Holy Apostle James, the Brother of the Lord According to the Flesh (+c. 63)
The holy Apostle James, the brother of the Lord according to the flesh, was the son of the righteous Joseph (commemorated 26 December). According to tradition, the saint accompanied the All-holy Mother of God when, to escape Herod’s wrath, she fled into Egypt with the Child Jesus and Joseph. From his youth James was a Nazirite (the Nazirite way meant the holy and pure life that the Lord had once set before all Israel). The saint prayed so earnestly that from his frequent prostrations the skin of his knees grew as hard as a camel’s. For such a devout life all the people called James the Just. Even among the Jewish elders the blessed one enjoyed such honour that the high priest allowed him alone to enter the inner part of the Temple in Jerusalem, the Holy of Holies, where the Lord’s chosen one would withdraw to pray. When the Saviour began to preach the Kingdom of Heaven, Saint James believed in the incarnate Son of God and was numbered among His seventy chosen disciples. After Christ’s Resurrection from the dead the saint was counted worthy of a special appearance of the Lord (1 Cor. 15:7). Tradition tells that the ascetic, regarded as a pillar of the Christian Church (Gal. 2:9), was appointed the first hierarch of Jerusalem. He presided over the first Council of the Apostles in Jerusalem, where his word was decisive (Acts 15).
Under the influence of the saint’s preaching many Jews were converted to Christianity. All this stirred up envy and anger among the Jewish elders, who resolved to destroy the Lord’s chosen one. Once, when the Roman governor had left Jerusalem, the enemies of Christ took the opportunity: they forced the hierarch James up onto the roof of the Temple and demanded that he deny Christ before the people gathered for the Passover. Contrary to their demand, the saint boldly preached the divinity of Jesus Christ. Then many of those present believed in the Saviour, while the scribes and Pharisees now regretted what they had done: “We were wrong to make an ascetic honoured by all bear such witness to Christ.” They rushed furiously at the holy father and threw him down; Saint James, dashed to the ground and mortally injured, did not die at once. Gathering his last strength, he knelt and fervently besought the Lord to forgive his enemies. The godless showered the martyr with stones. One stone struck him on the head and ended his life. This happened shortly before the start of the Jewish war (between 62 and 66), when the Apostle James was ninety-six years old. The blessed one’s martyr’s death made such a great impression on the Jews that they regarded that war, the struggle with the Romans that began after it (66–70), and the calamities that came with it as punishment for this sin.
The catholic epistle of the New Testament belongs to the holy Apostle James. To him is also ascribed the composition of the order of the Divine Liturgy, which became the foundation of the Liturgies of Basil the Great and John Chrysostom. According to some accounts, the holy apostle’s relics are kept in Rome, in the church of the Twelve Apostles. Some of them were sent to Moscow in 1853 by Hierotheos, Patriarch of Alexandria.
The holy Apostle James, the brother of the Lord according to the flesh, should be distinguished from James son of Zebedee (commemorated 30 April) and James son of Alphaeus (commemorated 9 October).
