NOTES for Jam 3:1-18

The words of the catholic Epistle of the Apostle James, that the same spring cannot pour forth both salt water and fresh, are unfortunately very convicting. The apostle says that if, while claiming to know the truth, you harbor bitter envy and contentiousness in your heart, then you are a liar. “Do not boast and lie against the truth,” says the apostle. The boasting in question is precisely the claim to the name of Christian made by a contentious person.

The Apostle James explains in detail what characterizes a person who lives by true divine wisdom. He says that this wisdom is pure, which means it is not directed toward one’s own exaltation. Heavenly wisdom is peaceable: it seeks peace above all else. It is gentle and open to reason, because it values peace more than one’s own human sense of being right. Heavenly wisdom is full of mercy and good fruits, because it seeks to fulfil the will of Christ. It is free from divisions (“impartial” in the Synodal text) and without hypocrisy, because it acknowledges that the divine law is one and the same for everyone.

The apostle’s words in the concluding part of today’s passage, “Where do wars and quarrels among you come from?” can be applied equally to individual Christians and to the large “divisions” of the Christian people. We display the contentiousness of which the Apostle James speaks when we grumble at Christians standing beside us and arrogantly lecture them, even though we ourselves are no different from them. And when we reproach others for dioceses opened on our territory (ours, not God’s), although we ourselves have plenty of dioceses in foreign lands, that is the same contentiousness. Alas.