James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (103 page)

Again, with such influential contacts as Gallio and possibly even his brother Seneca, to say nothing of Felix, Drusilla, Epaphroditus, Agrippa II, and Titus’ future mistress Bernice, doubtlessly Paul could have made his way to Spain, just as he could have returned to Palestine, either before or after this, to take part in the events Josephus describes there prior to ult
i
mately disappearing from the scene or being done away with in the course of the disturbances that broke out from 66–70
CE
, about the same time that Josephus’ ‘
Saulos
’ did. We shall never know the true answers to any of these questions, but this does not prevent one from making an intelligent inference on the basis of the evidence.

The Reputed ‘
Pella Flight
’ of James’
Jerusalem Community

We should now turn to the last subject we need to discuss before moving on to an analysis of climactic sections of the Scrolls themselves, that is, the famed ‘
Pella flight
’ of James’
Jerusalem Community
. This so-called ‘
flight
’, which so much r
e
sembles the ‘
departure from the Land of Judah to the Land of Damascus
’ of the Damascus Document, is referred to in three of the main sources we have been consulting: Eusebius (again, probably relying on Hegesippus), Epiphanius, and, surprisingly enough, the First Apocalypse of James from Nag Hammadi.
1

Eusebius refers to it after documenting the succession to Nero (68 CE) and how ‘
the Jews
,
after the ascension of our Sa
v
iour
,
followed up their crimes against him by devising plot after plot against his Disciples
’: ‘
First
,
they stoned Stephen to death
,
then James the son of Zebedee the brother of John was beheaded
,
and finally James
,
the first after the ascension of our Sa
v
iour to occupy the Throne of the Bishopric there lost his life in the manner described and the other Apostles were driven from the Land of Judea by thousands of deadly plots
.’
Eusebius immediately contradicts himself with a version, obviously from a
n
other source, different from the first. This reads: ‘
The members of the Church in Jerusalem
,
by means of an oracle given by
revelation to approved men there before the War
,
were ordered to leave the city and dwell in a town in Perea called Pella
.
To it
,
those who believed in Christ emigrated from Jerusalem and
,
as if Holy Men had completely abandoned the Royal Capital of the Jews and the entir
e
Land of Judea
,
the Judgement of God at last overtook them for their crimes against Christ and his Apostles completely blotting out that Wicked Generation from among men
!
2

The allusions to ‘
the Land of Judea
’ and ‘
dwelling
’ are to be found in the Damascus Document’s depiction of how ‘
the Sons of Zadok
’ and the other ‘
Penitents of Israel
’ ‘
departed from the Land of Judah to dwell in the Land of Damascu
s
’.
3
The language of ‘
plots
’, which Eusebius applies here to ‘
the Jews
’ is, in the Habakkuk
Pesher
, rather applied to ‘
the Wicked Priest
’ and his associates who are described as ‘
plotting to destroy the Poor
’ and ‘
steal
’
their sustenance
.
4

Not satisfied however with the venom inherent in the above diatribe, Eusebius – now drawing in gruesome detail on J
o
sephus – then goes on at even greater length to list ‘
the calamities which at that time overwhelmed
the whole Nation
(
of the Jews
)
in every part of the World
’. In particular, he describes, with seeming gleeful malice, the straits to which the Jews were reduced in Jerusalem, even how they
ended up
eating straw
. Finally Eusebius seems almost to revel in reproducing Josephus’ account of how, in some cases,
the Jews even ate their own children
, laboring over Josephus’ picture of such things in loving detail.
5

He completes this sketch of ‘Christian’ history in Palestine with the various signs and portents Josephus lists – in a kind of final summation in connection with the fall of the Temple at the end of the
Jewish War
– by way of introducing his own sta
r
tling contention that: ‘
the thing that most moved our People to revolt against the Romans was an ambiguous Prophecy that one from their region would be elevated to Rule the World’
(‘
ambiguous
’ because Josephus – along with R. Yohanan ben Zacchai – obsequiously applies it to
Vespasian
6
).

These ‘s
igns and portents
’ included a ‘
cow giving birth to a lamb in the middle of the Temple
’
on Passover
;
a light shining in the Temple at night so that
‘
it seemed like full day
’
on Passover as well
; ‘
chariots and armies on high over the whole cou
n
try
,
racing through the clouds
’; ending with ‘
a Star standing over the city like a sword
’ and
a loud voice emanating from the Temple at Pentecost crying
, ‘
Let us go forth
’.
7
The significance of this last, of course, needs no explanation. All this, even in E
u
sebius’ recapitulation, precedes the Prophecy about the destruction of Jerusalem given by the
Prophet
Josephus says was called
‘
Jesus ben Ananias
’,
which we shall discuss in more detail below.

Epiphanius provides the same information (though with a little more moderation) about ‘
the Pella flight
’ in the following manner:

“
Today this Nazoraean sect exists in Beroea in Coele Syria
(
Aleppo
),
in the Decapolis near the region of Pella
,
and in Bashan in the place called
‘
Cocaba
’ (Hebrew for
‘
Star
’),
which in Hebrew is called
‘
Kochabe
’.
That is its place of origin
,
since all the Disciples were dwelling in Pella after they departed from Jerusalem
,
for
Christ had told them to leave Jerusalem and withdraw from it because it was about to be besieged
.
For this reason
t
hey settled in Perea and
...
that was where the Sect of the Nazoraeans began
.’
”
8

Not only do we have a reflection of the language the Damascus Document uses to describe the ‘
departure from Judah to dwell in the Land of Damascus
’, but also the material here more or less agrees with Mandaean tradition about the withdrawal to Northern Syria of their precursors after the death of John.
9
Here too, it is clear that Epiphanius views the ‘
Nazoraeans
’ – like the
‘
Ebionites
’
– as
the true successors to the Community of James
.

The reference to
Cocaba
/
Kochabe
also seems to reflect the notice Eusebius preserves from Julius Africanus (c. 170–245) about two villages, ‘
Nazara
’ and ‘
Cochaba
’, both with
‘
Messianic
’-
sounding names. However, rather than across Jordan or in Lebanon, Julius appears to place the location of these ‘
villages’ in Judea
– whatever he might mean by this.
10
For Julius, this is where ‘
the
Desposyni
’ (Jesus’ family members) retired after these tragic events, where they
‘
preserved the records of their noble family extraction
’
and from which
they sent out members of the family with these proper records
or
genealogies
‘
to other parts of the World
’.
11

Eusebius, following a writer called ‘
Aristo of Pella
’ (c.
100–160
CE
) – to whom no doubt many of these traditions relating specifically to ‘
Pella
’ and ‘
the flight
’ remount –seems to think that at a later point a small community from Pella re-established itself in Jerusalem after the Bar Kochba War
at a time when Jews were forbidden
,
not only to enter
,
but even to look upon the city
!
12
This was probably the beginning of a completely non-Jewish, ‘
Christian
’ group in Jerusalem, now being called ‘
Aelia Capitolina
’ after its latest conqueror, Aelius Hadrian.

For the First Apocalypse of James from Nag Hammadi, this oracle ‘
to leave Jerusalem
’ comes – much like the Heavenly ‘
revelations
’ Paul claims always to be receiving
– directly from Jesus. As this is stated in the first lines of the Apocalypse, Jesus
speaking: ‘
Fear not, James
.
You too will they seize
.
But leave Jerusalem
,
for she it is that always gives the Cup of Bitterness to the Sons of Light
.’
13
Here too is also the ‘
Cup
’ which James and John, the two ‘
sons of Zebedee
’, will supposedly have to drink in Matthew 20:22 and Mark 10:38 in imitation of Jesus, that is, ‘
the Cup of Martyrdom
’ implying even crucifixion.
14
Both Gospels vary ‘
the Cup of the Lord
’ language, which Jesus supposedly gives James to drink after his resurrection according to the picture in the Gospel of the Hebrews, itself refurbished or, if one prefers, rewritten or overwritten in the ‘
Emmaus Road
’ encounter in the Gospel of Luke.
15

The Pella Flight
and the Flight to
the Wilderness Camps

But what are we to make of these notices about
‘
a Pella flight
’
in response to some mysterious oracle to those left in ‘
the
Jerusalem Community
’ after James’ death? Certainly, they have their mythological aspects having to do with actually being able to accomplish such a
‘
flight
’
to a location like Pella in the unstable conditions of warfare at the time, an issue raised by a nu
m
ber of scholars.
16
But if we set ‘
Pella
’ aside for the moment and concentrate on the
‘
flight
’
motif, there are a number of trad
i
tions about similar emigrations or flights in this period.

To start with, there is the
‘
Theudas
’
(c. 44–46
CE
) we saw in Josephus – seemingly mentioned as ‘
the father
’ or ‘
brother of the Just One
’ in the Second Apocalypse of James
17
– who attempts to lead a large group of his followers out across Jordan in a
reverse Exodus
before he was caught, beheaded and a majority of his followers butchered.
18

Then there is the tradition in the Pseudoclementine
Recognitions
about a
‘
flight
’
(reckoned by the telltale ‘
five thousand
’
)
of James’ Community in Jerusalem to the Jericho area after the attack by the ‘
Enemy
’
Paul on James in the Temple – the one in which, after ‘
casting
’ James ‘
headlong down the steps
’ and leaving him for dead, Paul misses James and his followers because they were outside of Jericho visiting the mysterious tombs of ‘
two of the brothers
’ that curiously ‘
whitened of themselves ev
e
ry year
’.
19