Though the martyrdom of James, the brother of our Lord, is not mentioned in Scripture, yet he, James, is mentioned. The Apostle Paul speaks of seeing him in Jerusalem when on his memorable visit to Peter. (Gal. 1:19).
His martyrdom came about on this wise. Ananus, the high priest, a young man of a bold and insolent disposition, and very opposed to the Christian religion, " assembled the Sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, which was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others; and when he had. formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned."—Antiquities B. XX, C. 9.
This passage has never been questioned, as far as we are aware. Josephus takes pains to make it clear what Jesus was meant, for he adds that he was called the Christ. He evidently had it in his mind that Jesus was more important than James, else why did he introduce the chief subject of his remarks,. " the brother of Jesus, which was called Christ," before mentioning his own name, James? Josephus evidently was of opinion that James owed his celebrity to being the brother of our Lord according to the flesh. In this passage several are stated to have—been stoned, but only one is mentioned by name. Evidently it was his relationship to our Lord that led to the name of James being specially given.
This martyrdom of James is not mentioned in Scripture, and must not be confounded with that of James, the brother of John, as narrated in Acts 12:2.
Shortly after the martyrdom of James, and because of it, Ananus was accused by the Jews of gross injustice. The result was that King Agrippa deprived him of his high priesthood after a very short tenure of office, lasting only three months. Thus swiftly and surely was he punished for his wickedness.
The following extract is well worth reproducing. It has been well said:- " We must destroy the Annals of Tacitus, the Biographies of Suetonius, the Letters of Pliny, if we wish to get rid of the testimony to the fact that in the reign of the Emperor Tiberius there lived one called Christ, that Judea and Galilee were the places of His teaching, that He was put to death by the command of Pontius Pilate, that after His death His doctrines and teaching spread rapidly through Greek-speaking and Roman-speaking lands, that multitudes of converts were made, who worshipped Jesus as God, and for His sake suffered bitter persecution.
" In the New Testament we have the names of Roman Emperors—Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius; Roman Governors as Cyrenius, Pontius Pilate, Felix, Festus, Sergius Paulus, Gallio; Jewish kings as Herod the Great, Archelaus, Herod Antipas, Agrippa I, Agrippa II. Classical history and the writings of Josephus attest that they existed at the time specified, bore the offices assigned them in the Bible, and in the chronological order in which their names appear. Every quotation from Josephus, Tacitus, or Suetonius; every fresh archaeological discovery in Asia Minor, Cyprus, Greece, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, serves to illustrate the minute accuracy with which every particular respecting them is recorded, even in facts apparently the most insignificant."