James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (102 page)

It is interesting that in the well-known passages about his origins in Romans 11:1 and Philippians 3:5 (reprised in Acts 13:21), where he refers to being of ‘
the Tribe of Benjamin
’, Paul avoids calling himself ‘
a Jew
’, a term he does not hesitate however to apply to
Peter
in Galatians 2:13–14. Rather he seems to prefer to refer to himself as ‘
an Israelite
,
of the seed of
Abraham
,
of the Tribe of Benjamin
’ which, as we saw in the War Scroll above, many
Diaspora
Jews or even converts, such as
the Herodians
, may have taken to calling themselves. In Philippians 3:5–6, Paul adds: ‘
a Hebrew of the Hebrews
–
according to the Law
,
a Pharisee
.
According to zeal, persecuting the Church
.
According to Righteousness in Law
,
becoming blameless
.’

Aside from his references to ‘
becoming a Jew
’ and ‘
making himself a Jew to win Jews
’ above, these considerations – plus an ambiguous reference in Galatians 1:13 to something resembling conversion to ‘
Judaism
’ – might have convinced his inte
r
locutors that
Paul was really not born a Jew
,
but had rather converted to Judaism
, as the testimony from the
Anabathmoi Jacobou
insists. In addition to this, his easy-going attitude towards Judaism, as well as his fairly overt contempt for most things Jewish, could not have failed to make its impression on his contemporaries, as it has left its mark across the breadth of the Gospels and like-minded materials – the Koran, for example.

The ‘
Saulos
’ in Josephus and Paul

Having said all these things, there is still another way of looking at this curious testimony from the
Anabathmoi Jacobou
– that is, having knowledge of Paul’s Herodian origins, it is possible that when the
Anabathmoi
was describing the person who was ‘
a pagan
’ or ‘
a Greek
’ coming up to Jerusalem and,
conceiving a desire to marry the High Priest
’
s daughter
,
converted to Judaism
, and
when frustrated in this design
,
turned against both the Jews and Judaism
; it was not really talking about Paul at all, but rather Paul’s putative ancestor,
the
original Herod himself
.

This can be explained by the fact that it was Herod and his father who were perhaps the original
Herodian
converts to J
u
daism – if there ever was a
real
conversion on their part and this was all not simply a charade. It was Herod too who, in dec
o
rating Greek temples and cities and giving generously to
Greek
causes (well-documented in all sources
85
) really did make hi
m
self – to paraphrase Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:19–21 – ‘
a Jew to the Jews
’ and ‘
a Greek to the Greek
’. But above all else, like Paul, Herod believed in ‘
winning
’ –
winning at any cost
. And he did –
he really won
.

Finally, it was Herod
who really did want to marry the High Priest
’
s daughter
despite the fact that
he was neither native-born n
or
originally even Jewish himself
. In fact, he married two of them, both named ‘
Mariamme
’ as we have seen – the re
a
son doubtlessly behind the proliferation of all these ‘
Mariamme
’s or ‘
Mary
’s in the next generation and ever since. Herod’s killing of all the Maccabeans, including his own wife
Mariamme
, his children by her, her mother, her grandfather Hyrcanus II, who had given his father Antipater the chance to rise to power in the first place, her younger brother Jonathan –
the last properly
‘
Maccabean
’
High Priest
– and, then, the various
incestuous marriages
he arranged, was genetic engineering with a vengeance. Jonathan he had (in the manner that a latter-day Stalin or Saddam Hussein might do) strangled in the swimming pool of his winter palace in Jericho. This he did after Jonathan had for the first time donned the High-Priestly vestments (the clear condition for Mariamme’s mother having permitted the marriage in the first place) when
he saw how this sight
moved
‘
the Pe
o
ple
’
to weep with emotion
.
86

Furthermore, none of these
Herodians
, as Epiphanius well understood, were really reckoned as ‘
Jews
’ anyhow – except by themselves when they found it convenient or by their sycophantic
Pharisee
supporters.
87
Eusebius, too, well understood this point for, in quoting the passage he conserves from Julius Africanus about how
Herod burned all the genealogical records of the Jews and
‘
the
Desposyni
’ (Jesus’ family in
Nazara
and
Cochaba
88
), he matter-of-factly observes that Herod did this out of envy ‘
of his base birth
,
because he
was not of Israelite stock
’.
89
In describing Paul as they did, the authors of the
Anabathmoi Jacobou
may have thought they were saying something about his
Herodian
origins – in particular, his putative ancestor Herod, who really did marry ‘
the High Priest
’
s daughter
’ and whom some might have considered to have
been a
‘
convert
’
to Judaism
– though, for their part, extreme ‘
Zealot
’ groups certainly would not have, which was the basis of a century or more of unrest that followed in this period.

There is one additional subject that needs to be treated where Paul’s possible identification with the character Josephus is calling ‘
Saulos
’ is concerned. There is the possibility of Paul having made a return to Palestine after being incarcerated in Rome in time to put in the several appearances described in Josephus’
Antiquities
on the part of ‘
Saulos
’ after the death of James around 63 or 64
CE
and another in the
War
in 66
CE
. Before this ‘
Saulos
’ went to Corinth – where Epaphroditus, no doubt, was in residence as well – to give his report to Nero on the situation in Palestine, he also served, as we have emphasized, as the intermediary between ‘
the Peace Party
’ in Jerusalem and the Roman Army outside the city under Cestius, the Roman Gove
r
nor of Syria, who had come to Jerusalem to suppress the Uprising.
90
This episode would have been contemporaneous with the death in battle of Queen Helen’s own two ‘
kinsmen
’ or
descendants
, ‘
Monobazus and Kenedaeus
’,
who fought valiantly against this same Cestius
in a futile attempt to stop his advance at the Pass at Beit Horon, a site hallowed as well due to Judas Maccabee’s earlier exploits.
91

In the same passage in Romans where Paul sends his greetings to ‘
those in Aristobulus
’
household
’ and his ‘
kinsman the Youngest Herod
’, Paul also expressed his intention to visit Spain (Romans 15:24–28). There is no evidence about whether Paul ever got to Spain or not, but if he did visit Spain, one wonders what contacts he used to get there. Seneca, the famous Stoic philosopher, who acted as Nero’s Prime Minister before falling afoul of the latter’s changeable temper and being forced to commit suicide himself, was from Spain, as was his brother Gallio whom, as we saw, Acts 18:12–17, too, pictures as treating Paul with such self-evident cordiality. In fact, mercurial as he was, Nero may have found something to find fault with in
Saulos
’ behavior as well and had him executed, as neither he nor
Paul
is ever heard from again. Not long afterwards, Nero himself either committed suicide – with Epaphroditus’ involvement – or was assassinated.
92

There is nothing to gainsay that Paul actually did get to Spain, but our sources just do not tell us and Acts grows unchara
c
teristically vague after allowing that Paul was, for all intents and purposes, free in Rome and ‘
in his own lodgings
’ after being sent there by Festus following his
appeal to Caesar
. In fact, as this is portrayed in Acts 28:21, even Paul is surprised to find out no one has heard of him there or presumably what he had been doing in Palestine and elsewhere. Felix too, the brother of Nero’s financial secretary Pallas, with whom Paul is portrayed as conversing so intimately for two years in Acts 23:25–24:27, had also gone to Rome not long before. As already suggested, he could easily have been involved (even with the connivance of Agrippa II, particularly if this ‘
Paul
’ were the ‘
kinsman
’ of both Agrippa II and Felix’s wife Drusilla) in arranging this trip to Rome for Paul.

However these things may be, Galba, the first successor to Nero, had previously been Governor in Spain, and Seneca, originally Nero’s tutor and finally his Prime Minister, came from Spain as well.
93
So did Trajan, whose father is given special attention in Josephus’
Jewish War
as a brave Roman Legionnaire. He came from ‘
Italica
’ in Spain.
94
In this context, one should never forget that the Roman
Centurion
in Acts 10:1–43 – ‘
a man Righteous and God-fearing
’ – is described in Acts 10:1 as being from ‘
the Italica Regiment
’. So was Trajan’s personal favorite, Hadrian.

It is certainly not impossible that a man of Epaphroditus’ wide acquaintance would have had connections in Spain. In fact, there is a lively correspondence in the apocryphal literature between Paul and Seneca whom Epaphroditus must have known; and Gallio, whom Acts presents as Roman Proconsul in Achaia and Governor in Corinth and who treated Paul with such co
r
diality there, was Seneca’s brother.
95
As Acts 18:12–17 portrays these things, Gallio – whom archaeological evidence confirms functioned in Corinth about the year 55
CE
– pays no attention to Jewish complaints against Paul. He even supposedly goes so far as to allow
Greeks to beat ‘
Sosthenes
’ ‘
before the Judgement seat
’ there.

But there is a problem here, since the man Acts is calling ‘
Sosthenes the Ruler of the Synagogue
’ at this point bears the same name as the character referred to as ‘
Sosthenes
’ at the beginning of 1 Corinthians 1:1, whom Paul calls his ‘
brother
’ and
boon companion
(unless there were two such ‘
Sosthenes
’s in Corinth at one and the same time, a doubtful proposition). We have encountered this kind of problem in Acts before: for example, in the two trips Paul allegedly makes ‘
down the walls of Damascus in a basket
’ – one in Acts 9:25 to escape ‘
the Jews who wanted to kill him
’ (this one clearly tendentious), and the other in 2 Corinthians 11:31–33, to escape the Aretas
who wants to have him arrested
unless of course, once again,
there were two such trips in a basket
– an equally dubious proposition.

However these things may be, no less an authority than Eusebius is sure that
Paul did go free after his first imprisonment in Rome
, which was, as already signaled, hardly an imprisonment at all but more in the nature of a loose house arrest, or what could be described as (in Caesarea anyhow) protective custody.
96
As already remarked as well, Acts just comes to an end at this point about exactly the time James was killed in Jerusalem, but without a word about this. Why? Though the authenticity of Pastorals like Timothy and Titus is disputed, 2 Timothy 4:16–17 does note how ‘
at my first trial nobody supported me
’. Wh
o
ever wrote this, it would not be surprising that ‘
no one came to his support
’. Moreover, here anyhow, if reliable and however vague, there is an indication of ongoing legal problems of some sort in Paul’s life (unless the reference is to his previous legal complications in Jerusalem and Caesarea before his alleged ‘
appeal to Caesar
’).