Thursday, January 27, 2022

Joseph Bickersteth Mayor (1828-1916) on James 1:4

  

εργον τελειον εχετω.] ‘Let it have its full effect,’ ‘attain its end,’ Alf. Translates ‘let it have a perfect work,’ but this does not quite represent the force of the original, which in colloquial English would be rather ‘make a complete job of it’ = τελεως εωεργειτω. In classical Greek we should probably have had το εργον, but the omission of the article emphasizes the first point, that endurance shall be active not passive, as well as the second, that its activity shall not cease till it has accomplished its end. (Joseph B. Mayor, The Epistle of St. James [3d ed.; 1910; repr., Alpha Editions, 2019], 36)