Saints Philip and James

Saints Philip and James belonged to the Twelve, the apostles chosen by Jesus. James, son of Alphaeus, is called the Less or the Younger, to distinguish him from James, son of Zebedee. The Church celebrates the joint feast of the two apostles on May 3.

Philip, like Peter and Andrew, came from Bethsaida in Galilee. The Roman Martyrology records that he was a disciple of John the Baptist before Jesus called him with the words “Follow me.” He bore a Greek name, in which Benedict XVI saw a sign of a certain cultural openness. Right afterward he brought Nathanael to Jesus, and when Nathanael doubted that anything good could come from Nazareth, he answered him, “Come and see.”

In the Gospel of John, before the multiplication of the loaves, it was Philip whom Jesus asked where to buy bread for the crowd, and he replied that not even two hundred denarii would be enough. Greeks who wished to see Jesus turned to him; Philip told Andrew, and together they went to the Master. At the Last Supper he asked, “Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied,” and heard, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” According to later accounts, among them the Acts of Philip, he preached the Gospel in Greece and then in Phrygia, where at Hierapolis he met his death, described as crucifixion or stoning.

James, son of Alphaeus, appears in every list of the Twelve. The Latin tradition, as the Roman Martyrology recalls, identifies him with James called the brother of the Lord and the Just. The word “brother” here means, according to Semitic custom, a relative of Jesus. Benedict XVI noted that this identification remains a matter of debate among scholars.

James, the brother of the Lord, played an important role in the early Church. Saint Paul writes that the risen Christ appeared to him, and names him with Peter and John among the pillars of the Church. James led the community in Jerusalem. In the dispute over circumcision he supported Peter’s view that the burden of the Law of Moses should not be laid on Christians from paganism. Tradition attributes to him the Letter of James, which teaches that faith without works is dead.

The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus relates that in the year 62 the high priest Ananus, son of the Annas known from the Gospels, unlawfully brought about the stoning of James. The Roman Martyrology says that the apostle crowned his apostleship with martyrdom. The years of birth of the two apostles and the year of Philip’s death are unknown.

Both apostles have been venerated as saints since antiquity. They owe their joint feast to a tradition according to which their relics were placed beneath the altar of the Roman Basilica of the Twelve Apostles on the day of its dedication, May 1, around 565. In 1956, when that day was given to the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker established by Pius XII, the feast was moved to May 11, and in the calendar renewed after the Second Vatican Council it falls on May 3.