James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (21 page)

His response to this last is itself followed by a whole litany of famous self-serving retorts, such as ‘
is it only Barnabas and I who do not have the authority to quit work
’, ‘
who ever serves as a soldier at his own expense
’, or the equally famous evocation of Deuteronomy 25:4, ‘
You shall not muzzle an ox treading out corn
’, while at the same time making it crystal clear that what was on his mind was ‘
the Law of Moses
’ (1 Corinthians 9:8–9): ‘
Do we not have the authority to take around a sister
,
a wife
,
as the other Apostles do
and (
as do
)
the brothers of the Lord and Cephas
(1 Corinthians 9:5)?’
Not only is the allusion to ‘
the brothers of the Lord and Cephas
’ separate and distinct from ‘
the other Apostles
’, but, for our purposes, this last clearly demonstrates that Paul knew ‘
the brothers of the Lord
’ or, if one prefers, ‘
of Jesus
’, in particular, the third brother known in the various sources, as we have been developing them, as ‘
Judas
(
the brother
)
of James
’/‘
Judas the Zealot
’ or ‘
Thaddaeus
’/‘
Theudas
’/‘
Judas Thomas
’ (‘
Judas the Twin
’) and that
they – or at least
‘
Judas
’
– did have families
.

This, in turn, concurs with materials from Hegesippus claiming that the descendants of Jesus’ third brother, ‘
Judas
’ (or ‘
Jude
’ if one prefers),
were questioned in either Vespasian
’
s or Domitian
’
s time – or both – and executed in Trajan
’
s
.
106
In fact, the variant source we have already referred to above which designates ‘
Lebbaeus who was surnamed Thaddaeus
’ or ‘
Judas of James
’ as ‘
Judas the Zealot
’ confirms this too and even knows where this ‘
Judas the Zealot
’ was buried – ‘
Berytus
’ or ‘
Beirut
’.
Therefore, unlike James and the individual ‘
Simeon bar Cleophas
’, who succeeded James – normally seen as James’ first
cousin
, but whom we consider to be the putative second brother of Jesus (his parallel in Apostle lists being ‘
Simon the Zealot
’ or possibly even, in our view, ‘
Simon Iscariot
’),
these notices imply that Judas at least was married and had children – even grandchildren
.

James in the Temple as
Opposition High Priest

It is primarily to Eusebius, Epiphanius, and Jerome (mostly via Hegesippus in the Second Century) that one must also turn to get a picture of James’ person – in particular, what he was doing on the Temple Mount and the nature of the clothing he wore there.
1
All present James, whether a product of their imagination or otherwise, as functioning as an ‘Opposition’ High Priest of some kind and doing the sort of things in the early Sixties CE, if not before, that a High Priest normally did – what kind of High Priest, we shall attempt to delineate as we proceed.
2

Not only does Epiphanius present these things even more forcefully than Eusebius – in this he is supported by Jerome – actually citing Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius as his sources, insisting that
James actually wore the diadem
or
head-plate of the High Priest with the inscription
‘
Holy to God
’ on
it
, but also that
he went into the Holy of Holies
or
Inner Sanctum of the Temple
,
if not regularly
,
at least once
– there to render a
Yom Kippur
-
style atonement on behalf of the whole People.
3

In the received Eusebius, again obviously relying on Hegesippus, this is reduced somewhat or, as the case may be, garbled. There Eusebius claims, rather obscurely, that James ‘
used to go into the Temple
(‘
Sanctuary
’)
regularly alone’
. Moreover he provides the description of ‘
his supplication on behalf of the People on his knees before God
’
until they
‘
turned as hard as camel
’
s hide
’ – the more general ‘
Sanctuary
’ or ‘
Temple
’ being substituted for Epiphanius’ and Jerome’s more specific ‘
Holy Place
’ or ‘
Holy of Holies
’/‘
Inner Sanctum
’.
4

Furthermore Eusebius reports that James was called ‘
the Righteous
’
or
‘
Just One
’ and ‘
Oblias
’ (which Hegesippus appears to define as ‘
Protection of the People
’)
on account of
‘
his exceeding great Piety
’, and that these titles were to be found by searching Scripture – or, as he so inimitably puts it, ‘
as the Scripture declares concerning him
’ – him and, one might add, J
e
sus.
5
Nevertheless, his presentation of James ‘
kneeling before God
’
in
‘
the Temple alone
’ is patently impossible unless he means by this, as Epiphanius and Jerome do, ‘
the Holy of Holies
’ or ‘
Inner Sanctum of the Temple
’, since
the Temple
as a total entity was a public building and no one ever went into it ‘
alone
’ as he puts it – there ‘
to intercede on his knees for the forgiveness of the People
’ – at least not in its public parts or outer precincts.

So, if we are to credit Eusebius’ redaction or transcription of Hegesippus, a solitary atonement of this nature – just as Epiphanius and Jerome declare – would have had to have taken place in the ‘
Inner Precincts
’ (the Inner Sanctum or the Holy of Holies itself), and this by the High Priest only once a year, on
Yom Kippur
. So if James ever really did go into the Temple ‘
by himself
’ in the manner all three describe, then the version conserved by Epiphanius and Jerome – if not more detailed – is ce
r
tainly the more comprehensible.

All three also make much of the ‘
linen clothes
’ James was supposed to have worn – just as Josephus predicates of
Essenes
and that
Banus
with whom he (Josephus) spent a two-year novitiate in the Fifties CE.
6
Banus
, he tells us,
took only cold baths and wore only
‘
clothes that grew on trees
’ – a charming way to translate the idea of
wearing only linen
.
7
Epiphanius adds the detail (perhaps real – perhaps imagined) that
he wore no footwear
.
8
This last, of course, was true of all Priests and persons generally when entering the Temple, just as it is in all mosques to this day.
9

While this is found in no other source other than in Epiphanius, for his part he is missing another tradition about James mentioned in all the other sources – namely the practice definitive also of Josephus’
Essenes
of
not anointing himself with oil
.
10
Eusebius adds to this last, again doubtlessly relying on Hegesippus,
he did not
‘
go to the baths
’, but this too is probably ga
r
bled. For his part, Epiphanius reproduces this as ‘
he did not wash in a bath
’.
11
Both are probably wrong or perhaps it would be more appropriate to say their true intent or meaning has been lost in transmission or translation.

The reason for this is once again simple: if James did go on the Temple Mount in the manner they describe, then he would have had to have taken a cold-water, ritual immersion-style bath, as all persons entering its hallowed precincts did. There would have been no exceptions to this – and this is probably the root of the conundrum. In fact, the mistake is similar to the one made in reading Josephus’ descriptions of
Essenes
, namely, that ‘
they preferred being unwashed
’ or, more accurately probably, ‘
they preferred having dry skin
’ – once again meaning, that when they did take ‘
baths
’ or, more properly, ‘
immerse themselves
’
they did not
‘
anoint themselves
’
or
use oil in the Greco-Roman manner
. It patently
did not mean they did not bathe
.

This, at once, both illumines the problem and provides the solution. What these ‘
Daily Bathing
’ Essenes did was
not
go to
Roman baths
, for certainly
Josephus
’ ‘
Essenes
’
were
‘
Daily Bathers
’. So was Josephus’
Banus
(a name presumably via the Latin implying ‘
bathing
’), as certainly was James despite these testimonies to the contrary.
What such testimonies must be unde
r
stood as saying is that they
did not take hot
baths
,
but rather cold
ones
, just as Josephus relates
Banus
did.
Nor did they, as was common in such bathing establishments, ‘
anoint the skin with oil
’ – both being, as it were, two sides of the same coin.

The special characteristics of James’ person and behaviour described in the reports about him, preserved by Eusebius and supported by Epiphanius and a little more cursorily in Jerome, are for the most part associated with those Josephus and others are calling ‘
Essenes
’ as well. In addition to common characteristics such as these, however, the reports about James go even further and, to a certain degree reflect what is also to be found in Ezekiel’s description of the ‘
Sons of Zadok
’ ‘
serving
’ in the newly reconstructed Temple, including ‘
wearing only linen and no wool
’, ‘
no razor coming near his head
’ (a variation of what Ezekiel 44:20 is describing as ‘
not shaving
’ or ‘
cutting their hair
’ but rather ‘
polling it
’), and the Nazirite-like requirement of ‘
drinking no wine
’.

As Ezekiel 44:17 puts the first of these:
‘And it will be, when they
(‘
the Priests, the Levites who are Sons of Zadok
’)
enter into the gates of the Inner Court, they shall wear only linen garments and no wool shall touch their flesh
.’
It is at this point, too, that they are enjoined,
not to
‘
shave their heads
’ (44:20 – as Hegesippus puts it with regard to James, ‘
no razor came upon his head
’), but rather ‘
only to poll their hair
’ and, while they are ‘
in the Inner Court
’ of the Temple, ‘
to drink no wine
’ (44:21).

The twin requirements about ‘
wearing only linen
’ and ‘
no wool touching their flesh
’ are particularly interesting, especially when trying to link James up with other notices at Qumran.
12
Even the ban on
carrion
associated with James’ directives to overseas communities in Acts 15:20–29 and 21:25 (not incuriously, preceded in 21:24 by James’ ‘
temporary Nazirite
’ oath-procedure injunction to ‘
shave their heads
’) and, even more specifically, in the Pseudoclementines, is also to be found in Ez
e
kiel 44:31’s description of these ‘
Sons of Zadok
’ in the New Temple who
‘were to eat no flesh of anything dying naturally or that has been savaged
,
either a bird or any other living creature’
.
A more perfect description of the ban on
carrion
in James’ instructions to overseas communities is not to be found.
13

James as
Rainmaker
, Noah the First
Zaddik
, and the Eschatological
Rain
and
Flood
Tradition.

Strikingly, Epiphanius provides yet another curious detail about James, missing from the descriptions provided by these various other sources: that
once during a famine he brought rain
, that is,
James was a
‘
Rainmaker
’.
14
In this regard, it is useful to recall that whatever else Epiphanius might have been, he was a Palestinian and, originally probably, ‘
an Ebionite
’ or ‘
Jewish Christian
’. Whether this activity attributed to James took place during
the Famine
introducing Josephus’ ‘
Theudas’
episode and so important to Paul’s and Queen Helen’s
famine-relief
activities is impossible to say. However, if it did occur
‘at the time of the Famine
’, then it would make this notice in Epiphanius
all the more meaningful
.
15

Alluding to this event in between his description of James
wearing the diadem of the High Priest and entering the Holy of Holies
and the general drift of the information he provides about James being called ‘
the Righteous
’ or ‘
Just One
’, Epiphanius describes the rainmaking on his part as follows:
‘Once during a famine
,
he lifted his hands to Heaven and prayed
,
and at once Heaven sent rain
.’
16
This
rainmaking
ascribed to James is no ordinary matter. If authentic, the notice has to be considered connected to James’ ‘
Noahic
’ status as ‘
the Just One
’, like Noah, ‘
Perfect and Righteous in his generation
’ (Genesis 6:9).

Here we come to some uniquely Palestinian concepts common to early Church traditions about James and ideologies permeating the Dead Sea Scrolls. Not only does James’ status of
Zaddik
– to say nothing of his
rainmaking
– remount to his relationship to the first biblical
Zaddik
, Noah, and his salvationary activity at the time of the first apocalyptic Flood,
but
it bears on James’ participation, like ‘
the Sons of Zadok
’ and ‘
the Elect of Israel
’ at Qumran generally, in the final apocalyptic Judgement on mankind or, at least,
his calling down this Judgement in the Temple
in terms of images first evoked by the apocalyptic visionary Daniel – images also attributed to Jesus in the Gospels and later to be found in climactic passages in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
17