in the name of this James; and thus its gradual reception is to be accounted for from its having, from early times, been known by some to be genuine (as shown by the Syraic version), and this knowledge being afterwards spread more widely.”  Tregelles in Horne, vol. 4, chap. 25.  Davidson suggests that differences of opinion and perplexities respecting the number of the persons called James in the apostolic period, and the relation they bore to one another, and also the fact that the epistle was addressed solely to Jewish Christians, may have made its early circulation comparatively limited.  Perhaps we may also add, as he does, its apparent contrariety to the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith, but this is by no means certain.

6.  This epistle is eminently practical.  If any part of it can be called argumentative, it is that in which the apostle shows that “faith without works is dead.”  Chap. 2:14-26.  The sins which he rebukes with such graphic vividness and power were all preeminently the sins of his countrymen at that age—­hearing God’s word without doing it, resting in an empty faith that does not influence the life, inordinate love of worldly possessions and a self-confident spirit in the pursuit of them, wanton revelling in worldly pleasures, partiality towards the rich and contempt of the poor, defrauding the poor of their wages, ambition to assume the office of teaching, censoriousness, a lawless and slanderous tongue, bitter envying and strife, mutual grudging and murmuring, wars and fightings; all these with an unbelieving and complaining spirit towards God.  But these are not merely Jewish vices.  They are deeply rooted in man’s fallen nature, and many a nominal Christian community of our day may see its own image by looking into the mirror of this epistle.

The alleged disagreement between Paul and James is unfounded.  Paul’s object is to show that the ground of men’s justification is faith in Christ, and not the merit of their good works.  The object of James is to show that faith without good works, like the body without the spirit, is dead.  Paul argues against dead works; James against dead faith.  Here we have no contradiction, but only two different views of truth that are in entire harmony with each other, and both of which are essential to true godliness.

II.  EPISTLES OF PETER.

7.  The First Epistle of Peter was unanimously received by the primitive church as the genuine work of the man whose name it bears.  Polycarp, in his epistle to the Philippians, made numerous citations from it.  It was also referred to by Papias, according to the testimony of Eusebius.  Hist.  Eccl. 3. 39.  Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, etc. all quote it expressly.  It is found in the Syriac Peshito version which contains but three of the catholic epistles.  It is wanting in the Muratorian canon, but to this circumstance much weight cannot be attached when we consider how dark and confused is the passage referring to the catholic epistles.