James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (16 page)

For the
Subba
‘
of Southern Iraq, just as with so-called ‘
Essenes
’, these rituals included daily ablution and purification in addition to a more all-encompassing immersion. This immersion was known to them even then as ‘
Masbuta
’ – from which clearly Eusebius via Hegesippus gets his ‘
Masbuthaeans
’ – and it included both the notion of washing away of sins and even a ‘
laying on of hands
’, the Priest interestingly enough laying one hand on his own head,
23
all notions except the last known to Christianity.
24

Actually, Epiphanius includes the note about Peter being a
Daily Bather
in the context of his discussion of those he is cal
l
ing ‘
Ebionites
’ – an honoured term of self-designation in widespread use at Qumran.
25
Not only does he think that the term
i
nology ‘
Ebionites
’, like that of the ‘
Elchasaites
’ above, relates to a teacher called ‘
Ebion
’ – meaning that, as he sees it, ‘
Ebion’
is a person not a concept; he also seems to think that, as the ‘
Elchasaite
’ teacher in Hippolytus, this ‘
Ebion
’ went to Rome.
26
It is at this point he observes:
‘They say that Peter was a Daily Bather even before he partook of the bread
.’
27
That is, Peter is a complete ‘
Essene
’.

Epiphanius combats this description in the most vituperative manner imaginable, insisting that it was
because
‘
the Ebionites
’
were so
‘
lewd and filthy that they bathed so often
’!
28
His approach is reminiscent of how Eusebius characterizes
the Ebionites
. Coming from Caesarea in Palestine, Eusebius like Epiphanius also knew Hebrew. In an ideological reversal that should by this time be all too familiar, he insists in a derisive play on the Hebrew meaning of their name that they were called ‘
the Poor
’ because of ‘
their mean and poverty-stricken notions about the Christ
’, meaning that what today we would call
their
‘
Christology
’
was
‘
poverty-stricken
’! – an exposition even the beginning reader will recognize as both dissimulating and male
v
olent.

However, by contemptuously and sarcastically depicting Ebionites as
seeing
‘
Christ
’
as merely a man
,
generated by natural not supernatural means
,
advanced above other men in the
practice of Righteousness
or virtue
,
and only
‘
a prophet
’, Eusebius ina
d
vertently gives us insight into their
actual
doctrines. Where the matter of ‘
a Prophet
’ is concerned, one will be able to immed
i
ately discern the outlines of the ‘
True Prophet
’ ideology of the Ebionites, which is such a set-piece of the Pseudoclementine literature and reflections of which are also discernible in the Dead Sea Scrolls, in particular, the Community Rule, proceeding down through Elchasaism, Manichaeism, and ultimately into Islam.
29

For the writer, the aspects of their conduct Epiphanius records, for the most part probably drawing on the Pseudoclementines, are rather
the true parameters of Peter
’
s existence
– these, as opposed to childish episodes incorporating ideological reversal as, for instance, the descent of ‘
the table cloth
’ from Heaven ‘
by its four corners
’ in Acts 10:11, in which Peter learns
not to make distinctions between Holy and profane and to call no food unclean
(10:12–16 repeated in 11:8), the very opposite of communities such as at Qumran and groups like those following James like ‘
the Ebionites
’.

Aside perhaps from the material in Galatians, which relates Peter to these same areas of Northern Syria where groups such as the Ebionites, Elchasaites, and Masbuthaeans appear to have been prevalent at this time (as to some extent they still are today), materials delineating Peter’s pious
Essene
-like behaviour – for instance, that he wore ‘threadbare clothes’ and, as among
Essenes
and at Qumran, he prayed every morning at dawn and bathed every day (this ‘
before partaking of bread
’ as Epiphanius conserves it above) – are perhaps the only properly historical materials about Peter we have.
As an aside, it should perhaps also not go unremarked that, like Epiphanius’ mysterious teacher ‘
Ebion
’ and Hippolytus’ ‘
Elchasaite
’ teacher he thinks is called ‘
Sobiai
’, Peter too reportedly ended up going to Rome. Whether accurate in Peter’s case – for which Acts pr
o
vides no verification – it would certainly appear to be accurate in the case of Hippolytus’ ‘
Elchasaite
’ teacher named ‘
Sobiai
’.

One of the reasons for the kind of daily
purification
activity Epiphanius so derogatorily dismisses, known not only to the Pseudoclementines but also so characteristic of the ‘
sectaries
’ at Qumran – at least among those extreme
Essenes
Hippolytus insists on also calling either ‘
Zealot
’ or ‘
Sicarii
’
30
– is that even casual contact with Gentiles was thought to be polluting in some manner. This, of course, immediately gives rise to issues like the ‘
table fellowship
’ one between the ‘
some from James
’ who ‘
came down to Antioch
’ and Paul in Galatians 2:11–14. In the ‘Heavenly tablecloth’ episode, even Peter is pictured as citing this excuse in Acts 10:14 when he is at the point of learning he ‘
should not call any man unclean nor any thing profane
’ and
could eat forbidden foods
.

Notwithstanding, it is just the opposition to allowing persons who either
were not circumcised and did not keep the Law
to discuss matters relating to it that were the key issues for those extreme
Essenes
whom Hippolytus insists were called either ‘
Zealots
’ or ‘
Sicarii
’, a picture in some ways more accurate and more incisive than the received Josephus.
31

Not only did normative
Essenes
, according to the received portrait in Josephus, refuse to eat on pain of death ‘
forbidden things
’, but as Hippolytus refines this picture, what those he refers to as ‘
Zealot
’ or ‘
Sicarii
Essenes’ refused to eat were the Jamesian category of ‘
things sacrificed to idols
’ (Acts 15:29 and 21:25). No wonder Epiphanius is so enraged at the picture of Peter he finds in allegedly ‘
Ebionite
’ literature – but more about these things later. To repeat – his materials bring us back to the location of these groups in Northern Syria and Southern Iraq, the two areas Josephus focuses upon in his story of the co
n
version of Queen Helen, her two sons Monobazus and Izates, and possibly also her husband ‘
Bazeus
’ – if his identity could be precisified in any final way.

The Son of Joseph and ‘
the Taheb
’, ‘
Tabitha
’, and ‘
Tirathaba
’

For the Mandaeans of Southern Iraq, John the Baptist was their teacher and one of their titles for him was ‘
as-Sabi
‘
ibn Yusufus
’, ‘
the Baptizer the Son of Joseph
’. Not only does the second part of this title echo similar ascriptions related to
Jesus
’ parentage in Christian tradition, but a second ‘
Messiah
’, called ‘
the Messiah ben Joseph
’ – this as opposed to the Davidic Me
s
siah/‘
the Messiah ben Judah
’ – was also considered to have been executed in Rabbinic tradition in the region of Lydda poss
i
bly even by crucifixion.
32

Not only does this title – which the Gospels take as definitively genealogical even though Jesus
was not supposed to have been Joseph
’
s son
– possibly imply an overlap with Samaritan Messianic pretensions, but the title, ‘
Son of Joseph
’, dovetails perfectly with
Samaritan
tradition, since the Samaritans generally considered themselves
Sons of Joseph
, that is,
descendants of the Biblical Joseph
. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, too, the curious additional parallel represented by the terminology ‘
Ephraim
’/‘
the Simple of Ephraim
’ (in the Nahum
Pesher
grouped alongside ‘
the Simple of Judah doing
Torah
’) should not be overlooked – ‘
Ephraim
’
being another biblical euphemism for
‘
Samaria
’.
33

The issue of what to make of this ‘
Son of Joseph
’ in Messianic tradition is fraught with difficulties. In the
Talmud
, as te
n
uous as its traditions sometimes are, there certainly is indication of a Messianic individual
crucified in the Lydda region
– an area
contiguous to and on the periphery of Samaria
.
34
There would appear to be some substance to the story as there certainly was a Messianic ‘
Restorer
’ or ‘
Redeemer
’ tradition in the adjacent area of Samaria at this time, alluded to in Josephus and d
e
noted in Samaritan tradition, ‘
the
Taheb
’.
35

This individual may or may not have been equivalent to the famous ‘
Simon Magus
’, known in the Pseudoclementine
Recognitions
and other early Church writings to have come from the Samaritan village of Gitta, whom we know was often su
p
posed to be
imitating Jesus
.
36
In fact, according to these same
Recognitions
and/or
Homilies
, he and a colleague of his, Dositheus – both
Disciples
of John the Baptist – were principal originators of ‘
the Secret Adam
’/‘
Primal Adam
’ ideology. Therefore, too, in some versions of Josephus, his
alter ego and double in Caesarea
– another Rasputin-like ‘
magician called Simon
’ in the e
m
ploy of the Roman Governor Felix and the Herodian family
37
–
is even referred to as
‘
Atomus
’,
probably a Greco-Latin co
r
ruption of
‘
Adam
’ reflecting the principal doctrine associated with his person, ‘
the Primal Adam
’.
38

It should be remarked that Caesarea, the Roman administrative center in Palestine and the closest large seaport to Samaria, was also the locale of the initial confrontation between Peter and the ‘Simon
Magus
’ in the Pseudoclementine literature as well. Nor can there be any doubt that something of these matters is being reflected in Acts 8:4–25’s portrayal of the confrontations between both ‘
Philip
’ and Peter with Simon
Magus
over Simon’s Messianic (‘
Primal Adam
’?) posturing ‘
in many villages of the Samaritans
’. But in Acts, these confrontations occur
in
Samaria
,
not Caesarea
–
seemingly reflecting Simon Magus
’
place of origin
– and ‘
Philip
’ only goes to Caesarea later, after his encounter with
the Ethiopian Queen
’
s
eunuch
. Furthermore, Acts 8:17–24 portrays the Simon
Magus
affair somewhat disingenuously, as having basically to do with
buying the
‘
Power
’
imparted by
‘
laying on hands
’
for money
. While the vocabulary is probably accurate, the import is misleading – probably purposefully. In addition, it is employing both the ‘
Great Power
’ vocabulary attributed to Simon
Magus
in the Pseudoclementines and of the Elchasaites
cum
Mandaeans and the ‘
laying on of hands
’, which becomes such an integral fixture of the practices of these same Mandaeans.
39