The Expositor's Bible: The General Epistles of St. James and St. JudePlummer, Alfred
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The General Epistles of St. James and St. Jude
Plummer, Alfred
Bible. James -- Commentaries; Bible. Jude -- Commentaries
6. What hath pride profited us? or Go to now, ye that say, To-day or
what good hath riches with our to-morrow we will go into this
vaunting (ἀλαζονείας) brought us? city, and spend a year there, and
All those things are passed away trade and get gain: whereas ye know
like a shadow, and as a post that not what shall be on the morrow.
hasted by, etc. etc.; even so we, What is your life? For ye are a
as soon as we were born, came to an vapour, that appeareth for a little
end" (v. 8-14). time, and then vanisheth away....
But now ye glory in your vauntings
(ἀλαζονίαις): all such glorying
is evil (iv. 13-16).
7. Let us lie in wait for the Ye have condemned (κατεδικάσατε),
righteous (τὸν δίκαιον).... Let ye have killed the righteous one
us condemn him (καταδικάσωμεν) (τὸν δίκαιον); he doth not resist
with a shameful death (ii. 12, 20). you (v. 6).
It will at once be perceived that these parallels are neither so
numerous nor so convincing as those which have been pointed out
between Ecclesiasticus and the Epistle of St. James; but they are
sufficient to make a _primâ facie_ case of considerable probability,
whatever date we assign to the Book of Wisdom. This probability is
strengthened by the fact that this book, with the rest of the
Apocrypha or deutero-canonical writings, constituted to a large extent
the _religious literature of the Jews of the Dispersion_; and
therefore in writing to such Jews St. James would be likely to make
conscious allusions to writings with which his hearers would be sure
to be familiar; a consideration which strengthens the case as regards
the coincidences with Ecclesiasticus, as well as regards those with
the Wisdom of Solomon. Even if the probability as to the Alexandrian
origin of Wisdom were a certainty, and if the conjectural date A.D. 40
were established, there would be nothing surprising in its becoming
well known in Jerusalem within twenty years of its production. It is,
therefore, far too strong an assertion when Weiss declares that "it
must be distinctly denied that there is anywhere [in the Epistle of
St. James] an echo of the Book of Wisdom." All that one can safely say
is that the evidence for his acquaintance with the book does not
approach to proof.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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