Saint James the Less

But the most advantageous relic that remains to us of him is, without doub t, the excellent epistle he wrote, l'excellente épître qu'il a écrite Apostolic letter included in the New Testament. which is the first of the seven canonical ones; in it, he gives admirable lessons to all the faithful; he teaches them above all to receive afflictions with joy, and to consider the cross as the most powerful instrument of their salvation; to pray with faith and perseverance; to despise the riches and glory of the world, as things that pass in a moment; to detach themselves from their covetousness, which is the source of all their temptations; not to be content with hearing the word of God, but to put it faithfully into practice by joining works with faith; to restrain their tongue, whose excessive freedom produces an infinity of evils; and to make no exception of persons, but to esteem the poor as much as the rich. He also prescribes the form for administering the sacrament of Extreme Unction, which, without his epistle, we would have known only through unwritten tradition. In the drafting of the Creed, the article "I believe in the Holy Spirit" is attributed to him. His constant attribute is the fulle r's club with whi battoir de foulon Instrument of martyrdom and iconographic attribute. ch he was beaten to death, which he holds in his hand.

It is generally believed that Saint James addressed his epistle to the Judeo-Christians of North Africa, who made all their Christianity consist of a theoretical faith in the Messiah without practicing the precepts and counsels of Jesus Christ: Saint James shows them that faith without works is a dead faith, which will not suffice to justify them. There is therefore no true opposition between him and Saint Paul, who makes justification depend on faith and not on the works of the Mosaic law. Both combat among the Judeo-Christians the Pharisaism that made perfection consist of external practices, of legal works: both teach faith and Christian works, animated by that faith.

There is also an Eastern liturgy that bears the name of Saint James, and of which Saint Proclus, Patriarch of Constantinople, speaks, as well a s the Council in concile in Trullo Council whose canons Sergius refused to sign. Trullo. Whatever its author may be, it is, at the very least, of very great antiquity. (See Father Le Brun.) Perhaps Saint James may have only provided the general direction of this liturgy; others may have subsequently worked on the same plan, and additions may have been made to it. Clement of Alexandria, ap. Euseb., l. II, c. 1, and Saint Jerome, I, contra Jovinianum, praise the great skill of the same Apostle in matters concerning religion.

During the early times, only a few parts of the liturgy were written down. Until the 4th century, the words of the sacred Invocation or the consecration of the bread and wine were known only by tradition, and this was done out of a motive of respect. See Saint Basil, I. de Spir. Sancto, c. 27. Saint Jerome says 'that in the liturgy they prayed for the emperors, for the different States, etc.' Saint Cyril gave a fairly extensive explanation of the one that was followed in his church.

The most authentic monuments prove that, from the birth of Christianity, there was a liturgy, and that the first prayer formulas of which it was composed were established by the Apostles. It is in this way that Saint James was the first author of that of Jerusalem. Some new prayers were added to it later, but the essential point was never touched; hence it is that the liturgies of the churches founded by the Apostles have always borne their names. Even today, the Christians of Syria follow, as coming from Saint James, t he li Syrie Region of origin of the saints. turgy that bears his name.

The continuators of Hollandius have renewed the opinion, held for so long, of the three Saint Jameses, and have distinguished Saint James, son of Alphaeus, one of the two Apostles, from Saint James, brother of the Lord, of whom we have just spoken, whom they maintain was not of that number; they say that Saint James, son of Alphaeus, was from Galilee, from the tribe of Zebulun or Naphtali, and brother of Saint Matthew; in the division of the kingdoms, he went to preach the faith in Gaza and Tyre, and was thus martyred at Ostracine. But whatever efforts they make to establish this opinion, which several learned authors have refuted when it was proposed by Erasmus, I do not believe it is viewed favorably by those who have some deference for the sentiments of the Roman Church, which recognizes only two Saint Jameses in the number of the Disciples, and maintains, in its ecclesiastical office and in its martyrology, that he who is called brother of the Lord, who wrote a canonical epistle, and who was ordained bishop of Jerusalem, is one of the Apostles whom Our Lord chose, while still on earth, to compose his college, and the same as Saint James, son of Alphaeus. These new authors cite a very small number of writers for themselves; there is a large number, especially among the Latins, who are contrary to them: the authorities and reasons upon which they rely have more appearance than solidity, and some even favor the common opinion more than their own. Saint Jerome, far from entering into their sentiment, is directly contrary to them, not only in his Treatise against Helvidius, which he wrote when he was young, but also in his Commentary on the 17th chapter of Isaiah. For he recognizes in this place only fourteen Apostles, namely: the eleven that Our Lord had chosen, Saint Matthias, who filled the place of Judas, and Saint Paul and Saint Barnabas, who were added to them by the express order of the Holy Spirit. Now, this would not be true if Saint James the Less, whom Saint Paul calls so solemnly saint Jacques le Mineur Apostle and first bishop of Jerusalem. an Apostle, had not been of the number of the twelve, since then there would have been fifteen. It is therefore the sentiment of Saint Jerome that Saint James the Less, brother of the Lord, is the same as the apostle Saint James. The authors of whom we speak, who cite the same holy Doctor for themselves on this chapter, have not considered that he interpreted it twice in succession; in the first commentary, he does indeed place Saint James, brother of the Lord, outside the number of the twelve Apostles, according to the opinion of some interpreters whom he does not follow; but, in the second, where he speaks according to his own sentiment, he says what we have just reported. In the book of Ecclesiastical Writers, he further assumes, as true, that Saint James drank, at the last supper, the chalice of the Lord: now, only the twelve Apostles participated in this great happiness. He therefore recognized that Saint James was of that number, and did not recognize three.

Let us add some considerations to the foregoing:

1° It is true that Saint James the Less and brother of the Lord was the son of Mary, wife of Cleophas; but this doe Cléophas Father of James the Less according to philological identification. s not prevent him from being the son of Alphaeus, whether Alphaeus and Cleophas were one and the same person, or whether, Alphaeus having died, Mary married Cleophas. Such was the way in which Father Giry resolved the genealogical difficulty. Today, thanks to the progress of philology, there is no longer any difficulty on this head; for the two names Cleophas and Alphaeus are but one and the same name, are of the same form; only the pronunciation is different (Ἕπῆς). The mother of Saint James the Less was indeed named Mary (Matt., XXVII, 56; Mark, XV, 40; Saint John, XIX, 25). The latter shows us in her the wife of Cleophas and the sister, or cousin, of the Mother of Jesus Christ; James was, consequently, the cousin — Consobrinus — of Jesus: this is why he is, in this capacity, called the brother of the Lord frater (Galat., I, 19). However astonishing this may appear to a modern Westerner, it is constant that in Hebrew the uncle calls the nephew and the nephew the uncle frater, brother, and that thus this word designates in general a first cousin. Does not the Latin germanus itself also designate both cousin and brother, but rather cousin than brother? Thus, therefore, James the Less, the Apostle, and James, the brother of the Lord, are but one and the same person, and the efforts of Protestant or other scholars to demonstrate that the two designations suppose two persons fail before this fact that the New Testament does not know three Jameses, that it cites only two, that it distinguishes them from one another as long as they both live, whereas, after the death of James the Greater, there is no longer any question but of James, son of Alphaeus (Mark, XV, 40; Acts, I, 13; XII, 2; XII, 17; XV, 13; XXI, 18; Gal., II, 12; I Cor., XV, 7).

2° It is also true that Saint James the Less was ordained bishop; but one must not conclude from this that he is not an Apostle; for, although the Apostles had received, on the day of the supper, the priestly character, or even the episcopal power, one could nevertheless still exercise over them the ceremonies of Anointing; which Saint Peter did, with regard to Saint James, to prepare him for the government of the church of Jerusalem.

Such is also the answer of Father Giry: one can add that nothing proves a direct consecration of Saint James by the Apostles. The only certain thing is that, until the dispersion, they governed the church of Jerusalem in common, and that at their departure, when they divided the world among themselves, this same church of Jerusalem fell by lot to James, son of Alphaeus.

To summarize: there have been only two Saint Jameses: Saint James the Greater, son of Zebedee, and Saint James the Less, son of Alphaeus, both apostles of the Lord. If we are asked why the Saint whose life we have just given was called the Less, we will answer that this name seems to have been given to him either because he was called to the apostolate after Saint James the Greater, or because he was of small stature.

Cf. Jean Sanctarum; Maistre, les Soixante-deux disciples; Goschler, Dictionnaire de théologie. — See in the Supplement to this volume some details on the Insertion of the bodies of the apostles Saint Philip and Saint James, in 1575.