Retrieving James-Yakov, the Brother of Jesus: From Legend to History

RETRIEVING JAMES/YAKOV, THE BROTHER OF JESUS From Legend to History

Other Books by Sean Freyne

Jesus, a Jewish

Galilean:

A New Reading

of the Jesus Story

Galilee and Gospel: Selected

Galilee, Jesus and the Literary Approaches

Essays

Gospels: and Historical

Galilee from Alexander

the Great to

A Study of Second Temple

Judaism

Investigations Hadrian:

RETRIEVING JAMES/YAKOV, THE BROTHER OF JESUS From Legend to History

Sean Freyne

Center for the Study o f James the Brother Institute o f Advanced Theology

Bard College Annandale-on-Hudson, New York

Copyright © 2 0 0 8 Sean Freyne

Preface copyright © 2 0 0 8 Bruce Chilton

Publications Office, Bard College, P O B o x 5 0 0 0 , Annandale-on-Hudson, N Y 1 2 5 0 4

All rights reserved. No part o f this b o o k may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any m e a n s — e l e c t r o n i c , mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the written permission o f the publisher. Cover Lateral Sanctuary D o o r with Icon o f Saint James the Brother o f the Lord, 1688 (egg tempera on panel) by Stephanos Tzangarolas (fl. 1 6 8 8 - 1 7 1 0 ) Benaki Museum, Athens, G r e e c e / T h e Bridgeman Art Library

Inside back cover Oil lamps from the collection o f Frank T. and Helene Crohn Photograph by D o n H a m e r m a n

Library o f Congress Control N u m b e r : 2 0 0 8 9 3 4 0 2 0

ISBN 1-931493-77-2

Acknowledgments

Retrieving

James/Yakov,

the Brother

of the Jesus: From Legend to History is a

publication o f the Center for the Study o f James the Brother and the Institute of Advanced Theology, both located at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The Center expresses particular thanks to Frank T. and Helene Crohn for their vital assistance and guidance in the publication o f this volume, and to the Board o f Trustees o f Bard College, Charles P. Stevenson Jr., chair, and David E. Schwab II, chair emeritus; Leon Botstein, president o f the college; and Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, executive vice president o f the college, for their support o f this book.

CONTENTS

1

Preface Bruce Chilton

11

Retrieving James/Yakov, the Brother of Jesus: F r o m Legend to History Sean Freyne

35

Afterword Center for the Study of James the Brother Frank T. Crohn

37

Notes

44

About the Author

PREFACE

The emergence o f earliest Christianity cannot be understood without reference to James, the brother o f Jesus. As Jesus' brother, James offers a unique perspec­ tive on Jesus' movement. As a leader o f disciples gathered around the Temple in Jerusalem, James also demonstrates the thoroughly Judaic identity o f the first Christians.

The well-documented evidence concerning James, however valuable in his­ torical terms, has proven an embarrassment to deeply embedded theological doctrines. The belief that Mary was a virgin, not only before Jesus' birth but also afterward, together with the common assumption that Christianity was a movement chiefly for non-Jews, kept James in the shadows o f Christian schol­ arship for most o f the time between the second century C.E. and the 20th cen­ tury. Responding to an obvious defect in research, scholars from the Institute of Advanced Theology at Bard College joined with their colleagues in two major ventures: "The Consultation on James," which produced a sequence o f academic publications; and the Center for the Study o f James the Brother, a focus for the collection o f resources. These ventures helped establish the historical importance o f James as (1) Jesus' brother and successor, and (2) a fig­ ure who could only be understood within the history o f Judaism. This collab­ orative work, cited by Professor Sean Freyne in the essay that follows, was supported both intellectually and financially by Frank T. and Helene Crohn.

When the findings o f previous scholarship are kept in mind, the originality o f Professor Freyne's contribution becomes unmistakable. This preface does not rehearse the history o f research to which Professor Freyne's notes give ample reference (see also http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/Chilton_James.htm), but

l

rather seeks to indicate the picture o f James that critical investigation has sup­ ported in recent years. Once we have referred to six basic features o f this picture, the significance o f Professor Freyne's proposal will become apparent.

1. James was indeed Jesus' brother. The point o f departure for considering this question is Mark 6:3 (cf. Matthew 13:55-56), where James is actually named as Jesus' brother, along with three other men; at least two unnamed and unenumerated sisters are also men­ tioned. Until recently, Roman Catholic opinion has been dominated by the position o f St. Jerome (in his controversial work Against Helvidius),

who

argued that although "brothers" and "sisters" are the terms used in Greek, the reference is actually to cousins.

Dispute has focused on the issue o f whether that view can be sustained lin­ guistically, and, on the whole, the finding has been negative. Before Jerome, Helvidius had maintained during the fourth century that the brothers and sis­ ters were just what their names implied—siblings o f Jesus: although he had been born o f a virgin, their father was Joseph and their mother was Mary. That view clearly played havoc with the emerging doctrine o f Mary's virginity after Jesus' birth, and that issue occupied the center o f attention. In a fairly recent work that received the imprimatur, John P. Meier has endorsed the Helvidian theory, to some extent on the basis o f support from second-century Fathers.

1

During that century, a group referred to as the Ebionites even denied Jesus' virgin birth in the technical sense; his "brothers" and "sisters" were that in the full sense o f those words (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.26.1-2).

Richard Bauckham has given new currency to the view o f Jesus' relationship to James that was developed by Epiphanius during the fourth century

(Panarion

1.29.3-4; 2.66.19; 3.78.7, 9, 13), and supported by the second-century

2

Protoevanglium

of James 9.2 and perhaps the Gospel of Peter (according to

Origen's Commentary

2

on Matthew 10:17): Mary was Jesus' mother, not James',

since Joseph had a wife prior to his marriage to Mary. Joseph's relatively advanced age is traditionally held to account for his early departure from the narrative scene o f the Gospels, and that reasonable inference lends support to this theory, while James' emphasis on the Davidic identity o f the Church (Acts 15:16) is eas­ ily accommodated on this view. James' seniority relative to Jesus might be reflected in the parable o f the prodigal (Luke 15:11-32). The story o f those with Jesus who seized him in the midst o f exorcism (Mark 3:21; cf. 3:31-35) reflects the kind o f parental concern an older brother might feel for a younger brother.

Another, more pragmatic consideration provides support for Epiphanius' 3

theory, although in a modified form. As mentioned, Joseph disappears from 4

the scene o f the Gospels when Jesus is about 12 years old. His death at that time has been the traditional surmise, and such a chronology has implications for understanding Jesus' relationships with his siblings. In the Helvidian view, Mary must have given birth to at least seven children in 12 years (Jesus, his brothers, and two or more sisters). Assuming that not every child she gave birth to survived infancy, more than seven labors would be required during that period, all this within a culture that confined women after childbirth and prohibited intercourse with a woman with a flow o f blood, and despite the acknowledged prophylactic effect o f lactation and Joseph's age.

Although the consideration o f a likely rate o f fertility provides some support to the Epiphanian theory, in its unadulterated form it strains credulity in its own way. A widower with at least six children already in tow is not perhaps the best candidate for marriage with a young bride. A modified form o f the theory (a hybrid with Helvidius' suggestion) would make James and Joses the products o f Joseph's previous marriage, and Jesus, Simon, and Judah the sons of Joseph with Mary. The latter three sons have names notably associated with a zealous regard for the honor o f Israel, and may reflect the taste o f a common

3

mother. Absent their names, or even a count o f how many were involved, no such assignment o f marriages can be attempted for Jesus' sisters.

In the Helvidian view, James was Jesus' younger and full brother, in a family quickly produced whose siblings were close in age. In the Epiphanian view, James was older, and Jesus' half brother; it seems to me that, suitably modified, Epiphanius provides the more plausible finding.

2. James' relationship to his brother was strained. 5

The Gospels, when they refer to James at all, do so with no great sympathy. He is listed at the head o f Jesus' brothers in the Synoptic Gospels, but James is also mentioned in a statement about a crowd in Nazareth that is skeptical that any­ one from Jesus' family could be responsible for wonders (Mark 6:1-6; Matthew 13:53-58). In John, he is presumably included among the unnamed brothers who argued with Jesus about his refusal to go to Jerusalem for a feast (John 7:2-10), and James is also referred to anonymously in the Synoptic Gospels as among the brothers for whom Jesus refused to interrupt his teaching to greet, even accompanied by his mother (Mark 3:31-35; Matthew 12:46-50; Luke 8:19-21). The most plausible inference would be that Jesus and James were some­ how at odds during this period, but personal animosity is scarcely provable. The real breaking point came at the attempted stoning at Nazareth (Luke 4 : 1 6 - 3 0 ) , which seems to have made Jesus negative about his own family.

On the other hand, James is recognized within the earliest list o f those to whom the risen Jesus appeared (1 Corinthians 15:7), and—closely associated with the Temple—he quickly emerges as the dominant figure in the Jesus movement.

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Taken together, that would suggest that by the end o f Jesus' life, during his last pilgrimage to Jerusalem, he had reconciled with his brother James. Aside from Paul's reference to James in his list o f witnesses to the resurrection, the New

4

Testament does not record an actual appearance to James, but the noncanonical Gospel of the Hebrews does. There, Jesus assures his brother that "the Son o f Man has been raised from among those who sleep" (cited by Jerome, Liber de Viris Illustribus 2). This vision occurs after James has fasted in consequence o f his brother's death. The authority o f James, it seems, was a key force in the com­ plete identification between Jesus and the figure o f "one like a son o f man" in Daniel 7 (see also Hegesippus, as cited by Eusebius in his History 2 . 2 3 . 1 - 1 8 ) — an angelic figure in the heavenly court—after the resurrection.

3. James did not require circumcision of males along with baptism by way of initiation into the movement of Jesus, but he was a prominent figure in Jerusalem, devoted to Temple practice. Acts attributes to James (and to James alone) the power to decide whether nonJewish male converts in Antioch need to be circumcised; he determines that 7

they do not. Under the influence o f the thesis o f F. C. Bauer, it is sometimes 8

assumed that James required circumcision o f all such converts, but that requirement is attributed to Christian Pharisees in Acts (15:5), not to James. Nonetheless, James does proceed to command non-Jewish Christians to observe certain requirements o f purity (Acts 15:1-35). That may explain why emissaries from James make their appearance as villains in Paul's description of a major controversy at Antioch. They insisted that Jews and non-Jews should eat in different groups, while Paul, with more than equal insistence (but appar­ ently little or no success), argued for the unity o f Jewish and non-Jewish meal fellowship within the church (Galatians 1:18-2:21). How precisely James came to such a position o f prominence is not explained in Acts; his apostolic status was no doubt assured by the risen Jesus' appearance to him.

Like Josephus (Antiquities 20.9.1 §§ 1 9 7 - 2 0 3 ) , Hegesippus (in concert with Clement, Eusebius reports) portrays James as killed by Ananus at the Temple.

5

In addition, Hegesippus describes James in terms that emphasize his purity in such a way that, as in Acts, his association with the Nazirite vow is evident (cf. Acts 2 1 : 1 7 - 3 6 ) . James' capacity to win the reverence o f many Jews in Jerusalem (not only his brother's followers) derives from this practice and his encour­ agement o f others in the practice. James' focus was purity in the Temple under the aegis o f his risen brother, the Son o f Man, but there is no trace o f his requir­ ing circumcision o f Gentiles. It needs to be kept in mind that Jesus himself had expelled traders from the Temple, not as some indiscriminate protest about commercialism, but as part o f Zechariah's prophecy (Zechariah 14) o f a day when all the peoples o f the earth would be able to offer sacrifice to the Lord without the intervention o f middlemen. James' Nazirite practice realized that prophecy in his brother's name.

4. James gave Gentiles a significant, though somewhat marginal, place in his brother's movement. Hegesippus' account o f James' prominence is confirmed by Clement, who por­ trays James as the first elected bishop in Jerusalem (cited by Eusebius, History 2.1.1-6), and by the pseudo-Clementine Recognitions, which makes James into an almost papal figure, providing the correct paradigm o f preaching to Gentiles. Paul is so much the butt o f this presentation that

Recognitions

(1.43-71) even relates that, prior to his conversion to Christianity, Saul physi­ cally assaulted James in the Temple. Martin Hengel refers to this presentation as an apostolic novel [apostelroman],

deeply influenced by the perspective o f

the Ebionites, and probably to be dated within the third and fourth centuries.

9

Yet even in Acts 15, the use o f Scripture attributed to James, like the argument itself, is quite unlike Paul's. James claims that Peter's baptism o f non-Jews is to be accepted because "the words o f the prophets agree, just as it is written" (Acts 15:15), and he goes on to cite from the book o f Amos. The passage cited will

6

concern us in a moment; the form o f James' interpretation is an immediate indication o f a substantial difference from Paul. As James has it, there is actual agreement between Peter and the words o f the prophets, as two people might agree: the verb sumphoneo

is used nowhere else in the New Testament in

respect to Scripture. The continuity o f Christian experience with Scripture is marked as a concern greater than within Paul's interpretation, and James expects that continuity to be verbal, a matter o f agreement with the prophets' words, not merely with possible ways o f looking at what they mean.

The citation from Amos (9:11-12, from the version o f the Septuagint, which was the Bible o f Luke-Acts) comports well with James' concern that the posi­ tion o f the Church agree with the principal vocabulary o f the prophets (Acts 15:16-17): After this I will come back and restore the tent o f David which has fallen, and rebuild its ruins and set it up anew, that the rest o f men may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles upon whom my name is called In the argument o f James as represented here, what the belief o f Gentiles achieves is not the redefinition o f Israel (as in Paul's thought), but the restora­ tion o f the house o f David, with Gentile recognition o f the Torah as it impinged on them.

10

The argument is possible because a Davidic genealogy o f Jesus—

and, therefore, o f his brother James—is assumed.

11

5. James did not stand in programmatic opposition to Paul. It is true that the Epistle o f James sets out an elaborate argument—including a reading o f Genesis 22 that seems to contradict Paul's—to the effect that faith without works is dead (James 2 : 1 4 - 2 6 and Romans 4 ) . But the Epistle does not set out Paul's position in anything like detail, and his position is subtler 12

than what is refuted in the Epistle o f James. That is no surprise, since Paul

7

himself had to correct antinomian readings o f his own views among those sympathetic to him (1 Corinthians 5 - 6 ) . The Pastoral Epistles and 2 Peter 3:15-16 suggest that this difficulty grew over time.

The dating o f the Epistle o f James, and particularly the question o f whether it was written before or after the destruction o f the Temple in 70 C.E., continues 13

to cause controversy. But the sense o f social crisis reflected in the Epistle is unmistakable, as is its urgent expectation o f Jesus' parousia

(James 5:7-8, cf.

2 Peter 3:4,12). But if we think back to Hegesippus' description o f James' ethos, that is not surprising. With the threat to the very possibility o f sacrificial wor­ ship in the Temple (whether after its destruction or in the turbulent condi­ tions that preceded that trauma), a fundamental aspect o f James' position was compromised, an aspect with which Paul himself could agree (as Acts 21:16-36 and Romans 15:16 suggest). What remained was Jesus' identity as the Son o f Man, and the challenge to James' theology (before or after his own death) was to maintain and even enhance that identity, as worship in the Temple became increasingly problematic. In that context, whether James happened to have agreed with Paul in a doctrine that Paul had articulated in quite a different context appears a secondary concern.

6. James was the most prominent figure in Jesus' movement between the resurrection and his own death. It is telling that, in his attempt to draw together the material relating to James, Jerome cites the Gospel

of the Hebrews

alongside the New Testament,

Hegesippus, and Josephus. The conflation attests to the fragmentary nature o f the references, as well as the appearance they give o f having been spun out o f one another, or out o f cognate traditions. The use o f all these sources is unavoidable as the necessary point o f departure for any discussion o f James, but each makes James into an image that comports with its own program. The Gospels' James is kept at bay so as not to deflect attention from Jesus until

8

the resurrection, when James implicitly or explicitly (in the case o f Paul and the Gospel of the Hebrews) becomes an important witness; the James o f Acts rec­ onciles the Church within a stance which leads on to the position o f Paul; Paul's James divides the Church; Josephus relates James' death to illustrate the bloody-mindedness o f Ananus, the high priest; Hegesippus does so to illus­ trate the righteousness o f James and his community; Clement makes James the transitional figure o f the apostolic tradition, and the Recognitions

use and

enhance that standing in order to attack the figure o f Paul.

All the way through, James is deployed in these sources to assert what is held to 14

be an authoritative construction o f Jesus' movement. Accordingly, he is mar­ ginalized (in the Gospels), appealed to as an authoritative witness (in Acts and 15

Paul), criticized (in Paul ), portrayed as a victim (by Josephus) or a hero (by Hegesippus), hailed as both a source o f unity (by Clement and in the tradition of Acts) and the trump card to use against Paul (in the Recognitions).

Everything

that makes the figure of "the historical Jesus" problematic in the historicist under­ standing makes "the historical James" in that sense out o f the question.

James' devotion to the Temple and to his brother as the Danielic Son o f Man after the resurrection made him the most prominent Christian leader in Jerusalem. The practice o f the Nazirite vow was his distinguishing feature, and his belief in his brother as the gate o f heaven, the heavenly portal above the Temple, made James a figure to be revered or reviled in Judaism, depending upon one's evaluation o f Jesus. Among Christians, he promulgated his under­ standing o f the establishment o f the house o f David by means o f an interpre­ tation reminiscent o f the Essenes, although he insisted that baptized, uncircumcised non-Jews had an ancillary role. As the bishop or overseer (mebaqqer,

in the Dead Sea Scrolls) o f his community, he exercised a function

that entered the Greek language as episkopos,

and the influence o f his circle is

attested to in the New Testament and later literature (including the According to Thomas, Apocryphon

of James, Protevangelium

Gospel

of James, First and

9

Second Apocalypse Kerygmata

of James, Gospel of Peter, Apocalypse of Peter, Kerygma of Peter,

Petrou, Acts of Peter, Letter of Peter to Philip, and Act of Peter (ca. 200

C.E. or later).

Given James' importance within Jesus' movement, it becomes vital to under­ stand his motivating theology and its influence on the development o f early Christianity. In the past, preliminary issues o f historical background and con­ text, and matters o f James' relationship to Jesus and to Paul, have naturally occupied attention, but now that they have been resolved, at least to some extent, the more vital concern is to understand James as a positive contribu­ tor in his own right, not simply by way o f contrast to or conflict with other fig­ ures. That is precisely what Professor Freyne offers in the essay that follows.

The essay represents the published form o f a lecture that Professor Freyne gave for the Center for the Study o f James the Brother, a presentation in which his care, creativity, and precision won admiration from the members of the Institute of Advanced Theology and the Bard and local communities. In calling attention to James' dedication to Zion, not merely as a focus o f practice, but as the nexus of the prophetic promises for Israel, Professor Freyne has laid bare a dynamic possibility for future research. By further linking that possibility to the develop­ ing theme o f Jesus as the Isaian "suffering servant," the implications for Christology in both the ancient and modern periods are rich and exciting. The Center for the Study o f James the Brother is proud to commend Professor Freyne's essay to a wider audience for critical attention and careful scrutiny. Only such appraisals will at last restore James, Jesus' brother, to his rightful place in the history o f the earliest Christianity and to his natural role in helping to improve Jewish-Christian relations today.

Bruce Chilton Executive Director Institute o f Advanced Theology

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RETRIEVING JAMES/YAKOV, THE BROTHER OF JESUS

From Legend to History

Sean Freyne

Let us begin with a statistic: James is mentioned just 11 times in the New Testament, whereas Peter's name occurs on 190 occasions! These numbers should alert us immediately to the fact that there was a problem regarding the role o f James in earliest Christianity, particularly in view o f the considerable body o f evidence concerning James in later Christian writings. To put the matter bluntly, James was not wholly written out o f the official script o f Christian origins, but only because those responsible could not have done so and remained credible. In fact, behind these 11 references lies a hidden, or largely submerged, script, and in this essay I would like to share my efforts to uncover that script, by attempting to fill in the lacunae where it has become frayed at the edges, or, even worse, broken into fragments.

In this discussion I have opted not to search for scraps o f information in the later material that deals with James—scraps that might, or might not, fill in the gaps that appear in the first-century evidence. It seems better to trace the leg­ 1

end o f James as it emerges in all branches o f developing Christianity. What are the trajectories, commonalities, and distinctive features that emerge from such a survey? A cluster o f related issues surfaces repeatedly. One o f these is the vio­ lent death o f James, which immediately points to the question o f his relation­ ship with other branches o f Judaism. Another topic is James' leadership role within earliest Christianity, side by side with those o f Peter and Paul.

11

Thus, my argument will be developed in two stages. First, the James legends o f later centuries will be examined in order to highlight the varying perspectives of different interest groups. Second, I will attempt to reconstruct the history behind the legends, guided by the themes uncovered in the first part o f the analysis. We cannot, o f course, rule out the possibility that the legendarization of James had begun as early as the first generation, as a response to various situations that may have arisen in that phase o f the new movement. One way to negotiate this problem is to suggest a contextually plausible setting from among the competing Judaisms o f the first century. Within this spectrum it should be possible to situate the emerging picture o f James and evaluate its reliability.

I. Exploring the James Legends It can be fun to enter the weird and wonderful world o f legends and legend makers. But it can also be a hazardous business, if one does not know the rules and respect them. Legends are rarely produced just for their entertainment value; they usually serve some purpose or respond to some need. Community legends are flights o f the collective imagination, but also in many cases exer­ cises o f collective memory, as a group reaches into its past for enlightenment, 2

encouragement, and legitimization. Legends evolve at the myth-making, rather than the historical, end o f the narrative continuum, and yet, I would argue, they can be used—judiciously, o f course—to explore their subject's past as well as the present.

In this respect the James legends prove to be a most interesting topic for inves­ tigation. Later generations were kinder to James than were the New Testament writers. In fact, from the vantage point o f later times he became such an impor­ tant figure that all the competing branches o f the somewhat fractured and frac­ tious Christian family were eager to claim him as their own!

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(i) Was James Jewish, and Not

3

Christian?

Perhaps the single most significant aspect o f the James o f later writings (that is, after the New Testament) is the consistency with which the designation "the Just One" is applied to him. Indeed, so ubiquitous was this usage that in time it became identified with his person much like the designation "the anointed one/the Christ," which became part o f the name o f Jesus, James' brother. In both instances each is deemed to have fulfilled his mission in such a way that his personal name and role can be conflated. Eusebius, the fourth-century Christian historian, in introducing James in his narrative for the first time, says that "the men o f old" gave him the surname "the Just" because o f his virtue (History of the Church, Book 2, 1:1). In the Gospel o f Thomas (Saying 12) the Savior himself designates James as "James the Just." Even James' accusers and opponents are made to address him directly as "Just One"—implying that this was how he was known and revered.

The designation tsaddiq/dikaios

4

had acquired quasi-messianic status already

in the Hebrew Bible (Isaiah 9:7; 11:4; Jeremiah 23:5; 33:15), and it continued to be used in the context o f the end-time ideal ruler in later Jewish writings, where it is often associated with the gift o f divine wisdom (Psalms o f Solomon 5

17:23, 32, 37; 1 Enoch 38:2; 5 3 : 6 ) . In Hegesippus' portrayal, in addition to being described as "the Just One," James is also said to be "holy" (hagios) his mother's womb (History of the Church 2,23:3).

from

This same combination o f

"Just One" and "Holy One" is found in the early proclamation about Jesus. In a reference to the Barabbas incident in Jesus' trial, Peter charges the Jerusalem crowd with rejecting "the Holy and Righteous One," asking instead for a mur­ derer (Acts 3:14f; cf. 7:52). Thus, the association o f James' status with that o f Jesus, as this was articulated in the early Jerusalem preaching, is a significant step in the legend that developed around him.

In addition to associating this "messianic" term tsaddiq with the ideal ruler, the designation also had redemptive connotations, with the biblical Noah as

13

the prototype. According to the Book o f Genesis, in a world full o f evil, Noah is said to be "a righteous man, and perfect in his generation," and thus "to have 6

walked with God" (Genesis 6:9). It is for this reason that Noah was chosen to save the whole o f God's creation, animal and human alike, from utter destruc­ 7

tion. This theme reappears in Rabbinic literature. The presence o f one just man ensured that the world was created, and, likewise, that it was saved (Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 38b), an aspect that is clearly echoed in the Gospel of Thomas saying, already alluded to: "Go to James the Just, for whom heaven and earth came into being." Thus, the ascetic lifestyle o f the tsaddiq can avert disaster. A later anecdote is highly pertinent in view o f the linking o f the destruction o f Jerusalem in 70 C.E. with the murder o f James. As the emaciated R. Tsaddoq, who had fasted for 40 years in order to save Jerusalem (Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 56a), was being led out o f the burning city, Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, the leader o f the post-70 Yavneh renewal, confronted Vespasian, the mocking Roman general, and declared: " I f there had been another such as this one, you would not have been able to destroy Jerusalem, even if you had an army twice as large" (Lamentations Rabbah 1, 5:31).

8

It is to Josephus that we owe our earliest account o f James' death (Antiquities 20, 199-200). However, the incident merely served to illustrate a larger theme in the author's work, which was written in Rome in the early nineties o f the first cen­ tury C.E.—namely, Josephus' own pro-Pharisaic and anti-Sadducean stance.

9

Ananus II, the high priest who had James and "some others" arraigned, con­ demned, and stoned during the interregnum o f the Roman governorship o f Judea in 62 C.E., was a member o f the Sadducee party, and is described by Josephus as "bold in temperament and exceedingly daring." While the newly appointed governor, Albinus, was on his way, Ananus summoned a "court o f judges" and had James and the others convicted on the unspecified charge o f "breaking the law." However, others, whom Josephus describes as "the most rea­ sonable in the city and accurate interpreters o f the law" (probably a code for the Pharisees), complained to Albinus about the matter and had Ananus deposed.

14

The incident was clearly important in early Christian polemics against the Jews. Eusebius reports Josephus' account in full, but prefaces it by attributing the following statement to him as well: "And these things [namely, the siege o f Jerusalem] happened to the Jews to avenge James the Just, who was the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ, for the Jews killed him because o f his great right­ eousness" (History of the Church 2 , 2 3 : 1 9 ) . This statement is not in any extant manuscript o f Josephus' Jewish Antiquities,

but it reflects what the second-

century Christian writer Hegesippus reported in his account o f the incident, which Eusebius also includes, deeming it to be the most accurate rendition (History of the Church 2, 2 3 : 1 9 - 2 2 ) . After James' death, Hegesippus reports: "Immediately Vespasian began to besiege them." Eusebius endorses this state­ ment, going so far as to declare that "even the wise among the Jews thought that this was the cause o f the siege o f Jerusalem, immediately after his (James') mar­ tyrdom." The claim overlooked the gap in time between the death o f James in 62 C.E. and the destruction o f the temple in 70 C.E., but within the perspective o f a martyrological narrative it made perfectly good sense.

10

Hegesippus' account differs considerably from that o f Josephus—so much so, in fact, that it is likely to have been an independent tradition.

11

The most sig­

nificant divergences are the absence o f any mention o f either Albinus, the Roman governor, or Ananus, the high priest, and the identification o f James' accusers as the Scribes and Pharisees. After showing initial respect for James and recognition o f his influence, they are envious o f his success with the peo­ ple in proclaiming Jesus "as the Son o f Man, seated on the right hand o f the great power," who will come on the clouds o f heaven. Accordingly, they had James thrown down from the pinnacle o f the Temple and stoned. Thus, from a passing reference to James "and some others" as having been put to death unlawfully by Ananus, the story o f James' death was transformed into a full­ blown account o f a martyrdom, in less than a century.

15

What is important about this development is, as Daniel Boyarin has reminded us with regard to all stories o f martyrdom, not so much the circumstances sur­ rounding such deaths, as the fact that they gave rise to a powerful discourse that was to influence and shape subsequent Christian and Jewish history in signifi­ 12

cant ways. In Hegessipus' highly dramatic account, the opponents address James ironically: "For we and all the people bear witness that you are righteous and do not respect persons." And a little later, again: "O Just One, to whom we all owe obedience." James, on the other hand, bears the true witness with his life, and his actual death is described in classic martyrological language: "thus he bore witness." Further, in describing

the circumstances o f the death,

Hegesippus draws on motifs that appear in the passion narratives of the Gospels 13

and the account o f Stephens death in Acts 7. Thus, Hegesippus has James replicate the witness o f Jesus, thereby completing the process that the shared nomenclature, "Just One" and "Holy One," had already begun.

14

This coloring o f the account in terms o f the developing ideology o f Christian martyrdom—albeit in James' case—at the hands o f Jewish, rather than Roman, opponents merely highlights the strong Jewish features in the descriptions o f James. The statement that he was holy from his mother's womb anticipates the priestly role that is assigned to him. His ascetic lifestyle is couched in terms o f the Nazirite vow: James drank neither wine nor strong drink, and, in accor­ dance with the regulations for those who consecrated themselves to God in a special way, as prescribed in Numbers 6:2-5, he did not shave himself. He also abstained from meat and avoided aspects o f the Greek ethos such as anoint­ ing his body with oil and visiting the baths. The implication is that James remained a Nazirite all his life.

This elaborate description o f his ascetic lifestyle lays the foundation for the extraordinary claim that James alone was allowed to enter the holy place, "since he wore linen, not wool." The allusion here is to the high priest's clothing on

16

the Day o f Atonement, the one day o f the year when only the high priest could enter the Holy o f Holies to make atonement for his own and the peoples' sins by sprinkling blood (Leviticus 1 6 : 4 - 6 ) .

15

Interestingly, however, James did not

offer sacrifice or sprinkle blood. Instead he prayed daily in the Temple, asking for forgiveness for the sins o f the people. The implications o f this account are that James was deemed to have acted in the role o f high priest because o f his outstanding holiness. In this he stood in stark contrast to the high priest Ananus, whose lack o f holiness was obvious to those, like Eusebius, who also knew Josephus' account.

16

The fact that James engaged in prayer for the people instead o f sacrifice recalls Jesus' use o f Isaiah 56:5 in Mark's account o f the so-called cleansing o f the Temple: "My house shall be called a house o f prayer for all nations" (Mark 11:17). This apparently anticultic theme, already expressed by Isaiah and other prophets and reiterated by the Markan Jesus, was carried further by one branch of the fractured Jewish-Christian family, according to a fragment o f the Gospel of the Ebionites in which Jesus is made to declare: "I have come to abolish sac­ rifice, and if you do not cease to offer sacrifice, the wrath o f God will not cease from you" (Epiphanius, Panarion

30, 1 6 : 5 - 7 ) .

17

Thus, Hegesippus' account

o f James' behavior, so graphically described by the remark that "his knees were like those o f a camel" because his praying was so constant, is in line with this Jewish-Christian critique o f sacrifice, and possibly also James' own vege­ tarian lifestyle, while it still maintains the centrality o f the actual Temple and its symbolism.

In this developing portrait o f James within a Jewish perspective, there is no mention o f disputes with Paul over the law or the terms for admission o f the Gentiles, despite the prominence o f these themes in the New Testament. The issue o f James' observance was not in question, which points to the fact that in the period during which these legends were taking shape (between the second

17

and fourth centuries C.E.) the "Jewish-Christian question" centered on the iden­ tity o f Jesus. In the context o f second-century inner-Jewish polemics, the man­ ner o f James' death made him closer to Jesus in death than he had been in life.

The Jewish Christians, who continued to observe circumcision and the dietary and Sabbath laws but believed in Jesus as the messiah or the expected prophet like Moses, found themselves in a very difficult position with respect to these debates. On the one hand, fellow Jews regarded them as minim, or heretics, while on the other hand, fellow believers in Christ, who were members o f the increasingly Gentile church, rejected the Jewish Christians because they did not acknowledge the futility o f observing the Mosaic Law.

It is possible that the Jewish Christians who fled Jerusalem after the death o f their leader James never returned to the city. They continued their in-between existence in Transjordan, and possibly also in Galilee. (Opinions differ con­ cerning the strands that appear in our later sources. Epiphanius claims that the Nazoreans represented the "orthodox" position and the Ebionites, the 18

"heretical" [Panarion 29 and 30] . ) The death o f their leader, not the death o f Jesus, caused the destruction o f Jerusalem, they believed, and this gave them the impetus to develop the legend o f James' martyrdom, which we have been examining, and which would be developed further in the Christian-Gnostic writings related to James, as well as in the pseudo-Clementine corpus.

Perhaps this linking o f James with the actual Temple arises from the impor­ tance o f a public place as the site o f martyrdom in all early Christian accounts. Yet the early Christian memory o f the Temple was surely also grounded in the continued observance o f elements o f Jewish ritual and dietary laws. Hegesippus' description o f James performing the function o f high priest on the Day o f Atonement, while being open to a deliberately ironic interpretation o f mim­ icry, contrasts sharply with that o f the canonical Epistle to the Hebrews, which denigrates the Temple rituals as being old and outdated: Christ "the eternal

18

High Priest" entered once and for all the heavenly sanctuary to make atone­ ment for sins, through the sacrifice o f himself, and not with the blood o f goats and heifers (Hebrews 9:11-28). This supercessionist idea o f the atonement is Pauline, rather than Jamesian, in its inspiration, despite the name o f the letter.

Others within the broad church o f the post-70 C.E. groups who mourned the Temple would develop different interpretative strategies to deal with its loss. Prophecies o f a new temple in the Hebrew Bible (Ezekiel 4 0 - 4 8 ) and such later writings as I Enoch 91 and the Temple Scroll from Qumran provided the basis for the more apocalyptically minded groups (including various Christian groups) to hope for a new Jerusalem and a new temple. According to the devel­ oping teaching o f the post-70 sages, the holiness that the Temple represented at the heart o f Israel could now be achieved in the home and the village by careful attention to the legal requirements regarding the Temple, its feasts, and offerings.

19

Still others, perhaps among the remnants o f the priestly class,

remembered the Temple in the artistic representations that adorned some o f their synagogues—at Dura Europus, Sepphoris, Bet Alpha, Baram, and else­ where, especially after the emperor Julians abortive attempt to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem in the mid fourth century.

(it) The James Legend and Inner-Christian

20

Leadership

Struggles

When Paul mentions the list o f appearances of the Risen Lord—to Peter and the Twelve and to James and the 500 brethren—that he received upon his entry into the new movement, he may already be hinting at two different, if not opposing, 21

groups and their leaders already in existence (1 Corinthians 15:5-7). Paul him­ self was soon to enter the fray, asserting his rights to be considered an apostle, even though he, like James, had not been a follower of the earthly Jesus. Yet from the earliest days, these three authoritative teachers—Peter, James, and Paul, together with John—became the rallying figures around whom different strands of opinion crystallized by the end o f the first century. Today, categories such as heretical and orthodox are seen to be both premature and unhelpful in defining

19

these strands, since the boundaries were, and continued to be, fluid for several centuries. Clearly, in such a situation the source o f authority was vital, and the pattern o f authorization by the Risen Lord became the touchstone. We can see this process continued among the gnosticizing Christian groups in the gospels attributed to Thomas, Mary, and Judas, who are all represented as receiving spe­ cial instruction and authorization from the Savior in the post-resurrection period, often at the expense o f Peter and other named disciples.

The process o f James' authentication continued to be developed by his JewishChristian followers, probably expedited by his martyrdom. In a fragment pre­ served by Jerome from the Gospel o f the Hebrews, we read that James participated in the Last Supper, and that after drinking from the cup o f the Lord, he took an oath not to eat or drink again until he had seen Jesus risen from the dead. Soon afterwards, Jesus appeared to James alone and freed him from his oath, declaring that the Son o f Man was indeed risen from the dead. Thus, James is designated the primary witness and the most authoritative fig­ ure, according to this fragment from a Jewish-Christian gospel.

22

The pseudo-Clementine writings are generally recognized to be a composite col­ lection dated to the fourth century C.E., although they are probably based on earlier third-century writings. It is generally accepted that they contain impor­ 23

tant sources that deal with the Jewish Christians o f earlier centuries. In partic­ ular, pseudo-Clementine Recognitions 1,27:33-71, has been identified as closely related to a work mentioned by Epiphanius (310-402 Anabathmoi

JakoboUy or The Ascents of James.

24

C.E.),

entitled in Greek

This work reports that after Peter

and each member o f the Twelve had disputed with the Jewish authorities over several days in the Temple precincts, the climax arrived on an appointed day with a confrontation between James and the Jewish authorities.

25

This debate came after the Twelve had reported their experiences to James. They all then spent the night in prayer, heightening the tension further, before

20

James confronted the Jewish opponents. The discussion centered on an argu­ ment in the Scriptures about the identity o f Jesus as the Messiah. James expounded on the biblical Law and the Prophets for seven days, to the point that the high priest and the people were prepared to be baptized. However, "a certain hostile man" intervened to stir up a riot and actually threw James down from the parapet o f the Temple, leaving him for dead. James was rescued and eventually taken out o f the city by night to Jericho, where word reached the dis­ ciples that "the hostile man" had received permission from Caiaphas to perse­ cute believers in Jesus who had travelled as far as Damascus. This reference to Damascus reveals the identity of "the wicked man" to be that o f Paul, based on the story in Acts o f the Apostles about Paul's intention, prior to his conver­ sion, to persecute Christians.

While this exaltation o f James in the Jewish-Christian literature is to be expected, it is somewhat surprising to find this same trend also carried on in the Christian gnosticising circles. As already mentioned, Saying 12 o f the Gospel o f Thomas is an answer to the disciples' question regarding whom they should approach after Jesus has departed. To which Jesus replies: "In the place to which you come, you shall go to James the Just for whose sake heaven and earth came into being."

26

Three other documents from the same circles, Coptic versions o f which were found in Nag Hammadi in 1947, develop further this portrait o f James as the recipient o f special revelation. The now familiar themes o f his martyrdom, the epithet "the Just," and James' principal role among the apostles as a teacher in Jerusalem because o f his closeness to Christ, are all alluded to in various ways in these writings—The Apocryphon o f James and The First and Second Apocalypse o f James. The recently published Tchacos Codex contains a wellpreserved Coptic translation from the Greek of the First Apocalypse, which fills in many lacunae o f the earlier version from Nag Hammadi, particularly with regard to James' martyrdom.

27

The Savior meets with James privately before his

21

own death and prepares him for what is about to happen. Afterward he meets James again "as he was performing his duties on the mountain ," praying and instructing his disciples. James embraces him and kisses him, and tells o f his distress on hearing o f the Savior's passion. But the Savior now instructs James about his own impending martyrdom, which is necessary for the soul to ascend to "the one who is" (First Apocalypse o f James, 1 6 - 2 3 ) . Thus, James' spiritual union with the Savior as the Preexistent One is assured.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect o f the reception of James is the way in which the developing wider church accommodated him within its structures. The fact that Eusebius, the official historian o f the Constantinian reconciliation o f church and empire, included Hegesippus' version o f James' martyrdom, deem­ ing it to be the most reliable, despite its strong Jewish-Christian coloring, shows that there was no concerted effort to write James out o f the history o f the church. Yet it is clear that Eusebius wanted to incorporate James into the monar­ chical episcopacy o f his own time. We must not forget that Eusebius was bishop of Caesarea and that his church had taken over from that o f Jerusalem as the most important bishopric in the homeland o f the gospel. Already in the sec­ ond century these tensions had emerged, and Clement of Alexandria had sought to smooth things over with his statement that "Peter and James and John after the Ascension o f the Savior did not struggle for glory, because they had previ­ ously been honored by the Savior, but chose James the Just as bishop o f Jerusalem" (History of the Church 2 , 1 - 6 ) . There is a hint here o f James' inferior position as one o f the brothers o f the Lord who had not followed the earthly Jesus, but rather had opposed him—unlike Peter and the sons o f Zebedee, who had promptly answered the call to follow and become "fishers o f men."

Eusebius introduced this citation from Clement with his own summary o f the matter—"James is narrated to have been the first elected to the throne o f the bishopric of the church in Jerusalem"—thus anachronistically imposing the trap­ pings o f episcopacy from Eusebius' own time onto the earliest period o f the

22

church. Indeed, "the apostolic throne o f James" becomes an important symbol of continuity from the beginning, and Eusebius notes that it is greatly reverenced in Jerusalem "to this day" (History of the Church 7,19, and 7,32.29). Yet Eusebius can also be ambivalent, declaring, for example, that James received the episcopate of Jerusalem from "the Savior and the Apostles," thereby combining the source of James' independence and superiority as propagated by the Jewish Christians with his own version o f James taking his place within the chain o f apostolic suc­ 28

cession. What does emerge clearly in his History of the Church is the fact that Eusebius wishes to restrict James' sphere o f influence to one place only, namely, Jerusalem. James was the first in a line of bishops within that church, all of whom were Hebrews up to the time o f Hadrian's siege (History of the Church 4, 5), just as Peter was the first in Antioch and later in Rome; Mark was the first in Alexandria; Dionysus, in Athens; and Timothy, in Ephesus.

29

This "domestication" o f James was completed by the late acceptance o f the Epistle o f James into the canon, even though it was addressed to "the Twelve tribes o f the dispersion."

30

This at least implied that James, or whoever wrote

in his name, had claimed authority over a wider territory than that o f the Jerusalem church, whether all Christian believers or only Jewish Christian addressees were intended.

31

This restriction o f James within the framework o f

the apostolic succession and the monarchic episcopate o f the Great Church contrasts sharply with his profile in the Jewish-Christian writings. Hegesippus had already suggested that James had become a true witness to Jews and Greeks. This profile was further enhanced in The Ascents of James as repre­ sented in the pseudo-Clementines, where James is said to have interrogated each o f the Twelve separately—in front o f a formal session o f the whole assem­ bly o f the Jerusalem church—as to what they had done in each place they had visited (pseudo-Clementine Recognitions

1,44:1). As we have seen, James' own

missionary role with regard to the Jews is also emphasized in this work, in sharp contrast to Paul's failure.

23

II. From Legend to History?

Each o f the different broad strands that can be identified within Christianity up to the fourth century C.E.—the Jewish Christians, the gnosticizing Christians, and the emerging Great Church—has interpreted the role o f James in light o f its own overall perspective. Yet a number o f constants lie behind all of these interpretations: namely, that James the Just, the brother o f Jesus, was deeply associated with Jerusalem and its Temple; that he had an important leadership role within earliest Christianity; and that he was murdered by the Jerusalem high priest for an unspecified crime of "breaking o f the law"/"leading the people astray." The task now before us is first to explore whether these discrete pieces o f information correspond with the picture that emerges from a critical examination o f the New Testament evidence. I f they do, we can per­ haps arrange the information into a plausible account o f James' life within the broader framework o f the competing Jewish factions operating within Jerusalem in the first century C.E.

Why would a group o f followers o f Jesus, under the leadership o f someone who was not, insofar as we can tell, a member o f the permanent retinue dur­ ing Jesus' life, decide to gather in Jerusalem in his name so soon after his vio­ lent death? That question has not been adequately answered, in my view. By the time Paul makes his first visit to Jerusalem, which on his own admission took place three years after his Damascus road experience, James, the brother o f Jesus (not James the son o f Zebedee and a member o f the Twelve, who was also in Jerusalem then), was an influential person with whom Paul felt it nec­ essary to consult formally (Galatians 1:19). In attempting to provide a suitable frame for answering the question, it is necessary to remind ourselves o f the centrality o f Jerusalem for all messianic claimants or reforming prophets, including Jesus, despite the efforts o f some recent scholars to describe his movement as Galilean-based and anti-Jerusalem.

24

32

What has been described as "the mythopoeisis o f Zion" can be traced back to the Babylonian exile at least, even when very different understandings o f how 33

the myth should function were expressed over the centuries. One can see the beginnings o f a bifurcation from an early stage, especially as this is articulated in the latter part o f the book o f Isaiah, usually dated to the Persian period when the exuberance o f return gave way to the sober realities o f picking up the pieces in the tiny province of Yehud under Persian rule. Alongside the notion o f tri­ umphant Zion, whose children shall be brought back from exile by the nations in pomp and splendor, another notion o f Zion begins to crystallize around the mysterious figure o f the Ebed Yahweh, whose mission is seen as twofold—to restore the tribes o f Jacob/Yakov, and to bring light to the nations, who are deemed to be waiting for the enlightenment that the Torah brings (Isaiah 42:4; 49:6; 51:4). The prophet servant becomes the suffering servant, however, as his unrecognizable plight is told by a group o f people who describe themselves in the text as "we," and who acknowledge their arrogant behavior in their judge­ ment o f this enigmatic figure. Yet, as reward for his patient acceptance and humble bearing, the suffering servant is assured o f Yahweh's vindication: he shall be exalted and he shall see his offspring (literally, his "seed") flourish and prosper (Isaiah 52:13; 53:10)—clearly a biblically charged reference to the fol­ lowers who will successfully carry on his mission.

As the book o f Isaiah comes to a close, a group o f people calling themselves "the servants o f Yahweh" emerges alongside the triumphalists. Like their patron in Isaiah 53, the servants of Yahweh suffer at the hands of the dominant group, who pride themselves in being recipients o f God's favor and control the Temple and its worship, but engage in all kinds o f syncretistic practices and a luxurious lifestyle (65:1-5). The servants, however, are the ones that Yahweh will favor:

My servants will eat, but you will go hungry, My servants will drink, but you will go thirsty,

25

My servants will rejoice, but you will be put to shame, My servants will exult in gladness, but you will cry out for sadness. (Isaiah 6 5 : 1 3 - 1 4 )

A voice from the Temple thunders judgment against those who have ostra­ cized and persecuted his servants, and ominously, God declares that he does not require a temple, since the heavens are his throne and the earth his foot­ stool (Isaiah 6 6 : 1 , 6 ) . Those Jewish Christians who had linked the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple with the death o f James had in fact good biblical war­ rant, it would seem.

Many New Testament scholars discuss the possible influence o f Isaiah 53 in early Christianity, and because there is no direct citation, decide that it played little or no part in the Jesus-group's self-understanding. This is to ignore the larger structural and thematic links, not to speak o f the verbal echoes that become obvious when one looks at the larger picture in Isaiah. At a later crit­ ical juncture in Judean history, when the Jerusalem Temple was desecrated by Antiochus IV Epiphanes (167

B.C.E.),

this picture of the servant community of

Zion provided the inspiration for the "wise ones" (maskilim)

o f Daniel. These

wise ones were to follow the example o f the Isaian servants of Yahweh and not engage in militant resistance against the imperial oppressor (Daniel 11:33-35; 34

12:3). The Isaian servants also provided a close analogue for both Jesus and his movement in adopting a nonviolent stance while engaging in resistance against Roman imperial values as these were being espoused and practiced in 35

Palestine by the Herods and the Jewish aristocracy. This, I suggest, answers our question as to why the Jesus movement deemed that a presence in Jerusalem was essential to the movement's claims that it was the messianic community o f Israel's hope for renewal. It was the genius o f James to have per­ ceived and understood this aspect o f his brother's vision. It was also the reason for James' prominence, or, better, his dominance in the earliest days o f the new movement, even if that has been blurred by later developments.

26

We must still fill in the map that I am suggesting with the fragments o f James' life that I have previously identified, and see how well they might fit the sce­ nario being proposed. The fact that it is James, "the brother o f the Lord" and not one o f the Twelve, who becomes the leader o f the Jerusalem group o f Jesus followers is at first puzzling. Nowhere is James depicted as having a positive relationship with the earthly Jesus. On the occasion o f the failed visit to Nazareth, Mark lists James as one o f Jesus' four brothers (Mark 6:3). Eusebius speculates that James continued to have faith in Jesus after this incident, but there is no evidence for such a relationship. We must include James, one o f the "brothers o f the Lord," among those who, with their mother, sought to bring Jesus home, declaring that "he is out o f his mind" (Mark 3:21), an episode that clearly embarrassed both Matthew and Luke, since they omitted it. In the Fourth Gospel, the brothers o f the Lord show little understanding o f the pur­ pose o f Jesus' signs, even though they were privy to the first o f them at Cana, which led to "his disciples" believing in him (John 2:10f; 7 : 1 - 9 ) .

Luke, writing late in the first century or early in the second, had a particular interest in presenting a unified picture o f the early Christian movement, despite the signs o f its splintering into different factions, which I have described in the first part o f this essay. Luke's picture o f the family o f Jesus and the Twelve gathered together in the upper room on the eve o f Pentecost is highly idealized, as indeed are other summaries o f the new movement's activities in the early chapters o f Acts o f the Apostles (Acts 1:14; 2:43-47; 4 : 3 2 - 3 7 ) . In Luke's subsequent account o f the early days o f the community in Jerusalem, neither James nor any other brother o f Jesus has a part to play. Peter and John were the spokespersons. It was only after the other James (the son o f Zebedee and a member o f the Twelve) was murdered, and Peter was imprisoned in the persecution launched by Herod Agrippa I in the early forties C.E., that James, the brother o f Jesus, enters Luke's narrative almost incidentally. Without any previous information about James' role, we are suddenly informed that Peter,

27

as he is about to leave the city "for another place," gives orders that "James and the believers should be told" o f his departure (Acts 12:17).

In fact, Luke never employs the traditional usage "brother o f the Lord" for James, nor does he mention him in his gospel; he even omits Mark's list o f Jesus' brothers in Nazareth. It is only at the so-called Council o f Jerusalem that James emerges from the shadows to announce his decision. In a highly formal fashion, he announces to the "apostles, the elders and the whole church" that they should write to the church in Antioch, asking that it respect Jewish sen­ sibilities concerning food and marriage, but not insist on circumcision (Acts 1 5 : 1 3 - 2 1 ) . Subsequently, James plays a similar role when Paul returns to Jerusalem with the collection for the local church (Acts 2 1 : 1 7 - 4 0 ) . It is note­ worthy that Paul does not stay with James upon his arrival in the city, but pays a formal visit to him the next day; this time only "the elders" are present. Again, the decision is one o f compromise, namely that Paul should seek to ease the suspicions that have arisen with regard to his corrupting Jews in the Diaspora. To this end, the suggestion is made that he should perform a public act of join­ ing some young men in the Temple who are making their levirate vows, defray­ ing their costs and presumably also ensuring his own ritual cleanness after returning from being in contact with Gentiles.

In both o f these instances Luke assumes that James is the head o f a group o f elders in charge o f the Jerusalem church, and although James is named sepa­ rately, he nevertheless functions within a set o f community structures rather than on personal authority. This curtails James' position in a way that is not at all obvious in Paul's much earlier account o f the situation in Jerusalem when he first visited. However, it conforms to Luke's attempt to suggest a unitary pattern o f authority in the church from its inception. Like Eusebius, the other great historian o f Christianity, Luke, too, is an apologist for the Great Church, and so he seeks to indicate that there was a direct line o f succession from the beginning, even i f the monarchic episcopate had not yet emerged as the

28

preferred form o f governance, and the pattern does not fully fit the facts that Luke is reporting.

36

While Paul is most anxious in Galatians 1 and 2 to defend his own independ­ ence as an apostle, he does feel the need, three years after his Damascus road experience, to go to Jerusalem, where he is accepted by both Peter and James. On the second visit, some 14 years later, he again goes up there —"because o f a rev­ elation," as he rather apologetically puts it—to meet with "the pillar apostles" named as James, Peter, and John, in that order. He receives "the right hand o f friendship" from them in a private meeting, despite some problems created by "false believers." James now comes first in the list of "pillar apostles," whereas on the previous visit, Peter was named first. James clearly has some overseeing role for the conduct o f the Gentile mission as well, no matter how reluctant Paul is to admit this, since a little later in the chapter we hear that "certain men from James" went to Antioch to monitor how the arrangements agreed upon in Jerusalem were being observed. By then Peter is in Antioch on his mission to the circumcised, and later he must have gone on to Corinth as well (1 Corinthians, 1:12; 9:5), thus leaving the stage free for James in Jerusalem.

In order to appreciate James' middle position with regard to the terms o f Gentile admission to the church, it is important to understand, on the one hand, the actual situation in Jerusalem during James' period in charge there (roughly from 40 to 62

C.E.),

and on the other, his convictions about the

Gentiles' entitlement to salvation in the restored Israel, to which he was heir within the Jesus movement.

37

To begin with, the choice and symbolic role

assigned to the Twelve in regard to the tribes o f Israel is a clear indication that for Jesus the restoration o f Israel was the first priority, as indeed it was for Isaiah's servant as well—the gathering o f "the tribes o f Yakov" (Isaiah 49:6). Within the version o f restoration that the Isaian servant community espoused, which, I have suggested, provided the analogue for both Jesus and James, the

29

nations were viewed as longing for the wisdom that would go forth from the restored Zion (Isaiah 2 : 2 - 4 ) , which could equally well be described as their waiting for Torah (Isaiah 42:4). The assumption was that once Israel, purged by the suffering o f exile, had fully realized its true role, the nations would come to recognise Israel's truth and its calling. This was the burden o f what Jesus had to say to the Syro-Phoenician woman, even if, to our ears, he was a little less than tactful in the terms that he used (Mark 7:24-30).

Neither James nor Paul disagreed with this position.

38

Circumstances deter­

mined their different roles and perspectives, however. As a Diaspora Jew and a man o f two cultures, Paul's emphasis was on the larger Mediterranean world. To his great surprise, the nations responded in a way that Israel did not. As a result, he was left to agonize about the design and the will o f God. He faced this issue in his most considered work, the Epistle to the Romans, especially chap­ ters 9 - 1 1 . James, on the other hand, had to confront the stark realities o f the worsening political situation in Jerusalem in the period leading up to the first revolt. Herod Agrippa, the grandson o f Herod the Great, had been educated in Rome and was a friend o f the new emperor Caligula, under whose patronage he came to rule over a kingdom as large as that o f his grandfather. Apart from his political astuteness, Agrippa also involved himself with Jewish religious affairs to an extent that no other Herodian ruler had done. In particular, he exercised a right, granted apparently by Rome, to appoint the high priest, and he was subsequently celebrated in Jewish tradition for his piety, actually taking part in the rituals o f the Day o f Atonement (Mishnah Sotah 7:8; Mishnah Bikkurim 3 : 4 ) .

39

This, presumably, is the background to Agrippa's attack on the Jesus move­ ment, which led to the death o f James, the son o f Zebedee, and Peter's arrest and subsequent exile. In these circumstances, James, the brother o f Jesus, was in a particularly vulnerable position, given the fact that his brother's crucifix-

30

ion was a political statement by Rome that was intended to deter any wouldbe followers from continuing with his challenge. In particular, Jesus' action in the Temple seems to have been the catalyst for his arrest and trial. Agrippa's direct involvement with the high priesthood, and his efforts to avert a revolt because o f the Emperor Caligula's desire to have his statue erected in the Temple, would have made James an easy and obvious target, were he to step out of line. It says much for his astuteness that he survived for more than 20 years in such a climate.

It is best to imagine the Jewish-Christian community, o f which James was the leader, in terms similar to those o f local synagogue communities within the city, such as that described in the well-known Theodotus inscription, 40

which mentions "elders" within its congregation. Later tradition suggests that "the Christian quarter" was located on Mount Zion itself, one o f the 41

southern rises on which the city was built, close to the Essene Gate. Perhaps, as Luke suggests, many priests joined the new movement because they were disaffected by the behavior o f the high priests and the apparent debasement o f the office due to the frequent change o f personnel and the political to-ing 42

and fro-ing that went on among the elites. We also hear from Josephus about the impoverishment o f the country priests as a result o f the collection o f tithes, by violence if necessary, by the servants o f the high priests

{Antiquities

20, 199). This would explain the profile o f the Jerusalem community as an impoverished group. It would also, perhaps, explain the group's more lawobservant leanings, in contrast to the prophetic character o f the original Galilean Jesus movement.

Agrippa's death in the year 44 C.E. initiated the second period o f direct Roman rule, during which the issues o f the high priesthood and the Temple continued to be at the center o f Judean political life right up to the revolt (cf. Antiquities 20,189-97.

204. 2 1 3 - 1 7 ) . A close reading o f Josephus indicates that two quite

31

different accusations were made against Ananus after James' death.

43

First, the

opponents wrote to Agrippa II, who was the son o f Agrippa I and now had responsibility for overseeing the high priesthood, to the effect that the James incident was not the only occasion on which Agrippa II's nominee, Ananus, was guilty o f breaking the law. Second, they met with Albinus, the new gover­ nor, and pointed out that Ananus had no authority to convene a council o f judges without Albinus' consent.

This might suggest that James was as much a victim o f political infighting and corruption among the Jerusalem elite as he was a religious martyr. Yet the fact that "some others" also suffered the same fate, and that his death lead to the dis­ persal o f the community to Pella in Transjordan (History

of the Church 3,

5:3-5) indicates that this group o f Jesus followers was indeed targeted by the Jerusalem priestly authority. The road from martyr/witness to martyr/victim is a short one, then as now, especially when one dares to challenge imperial power and its retainers.

Conclusion Seeing James and his followers within the framework provided by the Isaian Servant o f Yahweh has proved helpful in providing links between the James o f history and the James o f legend. It explains both the origins o f James' later martyr status and the reasons for his close association with Jerusalem and its Temple. In view o f the messianic status attributed to Jesus, a continued attach­ ment to Jerusalem and its Temple was important, indeed essential for the new movement, if its claims were to have any substance. It could well be that the obscure, Semitic-sounding name Oblias in Hegesippus' account is an early ref­ erence to James' symbolic role connected to the Temple, with its possible der­ 44

ivation from Obediah, "the servant o f Yahweh." Paul's designation o f James

32

as one o f the "pillar" apostles has similar resonances associated with the 45

Temple. The precise circumstances that led to James' emergence as the leader of the followers o f Jesus are hidden from view, but to my mind, the suggestion that the idea o f blood brothers sharing the leadership o f Israel, following the 46

pattern o f Moses and Aaron, has considerable merit. It would provide a back­ ground for the development o f James' priestly character as seen in Hegesippus' account, as well as explain the presentation o f Jesus as the prophet like Moses, rather than the Davidic messiah, in Jewish-Christian circles.

Yet overt criticism o f the existing Temple and its personnel, so prevalent in other dissident strands o f Judaism, even that o f Jesus himself, is absent—other than the emphasis on prayer as opposed to sacrifice, a facet that has its roots in the Isaian tradition regarding the Temple, as cited by Jesus in Mark's account. However, the destruction o f the Temple, which so closely followed James' vio­ lent death, prepared the way for the development o f the martyrdom legend and the elaboration o f James as an ascetic tsaddiq. The image o f the suffering servant, unjustly treated but vindicated by God, was the prototype for all such 47

stories o f the suffering just ones (cf. Wisdom o f Solomon 2 : 1 2 - 2 4 ) . I f James' wisdom had served his leadership role well in life, his martyrdom enhanced it dramatically in death. James and Jesus share the same fate and are rewarded by participating in the life of "the One who is," as the Second Apocalypse o f James expresses their coming together at last.

The title o f this volume speaks o f "retrieving" James. Retrieval does not nec­ essarily mean replication o f every aspect o f his life. Rather, it poses the more daunting question o f the meaning o f James' life and legend now. Those mod­ ern Messianic Jews and Hebrew Christians who have sought to imitate the observant lifestyle o f James and his Jewish Christian devotees, have for the most part suffered the same fate as their antecedents in the ancient times— that o f being ignored or dismissed by the two blocks that we loosely describe

33

as mainline Jews and Christians. Speaking for many on both sides o f the great divide in the late fourth century, Jerome wrote: "They [the Jewish Christians] seek to be both Jews and Christians, but they are neither Jew nor Christian" (Epistle 113).

By the time o f Eusebius, official Judaism and official Christianity had devel­ oped strategies o f dealing with each other in mutually hostile ways. The Christians claimed that they alone were the true Israel, and the Jews could dismiss them as deviant heretics. It suited both sides not to have to acknowl­ edge that the reality on the ground was very different. The fact was that in many situations, there was interaction across the great dividing line. These included a meeting in the upper market in Sepphoris between Rabbi Eliezer and Yakov o f Kefr Sekhaniah, a follower o f Jesus (Tosefta Hullin, 2:24), and the synagogues of Antioch, which Christians frequented as late as the time o f John Chrysostom in the fourth century. In both instances, the authorities disap­ proved vehemently. Neither wanted to recognize the in-between space occu­ pied by the Jewish Christians. Perhaps what the story o f James can tell us is the intolerance o f power, particularly religious power, and the need to co-opt or demonise "the other," whose very existence challenges the ideologies on which that power depends. This is particularly the case if that "other" is very near, so near indeed as to claim to be an insider. James and the Jewish Christians were anomalous to both great traditions, because they bridged the gap between them, and certainly by the fourth century C.E. neither side wanted that to happen.

34

48

AFTERWORD

CENTER FOR T H E STUDY OF JAMES T H E BROTHER

The idea o f developing a study center for James, the brother o f Jesus, usually needs explanation because people ask: Did Jesus really have a brother? The answer, according to Mark's Gospel, is that Jesus had four brothers (Mark 6 : 3 ) / Among them, James merits special attention.

Scholars o f the first century C.E. recognize five leaders, all o f them Jews, as pivotal figures in the emergence o f Christianity: John the Baptist, Jesus, James, Simon Peter, and Paul. All o f these individuals played a vital part in the creation and development o f the sect o f Judaism we now call Christianity. O f this cru­ cial group, James is the least known, and his role in the survival o f this nascent Jewish sect is not well understood or appreciated, although he led this move­ ment for more than 30 years. The purpose o f the Center for the Study o f James the Brother is to bring together evidence and scholarship regarding James, and to explain his distinctive teaching, which did not envisage the separation o f Christianity from Judaism.

As Professor Sean Freyne states in the lecture published here, "James is men­ tioned just 11 times in the New Testament, whereas Peter's name occurs on 190 occasions." Although Peter is much better known today, James' contribu­ tion was enormous. The brother, stepbrother, or half-brother o f Jesus, James became head o f the disciples in Jerusalem after the crucifixion o f Jesus by the Romans. James boldly agreed to changes that assisted the new sect to grow in unexpected ways. His authority was above even that o f Peter and Paul; until James was assassinated in 62 C.E, his was the dominant voice in the sect. *See also M a t t h e w 13:55 35

James made possible Christianity as we know it. His decision, recorded in the New Testament (Acts 15 and Galatians 2), permitted non-Jews to enter into his brother's movement by baptism, without keeping circumcision and other strict practices o f Judaism. That fateful judgment eventually changed Christian demography, and even theology, although during his life James was excoriated by Paul for being too conservative in keeping the traditions and practices o f Judaism. The story of James is also the story of the deep controversies that made Christianity, despite James' efforts, into a new religion, separate from Judaism.

Bard College hosts a collection o f work that illuminates the development o f Christianity by focusing on James. The Center for the Study o f James the Brother contains hundreds o f books, encyclopedias, and periodicals, as well as video and audio materials. The Center operates under the guidance o f the Reverend Dr. Bruce Chilton, in his role as executive director o f the Institute o f Advanced Theology. Dr. Chilton is Bernard Iddings Bell Professor o f Philosophy and Religion at Bard College; with Jacob Neusner, Distinguished Service Professor in the History and Theology of Judaism at Bard, he has edited a major study o f James for general readers, The Brother of Jesus: James the Just and his Mission (Westminster John Knox, 2001). Additional technical studies are avail­ able in two volumes edited by Professor Craig A. Evans and Dr. Chilton: James the Just and Christian Origins, Supplements to Novum Testamentum 1999) and The Missions of James, Peter, and Paul Tensions in Early Supplements to Novum Testamentum

98 (Brill, Christianity.

115 (Brill, 2005).

The Center for the Study o f James the Brother is located on the Bard campus at the lower level o f Village Dormitory A and is available to members o f the Institute o f Advanced Theology and the Bard College community.

Frank T. Crohn Cofounder Center for the Study o f James the Brother

36

NOTES

Preface 1. A Marginal

Jew: Rethinking

the Historical

Jesus, Vol. 1 (New York: Doubleday, 1 9 9 1 ) 3 3 2 .

2. See " T h e Brothers and Sisters o f Jesus: An Epiphanian Response to John P. Meier," Biblical

Quarterly

Catholic

56 (1994) 686-700.

3. Discussion o f this issue has typically adjudicated a m o n g the Helvidian, Epiphanian, and Hieronymian theories, as a result o f the typology o f J. B . Lightfoot, Saint Paul's Epistle to the Galatians

(London: Macmillan, 1 8 6 5 ) .

4. For studies o f the issue o f doubtful paternity in Judaism during this period and later, see Meir Bar Ilan, " T h e attitude toward mamzerim

in Jewish society in late antiquity," Jewish History

( 2 0 0 0 ) 1 2 5 - 1 7 0 ; Chilton, Rabbi Jesus. An Intimate "Mamzerut Historical

and Jesus," Jesus from Judaism

Biography

to Christianity.

14

(New York: Doubleday, 2 0 0 0 ) ;

Continuum

Approaches

to the

Jesus, European Studies on Christian Origins (edited by T o m Holmen; London:

T & T Clark, 2 0 0 7 ) 1 7 - 3 3 . 5. This is a point o f departure for Robert Eisenman, James

the Just in the Habakkuk

Pesher,

Studia Post-Biblica 35 (Leiden: Brill, 1 9 8 6 ) . 6. In contrast to Eisenman, this is the point o f departure for Ethelbert Stauffer, " T h e Caliphate o f James," Journal

of Higher

Criticism

original appeared in the Zeitschrift

4 ( 1 9 9 7 , from his 1952 G e r m a n article) 1 2 0 - 1 4 3 . T h e

filr Religions

und Geistesgeschichte4

(1952) 193-214.

7. See Richard B a u c k h a m , "James and the Jerusalem Church," The Book of Acts in its

Palestinian

Setting (ed. R. B a u c k h a m ; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1 9 9 5 ) 4 1 5 - 4 8 0 . 8. O n the influence o f "the T u b i n g e n school," see Ernst Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles

tr.

B. Noble, G. Shinn, H. Anderson, R. M c L . Wilson (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1 9 7 1 ) 1 5 - 2 4 . In view o f Professor Hengel's association with Tubingen duriing the intervening period, we may have to think again about this designation! 9. See "Jakobus der Herrenbruder—der erste " P a p s t ' T Glaube Werner

Georg Kummel

zum 80. Geburtstag

und Eschatologie.

Festschrift

fur

[eds. E. Grasser and O. Merk; Tubingen: Mohr,

1985] 7 1 - 1 0 4 , 8 1 ) . T h e ordering o f Peter under James is clearly a part o f that perspective, as Hengel shows. M u c h earlier, Joseph Lightfoot found that the alleged correspondence between C l e m e n t and James was a later addition to the pseudo-Clementine corpus (see J. B . Lightfoot, The Apostolic

Fathers

1 [London: Macmillan, 1 8 9 0 ] 4 1 4 - 4 2 0 ) . But even i f the pseudo-

Clementines are taken at face value, they undermine Eisenman's view (or the view o f the " T u b i n g e n school," as Hengel [p. 9 2 ] points out as the source o f such contentions): they portray James as the standard for how Hellenistic Christians are to teach (see

Recognitions

11.35.3). 37

10. See Markus B o c k m u e h l , " T h e Noachide C o m m a n d m e n t s and New Testament Ethics," Jewish Law in Gentile

Churches.

Halakhah

and the Beginning

of Christian

Public Ethics

(Edinburgh:

T & T Clark, 2 0 0 0 ) 1 4 5 - 1 7 3 . 11. See Ethelbert Stauffer, Jesus and His Story (tr. R. and C. Winston; New York: Knopf, 1 9 6 0 ) 13-15. 12. In this regard, see George B . Caird, New Testament

Theology

(ed. L. D. Hurst; Clarendon:

Oxford, 1 9 9 4 ) 190. 13. See Wiard Popkes, Der Brief des Jakobus:

Theologischer H a n d k o m m e n t a r zum Neuen

Testament 14 (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2 0 0 1 ) . 14. See Kenneth L. Carroll, " T h e Place o f James in the Early Church," Bulletin Rylands

Library

of the John

44 (1961) 49-67.

15. See Walter Schmithals, Paulus und Jakobus

(Gottingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1 9 6 3 ) .

Retrieving James/Yakov, the Brother of Jesus: From Legend to History 1. A m o n g recent studies o f James, I have found the following extremely helpful: W. Pratscher, Der Herrenbruder

Jakobus

und die Jakobustradition,

und Ruprecht, 1 9 8 7 ) ; J. Painter, Just James:

F R L A N T 139 (Gottingen: Vandenhoek

The Brother

of Jesus in History and

(Columbia, S.C.: University o f South Carolina Press, 1 9 9 7 ) ; James Origins, Suppl. Novum Brother

of Jesus: James

Testamentum

the Just and

Tradition Christian

( B . Chilton and C. Evans, eds., Leiden: Brill, 1 9 9 9 ) ; The

the Just and His Mission

( B . Chilton and J. Neusner, eds., Louisville:

Westminster J o h n K n o x Press, 2 0 0 1 ) . 2. Cf. the stimulating discussion o f E. Castelli, Martyrdom Making

and Memory:

Early Christian

Culture

(New York: C o l u m b i a University Press, 2 0 0 4 ) , especially 1 3 - 3 2 , on the role o f

collective m e m o r y in the early Christian m a r t y r d o m stories. Cf. e.g., her remark: "Early Christian writers . . . wrote with a broad meta-narrative in mind, which framed every detail and interpretation," 2 5 . 3. Cf. the provocative title o f E. Nodet's article, "James, the Brother o f Jesus was never a Christian," Le Judeo-Christianisme

dans tous ses Etats, Actes du Colloque de Jerusalem, 6 - 1 0

Juillet 1998 (S. C. M i m o u n i and F. Stanley Jones, eds., Paris: Editions du Cerf, 2 0 0 1 ) 7 4 - 8 5 , in which he argues that the n a m e " Christianoi"

was and remained connected with Paul and later

with R o m e , by which claim he intends to sharpen the contrast between Paul and James.

38

4. Six times in all, in Hegesippus' short account, as reported by Eusebius (cf. n. 11 below). It is repeated in the Gospel o f T h o m a s , pseudo-Clementine Recognitions

1,1 and 2 Apocalypse o f

James, and the Apocryphon o f James. 5. M . Hengel, "Jakobus der Herrenbruder—der erste Papst?" Paulus und Jakobus.

Kleine

Schriften

Profiles

and

3, W U N T 141 (Tubingen: M o h r Siebeck, 2 0 0 2 ) 5 4 9 - 8 2 , here, 5 5 7 - 5 9 . 6. J. Vander K a m , " T h e Righteousness o f Noah," Ideal Figures in Ancient Judaism: Paradigms,

S B L L X X and Cognate Studies 12 ( J . J. Collins and G. W. Nickelsburg, eds., Chico,

Calif.: Scholars Press, 1 9 8 0 ) 1 3 - 3 2 , here, 13f. 7. R. M a c h , DerZaddiq

in Talmud

8. J. Neusner, Development

und Midrasch

(Leiden: Brill, 1 9 5 7 ) 1 2 4 - 1 3 3 .

of a Legend: Studies on the Traditions

Concerning

Yohanan

ben

Zakkai

(Leiden: Studia Post-Biblica, 1 9 7 0 ) 148 and 165. 9. For a detailed discussion o f the various issues the passage raises, cf. J. McLaren, "Ananus, James, and the Earliest Christianity: Josephus' Account o f the Death o f James," JTS 52 ( 2 0 0 1 ) 1-22. 10. Hengel, "Jakobus, der Herrenbruder," 5 5 9 , notes the verbal agreement between Hegesippus' statement regarding "Vespasian immediately besieging Jerusalem," and an incident in the Bar C o c h b a revolt reported in Yerushalmi Tannit, 4:8, 6 8 d - 6 9 a . W h e n , in a fit o f rage, S i m e o n Bar K o c h b a killed R. Eleazar (who is described as "the arm and right eye o f all Israel"), "immediately Hadrian destroyed Bethar." Origen, too, was aware o f this early Christian claim, linking the destruction o f Jerusalem with James' death, but he was unim­ pressed by it, since for him it was the rejection o f Jesus, not James, that brought about the j u d g m e n t o f G o d on the city and the Temple {Contra 11. Pratscher, Der Herrenbruder,

Celsum

1:47; 2 : 1 3 ) .

253f. For a detailed discussion o f Hegesippus and the reliability

o f his evidence, cf. F. Stanley Jones, "Hegesippus as a Source for the History o f Jewish Christianity," Le Judeo-Christianisme 12. D. Boyarin, Dying for God: Martyrdom

dans tous ses Etats, 2 0 1 - 1 2 . and the Making

of Chrisitanity

and Judaism

(Stanford

University Press, 1 9 9 9 ) 95f. 13. Like Stephen, James prays for those stoning him, asking for their forgiveness, while he makes a c o n f e s s i o n — o f Jesus as the glorious Son o f M a n (Acts 7, 5 7 - 6 0 ) . James' death is seen as the fulfillment o f the Scriptures (Isaiah and W i s d o m o f S o l o m o n ) . Finally, James' c r i m e now b e c o m e s m o r e specific in terms o f the accusations that lead to Jesus' death—namely, "lead­ ing the people astray." 14. D. Boyarin, "'Language Inscribed in History on the Bodies o f Living Beings': Midrash and Martyrdom," Representations

25 ( 1 9 8 9 ) 1 3 9 - 5 1 , describes the p h e n o m e n o n as a midrashic

development based on the Gospel Passion stories, which thereby brings about an "erasure o f t i m e " between the two texts and the events they describe, 140.

39

15. F. Stanley Jones, " T h e Martyrdom o f James in Hegesippus, Clement o f Alexandria and Christian Apocrypha Including Nag Hammadi: A Study o f the Textual Relations," Society of Biblical

Literature

1990 Seminar

Papers, (D. J. Lull, ed. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1 9 9 0 ) 3 2 2 - 3 5 ,

especially 3 2 7 , points out that both the Syriac and the Latin text o f Eusebius read "Holy o f Holies" at this point, and suggests that the standard Greek text should be emended accordingly. 16. E. Lohmeyer, Galilaa

und Jerusalem

(Gottingen: Vandenhoek und Ruprecht, 1 9 3 6 ) 5 3 , makes

the interesting suggestion that James' leadership role as "the brother o f the Lord," and especially his priestly function, is not unusual in the Jewish tradition. Aaron was Moses' blood brother and his role was to attend to the sanctuary. 17. Cf. pseudo-Clementine Recognitions

1,64:1, where Peter is made to declare, " T h e time o f

sacrifice is over." Cf. also ibid. 1, 3 7 : 1 ; 3 9 : 1 - 2 ; 5 5 : 3 - 4 . 18. In addition to the classic studies o f H. J. Schoeps, Theologie Judenchristentum Christianisme

und Geschichte

des

(Tubingen: M o h r Siebeck, 1 9 4 9 ) , and J. Danielou, Theologie

du

Judeo-

(Paris: Desclee & Co., 1 9 5 8 ) , the following studies reflect the renaissance o f

interest in Jewish Christianity (as well as the works cited in note 1 ) : S. C. M i m o u n i , Le Christianisme

Ancien:

Christianisme:

Essais Historiques

Memoire

ou Prophetie?

(Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1 9 9 8 ) ; F. M a n n s , Le (Paris: Beauschene, 2 0 0 0 ) ; P. J. Tomsen and

D. Lambers-Petry, eds., The Image of Judaeo-Christians Literature,

JudeoJudeo-

in Ancient Jewish and

Christian

W U N T 158 (Tubingen: M o h r Siebeck, 2 0 0 3 ) ; O. Skarsaune and R. Hvalvik, eds.,

The Early Centuries:

Jewish Believers

in Jesus (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2 0 0 7 ) ; M .

J a c k s o n - M c C a b e , ed., Jewish Christianity 19. J. Neusner, Judaism:

The Evidence

Reconsidered

of the Mishnah,

(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2 0 0 7 ) .

(Chicago: T h e University o f Chicago Press,

1981). 2 0 . J. B r a n h a m , "Sacred Space under Erasure in Ancient Synagogues and Early Churches," The Art Bulletin

7 4 ( 1 9 9 3 ) 3 7 5 - 9 4 ; P. Alexander, " W h a t Happened to the Priests after 7 0 ? "

(forthcoming). 2 1 . For a critical assessment o f the theory o f an early rivalry between two parties headed by Peter and James, as suggested by A. Von Harnack, cf. Pratscher, Der Herrenbruder,

35-46,

who rightly suggests that the theory cannot be reliably based on the evidence o f 1 Corinthians 15: 5 - 7 , and that such divisions at an early stage are unlikely, even i f the text was subsequently used to suggest such a split. 2 2 . Cf. Hengel, "Jakobus der Herrenbruder," 5 6 0 , especially note 3 6 , suggesting the possibility o f an appearance to Peter also in the Gospel o f the Hebrews—on the basis o f a statement in Ignatius o f Antioch's letter to the S m y r n i a n s — b u t that it c a m e after the appearance to James. Cf. also Pratscher, Der Herrenbruder,

40

46-8.

2 3 . For a detailed discussion o f the issues, cf. F. Stanley Jones, An Ancient Jewish Christian on the History

of Early Christianity:

Pseudo-Clementine

Recognitions

Translations 37 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1 9 9 5 ) 1-38; R. Van Voorst, The Ascents of History and Theology

of a Jewish-Christian

Community,

Source

1, 2 7 - 7 1 , SBL Texts and James:

S B L Dissertation Series 112 (Atlanta:

Scholars Press, 1 9 8 9 ) . Cf. also M i m o u n i , Le Judeo-Christianisme,

2 7 7 - 8 6 . For introductions

and texts o f various d o c u m e n t s within the pseudo-Clementine corpus, cf. E. Henneke and W. Schneemelcher, New Testament

Apocrypha,

2 vols., English translation, ed. R. M c L .

Wilson (Philadelphia: Westminster Press), Vol. 2; G. Strecker, " T h e Kerygmata Petrou," 1 0 2 27; J. Irmscher, " T h e Pseudo-Clementines," 5 3 2 - 7 0 . 2 4 . Epiphanius declares that this work presents James as "expounding against the Temple and the sacrifices and the fire on the altar" and attacking other practices in denigrating Paul (Panarion

30, 16:6-9).

2 5 . Earlier in the pseudo-Clementine d o c u m e n t it is said that "the church o f Jerusalem had greatly increased through James, who had been ordained bishop by the Lord, and governed it with most righteous justice" (pseudo-Clementine Recognitions

1 , 4 3 : 3 ) . T h e Twelve

reported to James, who was serving in the capacity o f bishop, as well as to the whole Jerusalem church, about their missionary activity. Later he is called "our J a m e s " on several occasions by the narrator (Peter), and once he is called "the chief o f the b i s h o p s , " rum princeps

(episcopo-

1, 6 8 : 2 ) . This perhaps implies that James was on the same footing as Caiaphas,

who was "the chief priest" and the main protagonist in the ensuing debate. 2 6 . This preeminence o f James as the authentic interpreter o f the Savior's words is all the m o r e surprising in this d o c u m e n t , since the opening saying describes the work as "the words which the living Jesus spoke, and Didymus Judas T h o m a s wrote them down" (Gospel o f T h o m a s 1 ) . Furthermore, Saying 13 describes T h o m a s as the o n e "who has b e c o m e drunk from the bubbling spring which Jesus has measured out,' thus favorably contrasting him with both Peter and Matthew, who are also m e n t i o n e d in this saying. 27. R. Kasser and G. Wurst, The Gospel of Judas, and a Book of Allogenes:

Critical

Edition

Together

with the Letter of Peter to Philip,

with Introduction,

Translations

and

James

Notes

(Washington: National Geographic Society, 2 0 0 7 ) 1 1 5 - 6 1 . 2 8 . Hengel, "Jakobus der Herrenbruder," 5 6 2 , note 5 1 . In his c o m m e n t a r y on the Psalms he even allows h i m s e l f to speculate that James did not b e c o m e hostile to Jesus after he had been expelled from Nazareth, nor alienated from his faith in him, but was o n e o f his most faithful disciples and the first to receive the episcopal throne in Jerusalem. ( C o m m e n t a r y on Psalms 68:8-9) 2 9 . Pratscher, Der Herrenbruder,

178-207.

41

3 0 . For a detailed discussion o f the belated canonical status o f this letter and its use in the early church, cf. Painter, Just James,

234-48.

3 1 . Hengel, " D e r Jakobusbrief als antipaulinische Polemik," in Paulus und Jakobus,

510-48,

makes a detailed defense o f James, the brother o f Jesus, as the actual author o f this letter. Others are less sure on the basis o f Eusebius' information (Ecclesiatical

History 3, 2 4 - 2 5 ) ,

although there is general acceptance that the letter originated within a Jewish-Christian milieu. Cf. Pratscher, Der Herrenbruder,

209-21.

32. Cf. S. Freyne, " T h e Geography o f Restoration: Galilee-Jerusalem Relations in Early Jewish and Christian Experience," NTS 47 ( 2 0 0 1 ) 2 8 9 - 3 1 1 . 3 3 . 1 am indebted to the lucidly written and invaluable c o m m e n t a r y by J. Blenkinsopp for my understanding o f Isaiah and the role o f the servants o f the Lord in the final section o f A New Translation

with Introduction

and Commentary,

Isaiah:

3 vols., A n c h o r Bible C o m m e n t a r i e s ,

19, 19A, 19B (New York: Doubleday, 2 0 0 0 - 2 0 0 3 ) . 3 4 . Cf. J. J. Collins, Daniel: A Commentary

on the Book of Daniel,

Hermeneia C o m m e n t a r y Series

(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1 9 9 5 ) 6 2 - 9 . 3 5 . As I have argued in my b o o k Jesus, a Jewish

Galilean:

A New Reading

of the Jesus Story (New

York and London: T. and T. Clark, 2 0 0 5 ) 1 1 6 - 2 2 . 3 6 . D. Marguerat, The First Christian

Historian:

Writing the "Acts of the Apostles,"

S N T S M S , 121

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2 0 0 2 ) . 37. S. Freyne, Jesus, a Jewish

Galilean:

A New Reading

of the Jesus Story, 75f; T. Smeller, "Jesus in

U m l a n d Galilaas: zu den Markinischen Berichte vom Aufenthalt Jesus in den Gebieten von Tyros, Caesarea Philippi und der Dekapolis," BZ 38 ( 1 9 9 4 ) 4 4 - 6 6 . 3 8 . Cf. S. Freyne, " T h e Jesus-Paul Debate Revisited and Re-imaging Christian Origins," Christian

Origins: Worship,

Belief and Society, J S N T Suppl. Ser. 241 ( O ' M a h o n e y , ed.,

Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2 0 0 1 ) , 1 4 3 - 6 3 ; Hengel, "Jakobus der Herrenbruder," 570-76. 3 9 . D. Schwartz, Agrippa

I: The Last King of the Jews, T S A J 23 (Tubingen: M o h r Siebeck, 1 9 9 0 )

1 5 7 - 7 1 , is somewhat dubious o f this judgment, suggesting that a misunderstanding o f the Rabbinic texts and a desire by Zionist historiographers has given rise to this positive view o f the last king o f the Jews. 4 0 . J. Kloppenborg, " T h e Theodotus Synagogue Inscription and the Problem o f First-Century Synagogue Building," in Jesus and Archaeology Eerdmans, 2 0 0 7 ) 2 3 6 - 8 2 .

42

(J. H. Charelsworth, ed., Grand Rapids:

4 1 . B . Pixner, D. Chen, S. Margolit, " M o u n t Zion, T h e 'Gate o f the Essenes' Re-excavated," ZDPV 105 ( 1 9 8 9 ) 8 5 - 9 5 ; B . Pixner, " T h e History o f t h e ' E s s e n e Gate' Area," ZDPV 105 ( 1 9 8 9 ) 96-104. 4 2 . Cf. M . G o o d m a n , The Ruling Class in Judea: 66-70

The Origins

of the Jewish Revolt against

Rome

A.D. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1 9 8 7 ) ; R. Horsley, "High Priests and

Politics in R o m a n Palestine," JSJ17

(1986) 23-55.

4 3 . McLaren, "Ananus, James and Earliest Christianity," 1 9 - 2 1 . 4 4 . Hengel, "Jakobus, der Herrenbruder," 5 5 6 ; H. Koester, Paul and his World: Interpreting New Testament

in Its Context

the

(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2 0 0 7 ) , " T h e designation o f James

as Oblias," 2 6 6 . 4 5 . C. Evans, "Jesus and James, Martyrs for the Temple," James

the Just and Christian

Origins,

Chilton and Evans, eds., 2 3 3 - 4 9 , esp. 2 4 4 - 6 . 4 6 . Cf. the above suggestion o f Lohmeyer, note 16. 47. M . Hengel and D. P. Bailey, " T h e Effective History o f Isaiah 53 in the pre-Christian Period," The Suffering

Servant: Isaiah 53 in Jewish and Christian

Sources ( B . Janowki and

P. Stuhlmacher, eds., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2 0 0 4 ) 7 5 - 1 4 6 . 4 8 . D. Boyarin, Border Lines: The Partition

of Judaeo-Christianity

("Philadelphia: University o f

Pennsylvania Press, 2 0 0 4 )

43

A B O U T T H E AUTHOR

Sean Freyne, B.A., M.A., L.S.S., S.T.D., is professor emeritus o f theology at Trinity College, Dublin, and visiting professor o f early Christian history and lit­ erature at Harvard Divinity School. He is a Fellow o f Trinity College, a mem­ ber of the Royal Irish Academy, and a trustee o f the Chester Beatty Library and Gallery o f Oriental Art in Dublin. He has previously held teaching positions in New Testament in Ireland, the United States, and Australia, and is a frequent contributor to radio and television discussions dealing with historical and the­ ological aspects o f Christianity. He has served on the editorial boards o f New Testament Studies and Concilium:

An International

a past president o f the Studiorum Novi Testamenti

Journal

of Theology and is

Societas. In addition to the

books listed elsewhere in this volume, he is the author o f numerous articles dealing with various aspects o f early Christianity and its literature. His most recent study, Jesus, a Jewish Galilean (2004), gathers together many o f his ideas, developed over the years, on Jesus and Galilee.

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