The Forgotten Hero: James and the Origins of Christianity

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

We concluded The First Orthodoxy with the following words from the author,

Jeffrey J. Butz:

 

(p.168) The answer is indeed quite obvious, once one sees the larger picture

that comes into view when all of the puzzle pieces are put together. But the

emergent picture is not easy for many Christians to take in all at once. Now

that we have completed the puzzle, we find ourselves facing a revolutionary (not

to say heretical) paradigm--that not only were James and the apostles thoroughly

Jewish in their beliefs and practice, but so was Jesus: the original orthodoxy

was in fact a strict form of messianic Judaism. And we have been led to this

conclusion, inexorably and step by step, by none other than the brother of the

Messiah himself, James the Just--the unsung hero of Christianity.

 

The Brother of Jesus (And the Lost Teachings of Christianity)

Chapter 8, pg. 168.

 

Here now, is The Forgotten Hero: James and the Origins of Christianity

 

Enjoy,

 

violet

 

 

 

 

The Forgotten Hero: James and the Origins of Christianity

 

(p.169)

 

" Do not think that I have come to abolish the law...I have come not to abolish

but to fulfill. " (Jesus, Matthew 5:17)

 

In light of the previous chapters, it should be quite clear why James lies at

the storm-center in the struggles of the early church to decide what was

orthodoxy and what was heresy. It is certainly no coincidence that he is

connected with so many defining events in the development of the early church,

both within his lifetime and for centuries afterward. James's undisputed

leadership of the Jerusalem church for thirty years after Jesus' death, his

unquestioned wisdom and vision at the Jerusalem Council, and his exalted status

in the memory of the later Jewish Christian communities, all attest to the

paramount role that James played in the struggles of the early church to define

its theology vis-vis parent Judaism.

 

Splitting Up The Family

 

Two of the most important Christian articles of faith that developed in

conjunction with the emergence of the embryonic Catholic Church were the

doctrine of the virgin birth and its codicil, the doctrine of the perpetual

virginity of Mary. (p.170) As these Marian beliefs became ever more central to

Christian theology, early church Fathers such as Origen, Epiphanius, Eusebius,

and Jerome began to seek alternative explanations for the relationship of Jesus

to those whom the early Christian writings call his " brothers " and " sisters. "

This brings us to a fascinating apocryphal writing, generally dated early third

century, known as the 'Protevangelium of James' which I have intentionally

reserved for now. Although quite popular in its time, the 'Protevangelium'

(Proto-gospel) was rejected by Jerome as heresy, and its use in the Western (but

not the Eastern) Churches of the Roman Empire soon died out. The

'Protevangelium' is a nativity story akin to the nativity stories in Matthew and

Luke, but with some surprising differences. In the 'Protevangelium', the birth

of Jesus takes a backseat to the details of Mary's virginity. Here, a midwife

who aids in Jesus' delivery discovers upon inspection that Mary's virginity is

miraculously intact after the delivery of Jesus. We can starkly see the earliest

traces of a belief in the perpetual virginity of the Mother of Jesus.

 

The 'Protevangelium' also portrays Joseph as a widower with children from a

previous marriage, thus explaining away Jesus' siblings. In a rather sublime

passage in the 'Protevangelium', a youthful James leads the ass on which the

pregnant Mary rides as the family makes their way to Bethlehem (17.2). This

became a beloved story in the Eastern Orthodox Church, where the theme worked

its way into art. A famous fourtheenth-century painting by Giotto, the 'Flight

into Egypt', depicts a variation of the story, with James leading the ass on

which Mary is tenderly carrying the infant Jesus as the family flees King

Herod's massacre of the infants. A more poignant statement of the essence of the

Epiphanian theory--that Jesus' siblings were actually step-siblings--would be

hard to find.

 

Jerome, however, rejected the 'Protevangelium' because it did not go far enough

in disassociating Joseph's children from Jesus. Jerome, who was the person

mainly responsible for priestly celibacy in the Catholic Church, also advocated

virginity for Joseph. Jerome proposed that the " brothers " and " sisters "

mentioned in the New Testament were actually Jesus' 'cousins', based on an

eisegesis ( " reading into " a passage, essentially a wishful interpretation) of

two statements in Mark and John. In John, one of the women standing alongside

Jesus' mother at the cross is her sister, who seems, curiously, to also be named

Mary: " Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his

mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene " (19:25). Depending

on how one interprets the syntax of this sentence, there could be three or four

women here. (p.171) " Mary the wife of Clopas " could refer back to " his mother's

sister, " making it a total of three women; or Mary's sister could be unnamed,

making it four women at the cross. Jerome concludes that Mary the wife of Clopas

is " his mother's sister, " thus making her Jesus' aunt. Jerome further concludes

that this is the same Mary mentioned in Mark: " There were also women looking on

from a distance; among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James

the younger and Joses, and Salome " (15:40). Proceeding under two unfounded

assumptions (that " Mary the mother of James the younger and Joses " is the same

Mary mentioned in John and that she is Jesus' aunt), Jerome then makes the

further jump that " James the younger and Joses " must be the same James and Joses

named in Matthew 6:3 as being two of Jesus' " brothers, " thus actually making

them Jesus' 'cousins'! By this exegetical sleight of hand, Jerome rescues both

Mary 'and' Joseph from the stain of sexual intercourse.

 

Due to Jerome's powerful influence, this understanding came to be Roman Catholic

dogma. Since James was now no longer the brother of Jesus, any lingering

interest in the erstwhile bishop of the church quickly waned. Thus it was that

James the Just, the eldest brother of Jesus, and 'the' leading figure in

earliest Christianity, became a forgotten man.

 

The Fallout of War

 

One other significant event conspired to sweep James into the dustbins of

history. The siege of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 C.E. resulted in the

dissolution of the Jerusalem church and the scattering of those who upheld

Jewish Christian beliefs into the Diaspora. Living in the Gentile world, where

their position was far less influential, any esteem that the Jewish Christians

had enjoyed quickly diminished, especially as the Gentile churches flourished

(with Paul's letters forming the basis for their theology). The final nail in

the coffin for Jewish Christianity came when the Jewish Christian views about

Jesus began to be declared officially heretical by the growing power of the

dominant church in Rome.

 

With the loss of the Temple and the central authority of Jerusalem, infant

Christianity was soon weaned of its Jewish sustenance and nurtured almost

exclusively on Pauline teachings and Gentile understandings. Then, in its later

adolescence, Gentile Catholic Christianity severed any lingering ties with

mother Judaism and based its theology completely on Paul's teaching of faith in

Christ as the replacement for the Law. (p.172) At the same time, Jesus'

crucifixion came to be interpreted as the atoning sacrifice by which God's new

covenant with humanity was consummated and sealed with blood. Bereft of its

Jewish roots, the church came to understand the new covenant through Jesus as a

complete replacement for the " old " covenant that God had made with the Jews. And

once the child rebelled against the parent to the extent that it declared the

old covenant no longer effectual even for Jews, the ugly roots of anti-Semitism

began to take hold.

 

This brings us now to the bottom-line question: What would Jesus have thought of

the development of the early church? Would Jesus have agreed with how Paul

interpreted his ministry and his message? In short, is the Christian church that

emerged as the official religion of the Roman Empire what Jesus would have

wanted? Paul's teachings are being seen by a rapidly growing number of modern

scholars and writers as a distortion of what Jesus taught, and the development

of the Christian church as a travesty of the original Jewish beliefs and

teachings of Jesus. Yet, in the end, the Christian Church that developed was

actually the salvation of Jesus' teaching, for without the rise to power of the

Church of Rome, the Christian movement would surely have died out, and Jesus'

message would have faded into obscurity. Though many contemporary scholars have

claimed (with some justification) that Paul essentially " invented " Christianity,

without the theological innovations that Paul brought into it, the Jesus

movement would surely have died. While the Christian church that emerged indeed

has many flaws, and has committed many grievous sins, it has managed (to some

extent despite itself) to preserve the essential story and teaching of Jesus for

the ages.

 

The Brother of Jesus (And the Lost Teachings of Christianity)

Chapter 9, pg. 169-172

Jeffrey J. Butz

Inner Traditions - Rochester, Vermont

ISBN 1-59477-043-3