James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls I (11 page)

It can be objected that the Pseudoclementines are not history but fiction – hence the prefixed ‘pseudo’. But this is what we are dealing with in regard to most documents from this period, except those with outright historical intent like Josephus. On this basis, the Pseudoclementines do not differ appreciably from more familiar documents like the Gospels or the Book of Acts. The Pseudoclementines are no more counterfeit than these. The point is that there is occasionally reliable material in these accounts, particularly in the First Book of the
Recognitions
.

Here one might wish to apply the doctrine of incongruity, that is, when a fact is considered poorly documented for some reason or flies in the face of obviously orthodox materials, this is sometimes good grounds for taking it more seriously than one might otherwise have done. The physical attack by Paul on James, described in the
Recognitions
, is just such a piece of astonishing material. It will overlay lacunae and clearly counterfeit materials in the Book or Acts – for instance, about someone called ‘Stephen’ – so well that it will be all but impossible to discard.

The Pseudoclementines give a picture of the early Church in Palestine at odds with the one presented in Acts, yet meshing with it at key points. Though they have come down in several recensions, a case can be made for their being based on the same source as Acts – that is, the Pseudoclementines and Acts connect in a series of recognizable common joins, but the material is being treated differently in one narrative than in the other.

For the most part the Pseudoclementines are concerned with confrontations between Peter and Simon
Magus
. Acts is also concerned with this confrontation, but whereas it passes over it in a few sentences, the Pseudoclementines linger over its various metamorphoses
ad nauseam
. However these things may be, the basic treatment of the confrontation between Simon Peter and Simon
Magus
in Caesarea, where the Pseudoclementines correctly locate it, can be shown to be more historical than the patently more fantastic presentation of it in the Book of Acts. The
Recognitions
also clear up Acts’ lack of precision about Simon
Magus
’ place of origin, which is identified as ‘
Gitta
’ in Samaria. This is also confirmed in Eusebius.
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This is just one example of the superiority of the novelizing of the Pseudoclementines over the novelizing of the Book of Acts, and that all references to ‘pseudo’ in these matters are relative.

Because of its confusion over this, Acts places Peter’s confrontation with Simon
Magus
in
Samaria
instead of Caesarea where it belongs. When this confrontation is joined with Josephus’ picture of the Simon ‘the Head of an Assembly’ (
Ecclesia
) of his own in Jerusalem in the
Antiquities
, who also comes to Caesarea to meet with Agrippa I around 44 CE, then we shall be able to make some sense of all these overlapping and sometimes contradictory notices (
Ant.
19.332–4).

Prefaced to the second cluster of Pseudoclementine materials, the
Homilies
, are two letters like those one finds in the New Testament, but
purporting to be from Peter to James and Clement to James. Putting aside the question of their authenticity for the moment, that they are pointedly addressed to James as ‘Bishop of Bishops’ or ‘Archbishop’ shows that their authors had little doubt that James was the leader of the whole of Christianity in his time and that Apostles like Peter and Paul were subordinate to him.

In addition, these letters contain several important points for our
consideration, for instance, that all overseas teachers required letters of
introduction or certification from James and were required to send him back periodic reports of their activities – an assertion that makes sense. We would have had little trouble deducing this in any case from reading between the lines of Paul’s shrill protests concerning his lack of such certification in his letters. But the fact of this requirement actually being present in these apocryphal letters prefacing an ‘anti-Acts’ is impressive. It is like finding a missing link. Had it not been present, we would have had to deduce it.

To sum up: it is our position that Acts and the Pseudoclementines are neither independent of nor dependent on each other; but parallel accounts going back to the same source: that is, the First and Second Books of the Pseudoclementine
Recognitions
do not go back to Acts, but to a common source both were using. But one can go even further than this. One can
insist, however startling this may at first appear, that the
Recognitions
are
more faithful to this underlying source than Acts. The points of contact between the two are clearly discernible as, for instance, the confrontations on the Temple Mount culminating in an attack led by Paul on someone, but so is the fact that Acts is changing the source on which both are based in a consistent and clearly discernible manner. At times this borders on what, in the jargon of today, might be called ‘disinformation’.

These confrontations on the Temple Mount would also appear to be the subject matter of another lost work about James from which Epiphanius quotes several passages. Epiphanius calls this work the
Anabathmoi Jacobou
– the
Ascents of James
, a title that sets up interesting resonances with the Jewish underground mystical tradition, known as
Kabbalah
. The
Ascents of James
, which appears to relate to the discourses James gave in the Temple while standing on the Temple steps – hence the title – also relates to the picture in the early part of Acts of the Apostles going every day to the Temple as a group and, there, either talking to the Jewish crowd or arguing with the Temple Authorities. The same picture is represented in the
Recognitions of Clement
, and some believe materials from the
Anabathmoi
have ended up in the Pseudoclementines.

The materials that Epiphanius does excerpt are interesting in themselves and fill in some missing points about Paul’s biography, as seen through the eyes of his opponents not his supporters, and place James at the centre of agitation in the Temple in the years leading up to the Uprising. Not only will this last assertion be shown to bear on how Temple service was being carried out by Herodian High Priests, but also to the rejection of gifts and sacrifices from Gentiles in the Temple by those
Josephus calls either ‘
Sicarii
’ or ‘Zealots’ three and a half years after the
death of James, triggering the Revolt against Rome. Both will also be seen reflected in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Dead Sea Scrolls

The most controversial and debatable identifications we will make will concern the Dead Sea Scrolls. It will be asked, what have these documents to do with a study of James? The answer is simple. In the first place, they are parallel and, in some cases, contemporary cultural materials. Some may object that the Dead Sea Scrolls are earlier documents. Even if this proposition were proven for all the Scrolls, which it is not,
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the ideas represented in much of the corpus have a familiar ring, particularly when one gets to know those ideas associated with James or takes an in-depth look at the letter associated with his name in the New Testament. So, initially, it is certainly permissible to say that the ideas in the Scrolls flow in a fairly consistent manner into the ideas associated with the Community led by James, regardless of the dating of the Qumran texts.

No one doubts that there are older documents among the Dead Sea Scrolls. But no one can contest the fact that there are also newer ones, the only question being how new? Some texts contain ideas and allusions that are all but indistinguishable from those represented by the Community led by James, and it is these that must be seen as contemporary. These documents are sometimes referred to as ‘sectarian’, meaning, in terms of our above discussions, non-Pharisaic or non-Rabbinic. These include, at the very least, all the
pesharim
at Qumran (Hebrew plural for
pesher
).

But what is a
pesher
? A
pesher
is a commentary – at Qumran, a
commentary on a well-known biblical passage, usually from the Prophets
. The important thing is that the biblical passage being interpreted was fraught with significance for the Scroll Community. Often this takes the form of citing a biblical passage out of context or even sometimes slightly altered, followed by the words, ‘
peshero
’ or ‘
pesher ha-davar
’, meaning ‘its interpretation’ or ‘the interpretation of the passage is’. The text then proceeds to give an idiosyncratic interpretation having to do with the history or ideology of the group, with particular reference to contemporary events. These commentaries or
pesher
s have been found at Qumran in single exemplars only and none in multiple copies, which is not the case for most other documents found there.

The number of sectarian documents among the Scrolls reaches well into the hundreds. This is why the documents found at Qumran are so astonishing. They are not just a random sampling or cross-section of the literature from this period, as some have theorized, but very uniform and consistent in content. Of course there are variations having to do with the style or personality of individual authors or period of origin, but the same doctrines move from document to document, the same terms, the same
dramatis personae
.

The literature discovered in the caves – and it is a literature – is a wildly creative one, and different authors are expressing themselves, sometimes in a most creative or poetic manner. However one will never, for instance, find a document advocating compromise, nor one recommending accommodation with the powers-that-be or foreigners or those, the writers designate in their sometimes infuriatingly obscure code, ‘
the Seekers after Smooth Things’
. One will never find a text at Qumran denigrating the Law or advocating, for instance, ‘niece marriage’, ‘polygamy’, or ‘divorce’ – all of which this group considered ‘breaking the Law’.

The same imagery, too, moves from document to document, the imagery of ‘Righteousness’, ‘Perfection’, ‘zeal’, ‘the Poor’, straightening ‘the Way’, the Community as Temple, ‘Holy Spirit’ baptism, the ‘Perfection of Holiness’, and the same personalities: ‘the Righteous Teacher’, ‘the Wicked Priest’, ‘the Spouter of Lies’, ‘the Comedian’, or ‘the Traitors’.

There are multiple copies of some ‘sectarian’ or ‘non-biblical’ documents like the famous War Scroll, the Community Rule, the Damascus Document, the Qumran Hymns, ‘
MMT
’ or ‘the Letters relating to Works Righteousness’,
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and others. The precise date of these documents is still a matter of much controversy. It is not that these documents do not come from the Second Temple Period. They do. The problem is trying to date them with more precision than that.

Given the state of the archaeological and palaeographic data having to do with the Community responsible for these writings, I have said that one must make one’s determinations on the basis of internal data – the allusions and perspective of the document itself. Take, for example, the Community Rule, which many Qumran specialists have attempted to date in the second century BCE or even earlier on the basis of handwriting that they consider ‘older’ relative to ‘newer’ fragments.

However in the Community Rule we have ‘the Way in the wilderness’ text from Isaiah 40:3, applied in the New Testament to the mission of John the Baptist, referred to twice, and an exposition of the passage consistent with the mindset of Qumran, applying it to the Community’s own ‘separation’ and activities in the wilderness.
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In addition, there is a plethora of other allusions like ‘the Holy Spirit’, baptism, the Community as Temple, and ‘spiritualized sacrifice’ imagery so familiar in the Pauline corpus.
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Given the parallels with what we know to be first-century ideas,
this document is
late
– meaning first century CE – regardless of dubious palaeographic estimations.

The same can be said for the Damascus Document. Again, on the basis of internal data, this document has a first-century ambience as well, regardless of arguments to the contrary based on external data. These internal considerations include the exegesis of ‘the Star Prophecy’ and other Messianic allusions – the first-century currency of which is indisputable – together with the ideology of ‘Justification’, the Commandment to ‘love your neighbour’, which the Letter of James calls ‘the Royal Law according to the Scripture’ and which Josephus designates as one of the fundamental parts of John the Baptist’s ‘Righteousness’/‘Piety’ dichotomy, and the ‘Damascus’ imagery one also finds in the Book of Acts. There are many more.

Similarly, all
pesharim
from Qumran must be seen as ‘late’. This is not only because of formulae like ‘
the Last Priests of Jerusalem
’ and Habakkuk 2:4, ‘the Righteous shall live by his Faith’, which we know was being subjected to exegesis in the first century CE; but also the searing
description of the foreign armies invading the country, who ‘sacrifice to
their standards and worship their weapons of war’ – Roman Imperial practice of the first century CE – and Roman ‘tax-farming’ and final ‘booty- taking’ in the Temple, which did not occur after any assault except that of 70 CE.
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