Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 11.djvu/122

* JAMES V. 100 JAHES. disaster, Henry sent the Duke of Norfolk into Slot land with an army of 20,000 men, wlio, however, retired on the approach of James with IV superior force. The Scottish King desired, thereupun, to invade England, but the nohles would not follow him. There had long been i<trife between the Crown and the nobility, hut the breach was widening with the progress of the Keformation: for while the Lords adopted the new ijdeas, the King clung to the Church. He antjigonized the nobles further by ehampion- ing the Commons against them. Finally, Lord ISlaxwell and a few other western nobles con- sented to lead an army of 10,000 men across the border, but they were enraged at seeing Sinclair, the King's favorite, set over them as i'oMimander. In the disorder which followed this apjiointment. the army was disgracefully beaten by a few hundred Englishmen. This dishonor to his arms .seems to have broken the heart of James, and to have affected his mind. He sluit himself up in Falkland Palace, where he died, December 13, 1.542, seven <lays after the birth of his unfortunate daughter JIary. He ^vas a protector of the poor and an excellent administrator, who made hi-: power felt for good fliroughout Scotland; at the same time he was avaricious and licentious, and unable to bear up against misfortune. Consult the bibliography for the preceding subject, and, in addition, for relations with the Pope: Theincr, ]'etera Monu- menta Hihcnwniin et Sootoriim H istoriam Iliun- trantia, lilH-r5J,1 (Rome, 1864); Froude, His- tory of l-'iii/hind (New York, 1S70), JAMES VI. OF Scotland. See James I. of Engl.vm) AM) VI. OF Scotland. JAMES VII. of Scotland, See James II. OF ENfiLAND AND VII. OF SCOTLAND. JAMES, Eplstle of, The first of the so- called catholic Epistles, an encyclical writing, belonging either to the very earliest or the very latest part of the New Testament literature. The settlement of this wide ditTerence of date rests upon the determination of three questions, each of them interesting in itself, and all of them subject to debate among .scholars to-day. ( 1 ) Is the writer of the Epistle the well-known James, the Brother of the Lord, the Head of the Jeru- salem Church, or an unknown, James of post- Apostolie times? (2) Were the recipients of the letter distinctively .Jewish Christians, or Christians generally. Gentile as well as .Jewish? (.S) Does the situation of the readers betray the primitive condition of the Church before the Judaizing controversy of Acts xv.. or the devel- oped condition of the Church after that con- troversy had been forgotten? As to the first question, it would seem that the naVve way in which the author describes himself {'James, a servant of Ciod and of the Lord Jesus Christ,' i, 1) could be better understood of one who. like the Jerusalem .Tamos, was conscioiis of his rec- ognized authority in the Church (cf. Gal. ii. 9. 12; Acts XV. ]ii: xxi. IS), and so needed no further titles to commend himself to those to ■nhom he wrote, than of an unknown James who, if he followed the custom of the second century, must have made his message depend upon such titles as lie could either honestly or falsely assume. There is naturally the query whether we can suppose the culture evident in the lan- guage and diction of the Epistle possible in the case of a Palestinian Jew, as the brother of the Lord must have been ; but conclusions here are wholly conjectural and must yield to more defi- nite indications furnished liy other [loints. As to the second question, the wording of the address ("James ... to the twelve tribes which are of the Dispersion, greeting.' i, 1) makes apparently clear the distinctively Jewish character of the readers — an impression which seems to be confirmed by several hints through- out the letter (e.g. ii. 2,'l9, 21; v. 4, II, 17, 18). At the same time we cannot ignore the fact that terms similar to the address are used .symbolical I V, both by Paul {Gal. vi. 10; Phil, iii. 3) and" by Peter" (1. Pet. i. I; ii. 9) ; while the plirases referred to in the body of the letter n:iglit be possible with a Gentile readersliip (cf. Rom. iv. 1; ix. 29: I. Cor. viii. (i). The third <lues(ion is really the decisive one; since, if the situation shows itself lu'cessarily that of primi- tive Christianity, the readers must be considered distinctively Jewish Christian, and the autlior becomes almost necessarily the Jerusalem .James; while, if the situation is that of post-Apostolie Christianit.v, the readers cannot be exclusively Jewish, since a group of such churclics in the Diasjiora is .scarcely sujiposable so long after Gentilism had liccome part of Christendom. Much less, on the supposition of such a later date, can the author have been the Jerusalem James, The situation disclosed by the Epistle, however, is clearly that of early Christianity, while the Church was yet exclusively .Jewish, and before the introduction of (Jentiles into its membership had brought about the .Judaistie controversy, con- sidered in the .Terusalem Council (.Vets xv. ) and discussed by Paul specifically in his Galatian Epistle. This is shown (I) not so much by the social customs of ii. 1-9 and community con- ditions of V. 1-6, the commercial life of iv, 13, the term given to their religious assemblies in ii, 2, and the oath formula descrilied in v. 12, all of which indeed disclose a definite situation belonging to the readers that cannot be naturally understood save as Jewish: but rather (2) by the fact that there is such an absence of all reference to Gentile and -lewisli dili'erences in the Church as has its only legitimate explanation in the fact that the gospel had not yet been carried outside of .Jewish circles to such an extent as to raise the questions which constituted the controversy of Acts xv. ; and. specifically, (3) by the fact that not only is the faith and works discussicm of ii. 14-25 not a |)olemic against Paul, but it is not even a sympathetie explanation of his position. It belongs dis- tinctively to a period previous to the Pauline propaganda, as is clear from the fact that ths idea of 'justification' which it embodies is specifically the Old Testament idea of the justifi- cation of the just, not the Pauline idea of the justification of the sinner; while its idea of 'faith' is distinctively the idea seen in the Old Testament of intellectual lielief in monotheism, not the Pauline idea of spiritual trust in .Jesus Christ. Against this uniquely .Jevvisli concep- tion of things it is of little moment to emphasize the moral degeneracy of the times supposed in the Epistle as impossible in the early years of Christianity. .4s such degeneracy was actual in Judaism itself (cf. Rom. ii. 17-29), the question is simply one of the possibility of the reaction