From these and other passages, implying a great eminence of James in
the direction of the plans of evangelization, it is evident, that,
in the absence of Peter, he must have been the most important person
among the apostles at Jerusalem; and after the permanent removal
of the commissioned apostolic chief, to other and wider fields of
action, his rank, as principal person among all the ministers of
Christ in Jerusalem, must have been very decidedly established. From
this circumstance has originated the notion that he was “bishop of
Jerusalem;” and this is the title with which the later Fathers have
attempted to decorate him,――as if any honor whatever could be conferred
on an apostle, by giving him the title of a set of inferior ministers
appointed by the original commissioned preachers of Christ, to be
merely their substitutes in the instruction and management of those
numerous churches which could not be blessed by the presence of
an apostle, and to be their successors in the supreme earthly
administration of the affairs of the Christian community, when the
great founders had all been removed from their labors, to their rest.
How nearly the duties performed by James corresponded to the modern
episcopal function, it is utterly impossible to say, for the simple
reason that not the slightest record of his actions is left, to which
references can be made, on this interesting question. That he was the
most eminent of the apostles resident at Jerusalem, is quite clear;
and that by him, under these circumstances, were performed the great
proportion of the pastoral duties among the believers in that city,
may be most justly supposed; and his influence over Christian converts
would by no means be limited by the walls of the Holy city. In his
apostolic functions, he, of course, became known to all resorting to
that place; and his faithful and eminent ministry in the capital of the
Jewish religion would extend not only his fame, but the circle of his
personal acquaintances, throughout all parts of the world, from which
pilgrims came to the great annual festivals in Jerusalem. His immense
apostolic diocese, therefore, could not be very easily bounded, nor
was it defined with any exactness, to prevent it from running into the
limits of those divisions of the fields of duty, in which Peter, Paul,
John and others, had been more especially laboring. His influence among
the Jews in general, (whether believers in Christ or not,) would, from
various accounts, appear to have been greater than that of any other
apostle; and this, combined with the circumstances of his location,
would seem to entitle him very fairly to the rank and character of
the apostle of the “DISPERSION.” This was a term transferred from the
abstract to the concrete sense, and was applied in a collective meaning
to the great body of Jews in all parts of the world, through which they
were scattered by chance, choice, or necessity.
_Bishop of Jerusalem._ The first application of this title to
James, that appears on record, is in Eusebius, who quotes the
still older authority of Clemens Alexandrinus. (Church History,
II. 1.) The words of Eusebius are, “Then James, who was called
the brother of our Lord, because he was the son of Joseph, and
whom, on account of his eminent virtue, those of ancient times
surnamed the Just, is said to have first held the chair of
the bishopric of Jerusalem. Clemens, in the sixth book of his
Institutes, distinctly confirms this. For he says that ‘after
the Saviour’s ascension, although the Lord had given to Peter,
James, and John, a rank before all the rest, yet they did not
therefore contend among themselves for the first distinction,
but chose James the Just, to be bishop of Jerusalem.’ And the
same writer, in the seventh book of the same work, says these
things of him, besides: ‘To James the Just, and John, and Peter,
did the Lord, after the resurrection, grant the knowledge, [the
_gnosis_, or knowledge of mysteries,] and these imparted it to
the other disciples.’”
In judging of the combined testimony of these two ancient
writers, it should be observed that it is not by any means
so ancient and direct as that of Polycrates, on the identity
of Philip the apostle, and Philip the deacon, which these
very Fathers quote with assent. Nor can their opinion be worth
any more in this case than in the other. On no point, where a
knowledge of the New Testament, and a sound judgment are the
only guides, can the testimony of the Fathers be considered
of any value whatever; for the most learned of them betray a
disgraceful ignorance of the Bible in their writings; nor can
the most acute of them compare, for sense and judgment, with
the most ordinary of modern commentators. The whole course of
Patristic theology affords abundant instances of the very low
powers of these writers, for the discrimination of truth and
falsehood. The science of historical criticism had no existence
among them――nor indeed is there any reason why they should be
considered persons of any historical authority, except so far
as they can refer directly to the original sources, and to the
persons immediately concerned in the events which they record.
On all matters of less unexceptionable authority, where their
testimony does not happen to contradict known truth or common
sense, all that can be said in their favor, is, that the thing
thus reported is not improbable; but all supplements to the
accounts given in the New Testament, unless they refer directly
to eye-witnesses, may be pronounced very suspicious and wholly
uncertain. In this case, Eusebius’s opinion that James, the
brother of our Lord was the son of Joseph, is worth no more
than that of the latest commentator; because he had no more
historical aids than the writers of these days. Nor is the story
of Clemens, that James was bishop of Jerusalem, worth any more;
because he does not refer to any historical evidence.