www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall St. James the Brother of Jesus before Peter?

I was watching a video last night called "The First 1000 years of Christianity".

It was a documentary produced by A&E (I think). It was produced as a historical documentary, and for the most part was unbiased. It was a good video, for the most part. What I didn�t like is they kept using Icons to teach what happened historically, but never mentioned Byzantine Catholics - at all � they just kept using our stuff to teach, but presented it as though Rome was the only church. Sigh.

Topic for discussion:

It stated that actually, James was more the leader of the Apostles than Peter. That is, Peter said that in all things he seeks the council of James, and so did the other apostles. They quoted scripture; I think it was Galatians. They emphasized that most Christians are unaware of this.

They presented James the Just, the brother of the Lord, held the proper position of first pope. Would anyone care to explain this?

I think you got this backwards.

Well, I meant not intenally bias, as in not part of one religious group or another. But they could have been more detailed...

Perhaps this topic should be moved?

I thought this might spark more interest, and lead to a discussion. Has no one heard this before?

Is this a distored view point? or could it be valid?

Perhaps I am being impatient.

If you read the first few chapters of the book of Acts, St. Peter certainly seems to be the leader of the Apostles, or at least their chief spokesperson. Then, sometime following the stoning of St. Stephen, it seems that St. Peter was in Jerusalem intermittently. When he was in Jerusalem, he still takes a leadership role. In Acts 15, which describes the so-called Jerusalem Council, St. Peter takes a leading role, but so does St. James, the brother of the Lord. If I recall correctly from my New Testament studies in seminary, most biblical scholars believe that once Peter left Jerusalem more or less permanently, St. James became the primary leader of the Church at Jerusalem. I really see no good reason why this should be turned into an argument for claiming that St. James the Brother of the Lord should be recognized as the first Pope. It seems to me that St. James became the leader of the Jerusalem Church only after St. Peter left Jerusalem for Antioch, and ultimately, Rome. I see no strong case for a primacy of St. James over St. Peter.

Thank you Athanasis.

I actually did a search for the verse they quoted in Galatians. I never found it.

What I did find fell right in line with what you're saying. I was not able to find a strong arguement for the primacy of James either.

I did peak my curiosity though. I wondered if Orthodox may have held this view point before? or if this was just a misleading statement. They did argue that point for about 5 minutes though -so I am sure I am not misunderstanding what they were saying.

I've never heard that arguement before, so I decided to post it here. I knew here I would be able to find out if this was ever historically a common arguement or viewpoint.

If it was a recent show, they might have an online discussion area for it at A&E's website.

No, it was a recorded casset. Thanks for the suggestion though.