The Martyrdom of James

After Paul had appealed to Caesar and been sent on to Rome by Festus, the Jews, cheated of the hope with which they had laid their plot against him, turned on James, the brother of the Lord, to whom the apostles had entrusted the bishop’s throne at Jerusalem. This is what they dared against him. [a] They brought him into their midst and demanded that he deny faith in Christ before all the people. But against everyone’s expectation he spoke out in a free voice before the whole multitude, more boldly than they had looked for, and confessed that our Savior and Lord Jesus is the Son of God. They could no longer bear the man’s testimony, since everyone believed him the most righteous of men because of the supreme height of the disciplined life and of the godliness he practiced; so they killed him. They took the lack of any ruler as their chance to act: Festus had died in Judea at that very time, and the administration there stood without a head and without a governor. [b]

The manner of James’s death has already been shown by the words of Clement quoted earlier, who records that he was thrown from the pinnacle and beaten to death with a club. But Hegesippus, who belongs to the first generation after the apostles, gives the most exact account of him in the fifth book of his Memoirs. He writes as follows: [e]

“James, the brother of the Lord, took over the church together with the apostles. Everyone has called him the Just, from the Lord’s time down to our own, since there were many called James. [f] But this one was holy from his mother’s womb. He drank no wine or strong drink, and he ate nothing that had life. No razor touched his head; he did not anoint himself with oil, and he did not use the baths. He alone was allowed to enter the holy place, for he wore no wool, only linen. He used to go into the sanctuary alone, and he was often found on his knees asking forgiveness for the people, so that his knees grew hard like a camel’s from his constantly kneeling in worship of God and asking forgiveness for the people. Because of his surpassing righteousness he was called the Just, and Oblias, which in Greek means ‘bulwark of the people’ and ‘righteousness,’ as the prophets declare concerning him. [g]

Now some of the seven sects among the people, which I described earlier in the Memoirs, asked him, ‘What is the door of Jesus?’ And he said that this man was the Savior. [h] Some of them believed that Jesus is the Christ. But the sects I have mentioned believed neither in a resurrection nor in one who is coming to repay each according to his works. Yet as many as did believe, believed because of James. [i] So, since many even of the rulers believed, there was an uproar among the Jews and the scribes and Pharisees, who said that the whole people was in danger of looking for Jesus as the Christ. So they came together to James and said, ‘We beg you, restrain the people, for they have gone astray after Jesus, as though he were the Christ. We beg you to persuade all who have come for the day of the Passover about Jesus, for we all heed you. We testify of you, and so do all the people, that you are righteous and that you show no partiality. [j] So persuade the crowd not to go astray about Jesus, for the whole people and all of us heed you. Stand, then, on the pinnacle of the temple, so that from up there you may be seen clearly and your words may be heard by all the people. For because of the Passover all the tribes have gathered, and Gentiles with them.’

So the scribes and Pharisees I have mentioned set James on the pinnacle of the sanctuary and cried out to him, ‘Just One, whom we all ought to heed, since the people are going astray after Jesus, who was crucified, tell us: what is the door of Jesus?’ He answered in a loud voice, ‘Why do you ask me about the Son of Man, when he himself is sitting in heaven at the right hand of the great Power, and is about to come on the clouds of heaven?’ [k] Many were fully convinced and gave glory at James’s testimony, saying, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’ Then the same scribes and Pharisees said to one another, ‘We have done badly in providing such testimony to Jesus. Let us go up and throw him down, so that they will be afraid and not believe him.’ And they cried out, ‘Oh, oh! Even the Just One has gone astray!’ So they fulfilled the scripture written in Isaiah: ‘Let us do away with the righteous man, for he is troublesome to us; therefore they will eat the fruit of their works.’ [l]

So they went up and threw the Just One down. And they said to one another, ‘Let us stone James the Just.’ And they began to stone him, since the fall had not killed him. But he turned and knelt down, saying, ‘I beg you, Lord God, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’ [m] While they were stoning him, one of the priests of the sons of Rechab, the son of Rechabim, to whom Jeremiah the prophet bears witness, cried out, ‘Stop! What are you doing? The Just One is praying for you.’ [n] Then one of them, a fuller, took the club he used to press out clothes and brought it down on the Just One’s head. So he died a martyr. They buried him on the spot, beside the sanctuary, and his gravestone still stands beside the sanctuary. He has become a true witness to Jews and Greeks alike that Jesus is the Christ. And at once Vespasian laid siege to them.” [o]

That is Hegesippus’s full account, in agreement with Clement. James was so admirable a man, and so famous among everyone for his righteousness, that even the sensible among the Jews thought this the cause of the siege of Jerusalem, which came on them immediately after his martyrdom: it happened to them, they thought, for no other reason than the crime they had dared against him. Josephus, indeed, did not hesitate to testify to this in writing, in these words: “These things happened to the Jews to avenge James the Just, who was the brother of Jesus who is called Christ; for the Jews killed him, though he was a most righteous man.” [q]

The same writer also tells of his death in the twentieth book of the Antiquities, as follows: “When Caesar learned of Festus’s death, he sent Albinus to Judea as governor. The younger Ananus, who, as we said, had received the high priesthood, was brazen in temper and remarkably reckless. He belonged to the sect of the Sadducees, who are more savage in their judgments than any other Jews, as we have already shown. [r] Being a man of this kind, Ananus thought he had a fitting opportunity, because Festus was dead and Albinus was still on the road. So he convened a sanhedrin of judges and brought before it the brother of Jesus who was called Christ, whose name was James, together with some others. He accused them of breaking the law and handed them over to be stoned. [s] But those in the city who were thought the most considerate, and who were strict about the laws, were deeply offended at this. They sent to the king in secret, urging him to order Ananus to do no such thing again, since he had not acted rightly even this first time. Some of them also went to meet Albinus on his journey from Alexandria and informed him that Ananus had no right to convene a sanhedrin without his consent. [t] Albinus, persuaded by what they said, wrote to Ananus in anger and threatened to punish him. For this reason King Agrippa took the high priesthood from him when he had held it only three months, and made Jesus the son of Damnaeus high priest.”

Such is the account of James, to whom the first of the letters called general is said to belong. But it should be known that it is held not to be genuine: at least, not many of the ancients have mentioned it, as is also the case with the letter called Jude’s, which is likewise one of the seven called general. Still, we know that these two, along with the rest, have been used publicly in very many churches. [u]