Quarreling--which was produced especially by the inordinate ambition among the readers to pose as teachers--must be counteracted by submission to God.
The constant thought of God excludes all pride in human planning. Especially the rich must reflect upon the transitoriness of earthly possessions and above all must be sure that their wealth is honestly gained.
Finally, patient waiting for the Lord, the example of the Old Testament saints, and the earnest practice of prayer will make effective all the exhortations of the epistle.
IN THE LIBRARY.--Purves, "Christianity in the Apostolic Age," pp. 123-138. Davis, "Dictionary of the Bible": Warfield, articles on "James" and "James, Epistle of." M'Clymont, "The New Testament and Its Writers," pp. 123-129. Knowling, "The Epistle of St. James." "The Cambridge Bible for Schools": Plumptre, "The General Epistle of St. James." Zahn, "Introduction to the New Testament," vol. i, pp. 73-151. The last-named work is intended primarily for those who have some knowledge of Greek, but can also be used by others.
JESUS THE FULFILLMENT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
(=1=) =The Tradition.=--At Alexandria in the latter part of the second century Paul was thought to be the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews; but in North Africa a little later Tertullian attributed the epistle to Barnabas, and in other portions of the Church the Pauline authorship was certainly not accepted. In the west, the Pauline authorship was long denied and the inclusion of the epistle in the New Testament resisted. At last the Alexandrian view won universal acceptance. The Epistle to the Hebrews became an accepted part of the New Testament, and was attributed to Paul.
Clement of Alexandria, who had apparently received the tradition of Pauline authorship from Pantænus, his predecessor, himself declares that Hebrews was written by Paul in the "Hebrew" (Aramaic) language, and was translated by Luke into Greek. The notion of a translation by Luke was based upon no genuine historical tradition--Hebrews is certainly an original Greek work--but was simply an hypothesis constructed to explain the peculiarities of the epistle on the supposition that it was a work of Paul.
(=2=) =The Value of the Tradition.=--The tradition of Pauline authorship is clearly very weak. If Paul had been the author, it is hard to see why the memory of the fact should have been lost so generally in the Church. No one in the early period had any objection to the epistle; on the contrary it was very highly regarded. If, then, it had really been written by Paul, the Pauline authorship would have been accepted everywhere with avidity. The negative testimony of the Roman church is particularly significant. The epistle was quoted by Clement of Rome at about A. D. 95; yet at Rome as elsewhere in the West the epistle seems never in the early period to have been regarded as Pauline. In other words, just where acquaintance with the epistle can be traced farthest back, the denial of Pauline authorship seems to have been most insistent. If Clement of Rome had regarded Paul as the author, the history of Roman opinion about the epistle would have been very different.