James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls I (56 page)

This directive can be seen as directly relating to both the issue of Agrippa II’s dining habits and Simon’s attempt to bar his father from the Temple as a foreigner.

Herodians in the Temple and Appeals to Caesar

Despite Josephus’ somewhat ambiguous attitude towards Agrippa II, there is no hesitation on the part of the Zealot/Messianic extremists as to what they think of him: he is charged with incest with his sister Bernice and both are barred, not only from the Temple, but all Jerusalem by these same Zealot ‘Innovators’ after the Temple Wall Affair, this in spite of the fact that his great-grandfather, Herod, started the reconstruction of the Temple and it was finished owing to his own and his father’s ‘philanthropy’.
51

It is this Temple Wall Affair that immediately preceded the stoning of James. Alongside the consolidation of relations between Agrippa II and Ananus in Rome and the attempt by Simon to have Agrippa I barred from the Temple as a foreigner in the 40’s, it provides something of the backdrop to the devastating and catastrophic events that are to follow.

The sequencing in Book Twenty of the
Antiquities
is interesting
.
Just after he describes the beheading of Theudas (ca. 45 CE), we have the preventative crucifixion of Judas the Galilean’s two sons James and Simon at the time of the Famine by the Jewish Alabarch of Alexandria’s son Tiberius Alexander (46–48 CE). Then he describes an attack just outside Jerusalem on someone he identifies as the Emperor’s servant ‘Stephen’, followed by the Messianic disturbances between Jews and Samaritans in the environs of Lydda and leading to the appointment of Felix as Governor. At this point, Josephus describes how
at Passover
, one of the soldiers guarding the Temple and standing on the top of the Portico, ‘lifted up his skirt and exposed his privy parts to the crowd’. In the
War
, he is described as turning around, lifting up his clothing, and
farting
at the assembled multitudes, which strikes one as being even more realistic. In either case, the soldier expressed his sentiments in an extremely graphic and unambiguous manner.
52

One should note the quasi-parallel sequence in Acts of reference to ‘Judas the Galilean’ in chapter 5, the stoning of Stephen (in 6–7), and Peter’s problems with Simon
Magus
in
Samaria
and Peter’s subsequent visit to Lydda (in 8–9). Tiberius Alexander, whom Josephus also describes as a backslider from ‘the religion of his country’, appears in Acts in the context of disturbances on the Temple Mount as well (4:6); and the circle of Jewish turncoats and Herodians he is involved with will grow in importance as events mount towards their climax.

In the matter of the soldier exposing his privy parts to the crowd, his lewd gesture provokes a huge stampede in which thousands (in the
War
, Josephus speaks of ‘ten thousand’; in the
Antiquities
, ‘twenty’) are supposedly trampled, and this at Passover. Again Josephus explains that it was ‘the customary practice of previous governors of Judea’, fearing revolutionary activity – literally ‘Innovation’ – on the part of the crowds at Festivals, to station ‘a company of soldiers at armed alert to stand guard on the Porticoes of the Temple to quell any attempts at Revolution that might occur’.
53

At this point, too, in its narrative of how Paul was mobbed at Pentecost, because the crowd thought he had introduced foreigners into the Temple, Acts also introduces the reference to ‘the Egyptian’. For his part, Josephus places the affair of this ‘Egyptian, claiming to be a Prophet’ right after he described ‘the Robbers’ who concealed ‘daggers under their cloaks’ and assassinated Ananus’ brother, the High Priest Jonathan, and right before his description of the bloody battles between Greeks and Jews in Caesarea – which would put us some time in the mid-50s.

In Acts’ picture, the ‘Chief Captain’, responding to Paul’s question about whether he knew Greek, concludes Paul is ‘not the Egyptian who before these days caused a disturbance leading some four thousand of the
Sicarii
out into the wilderness’ (21:38). The reference here to ‘
Sicarii
’ again corresponds to Josephus’ introduction of the term just prior to the Temple Wall Affair, itself followed in the
Antiquities
by the exodus of
a second
, unknown ‘certain Impostor’ into the wilderness under Festus (60–62 CE). In the
War
, Josephus introduced the terminology ‘
Sicarii
’ five years earlier at the time of the murder of Jonathan.
54

At the conclusion to the construction of the Temple wall during Festus’ Procuratorship, Josephus describes both Festus and King Agrippa as extremely angry. When Festus instructs the Jews to tear it down, they, in turn, send ten principal men together with Ishmael and Helcias the Temple Treasurer mentioned above –
twelve in all
– to Nero. In Rome, Nero’s wife Poppea, whom Josephus describes as a ‘Worshipper of God’ (a term paralleling that of ‘God-Fearer’ usually applied to Gentiles attaching themselves to the Jewish Community in some manner, but not yet taking all the requirements of the Law upon themselves),
55
intercedes on behalf of
the builders of the wall
.

These she allows to go free – all except Ishmael the High Priest and Helcias, whom she, with Nero’s seeming connivance, keeps back, obviously expecting to get some financial consideration from them, which, no doubt, they eventually provided. One can imagine that there was some financial remuneration that went along with such decisions. Special attention should be paid to these contacts in the household or entourage of Nero. Later, in Domitian’s time, there are actually said to be
Christians
in the Imperial household, Flavius Clemens and Flavia Domitilla. The reader should note that, as in Josephus’ case, the forenames here associate them with the Flavian family. As will become clear, Paul, too, has his own high-level contacts in the household of Nero.
56

For his part Agrippa II, hearing the news of his discomfiture in the matter of the Temple Wall Affair, changes the High Priest. This sets the stage for what he does shortly thereafter, when Festus dies suddenly (62 CE) – he immediately changes the High Priest, this time, seemingly,
to pave the way to dispose of James
. In such a scenario, one must conclude that Agrippa II sees James as the real focal point behind the various difficulties he is experiencing in the Temple and appoints a High Priest more willing to deal with this irritant. It would also appear that by this time Nero is becoming quite fed up with all these various representations on the part of Jews – among which one should include Paul’s – for his future behaviour towards them not only becomes more extreme, but the last Governor before the War, Florus (64–66), would appear to be purposefully attempting to goad the Jews to revolt.
57

Where such appeals to Caesar go, we have had appeals to Caesar on the part of ‘the High Priest’ Ananias and Ananus in the previous decade over the matter of Messianic disturbances and problems between Jews and Samaritans at Lydda and on the part of Paul, but also Josephus himself records in his
Autobiography
that
he made his first trip to Rome at the age of twenty-six – a year or so after the stoning of James – in relation to another such appeal
. This one, as he tells us, was on behalf of ‘
certain Priests of (his) acquaintance’, who were arrested ‘on a small and trifling charge … put in bonds and sent to Rome to plead their case before Caesar when Felix was Procurator of Judea
’.
58
This was around the time of Paul’s original arrest in the Temple, protective custody in Agrippa II’s palace, and his discussions with the Roman Governor Felix and his wife Drusilla. It is on behalf of these unnamed ‘Priests’ that Josephus now goes directly in Rome to this same
Empress Poppea
, Nero’s wife who, in addition to taking an interest in religion and interceding in cases connected with it, seems to have had a propensity for young men. In fact, it is not long after this that Nero, in 65 CE, in a fit of rage, kicked her to death in the stomach, presumably because she was pregnant.

Unfortunately, Josephus does not tell us what the ‘trifling charge’ was for which these ‘certain Priests’ were being held for so long – by his reckoning, some five years or more – but his silence perhaps speaks reams. However, he does tell us that, like James, they were ‘very excellent men’ and vegetarians on account of ‘their Piety towards God’ (the first element in our ‘Piety’/‘Righteousness’ dichotomy).

The ‘Priests’, therefore, on whose behalf Josephus undertook his journey to Rome, must have been ‘Essene’-type or ‘Rechabite Priests’ of the ‘Jamesian’ stripe, eating nothing but nuts and dates in their incarceration. This they did, it seems clear, both to preserve their purity, but also because, like James and
Banus
,
they were observing the absolute purity regulations of extreme ‘Naziritism’
. One can be sure, too, that they did not eat ‘things sacrificed to idols’ either in Palestine or Rome. For his part, it should be remarked,
it was during this trip that Josephus laid the groundwork for his own eventual betrayal of the Jewish People
.

Though, atypically, Josephus declines to reveal the reason why these Pious Priests, on whose behalf he first went to Rome, were detained, it is hard to believe it did not relate in some way either to the Temple Wall Affair, or, at least, the plundering of tithes of ‘the Poor Priests’ by the ‘Rich’ High Priests, and even James’ death. We have already expressed the view that the Temple Wall Affair provides the actual backdrop for the removal of James. Read discerningly, it not only provides insight into what the issues really were and what was going on behind all these events, but the reason why Josephus was of such two minds about them, and this despite his later friendship with Agrippa, who died in 93 CE around the time he came to publish the
Antiquities
and
Autobiography
.
59

This then becomes the backdrop for the removal of James after Festus dies and Albinus is on the way, at which point Agrippa appoints Ananus High Priest. But none of these matters are covered in the parallel account at the end of the Book of Acts. Rather, disturbances in the Temple – such as they are – are represented as being occasioned by reactions to
Paul’s
person, teaching, and activities. Not only is the Roman Chief Captain pictured as allowing Paul to deliver a prosyletizing speech to the Jewish mob ‘wishing to kill him’, but after discovering Paul to be a Roman citizen, he forces ‘the Chief Priests’ and the entire Jewish Sanhedrin to hear him. Here the High Priest, now called ‘Ananias’ – this is very definitely an anachronism – hits Paul in the mouth and Paul responds (presumably because of the white linen he wears) by calling him ‘a white-washed wall’ (23:3). Paul proclaims that he is a Pharisee and being judged because of his hope for ‘the Resurrection of the dead’ and the Jews now fall to fighting among themselves over this doctrine (23:6–10).

The same scenes are more or less re-enacted under Felix and Festus in Caesarea in the next few chapters over the next two years, where Paul is in what appears to be a kind of protective custody. But there is nothing about these other disturbances, nothing about warfare between Jews and Samaritans, nothing about debates, riots, and fights between the High Priests and the Jewish mob, between King Agrippa and the Jews in the Temple, between the people of Caesarea and the Jews – none of these things – only Paul’s difficulties with the Jewish people, itself presented as a unified whole.

This situation is clearly not credible, especially in view of the fact that
James apparently goes on functioning in Jerusalem during the next two years while Paul is supposedly imprisoned in Caesarea with little serious difficulty from these groups until Agrippa II
– taking advantage of the interregnum in Roman Governors caused by the death of Festus,
after his discomfiture in ‘the Temple Wall Affair’ – uses the occasion of his appointment of Ananus as High Priest to definitively remove that individual whom he has clearly identified as the source of his various problems, James the Just
. Nor do James or the other members of the Jerusalem Community appear to visit Paul at all during his two-year incarceration, at least not by Acts’ testimony, which is rather intent on calling attention to Paul’s cordial relations with Roman Governors and Herodian Princesses and Kings –
hardly the social companions of
James
.

If we place James at the centre of these various disturbances in the Temple and identify him as the popular
Zaddik
– ‘
the Zaddik of the Opposition Alliance
’ – and Paul, rather than his confederate, as his opponent in this same Movement,
we arrive at a more credible picture of the true situation in Jerusalem in these times
. Then
the removal of James becomes crucial
and necessitated by his position
representing the ‘Zealous’ forces among the more purity-minded Lower Priest classes within the Temple
.

The Dead Sea Scrolls delineate just such a ‘Zealot Priestly’ or ‘purist’ strain within an ‘Opposition’ framework and the ideological and literary framework upon which it might be constructed – particularly their idea of an ‘
Opposition High Priesthood’ based on the Righteousness ideology
, that is, ‘the Sons of Zadok’ were not simply genealogical High Priests, but
High Priests of ‘the Last Times’ basing their qualifications on Higher Righteousness and Perfect Holiness
. In this context, one might also wish to identify James as
the author of MMT, since it fits perfectly into the range of issues and circumstances we have been delineating here
. This, in fact, would make ‘
MMT
’, which is definitely framed in terms of a ‘
letter
’ – however alien it might superficially appear –
the actual ‘letter’ sent down by James to Antioch with ‘Judas Barsabas’ at the conclusion of the so-called ‘Jerusalem Council’ in Acts
.