in Peter's ears? [We have found him,' &c.] why dost thou attempt to compass him, whom thou canst not comprehend? how can he be found who is omnipresent? But he knew well what he said: we have found him, whom Adam lost, whom Eve injured, whom the clouds of sin have hidden from us, and whom our transgressions had hitherto made a stranger to us," &c. So that of all our Lord's apostles St. Andrew had thus far the honour to be the first preacher of the gospel.

VOL. II

F

67

ST. JAMES THE GREAT.

ST. JAMES, sirnamed the Great, either because of his age, being much elder than the other, or for some peculiar honours and favours which our Lord conferred upon him, was by country a Galilean, born, probably, either at Capernaum or Bethsaida, being one of Simon Peter's partners in the trade of fishing. He was the son of Zebdai, or Zebedee, (and probably the same whom the Jews mention in

Rabbi James, or רבי יעקוב בר זבדי,their Talmud

Jacob the son of Zebedee,'') a fisherman; and the many servants which he kept for that employment, (a circumstance not taken notice of in any other,) speak him a man of some more considerable note in that trade and way of life; ἐπίσημος τῶν ἐν Γαλιλαίᾳ μετοικέντων ἀνδρῶν, as Nicephorus notes. His mother's name was Mary, sirnamed Salome, called first Taviphilia, says an ancient Arabic writer,3 the daughter, as is most probable, not wife of Cleopas, sister to Mary, the mother of our Lord;

1 Mark, i. 20. 2 H. Eccl. lib. ii. c. 3, p. 135. 3 Apud Kirsten, de vit. Quat. Evangel. p. 47. John xix. 25.

not her own sister, properly so called, (the blessed virgin being, in all likelihood an only daughter,) but cousin-german, styled her sister, according to the mode and custom of the Jews, who were wont to call all such near relations by the names of brothers and sisters; and in this respect he had the honour of a near relation to our Lord himself. His education was in the trade of fishing. No employment is base that is honest and industrious; nor can it be thought mean and dishonourable to him, when it is remembered, that our Lord himself, the Son of God, stooped so low as not only to become the [reputed] son of a carpenter, but, during the retirements of his private life, to work himself at his father's trade, not devoting himself merely to contemplations, nor withdrawing from all useful society with the world, and hiding himself in the solitudes of an anchoret; but busying himself in an active course of life, working at the trade of a carpenter,' and particularly (as one of the ancients tells us*) making ploughs and yokes. And this the sacred history does not only plainly intimate, but it is generally asserted by the ancient writers of the church:3 a thing so notorious, that the heathens used to object it as a reproach to Christianity.

1 Mark vi. 3; Matt. xiii. 55.

2 Τέκτων νομιζόμενος. ταῦτα γὰρ τὰ τεκτονικὰ ἔργα εἰργάζετο ἐν ἀνθρώποις ὢν, ἄροτρα και ζύγα· διὰ τέτων καὶ τὰ τῆς δικαιοσύνης σύμβολα διδάσκων, καὶ ἐνεργῆ βίον.-J. Mart. dial. cum Tryph. p. 316.

3 Κατὰ τὴν πρώτην ἡλικίαν τοῖς γονεῦσιν υποτασσόμενος, ἅπαντα πόνον σωματικὸν πρᾴως καὶ ὑπειθῶς συνδιέφερεν. *Ανθρωποι γὰρ ὄντες δίκαιοι μεν καὶ ἐυσεβεῖς, πένητες δὲ καὶ τῶν ἀναγκαίων ἐκ εὔποροι, &c. πάντας καὶ τῷ συνδιαφέρειν τὲς ποίες τὴν ἐυπειφειαν ἐπεδείκνυτο.—Bas Constit. Monast c. 4, p. 764, tom, ii. vid. Hilar. in Matth. Can. 4.

Thence that smart and acute repartee which a Christian schoolmaster made to Libanius, the famous orator, at Antioch,' when upon Julian's expedition into Persia, (where he was killed,) he asked in scorn, what the carpenter's son was now a-doing? The Christian replied with salt enough, that the great Artificer of the world, whom he scoffingly called the carpenter's son, was making a coffin for his master Julian; the news of whose death was brought soon after. But this only by the way.

2. St. James applied himself to his father's trade, not discouraged with the meanness, not sinking under the difficulties of it; and, as usually the blessings of heaven meet men in the way of an honest and industrious diligence, it was in the exercise of this calling, when our Saviour, passing by the sea of Galilee, saw him and his brother in the ship, and called them to be his disciples. A divine power went along with the word, which they no sooner heard but cheerfully complied with it, immediately leaving all to follow him. They did not stay to dispute his commands, to argue the probability of his promise, solicitously to inquire into the minute consequences of the undertaking, what troubles and hazards might attend this new employment, but readily delivered up themselves to whatever services he should appoint them. And the cheerfulness of their obedience is yet farther considerable, that they left their aged father in the ship behind them. For elsewhere we find others excusing themselves from an immediate attendance upon Christ, upon pretence that they must go bury their father, or take their leave of their kindred at

Theod. H. Eccl. lib. iii. c. 18, p. 105.