NOTES for Jam 3:18

At the end of the third chapter of his General Epistle, the apostle James speaks about the difference between human and divine wisdom. In this case the issue is wisdom in the ancient sense of the word: following the way of life, the right choice of path. Several decades after the apostle James, the Didache, the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, would formulate the general biblical idea of wisdom, accepted by Christians as well, in these words: "There are two ways, one of life and one of death, and the difference between the two is great." For the apostle James, wisdom first of all makes it possible to choose the way of life. The apostle says that such wisdom is given only by God; the rest he calls earthly, merely natural, and demonic wisdom, distinguishing, as the Didache does, only two ways.

Divine wisdom, given to people, according to the apostle's word, bears in a person's life good fruit, which he calls the fruit of righteousness. The apostle uses this term after the Lord Jesus Christ, who more than once spoke about the fruits borne in our life by the seed sown by God. This fruit of righteousness, "truth" in the Synodal translation, is in essence a synonym for eternal life, because it implies freedom from sin, unity with God, and therefore freedom from death.

The apostle James gives his addressees the most practical possible instructions about how the fruit of righteousness, the good fruit of life, is attained. He devotes a significant part of the whole Epistle to this, but his thought is expressed most briefly in these words: "And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace." Here we encounter a certain feature of the Synodal translation. The Greek text of the Epistle literally says that "the fruit of righteousness is sown peacefully among those who make peace." The issue, therefore, is more than preserving peace in one's own heart. The apostle speaks of building peace within ourselves and, of course, around ourselves: the whole third chapter is devoted to this. Building peace, the ministry of reconciliation, is the chief thing that leads a person to life. All other ways the apostle calls demonic.

It seems that an intelligent person can be either evil or good—what connection is there between intelligence and moral and ethical categories? But the Apostle James distinguishes wisdom from above from demonic wisdom. And the first sign of demonic "wisdom" is envy and quarrelsomeness... Painful as it is to admit, these are the hardest things to free ourselves from. We have become far too accustomed to expressing all our grievances to everyone around us in the clearest possible terms—in short, to making scenes and grumbling at every opportunity. And it seems to us that this will help: if I just explain to this idiot that he is an idiot, the world will become a better place... But the wisdom that comes down from above, from God, teaches meekness. A truly wise person knows how to remain silent when necessary and, when possible, to correct the person who has gone astray with meekness and love.

The apostle's discourse on the need to bridle the tongue is one of the most eloquent passages in his epistle. From antiquity there has come down to us a story about Aesop, whose master twice sent him to the market with orders to bring back the best and the worst thing in the world. Both times Aesop brought back a tongue—the instrument of both evil and good. But while Aesop merely bore witness to the actual state of affairs, James, acknowledging that reality when blessing and cursing come from the same mouth, concludes: my brothers, this should not be so.

These words of James seem to be contradicted by his own statement that no human being can tame the tongue. This thought might be called excessively pessimistic; yet it is not difficult to understand that James had grounds for such a claim, for he is speaking about purely human efforts. But if we rely not on them but on the wisdom that comes from above, much changes.