25.10

Jerome on the Authorship of James (Box 25.2)

Jerome, the fourth-century scholar responsible for producing the Vulgate (a Latin translation of the Bible), indicates that the authorship of James was debated in his day, though he did not seem troubled by that fact:

James, who is called the brother of the Lord . . . wrote a single epistle, which is reckoned among the seven Catholic Epistles and even this is claimed by some to have been published by some one else under his name, and gradually, as time went on, to have gained authority.¹

1. Jerome, Lives of Illustrious Men 2, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (1890–1900; repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 3:361.