James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls I (24 page)

As Eusebius puts it, quoting Hegesippus verbatim:

From which some believed that
Jesus was the Christ
(this note about Jesus ‘being the Christ’ is also the point of James’ speech at this point in the
Recognitions
). But the aforesaid heresies did not believe either in the Resurrection or that
He was coming to give to every one according to his works
, but as many as did believe, did so
on account of James
(thus far, this more or less parallels the Pseudoclementines) … There arose a riot among the Jews and Scribes and Pharisees, saying that the whole people was in danger of looking for Jesus as the Christ. So they assembled, and said to James, ‘We beseech you to restrain the people, who are going astray after Jesus as though he were the Christ. We beseech you to persuade all who are coming to the feast of the Passover rightly concerning Jesus; for all obey you. For we and all the people testify that you are Righteous and
do not respect persons
. Therefore, persuade the people not to be led astray after Jesus, for all the people and ourselves have confidence in you. Therefore stand upon a wing of the Temple that you may be clearly visible from above and your words readily heard by all the people.
16

There follows the account, again following Hegesippus, of the attack on James and his fall from, not ‘the steps’ this time, but the wing or Pinnacle of the Temple. This is the sequencing followed in the Pseudoclementines too, though there James only falls from the steps of the Temple and the nature of the attack differs somewhat. Nor does James die because of it. It is our position that this attack, as pictured in the Pseudoclementines,
is a more accurate representation
of the events as they really occurred than those in early Church literature, which are all more or less dependent on each other and will be seen as clearly attempting to cover up
embarrassing
aspects of this attack.

This presentation in Eusebius/Hegesippus is very similar to what we see in the Pseudoclementines and even in Acts. It is also very strong testimony to the authenticity of the Pseudoclementine account at this point anyhow – or at least its underlying source. In this sense, the Pseudoclementine tradition is a
more primitive version
of the episode, which, by the second century and Hegesippus, is already beginning to undergo its various transformations.

Note the great respect the Jerusalem Community leaders enjoy among the crowd. There is really no point to lie in favour of this presentation; on the contrary. James is presented as so popular that the Herodian Establishment feel the people will do whatever he ‘commands’ them to do. It is even stated that ‘all obey you’, that is, he is the popular Leader among the people, and they will do whatever he says.

This is exactly the presentation in Josephus of the events surrounding the death of John the Baptist as well. There, Josephus says that Herod Antipas feared that the people would be prepared to do whatever John said and he fears that John will lead an uprising. This is also the approach of the Gospel presentation of Jesus, which constantly emphasizes his wide popularity and the stratagems the High Priests must undertake to incarcerate him. There can be little doubt that this is
the truth
of the situation.

When discussing James’ ‘
Zaddik
’ nature and the ‘Righteous One’ ideology generally, it is possible to make some sense out of these testimonies. The same where the Righteous Teacher at Qumran is concerned, and his ‘
Zaddik
’ nature, which so parallels James’. In our understanding, James was ‘the
Zaddik
’ of the Opposition Alliance, meaning that all the people including the Rulers – were obliged to pay him homage, and as such,
obey him
.

Additional Parallels Between Acts and the Pseudoclementines

In the Pseudoclementine
Recognitions,
James’ debate with the Priests in the Temple is followed by the attack in which he is thrown down the steps of the Temple and breaks his leg. It comes after the speeches of the other Apostles on the Temple steps and Gamaliel. This is the order in Acts as well. There Gamaliel’s speech on the Temple Mount is followed by that of Stephen and the latter’s
stoning
, in connection with which Saul or Paul is introduced (Acts 5:34–8:1).

In the Pseudoclementines James ‘speaks from a height, so that (he) can be seen by all the people’. This speech has much in common with the one in Eusebius/Hegesippus before
he is stoned
as well. This is particularly true of James’ answer to the question, ‘what is the Gate to Jesus’: ‘He is sitting in Heaven
on the right hand of the Great Power
and he is about to come on the clouds of Heaven’.
17
The language here is exactly that accompanying the ‘footstool’ imagery from Psalm 110:1–3, which Peter uses in the parallel narrative in Acts – also in the general ambience of verbal confrontations on the Temple Mount – to accuse the
Jewish crowd
(not the High Priests) of murdering Jesus (2:30–35).

This imagery, which is based on Daniel 7:13 and contains the ‘Great Power’ language so important to later sectarian understanding of ‘the Christ’, is clearly that of the Redeemer Jesus
coming in Power on the clouds of Heaven with the Heavenly Host
. It is paralleled to some degree in James’ speech on the Temple steps in the Pseudoclementine
Recognitions
at this point as well. Here James is pictured as giving the scriptural warrants for
two comings
, the first, more humble, having already transpired. But the second ‘in Glory’ would be more supernatural and mighty – that is, the Messiah coming on the clouds of Heaven with the Heavenly Host – in which he would reign over ‘
those who believe
in him and
do everything
that He commanded’.

James’ proclamation of the Messiah ‘coming with Power on the clouds of Heaven with the Heavenly Host’ at Passover in the Temple is the crucial one for Jerome as well. The same vision will be attributed to Jesus in what will turn out to be the retrospective presentation of his responses to the Sanhedrin trial for ‘blasphemy’ in ‘the High Priest’s House’ the night of his execution in the Gospels (Matt. 26:64 and Mark 14:62). But, even more importantly and most tellingly, it is also the vision Acts 7:56 vouchsafes to Stephen immediately preceding its picture of
his stoning
and Paul’s appearance on the scene.

It is the author’s view that all of these presentations are, in fact, prefigured in the two versions of James’ speech in the Temple prior to the attack on him or his stoning in the Pseudoclementine
Recognitions
and early Church accounts.

PART III

James’ Role in the Jerusalem of His Day

Chapter 10

James’ Rechabitism and Naziritism

The Privy for the High Priests, the Prostitute’s Hire, and Judas
Iscariot’
s
‘Price of Blood
’

Having delineated James’ election or appointment as leader of the Jerusalem Assembly, we are now in a better position to consider his person and role in the Jerusalem of his day, in particular James as a ‘Rechabite’ and ‘Nazirite’. To do so, it is best to work backwards and begin with the later testimonies in Talmudic and early Church literature and close with the more contemporary literature at Qumran.

The Talmudic references centre on a character called ‘
Jacob of Sihnin
’ or ‘
Kfar Sechania
’,
a town supposedly in
Galilee
. In the most famous of these stories, ‘Jacob’ (the Hebrew or Greek of ‘James’) comes to cure a famous rabbi of snakebite.
1
This Rabbi, Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, was supposed to have had heretical tendencies and was actually
excommunicated
at one point by his fellow rabbis on the suspicion of being
a secret Christian
. Jacob tells him a story about ‘
Jesus the Nazoraean
’, this time relating not to a ‘
Traitor’s hire
’ as in the Judas story, but a ‘
harlot’s hire
’.

In support of this, he quotes two scriptural passages: one from Deuteronomy 23:18 about ‘bringing a prostitute’s hire into the House of God’ and the other Micah 1:7: ‘from the earnings of a prostitute she (the Temple) gathered them, and to the hire of a prostitute (the High Priesthood) they should return’. Stories about ‘prostitutes’ or ‘harlots’ in this period usually have something to do with both condemnations of ‘
fornication
’
and attacks on the Establishment and their sexual mores. Jacob’s story, which is rather bawdy and amusing, has to do with how Jesus the Nazoraean saw the issue of contributions to the Temple from
prostitutes
. Not only do Jacob and Jesus exhibit the characteristic hostility towards the High Priests and the Establishment we have come to expect from opposition leaders, but Jesus is presented as being unsympathetic to prostitutes or harlots too, quite different from how the Gospels portray him.

On another level, this story also has to do with the Herodian aristocracy contributing to the Temple, as it would have done regularly and extravagantly. Jacob actually evinces quite a funny sense of humour about this. He provocatively starts the discussion by quoting Deuteronomy 23:18 about ‘
a prostitute’s hire in the House of God
’ and, taking advantage of Eliezer’s momentary astonishment, rhetorically asks whether or not it would be ‘lawful to use such hire to construct an
outhouse for the High Priest
’.

In Deuteronomy 23, this matter about the earnings of sacred prostitutes (17–18) immediately follows curses on ‘
Balaam the son of Be‘or
’ and the proscription on admitting Edomites (often designating ‘Herodians’ in our period) into ‘the Lord’s Congregation’ (23:1–9). This is followed by ‘
going out to the camps to face the enemy
’ and ‘
God walking with them in the camps
’ (allusions found in the War Scroll), and the ‘the camps being Holy’ (23:19–24). This is the context in which the issue of latrines is discussed and their placement outside the camps.

Picking up this issue of toilets, Jacob answers his own question by citing a quotation he attributes to ‘
Jesus the Nazoraean
’ to the effect that ‘since it originated in filth, it can be applied to filth’, meaning that it would be a good thing ‘to build a privy’ or ‘outhouse for the High Priest’ with such earnings. Not only is the audacity of this question astonishing in its contemptuous sarcasm, but it parallels a saying of Jesus in orthodox Scripture, basically used to widen the permissions regarding forbidden things or, as Mark puts it, to
declare ‘all things pure’
. The whole discussion, which begins with ‘Jesus’ addressing the question of ‘
eating with unwashed hands
’, ends with the now proverbial ‘
not that which enters the mouth defiles a man’; this ‘is cast into the toilet bowl’
. Rather ‘
that which goes forth out of the mouth defiles a man
’ (Mt 15:17–18 and Mk 7:15–20).

Interestingly, the ‘prostitute’s wages’ of Deuteronomy 23:18 that ‘Jesus the Nazoraean’ considers to be ‘filth’ is coupled with ‘the hire of a dog’, generally thought to carry the sense – clear from the context – of male prostitution.

Mark begins his discussion of ‘purifying all food’ and ‘declaring all things clean’ with allusion to ‘coming from the marketplace’ and not having to wash your hands like ‘the Pharisees and
all the Jews
do’ (7:2–5). Paul, too, answering James’ directives to overseas communities on ‘food sacrificed to idols’ in I Corinthians 10:23–25, evokes the
marketplace
in making a parallel point: ‘all things are Lawful for me … Eat everything that is sold in the marketplace. There is no need to raise questions of conscience’. Though Mark, unlike Matthew, does not specifically apply the ‘casting out’ language to unclean things going out the belly and into the toilet (7:19), he does employ it in the very next episode – his version of Jesus ‘casting out the unclean spirit’ (
ekballe
) of the Syrophoenician woman’s daughter (7:24-26). Like Matthew, however, Mark then does use ‘casting down’ language in the second half of this episode, the part about ‘taking the children’s bread and casting (
balein
) (it) to the dogs’ (7:27–29). This kind of language and these themes will reappear in John 21’s version of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances along the Sea of Galilee and the Disciples – called by Jesus ‘little children’ – ‘casting down’ their nets there.

Throughout all of these matters, we will have in the Gospels the typical reversal of themes in favour of the Pauline ‘Gentile Mission’. This is also clear in the saying of Jesus Matthew presents about ‘things entering the mouth not defiling a man’, but ‘being cast down the toilet bowl’ (Mt 15:11–17), to wit, ‘Every plant which my Heavenly Father has not planted shall be uprooted’ (15:13). The Jewish legal prohibitions regarding unclean things, including ‘washing the hands’ and the ‘washings of cups and pots and brazen vessels’ in Mark 7:4, are just these kinds of ‘plants’.