James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls I (113 page)

In Acts 23:12, of course, the same kind of ‘
Nazirite
’-oath-taking individuals ‘
vow not to eat or drink till they have killed Paul
’. Not only are these the very characteristics we are hearing about in the various situations above but, in all the reports about James’ life-style, they are precisely the points we continuously hear about as well. This is particularly true of the post-Resurrection appearance of ‘Jesus’ to James in the ‘Ebionite’ Gospel of the Hebrews who, according to the view of our tradition, had ‘
vowed not to eat or drink
’ until he should ‘see
the Son of Man risen from the dead
’. Of course, in the normative ‘Christian’ view of these matters in the Gospels, one should not forget the further consolidation of this theme in the notion of ‘
Jesus as Temple
’ presented there and in Paul.

This theme of ‘
eating and drinking’
has been, of course, omnipresent in the Letters of Paul, we have considered above too; and this tradition, associating
refusal
‘
to eat and drink
’ not only with Nazirite-oath procedures, but also with
grief over the destruction of the Temple by the Romans
, just draws these parallels that much closer. Not only did the followers of James seem to have a particular predilection for this type of oath-taking and/or abstinence, but the ‘
eating and drinking
’ motifs – connected in most accounts to the post-Resurrection appearances of ‘Jesus’ whether around Jerusalem or in Galilee – are transmogrified in other contexts, as we have also seen, into more complex ideologies like Paul’s ‘
eating this bread
and
drinking this cup
’ and
being in ‘Communion with the body and blood of Christ
’ (1 Corinthians 11:27).

These, in turn, bring the complex of this imagery full circle, because, as just signaled, for the authors of the Gospels and for Paul in several places too, ‘Jesus’’ body as we saw is the Temple! Here the parallel with these post-fall-of-Jerusalem Zealots, who take Nazirite oaths ‘
not to eat or drink
’ until they should see it ‘
risen again
’, is complete.

To crystallize further the circularity of this point in our sources about ‘Jesus’ or
his body
being the Temple
, we also saw that Josephus, in writing
The
Jewish War
, tried to exculpate the Romans of blame for the burning and subsequent destruction of the Temple – particularly his patrons, the Flavians, to whom he owed his survival. Likewise, those responsible for writing the Gospels are anxious to
relieve the Romans of any guilt in the crucifixion of ‘Jesus’
. These themes of ‘
the destruction of the Temple
’ and ‘
the destruction of Jesus
’ parallel each other in our literature.

Though Rabbinic sources also connect Helen’s Naziritism with an oath she took that she would become a Nazirite
if her son returned safely from battle
(a possibility that can be made sense of in Josephus as well),
they connect such vows with
‘
adultery
’
too
– therefore the connection of the two passages from Numbers about ‘
the adulterous wife
’ and ‘
Naziritism
’. At the conclusion of such a vow, one was obliged to make a sin offering, as Paul and the other four are pictured as doing in the Temple in Acts, in connection with which the head was shaved (21:24–26 – being the ‘We Document’, as we saw, Acts is
very
accurate here).

Paul performs another of these peculiar head-shavings, normally done at the completion of a Nazirite oath – as Muslims even now do at the conclusion of their Pilgrimage or
Hajj
to Mecca – at Cenchrea in Greece (the Aegean sea port of Corinth) according to Acts 18:18. But head-shaving of this kind seems to have been recognized only
in the Temple
– the hair being consumed on the altar – and what Acts seems to be doing here is either confusing another trip to Jerusalem Paul made for the purposes of a Nazirite oath or misplacing the later one just discussed above.

Helen’s ‘
Naziritism
’, in Rabbinic literature anyhow, ultimately leads her to Jerusalem to build a strategically-located palace for herself and her kinsmen to live,
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her and her sons’ famine relief efforts, and finally her burial there, over which stood such magnificent funerary monuments that no commentator has failed to remark them. Moreover, all of these things are clearly connected to her sons’ decision to
circumcise themselves
and their, if not her,
outright conversion
. None was seemingly done for the purposes of monetary gain – which was generally the case with the tax-collecting Herodians – but for ‘
spiritual
’ reasons, as Paul himself would put it in his ‘
I teach things spiritually
’ (1 Cor 2:6-16).

Izates’ Circumcision and his Famine-Relief Expenditures

As Rabbinic sources too describe this circumcision, both Izates
and
his brother Monobazus
are reading Genesis
and come upon the passage ‘
and you shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin
’ (Gen. 17:11–12.). God gives this command to Abraham not long after the passage about Abraham’s ‘
Faith being reckoned for him as Righteousness
’ or ‘
justifying him
’, so important to the polemics of this period as we have shown (Gen. 15:6 – it should be remembered that a variation of this passage even turns up in the conclusion of
MMT
from Qumran as already remarked).
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In Genesis, the Commandment
to circumcise is considered to apply to all males in his household
, including ‘
any foreigner not one of your descendants
’.

Once again, as in the Letter of James involving the sacrifice of Isaac and Paul’s use of the example of Abraham’s ‘
Faith counting for him as Righteousness
’, we have examples connected with the name of ‘Abraham’ being used for the benefit of persons living presumably in
the area of Haran
, considered to be
the homeland of the Abrahamic family
. Just like the story of Agrippa I reading the
Torah
in the Temple on
Succot
and weeping over the matter of the Deuteronomic King Law, when both Izates and his brother Monobazus come to this passage, they begin to weep and immediately decide, without consulting their mother,
to circumcise themselves
.
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This is the story as Rabbinic literature would have it. It not only fleshes out Josephus’ version further – for a change both agreeing on the essence of the contents – in addition, it adds Izates’ brother Monobazus to the equation, actually insisting that both brothers knew about the necessity of these things, which from the perspective of later events in Palestine makes sense.

It is not only peculiar, but passing strange that the letter (or letters), called
MMT
, which became so controversial in disputes related to the Dead Sea Scrolls, appear to be
addressed to a King
. The first part of this ‘letter(s)’ actually focuses on the theme of the
uncleanness of Gentile sacrifices in the Temple
, particularly
grain offerings
, and does so in the course of actually mentioning the very words ‘things sacrificed to an idol’ (1.3–1.9), so important to all our discussions of James so far!

To review: in the first part of this correspondence, too – the ‘First Letter’
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– for the purposes of such sacrifices or offerings, Jerusalem is designated as ‘the Holy Camp’ and ‘principal of the camps of Israel’ (1.68–69). The ‘Second Letter’, which actually mentions a previous letter having been sent, outlined: ‘the works of the
Torah
that would be reckoned for your own welfare and that of your people, because we saw that you had the intelligence and the Knowledge of the
Torah
to understand all these things’. (2.30–31) These are the actual words used and follow the admonition ‘to remember David, for he was a
Man of Piety
(here the actual words used in Josephus’ description of Eleazar’s more ‘zealous’ conversion of Izates above) and he, too, was saved after many sufferings and forgiven’ (2.28–29) – points Josephus also refers to in his descriptions of the trials and tribulations of Izates and his mother.

But even more importantly, it ends on the note, quoting Genesis from 15:6 on Abraham, and in direct contradiction to Paul, with the assurance ‘that then at the Last Days, you will find some of our words to be true’ and ‘these are
the works
’ that ‘will be
reckoned as justifying you
’ (1:2 and 2:33).

One should compare this with Paul in Galatians 4:16, also a
letter
, who ‘by speaking Truth to you’, against ‘those who were
zealous after you
’, but improperly so, since they were ‘
zealous to exclude
’, has become ‘your Enemy’. All of what we have just quoted from the two parts of this
MMT
letter(s) above is also in
direct agreement
with the Letter of James, which in addition to citing this passage about Abraham above (2:23), evokes ‘the Last Days’ as well (5:3).

The constant reiteration of Abraham in all these contexts is important, too, as we have explained. Were it not for the technicality of the
two
letters – though, in fact, most see only one here – one would almost assume that one has here the actual Qumran version of the correspondence, delivered by ‘the courier Ananias’, between ‘Jesus’ or, as the case may be, ‘the Teacher of Righteousness’ or James, and ‘the Great King’.

In fact, in view of the evocation of these very Jamesian ‘things sacrificed to idols’, in the first part, the very basis of James’ instructions to overseas communities as depicted in Acts, reproduced in the Pseudoclementines and wrestled with so disingenuously by Paul in 1 Corinthians, and the second ending on the very note of the dispute between Paul and James of whether it was Abraham’s ‘works’ or ‘Faith’ that ‘were reckoned to him as Righteousness’ and ‘saving him’, it does begin to make more and more sense – especially as one reads all the above-mentioned exchanges of ‘correspondence’. Here at Qumran, we may have the actual record of the original correspondence, which was then changed by the magic of historical recreation into the stories about the new ‘Messiah’ as we have them today.

If this is true, then the main lines of what has occurred take shape. Izates’ and his mother’s conversion to this more zealous form of Judaism in the end also contributed to the Uprising against Rome, in which Izates’ brave ‘sons’ or ‘kinsmen’, Monobazus and Kenedaeos, sacrificed their lives in the first engagement, giving others ‘a splendid example’ of how to ‘make a good death’ and a ‘Pious end’.
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Not only did Helen and her two sons, Izates and Monobazus, have the finances to undertake their illustrious Famine-relief efforts and build the splendid burial monuments accorded them in Jerusalem, they probably also had the finances to undertake far more.

So frightening was this form of Judaism (which was, not only revolutionary, but also comprised this form of ‘
Sabaean
’ or
daily-bathing
type of Nazirite extremism or asceticism) that all has been transformed – including even the doctrine of ‘
the Standing One
’ – in the various stories we have both in the Gospels and the Book of Acts and those about ‘
King Agbarus
’ or ‘
the Great King of the Peoples beyond the Euphrates
’.

We have already suggested that Paul and ‘Barnabas’, whose ‘Antioch’ Community is made so much of in Acts, were originally among Helen’s grain-buying agents. So probably was the fabulous ‘Ananias’ in Acts, Josephus, and the ‘Agbarus’ stories. Those who undertook this transformation had the highest knowledge of texts and sources. They also knew the incendiary nature of the ideas that were involved and were intent on transforming them into something a little less inflammatory that could live under the aegis of Roman Authority and which Rome itself could live with. This was an important literary task, for which those who achieved it were eminently qualified.

As we have suggested, it was perhaps the most successful literary rewrite enterprise ever undertaken,
and accomplished
. By means of it, not only did Rome defeat its enemies militarily, which was the successful first step, but also then
literarily
. By it, we have new religious mythologization of a Hellenizing kind taking place on top of an originally native Palestinian core.

Helen goes to Jerusalem to fulfil her vow ‘to worship at the Temple of God and offer her thank-offerings there’. Izates enthusiastically consents to her going and ‘bestowed upon her a great deal of money’! This is in the year 45 or 46 CE around the time of the Theudas episode and the beginning of the Famine. As Josephus describes Helen’s arrival, ‘it was of very great advantage to the people of Jerusalem’, who were at that time ‘hard-pressed by Famine, so that many perished for want of money to purchase what they needed’ (45–48 CE). It is not unlikely that Theudas’ attempt – as a kind of Joshua
redivivus
– at ‘miracles’ and to cross the Jordan in reverse, were connected with it, and there is material in Qumran sources about just such reverse exoduses across Jordan.

Helen then ‘quickly sent a number of her attendants
to Alexandria
and
others to Cyprus
with large sums of money to buy grain and bring back large quantities of dried figs’, and when her son, too, ‘was informed of this Famine, he sent a great sum of money to the principal men of Jerusalem’. The beneficence of this family is a constant theme of our sources. ‘She thus left a most excellent memorial behind her by this benefaction which she bestowed on our whole nation.’

When Izates died around 55 CE, Helen appears to have returned to Adiabene from her extended residence in Jerusalem – possibly still observing her extended Nazirite vows, as Rabbinic sources would have it. Here she too died suddenly, apparently out of grief for her son. It is at this point Josephus tells of the splendid funerary monuments erected by Monobazus in Jerusalem for Helen, as well as for Izates, who also seems to have been buried there, monuments Josephus himself claims to have seen. These external monuments are nowhere extant today, but the underground tombs with their majestic staircase are, and these are indeed very impressive.

Helen’s behaviour during this Famine is in marked contrast to people like the Roman Governor Fadus and Tiberius Alexander who, while himself doubtlessly ‘fabulously Rich’ and from Egypt, hardly appears to have gone to Alexandria to
buy grain for the people
. On the contrary, like Herod of Chalcis and Fadus, he executed the heroes of the people.

As will be recalled, Acts more or less couples its reference to ‘Herod the King’ putting ‘James the brother of John to death with the sword’ (12:2) with the prophecy by an unknown prophet called ‘Agabus’ – another of these persons who ‘came down from Jerusalem’ – of ‘the Famine that would then overtake the civilized world’ (11:28). This, in turn, paves the way for the introduction of James the Just directly thereafter in the same chapter, whose sudden intrusion into the text seems, as we have seen, either to assume that he had already been introduced previously or that we should know who he is (Acts 12:17).

‘Agabus’, ‘Agbarus’, and Helen’s and Paul’s Parallel Grain-Buying Activities

We are now able to put all our sources together. What is Paul’s relationship to Helen’s grain-buying activities? Acts claims that he and Barnabas were sent by the Church in ‘Antioch’ – where Christians ‘were first called Christians’ – to bring funds to Jerusalem; but in Galatians Paul nowhere refers to this mission, rather saying he ‘went away into Arabia and then returned to Damascus’ for three years. This is normally taken to mean the area around Petra but, as we have explained as well, it may have wider implications.

Then there is the second teacher in Josephus with the peculiarly Pauline approach, who teaches Queen Helen a form of Judaism in which ‘
the worship of God was more important than circumcision
’ – but whom, for some reason, Josephus declines to name. This teacher seems to share this more easy-going approach to Jewish Law with the first teacher, Ananias, whom Josephus identifies as Izates’ ‘tutor’ and
close associate
, who seems to follow Izates about wherever he goes. Of course in Eusebius and other Syriac versions of the King Abgar conversion, ‘Ananias’, as we saw, is the ‘courier’ to Jerusalem from ‘the Great King of the Peoples beyond the Euphrates’. It should also not be forgotten that this ‘Edessa’, to which according to Syriac/Armenian sources Helen also appertained, was also known as ‘Antioch’ – ‘Antioch-by-Callirhoe’ or ‘Edessa Orrhoe’ – not to mention being the location probably of Paul’s original ‘
Antioch Community
’ above. It was only one of several ‘Antioch’s.

Moreover, according to Acts’ account, Paul, too as we have seen, was associated in his conversion with someone named ‘
Ananias
’ – this time ‘in Damascus’. Thereafter Ananias drops out of Acts’ version of these events altogether – itself very strange.
37

In Eusebius’ account of the conversion of this ‘Abgarus’ and the missions of ‘Judas Thomas’ and/or ‘Thaddaeus’ to ‘the Land of the Edessenes’ or ‘Osrhoeans’ and further elaborations in Syriac and Armenian sources, Ananias is obviously meant to be the same person as in the Queen Helen story. Here, again, is something of the letter-carrying scenario of Acts’ picture of James sending out ‘Judas Barsabas’ after the Jerusalem Conference or the ‘courier’ connection between the ‘Agabus’ story in Acts and these ‘Ananias’ scenarios, not to mention the ‘letter(s)’ known as
MMT
and probably the work of ‘the Righteous Teacher’ at Qumran.

For instance, in the fourth- or fifth-century Syriac work known as the Doctrine of Addai – said to have been based on Eusebius, but much more extensive than anything he seems to have had access to – Ananias is Abgar’s ‘secretary’ (in Josephus, as we saw, he was Izates’ ‘tutor’). Reference is distinctly made in the Doctrine of Addai to the story of the portrait Ananias had made of Jesus ‘in choice paints’, which he brought ‘to his Lord King Abgar’, the basis of present-day theories relating the fabulous Shroud of Turin to the city of Edessa, where Crusaders were thought to have come into possession of it.

Even more convincing, the collection of Syriac works, of which this one is a part, repeatedly refers to ‘Simon Cephas’, at one point even identifying him as ‘Simon
the Galilean
’. He is said to have laid the foundation for the churches in Syria, Galatia, and Pontus, before going to Rome for further confrontations with Simon
Magus
.
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Once again, here we have our two ‘Simon’s, Simon Peter and Simeon bar Cleophas, combined as in more orthodox works, such as Acts, into a single person. Nevertheless the identification of at least the second with ‘Simon Zelotes’ or ‘Simon the Cananite’ (here now ‘Simon the Galilean’) stands. In fact, this second Simon may have been the person who really was involved in all these things – at least in eastern communities like Alexandria, ‘Antioch’, Edessa, and beyond in Adiabene.

What are we to make of all these sources? I think, first of all, we can say definitively that this mysterious ‘prophet’ called ‘Agabus’ is nothing more than a stand-in for ‘Abgarus’ or ‘Agbarus’ in the legends going under his name and their elaborations in works by Syriac authors and the overwriting going on here in Acts. Moses of Chorene, it will be remembered, even knows that Westerners have trouble pronouncing ‘Abgarus’’ name, which he anyhow simply sees as
a title
meaning ‘Great One’. This derivation of the name also reappears to some extent in Eusebius’ original translation of the correspondence.

The overwriting of whatever was meant by ‘the Agbarus Legend’ at this time, and the courier named ‘Ananias’ involved in it, by the nonsense name of the pseudo-prophet ‘Agabus’ – who certainly
never
existed and later reappears at another crucial juncture of Acts’ story of the further adventures of Paul and his ‘loin-cloth’ or ‘girdle’ – would be in line with Acts’ working method, as we have been delineating it above with regard to quite a few other historically documentable events: that is, to distort, to dissimulate, to confuse, and to delete – sometimes even simply, to have fun, or, if one prefers, a more malevolent intent, to
make fun
!

There is only one problem with identifying ‘Agabus’ in Acts with this ‘Agbarus’ or ‘Abgarus’ in the legends going by his name. This would mean that Acts knows ‘the Agbarus Legend’, whereas many scholars think the first indication we have of this story is from Eusebius, that is, they give Eusebius credit for being a creative writer – a dubious proposition! Scholars are simply wrong on this point and it is the account we have before us here in Acts that
proves it
– in connection with which, Helen (and/or her son, ‘the Great King’ Izates) sends her representatives on her more real grain-buying expeditions
to Egypt and Cyprus
(the importance of which in Acts’ narrative we shall also see momentarily) – its linking ‘Agabus” name with ‘the Famine’ being altogether
too coincidental
to be accidental.

In any event, the fragments of the listings of ‘the Twelve’ and ‘Seventy Apostles’, attributed to Hippolytus in second-century Rome, already know the traditions connecting ‘Judas called
Lebbaeus surnamed Thaddaeus
’ with the evangelization of ‘the Edessenes
and all Mesopotamia
’ and sending a letter to an individual called ‘Augarus’ – in the latter, it is ‘Thaddaeus’ who
conveys the letter
.
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So do the two variant manuscripts of the Apostolic Constitutions, only now this individual is ‘
Thaddaeus called Lebbaeus … surnamed Judas the Zealot
, who preached the Truth to the Edessenes and the people of Mesopotamia when Abgarus ruled over Edessa’. Then there is also the relationship of all these matters to the contemporary beheadings of ‘
Theudas
’, who claimed to be ‘a prophet’ but was really a ‘Deceiver’, and ‘James
the brother of John
’, which we shall unravel below.

But this really would make Helen a ‘wife’ of King Agbarus, as Syriac sources and Moses of Chorene claim. The matter of the sizeable harems these monarchs kept has already been pointed out and Helen’s marital status even in Josephus’ account is extremely vague. As well, ‘Monobazus’ or ‘Bazeus’ are – like ‘Caesar’, ‘Herod’, and even ‘Abgarus’ – probably titles, reappearing as husband, son, grandson, and even
great-grandson
, if we are to take Rabbinic acounts seriously. Moreover, Helen is given territory within what seem to be her husband’s domains (whoever he was) and seems to function in an independent manner as a kind of local grandee there, as her son Izates does elsewhere in his ‘father’s’ domains – most notably the area around
Abraham’s Haran
.

The whole area is referred to in all these sources as that of ‘the Osrhoeans’ – in Roman sources all considered ‘Arabs’, ‘Acbar’ being ‘the King of the Arabs’ – the relationship of Edessa to Adiabene further east being unclear, their being at least contiguous. What is clear, however, is that both areas have something to do with the archetypal prophetical figure ‘Addai’, who in our sources is associated either with ‘Thomas’ or ‘Thaddaeus’ (also related to this root ‘
’Ad
’ or, in the Koran, ‘
the Land called ’Ad
’).

The final confirmation of all these things, despite the doubts of many scholars, is the note that a future Edessene king, Abgar VII (109–116), probably the grandson of the Abgar or Agbar in our stories, was known as ‘Abgar bar Ezad’, that is, ‘
Abgar the son of Izates
’ (not to mention the fact that in Josephus Izates’ is sometimes ‘
Izas
’).
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Here the relationship of ‘Abgar’ to ‘Izates’ is made concrete.

In fact, as already suggested, in this fairly dubious relationship with her husband – and other perhaps even more scandalous rumours – may lie the source of Helen’s documented interest in the ‘suspected adulteress’ passage from Numbers 5:11–31, which precedes the one about Nazirite oaths in that book – another of her evident passions.