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raised to the high-priesthood by Agrippa] was naturally fierce and hardy; by sect a Sadducee, the most censorious and uncharitable sort of people upon the face of the earth. This being his way and opinion, he took his opportunity, in the interval betwixt the death of Festus and the arrival of his successor Albinus, who was as yet but upon the way, to call a council together, with the assistance of the judges, and to cite James, the brother of Jesus, which was called Christ, with some others, to appear before them, and answer to a charge of blasphemy, and breach of the law; whereupon they were condemned, and delivered up to be stoned." The account proceeds to say that all the sober and conscientious part of the city were so much offended with this high-handed way of acting, that they sent a representation of it, with a remonstrance, both to King Agrippa and to Albinus; the consequence of which was, that Ananus was deposed by Agrippa from the pontificate. This passage would be decisive, were it not that several learned men question the genuineness of the words, "the brother of Jesus which was called Christ." Lardner thinks that they are an interpolation, and inclines to the account given by Eusebius, in the second book of his Ecclesiastical History; who says, "When Paul had appealed to Cæsar, and had been sent to Rome by Festus, the Jews, who had aimed at

his death, being disappointed in that design, turned their rage against James, the Lord's brother, who had been appointed by the apostles bishop of Jerusalem"; and then he goes on to state that James was killed in a popular tumult. If this narrative is the true one, it makes the death of the apostle a year or two earlier than it is dated by Josephus; but at any rate we may safely fix it somewhere about the year 60, and eight or ten years before the destruction of Jerusalem. He was buried, according to Gregory, bishop of Tours, on Mount Olivet, in a tomb which he had built for himself.

So great was the reputation of James for sanctity, that his death was supposed by the Jews themselves to have hastened the destruction of their city. Some of the Fathers tell us that this was asserted by Josephus; but the passage is not now to be found in his works. Both the accounts of James's death agree that he was stoned. It is added in the relation of Hegesippus, as preserved by Eusebius, that he was finally despatched by the blow of a fuller's club.

The following excellent summary of the main facts in the life of James is from the close of Lardner's account of that apostle.

"James, sometimes called the Less, the son of Alpheus, and called the Lord's brother, either as being the son of Joseph by a former wife, or a

relation of his mother Mary, was one of Christ's apostles. We have no account of the time when he was called to the apostleship. Nor is there anything said of him particularly in the history of our Saviour which is in the Gospels. But from the Acts, and St. Paul's Epistles, we can perceive that after our Lord's ascension he was of note among the apostles. Soon after St. Stephen's death in the year 36, or thereabout, he seems to have been appointed president or superintendent in the church of Jerusalem, where, and in Judæa, he resided the remaining part of his life. Accordingly, he presided in the Council of Jerusalem, held there in the year 49 or 50. He was in great repute among the Jewish people, both believers and unbelievers, and was surnamed the Just. Notwithstanding which, he suffered martyrdom in a tumult at the temple; and probably in the former part of the year 62."

There is one epistle, among the canonical books of the New Testament, which is very generally ascribed to James the Less, the brother or cousin of Jesus, though some doubt has been entertained of its authenticity and apostolic authority, and no distinct reference to it is to be found. in the writings of the earliest Fathers. In the time of Eusebius, however, it was universally received and read in the churches. It is a noble exhortation, full of good sense and spirit, digni

fied, independent, and explicit. Its value is of the highest description, both as it is an unreserved declaration of the intrinsic merit and importance of good works or virtue, and as it contains a most fearless, indignant, and forcible denunciation of the reigning vices and follies of the generation to whom the apostle wrote. A common opinion among the ancient writers of the Church is, that the first part of it was composed expressly to explain those passages of Paul's epistles which seem to slight good works, and make everything of faith, or mere belief; and that the severe rebukes and warnings which are contained in the latter portion of it were the chief occasion of the writer's being stoned to death by the Jewish populace; as that event is supposed to have taken place a short time after the publication of the epistle.

That the encomium of James on good works was intended to explain some of those things in Paul's writings which were hard to be understood is not improbable; but that it is in direct opposition to them, as some have thought, is not only improbable, but impossible. For it is impossible to read Paul's description of charity, in which he declares that it is greater than both faith and hope, and still to believe that he would so directly contradict himself as to reverse this order, and exalt faith above charity; or that he

intended by what he calls works, and the works of the law, what we mean by good works and Christian morality or virtue. The world have been too long, and much too vehemently disputing about the relative superiority of faith and works, and arraying James against Paul, and Paul against himself. It was, perhaps, a strong bias toward one side of this controversy, or rather a bigoted and dogmatical attachment to it, quite as much as any doubts of the genuineness and antiquity of James's epistle, which induced Luther to call it, in contempt, "an epistle of straw."* Despite, however, of this coarse epithet of the Reformer, it has maintained its authority in the Christian Church, an authority which, if intrinsic excellence and internal evidence have any weight, it amply deserves.

His day in the Calendar is May 1st, which is

also dedicated to the Apostle Philip..q

*"Epistola straminea," a strawy epistle, is the phrase applied by Luther to the epistle of James. The boldness, and perhaps even the rudeness, of the great Reformer qualified him to carry through his enterprise as he did, under circumstances and in an age which demanded not only decision, but a rough, uncompromising, unfeeling decision. Granting this to be the case, still he is not to be regarded as a pattern of Christian meekness, forbearance, or charity, qualities which neither he, nor his contemporary Calvin, in any great degree possessed. Luther was more wild in his doctrine of faith than even Calvin; and he vented his spleen against good works on the excellent epistle of James, in an expression of contempt which would not be tolerated at the present day.

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