James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls I (64 page)

These bitter confrontations lead to tragic consequences – also treated in the Psalm 37
Pesher
– in the course of which, the Hebrew word ‘
causing to stumble
’ or ‘
casting down
’, used both in the Letter of James and corresponding Pauline and early Christian language, is also employed.
18

If, as such an ‘Opposition High Priest’, James did go into the Holy of Holies on
Yom Kippur
, whether on the date celebrated by the Establishment High Priests or as determined in the Scrolls, then
he certainly would have pronounced the Divine Name of God in the course of it
. Retrospective attempts to impose later theological consenses on these materials notwithstanding,
this certainly could – and probably did – lead to the Sanhedrin trial and the charge of blasphemy, for which James would have been stoned
. Those described in Josephus as ‘the most equitable of the People’ would, no doubt, also have sent representatives to Albinus who was then on the road, pointing out to him his prerogatives as Governor, just as Josephus describes they did.

The picture of such complaints to the Roman Governor on the part of the Jewish mob is paralleled in our Gospel accounts of the death of Jesus but again with inverted and, as it were, hostile effect. However preposterous it may be, the High Priest, ‘the whole Jewish Sanhedrin’, and the crowd never tire of pointing out to Pilate that
he is obliged to put Revolutionaries and insurrectionists
(like ‘Jesus’)
to death
. Otherwise, he ‘is no Friend of Caesar’ (John 19:12).

This is hardly the sense of the representations of those Josephus calls ‘the most equitable’ of the Jews, who ‘were most rigorous in observation of the Law and disliked what was done’ to James. These, rather, explain to Albinus that the High Priest
had not the power to convene the Sanhedrin
and
impose the death penalty without the consent of the Roman Governor
19
– totally different advice – and, therefore, even according to Roman administrative practice, he had acted illegally. Again, another of these multitudinous contradictions between the
real
facts of this period and how they are portrayed in the Gospels.

In fact, the
Talmud
contends that
the Jewish Sanhedrin did not apply the death penalty during this period because for ‘forty years’ prior to the fall of the Temple it ‘was exiled’
– these are its very words –
from its previous location in ‘the Stone Chamber’ on the Temple Mount to a new place of sitting outside it called ‘Hanut’
. This language is played on in this sensitive passage of the Habakkuk
Pesher
about how the Wicked Priest

pursued after the Righteous Teacher to
swallow him with his venomous anger in his House of Exile
. And at the completion of the Festival of Rest of the Day of Atonements (
thus
), he appeared to them to
swallow them
, causing them to stumble (literally, ‘
cast them down
’) on the Fast Day,
the Sabbath of their Rest
–

‘them’ being ‘the Poor’ and/or ‘the Simple of Judah doing
Torah
’ upon whom the Wicked Priest committed ‘Violence’ and whose ‘sustenance he stole’.
20
In Josephus’ account, paralleling this, ‘certain others’ – in these accounts, always the ubiquitous followers of James – were also ‘accused of being Law-Breakers and delivered over to be stoned’.

Since the three successive ‘his’es or ‘him’s in this passage are indefinite in Hebrew, we will be able to show in due course how they have been misinterpreted by a majority of commentators and how the allusion to this mysterious ‘
his House of Exile’ or ‘Exiled House’ will actually reflect these Talmudic references about ‘the Exile of the Sanhedrin’ in the period
of the stoning of James (not to mention Jesus’ crucifixion)
from its normal place of sitting on the Temple Mount
. Not only this, but they will also reflect the peculiar reference to
the ‘Sanhedrin’ trial of Jesus in ‘the High Priest’s House’ in most Gospel accounts
, not to mention the play, encompassed by the various allusions to ‘
anger
’ or ‘
cha‘as
’ one encounters here, on
‘the Cup’ or ‘Chos’ of Divine Vengeance
.
21

Unlike the picture of the complaints by the Jews to Pilate of the opposite kind in the Gospels,
the complaints to Albinus over this infraction were probably true
– but to little avail. After an initial show of pique and some play-acting, Albinus soon followed the ways of previous governors and
made alliances with these same High Priests
, exerting himself with them to destroy ‘the
Sicarii
’ and leaving the country, in Josephus’ words,
in worse condition than it was before
. In fact, almost in a shambles.

The Crucial Elements in Jerome’s Testimony about James’ Fall

As Jerome’s testimony, conflating Josephus with early Church sources, continues: ‘
When he (James) refused to deny that Christ is the Son of God, Ananius (thus) ordered him to be stoned
.’ Jerome now proceeds to portray this stoning exclusively on the basis of early Church sources (except for the information from his now-lost version of Josephus, on the basis of which he concludes that
Jerusalem fell because of the ‘great Holiness and reputation of James among the People
’). This reads:

Cast down
from the Pinnacle of the Temple (we have just encountered this ‘casting down’ or ‘causing to stumble’ language in the Habakkuk
Pesher
above),
his legs broken
, but still half alive, and raising his hands to Heaven, he said, ‘Lord, forgive them for they know not what they do.’ Then struck on the head by the club of a laundryman, such a club as laundrymen are accustomed to beat out
clothes
with, he died.

In the rest of his biographical description of James, Jerome provides the new traditions he knows from a document he calls ‘
the Gospel of the Hebrews
’ which, he explains, he ‘
recently translated into Greek and Latin and which Origen, too, often made use of
’. This, he vouchsafes, not only includes a note about how Jesus
gave his ‘grave clothes to the Servant of the High Priest
’, but also the description of how
James was
the first to see Jesus after the Resurrection
, which we shall treat further later. Here, the point about ‘clothes’ or ‘grave clothes’ is a little further clarified.

Jerome ends this biographical note about James with the tradition we have noted above of how James was ‘
buried near the Temple from which he had been cast down
(again
kataballo
)’. Here we have once again the repetition of the ‘
B–L–‘
’ language circle, now expressed, not in the Hebrew where it relates to the idea of ‘
swallowing
’ and ‘
destruction
’, but in Greek where it is
always
associated with
James’ being ‘cast
down’
from the Temple
. As should be becoming clear, the repetition of this linguistic usage in all traditions in Greek relating to attacks on or the death of James is the exact parallel to its use in the traditions relating to the death of the Righteous Teacher at Qumran.

We shall also find this linguistic usage reappearing in the various mythological descriptions of how Jesus’ Apostles, as ‘fishermen’, ‘cast down their nets’, not to mention allusions connected to the ‘
Diabolos
’ (‘
Belial
’ in Hebrew
) being ‘cast into a furnace of the Fire
’ (Mt 13:42–50). There is even a possibility, as we saw, that the usage relates to the ‘
Oblias
’ terminology, so significant where James’ role of ‘
protecting the People’ from precisely the kind of ‘Devilishness
’ implied by this linguistic configuration is concerned.

Jerome ends this testimony with the note that ‘
His tombstone with its inscription was well-known until the siege of Titus and the end of Hadrian’s reign. Some of our writers think he was buried on the Mount of Olives but they are mistaken
.’ This presumably relates to a locale in the Kedron Valley below the Pinnacle of the Temple where the present-day tomb, ascribed by pilgrims over the centuries to James’ name, now stands. Again, tomb traditions, familiar from the story of Jesus, seem to be impeding into the details about James or
vice versa
.

There are other thematic repetitions in this testimony from Jerome which, short as it is, is packed with data. Most important of these are the ‘blows to the head’ we have already encountered with regard to ‘Jesus’, ‘Stephen’, and, in Acts, even Paul. Where James is concerned, they are tied to an allusion to ‘a fuller’s’ or ‘laundryman’s club’, one used to ‘beat out clothes’. The theme of this ‘striking’ again, joined to the motif of how James ‘raised his
hands
to Heaven’, is not un-reminiscent of the phrase, ‘some struck’ Jesus ‘with the hand’ in Matthew 26:67.

This prayer, attributed to James, is also recapitulated in the New Testament in both the last words ascribed to Jesus and Stephen’s last prayer – also significantly ‘on his knees’. The ‘clothing’ theme is this time associated with the double reference to the ‘laundryman’s club’, not to mention the reference in Jerome’s ‘Gospel of the Hebrews’ above to Jesus’ ‘grave clothes’. Here it is combined with the new one of James ‘breaking his legs’ in the fall – in Jerome, from ‘the Pinnacle of the Temple’; but in Clement’s
Recognitions
, from ‘the top of the Temple steps’. It also recurs in the Gospels in connection with ‘Jesus’’ crucifixion and how the soldiers
‘broke the legs’ of those on the crosses who had not yet expired
.

We shall presently encounter this same allusion to the ‘laundryman’s club’ in Mark, in crucial scenes about Jesus’ ‘Transfiguration’ before his core Apostles; however here in Jerome, the idea of this ‘club’ or ‘clubbing’ definitely relates to the Rabbinic material from
Talmud Sanhedrin
about how stoning procedures were carried out. In Rabbinic tradition, this will also relate to information about
falling from the Temple wall
. An interesting example of such a ‘fall’ or ‘push’ in the
Talmud
relates to an individual who, though condemned by the Sanhedrin to death – in this case,
by stoning
– but, because of
whose popularity
the punishment could not be effected,
the priests were to gather around jostling him and cause him to fall off the Temple wall
(
thus
).
22

In
Mishnah Sanhedrin
, which deals with things like trials for ‘blasphemy’, as well as these sorts of punishments before the Sanhedrin, it is specifically stated that ‘If a priest (other versions add the words: ‘even a High Priest’) served in a state of uncleanness …
the young men among the priests were to take him outside the Temple and
split open his brain with clubs
.’
23
It should be noted that in Hebrew the word being used here for ‘clubs’ is actually
faggots
, the precise word that will reappear in the scene in the Pseudoclementines of Paul’s attack on James in the Temple where ‘
the Enemy
’, as we saw,
picks up ‘a faggot’ or ‘stake’ from those by the Temple altar
. It should be appreciated that it was the custom to stack such ‘faggots’ near the altar for firewood.
24

When coupled with these Talmudic notices, the implication is that James was
serving in a state of uncleanness or he had no right to be there in the first place
. The reference here to ‘splitting open his brain’, as well, is exactly parallel to all our accounts of James. It should be patent that aspects from both of these traditions have been absorbed into the James story as it has come down to us in early Church tradition or
vice versa
. But the important note here is that the priest was ‘
serving in a state of uncleanness
’, which turns around the charges being made in Scroll texts (echoed with inverted signification even in the Pauline corpus) of ‘
polluting the Temple
’. That charges of this kind were being hurled back and forth in the Temple between opposing groups of ‘priests’ and their more violent-minded partisans – particularly in the time James held sway in Jerusalem – is particularly clear from Josephus’ accounts, again tendentiously refracted in the parallel narrative of Acts.

Here once again, then, is evidence relating to
a priest, accidentally on purpose either being ‘thrown down’ from the Temple wall or taken outside the Temple and having his brains beaten out with a club on charges having something to do with improper Temple service or serving in a state of uncleanness
. This links up very strongly with the idea that James
went into the Holy of Holies
and there rendered atonement on behalf of the people on the most sacred day of the Jewish year. For those of the opposing party, no doubt, he would not even have been considered a proper priest at all; for those of his own party, if not genealogical, he was ‘consecrated to God’ or ‘Holy to God’ and, therefore,
the High Priest by virtue of the ‘Perfection of his Holiness
’. The calendrical differences, of the kind signaled in the Qumran literature and known to have existed between the Establishment Priest class and these opposition groups, would only have exacerbated these differences and the feeling that – at least from the Establishment perspective – these ‘blasphemy’ or ‘uncleanness’ charges were legitimate.