James the servant of God, and of our Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.2 My brethren, count it all joy, when you shall fall into divers temptations;3 Knowing that the trying of your faith worketh patience.4 And patience hath a perfect work; that you may be perfect and entire, failing in nothing.5 But if any of you want wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men abundantly, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, which is moved and carried about by the wind.7 Therefore let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.8 A double minded man is inconstant in all his ways.9 But let the brother of low condition glory in his exaltation:10 And the rich, in his being low; because as the flower of the grass shall he pass away.11 For the sun rose with a burning heat, and parched the grass, and the flower thereof fell off, and the beauty of the shape thereof perished: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.
Caesar sent Albinus to Judea as procurator when he was informed of the death of Festus. But the younger Annas, who as I said had received the high priesthood, was headstrong in character and audacious in the extreme. He belonged to the sect of the Sadducees, who in judging offenders are cruel beyond any of the Jews, as I have already made clear. Being a man of this kind, Annas thought that he had a convenient opportunity, as Festus was dead and Albinus still on the way. So he assembled a council of judges and brought it before James, the brother of Jesus, known as Christ, and several others. Annas charged them with breaking the law and handed them over to be stoned. But those who were considered the most fair-minded people in the city, and strict in their observance of the law, were most indignant at this, and sent secretly to the king, imploring him to write to Annas to stop behaving in this way. His conduct had been wrong from the first. Some of them too waylaid Albinus on the road from Alexandria and explained that it was illegal for Annas to assemble a council without his authority. Convinced by their arguments, Albinus wrote an angry letter to Annas, threatening to punish him. In consequence, King Agrippa deprived him of the high priesthood, which he had held for three months only, and appointed Jeshua son of Dammaeus.
Before I was humbled I offended; therefore have I kept thy word.68 Thou art good; and in thy goodness teach me thy justifications.71 It is good for me that thou hast humbled me, that I may learn thy justifications.72 The law of thy mouth is good to me, above thousands of gold and silver.75 I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are equity: and in thy truth thou hast humbled me.76 O! let thy mercy be for my comfort, according to thy word unto thy servant.
But though we were to allow some prerogative to the Protoplast as having been deemed worthy of the hand of God, still it must be one of honor, not of nature. For he came from the earth, as other people, and the hand that then fashioned Adam is also both now and ever fashioning and giving entire consistency [same human nature] to those who come after him. And God declares this to Jeremiah, as I said before: "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you";25 and so he says of all, "All those things have my hand made"; and again by Isaiah, "Thus says the Lord, your redeemer, and he that formed you from the womb, I am the Lord that makes all things; that stretches forth the heavens alone; that spreads abroad the earth by myself." And David, knowing this, says in the psalm, "Your hands have made me and fashioned me"; and he who says in Isaiah, "Thus says the Lord who formed me from the womb to be his servant," signifies the same. Therefore, in respect of nature, Christ differs nothing from us though he precede us in time, so long as we all consist and are created by the same hand.
And the Pharisees came forth, and began to question with him, asking him a sign from heaven, tempting him.12 And sighing deeply in spirit, he saith: Why doth this generation seek a sign? Amen, I say to you, a sign shall not be given to this generation.†13 And leaving them, he went up again into the ship, and passed to the other side of the water.
(de Con. Evan. 2. 51) Now in Matthew we read that He entered into the parts of Magdala1. But we cannot doubt that it is the same place under another name; for several manuscripts even of St. Mark have only Magdala. It goes on, And the Pharisees came forth, and began to question with him, seeking of him a sign from heaven, tempting him.
(ubi sup.) Let no one, however, be perplexed that the answer which Mark says was given to them, when they sought a sign from heaven, is not the same as that which Matthew relates, namely, that concerning Jonah. He says that the Lord’s answer was, that no sign should be given to it; by which we must understand such an one as they asked for, that is, one from heaven; but he has omitted to say, what Matthew has related.
About CSB. A personal translation of the New Testament, rendered directly from the public-domain Greek in a literary style — not a scholarly critical edition, and not for liturgical or doctrinal authority. It is one reader's work, offered for enjoyment; where it matters, weigh it against an established translation. (Placeholder text — final wording to come.)