The First Christians / pt. 4
The purposes of this post are to situate the reader in a relatively unfamiliar time (the first century BCE) and political situation (the Hasmonean Kingdom giving way to Roman hegemony); as well as to introduce religious groups that go by various names and later petered out: Nasarenes, Nazoreans, Therapeutae, and Essenes.
The Roman general Pompey conquered Palestine in 63 BCE and subordinated it to the province of Syria. The conquest marked the end of the Hasmonean kingdom and was the last time Jews would rule the land until the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. The Temple still stood after the Roman conquest (it would be destroyed in 70 CE), priests and Pharisees continued to jockey for influence under puppet rulers, while threats and influences appeared—especially from the East (for example, the Parthian invasion of 40 BCE).
Dipping in the River Ganges for the purification of sins, a custom known in India since time immemorial.
The settlement of Qumran was founded, possibly as late as mid-I BCE (see below). Qum in Hebrew means “rise up, ascend”—a gnostic trope. Most scholars consider that the settlement was associated with the Essenes and that the Dead Sea Scrolls were written onsite. There is still much uncertainty regarding the relationship of Qumran to both the Jerusalem establishment and Christianity, with many proposed theories. Here I’ll present a view that incorporates my theory regarding Yeshu haNotsri as the founder of Christianity. Because Yeshu lived in the early decades of I BCE, Qumran could have been influenced by his ministry—whether it was or was not founded by him.
Yeshu’s first followers before his return to Palestine
Yeshu haNotsri was excommunicated from Judaism on his way back to Palestine from Alexandria. This was in 76 BCE (the year King Alexander Janneus died) or very shortly thereafter. Yeshu (“Savior”—his actual name was in all likelihood John) was then about twenty-four years old. He had lived in Egypt at least twelve years, that is, since at least 88 BCE when Janneus’ pogrom reached fever pitch in the mass crucifixion of Yeshu’s people, the Pharisees. It is possible that Yeshu’s father, Absalom, died in that bloody event. Thus, it would make sense that Yeshu fled to Egypt under the wing of his powerful uncle, Joshua ben Perachiah, the nasi or head of the Sanhedrin and the most powerful Pharisee in the land.
The fact that Yeshu was excommunicated on his way back from Egypt shows that his heretical ideas were already formed. This, in turn, leads us to a question: Were Yeshu’s first followers located in Alexandria, Egypt?
This must be accounted a real possibility, and certain clues do point in this direction. For example, the evangelist Mark “first established churches at the city of Alexandria” (Eusebius Hst.Eccl. II.16). In fact, the unpublished (and virtually unknown) Acts of Mark—partially translated for the first time on this website—reports not only that Mark was from Alexandria but also that he was a disciple of John the Baptist. This datum is clearly a remnant of the Naṣarene religion where the prophet was John “the Baptist.” (Similarly, in Acts 18:25, Apollos is described as knowing “only the baptism of John.”)
Then there is Philo’s interesting account of the Alexandrian Therapeutae—a group of quasi-Buddhist meditators whom Epiphanius (and subsequent church writers) considered Christians. Philo’s account dates to the first decades of this era—too early for the Therapeutae to have been influenced by “Jesus of Nazareth,” but perfectly situated chronologically for them to have been among the early Christian followers of another Jesus—Yeshu haNotsri. So, Epiphanius (Pan. 29.5.1) may have been right—the Therapeutae could have been Christians before Jesus of Nazareth.
Yeshu’s first followers after his return to Palestine
When the excommunicated but high-born Yeshu (two of his uncles were kings of Israel) returned to Palestine, it appears that he went to Samaria (cf. GJn 4). This was friendlier territory for him, for Samaria was outside the immediate reach of the Pharisees, now his mortal enemies. (They would eventually capture, try, and execute him.) Sectarian writings among the Dead Sea Scrolls (written in mid- to late-I BCE) attest to a “Man of the Lie” operating with great success in Samaria/Ephraim. I have proposed that the Man of the Lie was none other than Yeshu haNotsri. At least one passage in the DSS describes a confrontation between the Man of the Lie and the Teacher of Righteousness. However, it is not possible with such limited data to draw hard-and-fast conclusions. It may be that the pertinent DSS texts were penned one or several generations after the death of Yeshu and that they do not reflect the situation during Yeshu’s lifetime but a later state of affairs, when a fracture had already taken place in the fellowship.
The archaeologist Jodi Magness has recently discounted DeVaux’s early stage of Qumran activity. She now concludes that Qumran may have begun as late as 50 BCE. Her dating indicates that the Dead Sea Sect may have taken form in the generation after Yeshu’s ministry. This would permit the conjecture that the Dead Sea Sect was influenced by the ministry of Yeshu and perhaps even founded by him, and that there was some serious rupture in the fellowship at an early date. This appears plausible to me, and that such a rupture had to do with Yeshu-followers who maintained the Mosaic law (Qumranites) versus radical gnostics (Naṣarenes) who repudiated the Torah and remained active in Samaria. We are told that the Naṣarenes “would not accept the Pentateuch itself” (Epiphanius, Pan 18.1.3). I suspect they were identical with a non-Qumranic subsect of Essenes, encratites who were “a unique people… without women and renouncing sex entirely… into which no one is born” (Pliny the Elder, Nat. Hst. 5.73).
A major rupture in the Essene movement has been investigated by G. Boccaccini. In fact, it appears that there were at least three branches of the Essene movement (more on this in a subsequent post). All Essene subsects betray some gnostic influence, a key factor that may indicate the influence of Yeshu and, through him, the influence of distant Buddhism. The more radical, Yeshuine branch of Essenes active in Samaria (i.e. the Naṣarenes who would not accept the Pentateuch) were no longer Jews in a Mosaic sense. They broke away from Judaism and eventually gave rise to non-Jewish branches of gnosticism (the Gospel of Thomas, etc). On the other hand, the followers of Yeshu who refused to jettison Torah and tradition yielded an amalgam of gnosticism and Judaism (Qumran, certain Jewish Christian sects). For a time these various Yeshuine sects existed side-by-side in Palestine, but the Dead Sea scriptures already betray conflict between them in the first century BCE.
Epiphanius emphasizes Samaria as the origin of Christian heresy (Pan 9). He correctly notes that “Samaritans” means “watchmen.” In fact, the roots SMR and NTsR are synonymous, with the semantic field of “watch, protect.” Thus, from a very early time, “Samaritan” and “Naṣarene” were related. For Epiphanius, the Samaritans had four subsects: Essenes, Sebuaeans, Gorotheans, and Dositheans (Pan. 10). Interestingly, when Epiphanius describes Dositheus, he is actually describing the career of Yeshu:
He was a mixture, because he turned from the Jews to the Samaritan people. He was a leading student of the Law and the Jewish repetitions of it, and ambitious for the highest rank. But as he failed to achieve it and was not considered worthy of any special respect among the Jews, he defected to the Samaritans and founded this sect. (Pan. 13.1.3)
Here we see that “Dositheus” (read: Yeshu) was “a leading student of the Law” (indeed, he was groomed by Perachiah for the Sanhedrin), had something to do with “the highest rank” (he was a nephew of the king), “was not considered worthy of any special respect among the Jews” (he was excommunicated), “turned from the Jews to the Samaritan people” (upon his return from Egypt), and “defected to the Samaritans and founded this sect.”
The DSS describe followers of both parties (that of the Man of the Lie and that of the TR) defecting one to the other. This situation immediately recalls the Johannine account (Jn 1:35 ff) of John the Baptist’s followers going over to Jesus. (One can also point to echoes in the Pseudo-Clementine writings of the struggle between Dositheus and Simon Magus, as they contested for leadership of the fellowship after the death of John the Baptist—Homilies II.24 = NTA II.513).
The Dead Sea Sect has been extensively studied. Their sectarian writings reveal a severe, ascetic, encratite, and conservative offshoot of Judaism. They thought nothing of criticizing the Jerusalem Temple and the way it was being managed, of having a “higher interpretation” of Jewish scripture, and considered themselves “angels” already in this life (cf. Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice). Like the Therapeutae they had a probationary period of 2-3 years and spent a great deal of time parsing scripture. Both the Therapeutae and the Qumranites were ascetic, encratite, held goods in common, and were devoted to poverty. I view the Therapeutae and the Qumranites as two branches of early Jesus/Yeshu followers called Essenes. One branch (falsely termed “Nazoraeans” by Epiphanius, for no sect ever existed that used that name) was devoted to Jewish law and tradition. The other (correctly termed “Nasaraeans”) was not.
We have a great deal of literature from Qumran. In the next post we will look at early “Christian” literature belonging to the Naṣarenes, literature dating to I BCE that was not found at Qumran.