James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls I (110 page)

Not only is Izates’ older brother called ‘Monobazus’ but Josephus also designates the father as being named ‘Bazeus’ or ‘Monobazus’ as well. So prevalent does this name appear to be that, like ‘Herod’ or ‘Agbar’, it is not clear whether it is a proper name or simply a title. In fact, another ‘Monobazus’, said to be a kinsman of Helen’s son ‘
Monobazus King of Adiabene
’, turns up among the ‘Zealot’ Revolutionaries at the start of the War against Rome, along with another of these ‘kinsmen’ of either Helen or the King, ‘
Kenedaeos
’. These two, along with Niger of Perea and Silas – formerly a member of King Agrippa II’s army who ‘deserted to the Jews’ – are the really valiant fighters in the revolutionary army.
4

Silas would appear to be the son of the previous Silas, who like Philip the son of Jacimus was commander of Agrippa I’s army. Josephus calls ‘Silas’ a ‘Babylonian’ – whatever this means – as he does ‘Philip’, and they all seem to have been the descendants of a contingent of Babylonian horsemen the first Herod brought in from the plains region of Edessa and Adiabene and settled in the ‘Damascus’ region to protect pilgrims coming from ‘beyond the Euphrates’ from local raiders.
5
Agrippa I had the elder Silas imprisoned, because, though his boon friend, Silas presumed to behave as an equal and would not sufficiently defer to him. After Agrippa’s death, the Helcias (‘Alexas’) mentioned as the father of Paul’s possible ‘nephew’, Julius Archelaus (Acts 23:16), whose forebear had been another intimate of Herod and whose family Herod used for that reason to oversee the Temple Treasury, acting on behalf of Agrippa I’s brother, Herod of Chalcis,
executed
the elder Silas. In turn, Julius Archelaus’ other uncle and Saulus’ cousin, Antipas, was assassinated by another ‘Zealot’ known as ‘John
the son of Dorcas
’ in 68 CE.
6

However these things may be – these four, Helen’s two kinsmen, Monobazus and Kenedaeos,
7
and Niger and Silas lead the
initial assault
on the Roman Army on its way up to Jerusalem at the Pass at Beit Horon in the first heady days of the Uprising, the success of which touched off the feeling that the longer war (66–70 CE) could be won. In this assault, Monobazus and Kenedaeos were killed, but Niger, Silas, and ‘John the
Essene
’, not previously mentioned in Josephus, led a follow-up assault on the Romans at the southern sea-coast town, Ashkelon, near Gaza. If Josephus’ testimony regarding the ‘
Essene
’ bravery and indifference to pain while undergoing torture were not sufficient, this is further proof of the active role so-called ‘
Essenes
’ took in the War against Rome.

Here at Ashkelon, Silas (does this name sound familiar?) and ‘John
the Essene
’ were killed and Niger given up for dead in a subterranean cave. However, ‘Jesus’-like,
he emerges alive again
, much to the joy of his companions
who had been searching for him with lamentations on the battlefield for three days in order to bury him
.
8
This is not the only episode from Niger of Perea’s life that appears retrospectively to have been absorbed into ‘Jesus’’ as, later, he too is dragged through Jerusalem by the ‘Zealots’ – the reasons for which are unclear – ‘showing the scars of his wounds’ as he went. Once outside the city, he is executed (possibly even crucified), but not before he calls down on them, again as Jesus is portrayed as doing upon the Jews in the ‘Little Apocalypse’s of the New Testament, ‘famine, pestilence, and internecine slaughter’.

Josephus further clarifies who these two ‘
kinsmen of Helen
’ are, martyred in the assault on the Roman army under Cestius at Beit-Horon – the traditional pass that had to be negotiated by invading armies on their way up to Jerusalem. Directly following the fall of Jerusalem, the sacrifice to their standards the Roman troops performed in the Temple facing eastwards, and their firing of the city, Josephus then describes how, when the fire reached Queen Helen’s palace in the middle of the City’s acropolis area, Titus took the surrender of many of the ‘sons and brothers of Izates the King’, who were all obviously
still living in Jerusalem
in their grandmother’s palace and those of her two sons. These he took in bonds to Rome, having given them ‘
his right hand for (their) safety
’, and, while still angry at them, kept them as hostages, because of their political importance, ‘
as surety for their country’s fealty to the Romans
’.
9

It is this group of individuals – namely, Idumaeans like Niger of Perea, pro-revolutionary Herodian Men-of-War such as Silas (Philip and Saulus would be examples of anti-revolutionary ones), and these descendants or brothers of Helen of Adiabene’s son Izates – that we have suggested are alluded to at Qumran under the title of ‘the Violent Ones of the Gentiles’. They may even be referred to as ‘the Men of War’ in the Damascus Document, ‘who turned aside’ and ‘walked with the Man of Lying’.

Despite a certain tone of negativity in these references, ‘the Violent Ones of the Gentiles’, anyhow, are actually viewed with a certain amount of approbation, especially in the Psalm 37
Pesher
, where they are credited with ‘taking vengeance’ for what had been done to ‘the Righteous Teacher’/‘the Priest’, that is, ‘the High Priest’ or what we would consider to be ‘the Opposition High Priest’ of the sectarian alliance.
10

In the Habakkuk
Pesher
, where they are simply referred to as ‘the Violent Ones’, they are also grouped with ‘the Man of Lying’, ‘the Covenant-Breakers’, and ‘the Traitors to the New Covenant and the Last Days’ (‘who defiled His Holy Name’), with whom they actually seem to take part in the scriptural exegesis sessions of the Righteous Teacher. Therefore, depending on the dating of these documents, they may even have been part of ‘the New Covenant in the Land of Damascus’ referred to in the Damascus Document. In other work, I have identified them, along with people like ‘John the Essene’, as, if not the moving force, at least
the fighting arm of the Uprising against Rome
.

Helen’s son Izates must have been dead for some time before this Uprising, because Josephus describes his funeral along with Helen’s and
the great monuments erected for them by Izates’ older brother
– the
second ‘
Monobazus’ – outside the City. Eusebius, too, refers to these monuments and they were actually found in the last century near the present-day American Colony Hotel and are still splendid!
12
For his part, Eusebius remarks that they were ‘
still being shown in the outskirts of Aelia
’ in his time. Aelia Capitolina was the name given Jerusalem by Hadrian after his brutal suppression of the Second Jewish Uprising under Bar Kochba from 132-36 CE – ‘
Aelius
’ being Hadrian’s given name – after which Jews were forbidden either to approach within eyesight of or live in the City.
12

In Josephus’ story about Izates’ conversion, Helen, as we saw, is just one of the King’s many wives. She doesn’t even appear to live with him. Rather, she is given this Kingdom further east on what would appear to be the outer edge of his dominions. Her son Izates is by this time living in a town at the southern tip of the Tigris–Euphrates Delta called Charax-Spasini.
13
This town would appear to be an important trading centre, which probably explains Izates’ presence, not to mention the influences he encounters there. This would also appear to be true for the ‘
Jewish merchant Ananias
’, he meets there – much the same as Paul or the ‘
Ananias
’ Paul
also
met in ‘Damascus’ in Acts 9:10–17. Not only was Charax a centre for the Tigris River trade, but also areas further east. Two centuries later, Mani is said to have come from an ‘Elchasaite’ family there and ‘the Mandaeans’ (‘the Sabaeans of the marshes’) are still there today. Izates is the guest of another King called, as we saw, ‘
Abennerig
’ – ‘
Abinergaos
’ according to his coins
14
– whose daughter he marries. Her name, ‘Samachos’/‘Amachos’/‘Symachos’, is suspiciously similar to the name of the wife of ‘
Abgar
Ukkama
’ (‘
Abgar the Great
’) in Edessan chronicles – ‘
Abgar
Uchama
’ (‘
Agbar the Black
’) in Eusebius’ presentation of his conversion.
15

What is not generally appreciated about all these individuals with their strange-sounding names is that all of them are considered to be ‘
Arabs
’ or ‘
Arabians
’ by people
outside their cultural framework
. Tacitus, for instance, calls Agbar or Abgar, ‘
Acbar King of the Arabs
’ and all the inhabitants around Edessa, ‘
Arabs
’.
16
For Strabo, Mesopotamia, for the most part, was inhabited by ‘
Arab Chieftains
’ and ‘
the Osrhoeans
’, to whom both Helen and Agbar appertain, according to Eusebius, and who occupied the country from Edessa to the Land of Adiabene, are also ‘
Arabs
’.
17
All of these points are extremely significant in attempting to determine just where Paul had in mind, when he informs us in Galatians that, after his conversion, first he ‘
went away into
Arabia
’ and only afterwards ‘
returned to Damascus
’ (1:17–18).

For his part Eusebius calls Abgar, to whom Thaddaeus and ultimately Judas Thomas are sent, ‘
the Great King of the Peoples beyond the Euphrates
’ as we saw –
exactly
the way Josephus describes
both Izates and his brother Monobazus
. These Kings would also appear to have had links to the ‘Arabs’ around Petra, somewhat confusingly called by modern scholars ‘
Nabataeans
’, meaning descendants of Ishmael’s firstborn son ‘
Nabaioth
’ in the Bible (Gen. 25:13).

By Paul’s time, these ‘
Arabs
’ from Petra controlled Damascus, as he himself attests in 2 Corinthians 11:32, again after noting, he ‘does not lie’. This also makes his notice about his mysterious three-year sojourn in ‘Arabia’ and, afterwards, ‘Damascus’ – again in the context of protesting he ‘does not lie’ – so interesting (Gal. 1:17–20). Does Paul mean by ‘Arabia’ here only ‘Petra’ and possibly ‘Damascus’ – where in Acts he supposedly links up with Ananias – or has he been further afield, to Charax Spasini, for instance, Edessa, or even Adiabene? Aside from the ‘Fertile Crescent’ of cities extending from Damascus around to these Northern parts of Syria and Mesopotamia, and the legendary city of Palmyra on the direct caravan route to these areas – this trade being the source of the city’s legendary wealth – these areas were mostly desert.

In fact, the fifth-century Armenian historian, Moses of Chorene – which some see as a pseudonym for a later ninth-century author – claims that Abgar helped his fellow ‘Arab’ King Aretas of Petra in his mini-war against Herod Antipas to avenge John the Baptist’s murder – and John does, however indirectly, seem to be supporting Aretas’ position on Herod’s divorce of Aretas’ daughter. In addition, this work attributed to Moses of Chorene makes it
very
clear that Helen was ‘the first’ of Abgar’s wives, comparing her ‘Piety’ and her conversion to Abgar’s. At the same time, by remarking her wheat distributions to ‘the Poor’ and her ‘truly remarkable tomb, which was still to be seen before the Gate of Jerusalem’, he makes it very clear she is Josephus’ Helen!
18

To some extent Josephus turns this around, claiming that the Arab Kings from Petra were involved in some manner in the conflicts that broke out over Izates’ succession to
his father
. For his part, Moses of Chorene records the defeat suffered by one of Herod’s ‘nephews’ at Abgar’s hands in Northern Syria. After this, he claims, Edessa was founded. The specificity of this information, in turn, does tally to some degree with material in Josephus about these same ‘nephews’ – the sons of Herod’s brothers, Phasael, Joseph and Pheroras, and his sister Salome and their various marriages to his
own daughters
.
19

While Paul does tell us in a notice that must date from around 35–37 CE, the year Aretas probably gained control of Damascus, that he (Paul) escaped from Aretas’ Ethnarch by being ‘let down from a window in the wall in a basket’; unfortunately, he does not tell us why the
Arab
King Aretas was chasing Paul, nor what he was doing in Damascus in the first place. Acts transforms this – much as the Gospels do the story of Jesus – into a plot
by
‘
the Jews
’ in Damascus ‘to kill Paul’, none of which makes any sense, since he was supposedly sent there in the first place on a mission on behalf of the Jewish High Priest.

Of course, if Paul were a relative of Herod Antipas or his wife Herodias – who later sought the Kingdom for her new husband even over her brother Agrippa I – then there would have been reason enough for Paul’s activity in this area, since Herod Antipas’ Tetrarchy extended from Galilee across Jordan into Perea. In addition,
all
Herodians were related to the Arabian King of Petra, because Herod’s mother seems to have been either a member of or related to that family.