James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls I (23 page)

Eusebius refers to the succession of James one more time, quoting Hegesippus, ‘who flourished closest to the days of the Apostles’ (
c.
90–180 CE), to similar effect. In the Fifth Book of his
Commentaries
, he says: ‘But James, the brother of the Lord, who,
as there were many of this name
,
was surnamed the Just by all from the days of our Lord until now
, received the Government of the Church with [or ‘from’] the Apostles’.
10

Jerome (348–420), another scholar who like Origen spent a good deal of his life in Palestine, also picks up material from Hegesippus. For him however, James, ‘who is called the brother of the Lord and surnamed the Just’, was not ‘the son of Joseph by another wife, as some think’. Rather, taking a cue from the Gospel of John, he accepts an even more preposterous solution, that James is ‘the son of Mary
sister of the mother of the Lord
’.
11
In other words, Mary has a sister called ‘Mary’, the wife of ‘
Clopas
’, elsewhere regarded as Joseph’s brother and the uncle of James and Jesus and the brothers – all very convenient. For the moment, however, suffice it to remark the lengths to which all commentators will go to rescue the divine sonship and supernatural nature of Jesus Christ even as early as the second century.

Like Eusebius, Jerome gives two versions of James’ election or appointment as Bishop of the Jerusalem Church, his own understanding of what he has read and a direct quotation from Hegesippus, both of which more or less parallel Eusebius. According to his understanding, James was either ‘
ordained
’ or ‘
elected by the Apostles as Bishop of Jerusalem
’
immediately after Jesus’ Passion
.

What is significant in this is the time frame, that ‘after our Lord’s Passion’ James was ‘
immediately elected by the Apostles
Bishop of Jerusalem’.
12
In our view, this is the missing
appointment episode
that should have occurred at the beginning of Acts. This would also have explained James’ mysterious emergence in Acts’ narrative eleven chapters later, as if we should know who he is.

The next version which he gives, as he says, is a quotation from Hegesippus: ‘After the Apostles, James the brother of the Lord, surnamed the Just, was made Head of the Church at Jerusalem’. For Jerome, James received the control of the Church ‘after the Apostles’, meaning presumably
after their appointment
. For Eusebius it is ‘with’ or ‘from’ them.

Another older contemporary of Jerome, Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, who lived at the end of the fourth century (367-404), admits to having read Eusebius but, like Jerome, it is not clear either whether he knows Hegesippus first hand or through Eusebius. Epiphanius, too, gives James’ various epithets, including ‘the Just One’ and ‘
Oblias
’, which he translates as ‘Wall’. Eusebius translated this as ‘Protection’ or ‘Bulwark’. In doing so, Epiphanius presents exactly what we have already heard from Eusebius about James’ succession, that ‘he was the First to receive the Office of Bishop’ – ‘Episcopate’ again.
13
Epiphanius’ emphasis is on James being ‘the First’, not on who chose him. Again, there is no doubt that James is the
first
Bishop or Overseer. For Epiphanius, this Office is not just relegated to Jerusalem, but a general title – a more accurate reflection, in our view, of what the situation really was. Epiphanius is obviously not willing to concede necessarily that James was ‘chosen by the Apostles’, nor the Inner Three, nor even a general election by ‘the Jerusalem Assembly’. Rather the implication again is that James received this Office
directly from Jesus
.

This is confirmed in the next bit of information Epiphanius attaches to his testimony: that James was ‘The First to whom the Lord entrusted his Throne upon earth’.
14
There isn’t a clue as to where Epiphanius got this material or so many of the other interesting details he provides, though it may have come from Hegesippus or the
Ascents of Jacob
. Wherever it came from, once more it shows the tremendous prestige James enjoyed across the whole Eastern Mediterranean up to the 400s, when Epiphanius and Jerome both lived.

Once again, it was Jesus himself who entrusted ‘his Throne upon earth’ to his brother James, though it is not clear whether he did this
while on earth
or in some other manner. However this may be, the ‘Throne’ imagery is a central element of it. It also recalls the appointment episode in the Gospel of Thomas: ‘In the place where you are to go,
go to James the Just for whose sake Heaven and Earth came into existence’
. Not only is this a direct appointment scenario in Jesus’ lifetime, but it contains echoes of Kabbalistic thought about ‘
the Righteous One
’, that is, his pre-existence or the fact that he ‘supports the earth’.

There are two more
direct-appointment
scenarios we have not yet treated in any detail. The first is to be found in Book One of
Recognitions
(1.43). There, James is not only repeatedly referred to as ‘Bishop’, but also ‘Bishop of Bishops’ or ‘Archbishop’. Right before a long excursus by Peter on the identity of the Ebionite ‘True Prophet’ with ‘the Christ’, the leadership of James is referred to in a most straightforward manner: ‘The Church of the Lord which was constituted in Jerusalem multiplied most plentifully and grew, being governed with the most Righteous ordinances by James,
who was ordained Bishop in it by the Lord’
. Not only is this clearly a ‘direct appointment’ scenario but, paralleling the Gospel of Thomas and Epiphanius, it seems to have occurred
in Jesus’
own lifetime
.

Sleight-of-hand in Acts

We are now in a position to return to Acts’ treatment of this missing election or appointment of James as successor. As we have discussed, Acts does not present the election of a successor to Jesus as leader of the Messianic Community in Palestine – by whatever name one calls it,
Christian
,
Zealot
,
Essene
,
Jerusalem Assembly
, or some other – but rather a successor to
Judas
.

As Acts begins, Jesus gives the Apostles ‘authority’ or ‘command’ in his resurrected state on earth before the Ascension (1:2). This parallels the notice in Hegesippus and its various reflections about ‘the command of the Church being given to James together with the Apostles’, not to mention the use of the word ‘command’ relative to the duties of ‘the
Mebakker
’ at Qumran.

The author also pictures the Apostles as being instructed ‘not to leave Jerusalem’, because at some point they were going ‘to receive Power via the descent of the Holy Spirit upon’ them (1:4–8 –
n.b.
, the use of the word ‘
Power
’ here, which will become more and more pronounced as these notices about James proceed). This will occur at Pentecost with the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the whole Community. After forty days and Jesus’ assumption to Heaven, ‘they return to Jerusalem’ (Acts 1:12–14). At this point Luke names them again, and the names are the familiar ones, including Matthew and Thomas, but Judas
Iscariot
or the son ‘of Simon
Iscariot
’ is missing. The last three, ‘James (the son) of Alphaeus (Cleophas?), Simon the Zealot, and Judas (the brother) of James’, are of particular interest, as we saw, because they coincide with the names of three of Jesus’ brothers.

Acts 1:14 also notes a house with an ‘upper chamber’ in connection with the Apostles’ return to Jerusalem – presumably the same one as in Gospel portrayals of the Last Supper – where they go or appear to be staying ‘together with the women and
Mary the mother of Jesus
and
with his brothers
’. In Matthew a parallel Mary is called Mary ‘the mother of James and Joses’ (27:56); in Mark, ‘Mary the mother of James the Less, Joses, and Salome’ (15:40); and in Luke, ‘Mary the mother of James’ (24:10). Elsewhere, Mark 15:47 simply calls her ‘Mary the mother of Joses’ and Matthew, totally perplexed, finally ends up calling her simply ‘
the other Mary
’ (27:61). Thus, even in Acts’ run-up to its
election by lot
to fill Judas’ ‘Episcopate’ or ‘Bishopric’, we have
at least
one and probably
two
additional references to the brothers and family of Jesus.

The Book of Acts versus the Pseudoclementines

Chapter 2 of Acts concludes with the following description:

Every day, steadfastly they went as a body to the Temple and breaking bread in the houses, they partook of food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and finding favour
with the whole of the people
(a clear confirmation of the popularity of this Movement), and the Lord daily added to the Assembly of those being saved. (2:47)

This is just the picture one gets in the Pseudoclementine
Recognitions
as well, of visits to the Temple on a regular basis by James and his Community and their debates or discourses with the Chief Priests either in the Temple or on its steps. As the
Recognitions
puts it (paralleling Acts, Peter narrating) in its run-up to the final debate
on the Temple steps
before Paul’s
physical assault on James
:

The Priests … often sent to us, asking us to discourse to them concerning Jesus, whether He was the Prophet whom Moses foretold. But while they often made such requests to us, and we sought for a fitting opportunity, the Church in Jerusalem was most plentifully multiplied and grew (this is followed by the notice about
being governed with the most Righteous ordinances by James, who was ordained Bishop in it by the Lord
). (1.43)

This accords with the various notices which punctuate Acts’ narrative of the early days of the Community in Jerusalem and connect each of the separate, if often mythological or fantastic, events together. In Acts 5:12–13, leading to the assault on ‘Stephen’, the phrasing is: ‘They all used to meet by common consent in the Portico of Solomon. No one else ever dared to join them, but
the people were loud in their praise
, and t
he multitudes of men and women who believed in the Lord increased steadily’
. Here the parallel with the Pseudoclementines is almost precise. Only the equally drumbeat picture of James’ leadership in the Pseudoclementines is missing in Acts’ narrative.

It is interesting, too, that many of the themes at this point in Acts are taken up in the Pseudoclementine
Recognitions
– as for instance the common purse (Acts 4:34–5:10) and the speech by Gamaliel (5:34–40), represented here as a secret supporter of the Community. As in some manuscripts of the Gospel of Matthew, ‘
Lebbaeus
’ is the name of the Apostle called ‘
Judas of James
’ in Luke instead of ‘
Thaddaeus
’; after he speaks, ‘
Simon the Canaanite
’ takes his turn
on the Temple steps
and then ‘Barnabas who was also surnamed Matthias’ and ‘substituted in place of Judas as an Apostle’ (
thus
), and finally Gamaliel.
15

In the Syriac rendition of this, ‘Barnabas’ is now called ‘Barabbas who became an Apostle instead of Judas the Traitor’. Even these overlaps and confusions have a certain peculiar logic, and one can perhaps assume that the author of the
Recognitions
was transforming his version of the source underlying Acts in his own likewise tendentious and inimitable fashion.

Following Gamaliel’s speech, Acts 5:42 now picks up the theme again of the Apostles being constantly in the Temple: ‘
They preached every day both in the Temple and in private houses
, and their proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus the Christ was never interrupted’. For its part 6:1, leading into the attack on or the stoning of Stephen and the murmuring of the Hellenists against the Hebrews, picks up the ‘multiplication’ theme again: ‘And in those days, the Disciples were multiplying’.

The language here is almost word for word that of the
Recognitions
, the only thing missing, again, being
the election of James
. The words the Pseudoclementines give us here concerning the requests by the Chief Priests to ‘the Archbishop James’ for debates with the early Christian Community in the Temple or on its steps are also directly paralleled in chapters 3–5 of the Book of Acts. In turn, these harmonize very well with the requests by the Chief Priests in the long narrative from Hegesippus about James’ final days in Eusebius. In this account – to a certain extent also recapitulated in Epiphanius and Jerome – the Chief Priests are shown as coming to James and asking him
to stand
on ‘a wing’ or ‘the Pinnacle of the Temple’ and quiet the people.