James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (19 page)

So one can conclude that we have clear evidence that this group of
Sabaean
Daily Bathers, closely associated with what early Christian heresiologists like Hippolytus or Epiphanius are calling either ‘
Nasarenes
’/‘
Nazoraeans
’, ‘
Essenes
’/‘
Ossaeans
’, ‘
Ebionites
’, or ‘
Elchasaite
s’, existed at least as early as Acts’ transmutation of materials about Queen Helen of Adiabene into the ‘
Queen of Sheba
’, ‘
Meroe
’, ‘
Ethiopia
’, or what have you. In addition, they are also to be connected – at least where Nort
h
ern Mesopotamia and Syria were concerned – with the missionary activities of someone called ‘
Judas
’ (‘
Hudhud
’,
a bird
,
in the story about the Queen of Sheba in the
Koran!) or ‘
Addai
’ (that is, ‘
Thaddaeus
’ – in some manuscripts called ‘
Judas the Zealot
’; in other contexts’, as we have seen, ‘
Judas of James
’/‘
Judas the brother of James
’ and in the
Second Apocalypse of James
from Nag Hammadi, even ‘
Theudas the brother of the Just One
’
72
).

It should, also, be emphasized that, aside from the still extant Mandaean
Nasoraia
in Southern Iraq, these
Nasrani
– ‘
Chri
s
tians
’ in Islam;
Notzrim
/‘
Keepers
’ in Judaism – give way in Northern Syria to a secretive group even today known by insiders as ‘
Nusayri
’ (an obvious allusion to their Judeo-Christian/
Nasrani
origins) and by outsiders, as ‘
‘
A
lawwi
s
’ (the plural of ‘
A
li
) – this last though also secret alluding to the series of ‘
Hidden
Imam
s’ or ‘
Secret Adam
s’ succeeding ‘
A
li
(and possibly another, even earlier, teacher ‘
Ad
i
).
73

Nor should it go unremarked that these
Nusayri
, to which the Assad family of Syria belongs, were also said to follow a
n
other native Northern Syrian prophet that even today they call by the telltale name of ‘
‘Ad
i
’!
74
Although primarily a Shi‘ite group, as the name
Alawwi
suggests, there are in this ‘
‘A
lid
’ notation the traces of the Islamic
Imam
doctrine – ‘
‘A
li
’ being ‘
the Hidden
Imam
’
par excellence
for Shi‘ite Muslim groups of no matter what derivation. The secretive nature of these groups, i
n
cluding related ones such as ‘
the Druze
’ in Southern Lebanon, Syria, and Israel/Palestine (named after a Twelfth-Century Isma
‘
ili Shi‘ite agitator al-Darazzi), is not unrelated also to ‘
the Secret Adam
’ idea so prized by Gnostic-style groups preceding them in these same areas.

Though a little more straightforward than these later, perhaps more Gnosticizing doctrines of ‘
Sabaean
’ or ‘
Daily Bathing
’ groups, first reported in Irenaeus’ description of ‘
the Ebionites
’ or Hippolytus’ description of ‘
the Elchasaites
’,
75
the hint of the same or a similar conceptuality is already present across a wide range of key documents pertaining to groups such as those at Qumran, including the Damascus Document, the Community Rule, the War Scroll, Hymns, etc.
76
The same conceptuality is to be found in Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:20–58 which includes not only the language of ‘
the First Adam
’, but the ‘
Heavenly Secret
’ as well.

Though originally based on an Arabic root meaning ‘
being
’ or ‘
standing before
’ – in normative
Sunni
Islam meaning only in prayer (
i.e.
, ‘
the Prayer Leader
’) – in Shi‘ite Islam, ‘
the
Imam
’ becomes something far more exalted, even bordering on the supernatural, as ‘
the Christ
’ in Christianity. What the
Imam
-doctrine became in Shi‘ite Islam was an incarnationist notion of the Divine specifically coming to rest in or on
‘A
li and the members of his family and/or their descendants.

Nevertheless, this Shi
‘
ite Islamic doctrine of
the
Imam
is nothing other than the Ebionite/
Elchasaite
‘
Hidden
’ or ‘
Secret Adam
’ ideology, ‘
the
Adam Kasia
’ of the Mandaeans or ‘
the Christ
’ (whatever this was supposed to mean) as theologians such as Paul proceed to translate it into Greek. This last – now referred to as ‘
the Holy Spirit
’ – is pictured in the Gospels as co
m
ing to rest on Jesus’ head in the form of a dove when he emerges from the baptismal waters (the probable origin of Muha
m
mad’s ‘
Hudhud
’/‘
a bird
’).

The transfer of this doctrine of multiple Christs,
Imam
s, or
‘A
lis that could be seen as incarnated in any given individual or at any given time and place became extremely useful for Shi‘ite Islam,
‘A
li being Muhammad’s closest living relative and, a
c
cording to some – like James and Jesus’ other relatives in Christianity – his rightful and only authentic heir. Of course in this kind of derivative or later thinking,
‘A
li or ‘
th
e Imam
’ is the heir of ‘the Prophet’ not of a supernatural being as Christianity would have us believe Jesus is. But even in Ebionite tradition – reflected seemingly in John 6:14 and 7:40 – it should be appr
e
ciated that Jesus was considered to be
the True Prophet
referred to in Deuteronomy 18:15–19, a fundamental conceptuality of the Pseudoclementines and a biblical proof-text also extant and subjected to exegesis at Qumran.
77
So was Mani and, following this of course, Muhammad in Islam.

The framework for all these ideas already present in the Qumran documents earlier, including the widespread idea of ‘
standing
’ (at the root of both the
Elchasaite
/Ebionite ideology of ‘
the Standing One
’ and ‘
the
Imam
’ doctrine in Islam – to say nothing of ‘
the Christ
’ in Christianity
78
).
In addition to relating to the doctrine of ‘
the Standing One
’ – itself indistinguishable from the notions of ‘
the Primal
’ or ‘
Secret Adam
’, traces of it run through all the Gospels and Jesus and/or his Apostles are repeatedly placed in a varying set of circumstances and descriptions in which they are alluded to –
often for no apparent co
n
textual reason
– as ‘
standing
’.
79
Along with the ideology of ‘
the True Prophet
’, it is a basic conceptuality of the Pseudoclementines, which give detailed descriptions of it in several places and where it is also depicted, surprising as this may seem, as the basic component of the ideology of the Samaritan ‘
pseudo-Messiah
’ or ‘
Magician
’ Simon
Magus
, along with
Dositheus
, both
Disciples
of John the Baptist.
80

The Relationship of Theudas, Barsabas, and Paul

Finally, early Christian tradition – namely in the hands of the Second-Century theologian Clement of Alexandria – is aware that Paul and the individual most call ‘
Theudas
’ (a variation obviously of the name ‘
Thaddaeus
’) knew each other and the one was a disciple of the other or
vice versa
.

In fact in some Syriac sources, the replacement for ‘
Thaddaeus
’ in Lukan Apostle lists, ‘
Judas of James
’, is again replaced, by another variation, ‘
Judas the Zealot
’.
81
This inevitably brings us back to that other ‘
Judas
’, surnamed ‘
the Iscariot
’. In turn, this last in the Gospel of John – itself having no Apostle lists – is rather characterized as either ‘
Judas
(
the son
)’ or ‘(
brother
)
of Simon Iscariot
’.
82
For his part
Simon Iscariot
starts this circle all over again and, just as
Judas Iscariot
is to ‘
Judas
Zelotes
’, is itself patently not unconnected to the name found in the Apostle lists of Luke/Acts, ‘
Simon
Zelotes
’/‘
Simon the Zealot
’.
83

Not only is it possible to look upon this ‘
Theudas
’ as a double for ‘
Thaddaeus
’/‘
Judas Thomas
’/‘
Judas
(
the brother
)
of James
’/and now ‘
Judas the Zealot
’, but in the
Second Apocalypse of James
from Nag Hammadi, he is described, as either the ‘
f
a
ther
’ or ‘
brother of the Just One
’ – the latter being James’ cognomen. It is the sobriquet which Acts 1:23 attaches to that ‘
J
o
seph Barsabas
Justus
’ it portrayed as the defeated candidate in the election
to fill
‘
the Office
’ of ‘
Judas Iscariot
’ – a sobriquet which for some reason Acts finally felt unwilling to discard!

The
Second Apocalypse of James
from Nag Hammadi also makes it clear that this ‘
Theudas
’ was the one to whom James transmitted his teachings.
84
Just as interesting, where both Apocalypses of James are concerned, the role of
Theudas
in the
Second Apocalypse
is doubled by that of
Addai
in the First – both clearly being variations of ‘
Thaddaeus
’. In addition, both are placed in some relationship to James, whether familial or doctrinal.
85
These are very curious notices and add to the sense that something very mysterious is being concealed behind the name ‘
Theudas
’.

For Josephus, as we saw,
Theudas
is a Messianic contender and another of these
Jesus
/
Joshua
redivivus
-types. Though J
o
sephus labels him a ‘
Deceiver
’ or an ‘
Impostor
’, nevertheless, he cannot hide the fact that ‘
the multitudes
’ thought of him ‘
as a Prophet
’.
86
According to him, what Theudas attempted to do – in the manner of
Jesus
in the Gospels
87
– was to lead a reverse exodus back out into the wilderness and, ‘
Joshua
’ or ‘
Jesus
’-like, part the River Jordan to let the multitudes go out ‘with all their belongings’ rather than come in. Presumably the reason behind this was because the land was so corrupted and polluted by a combination of both Herodian and Roman servitors – why else?