The Martyrdom of James

“About that time” (plainly he means the time of Claudius) “Herod the king laid hands on some who belonged to the church, to harm them. He killed James the brother of John with the sword.” [a] Clement, in the seventh book of his Outlines, sets down a story about this James that is worth remembering, saying that it comes from the tradition of those before him. The man who had brought James into court, when he saw him bear his witness, was moved and confessed that he too was a Christian. [b] “So they were both led away together,” he says, “and on the way he begged James to forgive him. James thought for a moment and said, ‘Peace to you,’ and kissed him. And so the two of them were beheaded together.”

Then, as the divine Scripture says, when Herod saw that the killing of James had pleased the Jews, he set on Peter too and put him in chains. He would very soon have carried out his murder as well, if Peter had not been wonderfully freed from his prison by a divine appearance, an angel who stood beside him at night, and so been released for the service of preaching. That was how God ordered things for Peter. [c]