JAMES, E. O.

JAMES, E. O. (1888–1972), was an English academic anthropologist, folklorist, and historian of religions. Edwin Oliver James was born in London on March 30, 1888. He was educated at Exeter College, Oxford, where he took a diploma in anthropology under R. R. Marett, and at University College, London. From 1911 to 1933 he served as a priest of the Church of England, chiefly in parishes in London and Oxford, while maintaining a scholarly interest in anthropology, comparative religion, and folklore. During the 1920s and 1930s he was associated with the diffusionist school of Elliot Smith and William James Perry, and with the "myth and ritual school" that emerged out of it. Thus he became one of the earliest British "myth and ritual" writers, contributing to the school's first two symposia. For Myth and Ritual, edited by S. H. Hooke (London, 1933), he wrote "Initiatory Rituals," and for its sequel, The Labyrinth, also edited by Hooke (London, 1935), "The Sources of Christian Ritual." Although he had published several books on anthropology, his first major work was Christian Myth and Ritual (1933), in which he applied the methods of the myth and ritual school to questions of Christian origins and to later Christian ceremonies.

In 1933 James became professor of the history and philosophy of religion at the University of Leeds, and in 1945 he moved to a similar post at the University of London (King's College), where he remained until his retirement in 1955. From 1960 until his death on July 6, 1972, he was chaplain of All Souls' College, Oxford. Throughout his active life he was a member of numerous learned societies, including the Folklore Society, of which he was president from 1930 to 1932, and in 1954 he was instrumental in founding the British section of the International Association for the History of Religions.

James published a large number of books and articles on a wide variety of subjects connected with anthropology and comparative religion. The best known were perhaps Origins of Sacrifice (1934), Introduction to the Comparative Study of Religion (1938), and Prehistoric Religion (1957). He was not, however, an original writer or theorist, being content for the most part to have assimilated, and to reproduce, the findings of others. In matters of controversy he habitually took a mediating position, which left him without a strong profile of his own. In theology he was an Anglo-Catholic; in anthropology he was initially an evolutionist but at a later stage was prepared to modify his views in response to changes of emphasis. He was not, for instance, despite his theological position, disposed to accept all the findings of the school of Wilhelm Schmidt concerning "high gods." Thus, although he wrote that "High Gods do in fact stand alone, head and shoulders above all secondary divinities," he insisted that "the belief in High Gods among low races cannot be described as a true monotheism" (Prehistoric Religion, pp. 206–208).

James's significance lay in his capacity to assimilate and interpret a vast body of material about comparative religion and to present it for a wider public. At a time when the study of religion in Britain was at a fairly low ebb, he served as an admirable interpreter, and as a mediator between positions that were often polarized internationally. His best work was done in the 1930s, for some of his later works were little more than compilations of material readily available elsewhere.

Bibliography

A full bibliography of James's writings up to 1963 can be found in The Saviour God: Comparative Studies in the Concept of Salvation, Presented to Professor E. O. James to Commemorate His Seventy-fifth Birthday, edited by S. G. F. Brandon (Manchester, 1963). See also D. W. Gundry's "Professor E. O. James, 1888–1972," Numen 19 (August–December 1972): 81–83.

Eric J. Sharpe (1987)