The Devil Will Flee: James 4:7, the Jesus Tradition, and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs

Abstract

Recent interest in the Epistle of James has included probes into the relationship between the Jesus tradition and James. The epistle presents a set of salient connections to the developing literary milieu of the second century, including compelling examples from the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and the Shepherd of Hermas. One of the more striking literary parallels comes from a single line in James 4, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (4:7). After examining the parallel evidence found in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and the Shepherd of Hermas, I contend that this line in James—the devil will flee—may summarize the story of Jesus’s temptation in the gospels.