JAMES (jarnz),(Gr. 'Idsauf3os, ce-ak'o-bos). Three persons of this name are mentioned in the New Testament.
/. James, the Son of Zebedee (Matt. iv: 2i) and brother of the evangelist John (Nlark v:37). Their occupation was that of fishermen, probably at Bethsaida, in partnership with Simon Peter (Luke v:to). On comparing the account given in Matt. iv:21, Nlark jag, with that in John i, it would appear that James and John had been acquainted with our Lord, and had received him as the Messiah some time before lie called them to attend upon him statedly—a call with which they immediately com plied. Their mother's name was Salome. We find James, John, and Peter associated on sev eral interesting occasions in the Savior's life. They alone werc present at the Transfiguration (Matt. xvii:z ; Nlark ix:2; Luke ix:28) ; at the restoration to lifc of Jairus's daughter (Mark v :37; Lukc viii :51) and in the garden of Gethsemane during tile agony (Nlark xiv :33; Matt. xxvi :37 ; Luke xxii :39). With Andrew they listened in private to our Lord's discourse on the fall of Jerusalem (Nlark xiii :3). James and his brother appear to have indulged in false notions of the kingdom of the Messiah, and were led by am bitious views to join in the request made to Jesus by their mother (Matt. xx:2o-23; Mark x:35).
Character. From Luke ix:54. we may in fer that their temperament was warm and im petuous. On account, probably, of their boldness and energy in discharging their Apostleship, they received from their Lord the appellation of Boanerges, or Sons of Thunder (For the various eXplanations of this title given by the fathers see Suiceri, Thes. Eccles. s. v. Bporrh, and Lticke's Con/mentor, Bonn. 184o; Einleitung, c. i. sec. 2, p. 17). James was the first martyr among the Apostles. Clement of Alexandria, in a fragment preserved by Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. 9), re ports that the officer who conducted James to the tribunal was so influenced by the bold declaration of his faith as to embrace the gospel and avow himself also a Christian; in consequence of which he was beheaded at the same time.
2. James the Less, the Son of Alpheeus, one of the twelve Apostles (Mark iii:18; Niatt. x:3; Luke vi:15; Acts i:13). His mother's name was Nlary (Matt. xxvii:56; Mark xv:40); in the latter passage he is called James the I.ess (6 Aleph, the
Little), either as beingyounger than James thc son of Zebedee, or on account of his low stature (Mark xvi:1; Luke xxiv:io).
3. James, the Brother of the Lord (6 cloeXcpos rot, Kuplov, Gal. i:19). Whether this lames i; Nen tical with the son of Alphicus is a question which Dr. Neander pronounces to be the most difficult in the Apostolic history, and which cannot yet be con sidered as decided. We read in Alan. xiii:55, 'Is not his mother called Mary, and his brethren James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?' and in Mark vi: 3, 'Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brothcr of James and Rises, and of Juda and Simon? and arc not his sisters here with us?' Those critics who suppose the terms of affinity in these and parallel passages to be used in the more lax sense of near relations have remarked that in Mark xv :4o, mention is made of 'Mary, the mother of James the less and of Joses;' and that in John xix :25, it is said, 'there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother and his mother's sister. Mary,the wife of Cleophas,and Mary Magdalene ;' they therefore infer that the wife of Cleophas is the same as the sister of the mother of Jesus, and, consequently, that James (supposing Cleo phas and Alplucus to be the same name, the for mer according to the Hebrew, the latter accord ing to the Greek orthography) was a first cousin of our Lord, and, on that account, termed his brother, and that thc other individuals called the brethren of Jesus stood in the same relation.
Objection. Against this view it has been al leged that in several early Christian writers James, the brother of th2 Lord, is distinguished from the son of Alphmus; that the identity of the names Alphmus and Cleophas is somewhat uncertain ; and that it is doubtful whether the words 'his mother's sister,' in John xix :25, are to be con sidered in apposition with those immediately fol lowing. (Lardner's SuPplcnient, ch. xvi., Works, vi. p. 174; Neander, History of the Planting, etc. vol. ii. pp. 9. 22. Eng transl.) Dr. Niemeyer enumerates not less than five persons of this name, by distinguishing the scn of Alphxus from James the Less, and assuming that the James last men tioned in Acts i:13 was not the brother, but the father of Judas (Charokteristik der Bibel, Halle, i. 399.) J. E. R.