Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - James 2:19 - 2:19
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Jam_2:19. James shows, in the faith of demons, with whom it produces trembling, how little faith without works effects salvation. With σὺ πιστεύεις , which is not, with Lachmann and Tischendorf, to be taken as a question, it is granted to the opponent that he possesses faith. From the fact that what is specifically Christian is not named as the object of faith, it is not to be inferred, with Calvin, that in this entire section not the Christian faith (de fide) is spoken of, but only de vulgari Dei notitia. Expositors correctly assume that this one article of faith is only adduced as an example. The selection of precisely this article on the unity of God is not to be explained because “the Jewish Christians were particularly proud of it, so that it kept them back from fully surrendering themselves to the Christian faith” (Lange), but because it distinguished revealed religion from all heathenism. However much the position of the individual words vary (see critical notes), yet the unity of God appears in all as the chief idea; comp. particularly, Deu_6:4; Neh_9:6; Isa_44:6; Isa_45:6; Mat_23:9; Mar_12:29; Mar_12:32; Rom_3:30; 1Co_8:4; 1Co_8:6; and, in this Epistle, chap. Jam_4:12. In Hermas, I. 2, mand. 1, it is said: πρῶτον πάντων πίστευσον , ὅτι εἷς ἐστιν ὁ Θεός .
De Wette, with whom Philippi coincides, thinks that by the construction with ὅτι the faith which the opponent has is characterized as merely theoretical; but it is, on the other hand, to be observed, that a construction with εἰς or ἐν here, where the unity of God is to be adduced, could hardly have been used (so also Brückner).
James grants, by the words καλῶς ποιεῖς , that this faith is something in itself entirely good (see Jam_2:8). Several expositors, as Calvin, Semler, Hottinger, Schneckenburger, Theile, Wiesinger, Bouman, find in the expression a trace of irony, which others, as Laurentius, Baumgarten, Grotius, Pott, Gebser, de Wette, deny. Though not in the statement by itself, yet in the whole expression there is something ironical (Lange, Brückner), which, in the combination of πιστεύουσιν καὶ φρίσσουσιν (as Wieseler remarks), rises to sarcasm. This sarcasm is, moreover, to be recognised in demons being placed in opposition to the opponent.
καί before τὰ δαιμόνια is not to be explained by ἀλλὰ καί (Pott), or atqui (Theile); by the insertion of a contrary reference the peculiar severity of the expression is only weakened. That James, in his reference to the unity of God, mentions the demons, is in accordance with the view that the heathen divinities are demons; comp. LXX. Deu_32:17; Psa_95:5; Psa_105:37; 1Co_10:20; and Meyer in loco: As these are the occasion of polytheism, so they are hostilely opposed to the one God; but, in their usurped lordship over the heathen world, they tremble before the one God, who will again rescue the world and judge them. It is wholly arbitrary to take τὰ δαιμόνια = daemoniaci (Wetstein), or to think on the demons in the possessed (Semler, Gebser, Schneckenburger). Pott incorrectly paraphrases the καί between πιστεύουσιν and φρίσσουσι by καὶ ὅμως ; the simple copulative meaning of the word need not here be altered. φρίσσειν , an ἅπ . λεγ ., is used particularly of the hair standing on end (Job_4:15), and is therefore a stronger expression than δεδοικέναι and τρέμειν .