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| | Epistle of James - LoveToKnow 1911 (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20) |
 | | Whatever the currency in classical circles of the epistle as a literary form, it is irrational to put first in the development of Christian literature a general epistle, couched in fluent, even rhetorical, Greek, and afterwards the Pauline letters, which both as to origin and subsequent circulation were a product of urgent conditions. |
 | | The use made by James of earlier material is as important for determining the terminus a quo of its own date as the use of it by later writers for the terminus ad quem. |
 | | The history of the epistle's reception into the canon is not opposed to this; for, once it was attributed to James, Syria would be more likely to take it up, while the West, more sceptical, if not better informed as to its origin, held back; just as happened in the case of Hebrews. |
| www.1911encyclopedia.org /Epistle_of_James (2772 words) |
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