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 son of Alphaeus, and therefore Matthew and this James must have been brothers. But of James, the son of Alphaeus, nothing else is known; and he also can have had no connection with this letter.
(3) There is the James who is called James the younger and is mentioned in Mark 15:40 (cf. Matthew 27:56; John 19:25). Again nothing is known of him, and he cannot have had any connection with this letter.
(4) There is James, the brother of John, and the son of Zebedee, a member of the Twelve (Matthew 10:2; Mark 3:17; Luke 6:14; Acts 1:13 ). In the gospel story, James never appears independently of his brother John (Matthew 4:21, 17:1; Mark 1:19, 1:29, 5:37, 9:2, 10:35, 10:41, 13:3, 14:33; Luke 5:10, 8:51, 9:28, 9:54). He was the first of the apostolic band to be martyred, for he was beheaded on the orders of Herod Agrippa I in the year AD 44. He has been connected with the letter. The fourth-century Latin Codex Corbeiensis, at the end of the epistle, has a note quite definitely attributing it to James the son of Zebedee. The only place where this view on the authorship was taken seriously was in the Spanish church, in which, down to the end of the seventeenth century, he was often held to be the author. This was due to the fact that St James of Compostella, the patron saint of Spain, is identified with James the son of Zebedee; and it was natural that the Spanish church should be predisposed to wish that their country’s patron saint should be the author of a New Testament letter. But the martyrdom of James came too early for him to have written the letter, and in any case there is nothing beyond the Codex Corbeiensis to connect him with it.
(5) Finally, there is James, who is called the brother of Jesus. Although the first definite connection of him with this letter does not emerge until Origen in the first half of the third century, it is to him that it has always been traditionally attributed. The Roman Catholic Church agrees with this view, for in 1546 the Council of Trent laid it down that James is canonical and is written by an apostle.
Let us then collect the evidence about this James. From the New Testament, we learn that he was one of the brothers of Jesus (Mark 6:3; Matthew 13:55). We shall later discuss in what sense the word ‘brother’ is to be taken. During Jesus’ ministry, it is clear that his family did not understand or sympathize with him and would have wished to restrain him (Matthew 12:46–50; Mark 3:21, 3:31–5; John 7:3–9). John says bluntly: ‘For not even his brothers believed in him’ (John 7:5). So, during Jesus’ earthly ministry, James was numbered among his opponents.
With the Acts of the Apostles, there comes a sudden and unexplained change. When Acts opens, Jesus’ mother and his brothers are there with the little group of Christians (Acts 1:14). From there onwards, it becomes clear that James has become the leader of the Jerusalem church, although how that came about is never explained. It is to James that Peter sends the news of his escape from prison (Acts 12:17). James presides over the Council of Jerusalem, which agreed to the entry of the Gentiles into the Christian Church (Acts 15). It is James and Peter whom Paul meets when he first goes to Jerusalem, and it is with Peter, James and John, the pillars of the Church, that he discusses and settles his sphere of work (Galatians 1:19, 2:9). It is to James that Paul comes with his collection from the Gentile churches on the visit to Jerusalem which is destined to be his last and which leads to his imprisonment (Acts 21:18–25). This last episode is important, for it shows James very sympathetic to the Jews who still observe the Jewish law, and so eager that their scruples should not be offended that he actually persuades Paul to demonstrate his loyalty to the law by assuming responsibility for the expenses of certain Jews who are fulfilling a Nazirite vow, a vow taken in gratitude for some special blessing from God.
Plainly, then, James was the leader of the Jerusalem church. As might be expected, this was something which tradition greatly developed. Hegesippus, the second-century Church historian, says that James was the first bishop of the church at Jerusalem. The early Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria goes further and says that he was chosen for that office by Peter and John. Jerome, in his book On Famous Men, says: ‘After the passion of the Lord, James was immediately ordained bishop of Jerusalem by the apostles . . . He ruled the church of Jerusalem for thirty years, that is, until the seventh year of the reign of Nero.’ The Clementine Recognitions take the final step in the development of the legend, for they say that James was ordained Bishop of Jerusalem by none other than Jesus himself. Clement of Alexandria relates a strange tradition: ‘To James the Just, and John and Peter, after the resurrection, the Lord committed knowledge; they committed it to the other apostles; and the other apostles to the seventy.’ The later developments are not to be accepted, but the basic fact remains that James was the undisputed head of the church at Jerusalem.
James and Jesus
Such a change must have some explanation. It may well be that we have it in a brief sentence in the New Testament itself. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul gives us a list of the resurrection appearances of Jesus and includes the words: ‘Then he appeared to James’ (1 Corinthians 15:7). It so happens that there is a strange reference to James in the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which was one of the early gospels which did not gain admittance to the New Testament but which, to judge from its surviving fragments, had much of value in it. The following passage from it is handed down by Jerome:
Now the Lord, when he had given the linen cloth unto the