religious literature. After that, James was widely enough accepted, but as late as AD 545 Paul of Nisibis was still questioning its right to be in the New Testament. It was not, in fact, until mid-way through the eighth century that the great authority of the Greek theologian John of Damascus did for James in the Syrian church what Augustine had done for it in the Latin.
The Greek Church
Although James emerged sooner in the Greek-speaking church than it did in the Latin and Syrian, it was nonetheless late in making a definite appearance. The first writer to quote it by name is Origen, head of the school of Alexandria. Writing almost mid-way through the third century, he says: ‘If faith is called faith, but exists apart from works, such a faith is dead, as we read in the letter which is currently reported to be by James.’ It is true that in other works he quotes it as being without doubt by James and shows that he believes James to be the brother of our Lord, but once again there is the accent of doubt. Eusebius, the great scholar of Caesarea, investigated the position of the various books in the New Testament or on its fringe mid-way through the fourth century. He classes James among the books which are ‘disputed’, and he writes of it: ‘The first of the epistles called Catholic is said to be his [James’]; but it must be noted that some regard it as spurious; and it is certainly true that very few of the ancient writers mention it.’ Here again, there is evidence of doubt. Eusebius himself accepted James, but he was well aware that there were those who did not. The turning point in the Greek-speaking church came in AD 367. In that year, Athanasius, the theologian and Bishop of Alexandria, issued his famous Easter Letter in Egypt. Its purpose was to inform his people what books were Scripture and what were not, because apparently their reading had become too wide, or, at least, too many books were being regarded as holy writ. In that Letter, James was included without qualification, and its position from that point onwards was safe.
So, in the early Church, no one really questioned the value of James, but in every branch of it the letter was late in emerging and had to go through a period when its right to be considered a New Testament book was under dispute.
In fact, the history of James is still to be seen in its position in the Roman Catholic Church. In 1546, the Council of Trent once and for all laid down the Roman Catholic Bible. A list of books was given to which none could be added and from which none could be subtracted, and which had to be read in the Vulgate version and in no other. The books were divided into two classes: those which were proto-canonical, that is to say, those which had been unquestioningly accepted from the beginning; and those which were deutero-canonical, that is to say, those which only gradually won their way into the New Testament. Although the Roman Catholic Church never had any doubts about James, it is nonetheless in the second class that it is included.
Luther and James
In our own day, it is true to say that James, at least for most people, does not occupy a position in the forefront of the New Testament. Few would mention it in the same breath as John or Romans, or Luke or Galatians. There is still for many a kind of reservation about it. Why should that be? It cannot have to do with the doubt about James in the early Church, for the history of the New Testament books in those distant days is not known to many people in the modern Church. The reason lies in this. In the Roman Catholic Church, the position of James was finally settled by the Edict of the Council of Trent; but in the Protestant Church its history continued to be troubled, and indeed became even more troubled, because Luther attacked it and would have removed it from the New Testament altogether. In his printing of the German New Testament, Luther had a contents page with the books set out and numbered. At the end of the list, there was a little group, separate from the others and with no numbers assigned to them. That group consisted of James, Jude, Hebrews and Revelation. These were books which Luther held to be secondary.
Luther was especially severe on James, and the adverse judgment of a great scholar on any book can be a millstone round its neck forever. It is in the concluding paragraph of his Preface to the New Testament that Luther’s famous verdict on James can be found:
In sum: the gospel and the first epistle of St John, St Paul’s epistles, especially those to the Romans, Galatians and Ephesians; and St Peter’s first epistle, are the books which show Christ to you. They teach everything you need to know for your salvation, even if you were never to see or hear any other book or hear any other teaching. In comparison with these, the epistle of James is an epistle full of straw, because it contains nothing evangelical. But more about this in other prefaces.
As he promised, Luther developed this verdict in the Preface to the Epistles of St James and St Jude. He begins: ‘I think highly of the epistle of James, and regard it as valuable although it was rejected in early days. It does not expound human doctrines, but lays much emphasis on God’s law. Yet to give my own opinion, without prejudice to that of anyone else, I do not hold it to be of apostolic authorship.’ He then goes on to give his reasons for this rejection.
First, in direct opposition to Paul, and the rest of the Bible, it ascribes justification to works, quoting Abraham wrongly as one who was justified by his works. This in itself proves that the epistle cannot be of apostolic origin.
Second, not once does it give to Christians any instruction or reminder of the passion, resurrection or Spirit of Christ. It mentions Christ only twice. Then Luther goes on to state his own principle for testing any book: ‘The true touchstone for testing any book is to discover whether it emphasises the prominence of Christ or not . . . What does not teach Christ is not apostolic, not even if taught by Peter or Paul. On the other hand, what does preach Christ is apostolic, even if Judas, Annas, Pilate, or Herod does it.’ On that test, James fails. So Luther goes on: ‘The epistle of James however only drives you to the law and its works. He mixes one thing to another to such an extent that I suspect some good and pious man assembled a few things said by disciples of the apostles, and put them down in black and white; or perhaps the epistle was written by someone else who made notes of a sermon of his. He calls the law a law of freedom (James 1:25, 2:12 ), although St Paul calls it a law of slavery, wrath, death, and sin’ (Galatians 3:23–4; Romans 4:15, 7:10–11).
So Luther comes to his conclusion: ‘In sum: he wishes to guard against those who depended on faith without going on to works, but he had neither the spirit, nor the thought, nor the eloquence equal to the task. He does violence to Scripture and so contradicts Paul and all Scripture. He tries to accomplish by emphasizing law what the apostles bring about by attracting man to love. I therefore refuse him a place among the writers of the true canon of my Bible; but I would not prevent anyone else placing him or raising him where he likes, for the epistle contains many excellent passages. One man does not count as a man even in the eyes of the world; how then shall this single and isolated writer count against Paul and all the rest of the Bible?’
Luther does not spare James, and it may be that once we have studied the book we may think that for once he allowed personal prejudice to injure sound judgment.
Such, then, is the troubled history of James. Now we must try to answer the questions it poses regarding authorship and date.
The Identity of James
The author of this letter gives us practically no information about himself. He calls himself simply: ‘James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ’ (James 1:1). So who is he? In the New Testament, there are apparently at least five people who bear that name.
(1) There is the James who was the father of the member of the Twelve called Judas, not Iscariot (Luke 6:16). He is no more than a name and cannot have had any connection with this letter.
(2) There is James, the son of Alphaeus, who was a member of the Twelve (Matthew 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13). A comparison of Matthew 9:9 with Mark 2:14 makes it certain that Matthew and Levi were one and the same person. Levi was also a
