James.
Comp. on the lit., biography, and doctrine of James, §§ 27 and 69.
The Epistle of James the Brother of the Lord was written, no doubt, from Jerusalem, the
metropolis of the ancient theocracy and Jewish Christianity, where the author labored and died a
martyr at the head of the mother church of Christendom and as the last connecting link between
the old and the new dispensation. It is addressed to the Jews and Jewish Christians of the dispersion
before the final doom in the year 70.
It strongly resembles the Gospel of Matthew, and echoes the Sermon on the Mount in the
fresh, vigorous, pithy, proverbial, and sententious style of oriental wisdom. It exhorts the readers
to good works of faith, warns them against dead orthodoxy, covetousness, pride, and worldliness,
and comforts them in view of present and future trials and persecutions. It is eminently practical
and free from subtle theological questions. It preaches a religion of good works which commends
itself to the approval of God and all good men. It represents the primary stage of Christian doctrine.
It takes no notice of the circumcision controversy, the Jerusalem compromise, and the later conflicts
of the apostolic age. Its doctrine of justification is no protest against that of Paul, but prior to it,
and presents the subject from a less developed, yet eminently practical aspect, and against the error
of a barren monotheism rather than Pharisaical legalism, which Paul had in view. It is probably the
oldest of the New Testament books, meagre in doctrine, but rich in comfort and lessons of holy
living based on faith in Jesus Christ, "the Lord of glory." It contains more reminiscences of the
words of Christ than any other epistle.^1124 Its leading idea is "the perfect law of freedom," or the
law of love revealed in Christ.
Luther’s harsh, unjust, and unwise judgment of this Epistle has been condemned by his own
church, and reveals a defect in his conception of the doctrine of justification which was the natural
result of his radical war with the Romish error.
Peter.
See on the lit., biography, and theology of Peter, §§ 25, 26, and 70.
The First Epistle of Peter, dated from Babylon,^1125 belongs to the later life of the apostle,
when his ardent natural temper was deeply humbled, softened, and sanctified by the work of grace.
It was written to churches in several provinces of Asia Minor, composed of Jewish and Gentile(^1124) Reuss (Gesch. d. heil. Schriften N. Testaments, 5th ed., I. 138): "Thatsache ist, dass die Ep. Jacobi für sich allein mehr
wörtliche Reminiscenzen aus den Reden Jesu enthält als alle übrigen Apost. Schriften zusammen .... Insofern dieselben offenbar
nicht aus schriftlichen Quellen geflossen sind, mögen sie mit das höhere Alter deg Briefs verbürgen." Beyschlag (in the new ed.
of Huther in Meyer, 1881) and Erdmann (1881), the most recent commentators of James, agree with Schneckenburger, Neander,
and Thiersch in assigning the Epistle to the earliest date of Christian literature, against the Tübingen school, which makes it a
polemical treatise against Paul. Reuss occupies a middle position. The undeveloped state of Christian doctrine, the use of
συναγωγὴ for a Christian assembly (James 2:2), the want of a clear distinction between Jews and Jewish Christians, who are
addressed as "the twelve tribes," and the expectation of the approaching parousia (5:8), concur as signs of the high antiquity.
(^1125) Commentators are divided on the meaning of Babylon, 1 Pet. 5:13, whether it be the mystic Babylon of the Apocalypse,
i.e., heathen Rome, as a persecuting power (the fathers, Roman Catholic divines, also Thiersch, Baur, Renan), or Babylon on
the Euphrates, or Babylon in Egypt (old Cairo). The question is connected with Peter’s presence in Rome, which has been
discussed in § 26. On the date of composition commentators are likewise divided, as they differ in their views on the relation of
Peter’s Epistle to Romans, Ephesians, and James, and on the character of the persecution alluded to in the Epistle. Weiss, who
denies that Peter used the Epistles of Paul, dates it back as far as 54; the Tübingen critics bring it down to the age of Trajan
(Volkmar even to 140!), but most critics assign it to the time between 63 and 67, Renan to 63, shortly before the Neronian
persecution. For once I agree with him. See Huther (in the Meyer series), 4th ed., pp. 30 sqq.; Weiss, Die Petrinische Frage
(1865); Renan, L’Antechrist, p. vi and 110; and, on the part of the Tübingen school, Pfleiderer, Paulinismus, pp. 417 sqq.;
Hilgenfeld, Einleitung, pp. 625 sqq.; Holtzmann, Einleitung, pp. 514 sqq. (2d ed.).
A.D. 1-100.