James 2:6Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Bear covetousness courageously. They, the covetous, destroy themselves, not you. They deprive you of possessions, but themselves of God's favor and help. Whoever is deprived of this, even if he possessed all the wealth of the universe, is poorer than all.

Here James lets us understand more clearly who these rich people are, whose humiliation and destruction were spoken of earlier. They are those who set their wealth above Christ, showing that they do not understand what it means to believe in Him.

They are those who use their power to oppress believers. They drag the poor into court and thereby blaspheme the name of Christ, which is above every name.

That noble people, both from the Gentiles and still more from the Jews, often acted this way in the times of the Apostles, we see clearly from the Acts of the holy Apostles and from the epistles of the Apostle Paul.

On the Seven Catholic Epistles, Cl. 1362, l (in Iac.), 2.44-49.

Since poverty is a hard and bitter thing for many people, even merely to hear of it, the divine James first says here, “the poor of this world,” and then immediately calls them rich. In what respect? In piety and in faith.

The poor lack the anxieties that come from many worldly things. This creates in them readiness and fervor for receiving the faith of Christ.

Thus the divine Apostles, because they were poor and were fishermen, came to Christ and immediately received the faith. Christ chose such men and promised to give them the Kingdom of Heaven as an inheritance.

Those who have great faith in Christ are truly rich, indeed very rich, even if they are poor in money. They greatly surpass those who are truly poor in faith, though rich in money.

But you, contrary to the will and determination of God, have despised the poor man. In the example given, you have unjustly humbled him before the rich man through partiality.

Then, turning to the conduct of the rich toward the poor in ordinary worldly affairs, the Apostle also points out the injustice of preferring the rich to the poor with partiality.

“Do not the rich oppress you?” This means oppression not in matters of faith, for there is no evidence of that anywhere, but in ordinary worldly matters. It is the oppression of the weak by the strong, as is clear from Jas 5:4.

Having spoken at the end of the first chapter about the care of widows and orphans, the Apostle now speaks of the poor, of unjust treatment toward them, and of partiality in general.

Persuading his readers to put aside partiality and the preference of the rich over the poor, he reminds them of God’s chosen ones. In both the Old Testament, among the prophets, and the New, among the Apostles, they were chiefly poor in the world, yet rich in faith.

“God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, and God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Cor 1:27), says the Apostle Paul.

Rich and poor entered into the composition of the Christian Church, but at first most believers were poor and despised people of this world (1 Cor 1:28).

The Christian faith drew the poor because it promised them spiritual consolation in place of the earthly deprivations they endured. For them it was an inexhaustible source of these consolations.

Therefore they were easily reconciled to their poverty and only thanked the Lord. Though He became poor for our sake, that by His poverty we might become rich, He made them rich in faith.

This faith not only satisfied their spiritual needs abundantly in the present life, bringing them into the closest communion with Christ. It also comforted them with the promise of the heavenly Kingdom.