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Tributes to James:
(a) The disciples said to Jesus “We know that you are going to leave us. Who will be our leader?”. Jesus said to them, “No matter where you have come from, you are to go to James the Just, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being.”
(Gospel of Thomas. v.12)
(b) “James is one of the most important people in the history of the church. His judgement, that Gentile Christians did not have to follow the strictures of Jewish law, was one of the most important decisions of church history (perhaps of all history) since it made it possible for Christianity to spread far and wide through the Roman world.”
Nick Page “The Bible Book, A user’s guide.”
(c) “James’s epistle is arguably one of the most important books in the New Testament, because one sure way of uncovering what Jesus may have believed is to determine what his brother James believed.”
Reza Aslan “Zealot. The life and times of Jesus of Nazareth.”
(d) “I am speaking of a very ancient letter written by a man named James to the first Christian churches. We are dealing with a servant of Jesus Christ concerned with the poor and oppressed people of his times, people who were undergoing unbearable suffering and were in need of strength and hope. James offered them a word of encouragement and advice.”
Elsa Tamez “The scandalous message of James.”
(e) “Those who love James love it because it is the most intensely practical of all the New Testament letters. This is a book that tells us how to live, a book that challenges the reader to express their faith in practical and loving ways.”
Nick Page, op.cit.
Introduction
James, also known as “James the Just”, the author of the Epistle of James, and as Iago in Spanish (as in Santiago, the capital of Chile), was the most important figure in the history of Christianity; yet the church in the past as now, has disdained and neglected him and promoted the heretic Paul instead.
The early church was split like Islam with its warring Sunni and Shia factions. (See Acts 6:1) James’s ‘Hebrew’ faction eventually losing out to Paul’s ‘Hellenistic’ group, mainly because of external factors – accidents of history – not because of intrinsic merits of either group, or because God favoured one side over the other! James was much closer to Jesus in every sense, but most importantly in his teachings, i.e. doctrinally, than the renegade Paul ever was (more Posts about the outcast Paul are ‘in the pipeline’ and should appear in the next few weeks).
James the man
- He was the younger brother of Yeshua (Jesus’ Aramaic name) and therefore the son of Joseph and Mary, and a member of a large family; Jesus, James, Judas (Jude), Joseph (Joses) and at least two sisters. (For a supposed virgin, Mary had a hell of a lot of children!)
- Like his elder brother he was a descendant of King David, and he led the early church after the crucifixion – a kind of dynastic arrangement – keeping it all in the family so to speak. After all, hereditary succession was the norm at that time c.f. the High priests, the Pharisees, and the Jewish Hasmonean and Herodian families. Indeed, James was succeeded in turn by Jesus’s cousin Simeon, son of Clopas, and 2 grandsons of Jesus’ other brother Judas played an active leadership role after that.
- He owned nothing – not even the clothes on his back
- He wore simple garments made of linen not wool
- He never bathed
- He never shaved
- He ate no meat
- He drank no booze
- Like Jesus he could neither read nor write
- He spent so much time on his knees, beseeching God’s forgiveness for the people, that his knees grew as hard as a camel’s
- He was recognized throughout Jerusalem for his piety and for his tireless defense of the poor
- Even the Jewish authorities praised James for his rectitude and and his unshakable commitment to the Law, while not accepting his message about his brother Jesus of course
- He did not respect people just because they were in authority
Pieces of the Jim jigsaw:
- James was more important than Peter, the incompetent nincompoop that Catholics like to call “the first pope” about whom I shall also be writing in due course. At the start of the Book of Acts, Peter has a prominent leadership role, but seems to have been replaced by James as time passed, possibly because he was not ‘family’, possibly because he was freer from the Hebrew Law than James was. (i.e. Peter was more like Jesus.) Peter had to report back to James for 30 years or so. Peter may have ended up as Bishop of Rome, but Rome was under the jurisdiction of Jerusalem, where James ruled as “Bishop of Bishops”.
- One heavily disputed verse (Mt 16:18) describes Peter as head of the church. (it’s inscribed on the ceiling of St Peter’s in Rome, of course, “Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam” Thou art Peter and upon this rock shall I build my church.) However at least a dozen passages cite Jim as the boss.
- James was totally pissed off with the heretic Paul, who never met Jesus or read the gospels, and who in fact saw Jesus’s life and teachings as largely irrelevant to his own peculiar campaign, which sadly was highly successful in the long run. It was as though a monster, rooted in Paul’s inner visions and misogynistic fantasies, eventually metamorphosed into the Christianity we see before us today. James summoned Paul to Jerusalem to repent and to undertake a strict purification ritual, to which Paul grudgingly submitted. The church in other words was split down the middle from the word go. Paul’s posse, followers of Christ,(called the Hellenists) unfortunately won. James crew, followers of Jesus, (called the Hebrews) sadly lost.
- James did not agree with his elder brother about everything. James, for example, was a more orthodox Jew than Jesus, and accepted the rule of the Jerusalem Temple, whereas Jesus expressed opposition to the Temple.
- Remarkably, James isn’t mentioned in the gospels at all. His conversion was possibly a belated one.
- James’s Jerusalem church was hampered by staying in Jerusalem, where they awaited Jesus’s promised return. Like nearly everyone else in that city they were destroyed by Titus’s army in 70 C.E., when he put down the Jewish revolt.
- Until they were burned down on that date they were the “Mother Assembly”, run by the triumvirate of James, Peter and John; and they had authority over all Assemblies and missionaries everywhere, Jew and gentile alike. Illiterate peasants and fishermen, the ” Hebrews”; and literate, sophisticated, urbane, educated, Greek-speaking diaspora Jews, the “Hellenists”: all were theoretically subject to the control of James. Paul was in the latter group and James was in the former category. (So, as an illiterate, he could not have written the epistle named after him, which nevertheless almost certainly reflects his views. It is, by the way, written in beautiful Greek, and uses a large vocabulary.)
- James insisted on observation of the Jewish Law, including circumcision for believers (ouch!). Paul didn’t; (phwew! that’s one point in his favour!). Luke claims James gave way on the issue of strict observance of Jewish Law by Gentile converts. (See ‘Tributes‘ above.) He did not want them to become Jews before they were allowed to become Christians. He merely insisted that they not divorce themselves from Judaism entirely, that they maintain a measure of fidelity to the beliefs and practices of the man they claimed to be following. Otherwise the movement risked becoming a wholly new religion, and that is something neither James nor his brother Jesus would have imagined.
- James sent people to undermine Paul’s authority in the churches he had established in Galatia, Corinth and Philippi, mainly to correct Paul’s unorthodox teaching about Jesus.
- The Jewish authorities in Jerusalem repeatedly asked James to refrain from preaching that Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ; but he would not betray the legacy of his brother even when he was martyred for it.
- When High Priest Ananus charged James with blasphemy in 62 C.E. and ordered him to be stoned to death, many Jews were so outraged that they protested to Rome to have Ananus replaced.
After the Romans wiped Jerusalem and all its Christian and Jewish inhabitants from the face of the earth in 70 C.E., the link between the ‘mother assembly’ and the assemblies scattered across the Diaspora was permanently severed, and with it the last physical link between the Christian community and Jesus the Jew.
James’s “Job Description” included:-
- Administering the early Christian community which was scattered across the Empire. Jesus sent his disciples out to spread the word, but at any given time a few of them were probably back at HQ in Jerusalem. Being illiterate and uneducated they must have found it hard to expound on their new faith or to compose informative narratives about the life and death of Jesus. According to Aslan (v), the apostles had remarkably little influence on defining the movement. James controlled the Apostolic Council, which discussed issues of doctrine and summoned Paul to appear before it to explain his heretical Hellenistic teachings.
- carrying out good works such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick, visiting widows and orphans. Normal Christian activities then.
- preaching to the orthodox Jews living around him in Jerusalem. They would have been close to the Temple and would have known their scriptures intimately. James was banging his head against a brick wall here, as none of them wanted to believe that a mere Galilean – Jesus – was the expected messiah; after all he had failed to deliver the Israelites from Roman bondage.
- preaching to the Diaspora Jews (those living outside Jerusalem and its abutting lands). There was a yearly cycle of festivals and feasts that brought thousands of Jews to Jerusalem from across the Empire. At home they were far from the Temple’s influence and were susceptible to the Disciples’ teaching when they turned up at the gates of Jerusalem once or twice a year. When they returned home they were also out of James’s reach, and many of them adapted what they learned about Jesus to suit their more Hellenistic views of life (especially in Antioch and Alexandria, two of the largest cities in the empire.)
- running the communistic society that the early Christians had. This makes James “Red Christian Number One”! He was the world’s first Christian Communist, and was just carrying on the tradition that Jesus established. In the words of Robert Eisenman (i) “Who and whatever James was, so was Jesus.” Consider the descriptions of life on James’s watch as described in the Acts of the Apostles:
“They met constantly to hear the apostles teach, and to share the common life, to break bread and to pray. A sense of awe was everywhere, and many marvels and signs were brought about through the apostles. All whose faith had drawn them together held everything in common: they would sell their property and possessions and make a general distribution as the need of each required. ..they shared their meals with unaffected joy, as they praised God and enjoyed the favour of the whole people.” (2:44-47)
“The whole body of believers was united in body and soul. Not a man of them claimed any of his possessions as his own, but everything was held in common…they had never a needy person among them, because all who had property in land or houses sold it, brought the proceeds of the sale, and laid the money at the feet of the apostles; it was then distributed to any who stood in need.”
(4:32-35) - Centuries later, about 180 C.E. in France, at least one branch of the church still practised extreme equality (according to Irenaeus) (ii). At their gatherings they would draw lots to see who would be priest for the day, and who bishop and who the prophesier, and who the Bible reader. Next time they met they would throw lots again so that the persons taking each role changed continually. Thus, the distinctions established by lot could never become permanent ranks. They intended to remove the element of human choice, believing that God controlled the outcome of the draw. Women, visitors, Pagans – all had an equal place in worship.
The generosity described in Acts may be linked to the reported poverty of the Jerusalem Christians. Paul refers to them as ‘ptochoi’ in Greek, which is ‘ebionim’ in Aramaic. A group of post 70 C.E. survivors were known as the Ebionites. (reference to come).
Later Communists were well aware of the above verses: Muntzer, Weitling, Torres, Marx, Engels. Check out the Zingcreed Posts called “Red Christians”.
James and the poor today
My grandmother used to say “D.V.” and write it in her letters too. It meant “God willing”, the initials coming from the latin or french version. In Spanish they say “Si Dios quiere”. The source of the expression is attributed to James (4:15); how did such an expression become part of popular language? Tamez (i) refers to “The Epistle from the underside” and says that it would be interesting to know what the poor referred to in the letter thought. (p.63) In South America, St James (Sant Iago) is one of the most popular saints, and in Guatemala they make more images of James than of other better known saints.
She writes that if James’s epistle were to be distributed in certain dictatorial regimes today, it would be condemned as Marxist-Leninist infiltration in the churches, and would very possibly be intercepted by government security agencies. (p.1)
She takes issue with James on one important point though: the unfortunate passage in 1:2. “My brothers, you will always have your trials but, when they come, try to treat them as a happy privilege.” Sorry, Jimbo, you don’t acquiesce in injustice, you fight back! Tamez’s subdued response to this “difficult for us to accept passage” is “We may well decide to read a different biblical text with a more obvious meaning for liberation.”
In the middle ages, while the rich went on pilgrimages to Rome, the poor went to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, a walking route that is very popular to this day. The way’s symbol is a scallop shell. I don’t know why. James is supposed to have visited Spain at some point.
One of the reasons the Letter of James is not often mentioned in churches is because it supports the poor and severely slags off the rich. The church since Constantine has consistently opened its doors to the rich. They came in and they have run the institution ever since. They have, so to speak, ‘intercepted the mail’, and Jim’s letter is not at all to their taste! So read it for yourself – you won’t hear it in church! It’s summarized in the next Post to this one.
Sources:
(i) Eisenman, R. “James the brother of Jesus: the key to understanding the the secrets of early Christianity and the Dead sea scrolls” Watkins (2002)
(ii) Pagels, Elaine “The Gnostic gospels” Phoenix (1979) p.65
(iii) Tamez, Elsa “The scandalous message of James. Faith without works is dead” Crossroad (2002)
(iv) Tamez, Elsa “Bible of the oppressed” Orbis (1982)
(v) Aslan, Reza “Zealot. The life and times of Jesus of Nazareth” Westbourne Press (2013)
(vi) Miranda, Jose Porfirio “Communism in the Bible” Wipf & Stock (1982)
Related Zingcreed Posts:
Jesus’s communist brother James (2) his epistle
Jesus’s communist brother James (3) a Cuban view
From Hebrew to Hellenist. How the church metamorphosed
Ebionites. The residual Hebrew Christians
Pagan influences on early Christianity
New Testament dates: a timeline
The causes of poverty according to Clodovis Boff
The prophets attack profits
Jesus and wealthy people
Jesus was a sage not a priest prophet or king
The Shema
Dear Pope #6: Mary was no virgin
Two red jewesses
Marx’s Christian roots
Jesus was a lower class power-broker
Paul vs Jesus
Titus destroys Jerusalem
Apocalypse and the gospels
How Paul and Luke rewrote history to marginalize James’ early church
[257, indexed & linked, t&c]
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