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The Mysterious Disappearance of Jesus and the Origin of Christianity
By:
Dr. Ahmad Shafaat
(1997)
Part I
JESUS AND THE EARLIEST
JESUS PEOPLE
Chapter 3
A Brief History of the
Earliest Jesus People
In the last chapter we saw that there
existed almost from the very beginning independent and rival groups
who used the story of Jesus in radically different ways. We also
identified the most important of these earliest groups and their
characteristic beliefs. In the present chapter we look at some more
traditions about the three groups mentioned in the last chapter as
well as some other important people in the Jesus movement.
The earliest Jesus people can be divided
into the following groups, not all organized:
* The twelve
* The family of
Jesus
* The seven
* Women
* Tax
collectors and sinners
* Zealot-type
nationalists
The first four groups listed above are
mentioned in Acts, with all of them except the seven appearing
together at the beginning of the church. After witnessing the
ascension at the Mount of Olives, the twelve, except, of course,
Judas Iscariot, return to Jerusalem. There "all these were
constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain
women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers"
(1:14). This is the last mention of the mother of Jesus in the New
Testament, although his brothers are subsequently seen active in the
Jesus movement. The seven appear suddenly in Acts 6 and then quickly
fade away. They are never mentioned in the gospels or elsewhere in
the New Testament. Women, especially Mary of Magdala, are often
mentioned in the gospels but do not play any significant role in
Acts. Likewise the tax collectors and sinners, so visible in the
ministry of Jesus, receive no mention in Acts. The zealot-type
nationalists found almost everywhere among the Jews are not
mentioned in the gospels or Acts but their existence in the Jesus
movement at the earliest times is established by indirect evidence.
We now briefly profile these people.
The twelve
The names of the twelve given in the
four gospels do not agree. Only seven names are found in all the
gospels: Peter, Andrew, John and James (sons of Zebedee), Philip,
Thomas and Judas Iscariot. In John 21 an appearance of Jesus takes
place to seven disciples: Peter, Nathanael, the two sons of Zebedee,
Thomas and two unnamed disciples.
The lists in Mark, Matthew and Luke-Acts
agree on eleven names (Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip,
Bartholomew, Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, Simon the Canaanean and
Judas Iscariot). One name on which they disagree is given in Mark as
Thaddaeus and in Luke-Acts as Judas son of James. In Matthew, the
best manuscripts have Thaddaeus in agreement with Mark, but some
others along with church fathers have Lebbaeus; and most of the
manuscripts have "Lebbaeus surnamed Thaddaeus". It is best to assume
that the original name in Matthew was Lebbaeus and that the other
readings reflect attempts to make Matthew consistent with Mark.
The agreement in regard to the eleven of
the twelve names between Mark, Matthew and Luke-Acts is not
surprising, since Matthew and Luke are dependent on Mark. We have
another list in the apocryphal Epistula Apostolorum which differs
more substantially from that in Mark: John, Thomas, Peter, Andrew,
James, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Nathanael, Judas Zelotes,
Cephas (the betrayer's name being omitted). We may be inclined to
dismiss this list as unreliable because Peter and Cephas are
distinguished but similar misunderstandings occur in the canonical
documents as well.
Who is included in the lists of the
twelve and in what order at least partly reflects the relative
importance of the disciples in the churches which produced the
lists. In the synoptic gospels Peter and James and John, are the
first to be mentioned (except for the tendency to mention brothers,
Peter and Andrew, together), while Judas Iscariot, the traitor,
comes last. But in John and apocryphal gospels completely different
order is found.
Mark gives specific information about
the calling of only five disciples: Simon, Andrew, the two sons of
Zebedee (James and John) and Levi the son of Alphaeus (1:16-20,
2:13-17=Matt. 4:18-22, 9:9-13=Luke 5:1-11, 5:27-32). Later in
3:13-15 Mark says that Jesus "went up the mountain and called to him
those he wanted ... and he appointed twelve [some authorities add:
whom he also named apostles] to be with him, and to be sent out to
proclaim the message, and to have authority to cast out demons."
This is followed by a list of the names of the twelve, which does
not contain the name Levi who is nevertheless one of the five
disciples whose call is described in Mark.
John also describes the call of only
five disciples, of which one is unnamed and another, named Nathanael,
is not found either among the five whose call is described in Mark
or in the lists of the twelve in the synoptic gospels. John does
speak of the twelve (6:70;20:24) and names some of them (14:22,
20:24), but does not give a list nor tells us when and why they were
appointed.
The Talmud states that "Jesus had five
disciples" (Sanh. 43a). Their names are given as Mattai, Naqqai
(Nicodemus?), Nezer and Toda (Thaddaeus ?) (Str. Bill., 1.95, II.
417f., III. 461, quoted from Kraeling, The Disciples, p. 251,
n.1).
The gospel stories of the call of the
disciples are too similar to the stories of the call of disciples in
the Greco-Roman philosophical tradition and in the Jewish prophetic
tradition to be confidently considered as historical. Thus Socrates
goes to the saddler's shop and challenges Euthydemus to become his
disciple-companion. He calls Strepsiades, saying: "but come [deuri]
and follow me [akolouthesis emoi]. His call of
Xenophon is described thus: "'Then follow me,' said Socrates, 'and
learn.' From that time onward he was a disciple of Socrates."
(Culpepper, John, the Son of Zebedee, p. 19). In the
Biblical tradition, we have the following account of the call of
Elisha by Elijah:
So he set out from
there, and found Elisha son of Shaphat, who was plowing. There
were twelve yoke of oxen ahead of him, and he was with the
twelfth. Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle over him. He
left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, "Let me kiss my
father and my mother, and then I will follow you [LXX: kai
akoloutheso opiso sou]" Then Elijah said to him, "Go
back again; for what have I done to you?" He returned from
following him, took the yoke of oxen, and slaughtered them;
using the equipment from the oxen, he boiled their flesh, and
gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out and
followed Elijah, and became his servant. (1 Kings 19:19-21)
In case of Euthedymus and Elisha the
call takes place when would-be disciple is at work just as in Mark
Jesus calls the fishermen when they were at work. Socrates tells
Strepsiades and Xenophon: "come and follow me" or simply "follow me"
just as Jesus does in some stories of the call (Mark 1:16, John 1:39
etc). Elijah tells Elisha to follow him not by words but by an
action (throwing his mantle over him, which is understood by Elisha
as a call to follow since he responds by saying, "I will follow
you."). Elijah "found" Elisha just as Jesus "found" Philip (John
1:43). Elisha leaves his work by slaughtering the yoke of oxen and
feeding the people in order to be with Elijah. The disciples leave
fishing in order to follow Jesus. The statement of Elisha, "Let me
kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you" recalls
the statement of one of Jesus' disciple: "Lord, first let me bury my
father" (Matt 8:21=Luke 9:59 (Q)).
It is noteworthy that in Jewish
tradition prophets and rabbis as a rule did not choose their
disciples. They accepted some or all of those who came to them (as
in case of John the Baptist, Luke 3:7ff.). The only exceptions are
Moses and Elijah who chose their disciples by express command of God
or on their own. Jesus traditions were sometime created in imitation
of traditions about Moses and Elijah.
The reliability of the stories of the
call of the disciples is called into question not only by their
similarities to the stories found in the Greco-Roman philosophical
and Jewish prophetic traditions but also by the fact that they are
found in different forms in Mark and John. Thus, for example, in
Mark, Peter and Andrew are called when they were fishing in the Sea
of Galilee; but in John, first Andrew follows Jesus after listening
to the testimony of the Baptist about Jesus and then he brings his
brother Peter to Jesus and all this takes place not in Galilee but
Judea.
As mentioned above, Mark says that Jesus
at an early stage chose the twelve to be with him. This view is
carried much further in Acts. Thus Acts 1:21f gives two
qualifications of a believer who can replace Judas Iscariot as a
member of the group of the twelve: 1) he must be a witness of the
resurrection; 2) he must have been with Jesus from his baptism till
ascension. This implies that the original eleven possessed these
qualifications. This is an artificial scheme designed by Luke or his
source to further show that the church tradition has a secure
historical foundation so that Theophilus and other readers "may know
the truth concerning the things about which you have been
instructed" (Luke 1:4), that is, be sure that the things they were
told earlier had eyewitnesses. Historically, it seems unlikely that
a fixed group of people who later led the Jesus movement constantly
accompanied Jesus, for in that case the Christian tradition would
have acquired a solid core based on the memories of those people
instead of showing such diversity as we find even within the New
Testament, not to talk of the non-canonical writings. It is more
probable that the twelve first came into existence in the intense
eschatological situation in the primitive community (see, e.g. R.
Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, I, p. 37). This view
seems to have become unpopular among scholars on the basis of the
following objection: how could the betrayer of Jesus be included
among the twelve if that group was formed after Jesus' death.
Charlesworth first believed that the twelve were formed after Jesus,
but later changed his mind, mainly on the basis of this objection (Jesus
Within Judaism, p. 137). However, if the evidence presented here
against the historicity of the crucifixion and the alternative
explanation of the Judas story given in Ch. 18 is accepted, then
this argument looses its force.
It may be that at first there was a
group of five disciples which was later extended to the twelve. This
is also suggested by the story of the feeding of the multitude in
which to begin with there are five loaves that end up with twelve
baskets of left over food. It is also possible that the two fish
represent the two leading disciples (Peter and Andrew or Peter and
John) so that two fishes and five loaves represent an earlier group
of seven disciples.
Why was the group of the twelve formed?
In Mark the purpose of the appointment of the twelve is given as
being with Jesus, preaching as apostles of Jesus and casting out
demons, that is, assisting Jesus in his mission. But in Q Jesus
firmly connects the number twelve with the twelve tribes of Israel
and with the messianic kingdom of Jesus in which the twelve will act
as judges for the twelve tribes (Matt 19:28=Luke 22:28-30). The
Epistle of Barnabas which in its chapter 12 denies the Davidic
descent of Jesus and thus his political messiahship says in chapter
8: "those whom he empowered to preach the gospel were twelve in
number, to represent the tribes of Israel, which were twelve". In
other words, the twelve were preachers not judges. The saying in Q
is difficult to attribute to Jesus in view of the evidence that
Jesus did not view himself as the Messiah. However, the saying does
reflect the understanding of the twelve about Jesus and themselves.
If the saying originated from the twelve, it did so before the
defection of Judas since nothing in Q suggests that he was not among
the twelve judges of the messianic age. That this defection did not
take place immediately after the departure of Jesus is quite
possible in view of the fact that not only Q but also Paul does not
refer to Judas Iscariot or to his defection.
When we think of an early Jesus group
whether small or large we should not think of it as a group united
on some doctrine. We should rather think in terms of changing
alliances, as in most communities, between leading figures. These
alliances can break and give way to new alliances. In some cases,
the old alliances may be re-established. Also, doctrines can change
with changes in alliances or in other circumstances. A relatively
late example of this is provided by the case of Barnabas, Paul and
John Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. At one point Paul joined Barnabas
in a common mission at the invitation of the latter. For some years
the two worked together, assisted by John Mark. But the alliance
finally broke down, with Paul separating from the other two. Much
later, however, we see John Mark again connected with Paul's
churches (Col 4:10). The split between Paul and Barnabas probably
resulted in changes in the thinking of the two men. Paul became much
more independent in his thinking and in particular became much
bolder in rejecting the present value of the Jewish law, whereas
Barnabas became closer to the more traditional position of James
(Gal. 2:11-14).
The twelve provide a much earlier
example. We rarely hear of the twelve as a group after the
references to Jesus' resurrection appearances to them. When Paul
first visits Jerusalem he spends fifteen days with Peter but does
not "see any other apostle except James the Lord's brother" (Gal.
2:19). Clearly, there were no weekly meetings of the twelve as a
united group where a visitor like Paul could meet all of them. And
Paul gives the impression that he met James, the brother of Jesus,
only on the side and not as Peter-James team. It is thus likely that
the alliance that produced the group of the twelve broke down soon
after its formation. Certainly Judas Iscariot defected. Others
probably developed their own following and not without rivalry as is
shown by Mark 9:33-37, 10:35-45 etc. When Paul visits Jerusalem a
second time, he meets James, probably the brother of Jesus, Peter
and John. This does not necessarily mean that the Jerusalem church
was being jointly led by these three apostles as a united board.
Rather, they may well be three prominent leaders, each with his own
following, who got together whenever a matter arose of mutual
concern to them. Who had prominence at any time and place depended
on who had greater following at that time and place. During Paul's
first visit Peter was prominent in Jerusalem. He probably arrived in
Jerusalem earlier than James the brother of Jesus. But because of
his character and his blood relationship with Jesus the following of
James soon began to increase, so that during Paul's second visit he
is in a more prominent position than Peter. Paul's own importance in
the Jesus movement was secured, despite his teachings, by the large
following he was able to gain. Since their importance depended on
the extent of their following, many leaders pursued their mission
aggressively, thus introducing in the Jesus movement a competitive
spirit that contributed greatly to the success of Christianity. Paul
was especially aggressive in his mission, ceaselessly traveling for
his mission from place to place under harsh conditions. Being
handicapped by the fact that he did not know Jesus personally, his
worth in the Jesus movement was especially dependent on the extent
of his following. This is why he chose the Gentile mission, since
Gentiles provided an unlimited source of converts and they were less
likely to be bothered by lack of Paul's contact with the earthly
Jesus.
Although at first the twelve were among
other Jesus groups who regarded themselves as the legitimate
successors of Jesus, they gradually came to be regarded as the sole
successors of Jesus and to become nominal heads of the whole Jesus
movement. This process was well under way during the apostolic age
but reached its conclusion after that age when Christianity,
dominated by Gentile Christianity, needed to ground itself in the
heritage of Jesus and therefore needed a link between itself and
Jesus. Although the Stephenite Hellenists, the twelve and Paul all
made decisive contribution to the building of the foundation of
Gentile Christianity, Paul and the Stephenite Hellenists could not
serve as links with Jesus because they historically had no or little
connection with Jesus. This left only the twelve to serve that
purpose. The relatives of Jesus such as his brother James were too
close to Judaism and to the earthly Jesus to serve the purposes of
Gentile Christianity.
Of course, the rise of the twelve to the
position of legitimate successors was not without problems. Earlier
the twelve were in fierce competition with the Stephenite Hellenists
who created stories maligning the twelve. Because of the very early
age of such stories they became indelibly written into the Jesus
tradition and, as a result, we have the strange situation that the
very people who are presented as the transmitters of the Christian
tradition and chosen successors of Jesus are seen in some stories as
villainous. The gospels make most of the situation by turning the
negative stories and statements about the twelve as means of
teaching Christians true faith. Thus the twelve become both the
successors of Jesus and the representative of Christians with all
their weaknesses.
Acts 4:13 describes Peter and John as
"uneducated and ordinary men" and one can assume the same about most
other members of the group of twelve. But we should not think of
them as poor. In first-century Galilee, fishermen were in fact the
'businessmen' of their community; James and John ... were affluent
enough to have 'hired servants'" (Stanton, The Gospels and
Jesus, 186).
We have no information about the early
activities of the twelve in Galilee. We can, however, say that they
were not very successful and soon decided to move to Jerusalem.
Pseudo-Clementine says that it was seven years after the
resurrection of Jesus that the disciples decided to move to
Jerusalem to discuss Jesus with the Jews (Recognitions 1:44,
53). This is, no doubt, unhistorical. The actual period was probably
more like months rather than years.
After reviewing the available
information about the twelve as a group, let us now profile some of
the more prominent individual members of the group.
PETER
Peter's real name was Simon (Greek) or
Shim'o-n (Hebrew). Only Acts 15:14 and 2 Pet 1:1 use the
Greek transliteration Symeon of the Hebrew name. Since his brother's
name Andrew is Greek, perhaps he was also always called by the Greek
name Simon.
Paul refers to Peter as Cephas
(Latinized form of the Greek transliteration Ke-phas of
the Aramaic Ke-pha-) except at Gal 2:7. This
one exception may be due to a copyist's error. Clement of Alexandria
thought that Cephas and Peter were two different persons, as did the
writer of Epistula Apostolorum.
Peter is called son of John in John
21:15 and Barjona (son of Jona) in Matt 16:17. Barjona has been
connected by some with the Aramaic baryo-n_,
meaning "ruffian," which is then understood as evidence that Peter
was a zealot.
Mark and Luke call the chief apostle
Simon until he is given the name Peter by Jesus when he chooses the
twelve. Matthew calls him Peter from the beginning but says that the
name was conferred on him at the time of his confession (16:17-19).
In John the name is conferred at the "call" (1:42) but the reason
for the name is not given. John even seems to be unaware that the
name has any connection with "rock," since he says that Peter
(Greek: Petros) is the translation of Cephas. But in Greek the word
for rock is petra not petros. The latter
is a true name (Latin: Petrus, possibly an abbreviation of Petronius),
borne by at least one Jewish rabbi (Kraeling, Disciples,
p. 73).
Meyers, noting that the pre-Pauline name
Ke-pha-s is said by all the gospels to be
conferred on Simon by Jesus (Mark 3:16, Matt 16:17-19, Luke 6:14,
John 1:42) argues for the authenticity of Matt 16:17-19 by the
following argument: "no rationale for this new name other than that
offered by Matt 16:17-19 has ever been made even minimally
plausible" (The Aims of Jesus, 186).
In the gospel tradition Peter is often
used as a representative of the twelve or of some other group or of
Christians generally. Consequently, he is often brought forward as a
character in stories to project a particular point of view and it is
difficult to know which, if any, of the great number of stories
about him in the gospels contain authentic information about him.
The most reliable information about him probably includes the
following: Jesus healed his mother-in-law; he maintained good
relations with the Jews, the Jewish Christians and Gentile
Christians; he remained unaffected by the execution of Stephen; he
hosted for fifteen days the Hellenist convert Paul of whom many
other leaders were suspicious; he got away with only an arrest when
James the son of Zebedee was beheaded by Herod Agrippa I; he shared
meals with Paul's Gentile converts in Antioch but withdrew from such
shared meals when men from James arrived (Gal. 2:11-14). All this
suggests that Peter had a somewhat flexible character, who, either
in the larger interest of the Jesus movement and/or his own position
in it could bend his behaviour in accordance with differing
pressures. It is likely that one of the reasons Peter finally became
the chief apostle and disciple of Jesus and the rock on which his
church was built is this flexibility in his character. For, in the
fluid tradition of the apostolic age, diversifying in numerous
directions, the last quality needed to become the rock for the
church was to be rigid like a rock. In particular, in the matter of
Jesus' death and resurrection Peter might have been at some point
far more inclined to go along with the story than the rest of the
twelve. This may partly explain why most of the twelve are almost
completely ignored in New Testament. Ten of the twelve are not
mentioned by Paul except under the group name "twelve". The synoptic
gospels do not say anything about eight of them after mentioning
their names in their lists. For some of them the mainstream
tradition did not even take enough care to remember their names.
Another factor that helped Peter become
the chief apostle seems to be the fact that he played the decisive
part in constituting the group of the twelve on the basis of the
belief that Jesus was the Messiah who will soon return to establish
his kingdom. This belief soon became accepted widely within the
Jesus movement and with it Peter and the twelve secured a lasting
position within that movement as its figureheads. In view of the
evidence that Jesus did not regard himself as the Messiah, the
belief of Peter and the twelve in his messiahship suggests that they
were not as close and constant companions of Jesus as the gospels
suggest, for otherwise we should expect them to be more faithful to
Jesus' own views. Those who were really close to Jesus either did
not join the Jesus movement or the Jesus movement came to ignore
them, since what they had to say did not fit with the direction the
movement was taking.
Both Mark and John suggest that Peter
came in contact with Jesus quite early in the ministry. But this
does not mean that he was a constant companion of Jesus. Rather, his
subsequent contacts with Jesus might have been only occasional. Paul
tells us that Peter was married, and when he traveled for missionary
work, generally took his wife with him (1 Cor 9:4-6). If Peter had
the same marital status and the same attitude to his marriage during
Jesus' ministry as afterwards, then it would be difficult for him to
travel constantly with Jesus who was by all indications celibate.
Whatever contacts Peter had with Jesus
were enough to leave in him a powerful impression about the person
of Jesus. The healing of Peter's mother-in-law by Jesus, which is
very probably historical, is one such contact that must have greatly
impressed Peter. However, Peter's contacts with Jesus were probably
not prolonged enough for him to know much about what type of kingdom
of God Jesus preached and what role he would play in it upon his
return. As a result of this relative ignorance, it was possible for
him to imagine Jesus to be the Messiah.
Paul also tells us that Peter accepted
financial support from the churches for his missionary journeys. At
some stage, therefore, Peter did leave fishing for a full-time
career as a Christian missionary just as the gospels say. But this
probably took place after Jesus' ministry and the gospels have, as
often, projected events in the life of the church back into the life
of Jesus.
Peter traveled for missionary work not
only in Palestine but also abroad. In particular, he went to Antioch
(Gal 2:11). We may suppose that Peter stayed in Syria for sometime
working among the large numbers of Jews there and also meeting with
the Gentiles.
Paul talks of a "Cephas party" in
Corinth (1 Cor 1:11-12) and Eusebius mentions the claim of Bishop
Dionysius of Corinth that Peter and Paul had both planted the seed
of the gospel at that place. This suggests that at least the
influence of Peter, if not he himself, traveled beyond Palestine and
Syria during his lifetime.
The words of Jesus in Matt 16:18, "the
gates of Hades shall not prevail against it," can be taken to refer
to the rock, i.e. Peter, rather than to the church. One reading in
fact has "thee" instead of "it." In that case this would be a
promise that Peter will not die similar to the promise given to the
"beloved disciple" in John 21. Origen and Porphyry both say that
Peter had received such a promise. In the situation that prevailed
in the early churches, it would not be surprising that Peter himself
or some Christian prophet who created Matt 16:18 was convinced that
the leader of the Christian community at least will be alive when
the Lord returns. However, things did not quite go that way, as John
21 shows.
In John 21:18, the risen Jesus
prophesies about Peter:
Very truly, I tell
you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and
to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will
stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt
around you and take you where you do not wish to go.
This is interpreted in an editorial
comment as a prophecy of Peter's martyrdom:
He said this to
indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.
That here the prophesied fate of Peter
is understood as martyrdom is made clear by reference to that death
that glorifies God. Such a description of suffering and martyrdom is
found in 1 Pet 4:16 and Martyrdom of Polycarp 14:3,
19:2. However, it is clear that this interpretation is not the
original meaning of the prophecy. Note that in the fourth gospel, as
in other gospels, earlier traditions can be interpreted in highly
creative ways (cf. the interpretation in John 2:21 of Jesus' words
to the Jews: "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it
up"; also see the reinterpretation of the earlier prophecy about the
immortality of the beloved disciple in John 21:23). We can make
better sense of the original prophecy and its interpretation if we
assume that Peter did reach a helpless old age, possibly falling
sick, and then died. This was clearly not fitting for the leader of
a community whose members were expected either not to die or to die
as martyrs. Consequently, the Christians had to do something about
the manner of Peter's death. First a prophecy about the death of
Peter through old age and sickness was attributed to Jesus. This is
similar to the way Jesus was credit with the foreknowledge of other
embarrassing traditions such as the betrayal by one of the twelve,
denial by Peter etc. Then after some time had passed Peter's death
was turned into a martyrdom. The prophecy was then understood as a
prophecy of martyrdom. From 21:23 it is clear that the "beloved
disciple" died considerable time after Peter and therefore John 21
was written many years after the death of Peter.
ANDREW
In the synoptic gospels Andrew (a Greek
name signifying "manhood") is given no action of his own but is
simply a tag-along brother of Peter. And even this role diminishes
as we go from the earliest Mark to the latest Luke. In Mark Andrew
is mentioned, apart from the listing, in three scenes:
* his call, along
with his brother, from fishing to discipleship,
* healing of Peter's
mother in law,
* discourse about
the signs of the end.
Matthew leaves him only in the first of
these three scenes while Luke does not mention him in any of them.
In complete contrast to the synoptics,
John's gospel presents Andrew as one of the most prominent, if not
the most prominent, disciple. He is the first disciple to be called.
And while in the synoptics he is called only as a companion of Peter
--Luke denies him even that mention -- in John, it is Andrew who
brings Peter to Jesus and makes him his disciple! Clearly for some
group in the Johannine community Andrew was the leading disciple,
superior even to Peter.
In John, Andrew is described as a
disciple of John the Baptist and it is the Baptist who introduces
Jesus to Andrew as the Lamb of God (1:35-40). There seems to be no
reasonable explanation of why John would present Andrew as the
Baptist's disciple and so we can accept the tradition as historical.
Perhaps Andrew's views were too close to that of the Baptist to be
acceptable to the church at large.
According to John, Andrew, Peter and
Philip were from Bethsaida. But Mark (1:21, 29), followed by Luke,
presents at least Peter and Andrew as residents of Capernaum.
Andrew is said to be crucified at Patras
in Achaea on an X-shaped cross. But there is no reference to that
effect in Acts or any prophecy about it in John or any other
gospels. Considering the importance given him by some groups in the
Johannine community it is surprising that no reference to his
crucifixion is found in John.
JAMES AND JOHN, SONS OF
ZEBEDEE
In Mark James and John are called
immediately after the call of Peter and Andrew. They are mending the
nets in their boat where there is present their father Zebedee and
some other workers when Jesus calls them; they immediately leave
their father and go with Jesus (1:19-20). They are then seen in the
house of Peter witnessing Jesus perform healings (1:29f.), at the
raising of Jairus' daughter (5:37), at the transfiguration (9:2), at
the apocalyptic instruction about the signs of the end (13:3) and at
Gethsemaine (14:32f.). On all these occasions James and John are
mentioned with Peter, and in 13:3 with Peter and Andrew, always in
the second and third positions. The two brothers appear by
themselves in Mark 10:35-45, where they ask for seats of honor next
to Jesus. John alone is mentioned in Mark 9:38-41, where he
complains about an exorcist.
Matthew and Luke each drops James and
John from four of these scenes. But Luke 9:51-56 has a unique story
in which the two brothers ask Jesus' permission to command fire on
the unbelieving Samaritans.
In Acts 3:1f we find John going with
Peter at the 9th hour (the hour of prayer) to the temple and then
perhaps speaking along with Peter (4:1). He also goes with Peter to
Samaria (8:14-17). Paul once mentions John. In Gal 2:9 he says that
during his second visit to Jerusalem he met with James (the brother
of Jesus, cf. 1:19), Cephas and John.
In the Ebionite Gospel, John and James
are first to be mentioned in the list of apostles, followed by Simon
(Peter) and Andrew. In Epistula Apostolorum, we find the order:
John, Thomas, Peter, Andrew and James.
In John the picture is uncertain. It has
been suggested that one of the two disciples of John the Baptist who
followed Jesus on the testimony of the Baptist and who is not named
(1:35, 40) is James the son of Zebedee who later introduces his
brother to Jesus. If so, the Johannine tradition or a section of it
gave considerable importance to the sons of Zebedee. If, however,
this suggestion is rejected, then we have the completely opposite
conclusion: The sons of Zebedee are of little importance in the
Johannine tradition because they are not mentioned at all except in
the appendix (John 21) which was clearly added later and which gives
the two disciples no special importance since they are last of the
named disciples, coming after not only Peter but also Thomas and
Nathanael.
There are four traditions about the sons
of Zebedee in the synoptic gospels that need to be considered in
some detail.
1) Mark
10:35-45 = Matt. 20:20-28. This passage like most
other passages of comparable length presents considerable
difficulties. James and John request--(in Matthew it is their mother
who makes the request) -- that Jesus grant them to sit, one on his
right hand and one on his left hand in his "glory" (Matthew:
"kingdom"). Jesus' response in the two synoptic gospels is that the
two disciples did not know what they were requesting. He asks them,
"Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the
baptism I am baptized with?" (Matthew omits the reference to
baptism). This looks like a rhetorical question which is understood
to have a negative answer even if the disciples may think that the
answer is affirmative. Yet Jesus goes on to predict that they will
drink the cup that he drinks and be baptized with the baptism with
which he is baptized. This is understood to be a prediction of the
martyrdom of James and John. But why this way of predicting
martyrdom? And how come the disciples could understand the cryptic
reference to their death but could not understand clear references
to the death of Jesus? Moreover, while there is no reason to doubt
the martyrdom of James, that of John is extremely dubious (see
below).
Now after Jesus has agreed that James
and John are not only able but actually willing to do what Jesus
asked them, one expects that he will grant them the two most
prominent positions in his kingdom. But in the next verse he tells
them that these positions are for those for whom they are prepared.
At this point (verse 41 in Mark) the dialogue moves in a different
direction. The remaining ten disciples are brought in. They are
angry at James and John. Jesus calls them and tells them that they
should not be like the Gentiles whose rulers lord it over them but
rather the leaders among them should be like servants.
It would seem that the passage from Mark
is made up of diverse traditions. First tradition used is found in
verses 35-37, 40. In this tradition James and John request that they
be given top positions in his messianic kingdom and Jesus denies the
request with the comment in 10:40: "To sit at my right hand or at my
left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been
prepared." This tradition might have originated from actual claims
on the part of James and John or on their behalf that they occupy
the two top positions in the Jesus movement and in the messianic
kingdom that was to come soon. Earlier the twelve had claimed or it
was claimed on their behalf that they will sit on twelve thrones,
presumably along with Jesus, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
James and John were now claiming the best seats on those thrones and
hence that they are the leaders of the Jesus movement. That no seat
of prominence is requested for Peter means that this is a rival
claim. It also means that James and John have developed their own
independent following. The story originally was created to counter
these claims. But the church preserved it in order to use it to
discourage members for coveting positions.
Verses 38-39 represent another
originally separate tradition. It stated that in order to share
Jesus' glory one needs to share also his suffering, represented here
as cup and baptism . This tradition was in use in the Markan church
to teach the members to be patient in the face of hardships. It was
early introduced in the story of the request of James and John.
However, after the martyrdom of James it was necessary to add the
note that James and John would indeed share the cup and baptism with
Jesus. It is almost certain that only James suffered martyrdom, at
least before the writing of Mark. That both brothers are said to
share the cup and baptism means simply that the sharing of the cup
and baptism does not necessarily mean death and that with the death
of one brother the other also suffered.
Finally, in verses 41-45 Mark has
introduced a theme linking greatness and service which is also
originally independent, since it is found in different forms and
contexts in the gospels (Mark 9:33-37 = Matt. 18:1-5 = Luke 9:46-48;
Luke 22:24-30 , John 13:12-20).
2) Luke
9:51-56. Here Jesus is going to Jerusalem and on the
way sends messengers to a village of the Samaritans who reject the
message. James and John ask Jesus, "Lord, do you want us to command
fire to come down from heaven and rebuke them?" (some authorities
add: "as Elijah did"). Jesus turned and rebuked them." According to
some textual authorities he also said: "You do not know what spirit
you are of, for the Son of Man has not come to destroy lives of
human beings but to save them." Even if the additional words "as
Elijah did" in v. 54 are not original, a comparison with Elijah is
suggested by the reference to the fire. It is very interesting that
James and John compare with Elijah not Jesus but themselves. It is
assumed that they have the power to command fire to come down from
heaven to consume whom they wish. Perhaps James and John saw
themselves as preparing the way for the return of Jesus as the
messianic king in an Elijah-type role. Or, perhaps in the original
tradition James and John asked Jesus to command fire to come down
from heaven, comparing him with Elijah. Luke or his source changed
the tradition because it was not acceptable that two of the most
important disciples identified Jesus with Elijah. The possibility
that James and John at one point believed Jesus to be Elijah is also
suggested by the words with which the passage under consideration
opens: "As the days were now coming to the full for him to be taken
up, he firmly set his face to Jerusalem." According to these words,
Jesus is going to Jerusalem to ascend to heaven and not to be
crucified! This suggests that this tradition comes from those who
did not believe in the crucifixion and who probably thought of Jesus
in the likeness of Elijah who was also taken up.
There is another indication that at one
point James and John might have been among those who believed in
Jesus as Elijah. John 1:34-42 says that there were two disciples
that followed Jesus: Andrew and an unnamed disciple. It has been
suggested that the unnamed disciple was James who finds his brother
John (just as Andrew found his brother Peter) and tells him: "We
have found Elijah." If so, then the three messianic roles denied
earlier to the Baptist -- Messiah, Prophet and Elijah -- would have
been given to Jesus. (See also Ch. 9)
If at one point James and John did
thought of Jesus as Elijah, they probably changed their minds when
they joined the twelve.
3) Mark
9:38-41 = Luke 9:49-50 (cf. Matt 10:40-42). Here John
complains to Jesus about an exorcist who uses the name of Jesus in
his exorcism. Disciples tried to stop him because he was not
following them. Jesus tells them to leave alone any one doing good
in his name.
The historicity of this story is called
into question by the unlikelihood of exorcism being practiced in the
name of Jesus in his life and the fact that the formula "in Jesus'
name" used by Mark in this story three times was current among the
early Christians (Acts 2:38, 3:6, 4:10,18, 30, 5:28, 40-41). It has
been pointed out that the liberal perspective expressed in the story
is better attributed to Jesus (Culpepper, John, the Son of
Zebedee, pp. 41-42 referring to E.A.Russell, "A Plea for
Tolerance (Mk. 9.38-40)," IBS 8 (1986): 154-60)). But this assumes
an early church with a unified point of view and under a single
authority. The fierce way in which Paul and the Jerusalem leaders
differed and yet cooperated with one another shows that many early
Christians might have had the liberal perspective expressed in the
story, showing that the story could come from the church despite its
liberal attitude.
It appears from the above-mentioned
stories that James and John at one point started to build following
of their own with the view that they will be the chief ministers of
Jesus when his messianic kingdom is established. In all the three
stores the sons of Zebedee appear very jealous for their leadership
and their mission. They want the best positions in Jesus' glory,
they wish for the fire of judgment on those who do not respond to
the Jesus mission, presumably as understood by them and they do not
want to tolerate any one using Jesus without walking with them,
i.e., without being under their leadership.
4) Mark 3:17. In his list of the
twelve, Mark mentions that James and John were given the name
Boanerges. Scholars are unable to explain the actual meaning of this
word with certainty but Mark translates it as "sons of thunder". It
is noteworthy that only the "inner three", Peter, James, and John,
are given new names. "In Jewish tradition, names were often given
either as a promise or as an act of laying upon the recipient a
specific task." The name "sons of thunder" for James and John means
that they "would be mighty voices, powerful witnesses." (Culpepper,
John, the Son of Zebedee, pp. 40, 50). This meaning is
consistent with the character of the two sons of Zebedee as painted
in the first three traditions discussed above. For some amount of
jealousy and ambition for leadership can be helpful to become a
powerful voice for a cause.
Martyrdom of James.
The character of the sons of thunder as painted in the above
traditions makes it hardly surprising that James, the senior of the
two brothers, was executed by Herod Agrippa I, especially when we
keep in mind the political situation under which the execution was
done.
This Herod Agrippa I had played a
helpful role in bringing Claudius to the throne after the
assassination of Caligula on 24 January 41. The new emperor rewarded
him by adding Judea and Samaria to his kingdom which previously
consisted of Galilee and Decapolis. The kingdom of Israel was thus
restored to its fullest extent under a Jewish king. Herod Agrippa I
thus became the last monarch to rule a kingdom like that of David.
But his was a very precarious kingdom. Any serious trouble from
within could result in his demotion or deposition. If James and John
were actively busy preparing for the return of Jesus as the
messianic king, this would be a direct challenge and threat to
Herod. He may thus find it necessary to stop this movement
immediately by executing its current head, James the son of Zebedee.
Luke tells us that King Herod "had
James, the brother of John, killed with the sword" (Acts 12:2). That
the tradition of James martyrdom is historical is confirmed by the
fact that after this he is not seen active in any of the sources.
Even in the medieval Spanish legends about James, the patron saint
of Spain, it is only the bones of James that travel once he had made
a supposed trip to Spain and returned to Judea. Hans Conzelman has
observed: "Only one [of the twelve] remains at least largely
excluded from the legend-building, James the son of Zebedee, who was
put to death about the year 43 (Acts 12:2). Nevertheless, the
feature which is also typical of other martyrdoms was invented
concerning his martyrdom, that the soldier who conducted him to the
court was converted and was likewise beheaded. And in spite of the
New Testament, the Spanish church succeeded in connecting him with
her country and in preparing a burial place for him which is
venerated down to the present (Santiago de Compostela)" (History
of Primitive Christianity, p. 150).
James is the first known eyewitness
disciple of Jesus to be martyred and the only one whose martyrdom
can be affirmed with confidence. Yet tradition left us no Acts of
his martyrdom and no epistles or gospels are attributed to him. Why
is this so? There are two reasons. First, relative anonymity is the
normal fate of those who are involved in a messianic or eschalogical
movement and whose brief career is brought to an end by sure
execution. Had Jesus been known to be really executed, the same
would have been his fate. Second, if the picture developed above is
correct, James represented a political messianism of the type that
Christianity came by and large to reject.
The execution of James raises another
pertinent question. Why did Herod not execute Peter and John? The
sparing of John is understandable because James was probably the
senior of the two brothers, as is shown by the fact that he is
almost always mentioned before John. It was natural for Herod to go
after the leader. But in the Jesus movement Peter was by all
indication the chief figure. Why was he spared?
Rulers had, it seems, learnt to
distinguish between various groups and individuals within the Jesus
movement. We saw earlier that the persecution of Stephenite
Hellenists did not affect the twelve. Now the execution of James son
of Zebedee did not involve the execution of Peter and persecution of
James, the brother of Jesus. Herod considered only James son of
Zebedee to be dangerous.
Acts does say that Herod, after seeing
that the execution of James pleased the Jews, proceeded to arrest
Peter also. This was during the feast of Unleavened Bread. Herod put
Peter into a prison guarded by four squads of soldiers, intending to
bring him to the people after the Passover. However, Acts tells us
that Peter was released by an angel of the Lord (12:6-19). This
looks like an attempt to provide an answer to the very question, Why
was Peter not executed. Or it may be that Peter was indeed arrested
and then released or that he was arrested and somehow managed to
escape.
We are told in Acts that after his
escape Peter left and went to another place (12:17) and also that he
went to live in Caesarea (12:19). From this point Peter is no longer
the leading figure in the Jerusalem church, although he is present
along with James the brother of Jesus and John during Paul's second
visit to Jerusalem (Acts 15:7ff.; Gal 2:1, 9). The note about
Peter's departure suggests that Peter was indeed under some threat
from Herod and lends support to the historicity of his arrest by
Herod and his release/escape. For, such a threat from Herod would
explain why Peter temporarily moved from Jerusalem. If threat from
Herod Agrippa I was indeed the cause of Peter's move from Jerusalem,
then he probably returned to the city sometimes after 44 C.E., the
year of Herod's death, and before Paul's second visit.
The story of Peter's arrest and
miraculous escape may well have been inspired by the story of Jesus'
arrest and escape or vice versa. Both Peter and Jesus were arrested
around Passover time. Each then goes to his companions gathered in a
house who at first do not believe in his return and take him to be a
ghost or an angel. Each gives a message for the other believers and
their leader (in case of Jesus the message was for "the disciples
and Peter" and in case of Peter, the message was for "James and the
believers").
The fate of John.
In contrast to his brother, the fate of John was unknown and
therefore there developed two opposing type of traditions about his
end something like what happened in case of Jesus. According to one
type of traditions he was martyred while according to the other he
died a natural death and was buried; sometimes he is said to be
assumed into heaven from the grave. The following quotations are
from R. Alan Culpepper, John the Son of Zebedee, pp.
171-174:
In Church History by
Philip of Side, written between 434 and 439 C.E., we read:
Papias says in the
second [of his five books] that John the Evangelist and his
brother James were slain by the Jews.
In one manuscript of the Chronicle of
George the Sinner (ca 840 C.E.), we read:
John has been deemed
worthy of martyrdom. For Papias, the Bishop of Hierapolis,
having been an eyewitness of his (or of it?), says in the
second book of his 'Dominical Oracles,' that he was killed by
the Jews, having evidently fulfilled, with his brother the
prediction of Christ concerning them."
George also says that Origen
corroborated this report in his Commentary on Matthew,
but concerning Matthew 20:23, Origen says only that Herod killed
James and that John was sent into exile by the emperor.
A homily (343 or 344 C.E.) from the
Syrian church father Aphraates claims:
Great and excellent
is the martyrdom of Jesus ... to him followed the faithful
martyr Stephen whom Jews stoned. Simon also and Paul were
perfect martyrs. James and John trod in the footsteps of their
Master Christ. Also other of the Apostles thereafter in divers
places confessed, and proved themselves true martyrs.
There is no reference to the martyrdom
of John in any extant document before the fourth century, unless
Mark 10:38-39 is interpreted as a prophecy after the fact of the
martyrdoms of both James and John. If Papias did refer to the
martyrdom of John, this would be the earliest such reference in a
known work. The statement in George the Sinner that John, with his
brother, suffered martyrdom in fulfillment of "the prediction of
Christ concerning them" suggests that Papias interpreted the
prophecy in Mark 10:39 as a prophecy of the martyrdom of both James
and John. Aphraates also seems to refer to the prophecy in Mark when
he says: "James and John trod in the footsteps of their Master
Christ". It is then possible that the view of John's martyrdom arose
from the prophecy in Mark rather than on the basis of an independent
tradition. In that case we have nothing more to go by than the
prophecy in Mark. But the use of Mark 10:39 as evidence of the
martyrdom of John flies in the face of the tradition that John lived
a very long life in Ephesus, which means that he died after the
writing of Mark. It is true that this tradition of John's long life
probably arose out of a mistaken identification of John with the
"beloved disciple" mentioned in the fourth gospel, but such an
identification is more understandable if the tradition did not know
of John's fate than if it knew firmly of his martyrdom before the
writing of Mark.
The martyrdom of John is also called
into serious question by alternative traditions about how the life
of this apostle ended. Acts of John, dated to the later part
of the second century, tells in its chapters 111-115 that John had
his own grave dug up, lied in it and gave up his spirit.
Subsequently, this view becomes much more common than the view of
John's martyrdom. It is expanded by the legend that John's tomb
became empty soon after his burial or that he lies there in a
sleep-like state with his body preserved from all form of
corruption.
Culpepper, after a discussion of the
above traditions says: "The cumulative weight of the references just
considered has been enough to keep alive the possibility of the
early martyrdom of John but not sufficient to override the tradition
of his long residence in Ephesus. As the tradition of the Ephesian
residence becomes more suspect there has naturally been renewed
interest in the testimonies to John's early martyrdom. It is not
necessarily an either/or choice, however, between the traditions of
a long residence in Ephesus or an early martyrdom in Jerusalem. Both
may be legendary, and the circumstances of the death of John may be
unknown, as are the circumstances of the death of most of the other
apostles."
PHILIP
The name is Greek and means "lover of
horses". Philip is the fifth apostle in all synoptic lists and is
never mentioned in the synoptic gospels apart from these lists. But
John gives him a considerable importance. He is one of those
disciples whose call is actually described and in fact he is the
only disciple who is "found" by Jesus himself (1:43-46). He, along
with Andrew, has a role in the miraculous feeding of the multitude
(6:5-9) and in introducing the Gentiles to the Jesus movement
(12:21f.). During the farewell discourses he asks Jesus to show the
disciples the Father (14:8f.).
Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, says that
Philip was buried at Hierapolis, and that two of his daughters lived
there as virgins, while a third lived and died in Ephesus (Eus
5.24). This seems to come out of a confusion between Philip the
apostle and Philip the evangelist (one of the seven), since
according to the earlier testimony of Acts it is Philip the
evangelist who has four unmarried daughters (21:8) and they are
later said to be buried at Hierapolis. Irenaeus thought that Philip
the apostle was the same person as Philip the evangelist. This is in
all probability a mistake, since, unless there are some special
reasons to the contrary, it is much more understandable that two
persons with the same name are identified than a single person
becomes two persons. It has been suggested that Philip was
originally one of the twelve and later went over to the seven, a
suggestion which according to Hengel cannot be excluded as a
possibility (Between Jesus and Paul, p. 14). But in that case
we should not expect the twelve or their followers to forgive
Philip's act of betrayal so easily as to leave no story maligning
him.
THOMAS
The name is Aramaic and means "twin".
Thomas is yet another of the twelve who is a mere name in the
synoptic lists of apostles but is given some importance in John.
John translates the apostle's name into Greek and mentions him in
the following passages:
In 11:16, upon hearing of the death of
Lazarus and Jesus' decision to go to Judea, Thomas makes the strange
suggestion to the disciples: "Let us go with him so that we may die
with him".
In 14:5, when Jesus talks about his
departure and tells the disciples that they know where he is going,
Thomas questions Jesus' statement. This is at odds with the
assumption made by Thomas earlier that Jesus was about to die.
In 20:24-29, Thomas doubts whether the
Jesus seen by the other disciples is the crucified Jesus. This
passage shows that Thomas remained a symbol of the doubt about the
crucifixion of Jesus for a much longer time than the rest of the
disciples (see also Ch. 12).
A gospel, dated by many scholars in the
first century, is attributed to Thomas, which shows that the apostle
had a following of his own. This gospel is silent about the
crucifixion of Jesus, thus lending further support for our view that
Thomas did not accept the story of the crucifixion and resurrection.
JUDAS ISCARIOT
All four gospels agree that Judas was
one of the twelve, something that we cannot say about most disciples
in the synoptic lists. There are also several references to him in
every gospel, mostly in connection with his "betrayal". We defer a
more detailed look at these references to Ch. 18.
Apart from the above seven, there are no
other disciples who are found in all the lists of the twelve and
about whom anything more than a mention of the name is found in the
canonical gospels.
From the above summary of gospel
traditions about the twelve it seems that sometime after its
formation the twelve were scattered as a group. For a while the two
sets of brothers: Peter and Andrew, James and John held together.
Then Andrew took his own separate direction. By the time of Paul's
first visit to Jerusalem James and John were also separated and
Peter was forging relations with Paul and was in some type of
alliance with James, the brother of Jesus. After the martyrdom of
James, son of Zebedee, his brother John moved closer again to Peter
and to James the brother of Jesus.
The family of Jesus
In some Jesus groups in Palestine the
family of Jesus, especially his brothers had great influence and
importance. Gentile Christianity at first shows indifference and
even hostility towards Jesus' family but after its victory over
Palestinian Christianity it begins to be much kinder to them.
Some at least of Jesus' brothers were
married (1 Cor 9:5) and probably had children. Such descendants of
Jesus' family continued to have prestige in some Jesus communities
in Palestine. Hegesippus (a Christian from Palestine or a nearby
place who about the year 180 C.E. compiled his 'Memoirs' which is
known to us only through quotations by Eusebius in his Church
History) speaks of two grandsons of Jude, a brother of Jesus, who
were brought from Palestine before the emperor Domitian when they
were denounced by some "heretics" (i.e. Jews) for being descendants
of David. Domitian, during his examination of the two brothers,
learnt that they had no wealth and their interest was not in the
kingdom of this world. He, therefore, released them out of contempt
and the two became leaders in the Churches (Eusebius, Eccl.
hist., 3.19-20).
Hegesippus also tells us that after the
martyrdom of Jesus' brother James, who was designated "bishop" of
Jerusalem by the apostles, his cousin, Simeon, son of Clopas, uncle
of Jesus and of James, was appointed to be James' successor and thus
to be the second bishop of Jerusalem. In the time of Trajan, this
Simeon, like the grandsons of Jude, is denounced as being a son of
David and of being a Christian. He was tortured for several days,
but bore all this suffering bravely even though he was 120. Finally
he was crucified. The office of the bishop of Jerusalem continued to
be held by the relations of Jesus. Eusebius records a total of 15
relations of Jesus who held the position of "bishop" of Jerusalem (Eccl.
hist 2.23.4, 3. 11, 3.32.3-6, 4.5.3-4). Much of this
information is subject to the usual doubts, but it nevertheless
shows that relations of Jesus continued to be active in the
Palestinian churches for several generations.
The importance that the relations of
Jesus acquired in the churches was not least because of their claims
to be the descendants of David. Although Jesus' immediate family is
not known to push such claims, some later relations of Jesus were
quite active in promoting their Davidic descent. According to Julius
Africanus (160-240 C.E.), "Herod, who had no drop of Israelitish
blood in his veins and was stung by the consciousness of his base
origins, burnt the registers of their families ... A few careful
people had private records of their own, having either remembered
the names or recovered them from copies, and took pride in
preserving the memory of their aristocratic origin. These included
the people ... known as Desposyni ["master's people"]
because of their relationship to the savior's family." From Nazareth
and Kochaba they visited the rest of Palestine and, wherever they
went, expounded the genealogies from the Books of Chronicles and
also from memory as far as they were able (as quoted by Eusebius in
his Eccl. hist 1.7.13-14). The fact that the relations of
Jesus had to prove their Davidic descent by using the books of
Chronicles in contradictory ways and Julius Africanus had to justify
this fact by the fictional destruction of the pedigrees of the Jews
by Herod calls into question Jesus' own Davidic descent, although it
is mentioned as early as Paul.
JAMES, THE BROTHER OF
JESUS
Of all the relatives of Jesus active in
the church, none is more important than his brother James. He is the
most historical figure in the first-century Christianity after Paul
in the sense that with the exception of Paul, there is no other
figure about whom we have more detailed and more reliable
information. The information about James is found in his own letter,
in Paul, in Hegesippus, in some apocryphal Christian writings and in
Josephus. The mention of James by Josephus makes him the only
"Christian" figure other than Jesus to be found in an early
non-Christian source.
In Paul there are four brief but
extremely valuable references to James. In Gal 1:18-19 he tells us
that during his first visit to Jerusalem he stayed with Peter for
fifteen days and that he "did not see any other apostles except
James the brother of the Lord." In Gal 2:9 he tells us that James
(probably the brother of Jesus) was among the three "so-called
pillars" of the Jerusalem church. In Gal 2:12 he says that during
his visit to Antioch Peter used to eat with the Gentiles until
certain people came from James, after which "he drew back and kept
himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction." And in 1 Cor
15:7 he testifies that fourth of a sequence of six appearances of
the risen Jesus was to James. James is probably also included among
"all the apostles" to whom Jesus made his fifth appearance.
Some apocryphal traditions go further
and present James to be the first believing witness of the
resurrection. Jerome says:
The Gospel called
the Gospel according to the Hebrews which was recently
translated by me into Greek and Latin, which Origen frequently
uses, records after the resurrection of the Savior:
And when the Lord
had given the linen cloth to the servant of the priest, he
went to James and appeared to him. For James had sworn that he
would not eat bread from that hour in which he had drunk the
cup of the Lord until he should see him risen from among them
that sleep. And shortly thereafter the Lord said: Bring a
table and bread! And immediately it is added: he took the
bread and blessed it and brake it and gave to James the Just
and said to him: My brother, eat thy bread, for the Son of Man
is risen from among them that sleep. (NTA, I, p. 165)
Connected with the tradition that James
was the first witness of the resurrection seems to be the tradition
that James was the direct successor of Jesus. This tradition is
found in the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas which may come from around
the middle of the first century. Also, in Clement of Alexandria
James is designated as the first bishop of Jerusalem, even before
Peter. In the pseudo-Clementines, Recognitions, James is
installed as the bishop of Jerusalem by Jesus himself (1.44) and not
by the apostles as Eusebius says (Eccl. hist 4.5.3).
According to Epiphanius (78.7), Jesus entrusted his throne over the
earth in the first place to James; for this he was fitted on the one
hand due to his holiness and on the other hand due to his being the
brother of Jesus and son of Joseph and therefore the heir of David
and his throne (29.4) (NTA, I, pp. 419).
James seems to have had an upright
character by the standards of the time, as is suggested not only by
the reference to his holiness in Epiphanius but also by much earlier
evidence. He was called "the Just," a title used as early as the
Gospel of Thomas. His letter also reveals a person specially
concerned about ethical and moral principles. According to a report
of Hegesippus, quoted by Eusebius (Eccl. Hist. 2.23.6) James
"was found on his knees asking for forgiveness on behalf of the
people, so that his knees became hard like a camel's." Hence he was
called "Oblias" which was supposed to mean "protection of the
people." This is consistent with the emphasis that the Epistle of
James places on prayer. Finally, his martyrdom is perhaps another
indication that he was a man of some principles, for, one can often
avoid execution by showing a little flexibility.
Because of his relation with Jesus James
attracted many of those people who were previously drawn to Jesus
and because of his just and moral character he also won the respect
of many members of other Jewish groups and their leaders. He enjoyed
such prestige in the populace and such good relations with the
temple authorities that he was permitted to enter the sanctuary of
the temple where other laymen were forbidden to enter. Hegesippus
says that this special permission for James was because he never
wore wool but only linen, that is, because of his ascetic ways. But
this looks like an attempt to cover the embarrassingly close
relations that James had with Jews and Jewish authorities. The
prestige and good relations enjoyed by James among many Jews is also
attested by Josephus when he tells us that when James, along with
some unnamed "others", was executed by the high priest Annas the
younger, the fair-minded and law-abiding people in the city took
offence at this, and turned to King Agrippa, while others went to
meet the governor Albinus and informed him of Annas' arbitrary
judicial proceedings. This led to the deposition of Annas.
James was faithful to his powerful
constituency of Jewish Christians and other Jews, which enabled him
to replace Peter at one point as the leader of the Jerusalem church.
But eventually it was Peter who was destined to be viewed as the
chief successor of Jesus, no doubt because of his flexibility.
The prestige James enjoyed among the
Jews and the good relations that existed by and large between him
and the temple authorities provide us with the background to
understand John 7:1-9. In this passage, the brothers of Jesus want
him to go to Jerusalem and enhance his fame by showing his works.
Jesus replies: "My time has not yet come, but your time is always
here. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify
against it that its works are evil" (7:7). That is, James and other
brothers of Jesus got along with the world (which in John often
means the Jews) while Jesus did not. The brothers were after fame
and position while Jesus has no interest in this world, for his
kingdom is not of this world (19:36). He has a different agenda.
Therefore he goes to Jerusalem separately (7:10). Most of this
reflects the situation in the church as perceived by John and not
the life of Jesus. The separate trips to Jerusalem by Jesus and his
brothers represent separate directions taken by Gentile Christianity
and by James and other brothers of Jesus. This is consistent with
the absence in James' epistle of almost all the beliefs that are so
dear to Gentile Christianity such as the belief in Jesus' death and
resurrection, if also not the belief in Jesus as the Christ. James
probably had too much information to believe in such things.
There are indications that James
behaved, and was perceived to behave, as a leader in his own right,
of the same type of movement that was led first by John the Baptist
and then by Jesus. Thus the Gospel of Thomas, though in its preamble
is explicitly attributed to Thomas, who is presented superior to
other disciples such as Peter and Matthew (saying 13), glorifies
James even more than Thomas. Saying 12 reads:
The disciples said
to Jesus: "We know that you are going to leave us: who will be
chief over us?" Jesus said to them: "In the place to which you
go, betake yourselves to James the Just, on whose behalf heaven
and earth alike were made."
In the Jewish tradition it is usually
for figures like Abraham, Moses and the Messiah that heaven and
earth are said to be made (L. Ginzberg, The Legends of the
Jews, V, pp. 67-68). This suggests that at one point James
was regarded as a prophet or a messianic figure in his own right.
The Apocryphon of James, towards its conclusion says that
James sent the disciples "separately to another place" (16.7f; NTA,
I, p. 338). If this refers to the sending of the disciples into the
world, then James plays here a role attributed in Matt 28:19 to
Jesus. That James considered himself as an independent successor of
Jesus (although one who shared common outlook with his brother) is
shown by his epistle where he writes on his own authority and never
quotes Jesus and quite possibly did not even mention him. James as a
member of Jesus' family had a natural advantage in the Jesus
movement and therefore he did not have to go out of his way to
glorify Jesus to advance himself in that movement, as did others,
especially Paul who never even met Jesus.
The position of James in his own eyes
and in the eyes of some other people could then be like that of
Jesus after John the Baptist. Just as Jesus was a disciple of John
but after his mentor's death became an independent leader, so also
James became an independent leader after Jesus. And just as Jesus
often talked without referring to the teaching of the Baptist,
similarly, James did not always write or speak in reference to what
Jesus said or did. But while in time Jesus overshadowed John, James
could not overshadow Jesus but was himself overshadowed by his
brother. This was partly because James lacked charismatic
personality, but mainly because of the same reason for which Jesus
overshadowed John, namely that James was truly killed while
Jesus was not and therefore could be believed to be living in
heaven. Had Jesus been truly executed while circumstances of James'
death were ambiguous, it is quite possible that today the central
figure of Christianity would be James.
Thus it is not quite right to refer to
James as the head of the "Christian" church in Jerusalem; he headed
his own group, which was a Jesus group because of James' blood
connection with Jesus and also because James represented the outlook
of his brother.
Although, James and other members of
Jesus' family were largely maligned in the New Testament times
because they followed a direction opposite to that of most brands of
Christianity, the Christian churches had to sooner or later
christianize them and thus accept them. For most Christians could
not feel comfortable with the fact that Jesus' own mother and
brothers and sisters had views radically different from their own,
especially the brother who was for decades a leading figure in the
Jerusalem church. The christianization and acceptance of the family
of Jesus already started with Luke. In Acts 1:14 Luke brings the
twelve and the family of Jesus in a happy united group with which
the church starts, even though in his gospel he reproduces Mark's
story of Jesus' renouncement of his family.
The christianization of James is more
clearly visible in the account of James' execution given by
Hegesippus:
At a Passover, where Jews and pagans
came together, some scribes and Pharisees urged upon James that in
virtue of his prestige and righteousness he should give testimony
from the pinnacle of the temple to the crowds assembled in the
temple court, as to what was the "gate" or significance of Jesus the
Crucified. In reply, James declared in a loud voice: "What do you
ask me with regard to Jesus, the Son of Man? He sits in heaven at
the right hand of the Great Power, and will one day come on the
clouds of heaven." Thereupon the scribes and the Pharisees hurled
him down, and since he was still alive on the ground, began to stone
him. But he prayed on his knees: "I pray thee, Lord God our Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do." Then a priest of the
Rechabites (Epiphanius 78.14 substitutes Simeon for the priest)
cried out: "Stop! The Just is praying for you!" Then one of them, a
fuller, took the cudgel he used for beating clothes, and with it
struck him on the head; and so James met with a martyr's death.
James was buried on the spot near the temple, and his tomb was still
there in the time of Hegesippus. Shortly after this event Vespasian
besieged the Jews (NTA, pp. 419-420). This tradition about the
martyrdom of James is also briefly mentioned in Clement of
Alexandria. In a fragment of the Hypotyposes as
preserved by Eusebius we read a reference to James the Just "who was
thrown down from the pinnacle of the temple, and beaten to death
with a fuller's club" (Hist. Ecc. 2.1.5). The
tradition is also found in the Second Apocryphon of James
(NH Codex V, 44:11-63:2).
In this tradition of James' execution he
has become a Christian martyr, although even here a reference to the
death of Jesus is missing in the confession of James: The Jews want
him to talk about the significance of Jesus the Crucified,
which to them must have meant that Jesus was the false messiah and
an accursed one. In his confession, James completely avoids any
reference to the crucifixion and talks only of the ascension
of Jesus the Son of Man. It is as if James is saying: You, the
scribes and Pharisees, want me to say that Jesus was crucified which
signifies that he was a false messiah and an accursed one. But I say
that Jesus was the true Messiah, the Son of Man; he was not
crucified but was raised to heaven and is seated at God's right hand
and he will one day return on the clouds of heaven. This confession
makes him a Christian like that of the twelve who believed that
Jesus was in heaven waiting to return as the Messiah. A more
thorough christianization of James takes place in the
Apocryphon of James where James not only believes in the
messiahship of Jesus but is also instructed by Jesus himself in the
necessity to believe in the crucifixion and hence in the
resurrection (p. 5:33-7:6 of Ms.) (see Ch. 12)).
Fortunately, we have in Josephus another
reference to the execution of James which allows us to assess
Hegesippus' account. Josephus tells us that in the early part of the
three-month period that elapsed between the sudden death of the
Roman procurator Festus (c. 62 C. E.) and the arrival in Judea of
his successor Albinus, a newly appointed high priest, Annas the
younger, extremely rash and cruel, took advantage of the absence of
a Roman governor for independent action.
He convened a
judicial session of the Sanhedrin and brought before it the
brother of Jesus the so-called Christ -- James by name -- and
some others, whom he charged with breaking the law and handed
over to be stoned to death (Ant. 20.200).
Subsequently, Josephus tells us that
some people took offence at what Annas did and complained to King
Agrippa and governor Albinus. As a result, the younger Annas, a son
of the senior Annas mentioned in the New Testament (Luke 3:2, John
18:13, Acts 4:6) was removed from the position of the high priest.
All this suggests a political motive for the execution: Annas, in
order to consolidate his position, wanted to get rid of potential
opponents such as James, who might have objected to Annas'
appointment as the high priest on grounds of his weak character.
Hegesippus' account, on the other hand, does not mention the key
figure of Annas and suggests an impulsive action taken by the
scribes and Pharisees, the gospel opponents of Jesus, and motivated
by religious conflict with Christianity. Also, if James was indeed
hurled from the pinnacle of the temple, this would have formed a
story remarkable enough for Josephus to know and mention. The date
implied by Josephus is 62 C.E. while Hegesippus account suggests
about 66.
It is difficult to know how the
tradition of James being pushed from the pinnacle of the temple for
making his confession started. Perhaps, initially, the tradition
said that James made his confession from the pinnacle of the temple
without reference to his execution. Since martyrs often die
confessing their faith, the confession from the pinnacle of the
temple became an occasion and reason for James' execution. It was
easy to imagine that the method of execution was a push from the
pinnacle. However, there was another tradition that said that James
was stoned to death and so the fall was not considered enough to
kill James: he was allowed to live for some stoning to take place.
The detail that James met his death when he was struck by a fuller
with his cudgel seems to be historical: it is quite possible that
during the stoning of James a fuller did use his cudgel to put an
end to James, either as an act of mercy or of rage. The detail could
have been easily omitted by Josephus, so that his silence about it
does not speak against its historicity. In Hegesippus' account the
blow by the fuller probably serves the purpose of completing to
three the number of methods used for inflicting martyr's death; cf.
the Coptic Resurrection Story of Bartholomew in which the pious
Ananias dies through three-fold torture: stoning, the furnace and
the spear (NTA, I, p.420). But this purpose alone cannot explain the
story, for it is not clear why the third method should have been a
blow by a fuller. Also, in Clement of Alexandria the blow by the
fuller is mentioned but only two and not three methods of torture
are used.
It should be noted that Hegesippus,
compiled five books of 'Memoirs" in order to demonstrate the
reliability and unity of the Church's tradition over against "the
wild fantasies" of the Gnostics (Eccl. Hist. 2.23.6;
4.8.1f; 4.22.1; 2.23.3). He therefore either had to condemn James as
Mark and John do or to christianize him. In the last part of the
second century it was difficult for any Christian to condemn the
brother of Jesus who was for decades the leader of the Jerusalem
church. Christianizing him was the only choice. As noted above, even
about a century before Hegesippus, when Luke wanted to demonstrate
in Acts the reliability and the unity of the Church's tradition, he
could not condemn James and the rest of the family of Jesus.
THE Q PEOPLE
The Galilean people who collected and/or
produced the earlier traditions in Q were probably some of the
apostles to whom according to Paul (1 Cor 15:7) Jesus appeared along
with his brother, James. This is suggested by a number of
similarities between the letter of James and Q: both lack any
reference to the death, resurrection or appearances of Jesus; both
in their original form may have lacked any reference to the
messiahship of Jesus; both assume a mission centered on proclaiming
the imminent kingdom and judgment of God, on healing the sick and on
teaching of wisdom. Apart from the apostles mentioned in 1 Cor 15
along with James, the only other known group to which the origin of
Q may be assigned is the group of the twelve. But there are
indications that Q comes from a group other than the twelve. One
such indication is that Q mentions none of the twelve. The saying in
Luke 22:28-30 = Matt 19:28, where the followers of Jesus are
promised that they will sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of
Israel, may suggest such a mention, especially in view of Matthew's
reference to "twelve thrones" (Luke has only "thrones"). But in its
original form, its promise could be to any group of Jesus followers.
Moreover, the saying may not belong to the earlier layers of
tradition in Q: Kloppenborg assigns it to the last layer (see Mack,
The Lost Gospel, pp. 72, 102). It is also significant
that unlike the synoptic gospels, the mission sayings are not
addressed in Q to the twelve at the time of their appointment or at
some later time and that Luke expressly puts the mission sayings in
Q in the context of the sending of a group of apostles distinct from
the twelve (the group of seventy). (See also Ch. 31)
The Stephenite
Hellenists
The Hellenists in Jerusalem were those
Jews whose first language was Greek because they had lived outside
Palestine for a long time before they came to live in Jerusalem. But
along with the language they also acquired some of the way of life
and mode of thinking of the foreign lands in which they lived. The
term "Hellenists" when used by other Jews probably had a derogatory
sense, meaning something like: "followers of the Greeks" (Simon,
Stephen, 14ff.) Most of the Hellenists were Jews by birth but
some were proselytes, as, for example, Nicolaus of Antioch (Acts
6:5).
A group of Jerusalem Hellenists, led by
Stephen, had early accepted Jesus as a prophet. In order to
understand the story of these Stephenite Hellenists better it is
helpful to understand that those who live away from their country of
origin usually develop one or both of the following two attitudes:
either their attachment to their own country and religion increases
greatly or they become critics of their own traditions and religion.
The same two attitudes were found in the Jews of the Diaspora as
well as in those who returned to Palestine to live there. Hengel
notes that "the Jews who returned to Jerusalem from the Diaspora had
primarily religious reasons for their homecoming... As returnees
they felt a very deep tie to the Temple and the Torah; otherwise
they would not have returned to Judaea, the culture and economy of
which was hardly attractive ..." (Between Jesus and Paul, p.
18). However, it is possible that some of the Jews returned to
Jerusalem because they could not make it in the foreign lands.
Because of their circumstances they were stuck in Jerusalem without
any religious attachment to the city. In any case, it is evident
that along with very orthodox Hellenists who were very attached to
the temple, there were those who were opposed to it. If these latter
type of Hellenists also had religious reasons for returning to
Jerusalem, then these reasons must have included the preaching of
their radical rejection of the temple and its cult.
There are indications that among the
Hellenists there existed a reform movement aimed at freeing Judaism
from, among other things, the hold of the temple, its cult and its
priests. This movement might have originated as a reaction to the
attitude of the Palestinian Jews who considered the religious
worship of those in the Diaspora inferior because it was performed
away from the temple. As a reaction, some of the Jews in the
Diaspora devalued the temple and its cult. The Jewish scripture
provided basis for such a rejection or devaluation of the temple and
its cult. 2 Sam 7:2-6 reflects early opposition to the temple,
coming out of a conservative tendency to stick to the older way in
which God dwelt in tabernacles and moved from place to place with
his semi-nomadic people. The prophets attacked the temple and its
cult, though for the most part, they spoke against the excesses
connected with the cult and not the cult itself (but see Jer
7:22-23). Some evidence of the anti-temple outlook among the
Hellenist Jews is provided by the fourth book of the Sibylline
Oracles, parts of which are pre-Christian. It pays tribute
to those "who turn away from every temple and every altar, futile
buildings of speechless stone, defiled by the blood of living
creatures and the offering of animals" (4.27-30). Stephen and his
group were probably linked with such an anti-temple movement among
the Hellenists, as is shown by his speech.
STEPHEN'S SPEECH
The speech that Stephen makes at his
trial can be divided into two clearly distinguishable parts. First
part (7:2-50) is a relatively long recounting of the history of the
Jews from Abraham to David. In this part the tone is very polite:
Stephen addresses his judges as "brothers and fathers" (v. 2) and he
identifies with the listeners and the Jews generally by speaking of
"our ancestors" and "our race" (vv. 2, 19). Also, this
part contains no reference to Jesus. The second part (7:51-53)
probably does have a reference to Jesus. In this part, the listeners
are addressed in a very hostile manner ("you stiff-necked people
...") and the speaker dissociates himself from his listeners as if
they belong to a different race (note "your ancestors" in
7:52). This suggests that the two parts originally belonged to
different situations and it is Luke who has brought them together.
One strong possibility is that the longer part recounting the
history of the Jews originally formed part of the preaching that
followed the descent of the Spirit upon the Hellenists (see Ch. 2).
Luke has removed it from that context as part of his plan to deny
the Hellenists any existence prior to establishing the twelve as the
sole successors of Jesus in Jerusalem. The second part belonged to a
preaching at a later stage when the relation between the seven and
the other Jews had deteriorated. It is also possible that the second
part originally belonged to a trial speech.
We now make some comments on each of the
two parts of the speech.
As already noted, in the first part
Jesus plays little or no role. The quotation of Deut 18:15 in Acts
7:37 is often understood to be an identification of Jesus with the
prophet like Moses. But this is far from clear on the basis of the
speech itself. At some stage, Christians did indeed identify Jesus
with the prophet like Moses, the identification finding expression
in Peter's speech in Acts 3:22 and later in Pseudo-Clementine
literature (Recognitions, I, 36-43), perhaps to affirm an
essential unity and continuity between Moses and Jesus and to negate
Pauline rejection of the Mosaic law. But if we read Stephen's speech
on its own terms we cannot support such an identification. The
verse, in fact, appears to be a later addition made during Hellenist
preaching among Samaritans who expected a Ta'eb on the basis of the
Deuteronomy passage. Sometimes considered a reincarnation of Moses,
this Ta'eb will restore the old tabernacle of the wilderness on top
of Mount Gerizim, together with the sacred vessels and the ark,
buried on that same spot since the time of Moses (J. Bowman, "Early
Samaritan Eschatology" JJS, 1955, p. 63, as used in Simon,
Stephen, p. 38). The addition of a quotation of Deut 18:15 could
have served the purpose of appealing to Samaritan beliefs which also
rejected the Jerusalem temple.
The reason that the first part of
Stephen's speech does not even mention Jesus is probably because it
is based on Stephenite views as they existed in writing before the
Hellenists started to use the Jesus story. This use of the Jesus
story by the Hellenists probably remained at an oral level until the
writing of the second part of the speech.
In order to understand the first part of
Stephen's speech, we need to inquire into the purpose behind
recounting the history of the Jews. In Acts some of the speeches by
Peter and Paul also use the history of the Jews, but in those
speeches the historical references point to the coming of the
Messiah in the person of Jesus. In Stephen's speech Jewish history
serves no such purpose, supporting our view that the Hellenists
originally did not believe Jesus to be the Messiah. Connected with
this observation is the fact that Stephen's speech does not contain
any promises of redemption. Contrast this with the speeches of Peter
and Paul in Acts where the Jews or their leaders are blamed for the
death of Jesus and yet excused because they acted out of ignorance
and even were acting as instruments of divine Providence in that by
condemning Jesus they were fulfilling scriptures about the Messiah
(Acts 3: 19, 13:26-27). Stephen does say that the righteous one was
foretold by the prophets (7:52) but the statement is made without
any mention of the promise of redemption. This is no doubt because
the Hellenists originally did not attach any messianic significance
to the work of Jesus.
The story of the Jewish people from the
days of Abraham to the settling in Palestine is also related
frequently in the Old Testament and Pseudepigrapha, but there the
purpose is often to magnify God and his people (Psalms 105:12-43,
106:6-42, Josh 24:2-13, Neh 9:7-31, Judith 5:6-18, Acts 13:16-41).
Again this is not the purpose that the history plays in Stephen's
speech.
Stephen's purpose in recounting the
Jewish history is brought out in the concluding verses of the first
part of the speech:
45) ... And [the
tent of testimony] was there until the time of David,
46) who found favor
with God and asked that he might find a dwelling place for the
God [or, house] of Jacob.
47) But it was
Solomon who built a house for him. 48) Yet the Most High does
not dwell in houses made with human hands; as the prophet says,
49) "Heaven is my
throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will
you build for me, says the Lord, or, what is the place of my
rest? Did not my hands make all these things?" (Acts 7:45-50).
The quotation in verses 48-50 is from
Isaiah (66:1-2) and it shows the point of the speech to be that the
temple is completely unnecessary. Verse 46 makes the same point. It
is to be connected with Psalm 132:5:
I will not give sleep
to mine eyes, ... until I find out a place for the Lord, an
habitation for the Mighty One of Jacob.
This does not refer to the building of a
temple -- "to find out a place" is not "to build a temple" -- but is
to be understood in terms of the translation of the ark from
Kirjath-Jearim to Zion as described in 2 Sam 6:17 (cf. 1 Chronicles
15:3):
And they brought the
ark of the Lord, and set it in its place in the midst of the
tabernacle that David had pitched for it.
The "place" or "habitation" mentioned in
Psalm 132:5 is then not the temple but that precise spot on the hill
of Zion on which the ark rested under a tent. The same meaning is to
be read in verse 46.
Verses 47-48 take up the contrast found
in 2 Sam 7:2-6 between, on the one hand, the house that David
intended to build but did not because God disapproved of the plan
and, on the other hand, the tabernacle in which God had always moved
before David. But unlike 2 Sam, which elsewhere approves the
building of the temple by Solomon (7:13-15), Stephen's speech
consistently maintains a negative attitude to that action of
Solomon.
It has been suggested that Stephen's
speech connects the Israelite worship of the gods made with hands
(7:40-43) with Solomon's building of the temple supposedly as a
dwelling place for God, thus equating the temple cult with idolatry.
If so, the reading "house of Jacob" (v. 46), as in NRSV and
Jerusalem Bible, is preferable to "God of Jacob" accepted in most
other translations. This would remove the contradiction between the
claim that God did not dwell in man-made buildings but dwelt in a
man-made tent. This contradiction, however, existed before the
Hellenists and it is not necessary that they were bothered by it.
Also, the reading "house of Jacob" may be a later attempt to resolve
the contradiction. Be that as it may, the conclusion of the first
part of the speech shows that the objective of narrating the history
of Israel is to prove the following point: From Abraham to David the
religion of Israel was practiced without any temple and subsequently
the prophets taught that God does not dwell in man-made buildings.
Hence the temple and its cult are not part of the true religion of
Israel. It is possible that this point was made with much greater
force than is now the case. Luke has toned down the anti-temple
rhetoric because Luke is particularly sympathetic to the temple (see
the very positive view of the temple he paints in the beginning of
his gospel (2:27, 37, 46), his omission of the charge in Mark 14:58
(=Matt 26:61) that Jesus said he would destroy the temple, and his
willingness to present the early Christians in Jerusalem as quite
attached to the temple (Acts 2:46)).
The second part of Stephen's speech
(7:51-53) reads:
51) You stiff-necked
people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are forever
opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do.
52) Which of the
prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who
foretold the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have
become his betrayers and murderers.
53) You are the ones
that received the law as ordained by angels, and yet you have
not kept it. (7:51-53)
The description of the opponents in
verse 51 as stubborn or stiff-necked, as uncircumcised in heart and
as opponents of the Holy Spirit is derived from the Old Testament
(Lev 26:41, Deut 10:16, Isa 63:10).
The idea that "Israel kills its prophet"
used in verse 52 is stated repeatedly in the New Testament (Matt.
5:11-12, 23:29-36, 37-39=Luke 6:22-23, 11:47-51; 13:34-35 (Q); Luke
11:49ff., 13:31-33; Acts 7:52; 1 Thess 2:15). (Q passages apply the
idea to the persecution of Christian prophets and teachers and not
to Jesus.) The idea is based on the Old Testament tradition. In 2
Kings 17:7-20 we read of the disobedience of Israel to God which
continued in the face of God's repeated warnings through "all his
prophets." These prophets called people to repentance and to
obedience to God's commandments but the people did not heed and kept
hardening their necks (cf. "you stiff-necked people" in Acts 7:51).
Later, in Neh. 9:26f., exile is said to be a divine punishment for
Israel because "they became disobedient," "rebelled against God" and
killed God's prophets "who bore witness against them to bring them
back" to God. According to Stephenite Hellenists Jesus was one of
these prophets and he was killed for the same reason: he bore
witness against the Jews to bring them back to the true Law of God
which had been adulterated with the addition of the temple cult.
The "righteous one" mentioned in verse
52 is probably Jesus. This abrupt way of referring to Jesus without
any introduction suggests that the second part of the speech was
originally preceded by some material that Luke has omitted. This
omitted material probably consisted of some general condemnation of
the temple and the introduction of Jesus as a prophet in support of
that condemnation. Luke has removed the reference to Jesus as
anti-temple prophet, just as he has omitted the anti-temple saying
in Mark 14:4.
In verse 53 Stephen says that the law
has been received by the disposition of angels. Also, the verse
seems to dissociate the speaker from the law which is described as
being given to "you" and not to us, as in the first part of the
speech (verse 38). Schmithals (Paul and James, pp. 19ff.)
argues that Stephenite Hellenists not only rejected the temple cult
but also considered the law as abolished. He observes, quoting E.
Haenchen that the persecution of the Hellenists implies "that their
'gospel' necessarily contained something which the Jews could not
bear and which was lacking in the preaching of the 'Hebrews'". Then
he notes that "it was not uncommon in Jewry to have only a slight
regard for the cult and its sacrifices" without such Jews being
executed. Indeed, the criticism of the cult and its sacrifices is
found already in the Old Testament (1 King 8:27, 1 Sam 15:22, Psalms
40:6, 50:8ff., 51:17, Isa. 1:11ff., 66:1, Jer 7:21f., Hos 6:6, Micah
6:6-8). Also, a lax attitude towards the law was not the reason for
Stephen's execution, since "there were plenty of Jews who had a lax
attitude to the Law or disputed or ignored some of its regulations
who were not executed." And finally, Schmithals notes, it is
difficult to believe that "the Jews killed Stephen because he did
not impose the Jewish Law on a Gentile who became a
Christian." All these observations are correct but one cannot
conclude from them that Stephen was killed because he declared the
Law as a whole to be abolished. This conclusion forgets that
hostility does not always depend only on what is said but also on
the manner in which it is said, on how organized, serious and
threatening a criticism is. If this is kept in mind, the execution
of Stephen can be explained just by his criticism of the temple
cult, a criticism which amounted to its rejection and not an appeal
for its reform. Stephenite attitude towards the law cannot thus be
determined on the basis of the mere fact of his execution but must
be supported on the basis of Stephen's speech, our main source of
the views of the early Hellenists. And in that speech only verse 53
in the second part can be considered any indication of a rejection
of the law. The whole first part of the speech has a decidedly
positive attitude towards the law. Moses is glorified and it is
expressly said that he "received living oracles to give to us"
(verse 38). Indeed, the first part of the speech does not even
contain any opposition to the sacrifices, despite the fact that the
temple is rejected. In 7:42-43, the following scripture is quoted:
Did you offer to me
slain victims and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, O
house of Israel? No; you took along the tent of Moloch, and the
star of your god Rephan, the images that you made to worship; so I
will remove you from beyond Babylon.
The passage is an interpreted quotation
of Amos 5:25-27. Here the sacrifices are considered in a positive
way, which shows no thought of abolition of the Law.
It is only in verse 53 in the second
part of the speech that there seems to be some indication that the
Stephenite Hellenists rejected the law as a whole. If so, it
reflects a later attitude on the part of some Hellenists. But even
verse 53 does not necessarily imply a rejection of the law.
The idea that the law was given by the angels is found elsewhere in
Jewish and Christian texts and may be understood as debasing the law
by stressing that it was not given directly by God (Gal 3:18, cf.
Heb 2:2) or as safeguarding divine transcendence (Philo, On
Dreams, 1.141ff; Josephus, Ant., 15.5.3). In the first
part of the speech the idea is already used without any negative
connotations when in verse 38 it is said the angel spoke to Moses in
the wilderness (see, also, verses 30ff.). There is no reason that
one must understand the reference to angels in verse 53 in a
negative way. Also, the words in verse 53 that "you are the ones
that received the law ...and yet you have not kept it" need not mean
a distinction between the listeners and the speaker of the type
which implies a rejection of the law. Such address is part of the
prophetic way of speech, especially in the context of condemnation
of the ways of the people of Israel or a group among them. Thus
Jeremiah, upon being rejected by some people, speaks of "you and
your ancestors" and of "your land" (Jer 44:21-22) without, of
course, meaning that he stopped being one of the people of Israel.
Thus early Stephenite Hellenists
probably did not consider the law to be abolished. Their mission was
primarily concerned with showing that God does not need a fixed
place like the temple for sacrifices or worship or his presence. The
worship of the Jews in the Diaspora without any reference to the
temple is not only quite valid but is also based on the true
interpretation of divine will as revealed through the whole history
of the Israelite people. There is thus some point in the comparison
made by Simon between Stephen and the 16th century reformers such as
Luther and Calvin. Stephen aimed to root out all the adulterated
practices and beliefs heaped up by centuries upon the religion of
Moses, just as Luther and Calvin aimed to root out corruptions and
additions to the true Gospel found in medieval Catholicism.
Watchword on one side is "back to the authentic Gospel" and on the
other "back to the authentic Law of Moses." (Stephen, 46f.)
On one side the papacy is rejected as a departure from the true
gospel and on the other the temple cult is condemned as an
adulteration in the authentic Law of Moses.
In summary, Stephen's speech is composed
of two parts:
1) The first part is
based on the preaching of the Hellenists in Jerusalem in which the
speaker treats the people with respect and politeness. This
preaching, which summarized Israelite history from Abraham to
David with a view to point out that God does not need a fixed
place as his residence, does not in any way refer to Jesus and was
probably done by some Hellenists even before the appearance of
Jesus.
2) The second part is
based on traditions belonging or purported to belong to a stage
after the use of Jesus had become a fixed part of Stephenite
preaching and after the hostility between Stephen and the other
Jews had greatly increased. This part could originally belong to a
trial speech which presented Stephen as a courageous martyr who,
in the manner of the martyrs of old, bore witness against his
unjust and evil persecutors. Reflecting bitterness of the
persecution suffered by the Hellenists at the hands of their
fellow-Jews and their authorities, the second part dissociates the
speaker from the audience and addresses the audience in a tone of
harsh condemnation. It originally mentioned Jesus as a prophet who
also condemned the temple cult and who for thus bearing witness to
the truth was martyred by the Jews.
Luke has, first of all, combined the two
parts and, second of all, removed from the second part a reference
to Jesus' condemnation of the temple cult.
RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE
EXECUTION OF STEPHEN
In the trial and stoning of Stephen,
Hellenists zealous for the temple played a prominent part. Acts
6:8-14 tells us that the hostility with Stephen started among the
Hellenists, no doubt those who were zealous for the temple and the
law. These same Hellenists later instigated charges against him,
seized him and brought him before the Sanhedrin.
According to Acts, one zealous Hellenist
who participated in the execution of Stephen was Paul (7:58, 8:1)
who is later presented as acting as a persecutor of Christians under
the authority of the high priest (9:1). The tradition is doubtful in
view of Paul's own statement in Gal 2:22 that he was not known by
face to those in Judea even after his conversion, unless Paul is
talking about the other Jesus groups in Judea, such as the twelve,
that were not affected by the persecution of the Hellenists.
Hengel has suggested that the execution
of Stephen was entirely a mob lynching without any involvement of
the temple authorities. But it is difficult to see how the
Hellenists could have acted without involvement by the temple
authorities. The leaders of the Hellenist synagogues, consisting, as
they did, of those who returned to Jerusalem from the Diaspora
because of their zeal for "the Temple and the Law and the holiness
of the land" (Hengel, Between Jesus and Paul, p. 20) are
expected to be in close touch with the temple authorities and act
according to their advice. It is true that synagogue authorities
"had the possibility of exercising discipline -- extending in some
instances as far as the flogging mentioned in Deut. 25:3. By his own
confession, Paul had been flogged five times by the synagogue
authorities (2 Cor. 11:24)" (p. 20). But this was outside Jerusalem.
In Jerusalem such freedom on the part of the synagogues to exercise
discipline would have posed an intolerable diffusion of authority
for the Temple rule.
AFTER STEPHEN
Acts says that the persecution of the
Hellenists continued after the execution of Stephen and led to their
exodus from Jerusalem (8:1). This persecution probably consisted of
some lashes. Jewish law prescribes thirty-nine lashes (makkot
arbaim) for ignoring specific prohibitions and a
disciplinary lashing (makkot mardut) at the discretion
of the local court up to a maximum (kath' hyperbolen)
of thirty-nine lashes. In addition to such forms of legal
punishment, there would be other consequences such as economic
hardships because of hostile attitude. In case of the seven, the
twelve denied food to their poor from the common funds. Similar
forms of difficulties may be experienced from other members of the
Jewish community. Thus some lashing and some form of economic
boycott forced the Stephenite Hellenists to leave Jerusalem. Paul
probably subjected early Jesus followers in Damascus to similar type
of persecution and for the same reason: for preaching against the
temple.
After leaving Jerusalem, the Stephenite
Hellenists carry a mission outside Judea, first in Samaria and
elsewhere in Palestine and then in Phoenicia and Cyprus, their
furthest outpost being in Antioch, 250 miles from Galilee (8:5ff.,
8:26, 40, 11:19-21). They mostly preached among Jews. We have no way
of knowing how the content of their preaching changed with time, but
it is to be expected that there were some changes.
Philip, the most important Hellenist
after Stephen seems to have taken residence in Caesarea. According
to Acts, Paul's party visited Philip in Caesarea and stayed with him
as they were on their way to Jerusalem. They are joined by some
disciples in Caesarea who later take them to the house of one Mnason
of Cyprus where they stay, presumably upon their arrival in
Jerusalem (21:7-15). This suggests that there were once again
Hellenists in Jerusalem. Paul never mentions Philip, perhaps because
Philip ceased to have any great importance in the Jesus movement
which had developed in directions other than Philip stood for. Any
importance that Philip was given was due to his great seniority as a
member of the Jesus movement. A contact between Pauline tradition
and the Stephenite Hellenist tradition is also found in 1 Thess
2:14-16 (see Ch. 10).
Apart from the list in Acts 6:5, none of
the early Hellenists other than Stephen and Philip are mentioned
elsewhere in Acts or in the New Testament, unless the Nicolatans
condemned in Rev 2:6, 15 for eating food sacrificed for idols and
committing fornication, are followers of Nicolaus.
Women
The gospels tell us, and we have no
reason to doubt, that "followers" of Jesus included women. Probably
the most comprehensive statement of this fact is given by Luke:
The twelve were with
him as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and
infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had
gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward Chuza, and
Susanna, and many others, who provided for him [or them] out of
their resources. (8:1-3).
Mark also says that several women
followed Jesus in Galilee and ministered to him and traveled to
Jerusalem with him (15:40). The gospel tradition also mentions
several women by name as witnesses of Jesus' crucifixion, burial,
and the empty tomb. Of these the most frequently mentioned name is
that of Mary Magdalene, from the village Magdala on the west side of
the Sea of Galilee. Other women appearing as witnesses of the
crucifixion etc are: Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses,
Saloame (Mark 15:40), the mother of the sons of Zebedee (Matt 27:56)
Joanna (Luke 24:10) the sister of Jesus' mother, Mary of Clopas
(John 19:25), Martha and Sarah (Epistula Apostolorum 9).
For the most part the role of women in
the life of Jesus was to serve at meals and provide some financial
support, as Mark and Luke tell us. But in a story in Luke, Jesus
prefers women who go beyond this role and sit at his feet to learn
what he had to teach (10:38-42).
It is difficult to say how active these
women followers were in the Jesus movement after his departure. In
Acts 1:14 Luke says that the earliest church in Jerusalem included
some women, mentioning by name only Jesus' mother. But subsequently
in Acts they do not play any role. Both Paul and Acts, however,
agree that there were women in the early church who prophesied (1
Cor 11:5, Acts 21:9), although these were probably not among the
followers of Jesus but joined the church after his departure.
In Paul and the synoptic tradition we do
not hear the voices of any women, whether they followed Jesus or
joined the Jesus movement after him. This is not surprising, given
the Jewish attitude towards women at the time, which is reflected by
Paul himself, as in the following passage:
As in all the
churches of the saints, women should be silent in the churches.
For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate,
as the law also says. If there is anything they desire to know,
let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a
woman to speak in church. (1 Cor 14:33-35)
The silencing of women in the churches
naturally contributes to the silencing of the voices of women
followers of Jesus in the orthodox tradition. But this silencing is
also partly due to the same reason for which Jesus himself, his
eyewitness male disciples and his relatives are not, for the most
part, allowed to speak for themselves: what they knew and said did
not fit with the emerging orthodoxy.
If it were not for some special
circumstances, to be uncovered in detail in Part VI, which resulted
in women followers becoming witnesses of the empty tomb and then of
the crucifixion and burial, we would probably have not heard
anything at all about Jesus' women followers in the synoptic
tradition. But it is otherwise in the Gnostic tradition, not because
what the women had to say was more in support of gnosticism than of
the orthodox position but because of a more positive attitude
towards women in the Gnostic tradition and also because of the
Gnostic tendency to use figures that are neglected in the orthodox
tradition. The Gospel of John, which partly comes from the Gnostic
tradition, tells extensive stories about women in John 4 (Samaritan
woman) and John 11:1-12:8 (Mary and Martha). The Gnostic Gospel of
Thomas ends with the verse:
Simon Peter said to
them: Let Mary go forth from among us, for women are not worthy
of the Life. Jesus said: Behold, I shall lead her, that I may
make her male, in order that she also may become a living spirit
like you males. For every woman who makes herself male shall
enter the kingdom of heaven (Logion 114)
The fact that Jesus will first make Mary
male before she enters the kingdom of God does not mean that male is
superior but reflects the view that the Gnostic is beyond gender.
The Gospel of Thomas could probably also have said that the male had
to become female in order to enter the kingdom of God, for in logion
22 we read:
When you make the
two one, ... and when you make the male and the female into a
single one, that male be not male and the female not female,
..., then shall you enter the kingdom [of God].
Indeed, it is because the Gnostic is
beyond gender that the Gnostic tradition could have a positive
attitude towards women.
In the later Gnostic tradition Mary
[Magdalene] is at times given a very privileged position, sometimes
even above Peter and the twelve. In Pistis Sophia, for example, of
the 46 questions put to Jesus by the disciples, 39 are asked by Mary
Magdalene. Even some gospels are attributed to her: The "Little
Questions of Mary," "the Great Questions of Mary" and the Gospel of
Mary. In the Gospel, Mary encourages the disciples to go forward
with the mission Jesus entrusted to them and also teaches them some
of the revelations she received from Jesus separately. She, however,
meets with unbelief and contempt from some of the male disciples:
But Andrew answered
and said to the brethren, "Tell me, what do you think with
regard to what she says? I at least do not believe that the
Savior said this. For certainly these doctrines have other
meanings." Peter in answer spoke with reference to things of
this kind, and asked them about the Savior, "Did he then speak
privily with a woman rather than with us, and not openly? Shall
we turn about and all hearken unto her? Has he preferred her
over against us?" Then Mary wept and said to Peter, "My brother
Peter, what do you then believe? Do you believe that I imagined
this myself in my heart, or that I would lie about the Savior?"
Levi answered (and) said to Peter, "Peter, you have ever been of
a hasty temper. Now I see how you exercise yourself against the
woman like the adversaries. But if the Savior has made her
worthy, who then are you, that you reject her? Certainly the
Savior knows her surely enough. Therefore did he love her more
than us. Let us rather be ashamed, put on the perfect Man, as he
charged us, and proclaim the Gospel, without requiring any
further command or any further law beyond that which the Savior
said (NTA I, 343).
But despite thus doing some justice to
women followers of Jesus, the Gnostic tradition did not really break
their silence, for they never speak for themselves in the Gnostic
tradition any more than in the orthodox tradition. The result is
that we know next to nothing about them beyond the fact of their
existence and the fact that some of them were rich enough to provide
financial support to Jesus and that some were cured of diseases,
mostly demonic possession, by Jesus.
Tax collectors and
sinners
Sinners were people who had given up
trying to live according to the Jewish law in all matters. Tax
collectors were a particular type of sinners (Luke 19:7, where
Zacchaeus is a sinner by virtue only of the fact that he is a tax
collector) who as the description suggests collected tax on behalf
of the Roman occupiers or local Jewish rulers. They were always well
off and sometimes rich, as in the case of Zacchaeus. It was often
assumed that they extorted from the people more than was due (Luke
3:13) and this was considered to be one of the reason they were rich
and sinners (Luke 19:8).
John's baptism was primarily directed to
sinners (cf. Luke 3:13, 7:27, Matt 21:32), for those who were
committed to the law were provided by the law itself a system of
obtaining forgiveness of their failings. After John sinners also
gathered around Jesus.
What part these sinners, including the
tax collectors played in the Jesus movement, both during the
ministry and after the departure of Jesus? Since the tax collectors
and sinners were generally prosperous they probably supported Jesus
financially, both by money and provisions. Zacchaeus the tax
collector hosts Jesus in Jerusalem and donates half of his money to
the poor, presumably the poor in the Jesus movement (Luke 19:5, 8).
Jesus eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners, according to
both Q (Luke 7:29= Matt 11:19) and Mark (2:15-17) (cf. Luke 15:1-2).
A female sinner anoints Jesus with an expensive ointment (Luke
7:37-38).
Despite their strong presence during the
ministry of Jesus, tax collectors and sinners are absent from the
early mainstream church. Neither Paul nor Acts say anything about
them. In some Jesus group they are even rejected like the Gentiles
(Matt 18:17, cf. Matt 5:46). However, this indifference and
hostility probably did not drive them away from the Jesus movement.
In fact, they seem to have formed a loose Jesus group in Galilee
centered around Levi the tax collector who may have distinguished
himself on the basis of his knowledge about religion. This is
suggested by the existence of a number of traditions concerning the
tax collectors and sinners in the gospels which are not historical
and which could not have been created by any other known group,
since there is no evidence of any such group being interested in tax
collectors and sinners to the point of creating stories about them
and Jesus.
Among the traditions coming from the tax
collectors and sinners is probably Mark 2:13-17 = Matt. 9:9-13 =
Luke 5:27-32, which describes the call of Levi the tax collector in
a way that is fitting only for the most prominent members of the
group of the twelve. Yet Levi is not included in the lists of the
twelve. Then there are also the following puzzling facts: a) Mark
and the Gospel of Peter describe Levi as "son of Alphaeus" whereas
the apostolic lists include a "son of Alphaeus" named James; b)
Matthew changes "Levi" to "Matthew" in his parallel to Mark 2:13-17
and omits "son of Alphaeus" while Luke retains the name Levi and
omits only "son of Alphaeus;" and c) in his apostolic list Matthew
adds after the name of Matthew "the tax collector." How are we to
explain these facts?
It is possible that in the pre-Markan
tradition there existed many different apostolic lists and the
relative uniformity of the synoptic lists is due to Mark's
influence. In particular, the seventh and the ninth positions may
have had different names just as now the eleventh position has
different names. Levi the son of Alphaeus, Levi the tax collector,
Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus or James the younger may be some
of the names that occurred in the seventh and ninth position.
Two of the possibilities are:
Possibility 1
Position 7. Levi the tax collector
Position 9. James the son of Alphaeus
Possibility 2
Position 7. Matthew
Position 9. Levi the tax collector
That Levi was considered by some as one
of the twelve is shown not only by the story of his call, but also
by the fact that in the Gospel of Peter (14:60) and the Gospel of
Mary (see above), Levi is mentioned in the company of Peter and
Andrew in a way which probably assumes that he was among the twelve.
Starting with the above two lists we can
explain some of the differences between Mark, Matthew and Luke.
As noted earlier the prominence of the
tax collectors and sinners reduces considerably as we move from the
ministry of Jesus to the early church. This naturally created a
strong tendency to reject the inclusion of Levi the tax collector
among the twelve. This tendency favored Matthew for the seventh
position and James the son of Alphaeus for the ninth, giving us what
we find in
Mark's list
Position 7. Matthew
Position 9. James the son of Alphaeus
It was, however, thought by some that if
Levi is to be replaced in the apostolic list by Matthew, then he
must also be replaced by him in the call, since the call bestowed on
Levi an honor that elsewhere belonged only to some of the twelve.
This, of course, turned Matthew into a tax collector and so Matthew
began to be described as a tax collector. The first gospel reflects
this development.
Also, the presence of alternative names,
Levi the tax collector and James the son of Alphaeus, in the ninth
position results in Levi becoming son of Alphaeus as in Mark, which
both Matthew and Luke omit, either because it was rightly missing
from their copies of Mark or both evangelists correctly found it
inconsistent with the fact that the son of Alphaeus was James.
The above explanation of the facts does
not necessarily mean that Levi the tax collector was originally one
of the twelve. It only means that he was so considered by some Jesus
group.
It is generally agreed that Mark 2:1-3:6
is largely based on a pre-Markan source. Since it is precisely this
section that contains the call of Levi the tax collector, it is
possible that this set of traditions developed among the group of
Levi. Other similar stories involving tax collectors and sinners
such as Luke 7:36-50 (anointing by a sinful woman), 18:9-14 (the
parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector) and 19:1-10 (Jesus
and Zacchaeus) probably also come from this same group. One
characteristic of these stories is that they stress the importance
of love, devotion and humility which is considered more efficacious
for salvation than righteousness based on meticulous observance of
the law and resulting self-confidence. In the story of the anointing
by a sinful woman and of Zacchaeus the love, devotion and humility
is directed to Jesus (Luke 7:38, 19:4). Levi's group seems to have
identified Jesus with the Son of Man at some stage. Its members felt
that they were forgiven as a result of their love and devotion to
Jesus without having to go through any ritual sacrifices. In Mark
2:1-12, they are using the well-known healing of a paralytic to make
the point that Jesus could indeed forgive sins. In Luke 7:36-50, a
similar point is being made on the basis of the well-known story of
the anointing by a woman.
Zealots and the Jesus
movement
According to some scholars, we can
properly apply the term "zealots" or "zealot party" only for the
coalition formed after the revolt against Rome was well underway, in
the winter of 67-68 C.E. (Horsley, "The Death of Jesus", 408).
However, the nationalist-militant thinking represented by the
zealots was there throughout the Roman rule and now and then
manifested itself in ad hoc movements of varying degrees of
popular participation, scope and violence. Indeed, it seems fair to
say that an overwhelming majority shared the zealot sentiments and
objectives and the only thing that set them apart was their
willingness to act on the basis of those sentiments and objectives.
It thus seems justified to apply the term "zealot" to describe any
Jewish activist-nationalist movement as well as members of such a
movement. In what follows we shall use the term in this general
sense.
A clear evidence of the presence of
zealots in the Jesus movement from the earliest times is provided by
the fact that the list of the twelve in Mark and Matthew contains
the name of a Simon called Canaanaean. The lists in Luke and Acts
also mention a Simon but he is called the Zealot. It is almost
certain that the two Simons are one and the same person. The Aramaic
word for "zealot" is qannai which was rendered into
Greek as kananaios.
In John 1:45-51 a disciple given
considerable importance is named as Nathanael. He confesses Jesus in
the political terms "King of Israel." He himself is described in
nationalist terms as an Israeli in whom there is no deceit, that is,
a true Israelite.
There were occasions during the first
decades of the life of the Jesus movement when in Palestine
nationalist feelings were flared, which are expected to have
sustained a continued attraction between zealots and some of the
Jesus followers. Thus in 40 C.E. (?) Caligula (37-41 C.E.) ordered
the installation of his image in the Jerusalem temple which created
considerable protest among Jews, so much so that he later had to
withdraw his order. Then in 44 C.E. Cuspids Fadus, the procurator of
Palestine faced the revolt of Theudas (Josephus, Ant. 20.
5.1). Fadus was succeeded by Tiberius Alexander, a renegade Jew from
Alexandria and a nephew of the philosopher Philo. Tiberius Alexander
took strong actions against the zealots and crucified their two
leaders, James and Simon, who were sons of that Judas of Galilee who
had founded a zealot party. Other incidents of a more local nature
may have occurred which are not recorded by Josephus. Such incidents
are expected to bring out militant attitude in some of the Jesus
followers and generate a nationalist, militant understanding of his
mission, which in turn is expected to attract some more zealots to
Jesus movement.
We can see some evidence of militant
activity by some Christians in a note in Suetonius. He tells us that
Claudius "expelled the Jews from Rome because they, incited by
Chrestus, were constantly creating uproar" (Claudius 25.4).
Chrestus here clearly refers to Jesus, even though Jesus lived in
the reign of Tiberius and not Claudius. One thinks here of Acts 6:14
where Jews accuse Stephen of saying that "this Jesus will destroy
this place ..." This does not necessarily mean that Jesus was alive
at the time of Stephen's execution but simply that through his
movement Jesus will become the instrument of the destruction of the
temple. Perhaps Suetonius or his source simply heard some Jesus
followers say that "Christus will destroy the Roman power" or some
such thing, from which it was concluded that Christus was personally
inciting the trouble among the Jews of Rome. In any case, the
constant riots among the Jews in Rome is attributed to Jesus and
there is no distinction between the Jews and Christians: all of them
are expelled. Much of this finds confirmation from the New
Testament. Luke mentions two Jews that were affected by the
expulsion from Rome by order of Claudius -- Priscilla and her
husband Aquilla. Paul also mentions the two, using the shorter form
Prisca for Priscilla. They are introduced as Jews expelled from
Rome. They meet Paul as if they are already Jesus followers, for
their conversion is not described and they are later seen in
Ephesus, correcting the views of one Jesus follower named Apollos
(Acts 18:1-4, 26; 1 Cor 16:9; Rom 16:3).
Thus it seems that Christians in Rome
played a leading part in a political action that was militant enough
to warrant their expulsion and the expulsion of other Jews whom they
incited for such action. Although, Josephus does not mention similar
involvement of Jesus followers in Jewish political and militant
activity in Palestine, but it is expected that such involvement did
take place, for it is unlikely that all Jesus followers were immune
to the sort of Jewish sentiments that produced such actions.
The continued presence of zealots in the
Jesus movement was strong enough to find expression in a whole book
of considerable size which even managed to get a canonical status.
The New Testament book, Revelation, manifests a fierce, zealot-like,
anti-Roman sentiment. This sentiment is not typical of the Christian
writings of the period and therefore it cannot be explained in terms
of Christian experiences such as that of the Nero persecutions. It
must be an expression of a very specific tendency within the Jesus
movement and it is natural to link it with the zealots whose
presence in the Jesus movement, as we noted above, goes back to a
very early stage. It is true that the message of Revelation is not
activist but apocalyptic, but, as we learn from Josephus apocalyptic
prophecy often accompanied political and militant action by the
zealots and replaced it when possibilities of such action were
severely limited, as was the case when Revelation was written: some
decades after the crushing defeat of the first revolt in 70 C.E.
when Roman authorities were constantly looking for any sign of
nationalist organization among the Jews.
Scholars like Brandon have argued that
Jesus was himself a zealot who was captured and crucified when he
was leading a militant revolt to free Palestine. Most scholars have
rejected this theory and rightly so because it does not plausibly
explain a great mass of other evidence. Nevertheless the work of
Brandon and others have made one valid point, now recognized by many
scholars: the crucifixion should be naturally interpreted to mean
that Jesus was a political rebel. However, after recognizing this
fact scholars opposed to the theory of Brandon either say that the
crucifixion of Jesus was the result of a misunderstanding on the
part of the Romans and/or conscious framing by the Jewish
authorities on a false charge or they give some political dimension
to his work which is said to culminate in some way in his temple
action that led to the crucifixion (see Horsley, "The Death of
Jesus," 409-412). However, since the evidence admittedly does not
enable us to see what were Jesus' political aims, how he sought to
achieve those aims and how his activity led to his crucifixion,
another approach is to question whether Jesus was crucified in the
first place. One such alternative explanation taking much of the
evidence seriously is that from the very beginning Jesus story began
to be used by various groups and that zealots were among these
groups. Some of the sayings and actions that Brandon and others
attribute to Jesus in order to prove that he was a zealot should
then be attributed to the zealots using the Jesus story rather than
to Jesus himself. Thus the saying in Luke 22:36 ("...the one who has
a purse must take it, and likewise a bag. And the one who has no
sword must sell his cloak and buy one") is used by Brandon and
others to show the militant nature of Jesus' mission. But it can be
credited to a zealot in the Jesus movement who put it in the mouth
of Jesus in order to recruit support from the Jesus movement for
some zealot cause. This fabricator further supported his call to
arms by using Isa 5:12 (applied in an interpolation in Mark to the
crucifixion of Jesus between two bandits (lestes)) which he
interpreted to mean that the Messiah must be counted among the
transgressors like other zealots who were called robbers or bandits.
It is probably because of the scriptural application that the saying
survived. Luke accepts it for the same reason but not without
harmonizing it with other traditions and with the generally accepted
image of Jesus in the later part of the first century. By verse 35
he is trying to explain the tradition in which Jesus told his
missionaries not to carry purse or bag or sandal. His explanation of
the change in the command is: "now" it was time to fulfil the
scriptures that the Messiah should be counted among transgressors.
In verse 38 he tries to tone down the call to arms. The disciples
tell him that they have two swords, to which Jesus says, "it is
enough." This is not in the spirit of Jesus' earlier call to arms
which tells every one to get a sword even if it means selling one's
cloak. Luke means to convey the impression that Jesus' words were
meant to fulfill the scripture in a symbolic way. The context in
which Luke puts the call to arms is also worth noting. Jesus makes
this call after his last supper just before he leaves for the Mount
of Olives where he is arrested. This is Luke's way of telling us
that there never was any intention on the part of Jesus to use arms
and if one of the disciples did use a sword later and cut off the
ear of the slave of the high priest, then this was, firstly, after
the decision to arrest Jesus had already been made, and, secondly,
this was done without the approval of Jesus who in fact healed the
ear of the slave.
If zealots in the Jesus movement
invented sayings and produced books such as Revelation, then it is
possible that they also contributed some traditions about the
passion of Jesus. In particular the tradition that Jesus was
crucified by Romans as an insurrectionary and a messianic pretender
may well be their creation. This would then provide an alternative
explanation of the whole evidence on which the thesis of Brandon is
based. |