James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (134 page)

Persons doing such things are called in Ezekiel 44:7 ‘
Covenant-Breakers
’, the term used in the Habakkuk
Pesher
– in co
n
junction with ‘
the Man of Lying
’, ‘
Violent Ones
’, and ‘
Traitors to the New Covenant
’ generally – to describe the Alliance o
p
posing ‘
the Righteous Teacher
’/‘
the
(
High
)
Priest
’. The allusion in these contexts to ‘
Breakers of the Covenant
’, as in James 2:9, is obviously meant to signal the very opposite of what a
true
‘
Son of Zadok
’ was supposed to have been, namely a ‘
Keeper of the Covenant
’ and a ‘
Doer of the Torah
’
par excellence
, the reference to which then permeates these lines from Ezekiel 44:8–15, Qumran generally, and, of course, James. That a variation of this ban on foreign gifts and sacrifices in the Temple is found here in Ezekiel 44:7–15 puts the lie to Josephus’ attempt to portray objections of this kind on the part of ‘
Sicarii
’/‘
Zealot
’ e
x
tremists after the death of James in the run-up to the War as ‘
Innovations which our Forefathers were unacquainted with
’ – as it does the attempt by Josephus (like Paul in the New Testament) to turn their complaints against themselves by accusing these same extremist ‘
Zealots
’ of ‘
polluting the Temple
’
by their acts of
‘
bloodshed
’, an accusation paralleled with only slightly di
f
fering signification in these passages here – as it is in the Gospels
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– in Revelation as well.

The phrase ‘
because he did not circumcise the foreskin of his heart
’, therefore, is based on these passages from Ezekiel on ‘
the Zadokite Priesthood
’. The sense of purposefully introducing it in the Habakkuk
Pesher
’s exegesis of ‘
looking upon their Festivals
’ (in original Habakkuk 2:15, ‘
their privy parts
’) and ‘
drink and tremble
’ to characterize ‘
the Wicked Priest
’ was to sp
e
cifically apply the general parameters in Ezekiel to him despite his ‘
Jewishness
’ and even though he was not a foreigner. The point it is making is that he should be
treated just like a foreigner
because, not only was he
enriching himself by accepting such foreign gifts and sacrifices
, but
his very appointment to the High Priesthood itself came from them
. For this, the
Pesher
makes it clear, by deliberately altering the underlying text and introducing the changes it does,
he was
disqualified
from service as High Priest on the basis of the parameters of Ezekiel
’
s
‘
Zadokite Statement
’ and, in fact,
worthy of death
.

As Ezekiel
44:13
puts it in these passages about these backsliding Priests who ‘
went astray from Me after their idols
’ and ‘
brought foreigners into
’
the Temple
‘
uncircumcised in heart and body to pollute it
’, ‘
breaking My Covenant with all their Abominations’
: ‘
They shall not come near to Me to serve as Priests
(basically, the second of the two complaints attributed to James in the
Anabathmoi Jacobou
),
nor approach any of My Holy Things or the Holy of Holies
,
but they shall carry their shame
(
kelimmah
)
and the Abominations they committed
.’
Even the word ‘
Abominations
’ (
To
‘
evot
) now appears in the
Pesher
’
s
descri
p
tion that follows of ‘
the Abominations the Wicked Priest committed
’ in ‘
polluting the Temple of God
’.
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Moving on to its definition of the true ‘
Sons of Zadok
’, who are henceforth to approach the altar of God and render this ‘
service
’, these are now described in the passage expounded in the key exposition of the CD III.21–IV.12 as ‘
those who kept charge
(literally ‘
the keeping
’)
of My Temple when the Sons of Israel went astray from Me
’ (44:15). They are also described as ‘
keeping My Laws
(
Hukkim
)’, ‘
Festivals
’, and ‘
Sabbaths
’, alluded to elsewhere as ‘
the monthly flags
’.
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They are also things Paul
heaps abuse on
in developing his theology of the saving death of ‘
Christ Jesus
’, describing them in Galatians 4:9–10 as ‘
Beggarly
’ or ‘
Poverty-stricken elements
’ (note the play here on ‘
the Poor
’ terminology associated with James) only good for ‘
weaklings
’ and those ‘
preferring bondage
’ – as he makes clear in the ‘allegory’ that follows in Galatians 4:21–31 contrasting ‘
the slave woman
’
Hagar
, who ‘
is Mount Sinai in Arabia
’, with ‘
the free woman
’
Sarah
– meaning ‘
to the Law
’.

Furthermore, he makes this allusion in the aftermath of discussing how ‘
as Many are of the works of the Law are under a curse
’ and ‘
the Righteous shall live by Faith
’ in 3:10–11. We showed in discussing the last Column of the Damascus Document earlier that Paul turns the ‘
cursing
’ of those ‘
straying to the right or left of the
Torah
’ one finds there, in upon those who had most probably anathematized him. Making it clear in Galatians 3:13 that he considered himself to be in some manner under ‘
the curse of the Law
’, he argues that Jesus too was ‘
cursed
’ by being ‘
hung upon a tree
’ according to the very Law those would execrate him held so dear. Therefore, by implication, by taking this ‘
curse
’ upon himself or, in some of the most dazzling the
o
logical footwork ever evinced, Paul argues that, ‘
having become for us a curse
’, Jesus redeemed all Mankind too.

We showed how in the next chapter of Galatians (4:16–18), Paul is primarily teaching against those ‘
zealous
’ for such things – meaning ‘
Zealots
’ – when he asks, ‘
Have I now become your
Enemy
by telling the Truth to you
?’ In so doing, he shows his awareness that epithets of this kind, namely
both
the ‘
Lying
’ and ‘
the Enemy
’ ones, were being applied to him
’
by his detractors – epithets that have not failed to leave their mark in ‘
Jewish Christian
’ or ‘
Ebionite
’ tradition. In this last, the Paul-like attacker of James is specifically referred to as the ‘
Hostile Man
’ or ‘
Enemy
’ in the account of the physical assault he makes on James in the Temple in the Pseudoclementine
Recognitions
. Not only is the basis for this epithet to be found in James 4:4, but reflections of it are to be found in Matthew’s ‘
Parable of the Tares
’, which recounts how an ‘
Enemy
’ came and sowed the tares among the good seed, but at the End of Time (‘
the Completion of this Age
’) – as the Gospel raconteur avers – the tares will be uprooted and ‘
cast
(
balousin
)
into the furnace of fire
’ (Matthew 13:39–42). This will be exactly the same approach as the Habakkuk
Pesher
and the note of extreme hopefulness it manifests regarding such matters in its climactic conclusion.

‘
The Cup of the Wrath of God will Swallow him
’

It is in this context that the Habakkuk
Pesher
describes the destruction of the Wicked Priest in terms of ‘
drinking his fill
’ from ‘
the Cup of the Wrath of God
’. This would also be ‘
the Cup of Trembling
’ from Isaiah 51:17 implied by the purposeful substitution of ‘
tremble
’ for ‘
foreskin
’ in the underlying text from Habakkuk 2:16. This is also clearly ‘
the Cup
’
of Divine Vengeance
–
ergo
, now ‘
the Cup of the Wrath of God
(
Hamat-El
)
would swallow him
’ (
teval
‘
eno
).

We have already seen this kind of ‘
Venomous Anger
’ imagery used in the Damascus Document to apply to the
Establis
h
ment
and ‘
the wine
’ of ‘
their ways
’. Here it is being applied to the ‘
Reward
’ (
Gemulo
) of the Wicked Priest. In the Psalm 37
Pesher
, this was ‘
the Reward
(again,
gemulo
)
God paid him by delivering him into the hand of the Violent Ones of the Gentiles
’. These we have identified as the Idumaean allies of the ‘
Zealots
’, all thirsting for vengeance for James. Not only did they ‘
ex
e
cute the Judgements upon Evil on him
’, in this
Pesher
this involved ‘
taking Vengeance on the flesh of his corpse
’. As we have seen too, the text also plays on the expression ‘
shame
’ (
kalon
/
kikalon
), repeated twice, to express the Wicked Priest’s behavior and final defilement. A variation of this ‘
shame
’ (
kelimmah
) is also found, combined with reference to ‘
Abominations
’ (
To
‘
evot
) as here in the Habakkuk
Pesher
, in these key passages of Ezekiel’s ‘
Zadokite Statement
’ about
the disqualification of Priests like
‘
the Wicked Priest
’
from service at the Temple altar
(44:13).

His destruction is described in 1QpHab XI.12–15 in the following manner:
‘
His shame was greater than his Glory
,
b
e
cause
…
he walked in his Way of satiety by way of drinking his fill
,
but the Cup of the Wrath of God shall swallow him
,
ad
d
ing to
(
his shame and dis
)
grace
(‘
his
kalon
/
kikalon
)…’.
The column breaks off here.

The whole exposition we are presenting here is born out by what follows in the next column of the
Pesher
. Pursuing an underlying reference to the ‘
Violence done to Lebanon
’, ‘
the destruction of the dumb Beasts
’, ‘
the Blood of Man
(
Adam
)
and the Violence
(
done
)
to the Land
,
the City
,
and all its inhabitants
’ (all allusions with counterparts in the Book of Revelation), the
Pesher
now focuses on the ‘
conspiracy to destroy the Poor
’ and ‘
to rob
’
them of their sustenance
.
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As will be recalled, this ‘
plot
’ or ‘
conspiracy
’ was, in our view, the one between Ananus ben Ananus and the Herodian Agrippa II ‘
to destroy
’ the Righteous Teacher James. It is this which is ‘
the Blood of Man
’ and ‘
the Violence done to the Land
’ and ‘
its inhabitants
’. ‘
The City
’ is specifically identified in XII.7–9 as Jerusalem. The text makes no bones about this, averring that this was ‘
Jerusalem
,
where the Wicked Priest committed his works of Abominations and polluted the Temple of God
’. On the other hand, ‘
the Violence
(
done to
)
the Land
’ is said to be ‘
the Cities of Judah
’ where ‘
he stole the Riches of the Poor
’ (
Ebionim
).
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