Digging Deeper for such a time as this: ***Part 2 of 2*** JAMES THE LORD’S BROTHER AFTER THE RESURRECTION James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.—James 1:1. WITHIN a few weeks after His resurrection, the brethren of Jesus were gathered with His followers in Jerusalem, and evidently belonged to the company of His disciples. In the interval, therefore, they must have become convinced of their Brother’s Messiahship. When and in what circumstances their conversion took place, we are not told; but we have a hint of the occasion that led to it, at least in the case of James. In his First Epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul mentions an appearance of the risen Jesus to James, and separates it from His appearances to Peter, to the Twelve, and to the five hundred brethren, in such a way as to imply that it took place later than the others. This fact at once suggests the conclusion that James was not a disciple at the time of those earlier manifestations, but became such as a result of his own vision of the risen Lord. I THE APPEARANCE TO JAMES 1. It would seem as if this were among the last of our Lord’s appearances during the forty days. The place cannot be determined. It may have been Galilee; it may have been Jerusalem. If James was not in Jerusalem at the Passover, the place was probably somewhere in Galilee, possibly Nazareth. This appearance to James is the only one not made to a known believer. Had any rumours of the resurrection previously reached James? Had he learned that Jesus had appeared to His disciples in Jerusalem? Did his mother inform him that Jesus had indeed risen from the dead and had spoken with the Twelve? Had his doubts begun to give way? Had they vanished, or was he still in perplexity? Whatever his state of mind, he soon received personal confirmation of the resurrection. His Brother appeared to him. Only the fact is recorded. What would we not give for even a few fragments of the conversation then held? How gentle the blame with which our Lord censured His brother for his unbelief! How deep that brother’s self-reproach and shame!—that he of all others should not have recognized the Messiah! that kinsmen and strangers should have had keener spiritual discernment than himself! that he should have been deaf and blind to the evidence that persuaded them!—and such evidence! If he had only weighed it as he should! The interview dispelled for ever his own conception of the Messiah, and rendered him thenceforward a whole-hearted and energetic Christian. I looked at life with all-unseeing eyes, Unable to discern the deeper thing Or dive below the surface to the spring, Until thou camest as a glad surprise. And now to me the smallest bird that flies Twitters a song which seraphim might sing; While roadside flowers a sacred message bring, And teach those truths that make the angels wise. I cannot tell thee how thy passing touch Had power the underlying thought to show Till all the world was changed because of thee: Nor do I care to measure overmuch The why and wherefore: this one thing I know, That I, who once was blind, now clearly see. 2. Some apocryphal writings have supplied details of the appearance of our Lord to James. The Gospel according to the Hebrews, which Lightfoot speaks of as one of the earliest and most respectable of the apocryphal narratives, is quoted by Jerome (de Vir. ill. 2) to the following effect: “The Lord after his resurrection appeared to James, who had sworn that he would not eat bread from the hour in which he had drunk the cup of the Lord till he saw him risen from the dead. Jesus, therefore, took bread and blessed and brake it, and gave it to James the Just, and said to him, My brother, eat thy bread, for the Son of Man has risen from the dead.” There are other versions of the same story, in which the vow is dated, not from the Last Supper, but from the crucifixion. Possibly the reference to the Last Supper may have arisen from the fact that James shaped his vow after the Lord’s words spoken at the Supper, “I will not drink from henceforth of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come.” 3. How natural that a brother standing beneath the cross, having heard of the words spoken at the Last Supper, should then at length have thrown in his lot with Jesus and resolved, whether in despairing remorse or with some faint dawning of believing hope, “I too will no more eat bread nor drink wine till the kingdom of God shall come”! How natural also that one of the earliest appearances of the risen Lord should have been made to His repentant brother, and that that brother should from that day forth have united himself to the company of the Apostles, and been chosen by them to preside over the Church in Jerusalem, while they proceeded to carry out their Master’s last charge, to preach the gospel to every nation! 4. It is necessary to assume, in the light of subsequent events, that James’s conversion was complete and thoroughgoing, and led him to throw himself heart and soul into the service of the Master. He cannot have been a half-hearted disciple. He must have been one of the most zealous, active, and devoted of them all to secure the position which he ultimately held. ¶ Principal Dale said he always divided men into two classes—those who nipped life and those who gripped it. One of the laws of success was that they must be earnest. II AFTER THE ASCENSION 1. Of James’s subsequent history we gather from the Acts and the Epistles of St. Paul that, after the Ascension, he with his brothers remained at Jerusalem in the company of the eleven Apostles and Mary and the other women, waiting for the descent of the Spirit (Acts 1:14), and that within ten years from that time he became the head of the Church at Jerusalem. We have no information as to when or how he was placed in this position. No title is given to the office he held. There were elders in the Jerusalem Church; but James is never called an elder; nor is the title “bishop” given to him. Still we must not be slaves of words. In point of fact, James held at Jerusalem a position very similar to that of the several town bishops, or pastors, early in the second century, the position of the one pastor of a congregation. 2. There are several references in the New Testament to James after the Ascension. (1) Eight or ten years after the Ascension (about 38 A.D.) St. Paul paid a visit to Jerusalem and stayed with St. Peter fifteen days, seeing no other Apostle, “save James the Lord’s brother.” This has given rise to much discussion as to whether James was an Apostle. (2) In Gal. 2:1–10 St. Paul describes a later visit to Jerusalem after an interval of fourteen years, i.e. about 51 A.D. At this visit the leaders of the Church, James, Peter, and John, after hearing his report of his first missionary journey, signified their approval of his work, and “gave the right hand of fellowship,” agreeing that Paul and Barnabas should preach to the Gentiles and they themselves to the circumcision. St. Paul’s second visit to Jerusalem is more fully described in Acts 15:4–29, where James appears as president of the Council held to consider how far the Gentile Christians should be required to conform to the customs of the Jews. It is James who sums up the discussion and proposes the resolution which is carried. (3) In Gal. 2:11–14 Peter’s inconsistency in regard to eating with the Gentiles at Antioch is explained by the arrival of “certain from James.” (4) James is seen in the same position of authority in Acts 21:18, when St. Paul presents himself before him on his return from his third missionary journey (58 A.D.). After joining in praise to God for the success which had attended his labours, James and the elders who are with him warn St. Paul of the strong feeling against him, which had been excited among the “myriads of Jewish believers who were all zealous for the law,” by the report that he had taught the Jews of the Dispersion to abandon circumcision and their other customs. To counteract this impression, they recommended him to join in a Nazirite vow, which had been undertaken by four members of their community, as a proof that the report was unfounded, and that he himself walked according to the law. ¶ William Wilberforce lived his parliamentary life as a contemporary of William Pitt, Edmund Burke, Charles James Fox, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Here was a galaxy of brilliance—the most polished and powerful orators who ever awoke the classic echoes of St. Stephen’s! Wilberforce’s figure conveyed the inevitable impression of insignificance. Yet when he rose to address the Commons the House instantly crowded. Members held their breaths to listen. The little reformer spoke with an authority rarely wielded by the greatest masters. He was heard in a silence, and with a respect which was never accorded to those illustrious statesmen whose utterances are to this day read in schools and colleges as models of rhetoric. And why? There is only one reason for it. Like Sir Galahad— His strength was as the strength of ten, Because his heart was pure. 3. His relationship to Jesus, and his intimate acquaintance with Him from boyhood, of course made James a marked man among the disciples, and doubtless contributed greatly to his reputation and authority. But such natural advantages do not alone account for the tremendous influence which he wielded for so many years—an influence which he did not share with his brothers. Only because he possessed at the same time the qualities of a leader, and uncommon zeal and devotion, could he acquire the universal credit he enjoyed. But it was not simply his character as a Christian that contributed to James’s influence and authority. His character as a Jew counted for a great deal with the strict Jews of the Mother Church. Though he was converted by a vision of the risen Jesus, as St. Paul was, his conversion produced an entirely different effect upon him. He had apparently passed through no such experience of the futility of endeavouring to keep the Law, and it was not a sense of the need of justification, or of deliverance from sin and death, that led him to Christ. He was evidently, before his conversion, an uncommonly devout and faithful Jew, and in accepting Christ he never thought of ceasing to be such, or of regarding the observance of the Law as of less importance than before. Rather, like his other Christian brethren, he must have regarded it as of even greater importance; and nothing in the teaching or conduct of Jesus suggested anything else to him. All that we know of him points to an excessive reverence for the Jewish law in all its parts, and a most scrupulous observance of it throughout his life; and in a Church constituted as the Church of Jerusalem was such a tendency naturally promoted greatly his reputation for piety. How great his influence and authority was we now with difficulty conceive. No doubt if we look at it from the more general point of view, whether of the whole Jewish Christian world, or of the whole Gentile Christian world, it sinks into nothing before the majesty of Peter and of Paul. But place ourselves within the circle of those purely Palestine Christians who still frequented the services of the Temple, and adhered to the usages of the synagogue—confine our view to the horizon of the favoured land, which was the scene of the last expiring struggle of Jewish national life—and we shall find that, to whatever quarter we turn for information, James appears before us as the one authoritative ruler, as the one undoubted representative of the Christian society. If we open the contemporary Christian records of the Acts and Epistles, it is to his decision that the Council of Jerusalem bows—to him, as a pillar of the Church, taking precedence even of Peter and John, that St. Paul communicates the new revelation which had been entrusted to him. If we turn to the later traditions of the Jewish Christians themselves, as preserved in the fragments of Hegesippus or in the Clementine Recognitions and Homilies, he appears before us as the one mysterious bulwark of the chosen people—invested with a priestly sanctity before which the pontificate of Aaron fades into insignificance—as the one universal bishop of the Christian Church, in whose dignity the loftiest claims of the ecclesiastical dominion of later times find their earliest prototype. If we look to the impression produced on the mind of the Jewish people itself, we find that he alone of all the Apostles has obtained a place in their national records. ¶ There are men and women born upon this earth, who, walking lightly, yet print deep, ineffaceable footprints upon the age in which they live. The world is better for them; their breath has purified the atmosphere they existed in. Ignorant of their predestination as they are, every word and act of theirs bears the seal of the Divine Intelligence. They were sent to do the work of the Most High. III THE MARTYRDOM 1. James, like his namesake the son of Zebedee, died as a martyr. We have two accounts of the last scene, one by Hegesippus written about 160 A.D., the other in Josephus, which is the simpler and more authentic. (1) The account of Hegesippus is full of improbabilities. It is quoted by Eusebius as follows: The charge of the Church then (after the Ascension) devolved on James the brother of the Lord in concert with the Apostles. He is distinguished from the others of the same name by the title “Just” (righteous) which has been applied to him from the first. He was holy from his mother’s womb, drank no wine or strong drink, nor ate animal food; no razor came on his head, nor did he anoint himself with oil, or use the bath. To him alone was it permitted to enter into the Holy Place, for he wore no woollen, but only linen. And alone he would go into the temple, where he used to be found on his knees, asking forgiveness for the people, so that his knees became hard like a camel’s, because he was ever upon them worshipping God and asking forgiveness for the people. Accordingly through his exceeding righteousness he was called righteous (“Just”) and “Oblias,” which being interpreted is “the defence of the people” and “righteousness,” as the prophets declared of him. Some of the seven sects, which I have mentioned, inquired of him, “What is the door of Jesus? “and he said that he was the Saviour, where-upon some believed that Jesus is the Christ. Now the fore-mentioned sects did not believe in the resurrection, or in the coming of one to recompense each man according to his works. But as many as did believe, believed through James. So when many of the rulers believed, there was a disturbance among the Jews and the Scribes and the Pharisees, saying that there was a danger that all the people would look to Jesus as the Christ. They came together therefore and said to James, “We pray thee restrain the people, for they have gone astray in regard to Jesus thinking him to be the Christ. We pray thee to persuade all that have come to the passover about Jesus. For we all listen to thee. For we and all the people bear witness that thou art just, and hast no respect of persons. Do thou therefore stand on the pinnacle of the temple, so that thou mayest be conspicuous and thy words may be well heard by all the people, and persuade them not to go astray about Jesus. For all the tribes have come together with the Gentiles also on account of the Passover.” Then the forementioned Scribes and Pharisees set James on the pinnacle of the temple and cried to him, “O thou just one to whom we are all bound to listen, since the people are going astray after Jesus who was crucified, tell us what is the door of Jesus.” And he answered with a loud voice, “Why do you ask me concerning Jesus the Son of Man? He is both seated in Heaven on the right hand of Power, and will come on the clouds of heaven.” And when many were convinced and gave glory to the witness of James, and cried, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” the same Scribes and Pharisees said to each other, “We have done ill in bringing forward such a testimony to Jesus, but let us go up and cast him down that they may fear to believe him.” And they cried out saying, “Oh, oh, even the just has gone astray,” and they fulfilled that which is written in Isaiah, “Let us take away the just, for he is not for our purpose; wherefore they shall eat the fruits of their deeds.” So they went up and they cast down James the Just, and said to one another, “Let us stone James the Just.” And they began to stone him, since he was not killed by the fall; but he turned round and knelt down saying, “O Lord God my Father, I beseech thee, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” While they were thus stoning him one of the priests of the sons of Rechab, of whom Jeremiah the prophet testifies, cried out, “Stop! What do ye? The Just is praying for you.” And one of them who was a fuller smote the head of the Just one with his club. And so he bore his witness. And they buried him on the spot, and his pillar still remains by the side of the temple (with the inscription), “He hath been a true witness both to Jews and Greeks that Jesus is the Christ.” And immediately Vespasian commenced the siege. (2) The much more probable account of Josephus (Ant. Jud. 20:9, 1) says: During the interval between the death of Festus (probably in the year 62 A.D.) and the arrival of his successor Albinus, the high priest Ananus the younger, being of rash and daring spirit and inclined like the Sadducees in general to extreme severity in punishing, brought to trial James, the brother of Jesus, who is called the Christ, and some others before the court of the Sanhedrin, and having charged them with breaking the laws, delivered them over to be stoned. Josephus adds that the better class of citizens and those who were versed in the law were indignant at this, and made complaints both to King Agrippa and to Albinus, on the ground that Ananus had no right to summon the Sanhedrin without the consent of the procurator; and that Agrippa in consequence removed him from the high priesthood. Origen (Cels. i. c. 47, Lomm. xvii. p. 87) and Eusebius (H.E. ii. 23) also cite Josephus as ascribing the miseries of the siege to the Divine vengeance for the murder of James the Just; but this does not occur in his extant writings. ¶ “ΔΙΚΑΙΟΤΑΤΟΣ” is the epitaph inscribed on Lord Aberdeen’s monument in Westminster Abbey. The love of justice was, no doubt, strong in him, but, like nearly all attempts to describe a complex human character in a single word, the title of “most just” conveys but a partial idea of what manner of man Lord Aberdeen in truth was. Many have equalled him, perhaps have surpassed him, in devotion to exact justice, who have altogether failed to gain that deep respect and confidence which were invariably given to Lord Aberdeen by those who were brought into close association with him. Nor is the cause of this far to seek, for the existence of a keen sense of justice is quite compatible with the absence of other qualities which Lord Aberdeen also possessed in no common measure; and the possession of which, even had that particular virtue been less strongly developed in him, would have sufficiently accounted for the influence over others which he obtained. 2. If the traditions are true which say that James was a Rechabite; that is, that he was brought up like John the Baptist, so that from his birth he never drank wine or strong drink, never had his hair cut, and never took a bath, we must conclude that the children in that home of Nazareth were brought up under an austere and rigid discipline. And this makes it the more remarkable that our Lord Himself, when He reached manhood, gave up the severity of His earlier habits, so that men contrasted His way of life with the way of John the Baptist. And perhaps this may also throw light on the unbelief of James and the rest of His brothers. When Christ began to live a life so much freer than theirs, when He broke through the austere restraint which they had associated with the highest forms of righteousness, they would find it difficult to believe that He was really a religious teacher sent from God. ¶ The fact is that purification and austerity are even more necessary for the appreciation of life and laughter than for anything else. To let no bird fly past unnoticed, to spell patiently the stones and weeds, to have the mind a storehouse of sunsets, requires a discipline in pleasure and an education in gratitude. 3. James was a great figure. A strong man, he had the rigidity of his strength; a safe man, he had the natural conservatism which accompanies steadfastness. He had zeal enough to rejoice in the daring radicalism of Peter, and breadth and spirituality enough to sympathize with the grand universalism of Paul; but for himself, he was always place-bound and parochial, and Christianity always remained to him an offshoot, though immeasurably the greatest offshoot, of Judaism. It is interesting to consider the Epistle of James in connexion with the relationship of the writer to our Lord. There are few direct allusions to the teaching of Christ, and many remarkable omissions. There is no reference to the pre-existence of Christ, to the Atonement, to our Lord’s death, or to His resurrection. On the other hand, this Epistle contains more echoes of the teaching of Jesus than any other New Testament book, except the Gospels, which actually record this teaching. The figurative language of the Epistle recalls our Lord’s love of parables. There is a very marked resemblance to the Sermon on the Mount, and it has been pointed out that the similarity is not that of actual quotation but rather that of thought, due to intimate knowledge of our Lord’s mind, though not expressed in His words. ¶ The worst of St. James was that when a sermon was preached from his Epistle, there was always a danger lest somebody in the congregation should think that it was against him it was levelled. Hastings, J. (Ed.). (1916).The Greater Men and Women of the Bible: St. Luke-Titus. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. - via Logos 5
Posted on: Sun, 04 Aug 2013 16:42:32 +0000
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