James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (94 page)

We have already seen in Philippians 2:25 how Paul refers to his ‘
brother
,
partner
,
and comrade
-
in
-
arms
’ Epaphroditus – possibly Josephus’ patron and also Nero’s secretary for Greek letters by the same name (executed later under Domitian). Now he actually alludes to the contributions brought to him by this person he refers to as well as ‘
Apostle and Minister to my need
’ (also 2:25), ‘
the
odour of a sweet fragrance
,
an acceptable sacrifice well-pleasing to God
’ (Philippians 4:18). Of course this is totally in line with the Rabbinic tendency, following the destruction of the Temple, to consider charity – thereafter in Judaism known as ‘
Zedakah
’ or ‘
Justification
’ (picked up and seemingly compressed in Islam as ‘
Zakat
’) – as an acceptable substitute for sacrifice in the Temple.
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Even more to the point, this is exactly the language used in the Community Rule above when speaking about ‘
the Community Council
’.

At the same time and with a congeniality he never displays towards his more ‘
Jewish
’ of colleagues whatever their rank, Paul in turn sends greetings, seemingly via this same
Epaphroditus
, to ‘
every Saint’
– literally, ‘
every Holy One
’ as in the Community Rule and War Scroll above – ‘
in Christ Jesus
’ and ‘
especially those
in the household of Caesar
’ (4:18–23). Whatever else one might conclude, it is hard to avoid the impression that 1) Epaphroditus has connections very high up in this ‘
hous
e
hold
’ and 2) when he uses this language of an ‘
odour of a sweet fragrance
,
an acceptable sacrifice well-pleasing to God
’, Paul is displaying familiarity with the passages just quoted from the Community Rule.

Using exactly the same vocabulary, Paul or the Pauline author of Ephesians now goes on to characterize ‘
Christ
’ in the same manner, namely, as ‘
giving himself for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God for an odour of a sweet fragrance
’ (5:2). 1 Peter 2:5, playing on the ‘
Precious Cornerstone
’ and
spiritualized Temple and Priesthood
imagery, that is, the imagery of ‘
a House of Holiness
(
Temple
)
for Aaron in union with the Holy of Holies and a House of the Community for Israel
’
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we have just been following above, applies this ‘
spiritualized sacrifice
’ imagery to the members of the Community it is appealing to as well: ‘
You
,
also
,
as
living Stones
are being
built up
into a
Spiritual House
, a
Holy Priesthood to offer
spiritual sacrifices
acceptable to God by Jesus Christ’.
One
should note the quasi-parallel here with 2 Corinthians 5:1, also using ‘
House
’ and ‘
Building’
imag
e
ry: ‘
We know that if our Earthly House of the Tabernacle is destroyed
,
we have a Building from God
,
a House not made with human hands
,
Eternal in the Heavens
’.
In either case, we could not be closer than this to the passages in the Community Rule above. Even the connection of the ‘
Spiritual House
’ to the ‘
Holy Priesthood
’ is the same. In the latter, this language also evoked the imagery of ‘
a Precious Cornerstone
,
the Foundations of which will not shake or sway in its place
’ from Isaiah 28:16 – imagery which, it should be appreciated, was used in conjunction with that of ‘
a Tested Wall
’ or ‘
an Impregnable Bulwark
’ (imagery which in early Church literature, as we have seen, was actually applied to James). But this exact imagery of a ‘
Wall
’ or ‘
Bulwark
’
that
‘
would not sway on its Foundations or move in its place
’ is also used in the Hymns, once again attesting to the general synchronization or contemporaneity of these documents.
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Peter as ‘
Stone
’ and the
Belial
,
Balaam
and
Balak
Imagery as Applied to Herodians

Of course the ‘
Peter
’ to whom this kind of
Stone
imagery is usually applied in early Christian documentation can hardly be the ‘
Zealot
’ Simon, who is pictured in Josephus as
wanting to bar Herodians from the Temple as foreigners
and who
visits King Agrippa I in Caesarea to see
‘
what was done there contrary to Law
’.
15
This ‘
Simon
’ rather has a lot in common with the second brother of Jesus whom we consider identical with the individual called ‘
Simon the Zealot
’ in Luke’s Apostle lists (‘
S
i
mon the Cananaean
’/‘
Canaanite
’ in Mark and Matthew) and his parallel in some early Church sources ‘
Simeon bar
Cleophas
’, ‘
a Priest of the Sons of Rechab
,
a Rechabite
’ in Eusebius’ version of Hegesippus’ picture of James’ death.
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But whoever the ‘
Peter
’ is to whom 1 Peter (which even evokes the metaphor of ‘
the living Stone
,
Elect and Precious to God
’ in 2:4) is ascribed, 2 Peter – which in 1:1, not unremarkably, calls Peter ‘
Simeon
’, just as in James’ speech in Acts 15:14, not ‘
Simon Peter
’
– is completely different from it in style and tone. Except for a few Paulinisms at the end, including in 2 P
e
ter 3:15 a seemingly over-effusive reference to Paul as ‘
our beloved brother
’, 2 Peter is replete with Qumranisms. For example, it knows the language of ‘
the Way of Righteousness
’ (2:21) and calls Noah, very presciently, ‘
the Preacher of Righteousness
’ (2:5). Not only does it know about the torment of ‘
the soul of the Righteous One
’ (2:8), essential language in both the Hymns and the Damascus Document,
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but it refers to ‘
the Way of Balaam the son of Besor
’ (it means, of course, ‘
Be
‘
or
’)
who loved
‘
Unrighteousness
’ (2:15) and, as usual, the ‘
Star
’ (1:19) – evoking, of course,
the Star Prophecy
of Numbers 24:17 already suff
i
ciently discussed above.

One would almost have to say that its author, who shows himself so intimately acquainted with Qumran doctrines, must have spent time there. This is also true of the author of ‘
Jude the Brother of James
’ which, in addition to ‘
the coming of the Myriads of His Holy Ones to execute Judgement
’
against all the Ungodly
, also knows the language of ‘
fornication
’, ‘
Balaam
’, ‘
Everlasting Fire
’, and ‘
the Scoffers of the Last Days
’ (7–18).

This allusion to ‘
Balaam the son of Besor
’ is, of course, reprised in Revelation which also fairly overflows with ‘
Star
’ i
m
agery,
18
where it becomes an attack on ‘
those holding the teaching of Balaam
,
who taught Balak to cast
(
balein
)
a net before the Sons of Israel to eat things sacrificed to idols and commit fornication’
(2:14 – this is very definitely not Pauline!).
Not only is it directly followed up by an allusion to ‘
making war on them with the sword of my mouth
’ (
cf
. Isaiah 11:4 – interpreted ‘
Mess
i
anically
’ in one of the Isaiah
Pesher
s at Qumran
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– and Isaiah 49:2), but the whole is but a variation on the pivotal ‘
Three Nets of
Belial
’ passage in Column Four of the Damascus Document, there in exposition of Isaiah 24:17 (‘
Panic and Snare and Net are upon you
,
O inhabitants of the Land
’). This last reads: ‘
Its interpretation concerns the Three Nets of
Belial
,
about which Levi the Son of Jacob spoke
(Testament of Levi 14:5–8),
by means of which he
(
Belial
)
ensnares Israel
,
transforming them into three kinds of Righteousness
.’
The equivalence of language here with both 2 Peter and Revelation above should be obvious. The Damascus Document continues: ‘
The first is fornication
,
the second is Riches
,
and the third is pollution of the Temple
.’
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The rest of Column Four and Five is largely devoted to fleshing these accusations out. Not only is it manifestly an attack upon the Herodian Royal Family and the Priesthood it promoted – a proposition which I have already covered extensively els
e
where
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– but the key chronological allusion, besides congruence of language with all these other documents we have been examining above (and of course their very real similarity to James’ directives to overseas communities), is the combination of the ‘
pollution of the Temple
’ and ‘
fornication
’ charges into one complex whole, the crux of which is put very succinctly in what follows.

Not only do such persons ‘
not separate
’
Holy from profane
‘
as prescribed by
Torah
’,
but ‘they lie with a woman during the blood of her period and each man takes (to wife) the daughter of his brother and the daughter of his sister
.... “
All of them are kindlers of Fire and lighters of firebrands
” (Isaiah 50:11).
Their webs are spiders
’
webs and the offspring of vipers are their eggs’
(compare this with the speech attributed to John the Baptist in Matthew 3:7–12 and
pars
. above).
The applicability of this passage to the Herodian Royal Family –
who married their nieces and close agnatic cousins as a matter of direct family policy
– and none other, should be self-evident.
This is particularly true of the allusion to ‘
sleeping with women during their periods
’, which is how the easygoing contact of Herodians with Romans and their intermarriage with non-Jewish wives would have been perceived by persons in this period with this kind of native Palestinian-Jewish mindset.

But the next phrase, ‘
whoever approaches them
(‘
unless he was forced
’)
cannot be cleansed
’, extends this to the Pries
t
hood that owed its appointment to such
Herodians
(to wit, ‘
like an accursed thing
,
his house is guilty
’
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) and fraternized wil
l
ingly and regularly with them. In particular, this meant not only accepting their
appointment as
High Priests
from them, but also
accepting their sacrifices in and gifts to the Temple
, even if the more purity-minded extremists regarded them as ‘
polluted
’ – ther
e
fore the pivotal accusation in ‘
the Three Nets of
Belial
’ passage of the Damascus Document above of ‘
pollution of the Temple
’ (
cf.
as well, the tradition communicated to R. Eliezer b. Hyrcanus by ‘
Jacob of Kfar Sechania
’ above on what ‘
Jesus the Nazoraean
’ said should be done with ‘
gifts to the Temple from prostitutes
’, in our view, a catchphrase for
Herodians
– in fact, at one point
even Queen Helen of Adiabene
).
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