JAMES (Gr. Jacobos, and really the same word as Jacob) is the name borne by two or three persons in the New Testament. These are James the son of Zebedee, and James the " brother" or "cousin " of our Lord, who is considered by many to be the same as James the son of Alpheus. JAMES the son of Zebedee, surnamed the Elder, was the brother of the apostle John, and before his call to the apostleship was a fisherman. After the ascension of Christ, he seems to have remained at Jerusalem, and was the first of the apostles to suffer martyrdom, being slain by Herod in theyear 44 A.D. There is an incredible legend of his having planted thegospel in Spain, and he is the patron saint of that country. JAMES the " brother " or "cousin" of our Lord, surnamed the Less, the other apostle of this name, appears to have resided, like James the Elder, chiefly in Jerusalem. From the glimpses of him which are obtained in the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistle to the Galatians, it is clear that he presided over the mother-church of Jerusalem. According to the tradition recorded by Hegesippus (who flourished about the middle of the 2d c.), he was considered a miracle of "righteousness," even by the unbe lieving Jews, who gave him the name of the Just. The enmity of the more bigoted Jews, however, procured his condemnation, and the high-priest Ananus gave order that he should be stoned to death. According to Josepbus, the execution of the sentence excited great dissatisfaction among the people of Jerusalem. The date of his death
cannot be precisely fixed, but it was probably about 62 or 63 A.D. TIIE EPISTLE GEN ERAL OF JAMES is regarded by most theologians as a composition of his. The primitive church, however, plaice(' it sometimes among the antdegomena (or scriptures of doubtful genuineness), and sometimes even among the notha (or spurious scriptures). In the 4th c. its authority increased, and the Council of Carthage (397 A.D.) pronounced it "canonical." This, of course, did not settle the question of its authenticity; and at the period of time Reformation, both its authenticity and religious teaching were attacked by Erasmus and Cajetan (in time Roman Catholic church), by Lucar (in the Greek church), and by Luther, who culled it "a downright strawy epistle," the work of some unknown James, who misunderstood the doctrines of the apostle Paul. Modern divines, gener ally, profess to see no discrepancy between the teaching of the two apostles, and imagine that they are looking at the same great verity from different, but not contradictory stand-points (see JUSTIFICATION). The style is clear, polished, and poetical, very little disfigured with Hehraisms, and indicating that its possessor was a man of superior culture. Compare Alford's Greek lest., vol. 4 (Lond., 1839).