It was for many centuries taken for granted that St. James the Less, or the Younger, and James one of the brethren of the Lord, were the same person, but recent research seems to point to a different conclusion, and many modem writers distinguish between James, the son of Cleophas, mentioned in each of the four lists of the Apostles, but nowhere else, and the James referred to in Matt. 13:53 and Mark 6:3. It was, according to them, James, the Lord’s brother, not St. James the Less, who was Bishop of Jerusalem, or rather, president of the early Church, who wrote the Epistle bearing his name, was called the Just, and martyred by order of Ananus, who, jealous of his popularity, had him flung from a pinnacle of the Temple. It is not desirable to enter further here into the controversy on the subject of the two Jameses, but it is necessary to refer to it because if there were indeed two prominent persons of the same name besides St. James the Elder, the attributes given in art to St. James the Less really belong to James, the Lord’s brother, who has in that case been very unfairly neglected.
Opinions are also divided as to whether James, the son of Alphseus, was called the Less because his conversion to Christ took place after that of St. James the Elder, on account of his small stature, or because he was younger than the other Apostle of the same name. He is supposed to have been a scion of the royal house of Judah, and was ten or eleven years older than Jesus. If he were indeed identical with James, the Lord’s brother, he was from the first specially connected with the Church at Jerusalem, which was commended to his care by Christ Himself. He was listened to with earnest attention at the Great Council held by the Apostles in the Holy City in the year 51, when he replied to the addresses of St. Paul and St. Barnabas with the masterly speech quoted in Acts xv., and throughout his career of toil and suffering he was always on the side of conciliation and peace. On account of his upright, straight-forward character he was so greatly reverenced by the Jews that though he was known to be a Christian he was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies, and the people used to strive to touch the hem of his garment when he passed along the streets of Jerusalem. He was surnamed Oblias, or the Rampart of the people, and Hegesippus says of him that he was ‘ looked upon as a Nazarite, or one consecrated to God…. He never shaved or cot his hair, never drank any wine or other strong drink, never used any bath or oil to anoint his limbs, and never ate of any living creature except when of precept, as the Paschal Lamb. He never wore any other clothes than a single linen garment, and he prostrated himself so much in prayer that the skin of his knees and forehead was hardened like to camel’s hoofs.’
The Epistle of St. James was probably written about the year 59, when dissensions were already beginning to distract the Church, and whoever its author may have been, it is full of insight into human nature, as remarkable for the closeness of its reasoning as for the skill with which the primary principles of a Christian life are inculcated. The beautiful liturgy in use in the Greek Church, named after St. James the Less, is supposed to embody in the prayer for the consecration of the bread and wine the very words of the Apostle, which were not written down, but learnt by heart, and transmitted from one officiator to another until the fourth century, when they were incorporated with the rest of the service already in manuscript.
The veneration and love of the Jews for the first Bishop of Jerusalem were not enough to save him from the martyrdom which overtook so many daring the fatal reign of Nero. Festus, the cautious Governor who had sent St. Paul to the Emperor, thus defeating the evil purpose of the high priest, was dead, and in the interval, before his successor, Albinas, came into office, the Jewish Sanhedrim hastened to use the brief time of undivided authority to summon the head of the Christian Church before them. St. James was accused of breaking the law, and condemned to death, Ananus, the high priest, pronouncing his doom. No chance was given him of an appeal to Caesar, for the sentence was no sooner pronounced than it was put into execution. The victim was taken straight from the judgment-hall to the battlements of the Temple, where he was mocked with a chance of life, for, according to Hegesippus and other authorities, he was commanded to renounce his faith in Christ, and had he obeyed, might have saved himself at the eleventh hour. Instead of complying, however, the victim cried, in a voice so loud that all could hear, that Jesus the Son of Man was seated at the right hand of God, and would come in the clouds of heaven to judge the world. Enraged at this constant, the Pharisees flung the Saint from the battlements to the crowds waiting below, that they might work their will on him. Strange to say, the fall did not kill the martyr; he was able to struggle to bis knees, and as the people began to stone him, he raised his eyes and bands to heaven, entreating God, in the words of the dying Savior, to forgive bis enemies, for they knew not what they did. Then a fuller, standing by with his club in his band, dealt the saint a blow on the head which put an end to his sufferings. The bruised and bleeding body was buried by the disciples near the place of execution, and was later removed to Constantinople, whence it is said to have been taken to Rome at an unknown date and re-interred in the Basilica of Constantine.
The Jews themselves, it is related, looked upon the murder of a man of life so spotless as that of the martyr, as a crime of the deepest dye, and attributed to it the destruction of Jerusalem. The Roman Governor and King Agrippa were alike incensed against Ananus for his share in it, and it is even said that it cost the high priest his office.
Two miracles are attributed to St. James the Less after his death, one evidently suggested by the legend just related, the other by the supposed manner of his martyrdom. A starving pilgrim had fallen asleep by the wayside, and when he awoke, he found a loaf of bread beside him. He devoured it eagerly, yet it was not all consumed, and it lasted him to the end of the journey. So, he felt sure that it must have been St. James the Less, to whom he had often cried for help, who had miraculously come to his aid. The other story is of a merchant who had been despoiled of all his goods by the governor of the town in which he lived, shut up in prison, and accused of a crime he had never committed. In his distress he called upon St. James, and the Apostle appeared beside him in shining raiment, took him by the hand, and leading him to the top of the tower, bid the massive building bow itself to the ground, so that the merchant could step from it and escape; or, according to another version, the rescuer merely lifted the wall of the prison, and the captive crept under it to liberty.
It was on account of the instrument of the martyrdom of the first Bishop of Jerusalem that the club became the distinguishing attribute of St James the Less, and the fact that the fullers of every country have adopted him as their patron is an unconscious tribute to his loving and forgiving spirit This club varies in form according to the nationality of the artist introducing it. Amongst the Italians it is a mere clumsy-looking rod; but the Flemish and Dutch, judging no doubt from the implements they saw in use amongst the Jewish workers in cloth in the Low Countries, converted it into a great bow with a strong thong of leather stretched across it, not unlike that employed by French bleachers to restore elasticity to wool which has been subjected to great pressure.
In addition to the fuller’s club, St. James generally holds a book, and when a scroll replaces the book it bears the sentence, ‘I believe in the Holy Ghost.’ Now and then this clause, or a verse from the Latin hymn Gloria in Excelsis, is inscribed on a phylactery instead of a scroll, and it is not unusual, probably because of the confusion of identity referred to above, to give the Apostle the builder’s rule, which points to a doubt as to the mode of his martyrdom. In some old calendars May the day dedicated to St. Philip and St. James the Less, is marked with a sword or halberd, but this is most likely a mistake, the result of the designer mixing up the two Apostles of the same name, for both these weapons belong of prior right to St. James the Elder. Instances also occur of St. James the Less holding a loaf of bread in his hand, some say because he was present at the miracle of the loaves and fishes, but the allusion seems rather to be to a beautiful legend current in the early Church, to the effect that the Apostle vowed, in his grief at the death of his Master, to eat nothing until he should see Him again in the flesh. No food bad touched his lips since he had received the bread and wine from the Lord’s hand at the Last Supper, and he was faint and weak with hunger; but even before He appeared to the eleven, Christ came to him, and said, ‘Bring a table and bread, that we may eat together.’ He was obeyed, and taking up the bread, the risen Savior broke it and gave half to the Apostle, with the words, ‘My brother, eat My bread, for the Son of Man is risen from among them that sleep.’
In Bavaria St. James the Less is generally associated with an image of the Virgin, probably merely because he is the patron Saint of Alten Œtting, where there used to be a very celebrated image of the Mother of Christ, to which pilgrims flocked in great numbers. For an equally accidental reason he is grouped sometimes with St. Christopher and sometimes with St. Sigismond and St. Walpurga, all of whom are commemorated on the same day. May 1st, in the Latin Church.
St. James the Less is said to have resembled the Savior so closely in personal appearance that the kiss of Judas was really necessary to prevent a mistake in the dim light of the torches on the night of the betrayal, for the very stature of Master and disciple was alike. As a result of this popular belief, the Apostle has always been represented in art as a man of great physical attraction, and the expression of his handsome features is full of spiritual and intellectual beauty.
Subjects from the life of St. James the Less were not very popular amongst early Italian artists, but there is a comprehensive series of frescoes in the Cappella S. Jacopo e Christoforo in the Church of the Eremitani at Padua, which were begun by unknown masters, and completed towards the end of the fifteenth century by Andrea Mantegna. They include the Council held at Jerusalem, when St. James the Less, or that other James, who was perhaps the real hero of the scene, was made Bishop of the early Church; the incident of Christ’s Apparition; the Fall of the Martyr from the pinnacle of the Temple; the final Blow from the fuller; the two Miracles related above ; and one or two incidents which really belong to St. James the Great, such as his Appearance before King Herod.
Devotional pictures in which St. James the Less are introduced are also rare, but he is seen as an infant in his mother’s arms in Perugino’s celebrated ‘Family of St. Anne’ in the Marseilles Gallery. He appears in the ‘Christ presenting the Crown of Thoms to St. Catherine,’ by Piero Francesco Bissolo, in the Venice Academy; he is grouped with St. John the Baptist and St. Peter in a fine painting in the same Gallery by Bonifazio II., and is introduced in some frescoes wrongly attributed to Giotto in S. Maria in Porto Fuori, Ravenna.
Adapted from: The Saints in Christian Art: The Evangelists, Apostles, and Other Early Saints, By Mrs. Arthur Bell, (London: George Bell & Sons, 1901)