1 May: 1662 Book of Common Prayer--Apostles Philip and James

1 May. 1662 Book of Common Prayer. St. Philip and St. James, Apostles. 

See some info on James from Hegissipus at: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/hegesippus.html

Saint Philip and Saint James's Day.

The Collect.

 

O ALMIGHTY God, whom truly to know is everlasting life; Grant us perfectly to know thy Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life; that, following the steps of thy holy Apostles, Saint Philip and Saint James, we may stedfastly walk in the way that leadeth to eternal life; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

http://www.eskimo.com/~lhowell/bcp1662/notes/saints.html#PhilipJames

St. Philip and St. James. It seems impossible to give any sufficient reason for coupling together these two Apostles. (The Greek Church separates them, keeping St. Philip's Day on November 14th, and St. James' Day on October 9th.) The union of the two, however, suggests the harmony of the desire of knowledge characteristic of St. Philip (see the Gospel) with the stern practical reality characteristic of St. James the "brother of the Lord," who is evidently (though perhaps erroneously) identified with St. James the Less, the Apostle.

Of St. Philip we have notices only in St. John. he was one of the first disciples "found" by Our Lord, and he brought Nathanael to Him; he is associated with St. Andrew at the feeding of the Five thousand, and the coming of the Greeks to Christ; and (see the Gospel) he is described as especially craving for the knowledge of God (John i. 43; vi. 5-9; xii. 21, 22; xiv. 8, 9). Beyond this we know nothing. Early tradition speaks of his preaching in Phyrgia, and later apocryphal books raise a strange fabric of legend concerning him.

Of St. James the Apostle, the son of Alphæus (Matthew x. 2; Mark iii. 18; Luke vi. 15), sometimes supposed to be the same as "James the Less" (or rather "the little") of Mark xv. 40, we know nothing except his name in the Apostolic catalogue. James, "the Lord's brother," with whom he is clearly identified by the use of the Epistle (though the identification is, to say the least, very uncertain) is one of the most marked figures in the Acts of the Apostles and in contemporary history. As Bishop of Jerusalem, he is essentially the representative of Jewish Christianity; presiding at the first Apostolic Council, and holding out to St. Paul the right hand of fellowship; held in reverence as "James the Just" by all Jerusalem, and martyred in vengeance for his Christianizing influence by Pharisaic violence. His Epistle, essentially Jewish in character, is a storehouse of godly morality, in which Christian doctrine is but implied, and not explicitly brought out; and was probably addressed both to Jewish Christians and to those Jews who, though not Christian, would listen to "the servant of Jesus Christ". -- May 1st.