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    Ms brethren stoned , but that he delivered them up to be stoned : and this sentence , consistently with the spirit of it , might be executed either by pelting him with stones , or throwing htm over a precipice * Those who were charged with the execution of the

    sentence chose the latter : they conveyed him to the battlement of the temple , and threw him thence , finishing him on the ground with a club . According to Hegesippus , James was murdered not only in the temple , but on the pass over , when multitudes of Jews and Gentiles were assembled in Jeru

    salem ; and so highly revered was the apostle for wisdom and piety , that Ananus and his party could not dare to execute the sentence passed upon him without suborning the Sicarii , who had come to the feast for that purpose . These particulars we have from Josephus :

    " This murder ( namely that of Jonathan ) having continued unpunished , the Sicarii afterwards ascending in great multitudes to the feast with weapons , which , as before , they concealed , on mingling with the crowds slew , some their enemies , others whom thev were

    suborned to murder ; which they did not only in other parts of the city , but some even in the temple : for even in that sacred place they had the audacity to massacre : nor did they think that they were committing impiety . But I am of opinion that on this account God ,

    who hates impiety , has demolished our city , and , regarding the temple as no longer a pure habitation for himself , brought upon us the Romans , and exposed it and the city to purifying fire , and ourselves , with our wives and children , that we might learn virtue from our calamities / ' A . J . Lib . xx .

    C . 7 . § 5 . Origen , who thoroughly understood flie writings of Josephus , properly concluded , that the persons here said to be massacred in the Temple were James and his brethren ; James , the

    leading one among them , being specified by name in the succeeding chapter . Accordingly Origen says , that , according to Josephus , " These things befel the Jews in vindication of James , called the Just , who was the brother of Jesus , called the Christ : forasmuch as they killed him who was a most righteous man / ' See Lardner , Vol . VII . p . 121 . Lardner broadly asserts that

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    this passage is not extant in the writings of Josephus , and the assertion illustrates the weight that ought to be ascribed to his opinion , that tBe passage concerning James is not genuine . The first authors of the Miraculous Conception represented the brothers and sisters of Jesus as childern of

    Joseph by a former wife : and as our Lord was not ^ the son of Joseph , James could not in reality be his brother . But Josephus calls him the brother of Christ , and by that means intends to set aside as false the story of his miraculous birth . Origen

    understood this intention , and hence adds , with the view of setting it aside , " This James is the same whom Paul , that genuine disciple of Jesus , says he had seen , and calls the Lord ' s brother , not so much for the sake of consanguinity as their common education and agreement in manners and doctrine . " This

    single circumstance proves that the author of the paragraph concerning James was an Unitarian believer in Christ , such as the Nazarenes or Ebionites were , and not a forger , who , in a future age , sought to fasten the divinity of Christ on the belief of mankind .

    There is one circiimstance farther , worthy of notice in the aceount given by Hegesippus . The enemies of James are represented as putting to him the apparently absurd question , Tiq rj Ovga , tov Irj < rov ; Which is the door of Jesus ? Now , in Hebrew the term Jesus means salvation . And the

    meaning of the adverse question , no doubt , was , " Which is the door of salva- * tion ? " James must have understood it so : but availing himself of the double meaning of &w \ he answers , " Jesus is the door / ' alluding to our Lord ' & own words , " I am the door . " This

    reply amounted to " blasphemous words against Moses and against God " in the eyes of his enemies : and hence the charge brought against him , that he transgressed the law of Moses . Josephus brings forward the testimony of those " who were distinguished by their probity and accurate knowledge of the laws , " that he was not guilty of

    any transgression : and as the opinion that he was not guilty , must be interpreted by the sense , in which he was said to be guilty ; and he was said to be guilty of transgressing the law , only because he believed ana taught Jesus to be thq ^ oor of salvation , it follows ,

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    16 Dr . J . Jones on the Account of the Martyrdomj of James by Josephus .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1820, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2484/page/16/