James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls I (59 page)

Then, too, there are Paul’s various theological speeches – one like James’ ‘on the steps’ of the Temple in front of a Jewish mob thirsting for his blood (Acts 21:40); another, before the Chief Priests and the Sanhedrin. There is also the charge against Paul by the High Priest Ananias, the ‘Elders’ (
Presbyteros
), and someone called ‘Tertullus’ – hardly a Hebrew name – in Caesarea before Felix of ‘being a ring-leader of the Nazoraean Heresy’ and ‘a trouble-maker, moving insurrection among all the Jews in the habitable world’ (24:5) – a charge that, while certainly true for some others, hardly describes Paul.

There is also Paul’s own obsequious remark to Felix, the butcher of so many Jewish Revolutionaries in Palestine and himself promoting or exacerbating the strife between Greeks and Jews in Caesarea: ‘Knowing, as I do, that for many years you have been the Judge of this Nation, the more cheerfully do I make my defence as to things concerning myself’ (Acts 24:10). This sycophancy compares favourably with Tertullus’, ostensibly speaking in condemnation of Paul: ‘We are enjoying great peace through you (Felix) and by your forethought very worthy things are being done for this Nation’ (24:1). Perhaps Tertullus is speaking for the Greeks of Caesarea; he can hardly be speaking on behalf of the Jews. But if this is true, then why this alleged attack on Paul?

This is paralleled by the complete confusion Acts shows about Hellenists and Jews in the early Community in Jerusalem, in which Stephen, perhaps the archetypal
Gentile
convert, with a typically Greek name meaning ‘Crown’ (interpreted in early Church literature to mean the martyr’s ‘Crown’, not unrelated to the ‘Crown’ of James’ Nazirite hair), is presented as a ‘Hebrew’, while his antagonists within the Community are presented as ‘Hellenists’. Not only is Paul’s reference to the number of years Felix had been in the country a little exaggerated, but the obsequiousness Paul displays, if Acts is to be believed, fairly takes one’s breath away. Of course, this is quite normal for Paul when dealing with powerful people from  whom he wanted something.

The note about finding Paul ‘attempting to pollute the Temple’ in Acts 24:6 and earlier in 21:28 does, however, ring true. At least, this charge was in the air in this period, both where the relevant documents from the Dead Sea Scrolls are concerned and Josephus’ description of events leading up to the stopping of sacrifice on behalf of foreigners in the Temple in the
War
. We even hear of it by refraction in Paul’s letters. But Tertullus’ accusation of being a ‘Nazoraean’ and ‘fomenting world revolution’ would be more appropriately directed against James and his mass of ‘Priestly’ followers, ‘all Zealots for the Law’ – and, in fact, probably was.

Then there is the picture of Felix and Drusilla listening to Paul declaim about Faith in Christ Jesus, ‘Righteousness’, and the Last ‘Judgement’, and Felix talking with Paul
often
, hoping, in Acts’ words, ‘Riches would be given him by Paul’ (
thus
). This finally ends with Felix, in order ‘to find favour with the Jews, leaving Paul in bonds’ for Festus the next Governor to deal with (Acts 24:26–27).

But Felix is not interested in finding favour with ‘the Jews’, as by Josephus’ account it is ‘the principal Jewish inhabitants of Caesarea who went to Rome to accuse Felix’ before Nero and, of course, ultimately fail. In fact, the outcome of these complaints is disastrous for the Jews and the equal privileges they previously enjoyed with the Greeks of Caesarea are annulled. This, not because of bribery
by the Jews
, but rather because the Hellenizing inhabitants of Caesarea
bribe
Nero’s Secretary for Greek Correspondence! Josephus calls this individual ‘Beryllus’, but Epaphroditus too probably occupied a similar post. According to Josephus, this and the brutality of Caesarean Legionnaires generally – individuals such as ‘Cornelius’ – is the direct cause of future Jewish misfortune, because the Jews of Caesarea became ‘more unruly than ever’ because of this, until War with Rome was kindled.

This chaos between Greeks and Jews in Caesarea also finds an echo, however remote, in the background to the stoning of Stephen in Acts, just as that between Samaritans and Jews, following the beating of ‘the Emperor’s Servant Stephen’ by ‘Revolutionaries’ does in the unlikely stories about confrontations between Philip, Peter, and Simon
Magus
in Samaria and Lydda. So, too, the various appeals to Caesar relating to these matters find their echo in the various appeals to the Roman Governor in Caesarea in Acts, all of this supposedly
on account of Paul
, and, of course, Paul’s own appeal to Nero Augustus Caesar in Rome.

Acts throws Paul into this mix in Caesarea on several occasions without one word about the inflammable social and political situation there between Greeks and Jews. Rather, in its view, it is Paul’s own ‘Hellenist’ or ‘Greek’ associates from Caesarea and further afield, some of whom accompany him on his last trip to Jerusalem to see James, that provoke the attack on him in Jerusalem because the crowd thinks that ‘he has brought Greeks into the Temple’ (21:28).

The Two Simons in Josephus and Acts and their Confrontations in Caesarea

Another picture in Acts which is both cynical in the extreme and clearly deceptive – even dissimulating – is the designation of Agrippa II’s second sister Drusilla where she is pictured as talking with Paul with her third husband, the Roman Governor Felix (the third Mariamme also went through similar marital travails, even being married at one time to Julius Archelaus above before finally ending up the wife of Philo’s nephew,
the Alabarch of Alexandria himself
! – see Appendix on Herodian Family Genealogies) – simply as ‘
a Jewess
’ and not either a ‘
princess
’ or an ‘
Herodian
’ (24:24).

This is dissimulating because Josephus specifically tells us
she left ‘the Jewish Religion’ to marry Felix
– whom he also identifies
inter alia
as the most brutal Roman Governor – and also because
whether ‘Herodians’ like her were ‘Jewish’ or not was the burning issue of the day
. In addition to this, the ‘circumcision’ issue looms large in Drusilla’s marital difficulties, as Josephus reports them. Agrippa I, her father – the single ‘Herodian’ who made the greatest efforts to mollify his subjects in this regard – first demanded from Antiochus the King of Commagene (near Cilicia and Lower Armenia)
that he circumcise his son Epiphanes
– later Leader of the Roman ‘
Macedonian Legion
’ in the 66-70 Jewish War – before he could marry her. When Antiochus bridled at this, Drusilla was then given by her brother Agrippa II after her father’s death to Azizus the King of Emesa (present-day Homs near Damascus – still a hotbed of revolt) who
did ‘consent to be circumcised
’.

The next point provided by Josephus is
very interesting
. At the conniving of one ‘
Simon a Magician
’ – contemporary with the famous ‘
Simon
’ in Acts and the Pseudoclementines – whom Josephus calls ‘
a friend’ of Felix
in Caesarea, she was finally persuaded ‘
to forsake her current husband and
marry
’
Felix
.
11
Also conniving at this marriage was her sister Bernice, whose marital practices like her sisters as we have seen (she, too, had once been married to the son of the Alabarch of Alexandria, the famous ‘
Tiberius Alexander
’’s – mentioned in Acts and Titus’ second-in-command at the siege of Jerusalem – brother), were a catalogue of actions railed against in
the ‘Three Nets of Belial’ section of the Damascus Document
. Their behaviour is ‘
fornication’
at its highest. Bernice is characterized along with ‘Simon’ as helping ‘to
prevail upon her (Drusilla) to break the Laws of her Ancestors and marry Felix
’ (as she finally did with Titus)!
12

Though in some manuscripts of Josephus, this ‘Simon’ is sometimes called ‘
Atomus
’ – probably a garbled allusion to ‘
the Primal Adam
’ idea, attributed to ‘
Simon
’ particularly in the Pseudoclementines; this
Simon
can be none other than the proverbial ‘Simon
Magus
’ of Acts and early Church literature, and, should we say it,
the
demythologized Simon
. Though Josephus also calls him ‘
a Cypriot’
, this would appear to be another of those confusions based on the notation ‘
Kittim
’ in Hebrew – in the Bible originally, the islands Crete or Cyprus but generalized in Daniel, 1 Maccabees, and the Scrolls to include Western Nations generally – particularly those across the sea. Nevertheless, the Pseudoclementines and most early Church works correctly identify Simon’s place of origin, as we have seen, as ‘
Gitta
’ in Samaria.

Acts has quite a few of such ‘
Cypriots
’ involved with Paul and his teaching, including even Barnabas whom it also calls ‘
Joses a Cypriot
’ (4:36). For it, Paul, as part of his first missionary journey with Barnabas – supposedly also
to
Cyprus – even has a Peter-like confrontation with one ‘Elymus
Magus
’ (13:8). Not only is this individual called ‘
a Jewish false prophet whose name was Bar-Jesus
’ and associated with a certain ‘
Roman Proconsul in Cyprus
’ named ‘
Sergius Paulus
’; Paul’s confrontation with him, as a ‘
Son of the Devil
’ (
Diabolos
) and the ‘
Enemy of all Righteousness
’ – here, not a little reversal, is clearly mythological and smacks of the confrontations between Peter and Simon
Magus
in Acts and parallel materials.
13

If we now identify ‘
Peter
’ with another of these ‘
Simon
’s in the same period – the one whom Josephus identifies as ‘
the Head of an Assembly of his own in Jerusalem
’, who wants to
bar Drusilla and Bernice’s father Agrippa I from the Temple as a foreigner
and
comes to Caesarea
to inspect the latter’s household; then we get an almost
perfect match
– only we must, as above,
remember to
reverse everything
.

According to Josephus, Agrippa I invited this third ‘
Simon
from Jerusalem
’
to come down to Caesarea and inspect his household to see ‘what was being done there contrary to Law
’ –  dismissing him afterwards with a trifling gift.
14
Of course, the reader will immediately recognize this to be
a perfect example of the kind of reversal and dissimulation that was going on
and the original behind
the visit of ‘Simon Peter’ to the household of the Roman Centurion Cornelius in Caesarea, where he learns not to make distinctions between Jews and foreigners
and
not ‘to call any man profane’
.

We are now in a position, as well, to identify correctly the true nature of the confrontation between the two ‘
Simon’
s
in Caesarea
–
not in Samaria
as in Acts, which relate to other confrontations described by Josephus there: first, between ‘
Galileans
’ and ‘
Samaritans
’ and next between ‘
Jews
’ and ‘
Samaritans
’, in the course of this last someone called ‘
Doetus
’ or ‘
Dorcas
’ was ultimately crucified.

That Paul is seemingly sometimes mistaken in both Acts and the Pseudoclementines for Simon
Magus
, both of whom probably ultimately went to Rome in Felix’s wake, is another interesting aspect to this complex of data. That Felix, according to Acts 24:26,
left Paul ‘in bonds’
when he went back to Rome because he worried about Jewish public opinion, is however also quite far-fetched. What is far more likely is that Felix – with his close contacts in Nero’s own household in Rome –
paved the way for Paul’s appeal to Caesar
. This would be particularly so if, as we have suggested, Paul was a Herodian with links to Felix’s wife Drusilla and if the numerous sessions they had – ‘over two years’ according to Acts – were more in the nature of intelligence briefings which on the face of them also seems more likely.

Notwithstanding, once in Rome Paul finds himself relatively free. He ‘
stayed two whole years in a house he rented himself … proclaiming the Kingdom of God and teaching the things about the Lord Jesus Christ without hindrance and with all freedom
’ (28:31). This is the note upon which Acts ends with not a word about Paul’s fate; nor for that matter about James’, which seems an incredible lacuna. Nor did his supposed ‘house arrest’ seem to limit his activities in any way.