History of the Christian Church, Volume I: Apostolic Christianity. A.D. 1-100.

The Epistle of James stands at the head of the Catholic Epistles, so called, and represents

the first and lowest stage of Christian knowledge. It is doctrinally very meagre, but eminently

practical and popular. It enjoins a simple, earnest, and devout style of piety that visits the orphans

and widows, and keeps itself unspotted from the world.^765

The close connection between the Epistle of James and the Gospel of Matthew arises

naturally from their common Jewish Christian and Palestinian origin.

Notes

I. James and Paul.. The apparent contradiction in the doctrine of justification appears in

James 2:14–26, as compared with Rom. 3:20 sqq.; 4:1 sqq.; Gal. 2:16 sqq. Paul says (Rom. 3:28):

"Man is justified by faith apart from works of law" (πίστει χωρὶς ἔργων νόμου), comp. Gal. 2:16

(οὐ δικαιοῦται ἄνθρωπος ἐζ ἔργων νόμου ἐὰν μὴ διὰ πίστεως Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ), and appeals to the

example of Abraham, who was justified by faith before he was circumcised (Gen. 17:10). James

2:24 says: "By works a man is justified, and not only by faith" (ἐξ ἔργων δικαιοῦται, ἄνθρωπος

καὶ οὐκ ἐκ πίστεῶς μόνον), and appeals to the example of the same Abraham who showed his true

faith in God by offering up his son Isaac upon the altar (Gen. 22:9, 12). Luther makes the

contradiction worse by unnecessarily inserting the word allein(sola fide) in Rom. 3:28, though not

without precedent (see my note on the passage in the Am. ed. of Lange on Romans, p. 136). The

great Reformer could not reconcile the two apostles, and rashly called the Epistle of James an

"epistle of straw" (eine recht ströherne Epistel, Pref. to the New Test., 1524).

Baur, from a purely critical point of view, comes to the same conclusion; he regards the

Epistle of James as a direct attack upon the very heart of the doctrine of Paul, and treats all attempts

at reconciliation as vain. (Vorles. über neutestam. Theol., p. 277). So also Renan and Weiffenbach.

Renan (St. Paul, ch. 10) asserts without proof that James organized a Jewish counter-mission to

undermine Paul. But in this case, James, as a sensible and practical man, ought to have written to

Gentile Christians, not to "the twelve tribes," who needed no warning against Paul and his doctrine.

His Epistle represents simply an earlier and lower form of Christianity ignorant of the higher, yet

preparatory to it, as the preaching of John the Baptist prepared the way for that of Christ. It was

written without any reference to Paul, probably before the Council of Jerusalem and before the

circumcision controversy, in the earliest stage of the apostolic church as it is described in the first

chapters of the Acts, when the Christians were not yet clearly distinguished and finally separated

from the Jews. This view of the early origin of the Epistle is maintained by some of the ablest

historians and commentators, as Neander, Schneckenburger, Theile, Thiersch, Beyschlag, Alford,

Basset, Plumptre, Stanley. Weiss also says very confidently (Bibl. Theol. 3d ed., p. 120): "Der Brief

gehört der vorpaulinischen Zeit an und steht jedenfalls zeitlich wie inhaltlich dem ersten Brief Petri

am nächsten." He therefore treats both James and Peter on their own merits, without regard to

Paul’s teaching. Comp. his Einleitung in d. N. T. (1886), p. 400.

II. James and Matthew. The correspondence has often been fully pointed out by Theile and

other commentators. James contains more reminiscences of the words of Christ than any other

by faith alone, but faith remains not alone: it is the fruitful mother of good works, which are summed up in love to God and love

to men. Faith and love are as inseparable as light and heat in the sun. Christ’s merits are the objective and meritorious ground

of justification; faith (as the organ of appropriation) is the subjective condition; love or good works are the necessary evidence;

without love faith is dead, according to James, or no faith at all, according to Paul. A great deal of misunderstanding in this and

other theological controversies has arisen from the different use of terms."

(^765) James 1:27; comp. 5:13sqq., and the concluding verse.
A.D. 1-100.