James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls I (27 page)

This ‘Righteousness’ – and the ideology associated with it – is, not only the basis of the cognomen always attached to his name; it would appear to be a basic element of all traditions associated with James, even more than for his reputed brother ‘Jesus’. This ‘Righteousness’ ideology is also the basic one where ‘the Teacher of Righteousness’ – the central character in the Qumran documents – is concerned.

If James is not identical with him, then he is certainly a parallel character or one of a series of individuals bearing this title, because James certainly taught a
doctrine of Righteousness
. This doctrine was epitomized by the Commandment to ‘
love your neighbour as yourself
’.
18
It is epitomized, too, in the notion of ‘the Poor’, one of the principal forms of self-designation at Qumran and the name either of James’ group in Jerusalem
per se
or the group in early Church accounts after this, which took him as its progenitor.

James as ‘Holy from his Mother’s Womb’ and a Nazirite

Hegesippus goes on to distinguish James from others by that name, ‘since there were many’, by saying, ‘He was Holy from his mother’s womb.’
19
The word ‘Holy’ being used here is different from his two other attributes ‘Pious’ and ‘Righteous’. It corresponds to a third Hebrew word, ‘
Kedosh
’, and will bear on the claims for James as High Priest as well. In the plural, it is equivalent to what goes in English by the name ‘Saints’ – Hebrew, ‘
Kedoshim
’. Singular or plural, it is a widespread usage in Hebrew prayer and at Qumran.

Jerome repeats a tradition about James’ ‘Holiness’ not present in any other source: ‘this same James, who was the first Bishop of Jerusalem and known as Justus, was considered to be so Holy by the People that they earnestly (or ‘zealously’) sought to touch the hem of his clothing.’
20
The importance of this tradition, relative to James’ Holiness, cannot be overestimated. It, too, is retrospectively attributed to Jesus in Scripture, and this repeatedly, including the themes of both ‘touching’ and ‘the hem’ or ‘fringe of his garment’! The reader should appreciate that the sanctity of the fringes of garments was always a uniquely Jewish concern that would have mystified foreigners. In one important, particularly exaggerated, example of this, a woman, who has had her
menstrual flow for twelve years
, touches ‘the hem of his (Jesus’) garment’ (Luke 8:44–47 repeats the word ‘touch’
five
times in four lines; Mark 5:27–31,
four
). Here Jesus perceives ‘the Power’ going out of him. In other such examples Jesus cures the sick, who ‘earnestly seek to touch the hem of his clothing’, so they can ‘be made whole’ (Mt 14:36 and Mk 6:54).

Eusebius’ and Jerome’s use of the term ‘Holy’ for James has a slightly different connotation. Here, one might also use the equivalent ‘consecrated’ just as in the matter of
Naziritism
, that is, ‘consecrated’ or ‘set aside from his mother’s womb’, to describe what they are talking about. In fact, the High Priest wore a linen mitre or head-dress, upon which was attached a gold plate with the inscription ‘Holy to God’ (Exod. 28:36–38) in the sense of being consecrated to God – ‘
Kedosh
’ carrying the sense of
both
‘Holy’ and ‘consecrated’. This head-dress with the gold plate was also designated as ‘the Holy Crown’, the ‘
Nezer ha-Kodesh
’ (Exod. 29:6 and Lev. 8:9), as in the case of the unshorn hair or ‘Crown’ of the Nazirites.

Once again, the use of the word ‘
Nezer
’, combined with the ‘
Holiness
’ or ‘
Consecratedness
’ of the High Priest, will be of significance. Parallel-wise, the notion of ‘
being consecrated
’ or ‘
separated
’ (‘
set aside’
)
is the basis of what generally goes by the term ‘Nazirite
’, which is based on the same root as ‘
Nezer
’. In fact, this is the way Epiphanius understands the term as he applies it to James. He even calls James ‘
a Nazirite
’, by which he specifically means
consecrated
, thereby correctly signalling the underlying Hebrew root.
21

In this sense, the word can be seen as a kind of synonym for ‘Holy’ and this is what both Hegesippus and Jerome mean when they refer to James as ‘Holy’. ‘Holy to God’, therefore, has both ‘priestly’ and ‘Nazirite’ connotations, and the combination of these will have additional significance when both Epiphanius and Jerome come to insist that James wore ‘
the mitre
’ of High Priest – ‘
Nezer ha-Kodesh
’ in Hebrew – and actually
entered
the Holy of Holies in the Temple.

Interestingly, when speaking of James as ‘
a Nazirite
’, Epiphanius gives John the Baptist as another example ‘
of these persons consecrated to God
’. In doing so, he cites Luke 1:15, in which an Angel predicts that John ‘will drink neither wine nor strong drink’, so pregnant with meaning regarding so-called ‘
Rechabites
’ and which all sources also predicate of James.

If we also keep in mind the Rabbinic notices that
‘the sons’ or ‘daughters of the Rechabites’ married those of the High Priests and did service at the altar
, then again we move closer to the High Priesthood being ascribed to James in early Church sources, even if only esoterically. Luke 1:15 also predicts of John that ‘He shall be filled with
the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb
’. This too simply rephrases what we just heard in Hegesippus about James being ‘Holy from his mother’s womb’. Once again, additional convergence develops about what the Gospels say or imply either about Jesus or John with known facts about James’ life.

Holy from his Mother’s Womb
and Jesus the
Nazoraean

The combination of both of the elements of ‘womb’ and ‘the Holy Spirit’, now becomes the basis of Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus from 1:26–42. These will also include another element from the biography of James, lifelong ‘virginity’, which Epiphanius considers intrinsic to James’
extreme Naziritism
.
22
This too is now combined with these other two elements in the narratives of Jesus’ miraculous birth. For Matthew, Mary is the ‘virgin’
not James
, and ‘found to be with child of the Holy Spirit’ (1:18–23). As Luke enlarges on this, Jesus is ‘a Holy Thing’ (
Hagion
), which Mary, ‘who was a virgin’, ‘conceived in (her) womb’, when ‘the Holy Spirit came (down) upon’ her (1:27–35). Here again we have the
womb
and
Holy Spirit
elements.

Then, applying ‘what has been written in the Law of Moses’ to his ‘being brought to Jerusalem and presented to the Lord’, Luke quotes Exodus 13:2: ‘Every male opening a womb shall be called
Holy to the Lord
’ (2:22–23 – the variant of the phrase ‘
Holy to God
’ on the High Priest’s ‘
mitre
’ or ‘
nezer
’ in Exodus and Leviticus above).
23
Once more terms, known as specifically applying to James, are being applied to somewhat different effect to persons and situations more in keeping with the New Testament or Pauline ethos.

Epiphanius takes the point one step further, tying the whole complex of usages
not to Nazirite
,
but to Nazareth
, asserting, ‘Jesus had been conceived in the womb in Nazareth’.
24
Now we have moved from ‘Nazirite’ to ‘Nazareth’, and, as it will transpire, ‘Nazarean’ or ‘Nazoraean’. These last, as we saw, were based on a slightly different root in Hebrew,
N–TZ–R
instead of
N–Z–R
. We encountered this related Hebrew root
linzor
– meaning ‘to keep’ or ‘observe’ – with regard to the Rechabites above and how, for instance, the sons ‘
kept
the Commandments of their Father’ Jonadab.

It is this idea which actually underlies the title Luke now applies to Jesus: ‘
the Nazoraean’
in 24:19. Matthew 26:70 picks up the title ‘
the Nazoraean
’ right after Jesus’ evocation of ‘the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of Heaven’ in 26:64 – the exact words of James’ 62 CE proclamation in the Temple on Passover in early Church accounts – and the reference to Jesus as ‘Jesus the Galilean’ (
Galilaios
) in 26:69. After evoking this title, Matthew then goes on to tell us about Judas and ‘the Field of Blood’.

It was Matthew who first spread the misconception that the title ‘Jesus the
Nazoraean
’ should in some manner relate to ‘Nazareth’, by quoting the prophecy: ‘
He shall be called a Nazoraean
’ which, closing his narrative of Jesus’ early years, he associates with ‘withdrawing to parts of Galilee and going to live in a city called Nazareth’ (2:22–23). This cannot be the derivation of the term, as even in the Greek, the spelling ‘Nazareth’ and ‘Nazoraean’ differ substantially.

These scriptural passages also form the basis of Epiphanius’ tortuous discussion trying to link the ‘Nazoraean’ terminology to the town of ‘Nazareth’, for which he now cites Matthew’s story about Jesus growing up in Nazareth. As he tells it, now combining Matthew and Luke, this includes the tell-tale allusion to Jesus being ‘
conceived in the womb in Nazareth
’. Not only is this simply a variation of the traditions about ‘being consecrated’ or ‘
a Nazirite from the womb
’, it actually includes the edifying note: ‘All Christians were once called Nazoraeans. For a short time they were also given the name Jessaeans, before the Disciples in Antioch began to be called Christians’.
25
The problem is that there is no passage, ‘
he shall be called a Nazoraean
’, in the Old Testament, and the passage on which this was supposed to be based is unclear. One can assume that an Old Testament reference to the idea of being ‘
a Nazirite
’ was probably intended.

Though Matthew says the reference comes from ‘the Prophets’, examples of individuals of this kind in Old Testament narrative are Samuel and Samson. Again Matthew is probably mistaken. The Bible twice avers about Samson that ‘the child shall be a Nazirite unto God’ (Judg. 13:5–7) and once – speaking in the first person – that ‘I have been a Nazirite unto God
from my mother’s womb
’ (16:7). Given the references to both ‘Nazirite’ and ‘womb’, this last was probably the original behind the refurbishment in Matthew, not to mention these references to ‘mother’s womb’ in early Christian texts about James. Of course, Samson’s behaviour is
the exact opposite
of what a good Nazirite was conceived of as being, but some of the qualities of a proper Nazirite or a ‘Consecrated’ or ‘Separated One’, that is, a razor never coming near his head and not drinking wine, are recapitulated in this parody.

The problem is, as well, that in these two word clusters in Hebrew – Nazirite and Nazoraean – we have two separate consonants, a ‘
z
’ and a ‘
tz
’, which transliterate only into a single consonant ‘
z
’ in Greek. In Hebrew,
Nazoraean
, with a ‘
tz
’, means ‘Keeper’ as we have seen; ‘Nazirite’, with a ‘
z
’,
consecrated or separated
. In Christian thought, this often gets confused with what is called by the term ‘Nazarene’, even though, as Matthew puts it, this really does read ‘and he shall be called a Nazoraean’. This is probably due more to Mark’s use of ‘Nazarene’ (1:24, etc.) and confusion of these terms than anything else, but Mark uses ‘Nazoraean’ in 10:34 as well. All these can be applied to what in Hebrew is meant by the usage ‘Nazirite’ – a ‘Consecrated’ or ‘Separated One’. But they really cannot mean ‘from Nazareth’, though all such plays on words were probably purposeful.

In Acts, when Paul encounters James for the famous final showdown during his last trip to Jerusalem, James describes to him how there are quite a few penitents in the Temple who have ‘taken an oath upon themselves’, meaning not a life-long but a temporary Nazirite oath (Acts 21:18–23). The procedures for these are described in both the Book of Numbers (6:1–21) and, in extended fashion, in the
Talmud
. If this episode is any measure, it would seem James’ Community in Jerusalem really
did
value the Nazirite-oath procedures. This would also seem to be true for those
Sicarii
-like assassins, who take an oath or ‘with a curse, curse themselves,
not to eat or drink till they have killed Paul
’ (Acts 23:12). Since in one form of the notation, the notion of
separation
is closely associated with it, this idea too would have played an important role in the early Community’s thinking and religious behaviour, as it does Qumran’s, which, as the Gospels do John the Baptist, characterized itself as ‘separating from the habitation of the Men of Unrighteousness to go out into the wilderness to prepare the Way of the Lord’.
26