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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 508. James the Apostle
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Literature
Banks, L. A., Paul and His Friends (1898), 169.
Durell, J. C. V., The Self-Revelation of Our Lord (1910), 145.
Godet, F., Studies on the New Testament (1879), 218.
Greenhough, J. G., The Apostles of Our Lord (1904), 63.
Jones, J. D., The Glorious Company of the Apostles (1904), 46.
Lovell, R. H., First Types of the Christian Life (1895), 57.
Maclaren, A., The Wearied Christ (1893), 51.
Plummer, A., The Humanity of Christ, 144.
Rattenbury, J. E., The Twelve (1914), 111.
Stanley, A. P., Sermons and Essays on the Apostolic Age (1874), 284.
Watson, J., Children of the Resurrection (1912), 129.
Dictionary of the Bible, ii. (1899) 540 (J. B. Mayor).
Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels, i. (1906) 846 (H. W. Fulford).
Encyclopœdia Biblica, ii. (1901), col. 2317 (O. Cone).
And he [Herod] killed James the brother of John with the sword.- Act_12:2.
1. The first three Lives of our Lord-the Synoptic Gospels-as well as the Acts of the Apostles contain lists of the Twelve, in which the name of James stands nearly always between those of Peter and John. But he is sometimes ranked after, instead of before, his brother (see Luk_8:51; Luk_9:28; Act_1:13 R.V.), and it would appear that his early death, with the subsequent prominence of the disciple whom Jesus loved, had by the time the Gospels were written already begun to throw his name into the shade. His death in the prime of his manhood strikingly illustrates his Master's words, “The one shall be taken, and the other left.” While John remained to teach and inspire the Apostolic Church until the reign of Domitian in the last decade of the first century, James was taken full half a century earlier to join the Church triumphant in heaven, being the first of the “glorious company of the apostles” to be numbered likewise with the “noble army of martyrs.” And not only was his career soon ended, but no adequate record of it was preserved.
How we should like, in particular, to possess some authentic account of his latest days and hours, some mirror of his mind in the ultimate ordeal, some human document worthy to compare with the last speech of St. Stephen or the last letters of St. Ignatius, some pen-and-ink portrait for the Church on earth to cherish and contemplate till the end of time! History has done but scant justice to this Apostle, epitomizing the story of his martyrdom in one brief sentence and the beginning of a second. King Herod Agrippa, we are told, “killed James the brother of John with the sword. And when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also.” And then the chapter goes on to relate, with a wealth of charming incidents, the story of the rescue of St. Peter from prison and from death. But no word of embellishment is spared for the story of the Apostle who was not rescued. The historical style was never more bare and unadorned than here. The sword, we learn, did its work, and the work pleased the Jews, and that is all. That is all, but the imagination is not satisfied with a gleaming sword and a vampire smile. How it longs to recreate a whole psychological drama of heroic faith and spiritual passion on the one hand, of sinister policy and fanatical hate on the other!
But regrets are vain. We shall never know how the brave Apostle received his sentence of death, how he prepared himself-if any time was allowed-for the moment of his departure, or how he fared in his swift passage through the valley of the shadow. Perhaps the historian himself did not know. Perhaps it was all done so stealthily and so suddenly that nothing ever leaked out. And so the Church could only guess with what feelings the Apostle stepped into the river of death, just as it could only imagine with what a storm of jubilation he was welcomed on the other side. How true it is that the place which a man fills in history, the meed of honour and applause which he receives among his fellows, is but a poor index of his worth in the eyes of God! For every hero who receives the Victoria Cross how many others just as brave-the flower of a nation's chivalry-sleep their last earthly sleep in unknown graves! Is it “just their luck”? Say rather that not one of them is forgotten before God. The names which have not become famous on earth are written in heaven, and “many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first.”
According to the legend of Saint Iago, the patron saint of Spain, the gospel was first preached in Spain by St. James, who afterwards returned to Judæa, and, after performing many miracles there, was finally put to death by Herod. His body was placed on board ship at Joppa and transported to Iria in the north-west of Spain under angelic guidance. The surrounding heathen were converted by the prodigies which witnessed to the power of the saint, and a church was built over his tomb. During the barbarian invasions all memory of the hallowed spot was lost till it was revealed by vision in the year 800. The body was then moved by order of Alphonso II. to the place now called Compostella (abbreviated from Jacomo Postolo), which became famous as a place of pilgrimage throughout Europe. The saint was believed to have appeared on many occasions mounted on a white horse, leading the Spanish armies to victory against their infidel foes. The impossibilities of the story have been pointed out by Roman Catholic scholars.1 [Note: J. B. Mayor, in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, ii. 541.]
2. Although this Apostle is referred to after his decease as “James the brother of John,” as if that were his chief title to fame, yet there are evidences, slight and easily overlooked but quite convincing, that during his lifetime he was the more prominent, just as he was probably the elder, of the two sons of Salome and Zebedee. In the Gospel of St. Matthew we find the order of the two names inverted, for we read twice of “James the son of Zebedee and John his brother” (Mat_4:21; Mat_10:2), and once of “James and John his brother” (Mat_17:1). In the Gospel of Mark we hear of “James and John his brother,” and of “John the brother of James” (Mar_1:19; Mar_3:17; Mar_5:37). In the earliest list of the Twelve, contained in Mar_3:16-19, Peter's name stands first, James's second, and John's third. It is true that the lists in Matthew and Luke begin with the brothers Peter and Andrew, but it is probable that this arrangement was an afterthought, and that during the whole of our Lord's earthly ministry Peter, James, and John were recognized in this order, as the three foremost and most highly privileged disciples. Just as Jesus selected from the wide outer circle of His followers twelve disciples who formed an inner circle, so from among the Twelve He chose three intimate human friends who formed an innermost circle of His Apostles. These three were with the Master on great and memorable occasions-at the healing of Peter's wife's mother, at the raising of Jairus' daughter, at the Transfiguration, at the Mount of Olives during the great discourse on the Last Things, and at the Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. How many sermons and studies, how many theological, ecclesiastical, and mystical books have been devoted to Peter and John, but how few to the second of that great Triumvirate! Yet it is by no means impossible to gain such a knowledge of James the Apostle as must constrain us to love him; for, if only a few rays of light have been thrown upon his character and career, yet each of them is so beautifully illuminative that with the exercise of a little historical imagination we can see him again, as he lived and as he died, a noble and alluring type of Christian manhood.
When we ask what manner of man he was in his youthful, formative years, we soon find that he had three natural enough human propensities, each of which required, not to be eradicated, but to be touched to finer issues, before he could become a disciple after Jesus' own heart, worthy at length to wear a halo as the first martyr among the Apostles. By nature he was zealous, jealous, and ambitious in the pursuit of earthly ends; and by grace he became so true-hearted and whole-hearted in the service of Christ-so zealous in His cause, so jealous of His honour, so ambitious to follow in His steps-that Herod Agrippa, king of the Jews, could think of no surer way of pleasing his subjects than by offering him as the first victim to their fanatical hate.
The Bishop lost no opportunity of impressing upon his clergy the need of kindling in themselves, from the altar of God, the flames of fervid enthusiasm, and prophetie fire. The people are not saved by the keenness of a cold philosophy, but by the affection of an inspiring faith. Preaching upon this subject at St. Peter's, Little Oakley, March 30, 1882, the Bishop said:
“The ministers of the Church of England have many gifts and graces, but they too seldom have fervour, which, for the work they have to do, is, perhaps, the most needed of all. The common people rarely have subtle minds. Laboured expositions, an elaborated style, dogmatic precision, rarely touch and certainly do not affect or move them. They ask for some potent tokens of the presence of the Spirit of God. Churchmen shrink, and rightly so, from extravagances, and lament to see some strange, and to them startling, things done in the name and for the cause of Christ. They naturally, and properly, like quiet, sober, and well-ordered ways. But all these things are compatible with fervour. If the clergy wish to reach the mass of the people-and to do so would be the greatest glory and stability of the Church-I venture to assert it will never be done except by fervour.”1 [Note: J. W. Diggle, The Lancashire Life of Bishop Fraser, 346.]