James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (6 page)

But, of course, the position of
the real
Peter comes across even here in his exclamation in response to the Heavenly Voice accompanying this storybook vision of a tablecloth descending from Heaven, commanding him ‘
three times
’
to eat
unclean foods
and ‘
not separate Holy from profane
’: ‘
no Lord no
,
I have never eaten any profane or unclean thing
’ (Acts 10:14). I
n
deed, Peter becomes the swing figure exploited in Acts at every opportunity to make the point of its anti-Semitic invective. How completely unhistorical, if we are to judge by the Pseudoclementines, and how sad.

The first of these speeches occurs in Acts 2:14–36 when Peter speaks on Pentecost to the ‘
Jews and Pious persons from every Nation of those under Heaven who were dwelling in Jerusalem
’ (2:5), addressing them: ‘
You took him with your lawless hands and
,
having crucified him
,
put him to death
’, meaning ‘
Jesus the Nazoraean
,
the man set up by God with mighty works and wonders
,
and signs which God worked through him
’ and ‘
given up
’ with ‘
the foreknowledge of God
’ (Acts 2:22–23). Now quoting Scripture, Peter continues making
the second of these
‘
Blood libel
’
accusations
:
‘He was a Prophet and knowing that God had sworn to him with an oath
…
to sit upon His Throne
,
the Lord said to my Lord
, “
Sit at My right hand until I place your Enemies as a footstool beneath your feet
.”
So therefore, let all the House of Israel know that God made him both Lord and Christ
–
this same Jesus whom you crucified.’
(Acts 2:30–36)

This in its totality is his first speech,
to the Assembled Multitudes on Pentecost,
and the doctrinal invective it contains is patent. The
Peter
pictured here was surely not going to win many friends or influence many people in Jerusalem with this kind of language, but the speech obviously was not intended for the ears of those living in Jerusalem despite its context and the ostensible greeting of the opening line to ‘
all you who inhabit Jerusalem
’; but rather to the wider cosmopolitan audience to which it has always been found more meaningful.

The next speech follows almost immediately in the next chapter when ‘
Peter and John go up to the Temple at the ninth hour
’ (3:1). Acts is always interested in this type of detail (
James
for some reason is now absent and it should be obvious to the reader by now why).
After straightening out a cripple
’
s crooked bones
(thus), Peter again launches into a like-minded speech, clearly paralleling ones in the debates on the Temple steps recorded in the First Book of the Pseudoclementine
Recognitions
. In that version of quasi-parallel proceedings which pictures one Apostle speaking after another, Peter finally precedes James in a speech to the Assembled Multitudes, but the message is completely different from the one here in Acts.
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The issue under discussion in the
Recognitions
is the nature of the Messiah and the ‘
Primal Adam
’ ideology; but in Acts at this juncture, Peter rather
berates the crowd over the fact of his miracle-working
:

“
Men, Israelites, why do you wonder at this
…
as if we made him walk by our own Power.
…
The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob
,
the God of our Fathers
,
glorified His Servant Jesus
,
whom you delivered up
(here the third instance of the ‘
Blood libel
’ accusation being attributed to Peter),
denying him in the presence of Pilate after he had decided to r
e
lease him
.
But you denied the Holy and Righteous One and demanded that a man who was a murdere
r be given to you instead.”
(3:12–14)

This is the approach of the Gospels, but neither here nor in them is it explained why Pilate as Roman Governor should have offered the Jewish crowd this kind of choice between ‘
Barabbas’
, as the Gospels flesh this out, and Jesus.

Still, to drive the point home and, as in the preceding chapter, making the ‘
Blood libel
’ accusation two times in the same speech,
Peter
is made to add: ‘
And you killed the author of life whom God raised up from the dead
(this is the fourth such accusation – not a very good proselytizing technique),
of which we are the witnesses’
(3:15).
Here Acts gives the number of those who heard and, therefore, believed as ‘
five thousand
’ (4:4), but this is the number Josephus originally gives for the nu
m
ber of ‘
the Essenes
’, as we shall see, as well as the number of the original followers of the Maccabees.
68
It is also the number of James’ followers in the Pseudoclementine
Recognitions
who flee down to the Jericho area after James has been thrown down and left for dead in the riot allegedly instigated by Paul in the Temple and, of course, the number of people before whom Jesus performs his
signs
or miracles in the Gospels (though sometimes this alternates with ‘
four thousand
’).
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The next occurrence of this sort of accusation again follows almost immediately. It takes place before the High Priest, the Prefect Alexander (Philo’s nephew Tiberius Alexander, which would put the timeframe, given the scenario of the Gospels, in the mid-Forties, not a very likely chronology
70
), the Rulers, Elders, other High Priests, and Scribes representing, as stated fu
r
ther along, ‘
the Sanhedrin’
. Here Peter is presented as saying:
‘Rulers of the People and Elders of Israel
,
if we are tried today for a good work to a lame man who has been cured
,
let it be known to you all and all the People of Israel that it is in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazoraean
,
whom you crucified
(
the fifth such accusation in three chapters
),
whom God raised from the dead. It is by him that he standing before you has been made whole
.’ (4:8–10)

The fourth speech of this genre Peter makes again occurs in the next chapter, this time directly paralleling the picture in the Pseudoclementine
Recognitions
because he and all the Apostles have been ‘
standing
’ (the ‘
Standing
’ notation is of extreme importance in the Pseudoclementines and it relates to that of ‘
the Great Power
’ – we have already encountered a hint of it in 2:11 and now in 4:10 above
71
) and preaching in the Temple (5:12). The standard arrest then takes place, though the prisons must have been exceptionally large since now one has to do with ‘
all the Apostles
’ not just Peter and John; and after a mirac
u
lous escape, once again, they (
Peter and all the Apostles
not just Peter and John) are ‘
standing in the Temple and teaching the People’
. In addition, like the Essenes and the picture of Peter’s ‘
daily-bathing
’ in the Pseudoclementine
Homilies
, the time now is ‘
at dawn
’ (5:21).

Yet again they (‘
Peter and the Apostles
’) are arrested and placed before what is now called ‘
the Sanhedrin
’, a body that must have found it unusual, if not more than a little inconvenient, to have so many meetings in so short a span of time. R
e
sponding to the High Priest’s admonishment ‘
not to teach in this Name
’, ‘
filling Jerusalem with
’ and ‘
bringing upon us the Blood of this Man
’ (this last, ‘
filling Jerusalem with Blood
’,
etc.
, being specifically alluded to in the Habakkuk
Pesher
as we shall see
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); Peter insists, ‘
It is right to obey God rather than men
.’

Peter then completes his defence (5:30–31) with the sixth allusion to the ‘
Blood libel
’ accusation in just four chapters (not a very politic defence in the circumstances but then the formula is
not meant for these circumstances
):
‘The God of our F
a
thers
raised up Jesus
,
whom you killed by crucifixion
,
a Prince and a Saviour whom God has exalted by His right hand
.’
These words, ‘
by His right hand
’, are the ones Jesus uses in last appearances in the Gospels and the proclamation attributed to James in the speech he makes on the Pinnacle of the Temple before being stoned in early Church texts and the Second Apocalypse of James from Nag Hammadi.
It will also be part of the climactic
Pesher
on Habakkuk 2:16’s ‘
Cup of the right hand of the Lord
’ which will be exploited to describe how ‘
the Cup of the Wrath of God would swallow him
’ (
the Wicked Priest
) as a ‘
Reward
’ for what he did to
the Righteous Teacher
and his followers among ‘
the Poor
’ (
i.e
.,
the
Ebionites
).
73

This is the last in this series of speeches attributed to Peter making this accusation but, should the reader have missed the previous ones, the message is pretty obvious. It is followed by yet another in the next chapter, but this time attributed to ‘
St
e
phen
’ (Acts 7:48–56), the historicity of whom we have already called into question. As Stephen reformulates this libel he again refers, as Peter, to ‘
Heaven is My Throne and Earth a footstool for My feet
’ from Isaiah 66:1–2 and Psalm 110:1. He also adds a reference to
circumcision
– in this case, the ‘
uncircumcised heart
’ from Jeremiah 9:26, Ezekiel 44:7–9 and Romans 2:29, a usage specifically applied in the Habakkuk
Pesher
to the destroyer of the Righteous Teacher, known now rather famously as ‘
the Wicked Priest
’.

‘
Stephen
’’s presentation, which is no more accurate than Peter’s, is as follows: ‘
O you stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears
,
always resisting the Holy Spirit
,
as your Fathers were
,
so are you
.
Which one of the Prophets did your Fathers not persecute
?
And they killed the ones who prophesied the coming of the Just One
,
of whom you now have become the B
e
trayers and murderers’
(7:51–52).
Here the characterization of ‘
Judas Iscariot
’ in the Gospels has now been turned against the Jewish People as a whole
– not only illustrating the true intent of such characterizations but
, sadly, as he has always subco
n
sciously been taken to represent these last nineteen hundred years. It is probably also useful to remark that allusion to such ‘
Betrayers
’ or ‘
Traitors
’ is again known in the literature at Qumran, in particular and as usual, in both the Habakkuk
Pesher
and Damascus Document.
74

Sadly, as well, this accusation has been picked up and repeated
ad nauseam
in the Koran even to this day as almost a setpiece of anti-Semitic vilification, notwithstanding the fact that, as just observed, there is hardly a single prophet in the Old Testament
‘the Jews
’ can actually be accused of having killed – not Moses, not Nathan, not Elijah, not Elisha, not Amos, M
i
cah, or Hosea, not Isaiah, not Jeremiah, not Ezekiel,
etc.
(unless it be perhaps Zechariah though the circumstances surroun
d
ing his death are far from certain
75
).