James II - biography, facts from life, photographs, background information. Jacob II - biography, facts from life, photographs, background information Characteristics of the historical personality of Jacob 2 Stuart

2:1 My brethren! have faith in Jesus Christ our Lord of glory, regardless of persons.
In the light of God's glory - Christ gave his life without partiality for everyone - rich and poor, authoritative and not very, without looking at the position in the world or among the people of God, wealth or ethnicity, education or external data, etc. Before God - we are all equal, and whoever imitates Christ - the same as he should think.

Therefore, the behavior of a believing Christian should not depend on WHAT PERSON is standing in front of him and WHO is observing his behavior. A believer must ALWAYS behave equally correctly and according to God's principles with everyone, regardless of their weight in society - in accordance with their convictions.

2:2,3 For if a man with a golden ring, in rich clothes, enters your assembly, the poor man also enters in scanty clothes,
3 And you, looking at a man dressed in rich clothes, will say to him, It is good for you to sit here, but to the poor you will say, You stand there, or sit here at my feet, -
H o there may also be a phenomenon of partiality in the congregation: the behavior of a Christian can fall into a strong dependence on WHO sees him. Before someone he will curry favor - as a rule, before influential people in the Church or rich people, from whom in the future you can get something for yourself personally for your helpfulness. And those persons from whom there is nothing to take - he can neglect and even humiliate. It is not right.

2:4 then do you not judge in yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? E If anyone notices such a phenomenon in oneself, one must immediately fight it, so as not to find oneself in the role of judges who evaluate those who come to the meeting according to their own standards. ALL who come to the congregation are attracted by God, which means that ALL are worthy of a good attitude towards themselves.

2:5 Listen, my beloved brethren: has not God chosen the poor of the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he has promised to those who love him?
especially since God evaluates poverty differently: the poor from the point of view of the world turned out to be rich in faith and future inheritance in the Kingdom of God because they loved God and accepted His Christ. His inheritance - more gold and silver will be, which means that HIS poor are richer than the billionaires of the world.

2:6 And you despised the poor. Do not the rich oppress you, and do they drag you to the courts? so look - BEFORE you start to please the face of the rich and despise the face of the beggar - do not miscalculate in choosing who to curry favor (we exaggerate a little). And better - generally leave these worldly habits to curry favor with the powers that be - anyway, God will give you more than any of them. And they - fawning and despise themselves, although they love to be groveled and servile before them. In addition, it is the rich and authoritative that create problems for Christians in life. Do not forget about this and it will be easy to breathe evenly towards them.

2:7 Do they not dishonor the good name by which you are called?
also remember that these very rich ones slander the name of Christ - the way of life of a Christian, in which the rich cannot be able to reach the heights of Mammon, therefore, they cannot accept the Christian way of life. Well, as an excuse for themselves - this path is easier for them to vilify than to accept. The recollection of this also cools the desire to curry favor with them.

Rich, however, does not necessarily mean disorderly. It’s just that in Satan’s world, the system of acquiring wealth is arranged in such a way that in order to gain wealth and successfully conduct business in many countries, it is often necessary to withhold wages from workers or to do illegal actions yourself, or hire someone from the world to do wickedness with his hands, while doing it yourself staying clean. Therefore, the rich

of this age - much less likely to accept the path of Christ, the path of self-denial and a little comfortable existence.

But it doesn’t hurt to remember about partiality towards the spiritually “rich”: it’s also not worth it to servility and show favoritism to those who consider themselves rich in spiritual knowledge, because, unfortunately, this kind of partiality is also found in modern assemblies of believers.

2:8 If you fulfill the royal law, according to the Scriptures: love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well
The ROYAL law is to love your neighbor as yourself, regardless of whether your neighbor is beneficial to you or not.

2:9 But if you act with partiality, then you commit a sin, and you turn out to be criminals before the law.
and if you love solely for profit with partiality, then we violate this law of love in a royal way and turn into criminals for such a small amount, because Jesus did not choose who is worthy of his love and who is not, dying for EVERYONE in general. Well, with criminals , of course, no one will mess around.

2:10 Whoever keeps the whole law and sins in one point, he becomes guilty of everything
if at least one of the list of 100 points is violated, that’s it, we won’t fit into the executor of the WHOLE law. There is no difference - whether one item or 90 was not fulfilled - it's still a VIOLATOR of the law.

A Christian cannot arbitrarily choose for himself what he will fulfill from the commandments of God and what not. And in order to fall into the net of Satan, it is not necessary to be wicked in everything, it is enough to choose the path of disobedience to God in one thing.

One can imagine a road on which the drivers themselves decided not to follow the rules according to just one rule, but in the rest - to drive according to the rules. One decided to run a red light, the other - in the oncoming lane, the third - do not honk when cornering, etc. What will happen on the road in this case? Will this road lead anyone to heaven?

This is how the people of God are: what will come of it with such a variant of the selective fulfillment of the commandments of God? Will it be easy and pleasant to live in it? No, live among it and be afraid, for you do not know what law of God a brother or sister will choose in their hearts for disobedience and how it will affect you.

2:11 For he who said, Thou shalt not commit adultery, also said, Thou shalt not kill; therefore, if you do not commit adultery, but kill, then you are also a transgressor of the law
For all points of the law are established by ONE AUTHOR. And none of them can be neglected. If I do not commit adultery, but kill someone - I will be GUILTY before the Legislator anyway

2:12 Thus speak and act thus, as those who are to be judged according to the law of liberty.
and therefore, we must behave and speak among ourselves with such a calculation that for each of our deeds and words we will be judged by the court of freedom: if you yourself, in your free will, have chosen to fulfill the Royal law of love for your neighbor, then bear responsibility for your choice do the right thing by your own choice.

2:13 For judgment is without mercy to him who has shown no mercy; mercy prevails over judgment.
The Apostle James said that if a Christian, diligent in labor for God, did not show mercy to someone, then he will be judged by God not by mercy: mercy in a Christian must be more desire to condemn someone and demand punishment (mercy prevails over judgment).
How willing are we to forgive those who offended us? How mercifully do we try to deal with our neighbors? Do we act like, for example, the Samaritan, who did not help a wounded Jew according to the points of the law, but out of his mercy - when the priest and the Levite did not find such a point in the law?

If we, being in the Royal Law, consider that it is not necessary to show mercy to our neighbor, then mercy may not be shown to us at the court according to the same law - according to our own idea of ​​this law. Everything is simple.

2:14 What good is it, my brethren, if someone says that he has faith, but does not have works? can this faith save him?
Believing that the deeds of the way of God are all right, but not confirmed by these deeds, is useless. If you do not do the works of your faith, then how can you believe that it is necessary to do them? It's impossible

2:15,16 If a brother or sister is naked and has no daily food,
16 And one of you will say to them, “Go in peace, keep warm and eat,” but will not give them the necessities of the body: what is the use?
Apparently, it may be the same with us: having promised to do something for a fellow believer, we are already “pacified” (we think, well, I wanted to help, which means it’s good), and it happens that after some time we do something that we promised - already annoying. In this case, continue to reassure yourself with the thought that “I wanted to help” is just self-deception, mere desires to help “do not count”
If we don’t feed the hungry, and don’t clothe the naked, limiting ourselves only to our sympathy for them in words - well, who will believe us that we really believe that it is necessary to show mercy? None. And there will be no benefit to us from SUCH strange mercy, not shown in practice - from God there will be none.

2:17 So faith, if it does not have works, is dead in itself.
if faith is not confirmed by living deeds, it is dead, that is, IN FACT we are unbelievers. Even if we consider ourselves believers and are numbered in the congregation of God ..

2:18 But someone will say: You have faith and I have works. Show me your
faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith with my deeds
Jacob urges Christians to think about the fact that faith has the opportunity to be confirmed by the works of God. What for? Then, that faith in itself is not yet a guarantee that righteous deeds will certainly be done. James shows this by the example of the faith of the devil.

2:19,20 You believe that God is one: you do well; and the demons believe, and tremble.
20 But do you want to know, you foolish man, that faith without works is dead?
for example, you believe that there is one God - well done, this is wonderful. BUT!!! And the demons believe, and even tremble before God. WHAT IS THEIR USE in their SUCH strong faith? If they do nothing for God? Since - can faith in God be without deeds for Him? Maybe. But only the devil and others like him.

2:21 Was not Abraham, our father, justified by works, when he offered Isaac his son on the altar?
and here is an example of deeds in connection with a strong faith in God: Abraham reinforced his faith that God would give him seed and multiply it by deed and agreed to offer his only Isaac as a sacrifice to God without talking. Although, it would seem - where is the logic? Whence - the reproduction of the seed of Abraham, if it is burned at the stake? Abraham simply believed that God was powerful and would raise him from the dead – Heb.11:19. Therefore, he agreed to do it for God - according to His word. Although it was not easy to make such a decision.

2:22 Do you see that faith worked with his works, and by works faith was made perfect?
Is there a difference between a mere believing devil and Abraham trusting God in the absolute (completely, perfectly)? Apparently, no doubt ? Meanwhile to believe into God and those to believe God- a huge difference: many believe in the existence of God, but only a few believe in Him and his word.

2:23 And the word of Scripture was fulfilled: "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God."
as a result of faith, backed up by righteous deeds, the word of Scripture was fulfilled that Abraham was called a friend of God for complete trust in Him.

2:24 Do you see that a person is justified by works, and not only by faith?
So it turns out that the righteous not only believes in Jehovah, but also does righteous deeds according to his faith. With one faith - it is impossible to become righteous - the devil and demons, although they believe in God, are unrighteous.

So the version of "home" Christianity is not suitable for God's servant. For most of all, we must help our own by faith. But how is this possible if you sit at home and do not communicate with them?

2:25 Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she received the spies and sent them away in another way?
the example of Raavi is also an example of the righteous, for she strengthened her faith in God with deeds, releasing His servants and trusting in the word of God's servants.

2:26 For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead.
Therefore, it is impossible to separate faith from works. Just as the body without the spirit of life is dead and there is no benefit to man from it, so faith without works of faith is dead. And from such faith to a person there is no benefit.

James II (1633-1701), English king from 1685-1688. From the Stuart dynasty. Tried to restore absolutism and its support - catholic church. Deposed during a coup d'état in 1688-89 (the so-called Glorious Revolution).

JAKOV II Stuart(James II, James II; James II) (October 14, 1633, London - September 6, 1701, Saint-Germain, France), King of England and Scotland in 1685-88.

Second son and Henrietta Maria, younger brother Charles II, before coming to power bore the title of Duke of York. The years of childhood and youth of the prince fell on the era of the civil war, during which he was next to his father in Oxford. At the end of the first civil war (1646), Jacob was under the supervision of the Parliament, but later the royalists managed to organize his escape - first to Holland, and then to France, which gave shelter to his mother and sisters. Jacob showed himself to be a brave warrior from a young age. Under the command of Marshal Turenne, he participated in the suppression of the French Fronde, and later in the war with Spain. But after the government of Mazarin concluded an agreement with Cromwell in 1655, members of the English royal family were forced to leave France. The Duke of York entered the Spanish service: he commanded a regiment of English and Irish emigrants stationed in Flanders.

Lord Admiral

After the restoration of the monarchy in England, Jacob headed the Admiralty. Under his leadership, a number of attempts were made to reorganize the activities of the maritime department and rid it of corruption. The duke himself personally participated in naval battles during the wars with the Dutch, in 1665 he defeated Admiral Ondam, fought with the famous Dutch admiral de Ruyter in 1672, which earned him popularity in the country.

Duke of York and Catholicism

While still in exile, Jacob secretly became engaged to Anna Hyde (1638-71), daughter of the adviser and future minister of Charles II, Earl of Clarendon, who was one of the court ladies of Mary Stuart, wife of William II of Orange, ruler of Holland. Returning to England, the Duke of York, against the wishes of his brother, married her. Two daughters were born from this marriage - Maria (1662-1694), who later became the wife of William III of Orange, and Anna (1665-1713), who married Prince George of Denmark. Jacob's wife was a Catholic, from 1668 he himself converted to Catholicism, but at the insistence of the king, both of his nieces were brought up in the Anglican faith.

After the death of Anna Hyde in 1671, Jacob entered into a second marriage with Mary, daughter of the Duke of Modena (1658-1718), who was also a Catholic.

Jacob's Catholic predilections, of which he made no secret, displeased the British, who wanted to see a Protestant heir to the throne.

"Catholic conspiracy" and the question of succession

The Duke of York gradually lost popularity, and after the disclosure of the so-called conspiracy of 1679, he was accused of preparing the assassination of Charles II. The king was forced to order his brother to leave England, and in the country the Whigs launched a campaign to exclude Jacob from the throne. Jacob settled in Brussels; a few months later, Charles II returned his brother from exile, but, not daring to allow him to come to England, he appointed him his governor in Scotland. However, already in 1681 the disgraced duke returned to London and actually headed the government in the last years of his brother's reign. His name is associated with the dissolution of parliament in 1681, which refused to recognize Jacob as heir to the throne, and the five-year non-parliamentary rule of Charles II.

The Whig opposition was defeated, and after the death of his brother, who did not leave a legitimate heir, James II ascended the throne without hindrance.

Reign of James II (1685-88)

Having come to power, James II began to fight the opposition, which was trying to prevent the realization of his rights to the crown. Relying on the support of parliament, he introduced a standing army in the country, and by a number of decrees limited the freedom of the press, which was supposed to curb the influence of Whig propaganda. The opposition tried to raise uprisings against him: in the summer of 1681, the Earl of Argyll raised an uprising in Scotland, and in October of the same year, the Duke of Monmouth landed on the southwestern coast of England, allegedly the illegitimate son of Charles II, whom some of the Whigs considered as a contender for the throne. However, both uprisings were quickly put down.

The foreign policy of James II testifies to the cooling between England and France. Unlike his brother, James II strove for greater independence; besides, he, being the father-in-law of William III of Orange and considering him as a future heir, was afraid of French conquest plans in Holland. The alarm of James II was also caused by the cancellation of the Edict of Nantes, which deprived civil rights French Huguenots. Despite the displeasure of Louis XIV, he provided asylum to many Protestants who left France in 1685. But relations between him and the king of France deteriorated significantly.

At the beginning of his reign, James II enjoyed the support of society, including the hierarchs of the Anglican Church. But, being a zealous Catholic, the king sought to equalize the rights of his subjects - Protestants and Catholics. He obtained from the judges recognition of the right to suspend laws that prohibited Catholics from holding official positions, as a result of which Catholics penetrated into the army and into the number of judges, and their ranks constantly multiplied. The king spared no effort and money for Catholic preaching in the country: Catholic priests returned to England, Jesuit schools appeared in London. Although he did not seek the complete conversion of the country to Catholicism, and relations with Pope Innocent XI were cool, the spread of Catholicism was viewed with suspicion by his subjects.

In 1687, James II promulgated the Declaration of Toleration, according to which all criminal laws against dissenters, including Catholics, were suspended. The declaration, repeated in 1688, caused a wave of protest on the part of the Tory nobles, who for the most part belonged to the Anglican Church, and above all the bishops. The bishops turned to the king with a petition expressing their disagreement with the religious policy of the monarch. In response, James II ordered the arrest of seven bishops on charges of distributing pamphlets directed against the king. This case rallied against the king and the Tories and the opposition Whigs. The protest swept not only London, but also the counties.

The last straw was the birth on June 10, 1688 of the queen's son, named James (Jacob). If earlier the eldest daughter of James II Mary and her husband William of Orange, who were Protestants, were considered the heir to the throne, and society expected a return to the old order after the death of the Catholic king, then with the advent of a son who would be raised by Catholics, the prospect of the country returning to Catholicism in the eyes subjects of James II seemed quite real.

glorious revolution

Thus, in the summer of 1688, almost the entire nobility turned out to be in opposition to the king, with the exception of Catholics, who made up only a small number of the country's inhabitants. The leaders of the Whig opposition, united with the Tories, sent an invitation to the king's son-in-law, William of Orange, urging him to invade England and take the throne, guaranteeing the population the preservation of religion and the constitutional rights of Parliament. James II tried to reach a compromise with the opposition by announcing free parliamentary elections and reconcile with the Anglican bishops, but his efforts were belated.

In October 1688, the army of William of Orange landed in the southwest of England. The army of James II was more numerous, but the king could not organize resistance to the invasion - the officers and soldiers went over to the side of the enemy, the courtiers and even his daughter Anna did the same. In the north, in Cheshire and Nottinghamshire, uprisings began. All the major cities of England gave their support to the invasion. In December 1688, James II fled to France, where his wife and son were sent in advance. Louis XIV granted the Saint-Germain Palace to the exile and allocated a generous allowance.

Deposed from the throne, Jacob did not give up hope of regaining power. In 1689 he sailed for Ireland, raising the country's Catholic population against the new king of England, William III, but in 1690 his troops were defeated; the attempt to land a French landing in 1691 was also unsuccessful: the French fleet was defeated. Subsequently, he tried to organize a pan-European alliance against William III, but Louis XIV, who concluded the Ryswick Peace with England in 1697, refused to support Jacob's plans.

Personal qualities

In the last years of his life, Jacob completely turned to religion, most spent time in Parisian monasteries.

James II was distinguished by a stern and imperious character. During military campaigns, he showed personal courage. Unlike his brother, who was ready to make any compromises in order to maintain power, he remained true to his word, friends and beliefs in all circumstances. James II transferred these qualities to his political activities, which ultimately cost him the crown.

He was buried in the parish church of Saint-Germain (tombstone and grave destroyed during the French Revolution).

Attention! The comments below are for ADVISORY purposes only. Thanks to their historical information they ONLY HELP TO UNDERSTAND what is written in the Bible. Commentaries are NOT to be taken on an equal footing with Scripture!

Comments
Barkley

Commentaries (introduction) to the entire book of "James"

Comments on chapter 2

INTRODUCTION TO JAMES

The Epistle of James only after a stubborn struggle was included in the New Testament. But even after he was ranked among the Holy Scriptures, he was looked at with suspicion and restraint. As early as the sixteenth century, Martin Luther would have gladly excluded it from the New Testament.

DOUBT OF THE CHURCH FATHERS

In the writings of the Fathers of the Church, the Epistle of James occurs only at the beginning of the fourth century. The first collection of New Testament books was the Muratorian canon, dating from about the year 170, and the Epistle of James was not included in it. The Church teacher Tertullian, writing in the middle of the third century, very often quotes the Scriptures, including 7258 times - the New Testament, but not a single time the Epistle of James. The Epistle of James is mentioned for the first time in a Latin manuscript: which is called the Codex Corbeiensis and dates from about 350; it was attributed to James, the son of Zebedee, and was included not among the generally recognized books of the New Testament, but in the collection of theological treatises written by the fathers of the early Christian Church. Thus, the Epistle of James was accepted, however, with certain reservations. The first quotation from the Epistle of James was quoted verbatim by Illarius of Poitiers in a treatise entitled On the Trinity, written about 357.

But if the Epistle of James became known so late in the Church, and its acceptance was associated with reservations, how then was it included in the New Testament? Of great importance in this belongs to Jerome, one of the outstanding teachers of the Church (330-419), who without the slightest hesitation included the Epistle of James in the revised version of the Bible, revised by him, called the Vulgate. But he had some doubts. In his book Concerning Famous Men, Jerome wrote: "James, who is called the brother of the Lord, wrote only one epistle, one of the seven epistles of the council, which some people say was written by someone else and attributed to James." Jerome fully accepted this epistle as an integral part of Holy Scripture, but he understood that there were some doubts as to who was its author. All doubts were finally dispelled when Augustine fully recognized the Epistle of James, not in the least doubting that this James was the brother of our Lord.

The Epistle of James was recognized rather late in the Church: for a long time it stood under a question mark, but its inclusion by Jerome in the Vulgate and its recognition by Augustine secured its full recognition, after some struggle.

SYRIAN CHURCH

It can be assumed that the Syrian church should have been one of the first to accept the Epistle of James, if it really was written in Palestine and really came from the pen of our Lord's brother, but the same doubts and hesitations existed in the Syrian church. The official Syriac translation of the New Testament, which the Syriac Church adheres to, is called Peshito and occupies the same place in the Syrian Church as it occupies in the Roman Catholic Church Vulgate. This translation was made in the year 412 by Rabulla, Bishop of Edessa, and at the same time the Epistle of James was first translated into Syriac; before that time there was no translation of it in the Syriac language, and until 451 this epistle is never mentioned in Syriac theological literature. But since that time it has been widely accepted, and yet as early as 545 Paul of Nisibis disputed its right to be included in the New Testament. It was only in the middle of the eighth century that the authority of John of Damascus promoted the recognition of the Epistle of James in the Syrian church with the same force with which the authority of Augustine influenced the whole church.

GREK-SPEAKING CHURCH

Although the Epistle of James appeared in the Greek-speaking church earlier than in other churches, but in it, over time, it took a certain place.

It is first mentioned by Origen, chapter Alexandrian school. Somewhere in the middle of the third century, he wrote: "Faith, if it is called faith, but does not have works, is dead in itself, as we read in the epistle, which is now called James." In other theological treatises, it is true, he quotes this quotation already quite sure that it belongs to James and makes it clear that he believes that James was the brother of our Lord; although there remains a hint of doubt.

The great theologian and Bishop of Caesarea of ​​Palestine, Eusebius, traces and analyzes the various books of the New Testament and books related to the New Testament written up to the middle of the fourth century. He classifies the Epistle of James as "controversial" and writes about it thus: his". And here again slips doubt.

The turning point in the Greek-speaking Church was 267, when Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria wrote his famous Paschal Epistle in Egypt. It was supposed to give people guidance on which books to consider as Holy Scripture and which not, because they began to read too many books, or at least too many books began to be counted as Holy Scripture. In this Epistle of Bishop Athanasius, the Epistle of James was included in the canon without any additional comments, and since then it has taken a firm place in the canon.

Thus, the meaning and importance of the Epistle of James itself was never questioned in the early Church, yet it became known rather late and its right to take its place among the books of the New Testament was disputed for some time.

The epistle of James still holds a special position in the Roman Catholic Church. In 1546, the Council of Trent finally, once and for all, established the composition of the Roman Catholic Bible. A list of books was drawn up to which nothing could be added. Nothing could be removed from this list either. The books of the Bible were to be submitted only in a presentation called the Vulgate. All books were divided into two groups: protocanonical, that is, undeniable from the very beginning, and deuterocanonical, that is, those that only gradually made their way into the New Testament. Although the Roman Catholic Church never questioned James, it was nevertheless included in the second group.

Luther and James

Today it can also be said that many do not consider the book of James to be the most important in the New Testament. Few would put it on a par with the Gospels of John and Luke or the Epistles to the Romans and Galatians. Many still treat him with restraint today. Why? This, of course, has nothing to do with the doubts expressed about the Epistle of James in the early Christian Church, because many in the modern Church have no idea at all about the history of the New Testament at that distant time. The reason is this: the Roman Catholic Church determined its attitude towards the Epistle of James by the edict of the Council of Trent, but in the Protestant Church doubts about its history persisted and, in fact, even increased, because Martin Luther opposed it and even would have preferred to remove it altogether. from the New Testament. With his edition of the German New Testament, Luther included a table of contents in which all the books were numbered. At the end of this list was given, separately from the others, a small group of books without numbers. This group included the Epistles of James and Jude, the Epistle to the Hebrews and Revelation. Luther regarded these books as secondary.

Luther attacked the book of James especially sharply, and the unfavorable opinion of a great man can ruin a book forever. Luther's famous judgment on the epistle is found in the last paragraph of his Preface to the New Testament:

"So the Gospels and 1 John, Paul's letters, especially the Romans, Galatians, and Corinthians, and 1 Peter are the books that show you Christ. They teach you everything you need to know for your salvation, even if you would never see or hear of any other book, or even hear any other teaching. Compared to them, the Epistle of James is an epistle full of straws, because there is nothing ecclesiastical in it. But more about this in other prefaces.

Luther developed his assessment in the "Preface to the Epistles of James and Jude", as he promised, He begins: "I highly value the Epistle of James and find it useful, although it was not accepted at first. interpretations of human doctrines. As for my own opinion, without regard to anyone's prejudice, I do not consider it to have come from the pen of an apostle." And that's how he justifies his refusal.

First, in contrast to Paul and the rest of the Bible, the Epistle ascribes a redemptive quality to human deeds and accomplishments, incorrectly citing Abraham, who allegedly atoned for his sins by his deeds. This alone proves that the epistle could not have come from the pen of the apostle.

Secondly, there is not a single instruction or reminder for Christians to remember the suffering, the Resurrection, or the Spirit of Christ. It mentions Christ only twice.

Then Luther sets out his principles for evaluating any book in general: “The true measure for evaluating any book is to establish whether it emphasizes the prominent position that Christ occupies in the history of mankind or not ... That which does not preach Christ is not from apostles, even if it was preached by Peter or Paul. Conversely, everything that preaches Christ is apostolic, even if it is done by Judas, Anna, Pilate, or Herod."

And the Epistle of James does not withstand such a test. And so Luther continues: “The Epistle of James pushes you only towards the law and accomplishments. It mixes one with the other so much that, I suppose, one virtuous and pious person collected several sayings of the disciples of the apostles and wrote them down, and perhaps someone wrote the epistle anything else by recording someone's sermon He calls the law the law of freedom (James 1:25; 2:12), while Paul calls it the law of bondage, wrath, death and sin (Gal. 3:23ff; Rom. 4:15; 7:10ff)".

Thus, Luther draws his conclusion: "James wants to warn those who rely on faith and do not proceed to actions and accomplishments, but he has neither inspiration, nor thoughts, nor eloquence appropriate for such a task. He commits violence against the Holy Scriptures and He thus contradicts Paul and all Holy Scripture, he tries to achieve by law what the apostles are trying to achieve by preaching love to people, and therefore I refuse to recognize his place among the authors of the authentic canon of my Bible, but I will not insist if anyone put it there, or raise it even higher, because there are many beautiful places in the message. In the eyes of the world, one person does not count; how can this lonely author be counted against the backdrop of Paul and the rest of the Bible?

Luther does not spare the Epistle of James. But, having studied this book, we may conclude that this time he allowed personal prejudices to violate common sense.

That's how complicated the story of the book of James was. Let us now consider the related issues of authorship and dating.

THE PERSON OF JACOB

The author of this epistle, in fact, does not tell us anything about himself. He calls himself simply: "James, the servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ" (James 1:1). Who is he then? There are five people with this name in the New Testament.

1. Jacob is the father of one of the twelve, named Judas, but not Iscariot (Luke 6:16). It is only given to refer to someone else and cannot have anything to do with the message.

2. Jacob, son of Alphaeus, one of the twelve (Mark 10:3; Matt. 3:18; Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13). Mapping Mat. 9.9 and Mar. 2.14 shows that Matthew and Levi are the same person. Levi was also the son of Alpheus and therefore the brother of Jacob. But nothing more is known about Jacob, the son of Alpheus, and therefore he, too, could not have had anything to do with the epistle.

3. Jacob, nicknamed "the lesser", mentioned in Mar. 15.40; (cf. Matt. 27:56 and John 19:25). Again, nothing more is known about him, and he, therefore, could not have had anything to do with the message.

4. James - brother of John and son of Zebedee, one of the twelve (Mark 10:2; Matt. 3:17; Luke 6:14; Acts 1:13). In the Gospels, James is never mentioned on his own, without his brother John. (Mat. 4:21; 17:1; Mark 1:19-29; 5:37; 9:2; 10:35-41; 13:3; 14:33; Luke 5:10; 8:51; 9:28-54 ). He was the first of twelve martyrs; Herod Agrippa beheaded him in 44, he was associated with the message. In the Latin Codex Corbeiensis, written in the fourth century, a note was made at the end of the epistle, quite definitely attributing the authorship to James, son of Zebedee. But this authorship was taken seriously only in the Spanish church, where until the seventeenth century he was considered the author of this epistle. This is due to the fact that John of Compostela, the father of the Spanish church, was identified with James, the son of Zebedee, and therefore it is quite natural that the Spanish church was predisposed to consider its head and founder the author of the New Testament epistle. But Jacob's martyrdom came too soon for him to write this epistle, and, moreover, only the Codex Corbeiensis links him to the epistle.

5. Finally, James, who is called the brother of Jesus. Although his name was first associated with a message only by Origen in the first half of the third century, traditionally this message was attributed to him. As already mentioned, in 1546 the Council of Trent ruled that the Epistle of James was canonical and written by an apostle.

Consider all that is said about this Jacob. We learn from the New Testament that he was one of Jesus' brothers. (Mark 6:3; Matt. 13:55). Later we will discuss more in what sense the word brother should be understood. During the preaching period of Jesus, His family could neither understand nor sympathize with Him and wished to suspend His activity (Matthew 12:46-50; Mark 3:21:31-35; John 7:3-9). John says bluntly: "For even His brothers did not believe in Him." (John 7:5). Thus, during the period of Jesus' earthly preaching, James was one of His opponents.

In the book of the Acts of the Holy Apostles, a sudden and inexplicable change is noted. Already from the first lines of the book, the author tells that the mother of Jesus and His brothers were among a small group of Christians ( Acts. 1.14). And from this place it becomes clear that James became the head of the Jerusalem church, although there is no explanation anywhere how this happened. So Peter sent the news of his deliverance to James (Acts 12:17). James presided over the council of the Jerusalem church, which approved the access of Gentiles to the Christian Church (Acts 15). And Paul, who first came to Jerusalem, met with James and Peter; and again he discussed the scope of his activities with Peter, James and John, revered as pillars of the Church (Gal. 1:19; 2:9). To James, Paul brought during his last visit to Jerusalem, which led to his imprisonment, the donations collected among the pagan churches (Acts 21:18-25). This last episode is very important, because in it we see that James sympathized with the Jews who kept the Jewish law, and, moreover, forcefully insisted that they not offend their beliefs and even persuaded Paul to demonstrate his loyalty to the law, prompting him to accept on the expenses of some Jews who had taken the Nazarite vow.

Thus, it is clear that James was the head of the Jerusalem church. This has been greatly developed in tradition and tradition. Egesipus, one of the earliest historians of the Church, reports that James was the first bishop of the Jerusalem church. Clement of Alexandria goes further and says that James was chosen to this office by Peter and John. Jerome writes in the book "On famous men": "After the passion of the Lord, James was immediately consecrated by the apostles to the rank of bishop of Jerusalem. He ruled the Jerusalem church for thirty years, that is, until the seventh year of the reign of Emperor Nero." The last step in the creation of this legend was the "Clementine Confessions", in which it is said that Jesus Himself consecrated James to the rank of bishop of Jerusalem. Clement of Alexandria conveys a strange tradition: "The Lord entrusted the message (knowledge) after the Resurrection to James the Just, John and Peter; they passed it on to other apostles, and the apostles to seventy." There is no point in tracing the further development of this legend, but it is based on the fact that James was the undisputed head of the Jerusalem church.

JACOB AND JESUS

IN 1 Cor. 15 a list of the appearances of Jesus after the Resurrection is given in the following words: "Then he appeared to Jacob" ( 1 Cor. 15, 7). And, besides, we find a strange mention of the name of Jacob in the Gospel of the Jews, one of the first gospels, which was not placed in the New Testament, but which, judging by the surviving fragments, could be of great interest. Here is a passage from Jerome that has come down to us: “And now the Lord, having given the shroud to the servant of the high priest, went in to Jacob and appeared to him (because Jacob swore that he would not eat bread from the moment he tasted the cup of the Lord until until he sees Him risen again from those who sleep). And further: “Bring you,” says the Lord, “a table and bread,” and immediately added: “He took bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to James the Just and said: “My brother, eat your bread, for the Son The human has risen from those that sleep."

There are some difficulties to note in this passage. One gets the impression that it has such a meaning: Jesus, rising from the dead and coming out of the tomb, gave the shroud that He wore in death to the servant of the high priest and went to His brother James. It also seems that the passage implies that James was present at the Last Supper. But despite the obscure and incomprehensible places in the passage, one thing is clear: something in the behavior of Jesus in last days and the clock so seized Jacob's heart that he vowed not to eat until Jesus rose again, and so Jesus came to him and gave him the necessary assurance. It is clear that Jacob met the resurrected Christ, but we will never know what happened at that moment. But we know that after this, James, who had previously been hostile and unfriendly towards Jesus, became His slave in life and martyr in death.

JACOB - A MARTHER FOR CHRIST

Early Christian tradition and tradition is consistent in that Jacob died a martyr. Descriptions of the circumstances of his death vary, but the assertion that he died a martyr remains unchanged. Josephus has a very short message ("Antiquities of the Jews" 20.9.1):

“And therefore Ananias, being such a man, and believing that he had a good opportunity, because Festus was dead, and Albinus had not yet arrived, appointed a court session and placed before him the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ - named James - and some others charged with breaking the law and handed them over to be stoned."

Ananias was the Jewish high priest, Festus and Albinus were the procurators of Palestine, who occupied the same position as Pontius Pilate had formerly. The important thing about this message is that Ananias took advantage of the state of the so-called interregnum, the time between the death of one procurator and the arrival of his successor, to remove James and other leaders of the Christian Church. This is quite consistent with our information about the character of Ananias. It can also be concluded from this that Jacob was killed in 62.

A much more detailed message is given in the history of Egesippus. This story itself is lost, but the message about the death of Jacob was completely preserved by Eusebius ("History of the Church" 2.23). This is a rather long message, but it is of such great interest that it needs to be reproduced here in its entirety.

"The leadership of the Church passed to the brother of the Lord James, together with the apostles, whom everyone from the time of the Lord to our days called the Just, because many were called Jacob. And he was a saint from his mother's womb; he did not drink wine and strong drinks and did not eat meat, the razor never touched his head, he was not anointed with oil (for anointing) and did not take a bath, he alone could enter the Holy, because he wore not woolen, but linen clothes. and he could be seen there prostrated on his knees, praying for the forgiveness of the people, so that his knees were callused like a camel's, from constant bowing in prayer to God and begging for forgiveness for people.For his unusual goodness, he was called the Just, or Obias, which in Greek means Stronghold of the People and Righteousness, as the prophets testify about it.

And so some of the seven sects already mentioned in the Memoirs said to him: "Where is the way to Jesus?" and he answered that Jesus is the Savior - and many believed that Jesus is the Christ. Well, the sects mentioned above did not believe in the Resurrection, nor in the One Who will reward everyone according to his deeds; but those who believed in it believed because of Jacob. And because many of the rulers also believed, confusion arose among the Jews, the scribes, and the Pharisees, because, they said, there was a danger that all people would wait for Jesus Christ. And therefore, meeting with Jacob, they said to him: “We implore you, curb the people, because they go astray and follow Jesus, revering Him as Christ. We implore you to convince all those who will come on the day of Passover regarding Jesus because we all heed your word, because we and all the people testify to you that you are just and do not look at faces. and therefore speak your word from the roof of the Temple, so that you can be clearly seen, and your words can be heard by all the people: at the Passover all the tribes, and the pagans too, have gathered.

And so the aforementioned scribes and Pharisees put Jacob on the roof of the Temple and called to him: "O you, the Just, to whom we all must listen - for the people are going astray - tell us, where is the road of Jesus?" And he, Jacob, answered with a loud voice: "Why do you ask me about the Son of Man? He Himself sits in heaven at the right hand of the Almighty (Great Power) and will come on a cloud of heaven." And when many were converted and praised the testimony of Jacob and said, "Hosanna to the Son of David," the same scribes and Pharisees said among themselves: "We made a mistake in allowing such a testimony about Jesus, but let's go and throw him (Jacob) down, so that out of fear they did not believe him." And they cried out, "Oh, oh, even the Just One has gone astray," and they fulfilled Isaiah's words: "Let's put the Just One away, because he causes us trouble; and therefore they will eat the fruits of their deeds."

And they went up and threw the Just One down, and they said to each other: "Let's stone James the Just", and they began to stone him, because the fall did not kill him, and he turned and knelt down, saying: "I beg You, Lord, God the Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing." And when they stoned him like that, one of the priests, the son of Rechabit, about whom the prophet Jeremiah spoke, cried out: "Stop! What are you doing? The Just prays for you." And one of them, a fuller, took a stick with which he beat the cloth, and lowered it on the head of the Just, and he died a martyr's death. And they buried him right there near the Temple. He gave a just witness to both Jews and Greeks that Jesus is the Christ. And immediately after that, Vespasian laid siege to them."

The last words indicate that Egesippus had a different date for Jacob's death. Josephus dates it to 62, but if it happened just before the siege of Jerusalem by Vespasian, then it happened in 66. It is possible that much of the history of Egesippus belongs to the realm of tradition, but from it we learn two things. First, it also testifies that Jacob died a martyr's death. And, secondly, that even after James became a Christian, he remained absolutely faithful to the orthodox Jewish law, so much so that the Jews considered him theirs. This is quite consistent with what we have already noted about James's attitude towards Paul when the latter came to Jerusalem with donations for the Jerusalem church. (Acts 21:18-25).

BROTHER OF OUR LORD

Let us try to solve one more problem in connection with the personality of Jacob. IN (Gal. 1:19) Paul speaks of him as the brother of the Lord. IN Mat. 13:55 and Mar 6:3 his name is given among the names of the brothers of Jesus, and in Acts 1:14 it is said, without giving names, that the brothers of Jesus were among the followers of the early Church. The problem is to figure out the meaning of the word brother, because it is very important in the Roman Catholic Church and Catholic groups in the national Christian churches. Already in the time of Jerome, there were continuous disputes and discussions in the Church on this issue. There are three theories regarding the relationship these "brethren" had with Jesus; and we will consider them all separately.

JEROME'S THEORY

Jerome developed the theory that Jesus' "brothers" were actually his cousins. The Roman Catholic Church is firmly convinced of this, for which this provision is one of the important elements of the dogma. This theory was put forward by Jerome in 383, and we can do no better than to give one after another his complicated arguments.

1. James, the brother of our Lord, is mentioned as an apostle. Paul writes, "I saw none of the other apostles but James the brother of the Lord." (Gal. 1:19).

2. Jerome states that the word apostle can only be applied to one of the twelve. In that case, we must look for Jacob among them. He cannot be identified with James, brother of John and son of Zebedee, who, in addition to everything, had already died a martyr's death at the time of writing. Gal. 1.19, as is clearly stated in Acts. 12.2. And therefore he should be identified only with another Jacob of the twelve - Jacob, the son of Alpheus.

3. Jerome proceeds to establish the identity of other data. IN Mar. 6.3 we read: "Is not He the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, Josiah ...?", and in Mar. 15.40 we see at the crucifixion Mary, the mother of James the lesser and Josiah. Since James the lesser is the brother of Josiah and the son of Mary, he must be the same person as Jacob in Mar. 6.3 who was the brother of our Lord. And therefore, according to the theory of Jerome, Jacob, the brother of the Lord, Jacob, the son of Alpheus and Jacob the lesser, are one and the same person, characterized in different ways. 4. The next and last premise of his argument, Jerome bases on the list of women who were present at the crucifixion of Christ. Let's give this list as it is given by three authors.

IN Mar. 15.40 we read: "Mary Magdalene, Mary mother of James and Josiah, and Salome."

IN Mat. 27.56 we read: "Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James and Josiah, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee."

IN John. 19.25 we read: "His mother and sister of His mother Mary Kleopova and Mary Magdalene."

Let's analyze this list now. Each of them mentions the name of Mary Magdalene. One can quite definitely identify Salome and the mother of the sons of Zebedee. But the problem is to say how many women are on John's list. Should the list be read like this:

1. His mother

2. His mother's sister

3. Maria Kleopova

4. Mary Magdalene

or like this:

1. His mother

2. His mother's sister, Maria Kleopova

3. Mary Magdalene

Jerome insists that the second option is correct and that His Mother's sister and Maria Kleopova are one and the same person. In that case, she must also be Mary, who in another list is the mother of James and Josiah. This James, who is her son, is known as James the lesser, and as James the son of Alpheus, and as James the Apostle, known as the brother of the Lord, which means that James is the son of Mary's sister (His mother), and, therefore, a cousin Jesus.

This is Jerome's argument. There are at least four objections to it.

1. James is repeatedly called the brother of Jesus, or listed among his brothers. In each case, the word adelphos- the usual designation of a brother. It, however, can characterize a person belonging to a common brotherhood. According to this principle, Christians call each other brothers. It can also be used to express affection or love - you can call the brother of a person very close spiritually. But when this word is used to designate relatives, it is doubtful that it meant cousin relationship. If James was a cousin of Jesus, it is unlikely, perhaps even impossible, that he would be named adelphos Jesus.

2. Jerome was greatly mistaken in asserting that the title of apostle could only be applied to one of the twelve. Paul was an apostle (Rom. 1:1; 1 Cor. 1:1; 2 Cor. 1:1; Gal. 9:1)- Barnabas was apostle (Acts 14:14; I Cor. 9:6). strength was apostle (Acts 15:22). Andronicus and Junius were apostles(Rom. 16:7). It is impossible to limit the use of the word apostle only twelve, and therefore, as soon as there is no need to look for Jacob, the brother of the Lord, among the twelve, then the whole system of Jerome's arguments collapses.

3. The literal meaning of the words in John. 19.25 indicates that four women are mentioned here, not three, for if Mary, the wife of Cleopov, was the sister of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, then this would mean that there were two sisters named Mary in the same family, which is unlikely.

4. It should be remembered that this theory appeared in the Church only in 383, when it was developed by Jerome, and it is quite obvious that it was developed for only one purpose - to substantiate the theory of the purity of the Virgin Mary.

EPIPHANIUS THEORY

The second of the major theories regarding the relationship of Jesus and His "brothers" is based on the fact that these "brothers" were actually His half-brothers, Joseph's sons from his first marriage. This theory is called Epiphanius, after Epiphanius, who strongly insisted on it around 357; but he did not create it - it existed long before that and, one might say, received the widest distribution in the early Church. The essence of this theory is set forth already in an apocryphal book called the book of James or the Protoevangelium, dating back to the middle of the second century. This book is about a devoted couple named Joachim and Anna. They had one big grief - they had no children. To their great joy, when they were already in old age, a child was born to them, and in this, moreover, in all probability, they also saw an immaculate conception. The child, a girl, was named Mary as the future mother of Jesus; Joachim and Anna consecrated their child to the Lord, and when the girl was three years old, they took her to the Temple and left her in the care of the priests. Mary grew up at the Temple and when she was twelve years old, the priests decided to marry her off. They summoned all the widowers, telling them to take their staffs with them. The carpenter Joseph came along with everyone. The high priest collected all the staves, and the last he took Joseph. Nothing happened to all the staffs, but a dove flew up from Joseph's staff and landed on his head. Thus it was revealed that Joseph was to take Mary as his wife. Joseph was very reluctant at first. “I have sons,” he said, “I am an old man, and she is a girl: how could I not become a laughing stock in the eyes of the children of Israel” (“Protoevangelium” 9.1). But then he took it, obeying the will of God, and in due time Jesus was born. The Protoevangelium is, of course, based on legends, but it shows that in the middle of the second century there was a widespread theory that would later be named Epifanieva. But there is no direct evidence to support this theory, and only circumstantial evidence is given to support it.

1. They ask: Would Jesus have left the care of his mother to John if she had other sons besides him? (John 19:26-27). In response to this, we can say that, as far as we know, the family of Jesus did not sympathize with Him at all, and one could hardly entrust any of the family to care for them.

2. It is claimed that Jesus' "brothers" treated Him like older brothers treat a younger one: they doubted His sanity and wanted to take Him home (Mark 3:21:31-35); they treated him quite hostilely (John 7:1-5). One could also argue that they viewed the actions of Jesus, regardless of His age, as a hindrance to the family.

3. It is argued that Joseph must have been older than Mary because he completely disappears from the gospel and must have died before Jesus began preaching and public ministry. The mother of Jesus was present at the wedding feast at Cana of Galilee, and Joseph is not mentioned at all (John 2:1). Jesus is sometimes called the son of Mary, and this suggests that Joseph had already died by that time and Mary was a widow. (Mark 6:3; but compare Matt. 13:55). Further, Jesus remained in Nazareth for a long time until He was thirty years old. (Luke 3:23), which can be easily explained if we assume that Joseph died and the care of the house and family fell on Jesus. But the mere fact that Joseph was older than Mary does not prove that he had no children by her, and the fact that Jesus remained in Nazareth as a village carpenter to provide for his family would be a more natural indication that He was the eldest, not the youngest son. Epiphanius's theory is based on the same points on which Jerome's theory is based. Its purpose is to substantiate the theory of the absolute purity of Mary. But for the latter there is no evidence at all.

ELVIDIEV'S THEORY

The third theory is called the Elvidian theory. In accordance with it, the brothers and sisters of Jesus were fully His brothers and sisters, that is, His half-brothers and sisters. All that is known about Elvidia is that he wrote a treatise in support of it, against which Jerome sharply opposed. What can be said in favor of this theory?

1. A person who reads the New Testament without certain theological premises and assumptions perceives the expression "brothers and sisters of Jesus" used in the Gospel as evidence of direct kinship.

2. The account of the birth of Jesus in Matthew and Luke suggests that Mary had other children. Matthew writes: "Rising from sleep, Joseph did as the Angel of the Lord commanded him, and took his wife, and did not know her, how at last she gave birth to her firstborn Son" (Mat. 1:24-25). From this it can be clearly inferred that after the birth of Jesus, Joseph entered into a normal marital relationship with Mary. Tertullian, in fact, uses this little passage to prove that both the virginity and the marital state of Mary were sanctified in Christ by the fact that she was first a virgin, and then a wife in the full sense of the word. Speaking about the birth of Jesus, Luke says: "And she gave birth to her firstborn Son" (Luke 2:7). Calling Jesus the firstborn, Luke clearly indicates that later there were more children.

3. As we have said, the fact that Jesus remained in Nazareth as a village carpenter until he was thirty years of age is at least an indication that he was the eldest son and was to take over the care of the family after Joseph's death.

We believe and believe that the brothers and sisters of Jesus were truly His brothers and sisters and do not insist that celibacy is superior to marriage-sanctified love. Any other theory is based on the glorification of asceticism and the desire to see Mary as an eternal virgin.

And therefore we proceed from the fact that James, who is called the brother of the Lord, was in the fullest sense the brother of Jesus.

JACOB AS THE AUTHOR OF THE EPISTLE

Can we then say that this James was the author of the present epistle? Let's see what evidence supports this view.

1. If James had written an epistle, it would be quite natural, could only be of a general nature, which it is. James was not, like Paul, the traveler known in many church communities. James was the leader of the Judaic branch of Christianity, and one might well expect that if he were the author of the epistle, it would be similar to an appeal to Jewish Christians.

2. There is nothing in the epistle that a virtuous Jew would not accept or agree with; some even believe that it is a Jewish ethical treatise that has received a place in the New Testament. It was also pointed out that in the Epistle of James one can find many such phrases that read equally well in the Christian and in the Jewish sense. The words "twelve tribes scattered" (James 1:1) can be attributed not only to the Jews living in the diaspora all over the world, but also to the Christian Church, the new Israel of the Lord. The word "Lord" can equally refer to Jesus and God the Father. James says that God begot us by the word of truth, that we might be some firstfruits of His creatures" (James 1:18) can equally be understood in terms of God's act of creation or in terms of regeneration, God's re-creation of mankind in Jesus Christ. The expressions "perfect law" and "royal law" (James 1:25; 2:8) can equally be understood as the ethical law of the Ten Commandments and as new law Christ. The words of the "elders of the Church" - ecclesia (James 5:14) can be understood both as presbyters of the Christian Church and as elders of the Jews, because in the Septuagint (the translation of the Bible made in Alexandria in the third century BC) ecclesia is the title of God's chosen people. IN Jacob. 2.2"your assembly" is spoken of, and the word synagogue, and it can rather be understood as synagogue than how christian church community. Addressing readers as brothers is absolutely Christian in nature, but it is equally inherent in the Jews. The Coming of the Lord and the Picture of the Judge Standing at the Door (James 5:7.9) are equally inherent in the Christian and Jewish way of thinking. The phrase that they condemned, killed the righteous (James 5:6), is often found among the prophets, and the Christian read it as an indication of the Crucifixion of Christ. There is really nothing in this message that an Orthodox Jew could not accept with a pure heart.

It can be argued that all this speaks in favor of Jacob: he was the head, if you can call it that, of Jewish Christianity, he was the head of the Jerusalem church.

At one time the Church must have been very close to Judaism and rather represented a reformed Judaism. This type of Christianity lacked the breadth and universality that the apostle Paul gave it. Paul himself said that he was destined for missionary work among the Gentiles, and Peter, James and John - among the Jews (Gal. 2:9). The Epistle of James may well reflect the views of Christianity in its early form. This can explain the following two points.

First, it explains why James so often expounds and repeats the teaching from the Sermon on the Mount. We can compare Jacob. 2:12 and Matt. 6.14.15; Jacob. 3:11-13 and Matt. 7.16-20; Jacob. 5:12 and Matt. 5:34-37. The ethics of Christianity was of great interest to all Jewish Christians.

Second, it may help to explain the relationship between this epistle and Paul's teaching. At first sight Jacob. 2.14-26 contains a direct attack on the teachings of Paul. "A man is justified by works, and not by faith alone" (James 2:24). This is contrary to Paul's teaching on justification by faith. In fact, James condemns that faith that does not lead to any ethical action. And those who accused Paul of preaching just such a faith did not read his epistles, for they are simply overwhelmed with demands of a purely ethical nature, as can be seen from the example Rome. 12.

James died in 62 and could not see the epistles of Paul, which became the common property of the Church only in the 90s. And therefore the Epistle of James cannot be regarded as an attack on the teachings of Paul, nor as a perversion of them. And this misunderstanding most likely took place in Jerusalem, where Paul's teaching on the primacy of faith and grace and his attacks on the law were viewed with suspicion.

We have already said that the Epistle of James and the message of the council of the Jerusalem church to the churches of the Gentiles bear a strange resemblance to each other in at least two respects. First, both start with the word rejoice (James 1:1; Acts 15:23), in the Greek version - hairin. This is the traditional beginning of the Greek letter, but for the second time in the New Testament it is found only in a letter from the commander Claudius Lysias to the ruler of the province Felix ( Acts. 23:26-30). Secondly, in Acts. 15.17 a phrase is given from the speech of James, which speaks of the nations, between whom my name will be proclaimed. This phrase in the New Testament is repeated only once in Jacob. 2.7 where it is translated as follows: the name you are called. Although these phrases differ from each other in the Russian translation, they are the same in the original Greek. Interestingly, in the message of the council of the Jerusalem church, we find two unusual phrases that are found only in the Epistle of James. It should also not be forgotten that the message of the council of the Jerusalem church in all likelihood was written by James.

This fact confirms the theory that James was written by James, brother of our Lord and head of the Jerusalem church.

But, on the other hand, there are facts that still make us doubt its authorship.

1. It might be supposed that if the author of the epistle had been the brother of the Lord, he would have made some reference to it. But he only calls himself a slave of God and the Lord Jesus Christ (James 1:1). After all, such an indication would not necessarily serve his personal glory, but would give weight and significance to his message. And such weight would be especially valuable outside of Palestine, in countries where hardly anyone knew Jacob. If the writer of the epistle was indeed a brother of the Lord, why did he not mention it directly or indirectly?

2. Since there is no indication in the epistle that its author is the brother of the Lord, one would expect an indication that he is an apostle. The apostle Paul always began his epistles with certain words. And again, the point here is not in personal prestige, but in reference to the authority on which he relies. If James, who wrote the epistle, was really the brother of the Lord and the head of the Jerusalem church, one would expect at the very beginning of the epistle an indication of his apostleship.

3. But the most surprising thing - and this led Martin Luther to challenge the right of the epistle to be included in the New Testament - is the almost complete absence of references to Jesus Christ in it. Throughout the epistle, His name is given only twice, and these references are almost random. (James 1:1; 2:1).

There is not a single mention of the Resurrection of Christ in the message at all. We know well that the young Church grew up on faith in the risen Christ. If this epistle came from the pen of James, then it coincides in time with the book of the Acts of the Holy Apostles, in which the Resurrection of Christ is spoken of at least twenty-five times. It is surprising that a person who wrote at such an important time in the history of the Church should not write about the Resurrection of Christ, because James had good personal reasons to write about the appearance of Jesus, which, apparently, changed his life.

Moreover, the message says nothing about Jesus as the Messiah. If James, the leader of the Jewish church, was writing to Jewish Christians in those very early years, one might expect that his main aim would be to present Jesus as the Messiah, or at least make his belief in it quite clear; but there is nothing of the kind in the message.

4. It is clear that the author of this epistle was strongly influenced by the Old Testament; it is also quite evident that he was very familiar with the Books of Wisdom. There are twenty-three obvious quotations from the Sermon on the Mount in the message - and this is not surprising. Even before the writing of the first gospel summaries the teachings of Jesus must have been on the lists. Some people argue that the writer of the epistle must have known Paul's letters to the Romans and Galatians in order to write about faith and human endeavours; it is also rightly asserted that a Jew who had never been outside of Palestine and who died in 62 could not have known these epistles. But, as we have already seen, this argument misses the mark, because criticism of the teachings of Paul, if such can be traced in the Epistle of James, could only be undertaken by a person who did not read the original Pauline epistles, but only used an incorrectly stated or perverted teaching of Paul. The next phrase in Jacob. 1.17: "Every good gift and every perfect gift" - is written in hexameter and is quite obviously a quote from some Greek poet; and the phrase in Jacob. 3.6: "circle of life" may be an Orphic phrase from mystery religions. Where could Jacob of Palestine get such quotes from?

Some things are just hard to explain if you consider that the author of the letter was James, the brother of the Lord.

As we can see, the pros and cons of James writing this epistle balance each other out, but we will leave this issue unresolved for the time being and turn to other issues.

DATING OF THE MESSAGE

Turning to the factors that shed light on the time of writing the epistle, we again face the same problem of an unambiguous answer to this question cannot be given. It can be argued that the epistle could have been written very early, but it can also be argued that it was written quite late.

1. It is clear that at the time of the writing of the epistle there was still a very real hope for the soon Second Coming of Jesus Christ. (James 5:7-9). Although the expectation of the Second Coming never left the Christian Church, but as the period of its onset dragged on, this expectation weakened somewhat and lost its sharpness. This speaks in favor of the early writing of the epistle.

2. In the first chapters of the book of the Acts of the Holy Apostles and in the epistles of Paul, the discussion of the Jews against the admission of Gentiles into the Church solely on the basis of the principle of faith was reflected. Everywhere Paul went, the followers of Judaism followed him, and the acceptance of Gentiles into the Church proved to be very difficult. There is, however, no hint of this struggle in the Epistle of James, which is doubly surprising when one remembers that James, the brother of the Lord, played a leading role in resolving this issue in the council of the Jerusalem church, and therefore this epistle should have been written either too early, even before these contradictions arose; or very late, after the last echo of this dispute has died out. The absence in the epistle of references to the contradictions between Jews and Gentiles can be interpreted in different ways.

3. Equally contradictory are the information about the structure of the Church and its norms reflected in the message. Meeting places in the Church are still called sunagogue (James 2:2). This indicates an early date for the writing of the epistle; later the church meeting would certainly be called ecclesia because the Jewish name was soon forgotten. The elders of the Church are mentioned (James 5:14), but neither deacons nor bishops are mentioned. This again points to an early date for the writing of the epistle, and possibly to a Jewish source, because the presbyters-elders were among the Jews, and then among the Christians. Jacob is concerned that many want to be teachers (James 3:1). This may also indicate early term writing the epistle, when the Church had not yet developed and developed its system of priesthood and had not yet introduced a certain order into church worship. This may also indicate a late date for the writing of the epistle, when numerous teachers appeared who became a real scourge of the Church.

But there are two general facts that seem to indicate that the epistle was written rather late. First, as we have seen, it hardly mentions Jesus at all. The theme of the epistle is, in essence, the shortcomings of the members of the Church and their imperfections, their sins and their errors. This may indicate a rather late date for the writing of the epistle. The sermon in the young Church in the first years of its existence was imbued with the grace and glory of the risen Christ. Later, the sermon turned, as it often does today, into a tirade against the shortcomings of the members of the church community. The second important fact from which it can be deduced that the message was written late is the condemnation of the rich (James 2:1-3; 5:1-6). The flattery and arrogance of the rich seemed to really represent big problem for the Church in the era in which this epistle was written, for there were very few, if any, of them in the early Church. (1 Cor. 1:26-27). The Epistle of James, apparently, was written at a time when the formerly poor Church was threatened by the reawakening in its members the desire for earthly goods and pleasures.

Preachers and Mentors in the Ancient World

We can make it easier for ourselves to establish the date of the writing of the Epistle of James if we consider it against the backdrop of the world then.

The sermon is always associated with Christianity, but the sermon itself was not an invention of the Christian Church. The tradition of preaching existed in both the Jewish and Greek worlds; and if we compare the Greek and Jewish preaching with the Epistle of James, their great similarity is striking.

Let's look first at the Greek preaching to the Greek preachers. Wandering philosophers (Stoics, Cynics, etc.) were commonplace in the ancient Greek world. Wherever people gathered, one could meet them and hear their calls for virtue: at crossroads, in squares, among large crowds at sports games and even at gladiator fights. Sometimes they even addressed the emperor directly, reproached him for luxury and tyranny, and called for virtue and justice. Gone are the days when philosophy was practiced exclusively in the academies and philosophical schools. Philosophical ethical sermons could be heard every day in public places. These sermons had their own characteristics: the order and methods were always the same. They had a great influence on the manner in which Paul preached the gospel, and James followed in the same footsteps. Here are some of the professional methods of these ancient preachers and note their influence on the method of the Epistle of James and the Epistles of Paul to the churches.

Preachers in antiquity strove not so much to learn new truths as to draw people's attention to the shortcomings in their way of life and make them see again the truths known to them, by chance or deliberately forgotten. They sought to call people who were mired in debauchery and who had forgotten their gods to a virtuous life.

1. They often had fictitious conversations with fictitious opponents in the form of so-called "truncated dialogues." James also uses this technique in 2.18 ff and 5.13 ff.

2. They used to move from one part of the sermon to the next through the questions they asked to introduce a new topic. Jacob also uses this method in 2.14 and 4.1.

3. They were very fond of the imperative mood, urging their hearers to do righteousness and renounce error. The Epistle of James has 108 verses, almost 60 are imperatives.

4. They were very fond of asking their listeners rhetorical questions. Jacob also often asks such questions. (2,4.5; 2,14-16; 3,11.12; 4,4) .

5. They often made living appeals directly to some section of the audience. Jacob speaks directly to presumptuous rich men who trade for profit (4,13; 5,6) .

6. They were very fond of figurative expressions to characterize virtues and vices, sins and positive qualities. James also shows lust and sin in action (1,15) ; mercy (2,13) and rust (5,3) .

7. They used images and pictures of everyday life to arouse interest in listeners. Typical for preaching in antiquity were images of a bridle, a ship's rudder, a forest fire, etc. (cf. James 3:3-6). Along with many others, Jacob uses the image of the peasant and his patience very vividly. (5,7) .

8. They often cited famous and famous people and their moral conduct. Jacob gives the example of Abraham (2,21-23) harlot Rahab (2,25), Elijah (5,17) .

9. In order to attract the attention of the listeners, the preachers of antiquity began their sermon with a contradictory statement. James does the same when he invites people to accept life with great joy when they fall into temptations. (1,2) . Preachers of antiquity also often contrasted genuine virtue with ordinary living standards. James, for his part, insists that the happiness of the rich lies in humiliation (1,10) . Preachers of antiquity used the weapon of irony. So does Jacob (2,14-19; 5,1-6).

10. Preachers of antiquity could speak sharply and sternly. James also calls his reader "an unfounded man" and "an unfaithful and enemy of God" (2,20; 4,4) . Preachers of antiquity resorted to verbal scourging - James does the same.

11. Preachers of old had their standard ways of composing sermons.

a) They often ended part of their sermon with a striking contrast. For example, they contrasted the righteous and unrighteous way of life. Jacob also repeats this technique (2,13; 2,26) .

b) They often proved their points by asking the audience direct questions - James does the same (4,4-12) . It is true that we do not find in Jacob the bitterness, empty and crude humor that the Greek preachers resorted to, but it is quite clear that he uses all the other methods that itinerant Greek preachers used to win the minds and hearts of listeners.

The ancient Jews also had their own tradition of preaching. Such sermons were usually read during services in synagogues by rabbis. They had much in common with the sermons of wandering Greek philosophers: the same rhetorical questions, the same urgent appeals and imperatives, the same illustrations from everyday life, the same quotations and examples from the life of martyrs for the faith. But the Jewish sermon had one curious feature: it was abrupt and incoherent. The Jewish teachers taught their students never to linger on one subject, but to move quickly from one subject to another in order to keep their listeners interested. And therefore such a sermon was also called haraz, What means stringing beads. Jewish preaching was often a piling up of moral truths and exhortations one on top of the other. The book of James is written that way. It is very difficult to see in it a sequence and a well-thought-out plan. Sections and verses in it follow one after another, not interconnected. Goodspeed writes about this epistle as follows: “This work has been compared to a chain in which each link is connected with the one preceding it and the one following it. Others have compared its content with a string of beads ... But perhaps the Epistle of James is not so much a chain thoughts or beads, how many a handful of pearls are thrown one at a time in the memory of the listener.

No matter how we view the Epistle of James as a manifestation of the ancient Greek or Jewish worldview - it is a good example of the sermon of that time. And, apparently, here lies the key to unraveling his authorship.

AUTHOR OF JAMES

There are five possibilities to answer this question.

1. Let's start with a theory developed more than half a century ago by Mayer and revived by Easten in "Bible Commentary". In ancient times it was common to publish books under the name of a great man. Jewish literature between the Old and New Testaments is full of such writings, attributed to Moses, the twelve patriarchs, Baruch, Enoch, Isaiah, and other eminent men, to attract the attention of readers. This was common practice. The most famous of the apocryphal books is the book of the Wisdom of Solomon, in which the wise men of later times attribute new wisdom to the wisest of kings. We must not forget the following regarding the Epistle of James:

a) There is nothing in it that an Orthodox Jew could not accept if the two references to Jesus in Jas. 1.1 and 2.1, which is not difficult to do.

b) in Greek Jacob sounds like Jacobus, which undoubtedly corresponds to Jacob in the Old Testament.

c) The message is addressed to the twelve scattered tribes. It follows from this theory that the Epistle of James is just a Jewish writing, signed with the name James, and intended for Jews scattered throughout the world to strengthen them in the faith amid the trials they were subjected to in pagan countries.

This theory has been further developed. IN Gen. 49 Jacob's address to his sons is given, which is a series of short descriptions and characteristics of each of his sons. Mayer states that he can find parallels in the Epistle of James to the description of each of the patriarchs, and therefore all twelve tribes, given in the address of James. Here are some of the comparisons and parallels:

Asir is a rich man: Jacob. 1.9-11; Gen. 49.20.

Issachar - doing good: Jacob. 1.12; Gen. 49.14.15.

Reuben - begun, the first fruit: Jacob. 1.18; Gen. 49.3.

Simeon symbolizes anger: Jacob. 1.9; Gen. 49.5-7.

Levi - a tribe that has a special relationship with religion: Jacob. 1.26.27.

Naphtali symbolizes peace: Jacob. 3.18; Gen. 49.21.

Gad symbolizes wars and battles: Jacob. 4.1.2; Genesis 49:19.

Dan symbolizes the expectation of salvation: Jacob. 5.7; Gen. 49.18.

Joseph symbolizes prayer: Jacob. 5.1-18; Gen. 49:22-26.

Benjamin symbolizes birth and death: Jacob. 5.20; Gen. 49.27.

This is a very ingenious theory: no one can bring irrefutable evidence in its favor, or refute it; and it certainly explains well the conversion to Jacob. 1.1 to the twelve tribes living in dispersion. This theory allows us to conclude that the moral and ethical aspects of this Jewish treatise, written under the name of James, made such a strong impression on some Christian that he made some corrections and additions to it and published it as a Christian book. This is, of course, an interesting theory, but perhaps its main advantage lies in its wit.

2. Like the Jews, Christians also wrote many books, attributing them to eminent figures Christian faith. There are gospels written in the name of Peter, Thomas, and even James; there is a letter signed with the name of Barnabas, there are gospels from Nicodemus and Bartholomew; there are acts of John, Paul, Andrew, Peter, Thomas, Philip and others. Such books are called pseudonymous, that is, written under someone else's name.

It has been suggested that James was written by someone else and attributed to a brother of the Lord. Apparently, this is what Jerome thought when he said that this epistle "was issued by someone in the name of James." But whatever this epistle really was, there was no way it could have been "published by someone in the name of Jacob," because the person who wrote and attributed such a book to someone would carefully and diligently try to show who was to be considered by its author. If the author had wanted to publish the book under a pseudonym, he would have made it so that no one would doubt that its author was James, the brother of our Lord, but this is not even mentioned.

3. The English theologian Moffat was inclined to believe that the author of the epistle was neither the brother of the Lord nor any other well-known James, but simply a teacher named James, about whose life we ​​know nothing at all. This, in fact, is not so unbelievable, because even at that time the name Jacob was very widespread. But then it is difficult to understand which book was included in the New Testament, and why it began to be associated with the name of brother Jesus.

4. It is generally accepted, however, that this book was written by James, the brother of the Lord. We have already pointed out a very strange point - that in such a book only twice the name of Jesus is accidentally mentioned and at all it is not mentioned once about His Resurrection or that Jesus was the Messiah. But there is another, even more difficult and complex problem. The book is written in Greek, and Ropes believes that Greek must have been the native language of the author of the epistle, and the great classical philologist Major stated: "I am inclined to believe that the Greek of this epistle is closer to the norms of the high classics than to the Greek of other books of the New Testament, with the possible exception of Hebrews." But Jacob's native language was undoubtedly Aramaic, not Greek, and he most certainly could not have mastered the classical Greek. The orthodox Jewish upbringing he received must have made him contempt for Greek as a hated pagan language. In this vein, it is almost impossible to imagine that this epistle would come out from the pen of James.

5. Let's remember how much the book of James is like a sermon. It may well be that this sermon was actually delivered by James himself, but was written down and translated by someone else; then it was slightly changed and sent to all churches. This explains both the form of the epistle and the fact of its identification with the name of Jacob. This also explains the absence of numerous references to Jesus, to His Resurrection and Messiahship: after all, James could not touch on all aspects of faith in one sermon; he, in fact, brings to the consciousness of people their moral obligations, and does not teach them theology. It seems to us that this theory explains everything.

One thing is quite clear - we may begin to read this little letter, realizing that the New Testament contains books of greater importance, but if we study it with perfect reverence, we will close it with a sense of gratitude to God that it was saved for our guidance and inspiration.

PARTICIPATION (James 2:1)

My brethren! have faith in Jesus Christ our Lord of glory, regardless of faces.

Personality is an expression used in the New Testament, meaning an excessive and unfair preference for some over others because of their wealth, influence, or fame. The New Testament consistently condemns and condemns this vice. The Jewish Orthodox leaders did not accuse Jesus of this, even they were forced to admit that He acts and speaks impartially. (Luke 20:21; Mark 12:14; Matt. 22:16). After a vision that came to him, Peter knew that God is no respecter of persons. (Acts 10:34). Paul was convinced that God judges both Gentiles and Jews equally, because God has no partiality (Rom. 2:11). And Paul convinces his readers of this again and again. (Eph. 6:9; Col. 3:25).

At the Greek word prosopolempsia interesting origin. It comes from the expression prosopon lambanane. Prosopon means face, but lambanane has the meaning raise, elevate, elevate. The Greek expression is a literal translation of the Hebrew phrase. The exaltation of a person is manifested in a special attitude towards him and, accordingly, in the opposite way. to humiliate someone. Initially, this word did not have any negative connotation; it simply meant accepting a person with honor, with special respect. The prophet Malachi asks if the prince will be pleased and will it welcome people? if they sacrifice a handicapped animal to him (Mal. 1:8.9)? Word respect of persons very soon acquired a bad meaning. Personality began to be called the exaltation of someone, proceeding solely from the social position of this person, the prestige that he enjoys, his power or wealth. God accuses people of not keeping His ways and respectful in the administration of justice (Mal. 2:9). The greatest feature of God is precisely His impartiality, equal treatment of all. It was written in the law: "Do not do unrighteousness in judgment, do not be partial to the poor, and do not please the person of the great; judge your neighbor with righteousness" (Lev. 19:15). One more thing should be noted here: a person can be unjust, currying favor with the rich, but he can also be unjust, surrounding the poor with a halo. "The Lord," says Jesus, the son of Sirach, "is the judge, and He has no partiality" (Sir. 35:12).

dilapidated and New Testaments are united in condemning the partiality in the justice system and the preference for one over the other, which is the result of subservience to a person, his social position, wealth or worldly influence. And this vice affects more or less almost all people. “The rich and the poor meet each other,” says the book of Proverbs of Solomon, “the Lord created both of them.” (Prov. 22:2). "It is unjust," says Jesus, the son of Sirach, "to provide for a reasonable poor man, and one should not glorify a sinful man if he is rich" (Sir. 10:26). It must be remembered that groveling before the crowd is the same partiality as aiding a tyrant.

THE DANGER OF SNOBISM WITHIN THE CHURCH (James 2:2-4)

James warns that snobbery, a sense of superiority over others, can creep into the Church. He describes how two people enter the Christian community. One of them is well dressed, his fingers are decorated with rings. Boastful people in ancient times wore rings on each finger, with the exception of the middle one, and even several rings on one finger. They even took rings from others and put them on when they wanted to impress someone with their wealth. "We adorn our fingers with rings," says Seneca, "and put a precious stone on each joint." Clement of Alexandria recommends that Christians wear only one ring, on the little finger. It should have some kind of religious emblem on it: a dove, a fish, or an anchor. Wearing a ring was justified by the fact that it could be used as a seal.

So, one person enters the Christian community, elegantly dressed, with numerous rings, and another enters - poor, in simple clothes, because he has nothing else to wear, and without any jewelry and precious stones. The rich man is greeted with all sorts of courtesies and respect and taken to a special place of honor, while the poor are asked to stand or settle down on the floor near the rich man's footstool.

It should be noted that the picture drawn by Jacob was not at all an exaggeration - this can be seen from the instructions in his contemporary prayer books. Here is one typical passage from the Ethiopian "Status of the Apostles" list:

“If any other man or woman in fine clothes enters, brothers from the church parish or from a neighboring parish, you, priest, while you are talking about the Word of God, or listening or reading, do not show respect and do not interrupt the sermon in order to show them places them, but remain calm, for the brothers will receive them, and if there are no empty places for them, who of the lower brothers or sisters will rise from their place and make room for them ... And if a poor woman or a poor man from a church parish or from a neighboring parish and there will be no free place for them, you, priest, with all cordiality prepare a place for such people, even if you have to sit down on the ground, for you pay respect not to a person, but to God.

And so Jacob paints a similar picture. Moreover, he admits that the preacher may stop the service at the entrance of a rich man and escort him to a special place.

Undoubtedly, social problems must have arisen in the early Christian Church: after all, the Church was the only place in the ancient world where social distinctions did not exist. The master must not have felt very comfortable if he had to sit next to his slave, or if he came to a worship service led by his slave. The gulf between the slave, who according to the law was only a living instrument, and the master was so great that it could cause difficulties in rapprochement on both sides. Also, in its inception, the Church was predominantly poor and simple, and therefore if a rich man converted to Christ and joined the Christian brotherhood, people might have a desire to make something special out of him and see in him a special acquisition for Christ.

The church should be the place where all differences are erased. When people meet in the presence of the King of glory, differences in rank and merit should disappear. In the presence of God, all earthly distinctions mean less than dust, and earthly righteousness less than despicable rags. In the presence of God, all people are equal.

Verse 4 is difficult to translate. Greek word discrifete has two meanings.

1. It can mean: "You are unstable in your judgment if you do this," in other words: "If you give special honors to the rich, you do not see the difference between the standards of the world and the standards of God and cannot decide which to follow."

2. It can mean: "You are guilty of recognizing class differences, which should not exist in the Christian brotherhood."

We think the second meaning is more appropriate, because James says further: "If you do this, you become judges with evil thoughts." In other words: "You are breaking the covenant of the One who said, "Judge not, lest you be judged." (Matt. 7:1).

TREASURES OF POVERTY AND POVERTY OF WEALTH (James 2:5-7)

"God," said Abraham Lincoln, "should love the common people, because he created them." Christianity has always carried a special message to the poor. In His first sermon in the synagogue of Nazareth, Jesus said, "He anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor" (Luke 4:18). To the difficult question of John the Baptist Is He the one who should come, the Anointed of God, Jesus answered: "The good news is preached to the poor" (Matt. 11:5). First of the Beatitudes: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. 5:3). And Luke expresses it even more clearly: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for yours is the kingdom of God." (Luke 6:20). When Jesus was cast out of the synagogues and preached the good news along the highways, on the mountains, and by the sea, He spoke to crowds of ordinary people. And in the era of the birth of the Christian Church, itinerant preachers addressed their sermons primarily to the mass of ordinary people. The Christian good news, in essence, is that someone who means nothing to anyone is of great importance to God. “Look, brethren, who you are called,” wrote Paul, “there are not many of you who are wise according to the flesh, not many strong, not many noble.” (1 Cor. 1:26).

The gospel gave so much to the poor, and demanded so much from the rich, that just crowds of the poor came to the Church. After all, it was the common people who gladly listened to Jesus, and the rich young man left saddened, because he was the owner of great wealth. James does not at all close the doors of the Church to the rich, but he says that the Good News of Christ is especially dear to the poor. It is addressed to those to whom no one addresses, and therefore, first of all, it is heeded by those whom the world does not put a penny on.

In the society in which Jacob lived, the rich oppressed the poor. They sued the poor for their debts. The people at the very bottom of the social ladder were so poor that they barely had enough to live on, and there were many lenders and they gave money at extortionate interest. In the ancient world, a person could be arrested without any warrant or court order. The creditor could, having met his debtor on the street, grab him and, in the literal sense of the word, "drag" him to court. This is how the rich acted towards the poor; they had no sympathy for people, but only one goal: to take away the last penny from a person. James hates the behavior of the rich man: such a rich man dishonors the name by which Christians are called.

Christians for the first time they began to call the followers of Christ in mockery in Antioch, perhaps because on the day of baptism they pronounced the name of Christ over a Christian. James uses the word epistleisfai translated in the Bible: are called, and this word among the Greeks denoted the fact that a married woman took the name of her husband. The same word was used when the child was given the name of the father. The Christian receives the name of Christ by baptism in His name. Baptism is like being married to Christ, or being born and baptized into the family of Christ. Rich people and gentlemen must have had many reasons to dishonor the name of Christians: a slave who became a Christian acquired a new independence; he no longer felt trembling before the power of the master, the punishments no longer frightened him, and he looked into the face of the master, dressed in new courage.

He got a new honesty. He became the best servant, but at the same time, he no longer wanted to serve as an instrument in the frauds and petty intrigues of his master; he acquired a new sense of honor God and insisted on leaving work on Sunday in order to be able to worship God with other God's people. Indeed, the slave owner had enough reason to dishonor the name of Christians and curse the name of Christ.

KING'S LAW (James 2:8-11)

James condemned those who pay special attention to a rich man who has converted to Christianity. "But," they may object to James, "the law teaches me to love my neighbor as myself, and therefore we are obliged to welcome a person who enters the church." “Excellent,” replies Jacob, “if you really greet such a person because you love him as yourself, and give him the same warm welcome that you would like to receive yourself, that’s fine. But if you give him special hospitality just because he is rich - it is a partiality, a sin and a violation of the law. It has nothing to do with keeping the law. You do not love your neighbor at all, otherwise you would not treat the poor so scornfully. This is how wealth is loved, and the law is against it.

The great commandment "Love your neighbor as yourself" James calls royal law. This expression can have multiple values. It might matter super law; it might matter law given by the King of kings; it might matter king of all laws; it might matter the law that makes men kings and fit for kings. The fulfillment of this greatest law makes a person a king over himself and a king among people. This is the law for kings and this law can make a man a king.

James goes on to lay down the greatest principle concerning the law of God: the breaking of any part of the law is the breaking of the whole law. The Jews were quite inclined to see in the law a series of unrelated commandments. Compliance with one counts as a plus for a person, violation of the other counts as a minus. A person, according to the Jews, could keep some commandments and deserve praise for it, while non-observance of other commandments increased, so to speak, his "penalty points". By adding some and subtracting others, a person, according to some teachers, could be a winner. There was such a rabbinical saying: "It is good for him who keeps one law; his days will be extended and he will inherit the land (promised)." Many rabbis also believed "that the commandment of the Sabbath means more than all the others" and therefore the observance of the Sabbath was identified with the observance of the law.

Jacob sees the will of God in all the law; violation of any part of it is a crime of this will and, therefore, a sin. And this is absolutely true: a person who breaks any part of the law simply becomes a sinner. Even by human standards, a person who breaks one law becomes a criminal. And so James says, "No matter how good you may be in other ways, if you treat people favorably, you are acting against the will of God and are a sinner."

This is a great truth, which today has the same weight as in the old days. A man can be good in almost every way, but ruin his virtue with a single transgression. A person can be highly moral in his deeds, pure in his speeches and scrupulous in his devotion, but if he is stern, self-confident, inflexible and callous, then his virtue is ruined.

And so let us not forget that although we may claim that we have done many good deeds and resisted many bad ones, there may be something in us that will spoil everything.

THE LAW OF FREEDOM AND MERCY (James 2:12-13)

Concluding his thought, James draws the attention of his readers to two important facts of the Christian life:

1. The Christian lives according to the law of freedom and he will be judged according to the law of freedom. By this, James means the following: unlike the Pharisee and the Orthodox Jew, the Christian does not live according to a complex of norms and requirements that put pressure on him from the outside, but according to internal requirements love; he follows the right path - the path of love for God and for people, not at all because some external law compels him to this or out of fear of punishment, but because the love of Christ abiding in him prompts him to this.

2. A Christian must always remember that only those who show mercy themselves can hope for mercy. This principle runs like a red thread through Holy Bible. Jesus, the son of Sirach, wrote: “Forgive your neighbor an offense, and then your sins will be forgiven through your prayer. being flesh, he harbors malice: who will blot out his sins?" (Sir. 28:2-5). Jesus Christ said: "Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy" (Matt. 5:7). "For if you forgive people their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive people their trespasses, then your Father will not forgive you your trespasses" (Matthew 6:14-15). "Judge not, lest you be judged. For by what judgment you judge, you will be judged" (Mat. 7:1.2). Jesus spoke of the punishment that befell a servant who did not want to forgive his debtor, and ended the parable with these words: "So My Heavenly Father will do to you if each of you does not forgive his brother from his heart for his sins" (Matt. 18:35).

Scripture is unanimous that the person who expects mercy must himself be merciful. And James goes even further than that, declaring at the end that mercy triumphs over justice; by this he means that on the Day of Judgment the person who has shown mercy realizes that his mercy has blotted out even his sins.

FAITH AND HUMAN WORKS (James 2:14-26)

Before we go into a detailed study of this passage, we must consider it in its entirety, because this passage is often used to show that James and Paul had different views on the same issue. It is clear that Paul is emphasizing that a person will be saved by faith alone, and that his accomplishments will not matter at all. "For we acknowledge that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law" (Rom. 3:28). "A man is not justified by the works of the law, but only by faith in Jesus Christ...for by the works of the law no flesh will be justified" (Gal. 2:16). It is often argued that James is not merely expressing a different point of view, but is directly opposing Paul. This is what we must consider.

1. To begin with, we note that James puts the same emphasis that can be found throughout the New Testament. John the Baptist already preached that a person can prove the authenticity of his repentance only by worthy deeds. (Matt. 3:8; Luke 3:8). Jesus Christ preached that a person should live in such a way that everyone can see his good deeds and glorify the Heavenly Father (Matt. 5:16). Jesus insisted that a man is known by his fruits, and that faith expressed in words alone cannot in any way be equated with faith expressed in deeds, in doing the will of God. (Matthew 7:15-21). Yes, and Paul did not leave this aspect without attention. Whatever general theoretical and theological problems Paul addressed in his Epistles, he always insisted that Christianity is manifested in deeds. In addition, Paul repeatedly emphasized the importance of good works in the Christian life. He says that God will reward everyone according to his deeds. (Rom. 2:6) that each of us must give an account to God for himself (Rom. 14:12). He calls people to cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light (Rom. 13:12). "Everyone will receive their reward according to their work" (1 Cor. 3:8); everyone must appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ, and each will receive, according to what he did while living in the body, good or bad (2 Corinthians 5:10). The Christian must get rid of his old nature and all its works (Col. 3:9).

The idea that a person's Christianity should be manifested in his behavior, as part of his Christian faith, runs like a red thread through the entire New Testament.

2. And yet, reading the Epistle of James, one gets the impression that he holds a different opinion than Paul, for, despite the motives we have given, Paul puts the main emphasis on grace and faith, and James on works and accomplishments. But it should be noted that James does not condemn Paul's point of view, but its perversion. Paul's position, reduced to one sentence, was: "Believe in Jesus Christ and you will be saved." (Acts 16:31). But it is quite obvious that the content of this phrase depends entirely on the content of the word "believe". You can believe in different ways.

Faith can be purely speculative. So, for example, I believe that the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the legs, and if necessary, I can prove it, but nothing changes in my life, I accept it, but it has no effect on my life and my actions. But there is another belief: I believe that 5 + 5 = 10 and will not pay more than ten rubles for two bars of chocolate worth five rubles each - I not only understand and remember this fact, but I act accordingly.

James objects to the first type of faith, to accepting a fact and not allowing it to have any effect on his life. Demons in their minds are convinced of the existence of God; they even tremble at the thought of him, but their faith does not change anything in them. Paul was referring to the second type of faith. For him, faith in Jesus meant translating that faith into all areas of life and living accordingly.

It is not difficult to distort Paul's point of view and emasculate the true meaning of the word faith. James takes up arms not against the teachings of Paul, but against a version that perverts it. He condemns a religion that does not manifest itself in everyday life, and Paul would fully support such a condemnation.

3. But even with this in mind, one more difference between James and Paul must be emphasized - they began in different eras of the formation of Christian life. Paul, who stood at the origins, argued that no person can deserve God's forgiveness: the initiative must come from the voluntary grace of God, a person can only accept the forgiveness offered to him in Jesus Christ.

Jacob began much later, in the era professing Christians people who claimed to have already received forgiveness and entered into a new relationship with God. Such people, James rightly says, must lead a new way of life, because they are new creatures. They are forgiven, now they must show what they have become saints. And with that, Paul would totally agree.

But the fact remains that no one can be saved by the works of his own hands, just as no one can be saved without doing good works. The best analogy here is human love. A loved one is always sure that he is not worthy of being loved, and, at the same time, he is sure that he must devote his life to this - to become worthy of this love.

The difference between James and Paul boils down to a difference in starting point. Paul starts with a fundamental fact. No person can earn or deserve God's forgiveness, he says. James, on the other hand, starts from professing Christians and insists that a person must show and prove his Christianity by his deeds. We are saved not deeds we are saved for cases This is the double truth of the Christian life. Paul emphasizes the first and James the second half. They, in essence, do not contradict each other, but complement each other; the message of each of them is of great importance for the Christian faith. May everyone who has such faith and hope put them into action.

RELIGION AND LIFE PRACTICE (James 2:14-17)

Jacob does not accept a religion that does not manifest itself in life practice. In support of his thought, he gives a vivid illustration: suppose that a person does not have clothes that would protect him from the cold, there is no food for food, and his friend expresses his sincere sympathy to him and limits himself to this, without even trying to alleviate the situation of the unfortunate. What is the use of this? What is the point of sympathy if it is not backed up by the desire to turn it into practical deeds? Faith without works is dead. This passage spoke especially to the Jew.

1. Charity was a matter of first importance to the Jew, so important that charity and righteousness meant the same thing to him. It was believed that when a person comes to the judgment of God, he will be able, as a defense and self-justification, to refer only to the charity rendered by him during his lifetime. "Faith will quench the flame of sin," wrote Jesus, the son of Sirach, "and alms will cleanse sins" (Sir. 3:30). In the book of Tobit we read: "Do not turn away your face from any poor person, then the face of God will not turn away from you" (Tov. 4:7). When the leaders of the Jerusalem church approved Paul's appeal to the Gentiles, they gave him only one command: not to forget the poor. (Gal. 2:10). This call to practical help became one of the greatest and most beautiful aspects of Jewish piety.

2. The Greek religion did not contain a particularly pronounced pathos of sympathy and charity: the Greek Stoics strove for apathy, the complete absence of any feelings; the purpose of their life was serenity; the Stoics sought the path to perfect tranquility in a complete withdrawal from all feelings; in pity, the Stoics saw only a violation of the impartial philosophical calmness to which one should strive. Epictetus said that only those who obey the divine commandments will never feel sadness or pity ("Conversations" 3.24.43). The Roman poet Virgil, who paints in the Georgics (2.498) a portrait of a perfectly happy man, has no pity for the poor and no sympathy for the suffering, because such feelings would disturb serenity. This is the exact opposite of the Jewish point of view. The Stoics identified bliss with impartiality and tranquility, while the Jews identified it with active empathy for the misfortunes of others.

3. Jacob is deeply right: the most terrible thing for a person is that, again and again, experiencing noble impulses and feelings, he will not try to bring his actions in line with these impulses. And therefore, each time, the likelihood that he will be able to do so decreases. One could even say that a person has no right to feel sympathy unless he at least tries to put it into action. Feelings are something that needs to be brought to life at the cost of effort and labor, at the cost of self-discipline and sacrifice.

NOT "THIS OR ANOTHER", BUT "THIS AND ANOTHER" (James 2:18-19)

Jacob imagines someone objecting to him: “Faith is a beautiful thing, but deeds are beautiful. Both are a genuine manifestation of real faith. But not every person has both together. be, there is faith, and the other - works. Someone manifests himself in deeds, and someone has faith. And each of them will be sincerely religious in his own way. " The opponent considers faith and deeds equivalent manifestations of the Christian religion. But Jacob is not satisfied with one or the other separately; he believes that the problem is not the presence or absence of faith or cases. The problem is that religiosity must necessarily include and faith and works.

In general, Christianity is often misrepresented as a "this or that" religion, but it must be a "both" religion.

1. In a harmonious life there must be a place and thoughts, And action. One person is usually considered thinking person, and the other - man of action. The thinking man is represented as hatching great ideas in his office, and the action man as doing great things in society. But all this is not so. A thinker is only half human unless he puts his ideas into action. He will hardly be able to inspire other people to any accomplishments if he himself does not enter the battlefield and take part in the struggle. As Kipling said:

Oh, England is a garden.

And such gardens are not made with a word

"Oh, how beautiful!", sitting in the shade.

Because people are better than us

Start your working life

Taking broken kitchen knives

Digging up weeds on garden paths.

Nor can anyone become a real man of action without having first thought through those great principles on which his actions are based.

2. In a harmonious life there must be a place and prayer, And effort. A great temptation is hidden in the division of people into two groups - saints who spend their lives on their knees in solitude and constant prayer, and workers who work all day in dust and heat. But this picture is not correct either.

It is said that Martin Luther was close friends with a monk who was as staunch a Reformationist as Luther himself, and they agreed that Luther would go out into the world and fight there, while the other would remain in his cell and pray for Luther's success. But one night the monk saw in a dream a lone reaper in a vast field doing impossible work. The reaper turned around, and the monk recognized Martin Luther in him, and he realized that he must leave his cell and prayers in order to go to his aid. True, there are also people who, because of their age or physical weakness, can only pray, and their prayer really helps others and gives them strength. But if a healthy and strong person believes that prayers can replace efforts, then such reasoning is only an excuse. Prayer and effort must go hand in hand.

3. In every balanced life there must be and faith and works. Faith can be manifested and confirmed in deeds. And only in faith can one decide on deeds and accomplish them. Faith must turn into action, for action begins only when a person has faith.

THE TEST AND PROOF OF FAITH (James 2:20-26)

James gives two examples to support his point of view: Abraham is the greatest example of faith; Abraham proved his willingness to sacrifice Isaac when God tested him. Rahab was also a famous heroine of Jewish legends. She gave refuge to spies sent to spy out everything in the promised land. (Josh. N. 2:1-21). Later legends say that she became a proselyte of the Jewish faith, married Joshua and was the direct ancestor of many priests and prophets, including Ezekiel and Jeremiah. By her act towards the spies, she proved her faith.

Both Paul and James are right here. If Abraham had not had faith, he would not have followed God's call. If Rahab had not had faith, she would never have risked tying her fate to that of Israel. And yet, if Abraham had not been willing to obey God in absolutely everything, his faith would not have been fake; and if Rahab had not risked everything, her faith would have been in vain.

These two examples show that faith and works are not mutually exclusive; on the contrary, they are inseparable. No man will begin to act if he has no faith, and a man's faith is vain if it does not move him to action. Faith and works are the two sides of man's knowledge of God.

James II

James II. Reproduction from the website http://monarchy.nm.ru/

James II, King of England
James VII, King of Scotland
James II Stuart
James II Stuart
Years of life: October 14, 1633 - September 16, 1701
Reigned: England: 6 February 1685 - 12 February
1689
Scotland: 6 February 1685 – 11 April 1689
Father: Charles I
Mother: Henrietta Maria French
Wives:
1) Anna Hyde
2) Mary of Modena
Son: Jacob ("Old Pretender")
Daughters: Maria, Anna, Louise
Several more children died in infancy.

During the years of the revolution, Jacob took refuge in Holland, and then entered the service of the French fleet, where he earned a reputation as a brave and capable military leader. After the restoration, Jacob returned to his homeland, where he was granted the rank of great admiral. He made many useful changes in the navy, in particular, he invented marine signaling using flags and flares. During the war with Holland, Jacob won several naval battles, which achieved some popularity. He ascended the throne after the death of his childless brother Charles in 1685.

Like his brother, Jacob had many affairs, but unlike Charles, he was attracted to women who were rude and ugly. One of his mistresses, Catherine Sedley, frankly admitted that she did not understand the reasons for Jacob's attachment to her. Only when he became king, with great difficulty, was he able to break the old ties.

Jacob was an active and powerful man, but too straightforward. He disliked Parliament and clearly showed an inclination towards Catholicism. If earlier he went to mass secretly, then, having become king, he did it openly. A papal legate settled at court, although the law forbade all relations between England and Rome. After putting down a rebellion by his half-brother James Crofts in 1685, James further increased his army, mainly with Catholic officers from Scotland and Ireland. Soon Catholics again received the right to hold public office and head departments at universities. In 1687 and 1688 declarations of religious tolerance were issued, which, however, further aggravated the situation. The bishops who opposed them were imprisoned in the Tower. Parliament, which tried to deprive the king of subsidies in response to the abuses of the king, was dissolved.

By 1688, Jacob's only support was the Irish-Scottish army. Both Tories and Whigs united against the king and sent a dispatch to William of Orange, who held the position of Stadtholder of the Netherlands, with a proposal to take the English throne. November 5, 1688 William landed in England. In an attempt to salvage the situation, James called Parliament, but it was too late. Everyone went over to Wilhelm's side, including ministers, the army, and even members of the royal family. On December 11, Jacob tried to escape and drowned the state seal in the Thames, but was captured on the coast and returned to the palace. Despite being treated respectfully, Jacob escaped a second time, and this time successfully. He reached the shores of France, where he was received Louis XIV and placed in Saint-Germain, allocating a large sum of money for the maintenance of the court.

After the flight of the king on February 12, 1689, Parliament announced the resignation of Jacob from his powers. Soon the Scottish Parliament did the same. William of Orange and his wife Mary, daughter of Charles II, were proclaimed rulers of England. This coup entered the history of England as the Glorious Revolution.

Subsequently, Jacob twice tried to regain the throne. In the same 1689, with French money, he organized an uprising in Ireland, and even the local parliament recognized him as king, but the rebellion was soon suppressed. In 1691, the French fleet went to the shores of England, but was defeated. Jacob had a chance to be elected king of Poland, but he himself refused the crown, believing that this would completely deprive him of the chances of returning to England. The last years Jacob lived quietly in France and died in Saint-Germain, where he was buried.

Used material from the site http://monarchy.nm.ru/

James II, King of England and Scotland from the Stuart dynasty, who ruled from 1685-1688. A son Charles I and Henrietta of France.

Wives: 1) from 1659 Anna Gade (b. 1638 + 1705); 2) since 1673 Maria d "Esta, daughter of the Duke of Modena Alphonse IV (born 1658 + 1718).

During the years of the revolution, Jacob, in great danger to his life, dressed in a woman's dress, fled from England to Holland. During the years of the Cromwell protectorate, he went to France and as a volunteer entered the French service, where he established himself as a brave and capable military leader, very knowledgeable in naval affairs. After the restoration, James accompanied his brother Charles II to England and was granted the latter to the great admirals. In this position, Jacob made many useful changes and innovations. He has the honor of inventing naval signals, during the day - with multi-colored flags, at night - with the same flares. His victories over the Dutch admiral Ondam in 1665, his battles with the famous Ruyter in 1672 won him some popularity, although the people did not at all sympathize with the war with Holland. In 1685, after the death of Charles II, who left no legitimate heirs, James ascended the throne.
Unlike his brother, he was an active and powerful man. His mind was heavy, his character was distinguished by steadfastness and inexorability. However, with all the severity of his nature, Jacob was subject to the influence of feminine charms no less than his ardent and cheerful brother. But beauty, which distinguished all the favorites of Charles, was not a necessary condition for the favorites of Jacob. Even in his youth, he fell in love with the rude and ugly Anna Gade, daughter of Lord Clarendon, whom he married with the permission of the king. Soon, to the great amazement of the whole court, he was torn from his unattractive wife by an even less attractive lover - Arabella Churchill. His second wife was twenty years his junior, and despite her youth and beauty, she also often had cause to complain about his fickleness. Of all the king's hobbies, the strongest was affection for Catherine Sedley, devoid of any female attractiveness. Nevertheless, she had great power over the king. She herself was surprised by his passion and once admitted: “It cannot be that my beauty seduced him - after all, he must see that I am not good; and not my mind, because he himself is not so smart as to understand whether I have it. Only after accession to the throne, when the queen began to arrange constant scenes for him, did Jacob break this connection with great effort.

While still Prince of York, James could not calmly look at the parliamentary institutions of England and showed a clear inclination towards Catholicism. Despite this, after the death of Charles II, he assumed power without any resistance. The society was loyal to the ruling dynasty, and in the first parliament called by the king, the Tories had a huge majority over the Whigs. James himself admitted that if he had been given the choice of appointing members of the House, he would not have found better candidates. But this political harmony was very short-lived. Narrow, straightforward, and narrow-minded, Jacob was unable, either in his mental faculties or in his moral convictions, to play the complex political game necessary in his position. First of all, the king did not consider it necessary to hide his Catholic faith any longer. If earlier he secretly went to mass, now he has opened wide the doors of his chapel. The papal legate openly settled at the royal court, although under English law all communication with Rome was prohibited. The Catholic clergy preached and opened their own schools. At the same time, the desire of the king for unlimited power caused great concern.

In 1685, the late son of Charles II, the Duke of Monmouth, rebelled against his uncle. After his speech was suppressed with incredible cruelty, the king did not dissolve many regiments, he increased the standing army, a significant part of the officers of which consisted of Catholics. Then government posts became available to Catholics, and above all the management of universities. This creeping Catholic reaction finally caused the opposition of Parliament. Assembling for a second session, the deputies refused to approve the royal subsidies until James repealed his abuses. In response, the king dissolved the House. To attract popularity, he in 1687 and 1688. issued declarations of religious tolerance, but this only increased the indignation. Many bishops protested against the declaration. Jacob ordered them to be imprisoned in the Tower.

In the third year of his reign, Jacob's only support was the troops recruited from the Irish and Scots. Both Whigs and Tories united against the autocratic and fanatical king. In the summer of 1688, seven of the most prominent public figures in England sent a ciphered dispatch to Jacob's son-in-law, the Stadtholder of the Netherlands, William of Orange, and invited him to take the English throne. Upon learning that William was making preparations for an expedition to England, Jacob decided to make concessions in favor of the Tories and announced that he no longer insisted on admitting Catholics to Parliament. But it was too late. On November 5, William landed on the English coast with a large army. All the sympathies of the British were on his side. Jacob hurried to his army, realizing that time was against him and it was necessary to impose a battle on the enemy as soon as possible. But the despondency and confusion that he found in the regiments made him change his mind and give the order to retreat. On 27 November the King agreed to convene Parliament. However, this measure could no longer save him. London, ministers, the army led by their commander-in-chief John Churchill and even members of the royal family went over to the side of Wilhelm. The abandoned king had to give up further struggle and think about his own salvation. In annoyance with the British and trying to cause confusion in the country, Jacob secretly fled from his palace on December 11. Crossing the Thames, he drowned the state seal in it. The king wanted to sail to France, but fishermen detained him on the coast. They took Jacob to the seaside town of Feversgham and then sent him under guard to London. In the capital, he was received very respectfully and placed in the palace, but Jacob clearly saw that the reign had come to an end. Wilhelm was annoyed that his father-in-law was prevented from escaping, since he absolutely did not know what to do with him now. Meanwhile, Jacob moved to Rochester and fled from here a second time. Now no one interfered with him, and on December 25, after a stormy voyage, he safely reached France. Louis XIV received the exile very cordially, gave him magnificent premises in the Saint-Germain Palace and appointed a large amount for his maintenance, so that James could surround himself with a magnificent court staff.

In 1689, when a powerful Catholic uprising began in Ireland, Louis gave James money, weapons, ships and mercenaries to wage war. The Irish parliament recognized James as king, but on July 30, 1690, the Irish were defeated in a decisive battle on the Boyne River. Jacob fled to France. In 1691, he repeated his attempt, but again unsuccessfully - the French flotilla that accompanied Jacob was defeated at Cape La Gogh. The following years, until his death, Jacob lived in exile in France.

Used materials from the book: All the monarchs of the world. Western Europe. Konstantin Ryzhov. Moscow, 1999

So, in 1662, Charles II Stuart married Catherine, Infanta of Portugal. This marriage turned out to be childless, which is why after the death of Charles II, his only brother, the Duke of York, who ascended the throne of Great Britain under the name of James II, inherited his throne.

Unfortunately, James II, a convinced Catholic, was a man wholly devoted to the interests of the Roman Catholic Church (papacy), and all the efforts of Charles II to force him to change his beliefs came to nothing. In turn, the English parliament did its best to convince Charles II of the need to change the last will and deprive his brother of the right to the throne on the grounds that a Catholic king was just as unacceptable to Great Britain as a Protestant king was to France or Spain.

However, Charles II, who doted on his brother and tried in every way to delay the solution of the issue, succeeded very well in this and died calmly, without giving consent to such an act. Therefore, no one could resist the proclamation of James II as king and his accession to the throne of Great Britain.

Dreaming of the return of the papacy, James II appointed a papist professor at Oxford, openly accepted the papal legate, persuaded several of his papists to accept Catholicism, and also intended to cancel the measures directed against the papists, in other words, he committed actions that caused discontent and grumbling among the people. It should be noted that during the period of exile, Charles II had a son, who was named James and given the title of Duke of Monmouth. This James, objecting to being considered a bastard or illegitimate son, in view of the promise of Charles II to marry his mother, laid claim to the English throne. Gathering a small force, in 1685 he landed on the west coast of England and proclaimed himself king. However, having suffered a defeat at the first clash with the royal troops, he was taken prisoner, taken to the Tower and a few days later publicly beheaded on Tower Hill, which greatly contributed to strengthening the position of the king, who was ready to implement the policy of the Romans with even greater firmness. -Catholic Church.

The wife of James II, Queen Mary, from the clan of Modena, for a long time did not please him with the appearance of an heir. Finally, on June 10, 1688, the queen successfully settled as a prince, whom the king named James, conferring on him the title of Prince of Wales. The king announced the joyous event to all those in power in neighboring states, causing rejoicing among the papists, who believed that the time was not far off when Great Britain would return to the bosom of the Catholic Church. The endless stream of congratulations addressed to the royal couple, at first glance, was encouraging: it seemed that all the British were happy to consider the newborn prince as their future master. In fact, the most vile fakes were circulating, containing speculation about the so belated appearance of the prince into the world. In order to suppress such rumors, on October 27, 1688, the king ordered all the courtiers who were in the palace during childbirth to certify the birth of a son whom he, James II, considers his rightful heir.

From his first marriage, the king had two daughters, brought up in the traditions of the Anglican Church. The eldest, Maria, born in 1662, in 1677 married William, Prince of Orange, and the youngest, Anna, born in 1664, in 1683 married George, Prince of Denmark. William, Prince of Orange, born in 1650, the son of Mary, daughter of the beheaded King Charles I, could rightfully claim the English throne, so some lords and princes of the church, having entered into secret negotiations with him, conveyed to him the news of the danger threatening England to fall again under the influence of the Pope, while expressing unequivocal concern about the unlawful deprivation of Wilhelm's hereditary rights to british crown. William of Orange, instantly understanding what they were driving at, turned for help to the united provinces of the Netherlands, which immediately equipped him with a navy, and already in November 1688, the prince left the Dutch harbor, initially heading north to send scouts on the wrong track , and only then turned to the west, towards the strait. For some time, the flotilla moved along the English coast in the same direction, while dispatches were constantly sent from all English ports in London with messages about the passage of the Dutch fleet. Couriers could not get into the city bypassing the large London Bridge, and therefore the bridge was bursting both from couriers, who followed almost one after another, and from curious townspeople, greedy for news. The size of the flotilla of William of Orange easily convinced the Londoners of the futility of any resistance on the part of James II, which is why they decided to make every effort to prevent an armed conflict. Similar work was carried out in the army of King James, where it was decided to refuse to assist him in the fight against the prince, who landed in the west of England and marched directly towards London. Abandoned by everyone, James II sent the queen with a six-month-old child to France, and then he himself went after them.

The flight of the king gave Parliament an opportunity to announce that the king had abdicated, and on February 13, 1689, the Prince of Orange was proclaimed King of Great Britain under the name of William III. The people did not hide their joy. Fires blazed in the city, on which a jubilant crowd, with wild gloating, burned images of the Pope and the Jesuit Petersen, confessor and adviser to James II. Nostradamus mentions this in the 80th quatrain of the 3rd century:

"The unworthy will be expelled from the English throne,
His adviser will be thrown into the fire out of gloating:
His supporters will act so cleverly
That the Bastard will be half approved."

As for the expression “Unworthy” (as Nostradamus calls King James II), one should pay attention to the fact that this expression takes place in the first editions of the centuries published in France, however, in later ones, and especially those that came out in England, instead of "Unworthy" the expression "Worthy" appeared. Incidentally, the poetic meter allows for both, according to the assessment of the king by various parties: the most worthy of all contenders for the throne, from the point of view of the papists, James II remained unworthy for the Protestants.

Let us turn to the 89th quatrain of the 4th century:

"The armed militia of London entered into a secret collusion
In the course of an exchange of opinions on the bridge about an enterprise being prepared against their king,
His satellites will taste death,
Another king will be chosen, a fair-haired one from Frisia."

Born November 14, 1650 in The Hague, King Wilhelm was from a province called Holland, or West Frisia. In his youth, he may have had blond hair, but there may be an allusion to his name (Guillaume is French for "Guillaume"). As for the unfortunate companions of King James II, everyone who became papists to please him had, following his sad example, to leave England and emigrate to Ireland, where, as a result of a bloody war, they were finally broken by King William, and most of them cost a life. James II managed to escape this time as well; he went to France, where he died in September 1701. And six months later, on March 8, 1702, after him, King Wilhelm also departed to another world. Thus, none of the Protestant descendants of the beheaded King Charles I remained alive, with the exception of Princess Anne, who was then married to George, Prince of Denmark, who was immediately proclaimed Queen of Great Britain.
Her only son, William, Duke of Gloucester, who showed the most brilliant promises, to everyone's surprise, died suddenly at the eleventh year of his life on July 30, 1700, i.e. three years prior to this event. The death of his son prompted the then-living King William to show commendable concern for the preservation of the right of succession to the Protestant line of the Stuart dynasty, excluding papists from it forever. So, on March 22, 1701, Parliament passed a law according to which, in the event of the extinction of the line of Charles and the Protestant line of King James I, in the absence of direct heirs of William and Anna, the throne of Great Britain will be inherited by representatives of the line of Elizabeth in the person of the then still healthy daughter of Elizabeth, Sophia, Elector Brunswick, Lüneburg and Hanover with all her descendants, considered as the closest and legitimate heirs to the British crown.

Thus, this statutory succession along the Protestant line was subsequently reaffirmed.
Parliament during the reign of Queen Anne, in particular, in 1707, when England and Scotland were solemnly transformed into a single state with a single parliament, the adopted order of succession was legally assigned to Elector Sophia and her direct descendants. Please note that Elector Sophia, granddaughter of King James I and mother of King George I, who died in May 1714 at the age of eighty-four, shortly before the death of Queen Anne, was born on October 13, 1630 in The Hague (Holland or West Frisia), in other words in the same place as King Wilhelm, a Friesian by birth. Thus, the prediction of Nostradamus was fulfilled twice: the first time in the person of the king, and the second in the person of the one whom he appointed as his heir.
Note that England, a country where the right of succession to the throne is regulated by hereditary law, twice found itself in such a state of crisis that Parliament, seeing no other way out, was forced to decide on the legislative consolidation of the right to the British crown (with the indication of a specific person) for the Protestant line, having set confessional affiliation as the main condition.