James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls I (18 page)

In the way the reference stands at present – Jesus ‘appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve’ – Cephas does not appear to be one of the Apostles. All this is very puzzling. The answer again may relate to problems surrounding Jesus’ brothers in Scripture. It is possible that the
Cephas
being referred to in Paul’s letters is another ‘Simon’ or ‘Simeon’ – the Simeon
bar Cleophas
mentioned above as Jesus’
first cousin
. Just as Simon Peter in Scripture is represented as being the successor to Jesus, this Simon or Simeon is represented by early Church tradition as being the successor to James. He is also of the family of Jesus, Cleophas being denoted as the uncle of Jesus.

As we proceed, it will probably transpire that this Cleophas is not the uncle of Jesus, but rather his father, and there are traditions that to some degree represent him as such. In John 19:25, for instance, he is represented as the husband of Mary, and this is probably true. For Origen, when discussing the passage in Josephus ascribing the fall of Jerusalem to the death of James, this Cleophas was actually
the father
of James, Simon, Jude, and Joses – those brothers represented as being the brothers of Jesus in Scripture – but these now by a previous mother, not Mary.
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Again, the reasons for all these transmutations and circumlocutions should be growing clearer. They are twofold: to protect the divine sonship of Jesus and the emerging doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary.

These post-resurrection appearances by Jesus have long been recognized by scholars as being associated with one’s place in the hierarchy of the early Church, that is, the earlier he appeared to you, the higher up in the hierarchy you were. Paul sets the stage for this by referring to this appearance to Cephas and others in 1 Corinthians. Unfortunately there is no first appearance to
Peter
recorded in
any
of the Gospels, or anywhere else for that matter. In fact, John 20:6–7 records that when Peter went into the tomb it was empty. For Matthew and Mark, Peter does not even enter the tomb; rather the
two
Mary’s do – one specifically called ‘Mary the mother of James’ (Mark 16:1; cf. Luke 24:10) – where they encounter the Angel who tells them of Jesus’ resurrection and his departure for Galilee. For Luke, the two Mary’s report to the Apostles, and it is only after this that Peter rushes to the tomb, where, seeing only ‘the linen clothes’ again, he departs ‘wondering at what had happened’ (24:10–12).

Matthew also has the two Mary’s rushing to tell ‘the Disciples’ what they had seen. But curiously, at this juncture it is they who actually encounter Jesus, seeing him along the way. For his part, Jesus is presented as uttering words similar to those of Peter at ‘the house of Mary the mother of John Mark’ in Jerusalem in the crucial introduction of James in Acts 12:17, to wit, ‘Go, tell my brothers to go into Galilee and there they will see me’ (Matt. 28:10). For most of the Gospels, further appearances then proceed to take place in Galilee, all except the Gospel of Luke.

Luke does record a post-resurrection appearance in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem – this, the famous sighting on the Road to Emmaus. Mark 16:12 also refers to this, noting how ‘after these things, he [Jesus] appeared in another form to two of them as they walked on their way into the country’, but this ending from Mark is considered a later addition.

For Luke, Jesus appeared to someone called ‘
Cleopas
’, obviously identical to the Cleophas considered Jesus’ uncle, and
another unnamed person
(24:13–18). The nature of this episode is similar to the ‘doubting Thomas’ one in John 20:26–29 and an episode in the apocryphal Gospel of the Hebrews, conserved in the writings of Jerome, about a
first appearance to James
. In these, Jesus actually sits down, breaks bread, and apparently eats with the individual(s) involved, to prove the fact of his corporeal resurrection and, therefore, his
bodily
needs.
35
In Luke, however, when report comes to ‘the Eleven and those with them’ of this appearance on the Road to Emmaus outside Jerusalem to Cleopas and another, they are represented as crying out in unison, ‘the Lord is risen indeed and appeared unto
Simon
’ (24:33–34).

But, unfortunately, no appearance to a ‘Simon’ has taken place anywhere – certainly not in this first appearance ‘along the way’ to Cleopas, unless we are dealing with the traces of an early appearance to
members of Jesus’ family
.
36
This would concretize their place in the post-resurrection appearance sequence, given by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:7, that is, an appearance rather to
James and Simeon bar Cleophas
, the latter, we shall show, all but indistinguishable from ‘Simon the Zealot’, already being called in writings attributed to Hippolytus and in Syriac sources in the third century, the
second brother of Jesus
.

Paul’s
Lying

Paul’s insistence in Galatians 1:16 that he did not discuss the Gospel he taught or the revelation of God’s ‘son in him’ with any
other human being
is interesting. This accords, as we have seen, with the way he introduces himself in Galatians 1:1: ‘Paul, Apostle,
not from men nor through man
…’. That is, he did not receive his teaching commission from any man, as, for instance, a leader or ‘Pillar’ of the Jerusalem Church with the stature or authority of a James, but rather
direct from Jesus himself
, whom, of course, by this time Paul is referring to as ‘Christ’, to signal his
supernatural
as opposed to his natural persona.

This also recalls the sense one gets from reading 2 Corinthians, confirmed in the Pseudoclementines, that the Apostles required
letters of recommendation from James
. In line with his contempt for such things, Paul insists his appointment is
direct from Jesus Christ
– meaning the
Supernatural Christ
, to whom he has, as it were, a direct line. This is the only certification he needs, which accords with his reasons for not discussing with anyone else the Gospel about
Christ Jesus
, as he taught it among the Gentiles. He didn’t need to. He only had to discuss it with the Heavenly Jesus through the medium of the Holy Spirit.

He did not recognize earthly authority, not the Jerusalem Church leaders, nor the decisions of the so-called ‘Jerusalem Council’ as we shall see – only the visions he was receiving. This was all very well and good for Paul, but one can imagine the kind of problems it might have caused him among his contemporaries. We can get an inkling of these by reading between the lines in his letters and comprehending the doctrines about him in the Pseudoclementines and materials of similar orientation.

Paul was obviously being mocked by some as ‘the Man of Dreams’, ‘Lies’, or ‘Lying’, or what was also characterized in a parallel parlance as ‘the Enemy’.
11
This is confirmed tangentially by Paul’s defensiveness with regard to such epithets, as evidenced at the end of his testimony in Galatians to his meeting with Peter and James in Jerusalem (Gal. 1:20 and 4:16). It is neither accidental nor incurious that exactly where he comes to speak of ‘James the brother of the Lord’ and in 2 Corinthians, the Hebrew ‘Archapostles’, that Paul feels obliged to add: ‘Now before God, (in) what I write to you, I do not lie’ or, again, ‘I do not lie.’

This will not be the only time that Paul will via refraction refer in his defensiveness to ‘the Liar’ epithet evidently being applied to him by some
within
the Movement. It is connected to the ‘Enemy’ terminology, known to have been applied to him in later Jewish Christianity or Ebionitism. In the context of referring to Jewish observances and festivals as ‘weak and beggarly elements’ (Gal. 4:9), his opponents – again
within
the Movement – as ‘wishing zealously to exclude’ him and his communities (4:18), and the Covenant on Mount Sinai as ‘born according to the flesh’ of the
Arab bondservant Hagar
and, therefore, ‘bringing forth to bondage’ (4:24), Paul worries over his ‘
becoming your Enemy by telling you the Truth
’ (4:16). This remark should be viewed over and against one in James 4:4 insisting that ‘whoever makes himself into a Friend of the world turns himself into an Enemy of God’, which plays, as we shall see, on the original biblical characterization of Abraham as ‘the Friend of God’.

There are many other indications of this ‘Lying’ epithet in the Pauline corpus.
12
That Paul alludes to it here in the midst of this pivotal testimony to the existence of James, while at the same time explaining why he (Paul) was unknown by sight to anyone else in the Movement in Palestine, is extraordinary. It is as if Paul knew some of James’ followers were applying this kind of language to him. Why would Paul feel constrained to adjure – and this in the form almost of an oath – that he ‘does not lie’ with regard to the claims he is putting forth concerning this revelation and his first meeting with James?

Paul uses this ‘Lying’ terminology at several other crucial junctures in his letters, particularly in Romans 3:4–8 and 9:1, where he speaks about wrongful accusations concerning himself, circumcision, the Law, and how by ‘telling the Truth’ he has made himself ‘a curse from Christ’ to his opponents. He also uses it in 2 Corinthians 11:31 to attack his ‘Hebrew Archapostle’ interlocutors and boast about the escape he made from Aretas’ representative in Damascus down its walls ‘in a basket’ (11:33
–
in Acts 9:22-25, typically, this is ‘the Jews’). 1 Timothy, the authorship of which is disputed, also pictures Paul as averring he is ‘an Apostle’ and insisting he ‘speaks the Truth of Christ and does not lie’ (2:7).

The riposte to these things is, of course, found in the Letter of James at a likewise crucial juncture, following the rebuke of the ‘Empty Man’ (2:20) and evocation of the Lying ‘Tongue’, which ‘cannot be tamed’, ‘boasts great things’, and is ‘a world of Unrighteousness all in itself (3:1–8). It is succinctly put: ‘If you have bitter jealousy and contentiousness
in your heart
, do not boast or
lie against the Truth
. This is not the Wisdom that comes down from above, but
earthly
,
man-made
,
devilish’
(3:14–15).

The same context is apparent in the Dead Sea Scrolls: ‘Truth’ is always juxtaposed with ‘Lying’, ‘Righteousness’ with ‘Evil’, ‘Light’ with ‘Darkness’, a fornicating, rebellious, jealous, and spouting ‘Tongue’ with obedience and good conscience. Not only is the vocabulary in the Scrolls almost interchangeable with these crucial parts of the Pauline or Jamesian corpus, but the same kind of imagery is in use. When one appreciates that James occupies a position in early Christianity equivalent to the one occupied by the Righteous Teacher and the same kinds of allusions are being applied to them and to their enemies, then the points of contact between the two draw ever closer.

Chapter 8

James’ Succession and the Election to Fill Judas
Iscariot’s Office

The Succession of James in Paul and Acts

As presented by Paul, James is the Leader of the early Church
par excellence
. Terms like ‘Bishop of the Jerusalem Church’ or ‘the Leader of the Jerusalem Community’ are of little actual moment at this point, because when James held sway in Jerusalem, there really were no other centers of any importance. All deferred to the Jerusalem Centre until it was destroyed.

Paul gives more information about the pre-eminence of James in the confrontation in Antioch in Galatians 2:1–10. Of course, Acts 15’s presentation of the ‘Jerusalem Council’ is quite different from Paul’s picture in Galatians, and its chronology totally so, to the extent that there is even a question as to whether the events depicted in the two narratives can be considered the same.

Despite problems of this kind, in both accounts James clearly emerges as the Supreme Ruler of the early Church, to whose rulings all must defer or bend. Acts even records James’ directives to overseas communities regarding Gentile believers – the upshot of the ‘Conference’ in Acts – in three slightly varying versions.
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Something like these directives reported in Acts must have emanated from Jerusalem because several of them turn up in I Corinthians (5–11). There his response is angry and aggressive, whereas in Galatians he blandly remarks that ‘those reputed to be Pillars’ or ‘reckoned as important’ had ‘nothing to add’ to the version of the Gospel that he proclaimed ‘among the Gentiles’ (Gal. 2:6).

Rather, as Paul states in Galatians 2:10, the ‘only’ condition that the Pillars, James, Cephas, and John, put on his activities was: that we should remember
the Poor
. The allusion to ‘the Poor’ at this juncture is another important usage integrally related to James’ Jerusalem Community. Though it is possible to take it simply in its adjectival sense of being Poor and nothing more, there can be little doubt that ‘the Poor’ was the name for James’ Community in Jerusalem or that Community descended from it in the East in the next two-three centuries,
the Ebionites
.