Theophylact of Ohrid, on Acts 12:2

“And he killed James, the brother of John, with the sword.”

“Of the twelve disciples of the Lord, James was the first to suffer. Lest anyone say that the apostles go to meet death so fearlessly and without trembling because God snatches them from its hands, God also permitted that even the foremost among them—Stephen and James—be put to death. By this God shows the murderers themselves that He does not remove them from this either and does not hinder them here. Murder was a pleasing thing for their misplaced passions, and a lawless murder at that. It was necessary to put an end to their impulse, but Herod, like an executioner of the sick rather than their physician, incites them, though he had seen thousands of examples in the lives of his grandfather and his father Herod.”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.