James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (96 page)

‘
Onias the Righteous
’, whom we have already mentioned above – ‘
this Zealot for the Laws
’ and ‘
Protector of his fellow countrymen
’, as 2 Maccabees 4:2 describes him in anticipation to a certain extent of the way early Church literature will depict James – is martyred at Antioch by the hand of a Seleucid King there ‘
in defiance of all Justice
’ (2 Maccabees 4:34). This
Onias
was the son of the High Priest of the previous line, ‘
Simeon the
Zaddik
’, whose Righteous atonement in the Temple on
Yom Kippur
is pictured in
Ben Sira
’s climactic ‘
praise of Famous Men
’ – in reality ‘
praise of Men of Piety
’/‘
Anshei-Hesed
’,
i.e
., once again the theme of ‘
the Hassidaeans
’).
35
Therefore, this theme of a
Righteous
and/or ‘
Zealot’ Priesthood
is a century or two older than our encounter of it with regard to
Herodians
and the
Priests
involved with and/or appointed by them.

Following the High Priest Onias’
murder by foreigners
, a motif so much a part of this struggle, and the ‘
pollution of the Temple
’ that follows, 2 Maccabees 14:6 portrays Judas as the Leader
par excellence
of those called ‘
Hassidaeans
’, with no inte
r
vening presentation of
Mattathias
his father whatsoever. Ignoring the ‘
Zealot High-Priestly
’ claims in 1 Maccabees 2:26-28 on behalf of his father in favor of Onias’ ‘
Perfect High Priesthood
’, 2 Maccabees 5:27 then proceeds to delineate Judas’ own ‘
wi
l
derness
’ sojourn ‘
with some nine others
’. There is in this, as already suggested too, just the slightest suggestion of ‘
the Ten Righteous Ones
’ of the Abraham/Lot episode in Genesis 18:32, ‘
for whose sake God would withhold destruction from the Earth
’. This is true both as regards the locale, but also the ideology. 2 Peter 2:6–14 alludes to this episode, as well, after its e
v
ocation of Noah as the ‘
Herald of Righteousness
’ and ‘
the Flood
’. Referring to these same ‘
Righteous Ones
’, it not only calls Lot ‘
Righteous
’ and ‘
a Righteous One
’, but, in the style of the Hymns, highlights the suffering of his ‘
Righteous soul
’.
36

Not unlike
the Teacher
Josephus calls ‘
Banus
’ in his
Vita
and with whom he spent a seeming two-year novitiate period,
37
Judas subsists on ‘
wild plants to
avoid contracting defilement
’ (2 Maccabees 5:22). Not only, therefore, did Judas at this point avoid all unclean foods, but
he ate only vegetables
and, seemingly,
wild ones
at that – that is, like a ‘
Rechabite
’,
he did not cultivate
.
38
The reason for this seems to have been that the ‘
Noahic
’ permission to consume meat was withdrawn with the interruption of ‘
Righteous Temple service
’ and ‘
sacrifice
’. This kind of vegetarianism seems to some extent also to prefigure John the Baptist,
Josephus’ so-called ‘
Banus
’,
and even James. To repeat, this insistence on vegetarianism, which Paul calls ‘
weak
’ in 1 Corinth
i
ans 8:7–13 and Romans 14:1–2, was not mere asceticism, but would appear to have been a consequence of
the extreme purity regulations
being observed by these ‘
wilderness
’-dwelling
Zaddik
s, and associated in some manner with the perception of ‘
the pollution of the Temple
’ and
the inefficacy
or
interruption either of the sacrifices
or
the Temple service
being conducted there.

Where atonement on behalf of the whole people was concerned, it is reasonable to suppose that such a ‘
working prayer of the Just One
’, so pivotally evoked in James 5:16 when speaking about Elijah’s ‘
powerful
’ praying, could not be
efficacious u
n
less delivered by ‘
a
Zaddik
’ or ‘
a Priest
Zaddik
’ like James or of the kind delineated in Hebrews.

This would appear to be the position of the Scrolls as well in various attempts to come to grips with what true ‘
Sons of Zadok
’ were. As we have seen, this phrase was also evoked with regard to Simeon the
Zaddik
’s heirs in connection with his splendid
Yom Kippur
atonement in the Temple in the Hebrew version of
Ben Sira
found in the Cairo
Genizah
, at Masada, and at Qumran.
As in the New Testament, these are sometimes denoted in the Scrolls, as we have already explained, as ‘
the Sons of
Zedek
’/‘
the Sons of Righteousness
’ or ‘
the Sons of the
Zaddik
’/‘
the Sons of the Righteous One
’.
39
Often modern scholars mistake these allusions for scribal errors. But these are really probably not scribal errors – simply rather, interchangeable met
a
phor.
40

This then is also the true symbolism commemorated in Jewish
Hanukkah
festivities – meaning, ‘
Purification
’ or ‘
Rededic
a
tion of the Temple
’, festivities never really favored very much among ‘
the Rabbis
’ as such (the true heirs of Pharisee Judaism) – therefore, the absence of the Maccabee Books explaining this Festival from their version of Scripture and, mystifyingly, only found in ‘
Catholic
’ recensions of these materials.
This ‘
Purification
’ or ‘
Rededication
’ is celebrated in the Temple by Judas Maccabeus as a powerful, ‘
High-Priestly
’ Vicegerent of sorts.
41
Modern scholars have been quick to question his qualifications as a
High Priest
, but his election to this office is twice attested to by Josephus – and here the idea of ‘
election
’ is important
42
– and, that he presides over these ‘
purification
’ activities in the Temple is not really to be gainsaid. This is also the thrust, real or symbolic, of the presentation of Jesus in the New Testament who, like 1 Maccabees 2:27 and 2:54’s picture of these Maccab
e
an purveyors of ‘
the Covenant of Phineas
’ and their ‘
zeal
’, is pictured in all the Gospels, Synoptic or Johannine, as ‘
purifying the Temple
’ as well.
43

We know what Pauline groups preferred and, for that matter, Rabbinic ones too. The former went so far in their insis
t
ence on a more spiritualized atonement or sacrifice as to turn it into a sacramental religious creed, not only tying it to ‘
Mystery Religion
’-type ceremonies about ‘
consuming the body and blood of Christ Jesus
’ or ‘
the living and dying god
’, but barring any other approach. Rabbinic Judaism was already purveying the notion – like Paul – that charitable contributions were equivalent to sacrifice referring to it, as already remarked, as
Zedakah
/
Justification
– ‘
Zakat
’ in Islam
44
– a verbal noun based on the same root as
Zedek
or
Righteousness
.
This conceptuality and the ideology associated with it were particularly useful after the fall of the Temple, when the sacrifice ritual was for all intents and purposes defunct, but it was already well developed before this time, as the Apocryphal Book of Tobit makes clear.
45
But Paul, too, is well aware of this idea of
Charity
superseding Temple sacrifice, having studied with the Pharisaic progenitors of Rabbinic Judaism or, as Acts 23:6 has him express this, ‘
I am a Pha
r
isee the son of a Pharisee
’
– in Philippians 3:5, as he famously puts this himself, ‘
according to Law
,
a Pharisee
’.

He refers to precisely this kind of fund-raising activity at the end of Romans and in 1 Corinthians 16:3. In Romans 15:26–27 he speaks about ‘
the Poor of the Saints in Jerusalem
’, where he makes it clear this involved ‘
ministering
to
’ or ‘
serving
them in bodily things
’ – the obvious origin of the presentation of ‘
Stephen
’ and the other
Six
doing ‘
table service
’ in Acts 6:2–5. As Paul puts it so inimitably, ‘
since the Peoples are participating in their spiritual things
,
they ought to minister to them in bodily things
’
as well
. Indeed, this notion of charity replacing sacrifice may have been how James ‘
the Bishop
’ or ‘
Overseer
’ – who admonished Paul (even according to the latter’s own testimony in Galatians 2:10), it will be recalled,
not to forget to
‘
reme
m
ber the Poor
’ – may have understood these things as well.

The Pseudoclementines appear to have little doubt that Christ’s blood ‘
extinguished the fire of sacrifice for all time
’ which has a peculiarly ‘
Pauline
’ ring. Indeed, this may have been the preferred doctrine among the more sophisticated or refined, but James’ behavior, even in Acts – not to mention here in the Pseudoclementines – to some extent belies this as
he did send Paul into the Temple to participate in the sacrifice cult.

Whether groups such as those following James the Just in Jerusalem – who, most accounts attest,
went into the Temple every day for the better part of twenty years
– or ‘
baptizing
’ or ‘
Nazirite
’-style groups generally, following the approach so clearly enunciated in the Community Rule above, preferred ‘
spiritualized
’ sacrifice and atonement to actual sacrifice in the Temple, even when presided over by a ‘
Righteous High Priest
’, cannot be determined on the basis of the available evidence. They certainly preferred it to sacrifice offered by or atonement made by a corrupt
Priesthood
– a
Priesthood
compromised in some manner or ‘
polluted
’ by its
contact with foreigners
, a
Priesthood
that collaborated with and received its appointment from
foreign Rulers
,
Pseudo-Jews
, or
Jewish backsliders
.
But this is not to say that these purist, more extreme groups were unalterably opposed at all times and under all circumstances to sacrifice in the Temple, even when it was being exercised by ‘
Righteous
’
High Priests
in a ‘
Righteous
’ manner. This is a complex matter and the evidence will not support that.

The
Anabathmoi Jacobou
and the Literature of
Heavenly Ascents

It would now be well to look at the evidence in the book Epiphanius entitles
The Anabathmoi Jacobou
or
The Ascents of James
about the issue of
Temple sacrifice
or the lack thereof. This book, which he claims actually to have seen and presents in his discussion of ‘
the Ebionites
’ as being a rival ‘
Acts of the Apostles
’, has James ‘
c
omplaining against the Temple and the sacr
i
fices
,
and
against the fire on the altar
,
and
much else that is full of nonsense’
.
1
It is passing strange to hear Epiphanius accusing others of being ‘
full of nonsense
’ since this is one of his own manifest shortcomings; having said this, one should perhaps a
c
cept the reliability of at least
some
of what he presents. The
Anabathmoi Jacobou
is a lost ‘
Jewish Christian
’ or ‘
Ebionite
’ work, of which we only have these excerpts in Epiphanius and which probably took its title from either a real or symbolic understan
d
ing of the debates on the Temple steps with the Jerusalem Priesthood recorded in the Pseudoclementine
Recognitions
debates which were also refracted in numerous notices to similar effect in the first chapters of the Book of Acts (albeit with James’ presence neatly deleted or overwritten) and even in the picture of James’ death emerging out of Hegesippus.
2

What remains of the
Anabathmoi
is considered to be either parallel to or incorporated in parts of the Pseudoclementines, particularly the picture of Peter, James, and John debating the Pharisaic/Sadducean Leadership on the steps of the Temple, and perhaps two other lost documents related to these –
The Preaching of Peter
and
The Travels of Peter
.
3
But to be a rival Acts, it must have contained much more than this and, as its title implies, focused more on James than any of the aforementioned a
p
pear to have done, which, in more Western orthodox fashion, seem already to prefer to call, whomever they are referring to, ‘
Peter
’.

These ‘
Ascents
’ – aside from possibly alluding to the steps of the Temple and, therefore, the debates that took place on them in all parallel narratives – can also be looked upon as the ‘
degrees
’ of either mystic or
Gnostic
instruction or initiation. This is also the case for Kabbalistic Literature and what is known as ‘
Hechalot
’ or ‘
Ascents
’ Literature. This theme also appears to attach itself to James in the Gnostic variety of the tradition conserved in the Two Apocalypses under his name from Nag Hammadi.
4
In the writer’s view, these represent a later stage of the tradition when all hope of a Messianic return or
Victory
, or a this-worldly Kingdom such as the one envisioned at Qumran, had actually evaporated, giving way to the now more familiar other-worldly, ideological perspective.

Indeed, this is something of the thrust one gets in the Habakkuk
Pesher
’s interpretation of Habakkuk 2:3. Here, not only is the Righteous Teacher described as receiving instruction ‘
from the mouth of God
’, but he is also denoted as ‘
the Priest
’, a term invariably meaning, ‘
the High Priest
’ in Hebrew
– ‘
in whose heart God put the intelligence to interpret all the words of His Servants the Prophets
’ and ‘
through whom God foretold all that was coming to His People
’, ‘
making known to him all the Mysteries of the words of His Servants the Prophets
’.
5
In other words,
the Righteous Teacher
, who seems just as James to double as
the High Priest
or perhaps more comprehensibly ‘
the Opposition High Priest
’, had virtually
a direct connection to God
and
was
,
like Moses
, for all intents and purposes ‘
His mouthpiece
’.

The main ‘
Mystery
’ that ‘
God made known to him
’, which is specifically said to have been an ‘
astonishing
’ one and deli
v
ered to him (that is, Habakkuk) as it were ‘
on the run
’ (2:2), seems to have been that ‘t
he Last Era would be extended and e
x
ceed all that the Prophets have foretold, since the Mysteries of God are astonishing
’.
6
This leads to the exegesis of Habakkuk 2:3: ‘
If it tarries
,
wait for it
’. It is, of course, exactly the kind of understanding that was developing in the first centuries of Christianity into what latterly goes under the heading of ‘
the Delay of the
Parousia
’, that is,
the delay of the Second Coming of Jesus
and
its accompanying effects
– and what some moderns refer to as ‘
the Rapture
’ – for which believers have been waiting quite a long time now.

On the Jewish side however, there is also the literature of ‘
Heavenly Ascents
’ described in Jewish Kabbalistic tradition. This ‘
Literature of Ascents
’ or ‘
Hechalot
Literature
’, as it is called, is the Literature of the Ascents to Heaven and the various degrees thereof.
For his part, Paul actually describes in 2 Corinthians 12:2–4 meeting one such ‘
Man in Christ
’ who
made one such ascent
‘
fourteen years before
’.

The number ‘
fourteen
’ is suggestive here, for it is exactly the number Paul uses in Galatians 2:1 to describe the interval b
e
tween his two visits to Jerusalem, both of which times he met James – the first, when he ‘
made the acquaintance of Peter
’ and, according to him, saw ‘
no other Apostles except James the brother of the Lord’
(1:19),
and the second when he (Paul) r
e
turned to put ‘
the Gospel
,
as
(
he
)
proclaimed it among the Peoples
’ before ‘
those reputed to be something
’, namely, ‘
James and Cephas and John
’ (Galatians 2:2–2:9).

Not only does Paul basically give them ‘
the back of his hand
’ by indicating that, to him, their repute ‘
made no difference
…
because God does not accept the person of Man
’. We have discussed this allusion to ‘
accepting the person of Man
’ in r
e
gard to James’ well-documented ‘
not deferring to men
’ above but, in our view, when all these allusions are taken together – despite Paul’s typically subdued tone in referring to persons of James’ status here – that James is the one, considered to have made such an ‘
Ascent
’
to
‘
the Third Heaven
’ as Paul describes this in 2 Corinthians 12:2, is probably not to be gainsaid. As Paul expresses this in 12:3 amid allusion to his ‘
not knowing
’
but
‘
God knowing
’: ‘
whether in the body or out of the body
’,
this
‘
one was caught away into the Third Heaven
’ and, again in 12:4, ‘
caught away to the Paradise
’ – in Hebrew, of course, ‘
Pardess
’, meaning ‘
Orchard
’ or ‘
Garden
’, this being the typically Kabbalistic and, for that matter, Islamic term for precisely this kind of mystical experience. There, whomever he is referring to ‘
heard unutterable sayings
,
which it is not permitted to Man to speak
’.

This is certainly a very curious notice, particularly as it comes right in the midst of his attacks on the ‘
Super Apostles
’ whom, as we saw, at one point he identifies as ‘
Hebrews
’ (2 Corinthians 11:22) who ‘
commend themselves
’ by ‘
measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves to themselves
’, but who also ‘
preach
another Jesus
’ (10:12–11:4). It also comes in the midst of his own ‘
boasting
’ about – and this playing on the motif of these ‘
Super Apostles
’ – ‘
the surpassingness of
(
his own
)
Heavenly Visions
(11:22–12:12).

In 2 Corinthians 2:14–16, Paul speaks of ‘
m
aking manifest through us the perfume of the Knowledge of him in every place
.
For we are a
sweet odour
of Christ in those being saved to God
...
an
odour of life
to life’
.
Paul is at his allegorical best here; but
with his remarks about ‘
these others
’ – whom he calls ‘
those who are to perish
’ (sometimes even, it will be recalled, ‘
Mini
s
ters of Death
’ or ‘
Servants of Satan
’ – remarks, however covert, clearly aimed at the ‘
Super Apostles
’ and
the Jerusalem Church Leadership
) and, most tellingly and bitingly of all, ‘
an odour of death to death
’! – he reaches a rhetorical pinnacle (though some might call it, a polemical and rhetorical
nadir
).

The Ban on Foreigners in the Temple (including Herodians)

One should note that in 1 Corinthians, Paul also sees himself as having ‘
Mysteries
’ revealed to him and, in turn, revealing them to his congregants. In 4:1 he actually calls himself and his colleagues ‘
Attendants of Christ and
Keepers of the Mysteries of God
’. In 1 Corinthians 14:2–4, Paul once again claims that ‘
he is speaking with a Tongue
’ and ‘
in
(
the
)
Spirit
’, and thus, both ‘
building up
’, ‘
speaking to God not men
’, and ‘
speaking Mysteries
’. In fact, in 13:2 he actually seems to be parodying the d
e
scription of ‘
the Righteous Teacher
’ in the Scrolls, when he speaks of ‘
having prophecy and knowing all Mysteries and all Knowledge
’
while at the same time, in the antistrophe, disparaging this with the words, ‘
but not having love being nothing
’.

But the Scrolls too speak of such ‘
Mysteries
’, not only in the Community Rule and relative to unique attributes of
the Righteous Teacher
in the Habakkuk
Pesher
, but in other documents as well – as does Muhammad in the Koran.
7
The same can be said for James in the picture in the Pseudoclementines, though in both them and the Scrolls, teachers are cautioned to keep such things secret, revealing them only to the inner core of colleagues practising real ‘
Perfection of the Way
’.
8
Paul by contrast, as in Romans 16:25–26 and 1 Corinthians 14:25, wants everything ‘
made manifest
’ and ‘
nothing hidden
’ (at least, after such time that ‘
the Lord has come
’) and in 1 Corinthians 2:4–7 he alludes both to ‘
speaking among the Perfect
’ and ‘
speaking the Wisdom of God in a Mystery which God has hidden and pre-ordained before the Ages for our Glory
’. In 1 Corinthians 4:5 and 2 Corinthians 4:2–4:6, he even applies Qumran ‘
Light and Dark
’ imagery to these sorts of propositions.