The cryptic images of two saws are instruments of execution, commemorating the martyrdom of James the Less, a.k.a. James son of Alphaeus (A bit more confusion: another epithet calls him “the Just”). James is just that, “the Less,” a literal diminutive meant to clearly distinguish him from James the Great, the son of Zebedee (see panel with scallop shells). “The Less” probably meant he was younger or shorter. Despite the disparaging epithet, James the Less had a distinguished parentage, traditionally the son of Alphaeus and Mary of Clopas (John 19:25), who was the mother of Joseph. That would make him Jesus’s paternal uncle. On the other hand, St. Jerome thought James’s mother was the Mary, making him Jesus’s half-brother.                                                        

Regardless, James  (or one of his followers) is reputed to have written the Epistle of James, famous for its anti-Lutheran tag: “So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead” (James 2:17). In fairness, however, Raymond Brown explains, “[James] is insisting that [Christians’] works (not ritual works prescribed by the Law but behavior which reflects love) must correspond to their faith...”                                                

James also became the first Bishop of Jerusalem, c. 50 CE. This turned out not so well: Jewish leaders, angry at his preaching the resurrection, stoned him in 62 CE, then beat him with fullers’ bats. A fuller was essentially a laundryman; cleaning required beating the garments with a club during washing. So this is one explanation of the emblem. But wait, there’s more: After the clubbing, James’s body was sawed into pieces. So the emblem may not actually be bats (who today knows what a first century fuller’s bat looked like?) but saws. To me the saws fit the illustration better, but that’s not the point. Whatever the emblem is, it honors his gruesome death.                                                 

Today, James’s name survives as the eponym of St. James’s Palace, built by Henry VIII on the site of the old St. James’s Leper Hospital. Additionally, and not surprisingly, James the Less is the patron saint of wool and textile workers.

Dickerman Hollister, Jr., MD