THE

BIBLE CHRISTIAN MAGAZINE.

SHORT STUDIES IN THE LIFE OF ST. PAUL.

ST. JAMES THE JUST.

* Οτι ἑώρακάς με, πεπίστευκας μακάριοι οἱ μὴ ἰδόντες, καὶ πιστεύσαντες.” John xx. 29.

E are now approaching the greatest crisis in the history of the Christian Church. But before we venture on an

examination of the Great Contention at Jerusalem, let us endeavour to find out what we can of the extraordinary man who there commanded such profound respect, and whose decision was regarded as final by the Hebraist believers at least. Who, then, was this "James, the Lord's brother?" Was he one of the "Twelve?" Are we to identify him with James the Little, the son of Alphæus? Did he write the Epistle that bears the name of James ?

But for the prevalence of a blind and unhealthy superstition, I do not believe that these questions would ever have been raised. To speak plainly, if the perpetual virginity of the Mother of our Lord is indeed a sacred truth, and if it forms an essential article in our common Christian Faith, as is always and confidently asserted by the Roman Catholic, and the several Eastern Churches, then on one vital question at least the four evangelists have not only failed to reveal the whole truth, but have conspired together, either wittingly or unwittingly, to use language every way calculated to mislead and deceive us. Whether such a thing is probable, or even possible, I leave for those to decide who are resolved at all hazards to interpret the simplest and most natural language in a forced and unnatural sense. The obvious inference from Matt. i. 24-25, is that after the birth of Jesus, Joseph and Mary lived together as other married persons do. It is asserted, I am aware, by many very eminent Greek scholars that the words do not necessarily bear this interpretation; but it is as certain as anything can

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be that any other explanation was suggested by à priori prejudice, and not by the plain language of the Evangelist. Matthew and Luke both speak of our Lord as Mary's first-born (Matt. i. 25; Luke ii. 7). If Mary had no other children it would have been quite as easy, and infinitely more explicit to say so. St. Matthew tells us that the Nazarenes, our Lord's fellow-townsmen, on hearing His teaching cried out, Is not this the carpenter's son ? Is not his mother called Mary? and his brothers James and Joseph, and Simon and Judas; and his sisters, are they not all with us?" (Matt. xiii. 55-56). St. Mark, writing under the very eye and possibly at the dictation of St. Peter, repeats the self-same language without a word of explanation or qualification (Mark vi. 3.) And lastly St. John, who wrote his Gospel several years after his brother evangelists were sleeping in the dust, and who certainly ought to have supplied any very serious omission of the synoptists, and to have corrected any misapprehension arising from the use of loose and inaccurate phraseology, adopts their language, and adds no syllable of caution or correction (John vii. 3-10). It seems to me, therefore, that we must accept the simple and obvious teaching of the four Evangelists on this point, or candidly admit once for all that in reading the Gospels we tread on slippery ground, inasmuch as the plainest language may possibly be used in an arbitrary and accommodating sense. Bishop Lightfoot, and Dean Plumptre, who do not accept the conclusion which appears to me inevitable, both admit that "the impression made by the language of the New Testament is in favour of their being brethren in the fullest sense of the word."-(Lightfoot: Galatians pp. 252 seqq.; Plumptre: St. James p. 17).

It is therefore not a little remarkable that a vast majority of writers during fourteen centuries have contended that James was our Lord's cousin. The author of this hypothesis was St, Jerome, who announced it in his De Perpetua Virginitate Beata Maria, published shortly before the close of the fourth century. The theory is in every way worthy of its author. If we accept it we must be prepared to believe among other things,-that the sacred writers who have taken so much pains to indicate the precise relationship of Simon Peter and Andrew (Matt. x. 2), of James and John the sons of Zebedee (Matt. x. 2), of Mary and Elizabeth (Luke i. 36), of Peter and his wife's mother (Matt. vii. 14), of Paul and his sister's son (Acts xxiii. 16), of Barnabas and John Mark (Coloss. iv. 10, see Revised Version), and even of Alexander and Rufus, the sons of Simon the Cyrenian (Mark xv. 21), men almost unknown to us, have in a case of infinitely greater importance agreed in mis-stating the relationship every time it is referred to; that the Virgin Mary had

a sister likewise called Mary; that Alphæus and Clôpas (not Cleophas, see John xix. 25, and compare with Revised Version) are approximations of one and the same Aramaic word; that the apostle who is variously named by the Evangelists, Lebbæus, Thaddeus, Jude of James, and Judas not Iscariot, was a son of the same Clôpas and Mary, and a brother of our Lord in the same sense as James, though the New Testament writers nowhere say so, and seem to hide the fact of set purpose; that Jude of James bears the unusual significance of Jude, brother of James, instead of the ordinary meaning-Jude, the son of James; and that the mother of our Lord, "the ever blessed Theotokos," allied herself with her sister's sons in a most presumptuous attempt to silence Him when engaged in his public ministry.* Such wild assumptions and glaring improbabilities would be fatal to any theory however plausible in other respects; that, however, of St. Jerome has not a single argument to recommend it. And this is not all nor nearly all. Our Lord repeatedly upbraids the unbelief of his own kindred, and within a few months of His crucifixion he tells his brothers plainly that their hopes and aims are widely different from His (John vii). On this occasion the evangelist adds pointedly, "For neither did His brothers believe on Him." Yet according to this theory two at least, and if we are to assume any consistency at all in the sacred writers, three of these very brothers, James, Simon, and Judas, were believers from the very first, and were chosen among the Twelve. In the first chapter of the Acts, St. Luke, when enumerating those who were assembled in the upper chamber at Jerusalem, awaiting the promise of the Paraclete, mentions the eleven apostles, and the 66 women (Mary of Magdala and her Galilean friends), "with the Mother of Jesus and His brothers" (Acts i. 13-14). Here therefore the brothers appear as distinct from, and in a manner contrasted with the apostles. Yet we are asked to believe that three out of the four brothers whose names have come down to us were themselves apostles. And it is not a little remarkable that the very writers, who, whenever it suits their purpose are prepared to twist the sacred narrative out of all form and consistency in this way, are the very men who vehemently contend for the verbal infallibility of the self-same writers (not to say of their copyists and translators), and who are ready to hurl their anathemas against any one who ventures to point out a discrepancy, or to dispute the claims of any book in the sacred canon.

Bishop Lightfoot defends the theory that the brethren were children of Joseph by a previous marriage. There is not a vestige

Compare Mark iii. 21, with Mark iii. 31-33. I have not met with this argument anywhere, but it seems to me unanswerable.

of evidence in support of this assumption: the marriage and the issue are alike apocryphal. The only arguments that he can suggest are rather apologetic surmises than arguments. In the first place he notices the air of authority that the brothers assume in the narrative already referred to (Mark, iii.); and, secondly, the fact that our dying Lord commended the care of His mother to the younger son of Zebedee and Salome rather than to one of her own children. As to the air of authority, is it not rather the tone and air of obstinate unbelief? With respect to the other circumstances it would be easy to suggest a sufficient explanation; but surely on such a sacred theme silence is golden. It may suffice us to remember that our Lord knew and did what was best to do.

But why take such infinite pains to establish the bare possibility of a theory, the probability of which never has been, and never can be, demonstrated-much less the certainty-and all to prove that the married life of our Lord's mother differed from that of other women? Is this exaltation of the celibate above the married life a healthy thing? On the contrary, I believe it is utterly unnatural, unwholesome, and mischievous; and that Divine Revelation, Common Sense, and Universal History emphatically condemn it; and unless we are prepared to bow in humble adoration at the footstool of the "Mother of God," and to accept the outrageous dogma of the "Immaculate Conception," we do our Lord's mother higher honour to regard her as the pattern of a Christian wife and mother, than to suppose she lived a life impossible to other women, thus offering the world neither example nor encouragement. It will not, however, affect the estimate I have made of the character of St. James the Just whether we believe he was the son of Joseph and Mary or of Joseph by a previous marriage. In any case he was certainly the author of the "General Epistle of St. James." A few writers, it is true, have urged the claims of James the son of Zebedee. But this Apostle was martyred by Herod Agrippa I, A.D., 44, and the epistle evidently presupposes a development of Christian organisation impossible at that very early date. We have, therefore, to decide between the respective claims of James the Little, son of Alphæus, and of James the Lord's brother. Now, of the former we know absolutely nothing. Except in the list of the Eleven in the first chapter his name is not found in the "Acts of the Apostles." On the other hand after the martyrdom of James the son of Zebedee, in A.D., 44, James the Lord's brother is the central figure of the Church at Jerusalem, and such was his strength of character, and his well-defined individuality, that he was known far and near, and his influence was most deeply felt for generations after his death. If, therefore, the epistle had been