Gospel (141 page)

7
. John is the disciple whom Jesus loved,
who had lain close to [Jesus'] breast
(
John
21:20). Many ikons capture Jesus with John kissing or embracing him, repeating the familiar image (to the ancient world) of the Lover and Beloved, the Mentor and Pupil. John's Hellenistic Christianity and its popularity had more in common with the Academy of Athens than with the Temple rabbis (though current Dead Sea Scroll research shows much of the Father and Son obsessions of
John
may have a Jewish and not strictly Greek source after all).
   The appeal to Grecian culture of
eros
between Master and Pupil was unmistakable in that age, and it is only prudery and homophobia that keep scholars from acknowledging it in this one. Jesus and John were to become a model of higher, chaste male love and devotion throughout the Middle Ages (see Aelred,
De speculo caritatis,
1100s, in which John and Jesus have a spiritual “marriage”).

8
. Prochoros (mentioned
Acts
6:5) is traditionally the scribe who took down John's apocalyptic visions on Patmos, but this gospel lists a Zossima instead.
   Pentheus was, presumably, the disciple of Apollonius, one of the First Century's more interesting cult-rivals to Jesus: a youth so handsome and athletic, whose teachings were so wise and ecumenical, that he was taken to be a son of a Grecian deity. We know of him through Lucian (mid-100s) and in more detail from Philostratus (300s, and unreliable). Apollonius did his best to talk like Jesus and various Greek models, i.e., “What wonder is it if, while other men consider me equal to God, and some even consider me a god, my native place so far ignores me.”

9
. Attempts after the Dead Sea Scrolls were published to make Jesus into an Essene have been largely forced. Jesus talked to women, drank wine, had contacts with Gentiles, numerous disqualifications for the ascetic movements popular in his day. Though Jesus had his time of fasting and anguish during the forty days in the Wilderness, once his ministry began the trappings of asceticism were not visible.
Matthew
9:14:
Then the disciples of John [the Baptist] came to him saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast much, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the Bridegroom is with them?”

10
. One of the most troubling heresies of the Early Church was “Docetism” (from
δοκ
ηι
in Greek, to “seem”) and this gospel attributes docetic elements to John. Interestingly, the gospel
John
takes great pains to undermine Docetism. As late as the 500s, riots in Byzantium ensued over a bishop preaching Christ had no true bodily functions.

11
. To whatever ends John succeeded here, his gospel was to be analyzed and argued over for the next 300 years because of his inscrutability concerning equality of Father and Son. Homoousians (Son and Father are one substance), Homoiousians (Son and Father are similar in substance), Antinomeans (the Son is not the Father), and Homoeans (the Son is similar to the Father), batted
John
back and forth through two centuries of bitter church councils.

12
. Tradition holds that John ran afoul of authorities; some tales have him debate Domitian himself, and be exiled to Patmos, but all
Revelations
says is that he was on the island
on account of the word of God
(
Revelations
1:9).

13
. These incidents of racial tension referred to are confirmed in Josephus's account. The great capital Matthias remembers is not legendary: Jerusalem, Tacitus estimates, had a peacetime population of 600,000, the largest eastern city of the day and the wealthiest.

14
.
Ezekiel
28:18. The agonies of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem of 70
C.E.
can barely be overstated. Josephus records 500 Jews a day were crucified in view of the city where “room was wanting for the crosses”; he gives a horrifying figure of 1,100,000 who died in the siege, with nearly 100,000 captives led away to Rome. He writes that the Romans came upon Mary, daughter of Eleazar, who had eaten her child and offered the Romans some of it as well,
“This is mine own son, and what hath been done was mine own doing. Come, eat of this food, for I have eaten of it myself…”
(
War,
VI.iii.3–5).

15
. Josephus is taciturn on his family affairs during his traitorous march with the Romans, recording simply “
I made this request to Titus that my family might have their liberty”
(
Life,
75). Not long after the fall of Jerusalem, he records,
I asked of [Titus] the life of my brother and fifty friends with him and was not denied.
When Titus became Caesar, Josephus was proud to include in his autobiography, the emperor
also made that estate that I had in Judea tax-free, which is a mark of greatest honor to who hath it.

16
. Tiberias Julius Alexander, procurator from 46–48
C.E.
Matthias mentions this turncoat to goad his brother, who was often compared to him. Tiberias Alexander was a cosmopolitan Alexandrian Jew who had adopted Roman ways and sided with them, and wasn't much more popular with the Romans. Juvenal called him
that on-the-make Egyptian pasha who's had the temerity to gate-crash Triumph Row [in the Forum]: his effigy is only fit for pissing on, or worse
(
Satire
I:129–131).

17
. Elijah, of course, was believed to have been taken bodily into heaven leaving no relics; see
Sirach
47:9 and
2 Kings
2:11.

Chapter 6

1
. The Ptolemaic Greek rulers allowed Alexandrian Jews the pretension of calling themselves “Macedonians.”

2
. Cestus Gallus, Syrian governor during the Jewish Uprising of 66
C.E.
After a successful massacre of Romans, Jews confidently rebelled throughout the Mediterranean. Two Roman legions and 5000 soldiers were summoned from Libya and allowed to rampage in Alexandria's Jewish Quarter, killing whom they wished and keeping what they found. Josephus, maybe undependably, says 50,000 Jews were slaughtered. The more dependable Tacitus's fragmentary account puts the Jewish dead over four years at an astounding 1.2 million. Also the census showed that Alexandria was 40 percent Jewish during Tiberius Caesar's reign; by 140
C.E.
the city's Jewish population was almost nonexistent.
   The cataclysmic annihilation of Jewry in this period aided the conversion to Christianity as well as the extinction of Ebionite (pro-Jewish) Christianity that the author in this gospel promotes.

3
. The Ptolemies granted Jews their own quarter so they wouldn't be defiled by Gentiles, and the Romans honored the agreement.
Julius Caesar made a pillar of brass for the Jews at Alexandria and declared publicly that they were citizens of Alexandria,
writes Josephus (
Antiquities,
XIV.x.1).
   Matthias states Julius Caesar burned the
Museion
and its 700,000 scrolls on purpose, when it was certainly an accident during the battle for the city. Caesar commanded Cleopatra to reconstruct and replicate it, which she did.

4
. Oxyrhynchus (“pointy-snouted thing”) has an ecclesiastical history belying its absurd name. The gospel discoveries of 1896–97 and 1905–06 by Grenfell and Hunt yielded a trove of early gospels (copies from 400s-700s), the oldest substantial fragment of
John
(from the 200s), and the oldest known bound book on earth. Most scripts were in Coptic Greek with heavy demotic Egyptian influences.

5
. Again, a pun on N-Z-R (ART570), “purity,” derivation of Nazirene.

6
. This was not an uncommon practice in the East, to have a most-trusted disciple continue teaching in the name of the more famous holy man. It is thought to perhaps play a part in the extraordinary long ages of Old Testament patriarchs as well as John the Evangelist, who, we are to believe, lived into the 100s
C.E.

7
. The author seems not to have been aware of this incident in
Luke
9:49,
John answered, “Master, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he does not follow with us.” But Jesus said to him, “Do not forbid him; for he that is not against you is for you.”

8
. The Disciple Philip is supposed to have been crucified in Phrygia, but no Early Church source is positive as to what became of him. Wrote Luke in
Acts
21:8–9,
We arrived at Caesarea where we went to the house of Philip the Evangelist, one of the Seven, and stayed with him. He has four unmarried daughters who were prophetesses.
Note that
Acts
identifies Philip as one of the Seven and not one of the Twelve—two different men—but neither Eusebius nor the later Church made the distinction, and legends concerning his prophesying daughters were popular. Also note that this passage of
Acts
was written before the influence of Pseudo-Paul in
Timothy,
who forbids women prophesying.

9
. Again, tradition says Peter was martyred no later than 68
C.E.
, but no mention of it is made here.

10
. The author's Judean-centered Ebionite Church wished to remain within the Law and urged circumcision of converts. Paul is at first conciliatory toward Jewish feelings about circumcision and has his own disciple Timothy circumcised to please this faction,
Acts
16:1–3, in the late 30s
C.E.
Later, Paul of the
Epistles
clearly eschews the value of circumcision:
Real circumcision is a matter of the heart—it is spiritual and not literal
(
Romans
2:29). It seems he was not entirely persuasive to the Jerusalem Church and one senses that battle lines have been drawn by the late 50s when he writes in
Colossians
4:11 that
[Mark and] Justus greet you. These are the only ones of the circumcision among my coworkers for the Kingdom of God and they have been a comfort to me.
Which would suggest Paul considered many of the circumcision faction a hindrance in his mission to the Gentiles.

11
. Virtually every gnostic sect (100–300s
C.E.
) of any popularity venerated Mary Magdalene: as a Disciple, as the keeper of mysteries passed from Jesus to her alone at the sepulcher, and in some African sects, the head of the Church instead of Peter.
   The
Gospel of Mary
(Third Century?), found by accident in 1896, is the prototype for the Magdalene in apocryphal texts. She sees the risen Savior first, as the canonical gospels attest, and she is shunned by the Twelve, who do not believe her. She is later believed and raised up to their circle. Matthew defends her,
But if the Savior made her worthy, who are you [Peter], indeed, to reject her? Surely the Lord knew her very well. That is why he loved her more than us
(
Mary
18:15). In the Nag Hammadi gospel discoveries of 1945, Mary Magdalene is shown as possessing greater knowledge than the Disciples (
Dialogue of the Savior
139:12). In the
Gospel of Thomas
51:19–26, Peter—embodiment of the established Church—tries to banish Mary from attending a sermon by Jesus, who then says that through holiness Mary will become a man, and therefore equal. The
Gospel of Philip
64:5, claims Jesus loved her more than the Disciples and kissed her on the mouth. When the Twelve complain, Jesus says that they should ask why it is He cannot love them as much as Mary. Whether Mary was pictured as a Spiritual Lover—theories about a secret marriage and children are latter-day and not how the Early Church thought, sexual and romantic imagery notwithstanding—or whether she was androgynous and made into a man in order to be equal, the goal was always the same: to escape the growing authority of the established Church run by apostolic succession, and the battery of bishops and theocrats.
   The orthodox Church struck back. A lost gospel quoted in the
Apostolic Church Order
(Second Century) has Mary denied Communion from Jesus in the presence of the Disciples because she had smiled. The Pastorals of Pseudo-Paul date from this period, as does
John
(ca. 110), in which the fathers of the Church have inserted Peter and John at the tomb scene, who arrive first, discover the empty linens, and “saw and believed.” This seems to short-circuit Mary's importance as the first witness of the Resurrection and derails any attempt to raise her above Peter or John; in the next episode we see Mary not recognizing Jesus. The 4th-Century
Gospel of Bartholomew
has Mary, Jesus' mother, go to the Sepulcher, expunging the Magdalene altogether.

12
. A note about Mary Magdalene, the prostitute:
   Matthias in this gospel regards her as a daughter of a great family; indeed, if she were a common whore of the streets the New Testament title “Magdalene,” meaning that she was of a family of note from Migdal, would be absurd. The male disciples, fellow Galileans, are of the laboring and merchant middle class and not identified by city but by family, i.e., sons of Zebedee. The Bible merely mentions that Mary was possessed by demons (
Luke
8:2), nothing more than illness in the medical notions of the time. In
Matthew, Mark
and
Luke
we see a nameless “woman of the city, a sinner” washing Jesus' feet with an ointment from an alabaster box; in
John
this woman has become Mary, sister of Lazarus (
John
12:3). The Church would later be illogically content to associate Mary Magdalene via Mary of Bethany with the woman of the city. Such normally careful readers as Augustine, Gregory the Great, and Bede preferred to perpetuate the errors.
   There are no doubt political reasons that Mary Magdalene was rendered a redeemed prostitute by the fathers of the Church, not all of them bad.
   As a redeemed harlot, she holds out hope for the most fallen. Furthermore, great numbers of women without money or family became prostitutes through necessity and Christian convents provided, historically, their first humanitarian escape. Also: one of the earliest female-saint cults was that of Mary of Egypt who was a reformed prostitute, and once the Coptic and Eastern Churches separated from the Roman, a redeemed-prostitute saint was wanted and the Magdalene was conflated with Mary of Egypt. In theology Mary became symbolic of the harlot Israel (in
Ezekiel
) redeemed by the Savior; also Eve and Womankind redeemed for the Fall by Jesus.