Recently, a torrential rainstorm just outside Caesarea Maritima uncovered several jars containing damaged papyri. Among these scraps, there appeared fragments of a lost letter: an epistle of Origen to his associate and fellow Christian scholar, Julius Africanus, written sometime in the early-mid-200s. The fragment begins mid-sentence:

. . . . a point which you yourself repeated to the empress and our other friends in the imperial household. Indeed, as I have written before, the apostles and elders have put limits on apocryphal texts in the church, not yielding to them the place of canonical scriptures. As it written, “Do not move the boundary stone that your fathers have set.” Even so, as to your request, that I append the brief apocryphal letter called “Second James” by some, I am of two minds. There is, on the one hand, danger in the publication of this fictionalized text to the inexperienced and the unwitting, lest they take this to be an actual letter penned by James the Just. What is more, some in the churches today still dispute the authenticity of the first letter of James. But for those who are perceptive, in accord with the command of the Lord to “be shrewd moneychangers” and the exhortation of the Apostle to “test everything” and “hold to the good,” there may yet be edification and wisdom to be found in this apocryphal epistle. Thus, with these caveats in mind, I do indeed append the letter of “Second James” below. The discerning will immediately see how the points of teaching and modern style only poorly mimic that of James and the apostolic age generally, which is to say, an eccentric contemporary author has merely borrowed James as a historical persona without intent to deceive, not unlike a declaimer in the agora today adopting the persona of an Odysseus, a Helen, or an Alexander. Only the most imperceptive of readers could miss this rhetorical device. For whatever reason, while he is really speaking to modern disputes, the real author has set the letter near the time of James’s martyrdom—not long before the Jews revolted—about the sixth year of Nero Caesar’s reign, when Paul himself . . . .

Here the fragment breaks off, resuming with the appended text of this so-called “Second James”:

James the Just, bishop of Jerusalem, master of bishops who governs both the churches of Judaea and those throughout the inhabited world, brother of the Lord and of Jude, slave of Jesus Christ, to the elders and their churches in Judaea, Samaria, and Galilee, greetings.

Beloved brothers, we have warned you repeatedly not to become ensorcelled by those who hate the body and the creation of God. In truth, relatively few of you are drawn to so strict a discipline [Gk. askesis] as this, that you would abandon duties to homeland [Gk. patris] or households or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields. These responsibilities were either appointed to you by God or else taken on by you willingly. Again, I remind you that because the Lord created the heavens and the earth with wisdom, we have no grounds to denigrate nature. But for most of you, this is not the error in question.

Instead, some of you are clinging too close to nature, to the elemental principles of the world that even now hold Jews and Gentiles in servitude. No, brothers, let us not overly love the flesh or kinship of nature. On this, we remind you chiefly of your kinsmen in Christ according to the Spirit, who were born Gentiles according to the flesh, now become sons of Abraham contravening the flesh. And we remind you of the collection of their generosity brought by our brother Paul just a few years past, who even now proclaims the gospel in Spain, for the full inclusion of the Gentiles within the assembly [Gk. ekklesia] of Israel. We also remind you of the words of his recent letter sent to Rome, which has since circulated among all the churches of the settled world [Gk. oikoumene], that those who live according to the flesh are bent on death.

Regarding this excess, an especially troubling word has reached us concerning those who are zealous for Israel according to the flesh. Jude, Symeon, and others of the Master’s Family [Gk. desposynoi] report that some of you have taken to publicly insulting the rule of the emperor and his appointed officials. Worse still, others, styling themselves either “the reformed” or the “philosophers of the polis,” are even teaching you to set aside the commands of the Lord and of his apostles, saying they cannot apply to the present crisis. There are even rumors that some of you murmur among yourselves to take up arms “for the destruction of the Kittim.” This is a disgrace to the assembly of God, the elect of Christ. Do not even the real philosophers among the Gentiles know the precept “hate your enemy” to be lawless and evil? Yet some among you seem to delight in it. Those who propagate such lawlessness are self-condemned. Or have you forgotten? “Whoever breaks the least of the commandments and teaches people to do likewise will be called ‘least’ in the kingdom of heaven.”

And we also have this against you: some are elevating that man Nabal [here, a marginal scribal note in a different hand reads, “Known also as ‘Chalcheus,’ a Greek translation of some name apparently common among the inhabitants of Barbaricum.”] who encourages this setting aside of the Lord’s instruction, “love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you.” Offering himself as an expert in rhetoric, law, and the scriptures, Nabal has advanced contemptible ideas, saying the Lord taught publicly not in Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek but in Latin. Although Nabal knows this to be a lie—one need only look at his other writings—as do these so-called philosophers, they still persist in this self-pleasing argument. Mark it well: the Lord makes no distinction between, on one hand, an enemy in arms and, on the other, an enemy at home. For as it is written, “A man’s enemies will be in his own household.” The Lord’s intent is further shown plainly by the saying, “If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles instead.” To what does this refer, but the impositions of Caesar’s legions, which many of you have experienced? Or when before the people in the Temple he declared about paying taxes, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s,” was this not enjoining obedience to the very one you consider to be the arch-blasphemer of God, a puppet [Gk. thauma] of Belial, the enemy of Israel’s constitution [Gk. politeia], and persecutor of the Way?

One of you has said, “Blessed is Rahab the Faithful, who deceived the rulers of Jericho unto their destruction.” But blessed rather are those who hear God’s word and obey it in its entirety. Before Joshua of Nun led Israel into the land, God spoke through Moses, saying, “Thus shall you make war against all the towns far distance from you, which are not the towns of these nations. Only, of the towns of these people that the Lord your God is about to give you in estate, you shall let no breathing creature live. You shall surely put them under the ban.” Was the war against the people of Jericho and the people of the land an exception or the rule? Yes, the exception. And out of all the cities of all the Canaanites, only Rahab repented and believed in the God of Israel, making her holy to the Lord: the elect exception upon an exception. Thus, she came into the line of David and his sons according to the flesh. Let these philosophers, who are really sophists, first learn “love your enemy” and we will show them the meaning of Rahab’s faithfulness. Woe betide those who strain the gnat. . . .

The manuscript breaks again, apparently ending the text of “Second James.” The fragment ends with some damaged text, written in a different hand, which seems to be the same one that wrote the marginal note:

I, Pamphilus . . . . . . . [co]pied . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . clearly a recent text, as even Origen himself ob[served?]. . . . . . Nabal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . debate [concerning] identity. As pseudo-James reveals, however, the so-named “philosophers of the polis” . . . . . . . . . . main objects of criticism. This is a strange phrase in Greek, which may . . . . . translation . . . . . . . [Ara]maic, alluding to some [heretical?] teachers. Perhaps a rebuke to the Valentinians, or other purveyors . . . . . . . esoteric reading . . . . . . . . . . Or perhaps the real author of this letter was simply . . . . . . half-educated eccentric [Gk. idiotes] and stylistically confused . . . . mocking adversaries in his own day . . . . . . . harkens back to the destruction of Israel . . . . . .Vespasian and Titus . . . . . judgment of lawlessness. . . . . . . . . who . . . . . . . . . . . . .[c]annot inherit the Kingdom of God. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . writes the Apostle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . or you too shall perish. . . . . . . . . . . or again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . instead . . . . . . love, [j]oy, peace and righteous in the Holy Spirit. . . . . . . . . against s[uch] . . . . . . no constitution [Gk. politeia] will stand.

Here concludes the fragment.

Andrew Koperski is an ancient historian specializing in late antiquity and early Christianity. He serves as a teaching fellow for Hillsdale College.