the wise man of St James shows his works by a good life, and his wisdom is full of mercy and good works; he is not only a hearer but a doer of the word. And by these works, and not by faith only, a man is justified. Again it is significant that St James does not speak, with St Paul, of being justified by faith in Christ, and his language may well have had its roots in the Old Testament, and in our Lord's own words, Matt. xii. 37, Luke xvi. 15, xviii. 14.

It may be further noted that, at least in the passages before us, the 'faith' of St James is faith in God, a faith shared by Jew and Christian alike that God, the God of Israel, is One, ii. 19; a belief expressed in the primary article of the Jewish Creed, Deut. vi. 4-9, which every adult male in Israel repeated twice a day (Schürer, Jewish People, Div. II. vol. II. p. 84, E. T.). Here too we find that we are not dealing with the 'faith' of St Paul in his teaching on justification, and if St James had been opposing that teaching, it is inconceivable that he should have made no reference to such a passage as Rom. iv. 23-25. The picture of a Jew drawn in Rom. ii. 17 by a Jew, as also in our Lord's vehement rebukes of the scribes and Pharisees, is exactly that which forms the background of the Epistle of St James, a confident boasting of belief in God, coupled with an utter want of the spiritual and moral earnestness which should be engendered by that belief. And if the illustrations of this failure of practical belief in the simplest deeds of mercy and good works do not carry us back to our Lord's own words, Matt. xxv. 34 ff. (words also spoken in anticipation of a judgment), yet at least we cannot help seeing how thoroughly in accordance with Jewish ideas is the stress laid upon works of mercy and pity in view of the coming judgment, and the practical kind of works which St James evidently has in mind'.

Moreover, Jewish literature affords us reason to suppose that the question of justification by faith or works may have claimed attention in the Jewish Schools, even if we cannot lay our hands upon any instance of the precise phrases 'to be justified by faith,' 'to be justified by works.' We may take for instance such a passage as that in the Testament of Abraham, xiii. (a document in many respects intensely Jewish, although probably in its present form the

1 Cf. e.g. Tob. xii. 9, Ecclus. xxviii. 1 ff., and Testament of Abraham, x. B, where the soul of a woman is brought before the heavenly judge, and the soul said, Lord, have mercy on me. And the judge said, How shall I have mercy upon thee, when thou hadst no mercy upon thy daughter, the fruit of thy womb? Other instances are given by Spitta, and see further commentary on ii. 14.

work of a Jewish-Christian1), where we read 'But if the fire approves the work of anyone, and does not seize upon it, that man is justified, and the angel of righteousness takes him, and carries him up to be saved in the lot of the just.' Or we may turn to the Apocalypse of Baruch and note how 'those who have been saved by their works' are elsewhere described as 'those who are justified' (ii. 7 and v. 1). Certainly in 2 Esdras we meet with passages, cf. ix. 7, xiii. 23, in which the thought of salvation by works' is modified by the addition of the words and by faith". However this may be, it would certainly seem that both Baruch and Esdras help us to draw the same inference, viz. that the question of salvation by faith or works was not raised for the first time in the New Testament.

But further, if we have to look to the writings of St James and St Paul for the occurrence of the exact phrase 'to be justified by faith' or 'by works,' it may still be fairly urged that not only do both writers seem to regard these phrases as already quite familiar, but also that Jewish literature furnishes evidence that the value to be assigned to the faith of Abraham was a topic already claiming Jewish thought and attention. Thus in 1 Macc. ii. 52 we read, 'Was not Abraham found faithful in temptation, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness?' and it is noteworthy that Abraham's faith is mentioned first amongst the works of the fathers,' ib. 51. In Ecclesiasticus xliv. 20 we again read of Abraham 'and in temptation he was found faithful' (a repetition of the first clause in the former passage quoted). In view of such references it is quite possible that St James might have been following Jewish tradition, and that he might have found in 1 Macc. a precedent for applying the words quoted there from Gen. xv. 6 in a similar manner, viz. by finding their fulfilment in Gen. xxii. 1 ff. It may also be observed that Gen. XV. 6 was frequently commented upon by Philo, and that if we turn

1 For the Christian elements in this work, probably of a Jewish-Christian writer of the second century, see Texts and Studies, 11. 2, Cambridge, 1892, p. 50. An English translation of the Greek of both of the recensions may be found in the Ante-Nicene Library, additional vol., T. and T. Clark, 1897.

2 See these and other passages quoted by Spitta, u.s. pp. 72, 73, 207, also by Mr Mayor, and Mr St John Thackeray, St Paul and Jewish Thought, p. 95. Dr Charles maintains that the doctrine of salvation by works, as it is found in Apoc. of Baruch, can hardly be said to exist in 2 Esdras, and he notes how in the latter book the doctrine is carefully guarded by the addition of the words mentioned above. But Mr Mayor's comments on the passages in Esdras (Expositor, May, 1897) should be read, and also Speaker's Commentary, in which 2 Esdras viii. 33 is compared with the apposite passage Apoc. of Baruch, xiv. 12.

from Alexandrine to Rabbinic theology, in the Mechilta on Exod. xiv. 31 we find the same verse expounded at length'.

But whilst the evidence seems to show that the passage Gen. xv. 6 may have been a subject of frequent discussion, it is still urged that the same thing cannot be said of the antithesis between faith and works. If, however, direct evidence is not forthcoming, it is very natural to suppose that the reconciliation of the claims of faith and works would afford a frequent topic of discussion in the Jewish Schools, when we bear in mind that on the one hand texts like Psalm lxii. 12, Prov. xxiv. 12, Jer. xxxii. 19 affirmed that God's judgment would be according to a man's works, whilst on the other hand Gen. xv. 6, Hab. ii. 4 declared that faith was reckoned for righteous

ness.

But it has been maintained that if St James is not directly opposing St Paul, he is nevertheless attacking perversions of Paul's teaching. It may, however, be fairly asked why St James in writing, as we believe, to Jewish-Christians should be careful to guard them against perversions of the teaching of Paul? They were scarcely the persons to be influenced by, least of all to be seduced by, teaching connected with the name of the Apostle of the Gentiles. Jülicher (Einleitung, p. 143) urges that the Epistle presupposes the misuse of Paul's teaching as to faith. But we may fairly ask what part of that teaching? Surely not its chief part, viz. the teaching of justification by faith in Christ Jesus, for if so we are again met by the strange circumstance that there is no reference whatever to the facts upon which that peculiar teaching was based; cf. Rom. iv. 25, x. 9o. If, again, St James was trying to guard against perversions of St Paul's teaching, it is strange that he should quote the same passage Gen. xv. 6 which St Paul employs, Rom. iv. 1-8, and that he should simply content himself with drawing from it his own conclusion, without seeking to invalidate St Paul's deductions by any explanations. There would also still remain the strange fact that in writing to Jewish-Christians on such a subject as the possible perversions of St Paul's teaching, St James should make no reference to those 'works of law' which played so prominent a part in St Paul's own exposition of his doctrine.

1 Lightfoot, Galatians, p. 162, 10th edit.; Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. 105.

2 It is noticeable that St James mentions as the object of the vaunted faith of his converts not the fundamental fact of the Gospel, Thou believest that God raised Christ from the dead,' but the fundamental axiom of the Law, 'Thou believest that God is One.' Lightfoot, Galatians, p. 370.

It is of course possible, as some notable critics have maintained, that St Paul is answering perversions which might have occurred of the teaching of St James, and no doubt some points in that teaching might have been perverted by the Judaisers. When e.g. St James wrote 'whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all,' ii. 10, what was easier than for the Judaisers to assert that St James demanded that the whole Mosaic code should be strictly observed? But apart from these possible perversions, there was nothing in the actual Epistle which St Paul could not have endorsed, although he himself was called to propound a wider and a deeper teaching, to show how God would 'justify the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith' (Rom. iii. 30), and to point to the faith of Abraham as a type of the faith of every Christian, Rom. iv. 16-25.

It is of interest to note that a view differing from those already mentioned is adopted by Dr Zahn, Einleitung, I. p. 190. He considers it probable that St Paul derives the statement that Abraham was 'justified by works and hath whereof to glory,' Rom. iv. 2 (a statement which is introduced, he thinks, quite unexpectedly), not from the Old Testament, but from St James, and that whilst St Paul does not directly oppose St James's interpretation of Gen. xv. 6, he develops his own teaching as to justification by faith from the same passage, and that too much more thoroughly than he had done in his earlier Epistle, Gal. iii. 5–7.

Zahn then in adopting this view maintains strongly a connection between Rom. iv. 1 ff. and James ii. 21, 23. In this, as he himself allows, he agrees with Spitta, inasmuch as he considers that Paul writes with reference to James, although of course he differs altogether from Spitta's main position, and rightly urges that if the Epistle bearing the name of James had been merely a Jewish document, it is quite impossible to see why St Paul should have troubled to refer to the production of an unknown Jew.

VIII. But there is another reason why it is of interest to note this view of Dr Zahn's. In his exposition of it, he lays stress upon the fact that of all St Paul's writings, only Romans shows traces of the influence of St James's Epistle.

The passages upon which Dr Zahn lays special stress, Rom. v. 3 = James i. 2-4, Rom. vii. 23 = James iv. 1, are also emphasised by Drs Sanday and Headlam (Romans, p. lxxvii.) as those which bear the closest resemblance, whilst Dr Salmon (Introd. p. 463) regards

them with the addition of Rom. ii. 13-James i. 22 as pointing to a verbal similarity which is more than accidental. But it may be fairly questioned whether these resemblances, and others of a less striking character, may not be accounted for by remembering that both St James and St Paul would have access to a common stock of language in use in Christian circles, or whether they are really more strange than many other coincidences in literature. The question therefore of any direct literary dependence between the two documents may be considered an open one, whether we approach it from the point of view of an alleged identity of phraseology, or, as we have already seen, of a controversial relationship'.

If we turn to another N.T. book, 1 Peter, it can scarcely be said that the evidence warrants the very confident tone of Dr Moffatt, or that 'in spite of Beyschlag, Spitta, Schmiedel, and Zahn' it is sufficient to affirm that the priority of 1 Peter must be allowed on the ground that St James gives the impression of having quoted and adapted sayings from a previous writer. A different view of this alleged priority is at all events formed by one of the ablest of recent writers on St Peter, Dr Chase (Hastings' B.D. III. 788, 789), and Dr Zahn (Einleitung, I. 95) has also subjected the supposed dependence of St James to a close and rigorous examination. He joins issue with the above assertion in the plainest manner, as, according to him, it is St Peter who has softened the bold and rugged thought of St James, and expanded his terse language. If we compare e.g. James i. 18 with 1 Pet. i. 23 we find in St Peter what certainly looks like an expansion of the words of St James, and, in the same manner, the teaching of Isaiah xl. 6-8 which is only touched by St James in i. 10 is employed far more explicitly in 1 Pet. i. 24. So again the simpler expressions of St James in i. 21 are much more fully given in 1 Pet. ii. 1, 2, and, in the same manner, the command

1 See to the same effect Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. 78, and Salmon, Introd. p. 463.

2 Historical N.T. p. 578, 2nd edit. Dr Grafe in his recent work on St James's Epistle can only speak, p. 27, of St Peter's priority as probable. Dr Hort and Professor Mayor agree with the Germans mentioned above, whilst it should be remembered that Dr B. Weiss, who is quoted on the other side, advocates the priority of 1 Peter on the ground that it is one of the earliest books of the N.T.

* Amongst the advocates of the priority of 1 Peter, we must now place Dr Bigg, St Peter and St Jude, p. 23, 1902, International and Critical Commentary; but on the other hand, and with reference to the two passages upon which most stress is laid by Dr Bigg, see Mayor, p. xlviii., Spitta, Der Jakobusbrief, pp. 190, 199, and also comments above.