Fathers

James 1

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James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting. My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted: But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

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What the Fathers say

James 1:17

Eastern Fathers

Theophylact of Ohrid

By the Father of lights understand God, and by lights either the angelic powers or people illumined by the Holy Spirit. With the God of lights there is no variation, for He Himself proclaims through the prophet: "For I am the Lord, I do not change" (Mal. 3:6), and the expression "shadow of turning" means that in God one cannot even conceive of any change.

Commentary on James ↗

Oecumenius

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change or shadow due to change. In His destined will, He has begotten us by the Word of Truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of His creatures. …

Commentary on James ↗

Western Saints

Augustine of Hippo

And I am never so much delighted in my treatment of a subject as when Scripture comes most copiously to my aid; and when the question to be discussed requires that "he that glorieth should glory in the Lord;" and that we should in all things lift up our hearts and give thanks to the Lord our God, from whom, "as the Father of lights, every good and every perfect gift cometh down." Now if a gift is not God's gift, because it is wrought by us, or because we act by His gift, then it is not a work of God that "a mountain should be removed …

On The Spirit And The Letter 63 ↗

Gregory the Dialogist

For changeableness itself is a shadow, which if it altered the light by any changes, would as it were obscure it. But because in God changeableness entereth not, "no shadow of changing" intercepts His Light.

Morals on the Book of Job 12.38 ↗

Bede

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights. After he has taught that the vices by which we are tempted do not come from God to us, but arise from ourselves, he shows on the contrary that whatever good we do, we receive this by the gift of God. Hence he calls Him the Father of lights, whom he knows to be the author of spiritual gifts. To which also agrees the saying of the Apostle Paul: "For what do you have that you did not receive?" (1 Cor. IV).

Commentary on the Catholic Epistles ↗