SS. PHILIP & JAMES, APOSTLES, May 1st

Collect

ALMIGHTY GOD, whom truly to know is everlasting life : grant us perfectly to know thy Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life ; that following the steps of thy holy Apostles Saint Philip and Saint James, we may stedfastly walk in the way that leadeth to eternal life. Through the same Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord, who livest and reignest with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

For the legend

PHILIP was born in the town of Bethsaida, and was among the first of the twelve Apostles called by the Lord Christ, For the Evangelist John saith that first, it was Andrew who brought Peter, and next came Philip. Again we read : Philip findeth Nathaniel, and saith unto him, We have found him of whom Moses in the Law, and the Prophets, did write. And so it was that Philip brought Nathaniel to the Lord. Clement of Alexandria saith that it was to Philip, the words were said : Let the dead bury their dead, How intimate he became with Christ is manifest from that which is written : There were certain Greeks among them that came up therefore to Philip, and desired him, saying : Sir, we would see Jesus. And even before that, we read of the time when the Lord was in the wilderness, and how he was about to feed a great multitude, whereupon it was to Philip that he said : Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat? According to the early Fathers of the Church, Philip, after that he had received the Holy Ghost, took Scythia, by lot, as the land wherein he was to preach the Gospel, and brought many of that people to believe in Christ. At the last he came to Hierapolis in Phrygia, and there on a certain day of May, in the first Christian century, for Christ's Name sake, he was fastened to a cross and stoned to death. It is said that the Christians of Hierapolis buried his body at that place, and that afterwards it was brought to Rome and laid in the Basilica of the Twelve Apostles, beside the body of the blessed Apostle James, the brother of the Lord. Wherefore they are commemorated together on this day.

JAMES, surnamed the Just, was the brother of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is ordinarily interpreted to mean that he was the son of Alphaeus, and therefore a cousin-german of our Lord. After the Ascension the Apostles (according to Clement of Alexandria) made James Bishop of Jerusalem. And to James (as saith the Book of the Acts of the Apostles) special intelligence was sent by the Prince of the Apostles at the time the latter was delivered from prison by an Angel ; which things would seem to indicate the pre-eminent position he held in the Holy City. When in the Council of Jerusalem certain questions were mooted touching the Law and circumcision, James, following the opinion of Peter, addressed a discourse to the brethren, wherein he proved the call of the Gentiles, and commanded letters to be sent to such brethren as were absent, that they might take heed not to lay upon the Gentiles the yoke of the Law of Moses. It is of him that the Apostle Paul saith, writing to the Galatians : Other of the Apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother. According to Hegesippus, (whose account is preserved for us by the historian Eusebius,) he was a Nazarite from the womb, and so during his whole life never drank wine nor strong drink ; no razor came upon his head ; he anointed not himself with oil, nor did make use of public baths ; to him alone it was given to enter the holy place, for he wore the priestly linen ; and alone he entered into the sanctuary, where he was so continually on his knees asking forgiveness on behalf of the people, that his knees became hard like a camel's.

WE learn further from Hegesippus that so great was James' holiness of life that men strove one with another to touch the hem of his garment ; and that when he was ninety-six years old, and had most holily governed the Church of Jerusalem for thirty years, even most constantly preaching Christ the Son of God, he laid down his life for the Faith. According to this account, he was first stoned, and afterward taken up to a pinnacle of the Temple, and from thence cast down, whereby his legs were broken, and he was well nigh killed ; but he lifted up his hands towards heaven, and prayed unto God for the salvation of his murderers, saying : Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they do! And as he said this, one that stood by smote him greviously upon the head with a fuller's club, so that he resigned his spirit to God. He is believed to have testified in the seventh year of Nero, and to have been buried hard by the Temple, in the place where he had fallen, all of which, according to Josephus, took place in the year 62. James wrote one the seven General Epistles, the same which hath his name, wherein he insisteth on the binding of the tongue and the importance of good works. As in later years there came to be the Feast of Saint Peter's Chair, so Eusebius saith that in his time the throne of James was still preserved and held in public veneration by the Christians of Jerusalem.

From the Anglican Breviary