wrote him a threatening letter, and that Agrippa deposed him from the priesthood."

The story of his death is told in a more dramatic form, and probably with some legendary admixture, by Hegesippus, the historian of the Jews, who wrote in the third quarter of the second century. The passage (quoted by Euseb. Hist. II. 23) is so interesting, and in some respects so important, that it will be well to give it at length.

"James the brother of the Lord receives the Church from the Apostles, he who was called the Just from the Lord's time even to our own; for many bore the name of James. This man was holy from his mother's womb. He drank no wine nor strong drink, nor did he eat any thing that lives. No razor came upon his head, nor did he anoint himself with oil, nor use the bath. He only was allowed to enter into the holy place, for he wore no woollen, but linen garments only. And he was wont to go alone into the sanctuary, and used to be found prostrate on his knees, and asking forgiveness for the people, so that his knees grew hard and worn, like a camel's, because he was ever kneeling and worshipping God, and asking forgiveness for the people. And on account of his exceeding righteousness he was called the Righteous (or the Just), and Oblias, which means in Greek 'the bulwark of the people' and 'righteousness,' as the prophets shew of him. Some then of the seven sects of the people, of those whom I have described in my Memoirs, were wont to ask him, Who is the door of Jesus? And he was wont to say that this was the Saviour. And of these some believed that Jesus is the Christ. But the sects of which I have spoken did not believe either in the Resurrection, or in Him who cometh to give to every man according to his works. As many then as believed did so on account of James. And when many of the rulers also believed, there was a stir of the Jews and Scribes and Pharisees, saying that the whole people were in danger of looking for Jesus the Christ. They came together and said to James: 'We entreat thee, restrain the people, for they have gone astray to Jesus as though He were indeed the Christ. We beseech thee to persuade all that come to the day

of the Passover concerning Jesus; for we all hearken to thee. For all of us bear thee witness, and all the people also, that thou art righteous, and art no respecter of persons. Do thou therefore persuade the multitude not to be led astray concerning Jesus; for we and all the people hearken unto thee. Stand therefore on the pinnacle of the Temple, that thou mayest be conspicuous aloft, and that thy words may easily be heard by all the people, for by reason of the Passover all the tribes have come together, and with them the Gentiles.' So the Scribes and Pharisees before-mentioned placed James on the pinnacle of the Temple, and they cried out to him, and said, 'O thou Righteous one, to whom we are all bound to hearken, since the people are all gone astray after Jesus that was crucified, tell us what is the door of Jesus.' And he answered with a loud voice: 'Why ask ye me concerning Jesus the Son of man? He hath sat down in Heaven on the right hand of the Great Power, and is about to come upon the clouds of Heaven.' And when many were fully persuaded, and were glorifying God for the testimony of James, and saying, 'Hosanna to the Son of David,' then again the same Scribes and Pharisees said one to another, 'We did ill in giving scope for such a testimony to Jesus, but let us go up and cast him down, that they may fear and not believe him.' And they cried out, saying, 'Ho, ho, even the Righteous is gone astray!' And they fulfilled the scripture that is written in Isaiah, Let us make away with the Righteous, for he is displeasing to us; therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their works. And they went and cast the Righteous one down; and they said one to another, 'Let us stone James the Righteous.' And they began to stone him, for when he was cast down he did not die at once, but turned and fell on his knees, saying, 'O Lord God our Father, forgive them, I beseech Thee, for they know not what they do.' And while they were thus stoning him, one of the priests of the sons of Rechab the son of Rechabim, of whom the Prophet Jeremiah bears record, cried out and said, 'Cease ye: what is it that ye are doing? The Righteous one is praying for you.' And one of them, who was a fuller, took the club wherewith he was wont to beat his

clothes, and smote the head of the Righteous one with it. And so he bore his witness. And they buried him at the place beside the Sanctuary, and his tombstone remaineth by the Sanctuary. He was, and is, a true witness both to Jews and Greeks, that Jesus is the Christ."

There is but little, if anything, in this narrative, that is in itself improbable. The picture drawn of St James's life agrees with the position occupied by him in Acts xx. 23 as the centre of those who were all zealous of the Law, as giving prominence to the Nazarite vow as an act of devotion, as wishing above all things to stop the mouths of disputants and gainsayers. The long-continued prayer in the Temple is but the natural development of the teaching of the Epistle as to the power of effectual fervent prayer. The use of linen garments only was after the rule of the Essenes (Joseph. Wars, II. 8 § 4). The abstinence from wine and animal food was what might be expected in one who had been a student of the prophet who gave such prominence to the Nazarite vow (Amos ii. 11, 12; Acts xv. 16), who had been also a follower of the Baptist, and so largely reproduced his teaching. The non-use of the bath need not be understood of any neglect of the multiplied ablutions which were practised by all Pharisees and devout Jews, above all, by the Essenes (Joseph. Wars, II. 8 § 3), whose life approximated to the type presented by that of St James and of the Baptist. The "bath" in the language of the writers of that age was the Roman bath with its sudatorium, frigidarium, shampooing, and other appliances, which was naturally looked upon by those who were leading an ascetic life as an effeminate luxury. Even the more startling fact, that the brother of the Lord was allowed to enter into the Sanctuary, is not without a parallel (assuming the term to point not to the Holy of Holies, but to the Court of the Priests) in the privileges which were granted to other Nazarites, and which led a later Jewish writer (Maimonides, More Nevochim III. 43) to place those who took that vow on them as a life-long obligation, on a level with the High Priest; and the mention of the priest of the sons of Rechab, who naturally sympathised with one whose life

was like his own, is explained by the fact, sufficiently established by the Targum of Jonathan and other evidence (see Dictionary of the Bible, Art. "Rechabites"), that they were adopted, after the Captivity, into the tribe of Levi, perhaps into the family of Aaron, and became entitled to their privileges. The tradition reported by Epiphanius (Hær. 78) that he, like St John at Ephesus (Eus. v. 24), wore the Téraλov, or thin plate of gold, with the words "Holiness to the Lord," which belonged to the High Priest (Exod. xxviii. 36), represents, it is obvious, the same ideas, and in spite of its apparent strangeness, need not be rejected as in itself incredible1. The name Oblias2, with the explanation which Hegesippus gives of it, represents the reverence felt by the population of Jerusalem for one who was to them the last surviving representative of the saintly life, and which shewed itself in their feeling that when he was murdered their defence was gone, and that the calamities that then followed in such quick succession were the just punishment of that deed of blood (Euseb. Hist. II. 23). The question which seems to us at first scarcely intelligible, What is the door of Jesus? connects itself with the teaching of the Epistle that "the Judge standeth at the door" (ch. v. 9). One who had those words often on his lips as a warning against the selfish luxury of the generation in which he lived, was likely enough to hear from Sadducean priests, themselves foremost in that luxury, the mocking question,

1 It may be noted, in connexion with this statement, that the portrait of Josephus, commonly found in the English editions, represents him with this petalon. I do not know from what picture the engraving was made, but the fact seems to indicate that the practice was not so strange as it appears to us. Josephus, it will be remembered, claimed descent from the sons of Aaron, and it is not unlikely that both St John and the brother of the Lord may have had a like claim (see Article "Priests" in the Dictionary of the Bible). Jerome, whose personal knowledge goes for something in such a matter, says that Josephus was in such favour with Vespasian and Titus, that he had a public statue at Rome (Catal. Script. Illust.), so that there may have been some authority in the fourth century for such a representation.

2 The probable Hebrew form of the word was Ophli-am (=stronghold of the people), the first half of the word being identical with Ophel, the tower on the south side of the Temple, which was the residence of the Levites (Neh. xi. 21).

"What is that door of which we hear so much?" They did not hear anything, though the Judge was standing at the door and knocked.

VI. Later traditions present features that are either dimmer or more distorted. The party that had misrepresented St James in his life continued their work after he was dead; and in the controversial romance known as the Homilies of the PseudoClement of Rome, Peter writes to the brother of the Lord, and maintains the perpetual obligation of the Law of Moses against the preaching of the man (obviously the forger of the letter means St Paul) who was "his enemy," and James delivers the record of his teaching to men who are at once "devout and circumcised and faithful," and binds them by a solemn oath, like that of the Freemasons or other secret societies, to absolute secresy and obedience (Epistle of Peter, prefixed to the Clementine Homilies). The Pseudo-Clement dedicates his work to "his lord James, the bishop of bishops, who rules Jerusalem, the Holy Church of the Hebrews" (Epist. of Clement). In a second romance known as the Recognitions, ascribed to the same writer, St James, the "Archbishop" of Jerusalem, sends Peter to Cæsarea to stop the work carried on by Simon the Sorcerer (Recogn. I. 72,73), and stands for seven days on the steps of the Temple proclaiming that Jesus is the Christ, while Saul, here also represented as from first to last the "enemy" of Peter and of James, is making havock of the Church. In the Apostolic Constitutions, a work probably of the third or fourth century, he appears with the Twelve (here also distinguished from the son of Alphæus), (Book VI. 14), and gives rubrical directions for the lighting of lamps, and the Evening Prayer that was to accompany it (Book VIII. 35—37), and for prayers for the departed (Book VIII. 41). In accordance with the hints there given, the Eastern Churches, of which Antioch was the centre, claimed him as having laid down the order and pattern of their worship, and the Liturgy of James comes before us as one of the great representatives of what was in the third, and possibly in the second, century, the Eucharistic Service of the ancient Church, and James is commemorated in it as the prince of