James calls for Patience
hypomone, makrothymia
“For James one of the most important elements at the core
of praxis is patience, a difficult attribute in desperate situations
of oppression. Thus James insistently challenges his readers to
‘have patience.’
"Traditionally the word ‘patience’ has been understood
as signifying a passive and submissive attitude. People are patient
because nothing can be done about their situations. Such an interpretation
has been prejudicial for the lives of Christians and their communities,
for it encourages resignation, a lack of commitment to concrete
realities, and a subjection to the governing authorities (Rom. 13:1).
James is not referring in any way to this kind of patience. He calls
for a militant patience, that is, a very active and heroic patience,
one that watches for the propitious moment. There are four Greek
terms for patience: anechomai, kartereo, makrothymia,
and hypomone. These are strictly military terms and are
used as metaphors referring to the battles of life. The author of
the epistle uses two of these four Greek terms to refer to patience:
hypomone and makrothymia. Although these can be
used synonymously, they have significant differences. Hypomone,
or the verb form hypomeno (used frequently in military
situations), appears in [James 1:3-4, 12 and James 5:11].
“Here to be patient means to persevere, to resist, to be
constant, unbreakable, immovable. Most scholars agree that there
is an active meaning of the term. James is very clear in this regard
when he says in 1:3-4 that patience is accompanied by perfect works.
This is a militant patience that arises from the roots of oppression;
it is an active, working patience. In 1:12 James speaks of those
who resist the trial and overcome it, those who do not succumb to
pain and oppression. This is heroic suffering, as Dibelius [a James
scholar] calls it. In the book of Maccabees, which narrate the Jewish
resistance to the Greeks, the word hypomone appears more
than in any other book of the Hebrew Bible. In those accounts it
speaks of the ‘courage and patience [hypomone] of
the mother of the heroes and their children” (4 Macc. 1:11).
"In the book of Revelation the word also continually appears
with this same meaning. There the author speaks to us of the bloody
persecution of the Christians and of the patience and endurance
of the victims. According to Falkenroth and Brown, hypomone
frequently expresses the attribute of the person living in the light
of the last days and is linked very closely to hope. In Romans 5:3
we can verify this relationship. James 5:11 alludes to the patience
(hypomone) of Job, a personality very mistakenly interpreted
in our time. Here we have to understand ‘patience’ in
the same sense that we have seen. The patience of Job was in no
way passive. Only in the early moments of his miserable life was
there any indication of resignation, but from chapter 3 on all his
verbal fury erupted against his situation and he did not desist
until the Almighty came onto the scene. Job did not succumb to pain;
on the contrary, the more he experience attacks, isolation, and
suffering, the more he was strengthened, the greater his self-confidence.
Job resisted unto death and God vindicated him.
"This is the kind of patience that James recommends to the
Christian communities. He may well have realized the difficulty
of their situation and the need for valiant perseverance, that is,
militant patience. Nonetheless, at the end of his letter James employs
the world makrothymia for patience, which can be understood
as a synonym for perseverance or persistence only in 5:10-11. On
the other occasions the word has a special nuance, namely, not to
despair, to contain oneself, to await an even that is sure to come.
The term appears in the context of the coming of the Lord and Judge.
[Makrothymia is used in James 5:7-8, 10.]
“This term for patience does not have the active meaning
like the one we saw previously, but neither is it passive in the
traditional negative sense. The attitude is that of awaiting, as
it were, on alert. The farmers await with patience and joy the fruit
that will come from the care of their plants. They can do nothing
to make it come sooner, for everything takes time. So too the oppressed
community of James know s that its difficult situation is going
to change, that judgment has been pronounced in favor of those who
suffer. It is important that they do not despair… [nor should
they] wait for God to come and do away with the oppressor. …Rather
it is a question of doing everything possible not to despair in
spite of the desperate situation.”
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