HKB
PSEUDO-APOSTOLIC EPISTLES
We cannot wonder that an epoch of the church's history which followed upon the martyrdom in rapid succession of all its remaining great leaders, should at first be poor in literary products. James the Lord's brother was stoned to death by a mob in Jerusalem in the year 61-2. His namesake, brother of John, had been beheaded early in 44 by Herod Agrippa I. Among the "others" who, as Josephus informs us, perished along with James in 61, we may, perhaps, reckon John, who stands beside him in Paul's list of the Pillars. This John, son of Zebedee, brother of the other James, is reckoned a martyr in the same sense as his brother in the earliest gospels. The brothers are assured that they shall drink the same cup of suffering as the Lord, though they may not claim in return pre-eminent seats in glory (Mark x. 39 f.). John did not suffer with his brother James in 44, because he is present at the conference in 46-7 (Gal. ii. 9); but one of the traditions of the Jerusalem elders reported by Papias declared that he was "killed by the Jews" in fulfilment of the Lord's prediction, and this early tradition must be accepted in spite of its conflict with one which gradually superseded it after John came to be regarded as author of Revelation and the Fourth Gospel. The statement that he was killed "together with James his brother" may be due merely to the (not infrequent) confusion of the two Jameses.