<P> G.A. Wells suggested that the passage was evidence of late authorship of the epistle, on the grounds that the healing of the sick being done through an official body of presbyters (elders) indicated a considerable development of ecclesiastical organisation "whereas in Paul's day to heal and work miracles pertained to believers indiscriminately (I Corinthians, XII: 9)." </P> <P> The Epistle was first explicitly referred to and quoted by Origen of Alexandria, and possibly a bit earlier by Irenaeus of Lyons as well as Clement of Alexandria in a lost work according to Eusebius, although it was not mentioned by Tertullian, who was writing at the end of the Second Century . It is also absent from the Muratorian fragment, the earliest known list of New Testament books . </P> <P> The Epistle of James was included among the twenty - seven New Testament books first listed by Athanasius of Alexandria in his Thirty - Ninth Festal Epistle (AD 367) and was confirmed as a canonical epistle of the New Testament by a series of councils in the Fourth Century . Today, virtually all denominations of Christianity consider this book to be a canonical epistle of the New Testament . </P> <P> In the first centuries of the Church the authenticity of the Epistle was doubted by some, including Theodore, Bishop of Mopsuestia in Cilicia . Because of the silence of several of the western churches regarding it, Eusebius classes it among the Antilegomena or contested writings (Historia ecclesiae, 3.25; 2.23). Jerome gives a similar appraisal but adds that with time it had been universally admitted . Gaius Marius Victorinus, in his commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, openly questioned whether the teachings of James were heretical . </P>

When was the book of james added to the bible