Tag Archives: St. James

Top Blog Posts of 2021

Posted on by
Reply

What were the top posts here during the last year? Which posts did the most people read? Here’s the Top 10 list of 2021… do some sound familiar? It’s because so many people read them–maybe even you! Click the links to read the ones you might have missed.

Doubting Midwife on November 29–read it again

Was Christ Born at Midnight? on December 20–read it here

Nativity of Christ in Early Christian Literature on November 29–read it again

Presentation of the Virgin on December 6–read it here

Angels and Deacons on March 22–read it again

Woman Clothed with the Sun on June 7–read it here if you missed it

666 is the Number of the Beast on June 22–read it again

Whore of Babylon on August 2–read it here

Satan Bound for 1,000 Years on August 30–read it here if you missed it before

Religion Pure and Undefiled on October 19–read it again

Keep your eyes peeled for the new posts coming in 2022! (Some readers might be asking, “If these were the most popular posts of this past year, what was the most popular post ever in the history of the blog?” This was the all-time most read post ever.

Nativity of Christ in Early Christian Literature

Posted on by
6
The Martyrdom of St. James, who was thrown from a parapet of the Temple (where Jesus was tempted by the Devil) and then clubbed to death—Mosaic from St. Mark’s in Venice.

Much early Christian literature, the so-called “apocrypha” of the New Testament, are collections of Christian folktales and sermonettes that are meant to make connections between the Old Testament and the experiences of the early Christian communities. The audience of these collections were not stupid people; they knew what was an exciting novella based on the experiences of the martyrs and what were the scenes made up to fill in the gaps of the story.

One example of such “midrash,” the homiletic-style of telling a Bible story with commentary included, is the Protoevangelium of James which tells the stories of the birth and childhood of the Virgin Mary and Jesus. The Protoevangelium is said to have been written by the Apostle James, the author of the epistle with his name in the New Testament. James was the step-brother of Jesus; he was the youngest son of St. Joseph, who was an older man who had been married before. The stories in the Protoevangelium make explicit what the New Testament implies and underscore-reiterate what the Gospels tells us of Christ.

The Protoevangelium was written approx. AD 150 but incorporates much older material, including the memories of the Jerusalem community of Christians. Long thought by Western scholars to be a complete fiction because of its unusual details, many of these details in the Protoevangelium have been proven correct by recent archeological discoveries (such as the dormitory of a women’s community that lived adjacent to the Temple) and the discovery of other manuscripts that reveal previously unknown 1st century Jewish practices. So, rather than making up fairy tales about Christ and his mother, we now know that the Protoevangelium has preserved long-forgotten details that the original readers would have been familiar with.

Beginning next week, and continuing for the next three-four weeks, we will examine some of the stories in the Protoevangelium about Jesus’ birth and discover what these old stories, meant to supplement the Gospel accounts, can tell us about Christ’s nativity.

James, a Servant of God

Posted on by
Reply

An icon of the 17th century depicts James as a young boy travelling to Egypt with his father Joseph and his stepbrother Jesus together with the Blessed Virgin, Jesus’ mother. The icon of James as an adult shows him vested as the 1st bishop of Jerusalem. The scroll he holds reads, “O Lord, who blesses those who bless thee….” which is one of the last prayers of the Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church.

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: Greeting! Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials,  for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:1-4)

The epistle of James is probably the first of the New Testament texts to be written. If 1 & 2 Thessalonians were the first epistles written by the Apostle Paul (AD 51-52), the epistle of James (written AD 45) predates the Apostle Paul by 5+ years. Traditionally attributed to “James the Just,” the son of Joseph by his first wife and the stepbrother of Jesus, the epistle that bears his name is more an extended sermon-homily than it is a letter. (This makes it similar to the Epistle to the Hebrews, which is also an extended sermon-commentary rather than a letter per se.)

James, the “brother of the Lord” as he is commonly referred to because they were stepbrothers, was not a believer (John 7:3-5) until after the resurrection (Acts 1:14; 1 Corinthians 15:7; Galatians 1:19). (He was the youngest of Joseph’s children and was a pre-teen when Joseph wed the Virgin Mary. Because James was still living at home with his father and the Virgin, he went down to Egypt with the Holy Family when they fled from Herod after the visit of the Magi described in Matthew 2.) He became the head of the Jerusalem church and is mentioned first as a pillar of the church (Galatians 2:9). He presided at the first council of the Church, held at Jerusalem in AD 50. James was martyred in approximately AD 62, according to the historian Josephus. (Apart from a handful of references in the synoptic Gospels, the main sources for the life of James the Just are the Pauline epistles, the Acts of theApostles, Josephus, Eusebius and Jerome, who also quote the early Christian chronicler Hegesippus and Epiphanius.)

Some think that this epistle was written in response to an overzealous interpretation of Paul’s teaching regarding faith. This extreme view, called “antinomianism,” held that anyone who has faith in Christ is completely free from all rules, whether religious law or secular law, and all the usual moral rules of a society.

As the earliest written description of Christian beliefs and practices, the epistle of James deserves more attention than it generally receives. It shows us not only what the early Church taught but continues to illuminate our path today.