f Palestine, but
this is not necessary.

4. With regard to the _date_ of this epistle also different opinions are
held. Some place it early in the history of the church--earlier, in
fact, than any other of the apostolic epistles--_before_ the origin of
the controversy respecting circumcision and the Mosaic law recorded in
Acts, chap. 15; others quite _late_, not long before the destruction of
Jerusalem by the Romans. The latter view best agrees with the contents
of the epistle. The doctrine of justification by faith, for which Paul
had contended, would naturally be abused precisely in the way here
indicated, by the substitution of a barren speculative faith, for the
true faith that works by love and purifies the heart and life from sin.
The age preceding the destruction of Jerusalem was one of abounding
wickedness, especially in the form of strife and faction. It had been
predicted by our Lord that the effect of this would be to chill the love
of many of his visible followers and withdraw them from his service. In
truth the descriptions of these unworthy members of the Jewish Christian
community which we find in this epistle, in the second of Peter, and in
that of Jude, are but the realization, in most particulars, of the state
of things foretold in the following remarkable words of the Saviour:
"And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and
shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall arise and shall
deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound the love of many shall
wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be
saved." Matt. 24:10-13.

5. For the _genuineness_ and _canonical_ authority of the present
epistle we have a very important testimony in the Old Syriac version
(Peshito), which represents the judgment of the Eastern churches where
the epistle was originally circulated. The remaining testimonies prior
to the fourth century are scanty and some of them not very decisive.
They may be all seen in Davidson's Introduction to the New Testament,
and in the critical commentaries generally.

It cannot be reasonably doubted that the words of Irenaeus,
"Abraham himself, without circumcision and without the
observance of Sabbaths, believed in God, and it was counted to
him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God"
(Against Heresies, 4.30), refer to James 2:23. Origen quotes the
epistle as "current under the name of James," and