James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls I (52 page)

Jerome presents a version of the stoning and death of James which is obviously derived from what he saw in both the no longer extant Sixth Book of Clement of Alexandria’s
Institutions
and in the Fifth Book of Hegesippus’
Commentaries
. What is new in his account is that he combines this with the testimony from the Twentieth Book of Josephus’
Antiquities
– as Eusebius also tried to do – which Jerome claims was also present in the Seventh Book of Clement’s
Institutions
. This is a new claim, the veracity of which it is impossible to measure. To do so, it would be useful to quote at length what Josephus actually said in his famous testimony to James with which he, more or less, brings his
Antiquities
to a close.

Before doing so, however, one should recall that Jerome claimed that: ‘
This same Josephus records the tradition that this James was of so great Holiness and reputation among the people that the destruction of Jerusalem was believed to have occurred on account of his death
’ – this, in addition to his claim, we have already quoted above, that ‘so great a reputation did James have for Holiness’ among the people of Jerusalem that, like the Rabbinic tradition about Honi’s ‘grandson’,
they used to try to ‘touch the fringes of his clothing’ as he walked by
.

It is interesting that Jerome also emphasizes the claim that James was an ‘Apostle’ in his note about Josephus as a writer. He phrases this as follows: ‘In the Eight(eenth) Book of his
Antiquities
, he (Josephus) most openly acknowledges
that Christ was put to death by the Pharisees on account of his great miracles, that John the Baptist was truly a Prophet, and that Jerusalem was destroyed because of the murder of James the Apostle
.’ It should now be becoming clear that, very early on, even serious-minded Churchmen were reckoning ‘Jesus’’ brother James as an ‘Apostle.’ What is also interesting here is that Jerome finally actually reveals just where, in his view, this testimony about
Jerusalem falling because of the death of James
came from in Josephus’ works –
Book Eighteen
of his
Antiquities
, two books earlier than the normative description of
the death of James
.

Of course, the testimonies about John and Jesus are in Book Eighteen, but not as Jerome presents them. For instance, it is not specifically stated ‘that Christ was slain by the Pharisees on account of his great miracles’, nor that Josephus considered John ‘a Prophet’, at least not in the testimony to John as it presently stands in Josephus’
Antiquities
. But Jerome is a careful scholar. One must assume that he saw something of what he says. Perhaps the nonsense ‘Paulina and Fulvia’ episodes that follow the suspicious-sounding account of the crucifixion of Christ in Book Eighteen replaced some more extensive commentary of the kind Jerome says he saw there, an account which included the material about
Jerusalem falling ‘because of the death of James the Apostle’ not
‘
Jesus
’.

In his biographical note about James, Jerome also mentions Paul’s testimony to seeing James in Jerusalem in Galatians 1:19, which, he claims, ‘even the Acts of the Apostles bear witness to’. However, he does not note that the two accounts are in almost total contradiction. He also presents material about James from a no-longer-extant apocryphal Gospel – not Thomas but one he calls ‘
the Gospel according to the Hebrews
’. Not only does Jerome claim that ‘Origen, too, often made use’ of this Gospel but, like Eusebius in matters of import, he quotes the relevant passage relating to a first post-Resurrection appearance by Jesus to James. This, he personally claims to have ‘translated into Greek and Latin’ from the Hebrew.
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This tradition from the Gospel of the Hebrews relates to the missing tradition of
a first appearance by ‘Jesus’ after his resurrection
– itself alluded to by Paul in 1 Corinthians –
to James the Just
. In it, we have Jesus ‘
giving his grave clothes to the Servant of the Priest
’ – in the Dead Sea Scrolls, this almost always means ‘
the High Priest
’ – which makes altogether more sense than anything we have so far encountered about ‘
clothes
’ or ‘
the High Priest’s Servant
’ in the Gospels or Acts.

In it, too, is a reference to ‘
the Cup of the Lord
’ which James is supposed to have drunk – perhaps at ‘the Last Supper’, perhaps symbolically. We have been describing how this imagery functioned in the Gospels, Revelation, and the Scrolls regarding both ‘
the Righteous Teacher’
and
‘the Wicked Priest’
, but it has not previously been clear that this could be related
directly to James
. This theme of ‘
the Cup
’ is also related in Gospel tradition to ‘the two sons of Zebedee’, that they would ‘
drink the Cup
’ Jesus was going to drink – meaning martyrdom (Mt 20:20–28 and Mk 10:35–45), even though no martyrdom tradition has come down to us for ‘
John the brother of James
’ as it has Acts’ ‘
James the brother of John
.’

Still, heretofore, we never had such ‘
Cup
’ imagery directly applied to James. The next step is a comparatively simple one, but here is a hint of it. In the Habakkuk
Pesher
, when it comes to presenting what ‘
the Wicked Priest
’ – i.e.,
the Establishment High Priest
– did to ‘the Righteous Teacher’, ‘
Cup
’ imagery is employed in the following manner – just as
he
(‘the Wicked Priest’)
tendered the ‘Cup’ to the Righteous Teacher, so too would ‘the Cup of the Lord’s Wrath’ come around to him ‘and he would drink his fill
’. This is generally interpreted by Dead Sea Scrolls researchers – often incapable of relating to literary metaphor – to mean that
the Wicked Priest was
‘
a drunkard’
(
sic
), meaning, ‘he drank too much wine’! The proper understanding, as will become clear, has to do with ‘
drinking the Cup of Divine Vengeance
’ as we shall see in due course –
not
drunkenness
.

Unlike Epiphanius, Jerome also thinks, as we also saw, that James ‘
ruled the Church of Jerusalem for thirty years’
until, as he presents it with his customary precision, ‘
the Seventh Year of Nero and was buried near the Temple, from which he had been
cast down
’. Here is the now-familiar theme of ‘
casting down
’, once again associated with James’ death. As we saw as well, like Eusebius, he too notes that ‘
his tombstone, with its inscription, was well-known until the siege of Titus and the end of Hadrian’s reign
’, i.e.,
c.
138 CE actually – the end of the Bar Kochba Revolt too.

James’ Death in Josephus: Opposition and Establishment Sadducees

In order to see how Jerome incorporates the testimony of Josephus
into his account of James’ fall from the Temple Pinnacle and his stoning, it would be well to present the testimony of Josephus about James’ death in its entirety. It is, not only the most accurate material we have relating to James’ death, but also fixes the chronology of these events which, thereafter, lead up with some inexorable fataliy to the outbreak of the War against Rome.

Eusebius himself also makes this clear in the finale of his account of the death of James after relating this death to the coming destruction of the Temple and the fall of Jerusalem and gives Josephus’ actual testimony itself. His version is, for all intents and purposes, equivalent to that in Josephus’ Antiquities, the received text of which reads as follows:

Upon learning of the death of Festus, Caesar (Nero) sent Albinus to Judea as Procurator, but the King (Agrippa II) removed Joseph from the High Priesthood and bestowed the dignity of that office on the son of Ananus, who was himself also called Ananus. It is said that this elder Ananus was extremely fortunate for
he had five sons, all of whom became High Priests of God
– after he had himself enjoyed the office for a very long time previously –
which had never happened to any of our other High Priests
.
10

This additional information in the present text about the High Priest Ananus’ family – whose son by the same name is
our candidate for ‘the Wicked Priest’ in the Dead Sea Scrolls
– is missing from Eusebius; but it is interesting because firstly, Josephus elsewhere says that the destruction of Jerusalem was the result of James’ nemesis, this latter Ananus’ grisly death, and, secondly, the elder Ananus – who was High Priest either just prior to or in the period of Pontius Pilate – is pictured in the Gospels as having played a significant role in the death of their ‘Jesus’ (Lk 3:2/Jn 18:3).

Even as a young man, Agrippa II (49–93), by virtue of the dignity bestowed on his father Agrippa I (37–44) by Caligula and Claudius, enjoyed the privilege of appointing Jewish High Priests – a practice that, after Herod’s death, had devolved upon the Roman Governors or Procurators. In the Maccabean Period, this privilege was not an issue since the Maccabees themselves functioned in the manner of hereditary High Priests and Kings. Only with Herod’s ascendancy and the absorption or destruction of the Maccabean family did this become an issue. Herod’s father,
the first Roman Procurator in Palestine
, carved out a Kingdom with the help of the Pharisees, but it was Herod who first insisted on controlling the vestments of the High Priest – a powerful lever of control in Judeo-Palestine in this period. In fact, at the beginning of Book Twenty of the
Antiquities
, Josephus provides Claudius’ 45 CE letter ‘
to the whole Nation of the Jews’ granting to Agrippa II and his uncle, Herod of Chalcis and his son Aristobulus, control over the High Priest’s vestments
.
11

The testimony of Josephus continues as follows:

The younger (Ananus) who, as we have said, obtained the High Priesthood (from Agrippa II), was
rash in his temperament and very insolent
. He was also of the sect of the Sadducees, who were the most uncompromising of all the Jews, as we have already observed, in execution of Judgement (one sometimes wonders which ‘
Judgement
’ Josephus has in mind, human or eschatological).

His manner of describing ‘Sadducees’, here, is interesting because elsewhere he tells us that

the Sadducees in the Herodian Period
were dominated in all things by the Pharisees
. This is the impression that emerges in the Gospels and Acts too. The Pseudoclementine
Recognitions
, cognizant of
the derivation of ‘the Sadducees’ from the root ‘Righteousness’
, rather has it that the Sadducees considered themselves ‘
more Righteous than the others – separating from the Assembly of the People
’. For it, the division of ‘
the People into many Parties began in the days of John the Baptist
’. As this is put in the Syriac version: ‘
The Sadducees arose in the days of John and, because they were Righteous Ones, separated from the People
’.
12

Obviously these are not ‘the Sadducees’ presented in Josephus or the New Testament which is one of the reasons I have argued for
two
groups of Sadducees: the first made no such claim to
being ‘more Righteous’ than anyone else
and only had
a tenuous genealogical link to the ‘Zadok’ of David’s time
a thousand years before; the second was
an ‘Opposition’ group
emphasizing ‘Righteousness’ as the key component in Salvation
.
13
Their literature, as it is found at Qumran, advocates ‘
separation from the People
’ –
the basis of the ‘pollution of the Temple’ charge as found, for instance, in the Damascus Document
.

As mentioned previously, after Herod stormed Jerusalem in 37 BC with troops Mark Anthony had given him, he had all the previous Sanhedrin executed except Pollio and Sameas, the two
Pharisees
who predicted his rise to power and recommended to the people ‘to open the gates’ to him – these, the new-style ‘prophets’ of the Herodian Period that Paul and the Book of Acts seem never to tire of referring to.
14
For Josephus,
while he ‘never left off taking vengeance upon his enemies’, these two were ‘honoured by Herod above all the rest’
.

Herod’s ‘enemies’ must be seen as the previous Sadducee-dominated Sanhedrin and the supporters of Aristobulus II and his two sons.
Herod ‘had spies placed everywhere’, even sometimes joining them surreptitiously himself, ‘and many there were who were brought to the Citadel Hyrcania both openly and in secret, and there put to death’
. This is exactly the treatment meted out a generation later by Herod Antipas – ‘
Herod the Tetrarch
’ in the Gospels and Acts – to John the Baptist
at the Fortress of Machaeros across the Dead Sea
.
15

Though these ‘
Maccabean
’ or ‘
Purist Sadducees
’ might have been ‘
stricter in Judgement
’ and more thoroughly uncompromising than others; they were
certainly never collaborators, nor did they have anything in common with ‘the Sadducees’ of the Herodian Period except the name
. The latter were rather a motley assortment of ‘
Rich
’ families vying with each other
– often through bribes and contributions to Herodians rulers or Roman officials – to occupy the High Priesthood, obviously making no insistence other than
a genealogical one for the High Priesthood
– and, according to Josephus,
sometimes not even this
. Certainly they made no claim for ‘
Piety’ or ‘higher purity’ as so-called ‘Galilean’ Zealots or ‘Sicarii’ did
.

The Dead Sea Scrolls evince a similar uncompromising insistence on ‘Righteousness’ and absolute, unrelenting ‘Judgement’. They do not compromise, nor is there any ethos of accommodation – particularly with foreigners – but always exhibit
a thoroughgoing and
unbending ‘zeal’ that even considers the Temple polluted because of the accommodating behaviour of the Establishment High Priests there
– it is hard to conceive that this should in any way relate to Maccabeans or the Maccabean Period!

Our presentation of
two
groups of Sadducees is borne out in Rabbinic tradition as well. Here,
two
groups of ‘Sadducees’ are noted, those following ‘Boethus’ and those following ‘
Saddok’
.
16
But this allusion to the name ‘Boethus’ makes it crystal clear, even in this Rabbinic tradition garbled as it may be, that we are in the Herodian Period and the rise of the Zealot Movement – the Movement
founded by Judas the Galilean and his mysterious colleague Saddok
. It was in this period that the Sadducees
split
into sycophant and resistance wings – the latter better understood perhaps as ‘
Messianic
Sadducees’. This was also the time consonant with ‘the birth of Christ’ in Christian tradition.

To crown his destruction (or co-option) of the Maccabean line, Herod brought a High Priest in from Egypt, Simeon b. Boethus, whose daughter, Mariamme II, he married after putting the last Maccabean Princess – his previous wife – Mariamme I to death. It was this Priest’s son, Joezer ben Boethus, whom Josephus portrays as
opposing ‘Judas and Saddok’ over the issue of
paying taxes to Rome
, that is, Roman rule in Palestine.

Where James, who is one of the heirs of this ‘Opposition Sadducee’ tradition as we are describing it, is concerned; Josephus’ account now, perhaps more comprehensibly, continues:

Ananus, therefore, being of this character, and supposing that he now had a favourable opportunity – Festus being dead and Albinus still on the road – called a Sanhedrin (Assembly) of the judges and brought before them
the brother of Jesus, who was called ‘the Christ’, whose name was James, along with certain others
; and, when he had presented a charge against them of
breaking the Law, delivered them to be stoned
. But those citizens who seemed
the most equitable and the most careful in observation of the Law
were offended by this and sent to the King secretly asking him to send to Ananus requesting him to desist from doing such things, saying that he had not acted legally even before.

Some of them also went out to meet Albinus, who was on the way from Alexandria, informing him that
it was not lawful for Ananus to convene a Sanhedrin without his consent. Induced on account of what they had said, Albinus wrote to Ananus in a rage threatening to bring him to punishment because of what he had done. As a result, King Agrippa took the High Priesthood from him after he had ruled only three months and replaced him
…

This is an extremely detailed testimony and it certainly has – except perhaps for the point about ‘
Jesus being called the Christ
’ which has the sense of a copyist’s addition – the straightforward ring of truth. It is matter of fact, down to earth, and unembellished. There is, in the manner of Josephus’ often rather flat prosody, nothing fantastic in it – no exaggeration. In particular, the note about Albinus being on the way from Alexandria, when he received the information about Ananus’ illicit condemnation of James, has the kind of detail and immediacy that carries the sense of historical reality.

Since Josephus immediately goes on to present Albinus as being no better than previous governors and corrupted by the gifts and bribes from these same ‘Rich’ Sadducean High Priests, he is no apologist for Albinus’ behaviour and seems willing to give a fair appreciation of his flaws, as well as his one seeming virtue –
his objection to the flouting of his authority in the matter of the execution of James
. Whereas before he arrived in the country he seems to have resented the affront to his authority represented by Ananus’ behaviour; afterwards, he gave a free hand to the Richest High Priests and made common cause with them against those Josephus has now started calling ‘
Sicarii
’.

As Josephus describes it, these ‘Rich’ Sadducean High Priests, allying themselves with ‘
the boldest sort of men’, went to the threshing floors and violently appropriated the tithes due to ‘Priests of the Poorer sort
’. He repeats this notice twice, first under Felix around 59–60 CE, and again, under Albinus, 62–64 CE, directly after the illegal stoning of James.

In both instances, these predatory activities of the High Priests give way to violent clashes, stone-throwing, ‘and class hatred between the High Priests on the one hand and the Leaders of the Multitudes of Jerusalem on the other’. These are exactly the sort of ‘Leaders’, the early Christians are portrayed as being in Jerusalem – especially in the Temple, in Acts. These last Josephus again now calls ‘Innovators’ – a term in Greek, as we have seen, also meaning ‘Revolutionaries’.
17

The first description of this kind of behaviour in 59–60 CE is followed by the ‘
Temple Wall Affair’
,
directed against Agrippa II’s viewing of the Temple sacrifices while reclining on his balcony and eating
. This is sometime after 60 CE, around the time he and his sister, Bernice, appear in Acts 25:13–26:32, interviewing Paul. The second such description is followed by rioting led by one ‘Saulus’, his brother ‘Costobarus’, and their ‘kinsman Antipas’, whom Josephus describes as ‘
using violence with the People
’, in the aftermath too of James’ stoning, around the year 64 CE. In 64, this same Albinus, hearing the next Governor Florus (64–66) was coming to replace him, emptied the prisons, arbitrarily putting many to death while letting others go with ‘
the payment of bribes
’; so that Josephus ruefully observed, ‘
the country was filled with Robbers
’.
18
This seems to be something of the backdrop the New Testament uses to portray Pontius Pilate’s behaviour three decades before.

In fact, Josephus would have been in a good position to know about many of these things, because, as he tells us in his
Autobiography
– written around the year 93 CE – after the War, he struck up a very close friendship in Rome with this same King Agrippa, who therefore wrote sixty-two letters to him and appears to have vouchsafed him much information he did not previously know. Two of these letters, addressed ‘my dear Josephus’, he appends to his book.
19

The theme in Josephus’ notice about James’ death of Ananus’ ‘ruling’ agrees with the manner in which the Habakkuk
Pesher
presents ‘the Wicked Priest’, who at one point is referred to as ‘
ruling Israel
’. This comment has much disturbed commentators, making them think they had to do with Maccabean Priest-Kings not Herodian High Priests. As can be seen from this allusion to Ananus ben Ananus in Josephus,
all High Priests can be said to have ‘ruled Israel’
. This is again emphasized at the end of the
Antiquities
when Josephus enumerates all the High Priests starting in David’s time, saying: ‘Some of these (the High Priests)
ruled during the reign of Herod
and his son Archelaus although, after their deaths,
the Government became an aristocracy and the High Priests were entrusted with
ruling the Nation
.’
20