St. James the Less is one of the most prominent figures in the early Church. The son of Alphaeus and Mary Clopas, James and his brother Jude were relatives of the Virgin Mary and Jesus. Because of this, he is sometimes referred to as James, the brother of Jesus. In Aramaic, the same term is sometimes used for both brother and cousin. He was born in Galilee and appears in the list of Apostles in each gospel. Beyond these mentions, little is known of James from the gospels themselves.
James next appears in the Acts of the Apostles. At this point, he has been named the first Bishop of Jerusalem and can be seen leading the early Church there. It is James who, along with Peter and John, received Paul and approves his mission to the gentiles while also leading the Council of Jerusalem which resolved the dispute over which laws the gentile converts must follow. James earned the respect of the people of Jerusalem and, therefore, was also given the title "James the Just." He led an ascetic life and it was noted by later historians that he drank no wine nor strong drink, nor ate animal food, that no razor touched his head and he did not anoint himself or make use of the baths. Towards the end of his life, he wrote the Epistle of James, which many scholars consider to be the first of the New Testament epistles to be written.
Around the year AD 62, James was called before the Sanhedrin in the Temple. There he was ordered to make a public renunciation of the Christian faith and return to more orthodox beliefs. James refused and instead used the opportunity to publicly declare his faith in Jesus as the Messiah. This enraged the Scribes and the Pharisees who led him up to the battlements of the Temple and threw him off headfirst. He was then stoned to death by the assembled crowd with the final blow being delivered by a fuller's club. However, his reputation was so great that many Jews attributed the later destruction of Jerusalem to James' death.