The circumstances connected with the origin of this book have already been related by Dr Westcott in the preface to the companion edition of Dr Hort's Commentary on I St Peter i.—ii. 17, published in 1898. It was designed to take its place in a Commentary on the whole N.T. planned by the three friends, Westcott, Lightfoot, and Hort in 1860.

Dr Hort's share included the Synoptic Gospels, the Acts, and the Epistles of St James, St Peter, and St Jude. After a brief period of work on the Gospels, of which only a few unimportant fragments remain, Dr Hort set to work on St James. If we may judge from the condition of the MS. the Commentary on Chapter 1 was complete when he came back to Cambridge, as a Fellow of Emmanuel College, in 1871. His notes were, however, worked over and written out afresh when he chose St James as the subject for his first three courses of Lectures as Hulsean Professor in 1880, 1881. It is idle now to regret that his attention was called away to lecture in 1882 on Tatian's Apology, leaving the Commentary incomplete, but within sight of the end. When at length he returned to the Epistle in the Summer Term of 1889, he dealt mainly with questions of Introduction. The introductory matter printed in this volume was prepared for that course of Lectures.