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                            Studies _in the_
                           Epistle _of_ James


                          _First published as_
                      PRACTICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS
                            OF CHRISTIANITY


                            A. T. ROBERTSON
    Late Professor of New Testament Interpretation, Southern Baptist
               Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky

                        _Revised and Edited by_
                            Heber F. Peacock

[Illustration: ]

                             BROADMAN PRESS
                         _Nashville, Tennessee_

                               421-06232

           _Library of Congress catalog card number: 59-5861_
                Printed in the United States of America
                              5.AT58K.S.P.




                                Preface


In August, 1912, it was my privilege to deliver a course of lectures at
the Northfield Bible Conference. There were many requests for the
publication of the addresses. I shall never forget the bright faces of
the hundreds who gathered in beautiful Sage Chapel at 8:30 on those
August mornings. In August, 1913, the lectures were repeated at the New
York Chautauqua and at the Winona Bible Conference. There were renewed
appeals for publication, but it was not possible to put the material
into shape because of my work on _A Grammar of the Greek New Testament
in the Light of Historical Research_.

I have expanded the lectures a good deal and have added some
introductory discussion about James himself. I have in mind ministers,
social workers, students of the Bible, Sunday school teachers, and all
lovers of the Word of God and of rightness of life. Technical matters
are placed in parentheses or in footnotes so that the reader may go on
without these if he cares to do so. There is a freshness in the Greek
text not possible in the English, but those who do not know Greek may
still read this book with entire ease.

I do not claim that these addresses are a detailed commentary on the
Epistle of James. They are expository talks based, I trust, on sober,
up-to-date scholarship and applied to modern life. It is the old gospel
in the new age that we need and must know how to use. There is a
wondrous charm in these words of the long ago from one who walked so
close by the side of the Son of man, who misunderstood him at first but
who came at last to rejoice in his Brother in the flesh as the Lord
Jesus Christ. It is immensely worthwhile to listen to what James has to
say about Christianity and the problems of everyday life. His words
throb with power today and strike a peculiarly modern note in the
emphasis upon social problems and reality in religion. They have the
breath of heaven and the warmth of human sympathy and love. Except for a
few quotations from the King James Version, Scripture quotations follow
the American Standard Version.




                       Preface to Second Edition


The welcome accorded this interpretation of the Epistle of James makes a
new edition necessary. Opportunity is thus afforded for weeding out
misprints. Prof. S. L. Watson, of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, has kindly
verified all the references in the book. The words of James strike a
peculiarly modern note during these days of war.

                                                                A. T. R.




                                Contents


  I. James, a Servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ               1
  II. To the Twelve Tribes Which Are of the Dispersion                 28
  III. Joy in Trial                                                    33
  IV. The Way of Temptation                                            48
  V. The Practice of the Word of God                                   60
  VI. Class Prejudice                                                  75
  VII. The Appeal to Life                                              91
  VIII. The Tongues of Teachers                                       104
  IX. The True Wise Man                                               124
  X. The Outer and the Inner Life                                     140
  XI. God and Business                                                158
  XII. Perseverance and Prayer                                        177




                                   I
          James, a Servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ


                        The Brother of the Lord

It will be well to put together the bits of information about James, or
Jacob,[1] as he is called in the Greek. They are not very numerous, and
yet it is possible to form a reasonably clear picture of his
personality.

It is here assumed that James the author of the epistle is James the
brother of the Lord (Gal. 1:19). It is hardly conceivable that James the
brother of John could have written the epistle, since he was put to
death as early as A.D. 44 by Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12:2). The matters
presented in the epistle were hardly acute in the Jewish Christian world
by that date, and there is no evidence that this James had attained a
special position of leadership that justified a general appeal to Jewish
Christians.[2]

The epistle belongs to the five “disputed” epistles (James, Jude, 2 and
3 John, 2 Peter) and it circulated in the East before it did in the
West. It occurs in the Peshitta Syriac Version. Origen (in Johan. xix.
6) knows it as “the Epistle current as that of James” and Eusebius (H.
E. III. xxv. 3) describes it with the other four as “nevertheless
well-known to most people.”

There are many proofs[3] that the epistle was written by the author of
the speech in Acts 15:13-21—delicate similarities of thought and style
too subtle for mere imitation or copying. The same likeness appears
between the Epistle of James and the letter to Antioch, probably written
also by James (Acts 15:23-29). There are, besides, apparent
reminiscences of the Sermon on the Mount, which James may have heard
personally or at least heard the substance of it. There is the same
vividness of imagery in the epistle that is so prominent a
characteristic of the teaching of Jesus.

If it be urged that the author of the epistle, if related to Jesus,
would have said so, one may reply that a delicate sense of propriety may
have had precisely the opposite effect. Jesus had himself laid emphasis
on the fact of his spiritual kinship with all believers as more
important (Matt. 12:48-50). The fact that James during the ministry of
Jesus was not sympathetic with His work would also act as a restraining
force upon him. The brother of Jesus (see also Jude 1) naturally would
wish to make his appeal on the same plane as the other teachers of the
gospel. He rejoices in the title of “servant of God and of the Lord
Jesus Christ,” just as Paul did later (Rom. 1:1; Phil. 1:1; Titus 1:1)
and as Jude, the brother of James, did (Jude 1).

Paul, however, added the term “apostle” in Romans 1:1 and Titus 1:1
which James and Jude do not employ. None of them were members of the
twelve, although Paul claimed apostleship on a par with the twelve (1
Cor. 9:1 f.; 15:8; 2 Cor. 12:11 f.). And yet Paul implies (Gal. 1:19)
that James also is an apostle[4] in a true sense of that term. Like
Paul, he had seen the risen Lord (1 Cor. 15:7). But James, though one of
the pillars at Jerusalem with Peter and John (Gal. 2:9), is content with
the humbler word “slave.” He is the bondsman of the Lord Jesus Christ as
well as of God and so is a Christian in the full sense of the term.

He places Jesus on a par with God and uses Christ as a part of the name.
He identifies his brother Jesus with the Messiah of the Old Testament
and the fulfilment of the hopes and aspirations of true Judaism. One
must perceive that the term “Christ” in the mouth of James carries its
full content and is used deliberately. He adds also “Lord,” which has
here the Old Testament connotation of worship. It is not a mere polite
term for station or courtesy. The use of “Lord” by the side of “God”
places James unquestionably in the ranks of worshipers of Jesus Christ
as Lord and Saviour. See also James 2:1, “faith of our Lord Jesus
Christ.”

I consider it settled that James was not the cousin of Jesus, the son of
the sister of Mary the mother of Jesus. There is no doubt that the Greek
word for brother is used for members of a brotherhood in the current
Greek of the first century A.D., just as we find it so frequently in the
New Testament. This usage does not apply to the brothers of Jesus
referred to in the Gospels (John 2:12; Mark 6:3; Matt. 13:55; John 7:3).
In Matthew 12:46, 49 we find both the literal and the figurative use of
“brother” side by side. In this looser sense anyone may be called
“brother.”

In Leviticus 10:4 the first cousins of Aaron are termed “brethren,” but
this instance does not justify the constant use of the word in the
Gospels for a definite group of persons as brothers of Jesus if they
were only cousins. Besides, they appear constantly with Mary, the mother
of Jesus, as members of her family. The use of “sisters” increases the
argument for the common use of the word (Mark 6:3; Matt. 13:56). There
are many other difficulties in the way of this position, such as the
fact of two sisters with the name of Mary and the identification of
Alphaeus and Clopas.

The theory that James and the other brothers and sisters were all
children of Joseph by a former marriage (step-brother theory) is free
from the difficulty about the word “brother” and is not inconceivable in
itself. Unfortunately there are critical objections to it, for Jesus is
not called “only begotten” of Mary but “firstborn” in Luke 2:7: “She
brought forth her firstborn son.”

Jesus is “only begotten” of God (John 1:18), as the widow of Nain had an
only son (Luke 7:12) and Jairus an only daughter (Luke 8:42). But
“firstborn” occurs in the true sense all through the Septuagint (cf.
Gen. 27:19, 32; 43:33; Deut. 21:15), where there were other children.
The inscriptions show it in the true sense. The New Testament instances
of “firstborn” are all strictly correct from this standpoint, even
Colossians 1:15 and Romans 8:29. “Firstborn” implies other children.
Besides, the natural meaning of Matthew 1:25 leads to the same
conclusion.

The theory (brother or half-brother theory) that Jesus and James were
sons of the same mother, Mary, may be said to hold the field against the
others. In fact, it is most likely that both of the other theories grew
out of the desire to secure a greater imaginary sanctity for Mary under
the impression that she was more holy if she bore only Jesus and did not
live as wife with Joseph. But this is contrary to all Jewish sentiment,
and certainly there is nothing in the Gospels to countenance this notion
but much to contradict it. We conclude, therefore, that James, the
author of the epistle, is the brother of Jesus.


                    In the Family Circle at Nazareth

In spite of Origen’s opinion (Origen on Matt. 13:55) that the sons and
daughters of Joseph were children of a former marriage, an opinion more
than offset by the position of Tertullian (_de Monog. 8_, _de Virg. Vel.
6_), we must think of the family circle at Nazareth as composed of five
brothers (Jesus, James, Joses, Judas, Simon, as in Mark 6:3, but Jesus,
James, Joseph, Simon, Judas in Matt. 13:55) and the “sisters.” Every
implication is that they all passed as sons and daughters of Joseph and
Mary in the usual sense. The order implies also that while Jesus was the
eldest, James came next among the brothers. Unfortunately, the names of
the sisters are not given.

We are to think, therefore, of a large home circle in the humble
carpenter’s house in Nazareth. Jesus, the eldest, followed the trade of
Joseph, the father of the family, and came to be known as “the
carpenter” (Mark 6:3). Certainly all the children must have learned to
work with their hands, although we do not know whether James adopted
that trade or some other. He would soon be called upon to help in the
support of the family, as Joseph seems to be dead when Jesus enters upon
his ministry; he is not mentioned with Mary and the children in Matthew
13:55 and Mark 6:3. Joseph was probably older than Mary. The family were
not peasants, and they probably had all the necessary comforts of the
simple primitive life of a workman in a small town in Galilee.

Jewish boys usually started to school when six years old, but before
that the education of James had begun in the home. “James, together with
his brothers and sisters, was brought up in an atmosphere charged with
reverence for God and love for man, with tenderness, freedom, and
joy.”[5] The Jewish parents did not shirk parental responsibility for
the religious training of the children, and a large family was regarded
as a blessing from God. The love of God was the first of all lessons
taught at home, and this was followed by the simple elements of truth,
uprightness, mercy, and beneficence.[6] The Jewish mother rejoiced in
her children, and James was fortunate in having such a mother as Mary
and such a father as Joseph, whose dedication to the things of their God
was sincere.

At school, while religion was the main theme and portions of the Old
Testament the textbook, there was abundant intellectual stimulus. The
quick-witted boy would be all alive to the great problems of faith and
duty. The teacher would probably use the Aramaic dialect of Galilee,
even if he had the Old Testament in Hebrew. But the boy would soon learn
to speak the _Koine_ also, the current Greek of the world, the language
of commerce and of common intercourse everywhere. Simon Peter, the
fisherman, knew and used Greek, as did John, the apostle. It was common
for people to know two languages. Paul probably knew Aramaic and Hebrew,
Greek and Latin. Jesus knew and spoke both Aramaic and Greek and
probably knew Hebrew also.

James came to write Greek with a great deal of ease and skill. He was in
no sense a littérateur. He was no Atticist in his style and did not try
to imitate the classical Greek writers, whom he probably never read.
Deissmann[7] does call the Epistle of James “a little piece of
literature,” but he means a product of popular literature. Certainly
there is nothing artificial in content and style. Is it mere fancy to
think that the same poetic beauty shown in Mary’s Magnificat (Luke
1:46-55) appears in the Sermon on the Mount and in the Epistle of James?
At least the rich acquaintance with the Old Testament exists in all
three.

The author of the epistle is gifted with imagination and shows knowledge
of the apocryphal books, especially the wisdom literature of the Jews.
But he is a thorough Jew in his outlook and literary method,[8] so much
so indeed that it is contended by some that James wrote the epistle
originally in Aramaic,[9] an unlikely supposition. The widespread
diffusion of Greek in Palestine amply accounts for the author’s grasp of
the language.[10] The epigrammatic and picturesque style is due to the
writer’s individuality, his environment, and his reading. His vocabulary
is rich in words about fishing, husbandry, and domestic life, as one
would expect.[11] A man of the force and position of James could easily
broaden his acquaintance with the Greek tongue as the years went by. The
Greek is pure _Koine_, with few Hebraisms, though the tone is distinctly
that of the Old Testament.[12] He speaks like a prophet of old in the
service of Christ. There is no doubt that James came to be a man of
culture in a real sense.

He probably married early, as it was the custom of the Jews for men to
marry at the