The First Christians / pt. 14
I bring this series of posts to a close with the migration of the Naṣarenes out of the land of Palestine. This was the watershed event that began the gradual decline of the first Christians, for after the so-called “flight to Pella” the early community no longer had a central authority—cf. the early reputation of James the Just in Jerusalem, referenced in GTh 12, Gal 1-2 and also by the Church Fathers.
The flight to Pella
It is unfortunate that we do not have precise details as to when that migration took place, for such historical information would help date “pre-migration” and “post-migration” texts. Scholars suspect that many gnostic “Jewish Christian” writings—such as the Gospel of Thomas and Odes of Solomon—were penned in Syria. Such works have been dated to I CE, and they ushered in a long train of ascetic and ebionite writings such as the various (apocryphal) acts of apostles, works that have colored Eastern Christianity through the centuries.
In any case, both the provenance and the dating of early Jewish-Christian writings support a migration of the Semitic (not Greek-speaking) Naṣarene fellowship roughly around the turn of the era. An earlier or later dating is also possible. For example, the Parthians invaded Judea ca. 40 BCE during a period of much turmoil. Alternatively, ca. 40 CE, Caligula ordered the erection of a statue of himself in the Jewish Temple of Jerusalem and riots occurred in many Jewish cities, provoking a stern Roman response. The Christian Naṣarene fellowship in this era was poor, small, and fragile. When and why it decided to forsake Palestine, the land of its ancestral traditions, and cross the Jordan River into the sparsely-inhabited regions of the Decapolis, may never be known.
The flight to Pella may alternatively have been connected with (or a result of) the martyrdom of the Naṣarene leader James the Just. Eusebius (Eccl. Hist. Chp. 23) dates the death of James to immediately before the First Jewish War—the late 60s CE—and blames the “Scribes and Pharisees” for his death.
I find it interesting that the pre-conversion Paul was a persecutor of Christians. I suspect that “Paul” is a cipher for “Hellenist Christians” and their developing theology. What role (if any) the Hellenists may have had in the persecution of Naṣarenes is, of course, unknown. In the turmoil preceding and during the First Jewish War, “pacifist” Jesus-followers would certainly have been suspect for their views, and perhaps even persecuted by Jews in general as collaborators, traitors, and natives unwilling to participate in the rebellion against Rome. Whether the Hellenist Christians (pre-conversion “Paul”) were implicated in “identifying” them is not out of the question. In Acts 8:1 “Paul approved of their killing him.” This refers to the stoning of Stephen at the hands of Jews, but H.J. Schoeps long ago suggested that Stephen is a stand-in for James the Just. In any case, the death of James and the imminent Jewish War may have impelled the now leaderless Naṣarenes to flee across the Jordan.
In addition to the New Testament writings (Acts 6, Galatians 1-2, etc), clues to the Naṣarene migration can be found in the overlooked (but also quite unreliable) Mandean scriptures. The Mandeans are unquestionably descendants of the early Naṣarenes. Unfortunately, the sacred texts of those “followers of John the Baptist” do not exist earlier than Islamic times and come to us only in very garbled form.
From Christians to heretics
What is clear is the contrasting attitude of the later Catholics towards the Naṣarenes before and after the flight to Pella. Before the migration, the early Christians in Jerusalem under James the Just are accorded grudging respect as disciples of Jesus:
The people of the Church in Jerusalem were commanded by an oracle given by revelation before the war to those in the city who were worthy of it to depart and dwell in one of the cities of Perea which they called Pella. To it those who believed on Christ traveled from Jerusalem, so that holy men had altogether deserted the royal capital of the Jews and the whole land of Judaea. (Eusebius, Church History 3, 5, 3.)
In the New Testament, despite his differences with “the acknowledged pillars” (Gal 2:9) in Jerusalem, Paul still raises a collection for the Naṣarenes (Gal 2:10; Rom 15:26; Acts 11:29-30; etc) and seeks their benediction to preach to the Gentiles. However, tension is evident between the two camps, as we read in Acts 6:1-6, where “the Hellenists complained against the Hebrews.” It is clear that the two factions of Christians were distinguished not only by language and culture (Greek speaking and Hellenist in custom vs. Semitic speaking and non-Hellenist) but also by theology. The Hellenists were incipient Catholics little tied to Mosaic law and Jewish halacha. They increasingly viewed their founding prophet as divine. The “Hebrews,” on the other hand, were Jewish-Christians who viewed the founding prophet as a man, a man who brought saving gnosis. They rejected the virgin birth and the resurrection of the body. They also rejected the doctrines of atonement and redemption by the Cross as elaborated in the writings of Paul. Theirs was the way of works and effort (Epistle of James), not the way of faith and belief.
After the flight to Pella, however, the rupture in the fellowship was unbridgeable and the early Jewish-Christians are henceforth denominated heretics:
This heresy of the Nazoraeans exists in Beroea in the neighborhood of Coele Syria and the Decapolis in the region of Pella and in Basanitis in the so-called Kokaba (Chochabe in Hebrew). From there it took its beginning after the exodus from Jerusalem when all the disciples went to live in Pella because Christ had told them to leave Jerusalem and to go away since it would undergo a siege. Because of this advice they lived in Perea after having moved to that place, as I said. (Epiphanius, Panarion 29,7,7-8.)
The Naṣarenes became ancestors to a bewildering variety of gnostic sects on the fringes of Christianity: Mandeans, Manichaeans, baptists and, in fact, to virtually the entire panoply of heretics chronicled, lampooned, and misrepresented by the Church Fathers.
The basic problem for the incipient Catholics was gnosticism. The Naṣarenes essentially taught that “he who finds the meaning of these words will not experience death” (GTh 1). But the Catholics would teach that effort is useless (Rom 9:16) and that “it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. Simply put, the way to salvation through gnosis is incompatible with with the way to salvation through faith.
And yet, the Catholics included in their New Testament much that is gnostic. “Seek and ye shall find” and “the truth will make you free” are but two examples (Mt 7:7; Jn 8:32). Jesus of Nazareth also teaches the need for extreme effort (Mk 12:33)—which is seemingly contrary to salvation though faith—as well as total renunciation: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.”
One finds a typically gnostic, world denying theme in many of Jesus’ words: “You are of this world; I am not of this world” (Jn 8:23; cf. 17:14, 16; 1 Jn 4:5). In fact, much that seems “gnostic” is to be found in the gospel bearing the name John. Is this pure coincidence? John was the birth name of Yeshu. We have already touched on a possible link between the “beloved disciple” of the Fourth Gospel and the “beloved disciple” of the Naṣarenes, noting that the Beloved Disciple himself penned the Gospel of John.
From the foregoing data (and much more evidence can be adduced) it is indisputable that the Catholics borrowed—and that they did so copiously—from existing Naṣarene teachings and writings. Had they not done so, the canonical gospels would undeniably be weaker. The early Catholics not only borrowed material from their Naṣarene precursors—they themselves were disaffected Naṣarenes. No doubt, many early “Pauline” Christians continued to be recruited from the ranks of the Naṣarenes.
We can now recreate the general religious situation that obtained in I CE, when the first stirrings of Catholicism were in the offing. A split was occurring among the Naṣarenes: some were less enthusiastic than others as regards the total commitment required, the rejection of worldly norms and familial ties reflected in the sayings cited above, the ebionism (rejection of wealth) and encratism (chastity) enjoined by the founding prophet. These disaffected Naṣarenes probably spoke Greek rather than Hebrew. It was only a matter of time before they would coalesce and break away. When they did so, they took with them an intimate acquaintance of Naṣarene teachings.
The great betrayal on the part of these disaffected Naṣarenes occurred with the wholesale rejection of the gnostic way. At that point, they possessed a body of sublime teachings that, however, they could not (or refused to) follow. But they had a great source of potential support: the large mass of humanity that also would not be able (or wish to) follow the radical, ultra-demanding Gnostic Way. What these incipient Catholics needed was clear: a hero to carry their more palatable message to the world. And this they found with the invention of Jesus of Nazareth, a savior who has already done all the “hard” work for us.
The early Catholics patterned their savior on the dim memory of Yeshu haNotsri. They retained his opposition to the “Scribes and Pharisees,” his trial, his execution by crucifixion. But they divorced their Jesus from any clear link to the Hasmonean Yeshu, for such a link would only serve to undermine the unprecedented nature of their Jesus. So they placed their hero in a (necessarily) different era—the era of the Herods—which was equally accessible to them through the historical writings of Josephus and others.
The result is the canonical gospels, which may have been finalized in quick succession in the decade of the 140s CE. The purposes of the gospels were to bring their new hero/savior to the masses, to obliterate any memory of the counter-figure Yeshu haNotsri, to negate the gnostic way to salvation, and to gain converts. The evangelists succeeded brilliantly in each of these endeavors.
And, as they say, the rest is history.
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