James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls I (68 page)

In Luke, ‘Jesus’ has just spoken in favour of
the Righteousness of Roman ‘tax collectors’ over those ‘trusting themselves to be Righteous’, who observe the letter of the Law but ‘despise others’ who don’t
(18:9–14). How cynical could its author be? He couldn’t sound more like Paul here. From the language of the episode, Zacchaeus also seems to be a Gentile – at least, being a ‘
tax collector
’, he is classified as a ‘
Sinner
’ (19:7 – cf. Paul in Gal. 2:15 above on ‘
Gentiles’
as
‘Sinners’
).
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As with the identification of James’ followers at the famous Jerusalem Conference in Acts 15:5 as ‘Pharisees’, all legal hair-splitters in the language of Jesus’ preaching in this episode in Luke are referred to under the blanket heading of ‘Pharisees’. To these, ‘Jesus’, speaking on behalf of
the ‘Unrighteous’, ‘rapacious’, ‘fornicators’, and ‘tax collectors’
, applies the favourite scriptural aphorism, ‘
everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled and he that humbles himself shall be exalted
’ (18:11–14).
He has also just praised the ‘Rich’ Ruler, who ‘keeps’ all the Commandments and ‘gives to the Poor’
– clearly intending the Herodians. Of course this is more like Queen Helen of Adiabene and her son Izates than any ‘Herodian’ Palestinian Ruler. Here, too, ‘Jesus’ applies one more, beloved aphorism, that about ‘the Rich Man entering the Kingdom of Heaven’ and the camel, ‘the eye of a needle’ (18:18–25).
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This serves to introduce ‘Zacchaeus’ who is also – unlike, patently, in the
Recognitions
– one of these, ‘
a Chief Tax Collector
’ and ‘
Rich
’ (19:2). As the logic of the Gospel narrative continues, ‘
because he was small in height
(is this serious?),
he climbed a sycamore tree in order to see (Jesus), for he was about to pass
’ (19:3–4); but ‘Jesus’, rather, calls him down, suddenly informing him – in the manner he does Paulinizing doctrine in general – ‘
Today I must stay in your house
’ (19:5). But of course, this is nothing but ‘
the house’
that Peter with more justification goes to in Caesarea in the
Recognitions
’ narrative – ‘Zacchaeus’, as we just saw, being the
leader of the nascent Messianic Community in Caesarea
(Jewish or otherwise, it is impossible to say).

This is the same kind of ‘house’ manipulation one gets regarding ‘James’ house’ in the
Recognitions
, ‘the house of Mary
the mother of John Mark
’, where James also is to be found, in Acts, and ‘the house of the Disciple Jesus loved’, whom Mary – ‘his mother’s sister’ – adopts as a son and where she is about to go to live in the Gospel of John. Could anything be clearer than what is going on here and where the authentic tradition lies?

When the Jewish mob, which perhaps here and certainly elsewhere includes the Apostles (and echoes Acts’ portrayal of the reaction in Jerusalem of James followers to ‘Peter’ visiting the Roman Centurion Cornelius ‘house’), ‘murmurs exclaiming, “
He has gone in to stay with a Sinner,”’ Zacchaeus responds that he has given half of what he owns ‘to the Poor’ and returned anything he ‘has taken by fraud … four times’
(19:8) – this from a ‘Rich’ Chief Tax Collector, in Roman practice in Palestine usually the Herodian King!

Just as ‘Peter’, too, in Acts’ picture of his visit to the Roman Centurion’s house in Caesarea (we already saw the relationship of this to Agrippa I), ‘Jesus’ then spouts Pauline doctrine, observing, ‘
Salvation has come to this house today, because he is also a Son of Abraham
’(so, then ‘Zacchaeus’ is not a ‘Gentile’ but, then, ‘Herodians’ could make the same claim being considered partly ‘Idumaean’).
In due course, we shall show the special significance this phrase ‘
Son of Abraham
’ held for those in Northern Syria, Edessa, and Adiabene – the area of Abraham’s reputed birthplace.

Here for some reason Zacchaeus, making this speech, is suddenly described as ‘standing’ (before he was ‘up in a sycamore tree’ or ‘hurrying’ home), paralleling the reference to ‘the Standing One’ in James’ instructions outside Jericho in the
Recognitions
to Peter, before the latter goes off to confront Simon
Magus
in Caesarea. Again, the relationship between this episode and ‘Peter’ going to stay in ‘Zacchaeus’ house’ in Caesarea, transformed and packed now with ‘Gentile Christian’ motifs, should be unmistakable. Only now it should be clear – the same kind of retrospective absorption of materials, we have already demonstrated to be transpiring in Acts, is also occurring in the Gospels.

Chapter 18

Peter’s Visit to Cornelius and Simon’s Visit to Agrippa

Paul’s Letters from the High Priest and the Way to Damascus

It would now be well to look at how Acts introduces Paul and presents his behaviour after Stephen is ‘cast out’ of Jerusalem and ‘stoned’, and ‘the witnesses laid
their clothes
at the feet of a young man called Saulus’ – when it should have been
vice versa
(7:58). The Book of Acts follows the same sequence of events as the Pseudoclementines, up to the point in the latter when Paul ‘
stopped on his way while passing through Jericho going to Damascus
’ (1.71) – almost word-for-word the language of the ‘Zacchaeus’ episode in Luke in the opposite direction.

At this point the Pseudoclementines branch off, depicting James (‘still limping on one foot’) sending off Peter to confront Simon
Magus
in Caesarea on his first missionary journey. In the meantime, James’ Community has gone outside Jericho to visit the graves of some brethren which
miraculously ‘whitened of themselves every year
’ thereby restraining the fury of their enemies because
they ‘were held in remembrance before God’
(1.71 – these words too are paralleled in the Damascus Document). For Acts Paul, like Jesus ‘drawing near Jericho’, was ‘drawing near Damascus’ when suddenly he gets a vision and ‘
a light from Heaven shone all about him
’.

The rest of Paul’s ‘Damascus-road’ vision-drama ensues. The parallel between the ‘
light from Heaven that shone all around him
’ in Acts and
the tombs of the two brothers that miraculously ‘whitened of themselves every year
’ in
Recognitions
should not be missed as well, not to mention the additional possible parallel provided by the ‘whitewashed wall’ vocabulary Acts 23:3 later depicts Paul as applying to the High Priest Ananias. Nor is Paul’s Damascus-road vision paralleled in Galatians, which has Paul ‘
going directly away into Arabia’
– whatever Paul means by this – and ‘
returning again to Damascus
’ only after this (1:18), and doesn’t agree with Acts any more than the Pseudoclementines do in the sequence of events or their substance. For Acts, after ‘
Pious Men buried Stephen and made great lamentations over him … Saul was ravaging the Assembly, entering house after house and dragging men and women (out), delivered (them) up to prison
’ (8:3).

Here are interposed in Acts the two chapters we have described on Peter, Philip, and Simon
Magus
in Samaria, ending with Philip baptizing the Ethiopian Queen Kandakes’ ‘
eunuch
’,
who had power ‘over all her Treasure
’ (8:27), after which ‘
the Spirit of the Lord took Philip away so the eunuch never saw him again
’ (
thus
–9:39).

Then Philip, ‘
passed through all the cities, evangelizing them till he came to Caesarea. But Saul, still fuming threats and murder towards the Disciples of the Lord, went to the High Priest, asking for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus
’ (8:40-9:2). For the Damascus Document, ‘Damascus’ was the area outside ‘the Land of Judah’, where the wilderness ‘camps’ were located, which the priestly ‘Penitents’ and others went out to and to which the Messianic ‘Star’ – also called ‘the Interpreter of the
Torah
’ – came. It is here that ‘the Faith’, ‘Pact’, or ‘Covenant’, called ‘
the New Covenant in the Land of Damascus
’, was raised – the New Covenant
which ‘the Liar together with the Men of War’ deserted
.
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Acts continues: ‘So that if he found any there (in Damascus)
of the Way
, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem’ (9:1). After ‘the light shone about him’ and the voice cried out from Heaven to him, Paul is greeted at ‘the house of Judas’ on ‘Straight’ street in Damascus by one Ananias (9:11). Here, Ananias ‘
lays hands on’ Paul
, just as in the Pseudoclementines’ Letter of Clement to James, Peter
‘lays hands on’ Clement
making him his successor as ‘Bishop’ (that is, ‘of Rome’).

Whatever one might think of these events at Acts’ ‘
Damascus
’, those residing there repeat the same accusation we have already heard in Galatians 1:23: ‘
Is this not he who in Jerusalem destroyed those who called on his Name? He has come here for this, to bring those bound to the Chief Priests
’ (9:21). It should be noted that in whichever version,
Paul’s relationship to the Chief Priests is never gainsaid
. Acts uses this designation, ‘
of the Way
’, as a name for early Christianity in Palestine. It repeats this in several other contexts, once in describing why the Roman Governor Felix was so interested in Paul’s teaching (24:12). This usage, directly related to the characterization of John the Baptist’s activities in the wilderness – described in the Gospels as ‘making a straight Way in the wilderness’,
itself reiterated in two places in the Community Rule
– is common in the Scrolls generally.

It is also instructive to contrast this theme of Paul getting letters from the High Priest to that of James, giving letters to and requiring reports from emissaries. In addition, the Letter of Peter to James and James’ response in the Pseudoclementine
Homilies
are particularly firm on the point of
not communicating doctrines to those found unworthy
, in particular,
not to
Gentiles
.

James even sets down a probationary period of
six years before the postulant is allowed to enter the ‘water where the regeneration of the Righteous takes place
’ (Ps.
Hom
. 4:1). As opposed to this, the Gospels are fond of presenting ‘Jesus’ as saying ‘
nothing is hidden which shall not be made manifest, nothing secret that shall not be known and come to light
’ (Luke 8:17) or, as Matthew puts this, ‘
I will utter things Hidden from the Foundation of the world
’ (13:35).

Of course, in James’ response to Peter, prefixing the
Homilies
– which has all the hallmarks of authenticity – circumcision is a
sine qua non
for membership and, as Paul puts it in Galatians 3:29, for becoming ‘heirs according to the Promise’. For James in this response to Peter, ‘
keeping the Covenant
’ – the definition of ‘
the Sons of Zadok
’ at Qumran – entitles one to be ‘
a part with the Holy Ones’ as does ‘living Piously
’. But, pointing up this issue of secrecy and reversing Paul’s ‘cursing’ language again, ‘the Enemy’ or ‘Liar’, who broke this oath of secrecy, ‘
shall be accursed living and dying and punished with Everlasting Perdition
’.
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At this, ‘the Elders’ are pictured to be ‘in an agony of terror’ – as well they might.

Acts and the Pseudoclementines: Common Elements and a Common Source

The conclusions, we can now draw, should be obvious. Whenever Acts comes to issues relating to James or Jesus’ brothers and family members generally, it equivocates and dissimulates, trailing off finally into disinformation – sometimes even in the form of childish fantasy. Though sometimes humorous, especially when one is aware of what the disputes in this period
really
were, this is almost always with uncharitable intent.

For instance, where the election of James as successor should have occurred, we are met only with stony silence and are not introduced to the ‘Historical James’ until chapter 12
after the removal of the other ‘James’
. Instead, we are presented with an obviously skewed election involving someone called ‘Joseph Barsabas Justus’ to replace ‘Judas
Iscariot
’.

When James
is
finally introduced in Acts, it is only after a whole series of events like the stoning of Stephen, Peter’s encounter with Simon
Magus
in Samaria, Paul’s vision on the road to Damascus, Peter’s ‘tablecloth’ vision preceding his visit to the home of the ‘Pious and God-Fearing’ Roman Centurion Cornelius, ‘Herod the King’s’ well-timed beheading of the other ‘James’, and Peter’s arrest, seemingly by this same ‘Herod’. After miraculously escaping from prison, Peter then goes to the house of ‘
Mary the mother of John Mark
’ (not previously introduced – more dissimulation?) to leave a message for the
real
James – though why he should go here to leave such a message is never explained.