The First Apology of St. Justin, (c. AD 150) And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray. At the end of our prayers, we salute one another with a kiss. Then bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who assists the orphans and widows, and those who, through sickness or any other cause are in want.

JAMES, OF . One of the various Christians named James in the NT is the James who is identified as “the Lord’s brother” (Gal 1:19), a “pillar” of the Church (Gal 2:9), a participant in the conference(s) at Jerusalem (Gal 2:1–10; Acts 15:1–20), and as one who experienced the risen Lord (1 Cor 15:7). It is generally agreed that this person, mentioned by Paul in 1 Cor 15:7; Gal 1:19; 2:9, 12 is the same man referred to by :17; 15:13; 21:18. As “the Lord’s brother,” this person is also equated with the James of Mark 6:3 ( = Matt 13:55); Jas 1:1 and Jude 1. The degree of blood relationship between James and Jesus has been debated at length. Explanations fall into 3 categories. (1) Some hold, following the most normal interpretation of the NT language, that James was a son of and Mary, evidently born after Jesus. (2) Others, with reference to various apocryphal sources, maintain that James was an older foster brother of Jesus, i.e., a son of Joseph by a previous marriage. This view has been held by many Protestants and is favored by the Greek Orthodox and other Eastern churches. (3) A third interpretation theorizes that James and Jesus as were, according to Semitic idiom, cousins. This third approach concludes that since James is called an (Gal 1:19), he was in fact James the son of (:18), also known as James “the Younger” (:40), the brother of . The mother of James and Joses, named Mary in Mark 15:40 and Matt 27:56, is taken to be identical with Mary the wife of (equated with Alphaeus), the sister of Jesus’ mother, referred to in John 19:25. By this reasoning Jesus and James would have been first cousins. While this has been the preferred Roman Catholic explanation, the German Catholic exegete Pesch (Markusevangelium I HTKNT, 322–24) has affirmed the validity of the first approach, thus stimulating renewed debate among Catholics (see Rahner 1983: 218–31). The identification of James the brother of the Lord with James the son of Alphaeus has caused him to be known in Christian tradition as “” (from Mark 15:40 KJV) in contrast to “,” the son of . (There is no doubt that James the brother of the Lord is to be distinguished from the son of Zebedee since the latter James was martyred about 44 C.E. and therefore could not be the James referred to by Paul and Acts.) Whatever the blood tie between James and Jesus (see the critical evaluation of the three views by Filson, IDB 1: 471–72), it is evident from references to James in Paul’s letters and Acts that this man played a significant leadership role in the Jerusalem church. In a much discussed statement in Gal 1:19 (see e.g. Trudinger 1975; Howard 1977), Paul appears to accord to James the status of apostle, although not necessarily implying that he was one of the Twelve. Rather, like himself, Paul includes James among all those apostles to whom the risen had appeared (1 Cor 15:7). Since James is not known to have been one of the followers of Jesus before his death, it is possible that it was this postresurrection appearance of the Lord which produced in James a conversion to discipleship comparable to that which Paul himself later experienced (Bruce 1977: 87). James is also referred to by Paul, along with Cephas and John, as reputed to be one of the “pillars” (stuloi) of the Jerusalem church (Gal 2:9). The metaphor could be an eschatological one which originated not with Paul but with the Jerusalem Christians. Paul was apparently aware that they spoke of their leading apostles as “pillars” because of the positions of importance they believed Paul, James, and John would occupy in the eschatological temple in the age to come (Barrett 1953: 12–13). Paul evidently regarded the views of the pillar apostles as important, yet he was

NT HTKNT Herders theologischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament KJV King James Version C.E. common (or Christian) era IDB Interpreter’s Dictionary of the , ed. G. A. Buttrick. 4 vols. Nashville, 1962 e.g. exempli gratia (for example) also concerned to preserve the independence of his own apostleship. Hence, he reports that James and the others, having “perceived the grace” given to Paul, extended “the right hand of fellowship,” i.e., approved the mission of Paul and to the gentiles (Gal 2:9). At the same time the pillar apostles affirmed that their own mission was to the circumcised. The only restriction attached to their approval was that Paul and Barnabas should “remember the poor” (2:10), probably meaning the believers in Jerusalem. Paul’s description of James as a pillar occurs in the context of a discussion in Gal 2:1–10 about a conference in Jerusalem. James figures prominently also in the conference concerning Paul’s work detailed in Acts 15:1–29. The two accounts are difficult to harmonize and discussion continues as to whether Galatians and Acts refer to the same meeting (see e.g. Catchpole 1976–77: 432–38). According to the latter account, James proposed certain minimum requirements for gentile converts to , the so-called apostolic decree. He recommended that a letter should be sent to gentile converts telling them “to abstain from the pollutions of idols and unchastity and from what is strangled and from blood” (Acts 15:20). Problems arise concerning the promulgation of this decree, however, since Paul never refers to it and Acts itself has James informing Paul about it only late in his missionary career (cf. 21:25) (see Schmithals, 1965: 97–102). In any case, the position taken by James at the Acts 15 conference depicts him in a mediating role, falling between those who would not impose the Jewish law on gentile Christians and those who would (see Brown, 1983: 77). At the same time, James’s support was claimed by some who required full observance of Jewish dietary laws by Jewish Christians and thereby caused a dispute between Cephas and Paul in Antioch during table fellowship (cf. Gal 2:11–14). According to Paul, before “certain men came from James” (2:12) Cephas ate with gentiles. Their arrival, however, caused Cephas, Barnabas, and other Jewish Christians in fear of “the circumcision party” (2:12) to separate themselves from the gentiles. See BARNABAS. Thus, while the Acts 15 conference reflects a minimal imposition of the Jewish law on the gentile Christians by James, his authority as felt in the Antiochian dispute conveys a strictness on his part concerning Jewish Christian observance of the law. That adherence to the law by James is seen also in Acts’ portrayal of his meeting with Paul at the end of the latter’s third journey. Upon Paul’s arrival in Jerusalem, James and the elders advise him to prove his respect for the law by taking part in a temple vow ceremony (:18–24). James’s devotion to the law was underscored in later tradition. For example, according to Hegesippus (writing ca. 180 and as quoted by , Hist. Eccl. II.23.4–18), “from his excessive righteousness he [James] was called the Just and Oblias, that is in Greek, ‘Rampart of the people and righteousness,’ as the prophets declare concerning him.” While the precise meaning of the attribution “Oblias” remains obscure (see Barrett 1953:15), it appears to witness to James’s role as a support, i.e. a pillar, among his people. Hegesippus also reports that James constantly prayed in the temple where he spent so much time on his knees that they became hard like a camel’s. According to this same source, James was martyred at the hands of Scribes and in Jerusalem by being cast down from a pinnacle of the temple and then stoned and clubbed to death. Josephus (Ant 20.200) had earlier and in less detail reported a similar tradition according to which the high priest Ananus accused James and “certain others” of having “transgressed the law” and delivered them up to be stoned. Both of these traditions place the death of James shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. The Hegesippus narrative says James was buried on the spot by the temple where he was killed. The source of Hegesippus’s report was apparently an Ebionite . This work is not preserved in its original form but is mostly incorporated into the pseudo-Clementine literature (i.e. the Clementine Recognitions and Homilies). The Ebionites’ veneration of their patron James the Just is also reflected in the of Thomas, an compilation evidently dependent in part on a Jewish-Christian, probably Ebionite, source (Bruce, 1977:119). According to Saying 12: “The disciples said to Jesus, ‘We know that you are going to leave us: Who will be chief over us?’ Jesus said to them, ‘In the place to which you go, betake yourselves to James the Just, on whose behalf heaven and earth alike were made’.” The patronage of James was also claimed in some gnostic writings, and the gnostic apocryphal of James was ascribed to him. In addition, James was accepted as having been the author of the apocryphal gospel, the Book of James, as well as the canonical . 1

cf. confer, compare ca. circa (about, approximately) Hist. Eccl. Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica (= Church History) Ant Josephus, Jewish Antiquities (= Antiquitates Judaicae) 1Freedman, D. N. (1996, c1992). The Anchor Bible Dictionary (electronic ed.) (621). New York: Doubleday.