Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/330

 JAMES

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JAMES

which survive in MS.; of a valuable "Chronicle", which he composed in 692, and of which a few leaves only are extant; of an "Enchiridion", or tract on technical philosophical terms; of a translation of the " Honiiliip t'athedrales ", written in (Ireek by Severus of Antioch; and of the "Octoechus" by the same author; of a biography of James of Sarugh; of a trans- lation from the Greek of the apocryphal "History of the Rechabites"; of a Syriac grammar, a few frag- ments of which are extant in Oxford and London, and in which he advocated and illustrated a novel system of indicating the vocalic element not found in the Syr- ian alphabet; and, finally, of an extensive correspond- ence with a large number of persons throughout Syria.

J. S. AssEMANl, Bibliotheca Orienialis, I (Rome, 1719): II (Rome, 1721); Mai, Script. Vet. Nova Colledio (Rome, 1S25- 38); Ceriani, Af onumeTifo sacra cipro/aTM (Milan, 1863); Bali. ia Diet. Christ. Biog., s. v. Jacobits Edesscnus: Nestle, Syrische Grammatik mit Littcratur (Berlin, ISSS); Merx, Historia artis grammaticm apud Syros (Leipzig, 1889); Wright, Catalogue of the Syriac MSS. in the British Museum (London, 1870 — ) ; Idem, A Short History of Syriac Literature (London. 1894); Brockel- MANN, Syrische Grammatik mit Littcratur (Berlin, 1899); Duval, Grammaire Syriaquc (Paris, 1881); Idem, Litterature Syriaque (3rd ed., Paris, 1907).

Francis E. Gigot.

James of Sarugh, a writer of the Syrian Church, "the flute of the Holy Spirit and the harp of the believing church"; b. at Kurtara, 451, probably in the district of Sarugh; his father was a priest; d. at Batnan 29 Nov., .521. Three biographies of him are extant in Syriac: the first by James of Ede.ssa (seventh century), the second anonymous, and the third by a certain George, probably George, Bishop of Sarugh, contemporary of James of Edessa. We do not know where he was educated, nor when and how he was ordained to the priesthood. He became " periodeutes " or " chorepiscopus " of Haura in the district of Sarugh, whence in 502 he wrote to tlie city of Edessa, threatened by the Persians, and in 519 to the Christians of Nairan; in 519 he became Bishop of Batnan, the chief city of Sarugh. Asse- mani (Bibliotheca Orientalis, I, 290 sq.) has en- deavoured indeed to prove against Renaudot the orthodoxy of James of Sarugh, but from this writer's letters to the monks of the convent of Mar-Bassus (published by Martin in the "Zeitschrift der deut- schen morgenl. Gesellschaft ", XXX, 217 sqq.) it is evident that he was always a Monophysite and con- tinued such to his death. However, he took prac- tically no share in the Christological polemics of his time and devoted his activity to study :iiid literature. He is especially famous for his metrical hiimilies in dodecasyllaljic verse of which, says Bar-Hebra-us, he composed seven hundred and sixty. Of these barely one-half has come down to us, and a few only have been published, e. g. on Simeon Stylites (in Assemani, "Acta Martyrum", II, 230 sqq.), on virginity, fornication, etc. (in Overbeck, "S. Eph- ra;mi Syri . . . opera selecta ", pp. 385 sq.), two on the Blessed Virgin Mary (in Abbeloos, "De vita et scriptis S. Jacobi Sarugensis ", Louvain, 1S67), on the chariot of Ezechiel (in Moesinger, " Monum. Syr.", II). He wrote the first one (on Ezechiel's chariot) when only twenty-two years of age. His prose writ- ings were comparatively few. The most important besides the letters already mentioned are a letter to Paul of Edessa of 519, a letter to the pantheist Bar- Sudaili published by Frothingham (" Stephen Bar- Sudaili, etc.", Leyden, ISSO, p. 10 scjq.), a liturgy (tr. Renaudot, " Liturg. Orient. CoUectio", II, 350), un order of baptism (ed.and tr. Assemani, "Cod. Liturg. Eccl. Univ.", II, :309; III, 184), festal homilies (Ger. tr. Zingerle, "Sechs Horn. d. heil. Jacob v. Sarug", 1867).

Wright, A Short History of Syriac Literature (London, 1894); Ddval, La Liltiralure Syriaque, 3rd ed. (Paris, 1907), pp. 351- 854; Assemani, Bibliotheca Orientalis, 1, c. XXVII.

H. Hyvernat.

James of the Marches, Saint, Franciscan, b. of a poor family named Gangala, at Monteprandone, March of Ancona, Italy, 1391; d. at Naples, 28 Nov., 1476. He is generally represented holding in his right hand a chalice, out of which a snake is escaping ■ — an allusion to some endeavours of heretics to poison him or, less likely, to the controversy about the Precious Blood. He began his studies at Offida un- der the guidance of his uncle, a priest, who soon afterwards put him to school at Ascoli.- At the Uni- versity of Perugia he took the degree of Doctor in Civil Law. After a short stay at Florence as tutor in a noble family, and as judge of sorcerers, James was received into the Order of the Friars Minor, in the chapel of the Portiuncula, Assisi, 26 July, 1416. Having finished his novitiate at the hermitage of the Carceri, near Assisi, he studied theology at Fiesole, near P'lorence, under St. Berniinline of Siena. On 13 June, 1420, he was ordained priest, and soon be- gan to preach in Tuscany, in the Marches, and ITni- bria; for half a century he carried on his spiritual labours, remarkable for the miracles he performed and the numerous conversions he wrought. From 1427 James preached penance, combated heretics, and was on legations in Germany, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Bohemia, Poland, Hungary, and Bosnia. In the last-mentioned country he was also commis- sary of the Friars Minor. At the time of the Council of Basle he promoteil the union of the moderate Hussites with the Church, and that of the Greeks at the Council of Ferrara-Florence. Against the Turks he preached several cru-sadcs, and :it the death of St. John Capistran, in 1456, Janu's was .sent to Hungary as his successor. In Italy he fought the Fraticelli, institutetl several montrs jiii lali.s, and preached in all the greater cities; Milan offered him the bishopric in 1460, which he declined. St. James belonged to the Observant branch of the Friars Minor, then rapidly spreading and exciting much envy. How much he suffered on this account is shown in a letter written by him to St. John Capistran, published by Nic. Dai-Gal, O.F.M., in "Archivum Franciscanum Ilis- toricum", I (190S), 94-97. Under Callistus III, in 1455, he was appointed an arbiter on the questions at issue between Conventuals and Observants. His decision was published 2 Feb., 1456, in a papal Bull, which pleased neither party. A few years later, on Easter Monday, 1462, St. James, preaching at Bres- cia, uttered the opinion of some theologians, that the Precious Blood shed during the Passion was not united with the Divinity of Clirist during the three days of His burial. The Dominican James of Bres- cia, inquisitor, immediately cited him to his tribunal. James refused to appear, and after some troubles appealed to the Holy See. The question was dis- cussed at Rome, Christmas, 1462 (not 1463, as some have it), before Pius II anil the cardinals, but no de- cision was given. James spent the last three years of his life at Naples, and was buried there in the Francis- can church of S. Maria la Nuova, where his body is still to be seen. Beatified by Urban VIII, 1624, he was canonized by Benedict XIII, 1726. Naples venerates him as one of its patron saints (feast, 28 Nov.).

The works of St. James of the Marches have not as yet been collected. His library ;ind autographs are preserved in part at the Municipio of Montepran- done (see Crivellucci, " I codici della librcria raeculta da S. Giacomo della Marca nel convento di S. Maria delle Grazie presso Monteprandone", Leghorn, 1.SS9). lie wrote "Dialogus contra Fraticellos", printed in Baluze-Mansi, " MLscellanea", II, Lucca, 1761, 595- 610 (cf. Ehrle in "Archiv filr Litt. u. Kirchenge- schichte", IV, Freiburg im Br., 1888, 107-10). His numerous sermons are not edited. For some of them, and for his treatise on the " Miracles of the Name of Jesus", see Candido Mariotti, O.F.M., "II