James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (88 page)

Where the second part is concerned, evoking ‘
Everlasting Knowledge
’ or ‘
Gnosis
’ once again – only this time with the si
g
nificant addition ‘
of the Covenant
’, this reference to ‘
Judgement
’ can likewise be seen as transformed and enlarged upon by Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:24–29 with his own version of such an imprecation: ‘
So therefore whoever should eat this bread
or
drink the Cup of the Lord in an
unworthy way shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord
...
for he who eats and drinks unworthily
,
eats and drinks Judgement to himself
(the ‘
eating and drinking
’ motif again, but this time, quite literally, ‘
with a vengeance
’),
not seeing through to the body of the Lord
.’
The implications of all these things for subsequent history – esp
e
cially in the light of his rather deprecating allusion with which he began in 1 Corinthians 1:18–19 to ‘
schisms
’ and ‘
heresies among you
’ and, even more recently, in what ultimately transpired in our times – is simply frightening.

For its part, in summation, for the Community Rule all these things are being done to ‘
prepare in the wilderness the Way for the Lord
’ and ‘
establish an Everlasting Covenant of Laws
’ – this last, anyhow, a one hundred and eighty degree inversion of Paul’s understanding of what such a
Covenant
must finally turn out to mean or even what might have been ‘
prepared in the wilderness
’.

‘
The Sons of the Everlasting Foundation
’

Hymns also takes up the idea of the ‘
First Man
’ or ‘
Primal Adam being made of
’ or ‘
rising out of the dust
’, encountered in these closing passages from Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:48, in a later, particularly exultant passage: ‘
For the sake of Your Glory
,
You have purified Man
(
Enosh
) of
sin
,
that he may be made Holy to You
(that is, ‘
made
’ either
a ‘
Nazirite
’ or a Priest
)
from all the Abominations of uncleanness and guilty rebellion to be Sons of Your Truth with the Lot of Your Holy Ones
,
to rise from the dust of the worm-eaten dead as a Foundation
... to
stand
before You
equal with the Eternal Host and the Spirits to be made Holy with all Eternal Being.
’
16
One could hardly get much closer to Paul and his strictures at the end of 1 Corinthians 15:51–57 about the ‘
Heavenly Secret
’ and ‘
being raised up incorruptibly
’, though ‘
changed
’, than this. Again, these are decisive ‘
inte
r
nal
’ dating parameters.

‘
The Spirits
’ referred to here are also the same sort of
Spirits
we shall see below in the War Scroll’s vision of
the Heavenly Host
‘
coming on the clouds
’
in final eschatological Judgement
.
17
One begins to understand to what all this emphasis on
purity
,
daily bathing
, and the like related.

The Community Rule expresses similar ideas in its earlier columns, amid repeated allusion to
Light and Darkness
,
purif
y
ing oneself
, and
bathing
, in outlining the stages in ‘
joining the Community of the Heavenly Holy Ones
’ – before ultimately building up to its two-fold evocation in its later Columns 8–9 of these important chronological indicators, ‘
making a straight Way in the wilderness
’ and ‘
zeal for the Law and the Day of Vengeance’
: ‘
No man from the House
(in the preceding line e
x
pressed as ‘
the House of the Community of God
’)
will move down from his allotted level or move up from his allotted stan
d
ing
,
because all are in a Community of Truth
,
virtuous Humility
,
the love of Piety
,
and thoughtful Righteousness
,
each towards his neighbor in a Holy Community
,
the Sons of the Everlasting Foundation
.
18
Not only do we have here the two ‘
Love
’ Commandments, portrayed as the essence of both Jesus’ teaching in the New Testament and James’ in early Church sources, including the Letter ascribed to his name,
19
but the same language of ‘
each towards his neighbor
’ is paralleled later in this ‘
Rule
’ document and in pivotal sections of the Damascus Document having to do with ‘
separating Holy from profane
’ and where ‘
the New Covenant in the Land of Damascus
’ – ‘
to love each man his brother as himself
’ – is also being defined.
20
J
o
sephus alludes to this same combination, which I have already called the
Righteousness
/
Piety
dichotomy, as ‘
Piety towards God and Righteousness towards one
’
s fellow man
’ in his famous description of both John the Baptist and those he designates as ‘
Essenes
’.
21

The rigidity of this communal hierarchy is paralleled in the Preface to the Pseudoclementine
Homilies
in passages repr
e
sented as being James’ speech to ‘
the assembled Elders’,
to which they react with ‘
fear and trembling
’.
22
As always, it is gai
n
said and reversed in Paul’s writings where, in his usual manner exploiting his masterful control of allegory, rhetoric, and p
o
lemics, while at the same time displaying seemingly prior knowledge of both the Qumran and ‘
Jewish Christian
’ positions on these issues, he, at one and the same time, attacks both the favored position of James-like figures in the Leadership of ‘
the J
e
rusalem Church
’
and
the Hebrew/Jewish emphasis on ‘
chosenness
’ with the customary assault on James and the ‘
Pillar
’ Apo
s
tles. This he accomplishes, in particular, with his opening salvos in the Letter to the Galatians relating to not being ‘
an Apostle from men or through men
’ (1:1) and not ‘
seeking to please men
’ or ‘
announcing a Gospel according to men
’ (1:10–11); and later in Galatians 2:6 with his claim, ‘
God does not accept the person of man
’ or, put in other words, ‘
God has no favorites
’.

Paul expresses a similar point in his famous depiction in 1 Corinthians 15:1–10 of the order of Jesus’ post-resurrection a
p
pearances. Though not without its interpolations, in some manner this seems to have been thought of as establishing one’s position within the early ‘
Church
’ or ‘
Assembly
’. It ends with the well-known: ‘
And Last of all
(
he appeared
)
to me
.
I was born when no one expected it
,
as if to one born out of term’
(or,
‘as
if to an abortion
’
– 1 Corinthians 15:8).

This ‘
Last
’ terminology and its counterpart, ‘
the First
’, is normally applied as we just saw to the ‘
standing
’ of ‘
the First
’ within the ‘
Jerusalem Assembly
’ Hierarchy; but, in the Hebrew of the Damascus Document, ‘
the First
’ also refers to ‘
the A
n
cestors
’ or ‘
the Forefathers
’ to whom, by implication, ‘
the First Covenant
’ was vouchsafed.
23
The combination is also picked up in beloved though ‘
Paulinized
’ sayings attributed to Jesus in Scripture, such as ‘
the Last shall be First and the First shall be Last
’ (Matthew 19:30 and
pars
.).

The ‘
House
’ or ‘
Household
’ imagery one encounters in the Community Rule’s description of ‘
the Sons of the Everlasting Foundation
’ also occurs throughout the relevant literature. In other variations at Qumran, it becomes ‘
the House of the
Torah
’, which the Damascus Document uses to describe ‘
the Community of God
’ in its final summing-up passages having to do with
the Promises of
‘
the New Covenant in the Land of Damascus
’ and those who have not ‘
turned aside
’ and ‘
betrayed the Well of Living Waters
’ that was being ‘
dug
’ there.
24
In crucial passages again later in the Community Rule, which introduce
the ‘making a straight Way in the wilderness
’ citations, this ‘
House
’ imagery is once again used allegorically to characterize ‘
the Twelve Isr
a
elite
’
members of the Community Council
(the counterpart of ‘
the Twelve Apostles
’ in the Gospels) as ‘
a House of Holiness for Israel
’ – spiritualized
Temple
imagery again – and
the inner
‘
Three Priests
’ as ‘
a House of the Holy of Holies for Israel
’ (the counterpart of ‘
the Central Three
’ in both Galatians 2:9 and the Synoptics
25
) – now spiritualized ‘
Inner Sanctum
’ imagery.
26

In 1 Corinthians 3:9-17, Paul had already used a variation of this
House
/
Household
imagery, preceded in 1 Corinthians 2:4–13 by
the Secret
/
Mystery
/
Hidden
language in his discussion about ‘
teaching spiritual things spiritually
’ and ‘
speaking Wi
s
dom among the Perfect
’ (any allusion to ‘
the Perfect
’ or ‘
Perfection
’ is always significant
27
). It is interesting that in reiterating this latter he actually is using the language of ‘
being Hidden
’ which we have so focused upon earlier: ‘
We speak the Wisdom of God in a Mystery
,
Hidden and predetermined before the Ages for our Glory ... which God has prepared for those who love Him
(
1
Corinthians 2:7).’
This last, of course, is the second part of the
Righteousness
/
Piety
dichotomy –
Piety towards God
. As usual, one should compare this language with that of James 2:5 on ‘
the Kingdom promised to
those who love Him
’.

This is the language, then, that Paul uses to introduce his ‘
building
’ imagery in 1 Corinthians 3:9–17
–
imagery seemingly parodying or being parodied by documents such as the Habakkuk
Pesher
in its description of the nemesis of its Righteous Teacher, ‘
the Spouter of Lies
’/‘
Man of Lying
’, as ‘
building a Community on blood
’ and ‘
Lying
’ (we shall decipher this ‘
building a Community on blood
’ allusion in
more detail towards the end of this book).
28