James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (116 page)

‘
Afterwards
(that is, after his destruction of the Righteous Teacher and the Men of his Council)
they
(‘
the Wicked of Ephraim and Manasseh
’, including ‘
the Wicked Priest
’)
will be delivered into the hand of the Violent Ones of the Gentiles for Judgement
(‘
the
‘
A
rizei-Go
’
im
’
)’. Despite an earlier reference to ‘
God redeeming them from their hand
’ and the later one in exposition of Ps. 37:33–34 – after ‘
the Wicked Priest laid hands on the Righteous Teacher
’,
attempting to
or actually ‘
putting him to death
’ (the text is fragmentary here and the meaning imprecise) – about
God
‘
not abandoning him
,
nor permitting him to be condemned at His Judgement
’ and ‘
being exalted
’ and ‘
rejoicing in inheriting Truth
’ and ‘
being saved
’, one should appr
e
ciate that ‘
the Righteous Teacher
’ and ‘
the Men of his Council
’ were for the most part destroyed and this, like the previous ‘
God will not deliver them into their hands
’, and there ‘
not remaining upon the Earth a single Wicked Man
’, simply represents a pious hope or an expression of certitude in
their ultimate
‘
Salvation
’.
78

Regarding ‘
the Men of his Council
’, it should be appreciated as well that in Josephus, James is executed with several ot
h
ers.
79
We should keep a firm hold on these allusions to ‘
the Violent Ones
’, a usage appearing in several Gospel allusions to the coming of John the Baptist – ‘
from whose days until now
,
the Kingdom of Heaven is taken by Violence and Violent Ones seize it by force
’ (Matt. 11:12/Luke 16:16). The problem, however, is that the period between the time when Jesus supposedly says these things and John’s coming is, at least superficially, quite negligible.
Still, the allusion is illustrative.

It is also paralleled in the Habakkuk
Pesher
. There, ‘
the Violent Ones
’ are simply ‘
the
‘
A
rizim
’ – no ‘
Go
’
im
’ or ‘
Gentiles
’ a
t
tached – nor, for that matter, any ‘
House of Judah
’ or ‘
the Evil Ones of Israel
’. Rather, these ‘
Violent Ones
’ together with ‘
the Man of Lying
’ are identified with ‘
the Covenant Breakers
’ and ‘
the Traitors to the Laws of God and the New Covenant
’ (this last, a reconstruction) and ‘
to the Last Days
’.
80
As already suggested, all seemingly participate in the Scriptural exegesis sessions of ‘
the Priest
’/‘
the Righteous Teacher
’, as they are specifically described as ‘
not believing what they heard
’
from his
‘
mouth
’ concerning ‘
all that was going to happen to the Last Generation
’.
81
Clearly, therefore, some of these, like ‘
the Violent Ones of the Covenant in the House of Judah
’ or ‘
the Evil Ones of Israel
’ are not simply external adversaries, but also have to be seen as internal ones too.

Later in the commentary, these same ‘
‘A
rizim
’ seem to be referred to as ‘
the Men of Violence
’
(
Hamas
), but the context would appear to be the same – that of the Wicked Priest, ‘
whose heart became puffed up
’ and
who
‘
stole and collected the Riches of the Men of Violence
,
who rebelled against God
,
and took the Riches of the Peoples
’ (‘
Peoples
’, in our view, again denoting
Herodians
– what ‘
the Wicked Priest
’ was doing here, as we shall see below, was illegally ‘
gathering
’ and ‘
collecting the Riches
’ which they ‘
stole
’ and depositing them in the Temple, thereby ‘
polluting it
’).
82

As we saw above, these would also appear to be described in another particularly critical juncture of the Damascus Do
c
ument, as ‘
the Men-of-War who walked with the Man of Lying
’
after the seeming death of the
‘
Unique
’ or ‘
Righteous Teac
h
er
’. Here ‘
Men of War
’ seems to better encapsulate the sense of the term than ‘
Anshei-Hamas
’, but both will do. In the Haba
k
kuk
Pesher
, as we just saw, following the exposition of how ‘
the
Torah
-doing Jews
’ were to ‘
be saved from the House of Judgement
’, these ‘
Men of Violence
’ are described as ‘
rebelling against God
’ and the ‘
puffed-up
’ ‘
Wicked Priest
’ as ‘
deserting God and betraying the Laws for the sake of Riches
’. At the same time, ‘
the Last Priests of Jerusalem
’ – identical in our view with ‘
Chief Priests
’ in the New Testament – are described as ‘
gathering Riches and profiteering from the spoils of the Pe
o
ples
’.
83

Herodian ‘
Men-of-War
’, Costobarus, and the ‘
Idumaean
’ Connection

Though these are complex allusions, if one is careful about them and their translation, their sense does emerge. It is our position that we must see these allusions to either ‘
Violent Ones
’, ‘
Men of Violence
’, or ‘
Men of War
’ on both sides of the p
o
litical and religious spectrum as either pro- or anti-Revolutionary Herodians or other people with military training. Individuals of this kind certainly existed in the context of the events we are speaking about in the First Century – people like Niger of Perea, Philip the son of Jacimus, and Silas – preceding him as the Head of Agrippa I’s Army – all described in Josephus. Nor is this to mention warriors like those in Queen Helen of Adiabene’s family, namely, Izates, Monobazus, Kenedaeus and others – for the purist, ostensibly foreigners, but still part and parcel of the Revolutionary Struggle.

Even Paul would originally seem to have been an individual of this kind. His Herodian namesake ‘
Saulos
’, a relative of King Agrippa, is portrayed in just such a ‘
Violent
’ manner,
creating mayhem after the stoning of James
(or ‘
Stephen
’ as the case may be). So are the ‘
Violent
’ henchmen of
the High Priests
, who are depicted in several notices in this context here in the
Antiquities
– but also in the
Talmud
– as ‘
stealing the sustenance of the Poor
’. They too are not really differentiable from this sort of person. As for ‘
Saulos
’, Josephus describes him, together with his two violent
Herodian
relatives
Antipas and Costobarus
, as ‘
getting together a multitude of wicked wretches
…
finding favor because of their kinship to Agrippa
,
but using Violence with the People and very ready to plunder those weaker than themselves
’. One should note here the vocabulary pa
r
allels with Qumran, in particular the allusion to ‘
using Violence with the People
’, but also ‘
plundering
’, ‘
Wickedness
’ and, even possibly, ‘
the Many
’ denoting the rank and file of the Community. It is at this point Josephus laconically notes, ‘
and from that moment
,
it principally came to pass that our city suffered greatly
–
all things growing from bad to worse
’.
84

We have already shown that Paul, Agrippa II, and Bernice, his fornicating sister – with whom Agrippa II also possibly had an illicit connection – were acquainted, and all had connections going high up in Nero’s household. So did Josephus’ ‘
Saulos
’. In Josephus’ last notice about him, he describes him as going to Corinth to personally brief Nero about the disastrous situation in Palestine. Interestingly enough, both this ‘
Saulos
’ and Paul disappear from the scene at approximately the same time or, at most, within a year or two of each other, and both seemingly after appeals to Nero.

We have already noted the stoning of Stephen in the Forties as a stand-in for the stoning of James in the Sixties and how both the former in Acts and the latter in Josephus are followed by the account of the violent and predatory activities of som
e
one named ‘
Saulos
’ – in both instances undertaken because of high-level influence. These are the kinds of connections that move beyond coincidence. The mention of ‘
Antipas
’ and ‘
Costobarus
’ always in connection with Saulos may have something to do with either his or their genealogical origins, Costobarus being the real ‘
Idumaean
’ in Herodian genealogies.

This Costobarus had originally been married to the first Herod’s sister – the first (or second) ‘
Salome
’ – and seems to have been descended from an upper-class
Idumaean
/
Edomite
background. These last are the People in Southern Transjordan and Judea, claiming an ancient relationship to Jews, especially through Esau but also possibly Ishmael, and virtually indistinguish
a
ble from what in Roman Times came to be known as ‘
Arabs
’. During the Maccabean Era, groups of these seem to have been forcibly converted to Judaism. When Herod executed his own uncle Joseph after the rumor of unfaithfulness between him and his own Maccabean first wife
Mariamme
(‘
Mary
’ – the first ‘
Joseph and Mary
’ story), he appointed Costobarus to replace him as Governor of Idumaea and Gaza, the two areas from which Herod’s family came.
85

Costobarus, then, promptly entered into intrigue with Anthony’s consort Cleopatra (and Herod’s mortal enemy) to get what he considered to be his proper patrimony. Discovering this, Herod waited for his opportunity to deal with Costobarus and found it when Salome divorced him.
86
This is the first clear instance of that ‘
divorce
’ among Herodians so roundly co
n
demned at Qumran. So totally contrary to Jewish
Law was it seen to be – at least, divorce on the part of a woman – that even Josephus stops his narrative at this point to launch into his first excursus on why it should be condemned. The last time he mentions it is in regard to Drusilla’s and Bernice’s excesses in this regard a century later.
87
One cannot emphasize too strongly that these are things condemned at Qumran as ‘
fornication
’, particularly in the ‘
Three Nets of
Belial
’ section of CD IV.15–V.15.

There is a direct line from these behavior patterns to those of Herodias, over whose infractions in this regard – not to mention ‘
niece marriage
’ – John the Baptist was executed. Herodias’ niece Drusilla behaved in exactly the same manner – to say nothing of Herodias’ own behaviour and that of her daughter Salome (as we can now see, probably named after Herod’s sister – if not the first Maccabean, Alexander Jannaeus’ wife
Salome Alexandra
) – when she divorced Azizus the King of Emesa to contract a more advantageous marriage – with the connivance of ‘
Simon Magus
’ – with the brutal Roman Governor Felix. So did her sister Bernice (whom Josephus describes as the ‘
the Richest Woman
’ in Palestine) when, after having been accused of
incest
with her brother Agrippa II, she married Polemo, King of Cilicia, who had also circumcised himself to marry her (Josephus says, ‘
because she was so Rich
’), but whom she too ultimately divorced in order to take up her illicit relationship with Titus, the destroyer of Jerusalem. She had also originally been married to her
uncle
– her father’s brother, Herod of Cha
l
cis – another example of the
niece marriage
so frowned upon at Qumran. The catalogue of all these ‘
incestuous
’ marriages and divorces on the part of
Herodian
women is extensive.