggests that the epistle was carried by the messengers of James (Gal 2).

of Romans in Hebrews, deny any literary relation between Romans and an epistle which-though not a third of the size of Hebrewsfurnishes three times as many coincidences (Romans, ICC, pp. lxxvilxxix) of an even more striking character. The proofs, gathered best by Zimmer (ZwTh, 1893, pp. 481-503), are substantially decisive for the priority of Paul. A similar conclusion is reached from a comparison of James with 1 Peter. In spite of Beyschlag, Spitta, Schmiedel, and Zahn, it must be held that the latter epistle presents a more concrete form of several sayings than that preserved by James, who rather gives the impression of having quoted and adopted them from a previous writer: cp. the evidence and arguments in Brückner (Chron. pp. 60–65), Wrede (LC, 1896, pp. 450-451), Holtzmann (ZwTh, 1882, "Die Zeitlage des Jakobusbriefs," pp. 292-310), supported by Weiss, von Soden, Pfleiderer, Klöpper, and Usteri (in his edition of 1 Peter, especially pp. 292–298). The parallels are best printed in Spitta, Urc. ii. pp. 184-187. That Hebrews is also used by James is urged by the same critics, with the exception of von Soden and the addition of Schmiedel (EWK, 11. 34, article "Catholic Epistles"). On the other hand, the connections between James and Clem. Rom. (Jas. 119-21 235 313 41 416 214-17

CR. 131 121 382 465 215 303

) and the

Apocalypse 1 (Jas. 112 118 25 59 20), do not appear to prove more than Apoc. 210 144 29 320. community of atmosphere, nor is it safe to infer much more than this from the coincidences (reminiscences, P. Ewald, Das Hauptproblem, p. 59 f.) in the Jas. 118 125 520 21 122 f. 44

(Jas.

16-21) and the pastoral epistles

Jo. 38.8 832 524 544 831 £ 316-21
55 41.3 42

513

fourth gospel 213 514 (Jas. Past. II. 116. 18 Tt 15 etc. II. 29 45 1. 56 Tt 33 11. 224). James is thus, on the evidence of its contents, a secondary writing in the NT; its strong and fresh treatment goes back for materials not merely to pre-Christian or non-Christian but Christian sources. Also, its closest relations from a literary point of view are with writings towards the end of the first or in the first quarter of the second century. The terminus ad quem is fixed by Hermas, in which James is almost certainly used. Before 140 c. it must have been composed, and-if it uses Hebrews—after 90.

A date within the Domitianic period has been favoured generally by Hilgenfeld (Einl. pp. 537-542) and S. Davidson (doubtfully); McGiffert (AA, pp. 579-585), like J. Réville (Les origines de l'Episcopat, p. 230 f.), puts it before the end of the first century, as A. H. Blom ("De achtergrond van den Jakobusbrief," Theol. Tijd. 1881, pp. 439-449) had already argued. Similarly Rovers, Nieuw-test. Letterkunde (1888), p. 93. But the tone and literary connections of the epistle point to a later period. Most probably it was composed about the same time as the pastoral epistles, although the date of composition can only be fixed approximately. So Baur (Church History (Eng. tr.) i. pp. 128-130), Schwegler (Das nach-apost. Zeitalter, 1. pp. 413 f., 441 f.), Zeller, and Volkmar (ZwTh, 1861, p. 427), followed by Hausrath and Pfleiderers (Urc. pp. 865-880). The last

1 Spitta, Offenbar. Joh. p. 521 f.; Feine, pp. 131-133.

2 Cogent proofs in Spitta, Urc. ii. pp. 236 f., 382-391, also Dr. C. Taylor, Journal of Philol. XVIII. p. 297 f., and Zahn's edition of Hermas, pp. 396-409.

3 With whom, as far as the date is concerned, R. Steck practically agrees ("Die Konfession des Jakobusbriefes," Z. Schz. 1889, xv. 3); also J. H. Wilkinson, AJT, ii. pp. 120-123.

named regards the latter as a protest, like Hermas, against the secularising of Christianity; he finds a parallel to its plain and practical spirit, in the Waldensian church or in the Minorites. Brückner (Chron. pp. 60-64, 287-296) regards the writing as the product of some little conventicle of Jewish-Christian Essenism in the reign of Hadrian, 117–138 A.D., directed against the Gnosticising tendencies of contemporary Paulinism. Jülicher (Einl. p. 140f.), like Usteri (SK, 1889, pp. 211-256), dates 2 the book 125-150 A.D., and von Soden (HC, III. 2, pp. 175, 176) agrees that there is nothing to prevent a theory of its composition before 130 A.D., though he inclines to an earlier date (JpTh, 1884, pp. 137-192). Some corroboration of this general period may be found in the naïve tradition, preserved by Hegesippus (Eus. HE, III. 32, IV. 22), that the church had remained a pure virgin up till the martyrdom of Symeon (c. 107 A.D.), after which heresies and errors openly grew active. It is c. 130 A.D. that Harnack also dates the percolation of Hellenism upon a large scale into Christianity: the religious philosophy of Greece began then to reach the centre of the new religion, and, simultaneously with this, the older enthusiasm passed from the communities (Das Wesen des Christentums, 1900, p. 125 f.).

Austere and frequently ironical in tone, aphoristic in form, pregnant in expression, the successive paragraphs resemble more than once the sentences in Bacon's Essays. They are brief, condensed, direct. They "do not seem to end, but fall." Their quick thrusts are quite in keeping with the author's rigorous demands upon his readers. Severe and urgent warnings abound. In one hundred and eight verses fifty-four imperatives have been counted. They lie side by side with more tender consolations; but of praise there is not a syllable. The laxity of the moral situation is too keenly felt by the writer; and he never lets his readers go far from the agenda of Christianity. "Er ist der Apostel der That, für welchem alles auf die That ankommt" (Rovers). He has been called the Jeremiah of the NT, but he has affinities equally with the stubborn and pungent realism of Amos. The so-called primitiveness of this undogmatic-even antidogmatic-writing is explicable when it is set against the background, not of a nascent, elementary stage in Christianity (for the existence of which the evidence is quite inadequate), but of tendencies and features which here, as in Hermas and 2 Clem., reveal phrases of almost moralistic3 religion side by side with the deeper or elaborated aspects of the faith. This standpoint helps one to rightly orientate the writings and its pithy phrases. It was a time of aberration (519-20), when the supreme call was for personal reformation (119. 27) and the reclaiming of others (516. 20). The long development of Christianity, even within the personal experience of the readers (31), had begun to

1 Reuss (pp. 140-143; also Hist. Christ. Theol. i. pp. 423, 424) from a different standpoint underlines this dislike on the writer's part to theological disputation. "His warnings read like the first startled shrinking of piety from the flights of science"; he is a man "to whom all talking and disputing about religious subjects seemed like stepping out of the temple altogether." Similarly the pastorals.

He

2 Cp. Bousset (TR, 1897, p. 15). Harnack's period is also c. 110-130 A.D. denies that the writing is an epistle; comparing it with 2 Clem., he regards both as homilies, composed of isolated exhortations to the community and to individuals. Certainly vay (22) is a term transferred from Greek worship as an equivalent of ixxanoia (514); cp. Heinrici, ZwTh (1876), pp. 103-109, 523, 524.

3 In 4th Esdras (832-36 971. etc.) a similar emphasis falls on works in relation to faith.

betray symptoms of moral degeneracy. Along with the wide diffusion of Christianity, abuses-especially of money and mind—had crept into the church, with the result that (as Klöpper graphically puts it) the moral deficiencies of Christian conduct were being covered by the withered fig-leaf of a merely intellectual belief. Neither talk nor theories make up life, this prophet thunders. Without morality they are a corpse. Words--words by themselves are alike the source of quarrelling and the substitute for honest conduct. No wonder that such a development or rather degeneration was followed some thirty years later by the Montanist reformation. This letter bears much the same relation to that movement as that which existed between the writings of Barclay or Tyndale and the English Reformation in the sixteenth century.

From another side than that of the pastorals, and yet with some substantial kinship, the epistle of James comes into the Christian development. Here, as in the pastorals, practical piety 2 is the dominant note. But the author, who was one of the wise men (Mt 2334) in his age, and himself a teacher (31), instead of presenting his conceptions in the spirit of Paul, occupies the standpoint of an emancipated Jewish Hellenist.3 To him (ep. Denney, DB, iii. 82) as to many in the second century, Christianity appeared in all its attractiveness mainly as a new law, the supreme manifestion and expression of ethical monotheism and plain morality. To obey the commandments of God-that is the religious ideal of the age. Contrasted with the wearisome scheme of Judaism (Mt 1129), it is a light and easy obedience (1 Jn 53, Jas 125). In the Johannine apocalypse and epistles this legal conception is bound up with a rich Christology, and even in the pastorals these two are not wholly severed. But the author of James stands nearer to the blanched Christology of the Didachê (on which see Harnack, Apostellehre, pp. 1420) than to these NT writings, and his motives for the observance of the moral law are not drawn from God's Fatherhood and man's love to him.

The horizon is Christendom, but the atmosphere and situation are nearer the Jewish moralism of the Didachê than the distinctively Christian writings that lie within the NT canon. There is nothing specially referring to the Gentiles, it is true. But the Jews are as decidedly left out of account. These racial divisions do not exist for the writer. A Jew

1 Hints of Gnostic trouble (315-Jud 19) and persecution (12. 3. 12 57-11) are not very luminous.

2 Cp. the remarkable parallel on charity (1 Jn 317 = Jas 214-17), a good instance of the mystic and the moralist each pressing in his own fashion upon the same point of conduct. Add 1 Jn 215 = Jas 44, 1 Jn 225 = Jas 112.

3 On the theology of James cp. especially Usteri, loc. cit.; Holtzmann, NTTh, ii. pp. 328-350, and in ZwTh (1893), pp. 57-69. For the reproduction of the wisdomideas cp. the great section in the Book of Baruch (39-44), where wisdom is claimed as the privilege and security of Israel. The monotheism of the Diaspora is excellently illustrated by the Sibylline oracles (Blass, KAP, ii. p. 179 f., and slightly otherwise, Zahn, ZK WL, 1886, pp. 77–87).

4 Christianity as law is characteristic of the sub-apostolic age (Barnabas 26, zaves νόμος τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν ἄνευ ζυγοῦ ἀνάγκης ὤν). On the beginnings of this conception cp. Gottschick, RTK, vi. pp. 634, 635, and Seeberg, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, 1895, 1. pp. 33 f., 35 f.

Jas 18 (48) 36-8. 9. 314-18 516

24

25

61.

5 Cp. Did. 43 The ethical preoccupation of James need not seem so surprising when one remembers the traces of such a conception of Christianity already given in passages like Ac 17, 1415-17, 2425. There the author, apparently without any sense of incongruity, makes Paul speak in semi-Jewish terms which are scarcely more Christian than the conceptions in James' epistle.