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

The passages quoted in Acts in relation to the
election of the Twelfth Apostle
come from Psalms 69 and 109. For the Gospels, these are also favourite sources for the biography of Jesus. The quotation from Psalm 69, as given in Acts 1:20, ‘let his encampment become desolate and let no one be dwelling in it’, in the biblical Hebrew is rather recorded in the
plural
(that is, ‘their camp’/’their tents’) in what is actually an
extremely Zionistic
psalm, so much so that it even ends on the hope of ‘rebuilding the cities of Judah’ and ‘dwelling in them’ (69:36).

The original reads, ‘let
their
camp be deserted and their tents be not lived in’ (69:25). Psalm 69 is also a ‘
Zaddik
’ text containing references to ‘the Poor’ and ‘the Meek’, not to mention the famous passage also found in the Gospels about ‘being given vinegar to drink’, those bearing on ‘being a foreigner to my brothers, a stranger to my mother’s sons’, and finally the one in the Gospel of John, attributed to Jesus referring to the Temple, ‘zeal for My father’s house consumes me’; but nothing that could be construed as applying in any sense to
Judas Iscariot
– quite the opposite.

Its commonality with Psalm 109, another ‘Suffering Servant’-type recital similar to Isaiah 53, would appear to be the mutual references to ‘the Poor’ and ‘the Meek’ (109:16–22), full of meaning with regard to the Community of James, not to mention the Qumran Scrolls. Not only does it use favourite Qumranisms like ‘Deceitfulness’ and ‘a Lying Tongue’, but it also has something of the character of an execration text or ‘cursing’ one also finds in Qumran texts.
17
In fact, its atmosphere is most un-Christian, vengeful, full of wrath, and completely uncharitable – again more like that of Qumran.

The reference to ‘let someone else take his Office’ (109:8), applied to the election to replace Judas in Acts 1:20, is quoted like most scriptural allusions in the Gospels completely out of context. As in Psalm 69, its atmosphere is once more one of being encompassed by adversaries and the sentiment is being expressed that, just as he (‘the Poor One’) is being judged by such an
Evil
accuser, that adversary, too, should ‘be judged’ mercilessly (109:7–20). It really has nothing whatever to do with the situation of
Judas Iscariot’s replacement
, though since it does refer to an official capacity of some kind – in this case ‘judgeship’ – on the face of it, it has more to do with
James’ capacity
as ‘
Bishop
’ or ‘
Overseer of the Jerusalem Church
’ than anything involving Judas
Iscariot
. In fact, this is
exactly the sense of the term
Luke uses in Acts 1:20 to translate the usage into Greek – ‘
Episcopen
’, that is, ‘
Episcopate
’ or ‘
the Office of the Bishop
’!

The Suicide of Judas
Iscariot
and the Succession to his ‘Office’

For Acts 1:22, the ‘casting of lots’ follows these two quotations from Psalms 69 and 109 and the person chosen to fill Judas’ ‘Episcopate’ would then ‘become a witness (with the other Apostles) of his Resurrection’ – a point we shall encounter in
all traditions about James
. In our view, Acts is overwriting an account that is introducing James at this point and detailing who he was. This would include the two psalms just outlined above, which Acts applies instead to the election of
Judas Iscariot’s
successor.

For Acts 1:23 this election is between two candidates, one of whom,
Joseph Barsabas
, ‘surnamed Justus’, is never heard from in Scripture again. Another ‘Barsabas’, as we saw, reappears as ‘Judas surnamed Barsabas’. We are circling around the names of Jesus’ brothers again. Since ‘Judas Barsabas’ is one of two messengers sent out by the Jerusalem Church with James’ rulings following Acts’ ‘Jerusalem Council’, he must be seen at the very least as paralleling those Paul in Galatians 2:12 identifies as ‘some from James’, whose appearance at
Antioch
provokes Paul’s bitter outbursts against ‘those of the circumcision’. In our view he (Judas Barsabas) is to be identified with ‘Thaddaeus’ or ‘Judas Thomas’ in the Agbarus legend or ‘Judas the Zealot’ in Syriac sources connected to it.

All such ‘Barsabas’, ‘Barnabas’, and ‘Barabbas’ surnames are important and often connected to the names of Jesus’ family members. ‘Barabbas’, for instance, in the Gospels is something of a stand-in for Jesus himself. He is the man who had been arrested ‘in the Uprising’ for ‘committing treason and murder’ (Mark 15:7 and pars.). For John 18:40, this makes him ‘a Bandit’ (
Lestes
), the word Josephus employs when talking about Revolutionaries and the person the crowd is depicted as preferring to Jesus. In some texts he is even called ‘Jesus Barabbas’, thereby correctly recognizing
Barabbas
as an Aramaic cognomen with the meaning ‘Son of the Father’.

Barsabas has no such ready equivalent in Aramaic, except the ‘
Saba
’/‘
Sabaean
’ terminology we shall encounter having to do with daily bathing. Barnabas, if it is a real name and not another circumlocution, would mean something like ‘son of the Prophet’. The point is that such names often overlap the members of Jesus’ family or Jesus himself. For example, Barnabas is often associated with ‘Joseph’, the name of either Jesus’ father or brother. ‘Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus’, the losing candidate in the ‘election’ to fill Judas’ ‘Bishopric’ is an obvious write-in
for James the Just himself
. In this regard, the addition of the cognomen ‘Justus’ to his name and the use of the word ‘
Episcope
’ to describe the ‘Office’ he is to fill are determinant.

In other words, we have in these passages at the beginning of Acts an election by lot for some leadership position within the early Church, represented here as being because of the treachery and suicide of someone called Judas or ‘the
Iscariot
’, and the defeated candidate turns out to be someone called
Justus
– the Latin version of James’ cognomen transliterated into Greek. The victorious candidate, like Judas
Iscariot
himself, bears the peculiarly Maccabean name of ‘Matthias’, even though there already is one ‘Matthew’ listed among the Apostles. Even Matthew is alternatively called ‘Levi the son of Alphaeus’ in Mark 2:14, ‘Alphaeus’ being another of those names, such as Lebbaeus, Cleophas, and ‘
Oblias
’, associated with Jesus’ family members. Like the Joseph ‘called Barsabas surnamed Justus’, this Matthias is never heard from in Scripture again except to fill in this somewhat artificial Twelve-man Apostolic scheme.

Chapter 9

The Election of James in Early Church Tradition

Eusebius’ Account of the Election of James

Eusebius mentions James’s election immediately following references to ‘Judas the Traitor’, the casting of lots to elect Matthias, and the stoning of Stephen. Eusebius’ first mention of James, coincident with these events, starts with the clause: ‘
At the same time also James, called the brother of our Lord, because he is also called the son of Joseph
’ (
EH
2.1.2). Immediately aware that he has a problem, he interrupts his narrative to explain: ‘For Joseph was esteemed the father of Christ because the Virgin was betrothed to him when, before they came together, she was found with child by the Holy Spirit, as the sacred writing of the Gospels teaches’. Eusebius’ approach here is similar to Origen’s a century before, who seems to have first theorized that James was called ‘
the brother of the Lord
’ because he was the son of Joseph by a
different wife
. James is not ‘the brother of Jesus’; he is not even his ‘cousin’!

Eusebius continues: ‘This same James, therefore, whom the ancients on account of the excellence of his virtue surnamed ‘the Just’, was stated to have been the first to be elected to the Episcopate [
Episcopes
] of the Church at Jerusalem’. Here Eusebius uses the exact same word in Greek,
Episcope
(‘Bishopric’ or ‘Episcopate’), that the narrative of Acts has just used to describe ‘the Office’
the successor to Judas Iscariot was elected to
(Acts 1:20).

The hypothesis identifying the tradition about James’ election with the election to replace Judas in Acts is virtually proved. Not only is the overlap in vocabulary striking, but Eusebius also uses the word ‘
Ecclesia
’ or ‘Assembly’ to describe this ‘Church’ which elects James (again the very same word Josephus uses to describe the ‘Assembly’ headed by the ‘Simon’ he knows in the early 40’s who wishes to bar Herodians from the Temple as foreigners). Nor is Eusebius in any doubt about the contemporaneity of this event with Acts’ picture of the defeat of ‘Justus’ and the election of Matthias and the martyrdom by stoning of Stephen. He also has no doubt that James’ cognomen was this same, ‘the Just’, and this on account of his
superabundant Righteousness
. Nor does he make any bones about the fact that
an election occurred
. Whether this was similar to ‘Zealot’/‘
Sicarii
’ elections or the one to elect Matthias, which starts the narrative of Acts, is hardly relevant. We have this important missing link in Christian history and tradition, along with a number of other details attested to by Eusebius, just at the place we would expect it to be.

Eusebius now goes on to describe the election of James more fully, as it is evidently of the utmost importance to his sources. In doing so, he changes the substance somewhat of what he has just said. The source he is quoting is Clement of Alexandria (
c.
150–215) about a century-and-a-half removed from the events in question. The Sixth Book of his now-lost
Hypotyposes
had the following: ‘Peter, James, and John after the Ascension of the Saviour did not contend for the Glory, even though they had previously been honoured by the Saviour,
but chose James the Just as Bishop of Jerusalem’
.

But then Eusebius supplies another tradition, this time from the next or Seventh Book of Clement’s
Hypotyposes
, now following Paul’s presentation of the Central Three in Galatians and 1 Corinthians, where no
other James
is mentioned. This focuses on the post-resurrection appearances of Christ and what Clement calls ‘the gift of Knowledge’: ‘After the Resurrection, the Lord imparted the gift of Knowledge to
James the Just and John and Peter
. These gave it to the other Apostles and the other Apostles gave it to the Seventy, of whom Barnabas was one’. Now the Central Triad has changed. It is no longer Peter, James, and John, but rather James the Just, John, and Peter. Not only does Clement add James’ cognomen ‘the Just One’, missing in Galatians, but he takes the liberty of changing Paul’s ‘Cephas’ to ‘Peter’, even though one book earlier, as we already saw, he admitted there were ‘two by this name’, Cephas being ‘one of the Seventy’.

Aware that Clement has been sowing not a little confusion, Eusebius attempts a clarification: ‘Now there were
two
Jameses, one called
the Righteous One
,
who was cast down
[
bletheis
]
from the Pinnacle of the Temple
and beaten to death with a laundryman’s club, and the other, who was
beheaded’
. This is very interesting indeed, because, firstly, it shows concern for the confusion between the two Jameses, and, secondly, it is the first testimony we have had about two central elements in the descriptions of James’ death,
being cast down from the Pinnacle of the Temple
and
being beaten to death with a fuller’s or laundryman’s club
. Both will loom large as we proceed.

For the moment, it should be remarked that Clement mentions them as separate, if consecutive, events. In doing so, he unwittingly unravels a mystery concerning them that has bedeviled scholarship and puzzled commentators ever since. Josephus presents James as having been stoned to death in 62 CE. However, the relationship between such a stoning and his brains being beaten out with a laundryman’s club is unclear. One should remark here, too, the quasi-parallel to the ‘headlong fall’ Judas
Iscariot
takes in Acts 1:18. As we shall see, both the
stoning
and the
headlong fall
can be shown to have occurred, albeit separately, in James’ life. Unfortunately, by the beginning of the third century, Clement no longer knows this and is conflating the two events, and turning them into a single happenstance.

Clement presents the tradition of transmission ‘after the Resurrection’ as being ‘to James the Just and John and Peter’ in that order. By insisting that ‘these gave it to
the other Apostles
, and
the other Apostles
to the Seventy, of whom Barnabas was one’, he implies that James, like John and Peter, was
an Apostle
. Not only this, but the number of Apostles for him at this point appears to be indeterminate (2.1.4). Nor does he mention Stephen at all.