Margaret Barker
The Secret Tradition II
The Post-Resurrection Teaching
The second characteristic of the secret tradition which Clement
describes and Eusebius quotes (History 2.1), is that it was
passed to the disciples after the resurrection. Many early
Christian texts have the form of a revelation given by the risen
Jesus to certain disciples, and the sheer number of them must
raise questions: why was this particular form adopted, and how
did it relate to the secret tradition? Most of the texts have
been labelled (one might almost say dismissed) as gnostic, and it
is obvious why this form of revelation discourse would have
appealed to gnostic writers. On the other hand, they must have
had good reason for presenting their characteristic teachings as
a post-resurrection discourse, rather than, for example, as a
variant of the Sermon on the Mount. As Daniélou observed, the
fact that the heretics wrote in this way indicated that they were
imitating a recognised Christian form.[33] The form was very different from
anything in the synoptic gospels although it had some affinities
with the Fourth Gospel. The content, though, was not entirely
alien as even the synoptic gospels record that the secrets of the
kingdom had been revealed to only a few during the Galilean
ministry (Mark.4.11 and parallels). Might it be, then, that
post-resurrection did not necessarily mean post-Easter? Might
it mean the teaching given by Jesus after he had been raised up
as the Great High Priest?
The experience of ‘death’ is common to many mystery
traditions, the condition of transition to another mode of being.
‘The true knowledge’ wrote Eliade, ‘that which is
conveyed by the myths and symbols, is accessible only in the
course of, or following upon, the process of spiritual
regeneration realised by initiatory death and resurrection... If
one knows death already here below... then one is living, we may
say, a beginning of immortality or growing more and more into
immortality.’[34]
His material was drawn from the mystery and shamanic traditions
of many cultures. Chernus, however, has shown that a similar
pattern can be detected in third century CE Jewish midrashim:
‘the direct vision of God, conceived in an esoteric context,
the fire phenomenon related to revelation, the need to accept
death as a means for special access to the knowledge of the
Torah, and the dew as the agent of the resurrection.’[35]. The tradition by this period was
associated with the revelation at Sinai[36] (just as Moses experienced
apotheosis on Sinai), but Merkavah texts also warn of the danger
of anyone attempting to experience the vision of the throne. Of
the four rabbis (Ben Azzai, Ben Zoma, Aher and Akiba) who
attempted to enter the garden (i.e.Paradise), only Akiba entered
in peace and came out in peace (b.Hagigah 14b). Those who
successfully experienced the vision were transformed by it and
began a new existence as an angelic being. There is the cryptic
account in 1 Enoch 71 which cannot be dated, but a very early
account of this experience is embedded in Isaiah 33:
Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire
Who can dwell with the burnings of eternity?...
Your eyes will see the king in his beauty,
They will see a land that stretches far. Isa.3.14,17.
It is possible that this is what was meant by the
post-resurrection experience of Jesus. I shall return to this.
The usual picture of Jesus is very different, drawn from an
amalgam of the synoptic gospels. Few of us were raised on the
revelation discourses of the Fourth Gospel and, as a result,
these discourses are perceived as something of a problem. Those
who have wanted to abandon the traditional picture of Jesus the
Galilean miracle worker have usually opted for something more
ordinary: the carpenter from Nazareth who was a good itinerant
preacher although perhaps somewhat misguided at times, or the
cynic sage whose reputation was much enhanced by Jewish marketing
men. His over-enthusiastic followers saw in him far more than he
had ever intended, we have been told, and attributed to him all
sorts of miraculous acts including rising from the dead. To
abandon the synoptic Jesus for someone even stranger, on the
other hand, is something not to be undertaken lightly, and yet
this is now the possibility being offered as a result of studying
early texts which deal with the person and teaching of Jesus.
Recent scholarship has suggested that the synoptic gospels’
pictures of Jesus, far from being accurate, are in themselves
specially constructed to present a certain point of view, and
that their hold over our minds, their ‘tyranny’, has
prevented unbiased access to extra-canonical sources. In other
words, when the synoptic evangelists selected material for their
portraits of Jesus, each evangelist chose, so far as can be
determined, from among undifferentiated traditions about Jesus in
the context of a given confession i.e. in accord with a given
cover story of faith; that is to say, in accordance with the
given community image of Jesus.[37]
The last fifty years or so have seen a great increase in the
amount of ancient Christian material from which to reconstruct
the original ‘picture’ of Jesus. Papyrus Egerton 2[38], (a fragment of otherwise unknown
material about Jesus), the Gospel of Thomas, the Apocryphon
of James and the Dialogue of the Saviour [39] are all thought to derived from
early Christian oral tradition, just as did the synoptic gospels,
but the picture the non-canonical texts give is very different,
making Jesus more akin to a Merkavah mystic than to a simple
teacher.
What, then should be the criteria for reconstructing the original
Jesus? Hedrick, for example, suggested that the lack of an
apocalyptic Son of Man Christology in the Gospel of Thomas
casts doubt on the value of that aspect of the synoptic picture.
If the Gospel of Thomas is authentic, then
‘apocalyptic’ should not be the primary context from
understanding the original Jesus. And if this is correct, then
the ‘secret’ teaching, which so strongly resembles that
of the apocalypses, can easily be shown to be a later addition. A
line of reasoning is thus established and then substantiated by a
complementary tendency to present Jesus more as a wise man than
as an apocalyptic prophet.
It is all a matter of definition. Can we, for example, any longer
regard ‘wisdom’ and ‘apocalyptic’ as separate
categories and thus replace the apocalyptic prophet with the wise
man?[40] Is it wise to take one feature of
the synoptic gospels such as a Son of Man Christology and say
because this is absent from e.g. the Gospel of Thomas,
there are grounds for doubting the importance of the apocalyptic
world view for understanding Jesus? The world view, which, for
the sake of giving it a name, we call ‘the apocalyptic world
view’ was not confined to unrepresentative or sectarian
groups in Palestine. It was the way a large number of people
viewed the world. Apocalyptic was the world view of the
Jerusalem temple cult and of all who had any association with it;
it will have been the norm for most of the heirs to Israel’s
ancient religion: Jews, Samaritans, Gnostics or whatever. Even
the most cursory reading of the Gospel of Thomas shows
that it originated in an apocalyptic milieu, despite there being
no Son of Man Christology. It claimed to be ‘secret
sayings’ whose correct interpretation would lead to triumph
over death. The disciples were told ‘Nothing which is hidden
will not become manifest’ (Thomas 5); ‘Nothing covered
will remain without being uncovered’ (Thomas 6); ‘Jesus
said “I have come to cast upon the earth fire, sword and
war”’ (Thomas 16); ‘When you make the above like
the below then you will enter [the kingdom]’ (Thomas 22);
‘When will the new world come? What you look forward to has
already come but you do not recognise it’ (Thomas 51);
‘Jesus said “When you make the two one you will become
the sons of men”’ (Thomas 106); ‘The Kingdom of
the Father is spread upon the earth and men do not see it’
(Thomas 113). One can only say that this in not
‘apocalyptic’ if one has not realised the temple matrix
of ‘apocalyptic’ with all that this implies in terms of
theology and world view.
There are similar questions about the meaning of
‘gnostic’ and how gnosis relates to Thomas and the
whole revelation genre. J.M.Robinson states that the definition
of gnosis adopted by the Messina Colloquium has added to the
problem in that the definitions were based on the gnosticism
known from second century sects[41]. What, he asked, of those of the
first century? He attempted to work ‘not back from second
century gnosticism, where one is sure to be talking about
gnosticism, but rather forward from Jesus’ immediate
followers (for whom the same cannot surely be said), in search of
a hypothetical sociological roadbed for a trajectory from Jesus
to Gnosticism.’ Rigid definitions hindered rather than
helped. He quoted H-M Schenke: ‘I am of the opinion that
clarity of concepts can, under certain conditions, also obscure
the issue at stake...’[42] The proposed definition of
gnosticism was a retrograde step insofar as it retained the
implication that gnosticism was a Christian heresy. Any text such
as the Gospel of Thomas was automatically marginalised in any
reconstruction of Christian origins.
The problem of early Christian post-resurrection revelation
discourses is thus beset with presuppositions: there is the
‘tyranny’ of the synoptic Jesus; there is the
persistent belief (hope?) that gnosticism was a heresy; and there
is the false distinction between Wisdom and Apocalyptic and an
unsatisfactory definition of both. Without these presuppositions
the whole picture alters; the Gospel of Thomas may embody
an ancient tradition quite independent of the synoptic gospels;
what was later recognised and defined as gnosticism may have been
present in the earliest Christian teaching because it originated
in pre-exilic traditions of Israel in the temple cult[43]. In other words,
‘Gnostic’ ideas could have been part of the teaching of
Jesus, his ‘wisdom’ could have been one aspect of
temple traditions. Such a sweeping away of certainties brings us
face to face with the most difficult question of all: might Jesus
have seen himself as the revealer of heavenly secrets to the
chosen few? The Jesus of the post resurrection revelations is so
different from the synoptic Jesus that we feel it must be a
distortion by heretics who had their own ulterior motives. But,
as Hedrick observed, had history left us only Q, John and Thomas,
our picture of Jesus would have been very different[44]. If we take the Jesus material
as a whole, together with the Palestinian culture in which it was
rooted, the visionary tradition of these post resurrection texts
assumes a greater importance, not least because the goals of the
visionaries was the heavenly throne which transformed the
beholder into an angel, a son of God.
Who distorted the tradition? Recent work on the transmission of
the New Testament has shown convincingly that what is currently
regarded as ‘orthodoxy’ was constructed and imposed on
the text of the New Testament by later scribes
‘clarifying’ difficult points and resolving theological
problems.[45] Some of the difficulties removed
by their efforts were texts which supported a Gnostic point of
view, or suggested an adoptionist Christology. Both
‘Gnostic’ and ‘Adoptionist’ ideas (or an
earlier form of them) would have been part of the temple theology
and therefore of any ‘secret’ tradition derived from it.
It may be that those traditions which have been so confidently
marginalised as alien to early Christianity, on the basis of the
present New Testament text, were those very traditions which
later authorities and scribes had set out to remove.
Eight early texts which show Jesus as the revealer of hidden
things passed on to an inner circle, are grouped together in
Schneemelcher’s revised edition of Hennecke’s New
Testament Apocrypha [46] under the heading
‘Dialogues of the Redeemer’. It is not easy to date any
of them, but the Apocryphon of James, the Dialogue of
the Saviour and the Epistle of the Apostles are
thought to be the earliest. The Apocryphon of James is
usually dated in the early or middle second century, and it is in
the form of a letter sent by James the Righteous to someone whose
name cannot be deciphered, but who has enquired about the secret
teaching. ‘You asked me to send you the secret teaching
which was revealed to me and Peter by the LORD... Be careful and
take heed not to rehearse to many this writing which the Saviour
did not wish to divulge even to all of us, his twelve
disciples...’ The letter goes on to describe the occasion on
which the secret teaching was given. The disciples were all
together, ‘recalling what the Saviour had said to each of
them whether in secret or openly... and lo the Saviour
appeared... 550 days[47] after his resurrection from the
dead.’ Peter and James were then drawn aside for special
instruction. When the teaching had finished, the LORD ascended,
saying: ‘For a chariot of spirit has borne me aloft. And now
I begin to strip myself that I may clothe myself...’ Peter
and James ascended after Jesus. In the first place they saw and
heard wars and trumpets; passing further up, they saw and heard
the angelic hosts but they were not permitted to ascend further
into the presence of the majesty. Then the other disciples
summoned them back to earth and learned that what they had seen
of the exalted Christ.
Irrespective of the pedigree of the teaching itself, there are
several details of interest here. The epistolary form is
reminiscent of the beginning of the Book of Revelation, where the
risen LORD sends letters to the seven churches of Asia
(Rev.cc.2-3); the ascent of Peter and James is reminiscent of the
ascent of John (Rev.4.1-2) and the ascent of Paul (1 Cor.12.1-4);
and Jesus being carried up in the chariot of the spirit resembles
the opening line of one of the Odes of Solomon: ‘I
went up into the light of truth as into a chariot... (Ode 38). We
may conclude, then that the components of the genre which carried
the secret teaching were well attested elsewhere in known
Christian texts; there must have been disciples who practised the
apocalyptists’ ascent and, like them, recounted what they
had seen. It is unlikely that prominent figures such as John and
Paul are recorded in the New Testament as having experienced the
ascent if it was totally alien to the teaching of Jesus and the
tradition of the churches. If Jesus himself had practised such
ascents, what happened to the record of his visionary
experiences? If we compare what is recorded in later sources
about first century Jewish mystics, that they had an inner group
of close disciples but a wider circle of followers, we should
expect that the key teachings were revealed only to a favoured
group. There are anachronisms in the accounts, such as sages
named who lived after the destruction of the temple, but there
must have been some foundation for the story that Rabbi Nehunya
ben Ha-Qanah used to sit expounding all the matter of the
Merkavah, the descent and the ascent, how one descends unto and
how one ascends from (the Merkavah).[48] This is how the Christian
tradition remembers Jesus: with an inner group and then a wider
circle of followers. If we take into account all the early texts,
then Jesus too taught about the heavenly ascent, but only to his
inner circle.
Another early revelation discourse is the Dialogue of the
Saviour which may date from the second century or even
earlier. Unlike the Apocryphon of James it has no
framework narrative, but seems to be a collection of sayings,
similar to the Gospel of Thomas or the much debated and
elusive Q, which has been expanded by questions from the
disciples and answers from the LORD. The LORD lays his hands on
Judas, Matthew and Mary, and they (or perhaps only Judas, it is
not clear) have a vision of a high place and of ‘the abyss
below’. Much of the revelation concerns the spiritual
garments, ‘the garments in which we shall be clothed [when]
we leave the corruption on the [flesh] (Dialogue 143).
The Epistle of the Apostles is also thought to be a
mid-second century composition, and its significance lies chiefly
in the fact that it has the form of a special revelation of the
risen LORD but is not in any sense a Gnostic text. It has been
suggested that this was ‘orthodox’ Christianity taking
over and using a typical Gnostic form, ‘an attempt to combat
Gnostic opponents with their own weapons’[49]. It will be recalled that
Daniélou made an exactly opposite suggestion, namely that the
Gnostics chose the revelation discourse form in order to give an
air of authenticity to their own compositions[50]. After a conventional account of
the life of Jesus, there follows a post-resurrection revelation
which forms the bulk of the text. ‘But we touched him that
we might truly know whether he had risen in the flesh, and we
fell on our faces confessing our sin that we had been
unbelieving. Then the LORD our Redeemer said: ‘Rise up and I
will reveal to you what is above the heaven and your rest that is
in the kingdom of heaven. For my Father has given me the power to
take up you and those who believe in me’ (Ep.Apost. 12)
Although there is no Gnostic terminology as such, the text deals
with very similar ideas. We could almost be reading an account of
the Gnostic system transferred into a ‘conventional’
Christian or Jewish setting. The opposite is more likely, namely
that the Epistle of the Apostles gives the early
‘orthodox’ version of what is more extensively recorded
elsewhere in gnostic guise. The LORD gives details of his descent
as Gabriel: ‘On that day when I took the form of the angel
Gabriel, I appeared to Mary and spoke with her. Her heart
received me and she believed; I formed myself and entered into
her womb; I became flesh ‘ (Ep.Apost. 14). The description
is reminiscent of Isaiah’s vision in the Ascension of
Isaiah 10, and is clearly a part of the earliest tradition,
but not obviously present in the New Testament. The LORD reveals
the time and the manner of his second coming and shows how
prophecies have been fulfilled. These were his own earlier
prophecies, since he had spoken through the ancient prophets. The
fulfilment of the his earlier prophecies is the guarantee of his
present sayings. ‘All that I said by the prophets was thus
performed and has taken place and is completed in me, for I spoke
in (or by) them. How mush more will what I myself have made known
to you really happen, that he who has sent me may be glorified by
you and by those who believe in me’ (Ep.Apost. 19).
He predicts the natural and supernatural phenomena which will
precede the judgement: hailstones, plagues and stars falling from
heaven. As in the synoptic apocalypses and the Book of
Revelation, the time of the disaster is also the time of
suffering for the faithful, suffering which, true to the
apocalyptic tradition, is explained as a test of faith: ‘If
they suffer torment, such suffering will be a test for them
whether they have faith and whether they keep in mind these words
of mine and obey my commandment (Ep.Apost. 36). The Ethiopic text
at one point seems to associate the heavenly revelation with
baptism: ‘You have revealed to them what is in heaven...
(for) by my hand they receive the baptism of life and the
forgiveness of sin (Ep Apost 42). It ends with a description of
the ascension: There is thunder, lightning and an earthquake, the
heavens open and a cloud takes the LORD away. The voice of many
angels is heard, welcoming their priest to the light of glory. Note
again that it is Jesus the priest.
The most remarkable feature of the Epistle of the Apostles,
apart from its sober ordinariness in comparison with other
post-resurrection revelations, is its clear demonstration of the
earliest Christian belief that Jesus had been the manifestation
of yhwh as Gabriel[51]. He had come to Mary and taken
human flesh, and he had spoken through the ancient prophets[52] Whatever date may eventually be
assigned to the Epistle of the Apostles, it is in touch
with very early Palestinian Christianity and expresses this
tradition in the form of a post-resurrection discourse.
Another text chosen by Schneemelcher as a ‘Dialogue of the
Redeemer’ is the Book of Thomas. Dates ranging from
the second to the early fourth century have been suggested for
the work which is known only from a Coptic text found at Nag
Hammadi. It is assumed that Coptic was not the original language,
and that the book originated in East Syria, the home of the other
Judas Thomas traditions. It carries, however, the same traditions
as Egyptian texts, showing that these traditions, wherever they
originate, were not an isolated phenomenon. Most significant for
our purposes is the fact that the text seems to be composite. The
framework is a revelation discourse (‘the secret words which
the Saviour spoke to Judas Thomas and which I, Matthew, wrote
down’), but the body of the text is described as a
Platonising Hellenistic Jewish Wisdom writing[53]. In other words, an earlier
wisdom text has been taken over and passed on as the words of
Jesus. This could indicate that teachings alien to anything that
Jesus could have taught or known were incorporated into
‘heretical’ texts, or it could indicate that Jesus was
known to have stood in a particular tradition.
A similar process of incorporation can be seen by comparing the
non-Christian Letter of Eugnostos and the Christianised
version of the same text known as the Wisdom of Jesus Christ.
The Letter, which was incorporated and presented as the
words of Jesus, is based on beliefs which go back to the
pre-monotheistic religion of the first temple in Jerusalem, and
which, as I have argued elsewhere, formed the original basis for
Christian theology[54]. Where those beliefs were
current and who wrote them down as the Letter is a
question for another time. What is highly significant is that
material such as this in the Letter was attributed to
Jesus. The language may be that of Hellenised Judaism but the
ideas are not. It is misleading to say that the Letter was a
‘non-Christian Gnostic tractate modified in order to express
newly acquired Christian beliefs or to attract Christians to
Gnostic teachings or perhaps for both reasons’.[55] It is in fact the expression of
non-Deuteronomic/pre-Deuteronomic Hebrew ideas, evidence that
they had survived the ‘reform’ which had promoted one
particular type of monotheism.[56] The setting for this Christian
version of the text is, again, a post resurrection revelation
discourse, this time to twelve men and seven women assembled on a
mountain in Galilee. The Saviour appears like a ‘great angel
of light’ (c.f. Rev. 1.12) and reveals to them the system of
the heavenly powers and the relationship between the LORD of the
universe and the heavenly beings known as the sons of God, those
whom Philo called the ‘powers’ (Wisdom of Jesus
Christ 98-100). Beneath the language of a later age there is
discernible a description of the incarnation as the presence in
human form of all the powers, exactly as described in Colossians:
‘In him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell’
(Col.1.19).
There is no shortage of post-resurrection revelation discourses
with their descriptions of ascent. The settings are all broadly
the same, even though the disciples present vary from one text to
another. Eusebius knew that many had received such revelations:
‘Paul... committed nothing to writing but his very short
epistles; and yet he had countless unutterable things to say, for
he had reached the vision of the third heaven, had been caught up
to the divine paradise itself and had been privileged to hear
there unspeakable words. Similar experiences were enjoyed by the
rest of the Saviour’s pupils... the twelve apostles, the
seventy disciples and countless others besides’ (History
3.24). What has happened to all these experiences? Was Eusebius
was writing fiction at this point, or is there a major element of
early Christianity missing from our present understanding of its
origins? There is certainly a great difference between how the
Christians described their origins in the middle of the fourth
century, and how those origins are commonly described today. This
older understanding is represented by the post-resurrection
texts, even though these may, in their present form, be a later
version of that tradition.
The problem is to identify the original setting and function of
such discourses once our ideas have been set free from the
tyranny not only of the synoptic Jesus but also of the synoptic
gospels. Schneemelcher’s introduction to his section on
non-biblical material about Jesus admits that at first sight
these revelation texts seem to be ‘a motley and manifold
collection, the unity of which is at least questionable.’[57] But are they ? We have again the
problem of pre-suppositions; the synoptic gospel form has been
treated as the norm, even though that actual form is unique to
the Christian community. It may even be that Mark was the creator
of this form, or it may have arisen within the early communities
loosely based on contemporary fashions in biography and intended
as an exoteric account of the life and teaching of Jesus. There
are endless possibilities for speculation. What is certain is
that ‘this genre of text has no analogies in ancient
literature’[58], let alone in Palestine. On the
other hand, a literary form known to have been used in Palestine
at the time of Jesus, namely as apocalypse or revelation text, is
thought to be a secondary addition to Christian tradition and an
unpromising source for real information about Jesus. A simple
comparison of available literary types would suggest that the
revelation discourse is more likely to be the original.
In addition, there are certain characteristics of this revelation
which suggest a Palestinian origin. First, the resurrection
experience is described in terms of a theophany. Jesus is
presented in the same way as yhwh had been in the Old
Testament. The Apocryphon of John begins thus with the
heavens opening, great lights and earth tremors. A divine form
appears to him, first as a youth, then as an old man and then as
a servant. There was, he said, ‘a (likeness) with multiple
forms in the light and the (forms) appeared through each other
and the likeness had three forms’. This is a classic
description of a theophany, a mixture of singular and plural
forms, as can be seen by comparing it with Abraham’s
encounter with the three figures at Mamre[59], (Gen.18) or with Ezekiel’s
vision of many forms in the fire (Ezek.1.4-21), or with the
inexact description of John’s vision of the Lamb, the Angel
and the One on the throne (Rev.5.1-7). There were heated debates
among the rabbis in the years after the advent of Christianity:
How were they to explain the plurality of divine forms in
theophanies? They concluded that the variety of appearances did
not indicate a plurality of powers in heaven.[60]
Second, in the Apocryphon of John, the Saviour revealed
the secrets concerning the origin of the world and the destiny of
humanity. There is no obvious parallel to this in the synoptic
gospels, but there are several parallels in the Jewish mystical
and apocalyptic texts. The forbidden things were defined as
‘What is above, what is below, what was beforetime and what
will be hereafter’ (m.Hagigah 2.1). Does this make it more
or less likely that such ideas could have come from Jesus? The Apocryphon
of John ends with a solemn curse on anyone who betrays or
reveals the mysteries which have been revealed: ‘Cursed be
everyone who will exchange these things for a gift or for food or
for clothing or for any other such thing. ’ A similar curse
appears at the end of the Gnostic Book of Jeu: ‘These
mysteries which I give you, preserve, and give them to no man
except he be worthy of them... Preserve them and give them to no
one whatsoever for the sake of the good of this whole
world.’[61] These must have been intended as
secret texts for a chosen circle of initiates only, and yet they
apparently record revelations in the manner of an Old Testament
theophany. The description of the return of Jesus at the
beginning of the Pistis Sophia is similar. After an
earthquake and great commotion in the heavens, Jesus returns in a
blaze of light which dazzles the disciples. The Letter of
Peter to Philip has a similar passage. Peter has gathered the
disciples on the Mount of Olives, where they see a vision of
great light and hear a voice saying: ‘Hear my words that I
may send you. Why do you seek after me? I am Jesus Christ who is
with you forever.’ In the Wisdom of Jesus Christ,
Jesus appeared ‘like a great angel of light and his likeness
I must not describe’.
The origin of all these phenomena lies in the secret traditions
of the priests, who had been required to guard the whatever
concerned the altar and what was within the veil (Num.18.7 also
LXX Num.3.10). Anyone other than a priest who approached them,
would die. One of the secrets of the priesthood must have been
experiencing theophany, something described in the ancient high
priestly blessing: ‘May the LORD make his face/presence
shine on you, May the LORD lift up his face/presence upon
you’ (Num.6.25-6)[62]. At the end of the second temple
period, this was one of the forbidden texts, which could be read
in public but not explained (m.Megillah 4.10). The appearance of
the LORD above the ark in the holy of holies had probably been a
similar experience, as was John’s experience of the risen
LORD with the seven lamps (Rev.1.12-16). The transfiguration was
such an experience, when the LORD was seen by the three disciples
as a radiant presence, and the experience brought them into a new
state of existence[63].
The Risen LORD.
The time has come for a new understanding of Jesus. It has been
fashionable to assume that mush of ‘his’ teaching was
in fact the product of the early Christian communities, that much
of the theology, specially the Christology, was the result of
ingenious preachers, squeezing all they could from the Old
Testament texts, and then packaging it for the tastes of their
potential converts. Layers have been detected in the teachings of
Jesus: the Gospel of Thomas has the kingdom of God sayings
but no Son of Man, so it must be ‘early’; the kingdom
of God has receded from Q and the Son of Man as future redeemer
has become the key; there are Wisdom sayings with no
eschatological expectation and so forth[64]. Is it not more likely - and I
say no more than this – that the original insights, claims,
teaching and theology which became Christianity go back to a
single source rather than to a series of committees? In other
words, could Jesus have been the founder of Christianity after
all? The various layers in the tradition could then be a
reflection of the development of Jesus’ own thought, his own
growing awareness of his role and mission. It is commonplace to
chart the development of, say, Paul’s thought; the early
letters are different from those he wrote later in life. Why
should the same not be true of Jesus?
It is no longer permissible to take scholarly investigation to a
certain position and then allow a patina of piety to restrict
access to the most vital questions. Nor is it really satisfactory
to define terms and ask questions in such a way that the answer
has to be: ‘Christianity was all the result of a massive
misunderstanding, or the ingenious marketing of usable myths, or
some clever confidence trick that has deceived the human race
ever since.’ The answers from which there is no escape are:
Jesus and the beliefs about him were established immediately
after his death and became the faith of the Church. The
question therefore must be: Where did these beliefs originate? It
was recognised long ago that the so much that would have been
vital to understanding Christian origins perished after the wars
against Rome. Until recently, the Judaism of the time was
reconstructed from texts written many generations after those
events, and so there were, unacknowledged, massive anachronisms
built into the ‘background to the New Testament.’
Something of the real situation in Palestine can now be
reconstructed from the Qumran material, and it is a very
different picture.
Paul’s letters give a glimpse of first generation Christian
beliefs, but not a complete picture. They were written to
churches who had already received their first instruction, and
would not have needed much further teaching about the life of
Jesus. Paul dealt largely with points that needed further
clarification. This makes it difficult to estimate the extent to
which he was an innovator. There were disagreements in the early
Church about what Paul was teaching, but these concerned the role
and status of the Jewish Law, not his teaching about Jesus. There
is no systematic presentation of his complete teaching about
Christ the Redeemer. It is everywhere assumed yet nowhere
explained or defended. At the centre of his preaching there was
not the teacher from Galilee but the Redeemer from heaven. Why?
Paul must have known much about Jesus’ life before his
conversion experience; afterwards he put a different
interpretation on the same facts. Whose interpretation? It must
have been that of the Christians to whose belief he was
converted, the belief in the Redeemer, the belief of the
Palestinian community a few years after the crucifixion. This was
the belief of those who had actually known Jesus. The Jesus who
was only a teacher from Galilee disappeared from the
tradition at a very early date, so early that one wonders if it
was ever really very important.[65] If ‘Jesus, just the teacher
from Galilee’ is a fiction of recent New Testament
scholarship, might this false norm be the real problem in
understanding other early Christian writings?
The dating and classification of early Christian writings is a
dangerously subjective business. J.A.T.Robinson showed just how
easy it was to question the whole structure when he gave
convincing arguments for a comprehensive re-dating.[66] Similarly, there is a tendency
to classify according to the categories of a later age. What
became the canonical texts are the norm, and all others, together
with the ideas they represent, have a lower status. Instead of
asking how such ‘strange’ texts came to be written, we
should be asking how they came to be excluded. What tendency in
the early churches wanted to marginalise and even eliminate
visionary material, and how early was this tendency? One
criterion for exclusion was theology, and yet critical study is
showing that some early theology was deliberately eliminated from
the New Testament texts.[67] Retrojected, this means that we
may here also have accepted and used entirely false markers by
which to detect primitive belief and to identify the
‘original’ Jesus.
The Qumran texts have given new insights into the world view of
first century Palestine. The role of the priests and the temple
is now seen more clearly than was formerly possible. The Melchizedek
Text (11QMelch), for example, depicts the heavenly high
priest bringing salvation to his people on the great Day of
Atonement. The Letter to the Hebrews is similar and the high
priest there is named as Jesus. The Songs of the Sabbath
Sacrifice (esp.4Q Shir Shabb 400-409) described the worship
in heaven which was the reality underlying the worship in the
temple; the Letter to the Hebrews and the Book of Revelation
assume a similar belief. The Damascus Rule speaks of the
‘hidden things in which all Israel has gone astray’ and
of ‘God in his wonderful mysteries...’ Those who hold
to the truth are ‘destined to live for ever’ and to
regain the glory of Adam (CD III). The Damascus Rule (CD)
was a book for priests clinging to their ancient ways, whose
leaders had to be learned in the Book of HGW, an work we
no longer know (CD X,XI,XIV). Josephus records that they were
sworn to repeat none of their secrets, to preserve the books of
the group and the names of the angels[68] (War 2.8.6). The recurring, one
might almost say the major theme of the Qumran Hymns is the
knowledge of the divine mysteries which enables the initiates to
stand in the presence of the holy ones in the council of heaven.
They tell of someone raised to the everlasting height to be part
of the congregation of the sons of heaven (1QH XI, XIV, XV
formerly known as III,VI,VII respectively). There is someone who
can say : ‘ Thou hast shown thine infinite power... given me
knowledge through thy marvellous mysteries and shown thyself
mighty within me in the midst of thy marvellous council’ (1
QH XII formerly IV). ‘Thou hast enlightened me through thy
truth in thy marvellous mysteries (1 QH XV formerly VII). We also
read: ‘ Thou hast taught them thy marvellous mysteries...
that he may stand before thee with the everlasting host... to be
renewed with all the living and to rejoice together with them
that know (1QH XVIII formerly X); ‘The mystery of they
wisdom has opened knowledge to me’ (1QH XX formerly XII);
‘The mysteries of thy wisdom make known they glory’
(1QH V formerly XIII); ‘Illumined with perfect light’
(1QH XXI formerly XVIII). There is a description of
transformation reminiscent of 1 Enoch 14 and 71 and of the
accounts of the later mystics: ‘Shaking and trembling seize
me and all my bones are broken; my heart dissolves like wax
before fire and my knees are like water... I rose and stood and
my spirit was established in the face of the scourge’ (1QH
XII formerly IV). 1 Enoch is one of the best represented texts at
Qumran[69], and this is important evidence
for the priestly traditions there. According to the Book of
Jubilees Enoch was a priest who burned the incense of the
sanctuary (Jub.4.25), was the first to learn ‘writing and
knowledge and wisdom’ (Jub.4.17), and entered the holy of
holies (1 En.14). The name Enoch probably means the ‘taught
or initiated one’[70] When the high prist entered the
holy of holies on the Day of Atonement, he was enacting the
experience of the mystics and he too entered in great fear
(m.Yoma 5.1;7.4; contrast Heb.10.19 ‘We have confidence to
enter the sanctuary...’).
The priests and their traditions passed into the young church; a
great number of them were ‘obedient to the faith’ (Acts
6.7). The exact relationship between the high priests and the
early Christians, especially the family of Jesus, invites
speculation. John, one of the three associated with the secret
tradition, was known to the high priest (John 8.15). Eusebius
records that John had worn the insignia of a high priest, the
golden plate bearing the Name (History 3.31). Presumably this
means he had the role of high priest in the Church. The Letter of
Jude quotes from 1 Enoch, the repository of priestly mystical
traditions. In our time, access to books is commonplace, but this
was not the case in first century CE Palestine. How then did one
of Jesus’ family know that book well enough to quote from
it? Jerome quotes the lost Gospel of the Hebrews which
says that Jesus gave his linen shroud to the high priest’s
servant after the resurrection and then appeared to James the
Righteous, one of his family and another of the three associated
with the secret tradition. He was also the first bishop of the
Jerusalem church. Eisenmann has recently suggested that there are
similarities between the Letter of James in the New Testament and
some Qumran texts, that James the Righteous may have been the
leader known at Qumran as the Teacher of Righteousness. Some of
the Qumran texts (e.g.4Q266, said to be the missing last column
of the Damascus Rule) would then be products of the Palestinian
Christian community.[71] Whether or not he is correct in
all details, the similarities are certainly striking, and must be
borne in mind when attempting to reconstruct what would and would
not have been possible in early Christianity. Men of Jesus’
family were clearly in the same mould as the writers of the
Scrolls, and James was also closely linked to the temple.
Further, James had the authority to impose temple purity
regulations on Paul (Acts 21.21-4). Hegesippus, ‘who
belonged to the first generation after the apostles’
(Eusebius History 2.23), records that James was an ascetic from
birth, consuming neither meat nor wine and refusing to wash,
shave or anoint himself with oil. He wore priestly robes of linen
and used to enter the sanctuary of the temple alone to pray for
the forgiveness of the people’s sins. Such a description, if
it is to be taken literally, can only mean that he was a high
priest, performing the ritual of the Day of Atonement. His
testimony to Jesus as Son of Man, sitting at the right hand and
destined to return with the clouds of heaven, caused his death in
the temple at the instigation of the scribes and Pharisees. A
Rechabite tried in vain to save him. He was buried in the temple
where he died and the siege of Jerusalem began shortly
afterwards, as punishment for the crime (Eusebius History 2.23) [72]. There was a book known as the Ascents
of James, which was used by the Ebionites,[73] and one wonders what these
‘ascents’ anabathmoi, might have been, given the
known traditions of the priesthood and the fact that Merkavah
mystics practised and taught in the temple.[74]
The Rechabite who tried to save James was one of a priestly
family. In the time of Jeremiah they had been ascetics, refusing
to build houses or to plant crops, and abstaining from wine
(Jer.35.6-7). John the Baptist, also of a priestly family,
abstained from wine all his life and lived in the desert. He
could well have been a Rechabite. There is a work of uncertain
date, the History of the Rechabites, extant in many
ancient languages but probably originating in Hebrew. The present
form of the text is Christian[75],but underlying it is a
pre-Christian original which tells how the Rechabites left
Jerusalem after the king who succeeded Josiah [the king who
purged the temple in about 621BCE] had tried to persuade them to
abandon their way of life. This is described as ‘forsaking
the LORD and abandoning the covenant’ (History of the
Rechabites 10). Abstaining from wine must have been the outward
sign of a particular religious tradition. They had been rescued
from prison by angels and led to a paradise place , a holy land.
They were called the Blessed Ones, and no ordinary mortals were
able to visit them. Their assembly was like the angels of heaven,
and the angels of God lived with them. They were dressed in
garments of glory and they offered prayer day and night. Their
wives accompanied them, but they lived apart.
Who might these Rechabites have been and how did they come to be
called the Blessed Ones? Perhaps we here the memory of another rechab,
the chariot throne in the temple[76] which the chosen few were able
to contemplate and thus achieve the angelic state. The sons of rechab
would have been priests devoted to the heavenly chariot
throne[77], and when the temple
‘reformers’ had wanted them to abandon their
traditions, they refused[78]. They left Jerusalem for another
place, where they lived a monastic existence, the life of the
angels. The Talmud records that they were also known as nozerim
‘the diligent observers’[79], a significant name, perhaps,
because the Christians were known as Nazoreans. It was one of
these Rechabites who tried to prevent the death of James, the
leader of the Jerusalem Christians and a guardian of the secret
tradition, a man, says Eusebius, ‘universally regarded as
the most righteous of men because of the heights of philosophy ad
religion which he scaled in his life’ (History 2.23).
The Odes of Solomon may provide yet another piece of
evidence to link Jesus to the ascent tradition of the temple, and
its secrets. It is not possible to give an exact date and
provenance fore the odes, but their similarities to the Qumran
Hymns and to the Fourth Gospel, and the possibility that they
were known by Ignatius of Antioch, indicate that they were
probably in existence at the end of the first century CE in a
Hebrew Christian community. Most striking are the passages which
seem to be Christ himself speaking. It has been customary to
explain these as an example of early Christian prophecy, speaking
in the name of the LORD. The very strangeness of the words and
ideas attributed to Jesus in the Odes compels us to ask if
there is here an authentic memory of the words of Jesus. Could an
‘early’ community have falsified the tradition to this
extent, especially as it has echoes in the ‘orthodox’
writings of John and Ignatius? The Christ of the Odes
practises the mystical ascent:
(The Spirit) brought me forth before the LORD’s face
And because I was the Son of Man, I was named the Light, the Son
of God;
Because I was the most glorious among the glorious ones,
And the greatest among the great ones...
And he anointed me with his perfection
And I became one of those who are near him. (Ode 36.3,4,6).
Another describes the Merkavah experience, an ascent to the
chariot to learnt the truth’
I went up into the light of truth as into a chariot,
And the truth led me and caused me to come...
And there was no danger for me because I constantly walked with
him (Ode 38.1,5) [80]
Christ speaks of his mystery, his faith and his knowledge, and
about a garment that will be shown to them (Ode 8). He speaks of
gathering in the Gentiles and capturing the world for the Most
High (Ode 10). He speaks of being exalted by the Most High and
being raised to understanding, loosing all who have been bound,
and giving knowledge and resurrection (Ode 17). In Ode 22 he
describes descending from on high and defeating the seven headed
dragon. In Ode 25 he speaks of a garment of the Spirit that
replaces the garment of skin. Ode 28 is inspired by Psalm 22 and
Ode 31 by Isaiah 53.
It is not impossible that these Odes incorporate material from
Jesus himself, or that they are in his style. The question is:
How much of such a Merkavah mystic can be recovered from the
gospel pictures of Jesus? First we do not know what were the
influences on his boyhood. We do not know what tradition formed
his mind and shaped the ideas he was later to preach, although we
do know that he impressed temple teachers when he was only a
child (Luke 2.46-48). The fact that member of his family (John
the Baptist[81], James the Righteous[82] and Jude[83]) all had links to the esoterica
of the priesthood must make this at least a likely context for
his formative years. Second, there could have been a gradual
process of recognition, reflected in some of the parables and
sayings about the kingdom which were autobiographical. In the
synoptic accounts, these are the only teachings associated with
the ‘secrets’ or the ‘mysteries’ of the
kingdom, and were explained privately to the disciples (e.g.Matt.
13.10-17). The seed grew secretly; it began as small as a mustard
seed and grew to be great. Or it was found as a treasure or a
pearl of great price, and everything had to be given up for it.
The kingdom was not an external phenomenon but something
discovered within (Luke 17.21), which was manifested in the
overthrow of evil (Luke 11.20). These were Jesus’ own
accounts of his spiritual growth.
The accounts of the baptism show that this was a crucial moment
in Jesus’ life. He saw the Spirit of God come upon him and
declare him to be the beloved Son (Matt 3.16-17 and parallels).
The Codex Bezae of Luke 3.22 has: ‘Today I have begotten
you’, quoting instead Psalm 2.7. Perhaps this was the point
at which Jesus became fully conscious of his role. The story is
not told in the first person, but neither is the account of the
temptation in the desert, which must have come from Jesus himself
unless it is a complete fiction.
After the baptism, there was the time in the desert when Jesus
was tempted by Satan, was with the wild beasts and was served by
the angels. (Mark.1.12-13). The sequence of Satan, beasts and
angels suggests that these beasts were not the wild creatures of
the Judaean desert, but rather the beasts of the visionaries, the
living creatures around the throne (Rev.4.6). The angels were his
servants c.f. the worship of the enthroned Lamb (Rev.5.6-13) or
‘I was the greatest of the great ones’ (Odes of Solomon
36.4). In the account of the conflict with Satan (Matt 4/Luke 4),
the point at issue is: ‘If you are the of God...’, as
if the conflicts record Jesus’ coming to terms with his new
situation. The visionary experiences of being taken to a great
height, the temple pinnacle or a high mountain, are authentic.
Ezekiel had been transported in the Spirit to the temple and to a
high mountain (Ezek.8.3; 40.2); Habakkuk was stationed on a high
tower to receive his vision (Hab.2.1-2); Enoch was lifted up by
angels to a high place where he saw a tower above the earth (1
En.87.3); Abraham stood on a high place when he had his vision of
the throne (Ap.Abr.17.3); John was carried to a high mountain to
see the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev.21.10). Origen quotes from the
lost Gospel of the Hebrews in which Jesus himself says:
‘My Mother the Holy Spirit took me by one of my hairs and
carried me to the great mountain Tabor’ (Commentary on John
2.12). Jesus’ vision of the cities of the world reminds us
that there had been sons of God who were convinced by the words
of Azazel, bound themselves to him with a great oath and then
came to earth to rule it and destroy it (1 En.6).
After the desert experience, according to Luke, Jesus claimed to
be the fulfilment of the prophecy in Isaiah 61. The Spirit was
upon him, he had been anointed and was to inaugurate the great
year of Jubilee (Luke 4.16-21). In the Melchizedek Text (11Q
Melch) the same passage in Isaiah is applied to the Jubilee
brought by the heavenly high priest Melchizedek, who is the LORD
himself, the great year of Jubilee which culminates in the final
Day of Atonement. The hostile reaction to this revelation will
have led to the formation of an inner group to whom the secret
could be communicated. Thus the disciples were chosen and the
Transfiguration made the inner group aware of Jesus’
experience of transformation. The description is authentic; as
Jesus was praying, his face shone and his clothes became dazzling
white. The voice from heaven this time addressed the disciples:
‘This is my Son, the Chosen One.’ Again this is
authentic. The fact that the disciples saw the brightness means
that they had become a part of it.
Both Luke (24.25-27) and John (5.39), in very different contexts,
record that Jesus found himself in the Old Testament. This is an
extraordinary claim, and must be one of the clearest pieces of
evidence that Jesus saw himself as the LORD. In first century
Palestine, such a belief would have been possible for someone who
had achieved the mystical ascent and been transformed. It is only
traditions recorded much later in 3 Enoch which show clearly how
a human could ascend to the presence of the throne and become
‘the lesser LORD’. Heated debates in the early
Christian period, however, as to whether or not there were two
powers in heaven, show just where the Christian claim lay. ‘Being’
the LORD had been part of the tradition of the high
priests and before them, of the kings. They had worn the Name
on their foreheads.[84] The principle of temple
practice, ‘on earth as it is in heaven’ meant that the
act of atonement, in reality the work of the LORD (Deut.32.43)
was enacted on earth by the high priest. This was the suffering
and death that was necessary for the Messiah.
In my book The Great Angel. A Study of Israel’s Second
God, I showed how the first Christians recognised Jesus as yhwh,
the LORD, the Son of God Most High. This claim came from Jesus
himself, who had attained the ultimate mystical experience of the
high priesthood, seen the throne and been transformed by that
experience. The Messianic titles Son of Man and Son of God, and
the role of the mysterious Servant resulted from that experience,
as did the realisation that the coming of the LORD to his people
meant the great Day of Atonement when he took upon himself the
sins and sicknesses of the creation (Isa.53.4 c.f.Matt.8.17), and
gave his own life to his people (Isa.53.10). Thus it was that
Peter could say ‘You denied the Holy and Righteous One ...
and killed the Author of Life’ (Acts 3.14-15).
Once Jesus is set back within the temple tradition, there is a
whole new landscape for the study of Christian origins. The
pre-existent and adoptionist Christologies are seen to be both
compatible and original. The ‘knowledge’ characteristic
of the non-canonical gospels would have originated in esoteric
teaching such as was characteristic of priestly groups, and
perhaps even underlying Isaiah 53.11. The central themes of
sacrifice, redemption and atonement can be seen in their original
setting, and Jesus’ disregard for the purity laws can be
seen as the practical enactment of priestly atonement, bringing
the excluded sinner back into the community rather than excluding
him.
The various ‘layers’ and inconsistencies in the
tradition about Jesus originated first in the development of his
own thought and only later in the various groups which had access
only to certain parts of his teaching. Before his experience of
becoming the Great Angel, the LORD, he taught as a wise man and a
healer, like many others of his time, warning of the judgement to
come. This has been amply demonstrated in the books which set
Jesus in his contemporary context. For many, this is what he
remained. Once Jesus had achieved his transforming vision, he
spoke as Son of Man, the Man who had passed beyond
‘death’ and become an emissary from the other world.
When the disciples realised this, they were able to see the
glory. The confession at Caesarea was followed by the
transfiguration. The inner group who received the
‘post-resurrection’ teaching would have had no need of
a passion narrative or a future judgement with the Son of Man.
Thus the Gospel of Thomas. Their Son of Man would have
been a heavenly revealer rather than a future judge. Thus the
Gospel of John. The future coming of the LORD in judgement would
have been given as exoteric teaching, such as the parable of the
sheep and the goats, but for the inner circle, the eschatology
was realised, the judgement was past, and eternal life had begun.
Whoever had seen Jesus had had the transforming vision (John
14.9). The other-worldly Jesus of the Fourth gospel may well have
been drawn from life, and the underlying strata of the Book of
Revelation may well have been what they claimed to be: ‘The
Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave to Him to show to his
servants what must soon take place.’ (Rev.1.1).[85]
What Chernus wrote of the Merkavah mystics is equally true of the
earliest Christian community: ‘The unique contribution of
the esoteric tradition seems to be the teaching that those who
are willing to risk the initiatory death will in return be
capable of experiencing a richer and fuller life, one which is
enhanced by a more complete experience of God’ On the other
hand this full and immediate revelation turns out to be too much
for the community as a whole to bear, and therefore it is not
useful in enriching and guiding the ongoing life of that
community. [86]
The Gospel of Philip (CG II.3) knew all this:
The Nazarene is he who reveals what is hidden... Those who say
that the LORD died first and then rose up are in error for he
rose up first and then he died. If one does not first attain the
resurrection, will he not die? (56).
Jesus did not reveal himself in the manner in which he was, but
it was in the manner in which they would be able to see him that
he revealed himself. He revealed himself to them all. He revealed
himself to the great as great. He revealed himself to the small
as small. He revealed himself to the angels as an angel and to
men as a man. Because of this, his word hid itself from everyone.
Some indeed saw him, thinking that they were seeing themselves,
but when he appeared to his disciples in glory on the mount, he
was not small. He became great, but he made his disciples great
that they might be able to see him in his greatness (57-8).
There was far more to the teaching of Jesus than is recorded in
the four canonical gospels. ‘James the Righteous, John and
Peter were entrusted by the LORD after his resurrection with the
higher knowledge’ James and John were remembered in
Church tradition as having been high priests, and Peter as the
first Bishop of Rome.
[33] Daniélou op.cit.n.8. p.203.
[34] M.Eliade Myths, Dreams and
Mysteries London 1960 229.231.
[35] I.Chernus Mysticism in Rabbinic
Judaism Berlin and New York 1982 p.38
[36] Just as Moses experienced
apotheosis on Sinai, according to Philo (Moses 1.157), even
though this had originally been an experience of the royal cult
in the holy of holies.
[37] C.W.Hendrick ‘The Tyranny of
the Synoptic Jesus’ in Semeia 44 (1988) p.2
[38] Fragments of an Unknown Gospel
ed. H.I.Bell and T.C.Skeat British Museum 1935.
[39] These three texts can be found in The
Nag Hammadi Library in English ed. J.M.Robinson Leiden 1996.
[40] My book The Older Testament
London 1987 argues that we cannot
[41] J.M.Robinson ‘On Bridging the
Gulf from Q to the Gospel of Thomas (or vice versa)’ in Nag
Hammadi, Gnosticism and Early Christianity ed. C.W.Hedrick
and R.Hodgson Cambridge MA 1986 pp 127-175.
[42] Ibid p.133
[43] See my book The Great Angel
op.cit.n.4
[44] Op.cit.n.37 p.5
[45] See B.Ehrmann The Orthodox
Corruption of Scripture Oxford 1993.
[46] Op.cit n.16
[47] This is approximately the
traditional length for the pre-Easter ministry.
[48] I Gruennwald Apocalyptic and
Merkavah Mysticism Leiden 1980 p.162
[49] Op.cit.n.16 p.229 quoting
Vielhauer.
[50] See n 8 above.
[51] See my book The Great Angel op.cit.n.4
[52] C.f. Gospel of Thomas 52: His
disciples said to him: ‘Twenty four prophets spoke in Israel
and all of them spoke in you.
[53] Op.cit.n.16.p.36
[54] My book The Older Testament
op.cit.n.40
[55] D.M.Parrott ‘Eugnostos the
Blessed’ in op.cit. n.34
[56] This is the theme of my book The
Older Testament.
[57] Op.cit.n.16 p 77
[58] Ibid.pp.80,82
[59] Josephus tells this story as the
appearance of three angels, no mention of YHWH (Ant.1.11.2)
[60] A.F.Segal Two Powers in Heaven
Leiden 1978 pp.33-59.
[61] Text in Schneemelcher op.cit.n.16
p.372
[62] The familiar Hallelu jah,
always understood to mean ‘ Praise the LORD’, but never
translated, could have had another meaning. The root hll
also means ‘shine’ and it is not impossible that the
acclamation. was calling on the LORD to appear. D Aune The
Cultic Setting of Realised Eschatology in Early Christianity
Leiden 1972 p.101: ‘The cultic worship of the Johannine
community provided a present experience of the exalted and living
Jesus in terms of the recurring actualisation of his future
Parousia.’
[63] Nikolai Motovilov had a similar
experience in Russia in 1833, when visiting Fr Serafim, a saintly
visionary and healer, who was said to manifest the divine
radiance. ‘The Fr Serafim took me firmly by the shoulders
and said to me, “Both of us my friend are now within the
Holy Spirit. Why do you not look at me?” I answered, “I
am not able, Father, for there is a lightning flashing from your
eyes. Your face has grown more radiant than the sun, and my eyes
cannot bear the pain.” Fr. Serafim said, “Do not be
afraid, my good Theophilus, you have also now become as radiant
as I. You yourself are now in the fullness of the divine Spirit
or otherwise you would not be able to perceive me in the exact
same state.”’ See L Dupre and D.E.Saliers Christian
Spirituality London 1990 vol.3 p.462.
[64] See J.M.Robinson op.cit.n.36 pp.
142ff summarising Koester’s views.
[65] See J.G.Machen The Origin of
Paul’s Religion London 1921 pp.117-169.
[66] J.A.T.Robinson Redating the
New Testament London 1976
[67] Ehrmann op.cit.n.45
[68] This could be the names of angels
for purposes invocation, or it could be the more mundane
‘names of their leaders’ who were priests and therefore
deemed angels.
[69] There is evidence for 20 scrolls
of Enoch, 21of Isaiah, 3 of Psalms but only 6 of Jeremiah.
[70] S.Reif ‘Dedicated to hnk’
in VT xxii (1972) pp.495-501
[71] R.Eisenmann and M.Wise The
Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered, Shaftesbury 1992 pp.212ff.
[72] To be buried in a holy place
suggests that James was a very important figure.
[73] Epiphanius Panarion 30.16
[74] Hekhalot Rabbati #
225-228, and see n.48
[75] i.e. it was Jewish text which
Christian scribes were interested to preserve but Jewish scribes
apparently not.
[76] The two words are related.
[77] ‘Sons of’ indicating a
characteristic rather than family descent.
[78] It is significant that the
‘priestly’ account of the first temple mentions the
chariot throne and the veil, 1 Chron.28.18; 2 Chron.3.10-14,
whereas the reformers’ account is silent on these matters, 1
Kgs 6
[79] B. Baba Bathra 91b. See also the
tradition recorded in j.Ta’anit 4.5 that a large number of
priests fought with the Babylonians against Jerusalem after
Josiah’s ‘reform’ of the temple, and that they
were later settled by Nebuchadnezar in Arabia.
[80] Translation in J.H.Charlesworth The
Odes of Solomon Oxford 1973
[81] His father has a vision of an
angel in the temple Luke 1.11
[82] A high priest figure to whom are
attributed visions and ‘a book of ascents.
[83] He could quote from 1 Enoch
[84] According to Philo, Moses
2.114 and Aristeas 98, they wore the four letters of the
Name
[85] I have since written a book with
this title.
[86] I Chernus Mysticism in
Rabbinic Judaism Berlin/New York 1982 pp.53,55.