Warning: This 7000-word text is the last chapter and culmination of Beyond Myths: Jesus the Nazorean and His Movement - A New Comprehensive Historical Inquiry, (170 authors mentioned/quoted, 500 quotations of the Bible) to be published, (a French shorter first version of which was published in 2016 by Golias, in France). To anyone willing to give me his/her opinion on the text below and asking for, I will gladly send the whole book, against his/her agreement to send me a peer review (even short). French speakers can ask-me a French version. The old Nazoreans: A Higher Idea of God Roman Christianity has gained the ascendency in Western culture as the one and only version of Christianity, but anciently there was another equally viable interpretation of Christ and his teachings. The Pre-Christ polar opposition between Judaism and Nazoreism was reflected, after Christ, by the polarity between Pauline and Gnostic (Nazorean) Christianity. D. A. Israel, Yeshu, Essene Jesus of the Gnostic Nazoreans Une révolution est l’appel d’une tradition moins profonde à une tradition plus profonde. Charles Péguy A revolution is the call from a shallower to a deeper tradition. An inquiry on Nazoreans As soon as I began to seriously look for the Nazoreans of Jesus’ time, I was certain of one thing: when Temple soldiers arrested Jesus, saying they were looking for “Jesus the Nazorean,” this word necessarily denoted a social group well-defined and was understood by everyone present. But that meaning was already lost by the Synoptic Gospels’ writers and it is opaque today for most scholars, because this word changed its meaning two times in the course of the 1st century CE to designate significantly different social/religious groups and the primitive meaning had been obscured among Christians. We can recapitulate the whole process that way: For some reason to elucidate, Jesus was called Nazorean, and hence his disciples were called Nazoreans. Later, with the settlement of some Nazoreans in a place who, from their name, was called Nazareth, some people suggested that “Jesus the Nazorean” meant “Jesus of Nazareth.” What we have to do now is to find why Jesus was called Nazorean at his time. During my research (see Chapter 12), I provisionally followed the suggestion of several scholars, according to whom, after etymological studies, the word Nazorean as applied to Jesus did not mean “from Nazareth” but: “Guardian [of the New Alliance]” which would have made Jesus a member of the Yahad, a group of the time, according to several Dead Sea Scrolls. Since my research was initially not focused on Jesus himself but on ‘Before Jesus and After Jesus’, this point was not a priority for me, and it is only after the drafting of the French edition that I took time to inquire more closely on the Nazoreans of the early-first-century CE, the period of Jesus’ youth and education. What was Jesus’ sitz-im-leben, as the Germans say? For most historians, his social milieu seems impossible to discover since the waters were muddied and many deem that the ‘historical Jesus’ is out of reach. Could I, at least, find nuggets of credible information from the Nazorean tradition, generally ignored by Christian exegetes and by historians––including Jewish historians? Rather than religious doctrines or practices, my idea was to try to find a kernel of social data less likely to have been modified according to the evolution of ideas, including, if possible, data giving a negative image of the group. This data would be less likely to have been invented later to glorify putative ancestors, or data backed by some verifiable facts or by ‘history traces’, or by data that could fit, in one way or another, into known traditions. From this point on, I am explaining some details of my approach because I found something that others researchers did not see, and I have to explain how and why. I cannot just introduce the result as if I pulled a rabbit out of my hat. To find something, I had to explore in a direction I was reluctant to take––as reluctant as Christian exegetes, Jewish historians and academic scholars generally are––rummaging in ancient Nazorean/ Mandaeans Gnostic texts. Why the reluctance? First, this field is not well historically signposted because historians generally avoid it for lacking credible sources and cross-checked facts: Gnostics’ expansion happened during the 2nd century and what remains of their texts dates at best from the 3rd or 4th centuries, for some, a lot later (like translations in Arabic in the 7th or the 8th centuries of old texts lost in Western countries). Second, as I knew them once through Church Fathers, the Gnostics seem bent on off-putting esoteric speculations. Could I find any concrete element with a chance of being genuine about an early-first-century group that Jesus would have belonged to when he was young? Many of the great archeological discoveries of our time have been accidental. It is as if there is some mysterious hidden axiom at work––what we most hope to discover we seldom find and what we least expect can suddenly appear. James D Tabor James D. Tabor, Chair of the Department of Religious studies at the University of North Carolina, The Jesus Dynasty, Simon&Schuster paperbacks, New York, 2006.. A book by a man claiming today to be a Gnostic Nazorean This was my state of mind, when I spotted Yeshu: The Essene Jesus of the Gnostic Nazoreans, a thick book by Davied Asia Israel, published in 2006 by an ‘Order of Essene Nazoreans.’ Yeshu - Essene Jesus of the Gnostic Nazoreans, by Davied Asia Israel (a name not found on internet), published in 2006 by Order of Nazorean Essenes. No address. Yeshu: understand Yeshua, Jesus It was a pleasant surprise. Perhaps it was a doorway, but I was suspicious because I did not find anything about the author on the Internet and the publisher had no physical address. But, I told myself, even if what this author presents as truth on Nazoreans at Jesus’ time is not cross-checked by historians, at least this book will, hopefully, provide me social data on the group and help flesh out the word Nazorean, as attributed to Jesus. So, I read it. Assuredly, it is not the work of an objective historian, but the book of a believer, a present-day “Gnostic Nazorean,” entrenched in his convictions. For instance, he talks about the New Testament texts with the same contempt than Christians have when they talk about Gnostic texts, as ‘fabrications,’ ‘corruptions of the pure truth’, and with the same propensity to make (innocently?) retro-projections and anachronisms. The reading experience was like crossing a looking glass and finding a somewhat inverted image of Christian certainties. That said, the author is a learned person, knowing his tradition and quoting at length difficult-to-find Mandean texts I had never read A critical edition with translation of the Book of John is announced for the Fall. . In parallel, (as an antidote?) I bought a book by Cl. S. Mimouni, an academic, seasoned classical historian specialized on early Judean Christianity, notably on James and his Jerusalem community, who were called ‘Nazoreans’ too ––in order to know better the elements known and checked by mainstream historians! Jacques Le Juste, by S. Cl. Mimouni, Bayard, Paris, 2015 Several times, Davied A. Israel uses Mandaeans scriptures, like the Book of John, The publication of a critical edition with translation is announced for the Fall, an indication of the importance of this text and that, at least, a few scholars are interested in this opus. as sources. I was at first surprised and somewhat skeptical. But after reading John the Baptist and the last Gnostics: The secret history of the Mandaeans, by Andrew Phillip Smith, I discovered that, while we have many reasons to be puzzled by their complex present religious ideas––with traces of magical practices and veneration of solar planets––probably linked to their migrations In particular sojourn at Harran hot spot of Sin (Moon God) and of planets cult where they became known as Sabians. and persecutions, the study of their manuscripts’ colophons (chain of the copyists) show reliable indications that the first writer/copyist goes back to the middle of the 2nd century, perhaps even a bit earlier. So, it is not impossible that theses texts keep historical elements of the first century. Second, Lady Ethel S. Drower (1879-1972) a cultural anthropologist considered as “the primary specialist” on Mandaeans, signaled two singularities of Mandaeans she met in Iraq, that gives us some degree of confidence about the few sociological data on this people around 2,000 years ago––that is Jesus-time Nazoreans we are looking for––data I took, in the first place from D.A. Israel as coming from Mandaean books. First, women used to have a relatively high status among them, and, until recently, they had women, among their priests. A singular singularity, if I may say. Second, according to what a Mandean told to Lady Drower, they consider Jesus as “a prophet of their sect” and firmly believe he was not circumcised (see further paragraph on circumcision and footnote 23). In the book of A. Ph. Smith, John the Baptist and the last Gnostics: The secret history of the Mandaeans, p 179, we read: “Apart from the Mandaeans themselves and, apparently, Lady Drower in her final unpublished book, no one has seriously considered that Jesus could have been a proto-Mandaean.” Remains to be seen what exactly was their relationship with Jesus and John the Baptist in the first century. Today they say they are closer to Christians that to Jews and Muslims, but, at the time, they apparently took some distance with Jesus’ disciples (the Judeo-Christians who called themselves Nazoreans). Was it because of some affiliation with John the Baptist, or simply because contrary to many other, they denied his mythization? Nazoreans and Essenes in the early 1st century CE According to Yeshu, the early-first-century Nazoreans were members of a Palestinian religious ‘sect,’ strongly opposed to official Judaism (and thus a real “social group”). Claiming an antique origin (“Nazirutha is older than Judaism”), Quoted without any references other than “preserved in ancient scrolls”. Yeshu, p. 29. they had their own (secret) Scriptures, other than the Torah, which, according to them, was not written by Moses and had been corrupted by Persian and then Greek influences. They were vegetarians and rejected religious sacrifices. They had their main establishment and temple on Mount Carmel, said to date back to Elijah and his School of Prophets, and secondary centers, notably one close to the lower Jordan river, one in the town of Bethany––near Jerusalem, where, according to the Gospel of John, Martha and Mary, friends of Jesus, lived––and one in Jerusalem itself. Their religious system was a two-tier, that is half-esoteric, organization, with scriptures reserved to initiates. Let’s note that in the Gospels, several verses allude to particular teachings of Jesus for spiritually more advanced disciples. Socially, this culturally sophisticated group would have had three major distinctive features. First, in contrast with Jewish usages of the time, they would have practiced gender equality, which fits well with Jesus’ style of relations with women as described by the Gospels. Second, contrary to the overall Jewish population, they would have been generally literate: each house would have owned at least one or two scrolls. That means that, if Jesus and his brother were really members of this sect, they would not have been illiterate as many historians ‘believe’, and would explain why we have an Epistle by James and one by Jude––epistles generally accepted as authentically from Jesus’ ‘brothers’ but said to have been written by ghostwriters. Third, Nazoreans would have adhered to a vegetarian diet, not excluding wine. Cf. Mk 01:07, allusion to a diet of wild honey and locust for John the Baptist. This diet and the rejection of all religious sacrifices were two facets of a religious absolute respect for life. For them, God, both a father and a mother, was the source of life and they called him/her Great Life (Hiya Rba) and not Yahweh. In the U.S. 2017 political context, “absolute respect for life” seems to allude to the debate for or against abortion. D.A. Israel’s book doesn’t mention any Nazorean prohibition in that area, but as we will see farther, the word ‘abortion’ is in fact quoted. Since it’s a play of word to scoff Jews, we can infer that the practice of abortion, if not banned, was not praised by Nazoreans. According to D.A. Israel, the Nazoreans were the northern branch of a larger group of which the Ossaeans [Essenes] (meaning healers, as the Greek translation Therapeutai) were the southern division. For Davied Asia Israel, it is the word ‘nassaraean’ which means keeper (of the Covenant). These two groups were so close that they (or rather those of their members who would not have been absorbed in Jesus’ movement) would merge under the prophet Elkasai’s leadership, in the early 2nd century. After that, these Nazoreans/Essenes would be called Elkasaites/Elcesaites and Mandaeans (see at the end of this Box, Table 22 recapitulating these groups and their relationship). Mutual hostility between Jews and Nazoreans We have more social indications on them in ancient texts that do not seem contrivances. Jews would have despised and feared the Nazoreans who disdained them. There are three signs of this age-old and sustained mutual hostility. First the pejorative words used by each group to designate the other: Jews called Nazoreans the Strangers With a reference to Elijah who was said the Tishbite, that is the stranger. and pun-loving Nazoreans slightly mispronounced the word Judaism to make it mean ‘abortions’. For the relations between Nazoreans and Jews see Yeshu, p.56. Second, texts report Jewish ‘accusations’ of black magic use and of murders of Jewish children by Nazoreans. These accusations were, of course, rumors, a phenomenon well-studied by sociologists, sign of tensions between social groups that hate and fear each other but cannot avoid social relations. We know, for instance, that later there would be similar Christian accusations against Jews. Third, Rabbis took care to eliminate from the Hebrew Bible the word Essene and a sentence used by Matthew as a prophecy (Mt 02:23) “He will be called Nazorean”. This sentence was in the Hebrew Bible when this Gospel was drafted and when Jerome translated the Hebrew Bible in Latin. Jerome, De Viris Illustribus, 3 But we cannot find it today for only one possible reason: later, Rabbis edited this verse out. According to D.A. Israel, other verses used as prophecies to prove Jesus’ messiahship were also edited out of the Hebrew Bible and, if we believe the Talmud, rabbis of that time forbade the use of Torah’s older versions (not to be caught). Yeshu, p 43. Unfortunately, no reference. Of course, Jews’ hostility and fear grew stronger at the time of John the Baptist’s popularity. His execution, Jesus’ crucifixion, stoning of Stephen, execution of James of Zebedee (Act 12: 02) The text adds: “Seeing that this pleased to the Jews, he [Herod] also arrested Peter”. and later, that of James did not happen in a happy social setting. Ignoring these tense social relations would be like ignoring the Shia-Sunni opposition in today’s Middle East. Yet, historians seem unable to distinguish the ones from the others. For Instance, Mimouni call them both by the geographic denomination ‘Judeans’. The people who wrote and read Enochian literature were the Nazoreans We saw in Chapter 4 that historians specialized in the Second Temple Judaism, and especially G. Boccaccini and members of ‘The Enoch Seminar’, infer from their analysis of The Book of Enoch and of other texts of that period the existence of a dissenting stream of thought, parallel to the Deuteronomistic official Judaism. Since existence of books necessitates authors and readers who cannot exist outside a cluster of people, these historians pose the existence of a group around the Book of Enoch, probably driven by a kernel of reformist Jewish priests. But, until now, they do not go farther than the assumption stage: they did not yet manage to identify this group (due probably to specialization and compartmentalization of disciplines, and to the so nefarious repute of Gnostic texts that nobody dare to read them). It seems to me obvious––it is my main assumption––that this group was the Nazoreans/Essenes and I put forward as evidence to back my postulation, the Epistle of Jude, a text historians do not contest the authenticity as a writing of Jude, brother of Jesus. This short letter, only 25 verses long, is considered, in literary terms, as among the best pages of the New Testament (historians who believe that Jesus and his brothers were illiterate explain that Jude would have used a good ghostwriter). It names Enoch as a prophet (Ju 14) and then quotes loosely (otherwise said, from memory) the Book of Enoch. Jesus and Mary Magdalene We have also data on Jesus and Miryai (Mary Magdalene) The ancient text says ‘Miryai’. D.A. Israel translates ‘Mary Magdalene’ without explaining the origin of the second word. Some historians traditionally explain she would have come from an alleged town named Magdala (hence the variant ‘Mary of Magdala’) while others say that magdala meaning tower, a symbol of strength, Magdalena would have meant “The strong one”. coming from a Mandean text. Yeshu gives the name of this text, Sidra d-Yahia, Book of John the Baptist from Mandaic Doctrines of Kings, but without any precision. Mandaeans seem to have been the Nazoreans who rejected Jesus, because he did not keep Nazorean practices (without becoming ‘anti-Christians’) but accepted more or less John the Baptist. It is a good indication that they still have women among their priests. How reliable are data about early-first-century events contained in such a text is debatable, but why a priori exclude the possibility of the kind of oral tradition that exegetes invoke to deem historically dependable many elements of the canonical Gospels? So, what does this text say? Mary Magdalene would have been born to a Sadducee, rich and powerful family––historically well-known––the Boethus. Her father, Eliezer, was a one-year Jerusalem high priest around 4 CE, after having bought the position. Bright and having benefited from a high education, she would have acquired an outstanding personal position and outreach. She would have taught and given lectures to large audiences and personal advice to individuals. She would have had many suitors. In a hypocritical familial milieu with low ethical standards, she would have had “a morally lax period.” But she would have become tired of such a life. The Nazoreans, “so much feared by her parents,” These quotes are from D.A. Israel. had a center in Bethany, near her family home. She would have met them and would have turned to the Nazorean faith. That is how, we are said, she met Jesus who would have been ‘high priest’ in this sect without sacrifices. Several ancient texts on James mention his priestly quality. As most experts see Jesus and thus James as orthodox Jews, they look in their ascendancy, how they could have been ‘Jewish priests’, since as descendant from David, they were from Juda’s and not Levi’s tribe. A headache! The problem disappears if we see Jesus and his brothers as Nazoreans, among whom priesthood was acquired, personal and not hereditary. See, Simon Claude Mimouni, Jacques le Juste, frère de Jésus de Nazareth, passim. Not only would her parents have unwillingly accepted her conversion (seen as causing a drop in her status), but also a lot of suitors would have been jealous, in particular a gang leader named Zatan. Zatan, one of M.M.’s suitors, known as ‘the Pillar’ (a nickname that is difficult to consider as a late invention), spread malicious slanders and fueled tensions between groups. Yeshu, p. 161. With him, several of his friends took an oath, which is reported to have been: We will slay them [the Nazoreans] and make Miryai scorned in Jerusalem. A stake [cross] we will set up for the man who has ruined Miryai and led her away. There shall be no day in the world when a Foreigner [Nazorean] enters Jerusalem. Quoted from Sidra D-Yahia, without precisions, in Yeshu, p. 147. From a tradition dating back to Elijah, nicknamed the Thisbite, meaning the stranger, Gnostics of Mount Carmel would later refer to themselves as “foreigners or strangers in a foreign land” and the Jews would call them ‘strangers’. Yeshu p. 67. Would this resume a theme of Exodus? It’s seems unlikely that this oath would have been invented later out of thin air. Anyway, these details of the whole story that I am summing up not only do not seem unlikely but even appear to nicely dovetail with what we know from other sources and to inform obscurities in the traditional version of the facts coming from the Canonical Gospels. Firstly, the bright and strong personality of Mary Magdalene would explain her special relationship with Jesus and with the apostles (had she not been called the ‘Apostle to the Apostles’? see Chapter 16). Secondly the “morally lax period of her life” would explain the ‘repented sinner from whom Jesus would had cast out demons’, suggested by the Gospel of Luke. Besides that, general hostility of Jews against Nazoreans and the fierce resentment out of jealousy of Zatan’s gang would explain the hostility of ‘a’ crowd against Jesus, in front of Pilate trying to release him, hostility that exegetes can hardly conciliate with Palm Sunday popular cheers (Mt 27:21). These information pieces from a Nazorean/Mandean source seem thus to complement what we know otherwise. D. A. Israel conveying the Nazorean/Ebionite tradition denies Jesus’ Resurrection and does not say that Jesus would have ‘survived’ the cross ordeal (thesis of only apparent death), highlighting the initial ending of the Gospel of Mark at the discovery of the Empty Tomb (Mk 16:08) (the thesis that Mark initially ended there, is largely shared among exegetes, although with some embarrassment). Reincarnation was and remains a tenet for the Nazoreans. Besides, when we read the Gospels, it seems it was a rather common belief among Jesus’ followers and Jewish crowds (cf. Mk 08:27 and parallels). In the following paragraphs, we will call Nazoreans1 these ancient Nazoreans, to distinguish them from later groups who took back this name (see Table 22, at the end of this Box). What did happen after Jesus departure? The community of Jesus followers gathered in Jerusalem around James, after Jesus’ departure, is somewhat known to us from historians like Mimouni. Let’s summarize what did happen. James’ group, which called themselves Nazoreans (we will write Nazorean2), was mostly made of ‘Converted Nazoreans1’ (i.e. ‘Nazoreans1 become followers of Jesus’) for one part, and ‘Converted Jews’ (i.e. ‘Jews become followers of Jesus’) for the other, a cohabitation that was not obvious, since, before being converted, they hated each other and had had very different convictions about God himself and his revelation. Converted Jews, keeping their faith and continuing to observe circumcision (see farther, cf. Act 15:01) were dominant, while Converted Nazoreans would have remained quiet, true to their own secret doctrines and books, probably hoping that Converted Jews would progress towards their secret wisdom and ask for initiation. According to Mimouni, historians generally believe that Jesus family followed the same trend as Paulinian Christianity towards Jesus divinization, while (all or part of) Converted Nazoreans remained convinced that he had only been “adopted as a son by God during his baptism”. This belief was specifically condemned as a heresy by the Church under the name of Adoptionism, at the end of the 2nd century. They did not think he resurrected (in the sense given to this word by Christians) and did not believe in Mary’s virginity, neither in Trinity. As per Mimouni too, existence of serious tensions inside the group may be inferred from the fact that, after James’s death in 62, the group was unable to agree on a leader to succeed him: there was a deadlock during about eight years! Not long before the siege of Jerusalem, the group escaped and took refuge in Pella, in Transjordan. There, the group split. While the converted Jews chose Simeon, another brother of Jesus, as their leader, came back to Judea, and kept the name Nazoreans (we will say Nazoreans3), the others stayed true to the secret doctrines and writings of early-first-century Nazoreans1, took the name of Ebionites and went towards northern Syria, probably to flee some threat. We may presume they were not adept of circumcision. Let us see the reasons for that inference. Circumcision: Nazoreans versus Ebionites The available sources do not allow us to know with certainty what early-first-century Nazorean1 doctrine and practice was on this point, since Lk 02:21, the infancy narrative, cannot be taken as historically likely. On Jesus’ position on circumcision, we have four elements. First, in Jn 07:22, Jesus downgrades this practice from God’s command (Jews’ position) to a mere ‘practice of the ancestors’. Second, in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas––a text with many verses similar to and, probably as old as, if not older than the Gospel of Mark, which thus may be considered as a reliable source to access the Nazorean tradition on Jesus–– Jesus turns circumcision into a useless practice: If it [circumcision] were useful, your fathers would have begotten you circumcised out of your mother. But the real circumcision, of the spirit, has always been useful, but nothing but useful. Third, from other apocryphal sources, we have indications that, in general, Jesus was not inclined to impose prescriptions and to add rules to rules, as we may infer from two separate verses of the Gospel of Mary (Box 23), a redundancy that speaks volumes. The first is put in Jesus’ mouth: Do not lay down any rules beyond what I appointed you, and do not give a law like the lawgiver lest you be constrained by it. The second is attributed to Levi and addressed to Peter: Rather let us […] preach the Gospel, not laying down any other rule or other law beyond what the Savior said. Fourth, a good complementary indication is that Mandaeans (Nazoreans who did not follow Jesus) are still today opposed to circumcision. Lady E S Drower reported in her book The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran, p. 268, that she was told by Mandaeans: “Prophet Moses never suffered himself to be circumcised, neither did Prophet Jesus, for Jesus was of our sect, and they do not allow mutilations”, quoted by Andrew Phillip Smith in John the Baptist and the Last Gnostics: The Secret History of the Mandaeans, Watkins, 2016, p. 215 Thus, it is very likely that the age-old Nazorean tradition before Jesus did not give any value to circumcision and that their followers did not follow this practice. So, it is more than likely that it was not a religious obligation for Jesus. The Nazorean3 (dominated by, if not composed only of converted Jews who came back to Judea under the leadership of Simon/Simeon) stuck to circumcision and to Shabbat, and stayed true to Jewish faith and traditions. Thus, the people named Nazoreans at the end of the first century (these Nazorean3) were totally different from those designated by this word in the beginning of the century (Nazoreans1). They stayed integrated in Jewish synagogal communities. The Paulinian Christians called them informally “Those of the circumcision” This appellation was used because it was a distinctive trait of the group, compared to ‘Christians’ of course, but perhaps also … compared to Ebionites. or more officially ‘Judeo-Christians’ (or Jewish Christians). Jerome, in an early-fifth-century letter to Augustin that we already alluded to, deplores the presence throughout synagogues of these Nazoreans and condemns them, although their belief in Jesus was similar to the Christian belief, because, wanting to be both Christian and Jew, they were in fact, according to him, “neither Christians nor Jews” (See Epilogue). Old and new scriptures Even if we see Jesus talking to everyone in the Gospels, he talks to the crowds “only in parables” and we find allusions to advanced teaching or dialogues with some disciples. Converted Nazoreans, in particular those who had been initiated, the Gnostics, had kept beliefs, rites and writings they did not want to share with any non-initiated. On their side, non-Nazorean Jesus’ followers, whether Converted Jews or Converted Pagans did not want to bother much about these secrets: the first thought themselves as the elected people; the second had been said to have been saved by Jesus, why would they have cared for more? But, possession of sacred books has always been important and prestigious for a religious group. Greco-Roman Christians aware of old Nazoreans scriptures and of archives that had been written by Nazoreans on Jesus teachings and life (let’s not forget that these Nazoreans were literate), Pseudo-Clementines keeps a trace of a letter from Peter to James expressing his steadfast determination that a transcription of his sermons would not fell in the hands of “the others” (the Paulinian Christians). made their best, according to D. A. Israel, to get their hand on at least some of them, but they did not succeed, because they were in bad terms with those who kept these precious writings. Thus, they decided to create their own narratives. It was already rather late (50 years or more after Jesus’ disappearance), they had no available witness, nobody who knew the old Nazorean traditions and not even anyone familiar with the Palestinian geographical and cultural context. It is in this context, that we can fully understand what we said (Chapter 13, Section 2), on the origins of Mark’s Gospel: Mark, interpreter of Peter, an Ebionite, wrote down what he heard from him. Shortly after his text, initially Ebionite, was Christianized. We can understand also the need the write, soon after, two other Gospels: Matthew, leaning more towards the Hebrew Bible, and Luke, completed by Acts a history of the primitive Church, including Paul’s apostolate. So, they did as they could and accommodated snatches of oral traditions. These writings would be the three Synoptic Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. This context allows us to understand why these texts, backbone of the New Testament, are so defective from an historical viewpoint. The Christians, in parallel, decided to delegitimize and fight Nazorean ideas and taking every opportunity to destroy Nazorean texts. We can now read Acts in a new light, and imagine multiple tensions between Jews, Nazoreans, Converted Jews, Converted Nazoreans and Converted Pagans. The strong missionary drive of Jesus’ disciples worsened the tensions and led to harassments, molestations and arrests by Jewish authorities, especially against the Converted Nazoreans. That was probably what the first chapters of Acts call ‘persecutions’. We can also better understand the Gospel of John, John the Nazorean, and the way he uses the word ‘Jew’ from a Nazorean angle. But, as we saw in Chapter 15, the pathway of John and his community remains somewhat unknown. They broke off with both the Jerusalem community and the Paulinian Churches before opting to join the Great Church, toward the end of the century. As soon as Roman Christianity was strong enough for developing links with Roman (local) authorities (even before Constantin conversion) it instigated them to ‘persecute’ Ebionites (perhaps through some obligation to eat meat?). At least, it is what Davied Asia Israel tell us he reads in their texts. Why, anyway, would they have flown farther toward Syria? And why would there have been, during the first three centuries, so many Roman persecutions, seemingly so specifically against Egyptian Jesus’ followers, including against Alexandria’s Didascalia (theological school)? The Egyptian Church was particularly affected by the Roman persecutions, beginning with Septimius Severus's edict of 202 dissolving the influential Christian School of Alexandria and forbidding future conversions to Christianity. In 303 Emperor Diocletian issued a decree ordering all Churches demolished, all sacred books burned, and all Christians who were not officials made slaves. The decree was carried out for three years, a period known as the "Era of Martyrs." The lives of many Egyptian Christians were spared only because more workers were needed in the porphyry quarries and emerald mines that were worked by Egyptian Christians as "convict labor." From http://countrystudies.us/egypt/14.htm. Accessed 3/9/17. About the Christian Church attitude towards Nazoreans and Jews, D.A. Israel makes this comment: They [the Christians] took the original disdain which the Nazorean had for Judaic traditions and applied it to the Nazoreans as well, lumping both Jews and Essenes in one rejected group. Yeshu, p. 266. While Daniel Boyarin, as we saw in Chapter 15, strives to diminish Jewish hostility against ‘Christians’ or ‘Proto-Christians’ and to defer it to the end of the 2nd century, for D.A. Israel, the Talmud b. Barkot 29a report that, as soon as 90 CE, Rabban Gamaliel II asked for the drafting of a ‘benediction’ relating to the minim, See our chapter 14. ‘Benediction’ is a euphemism for curse and ‘minim’ refer to heretics that was written by Samuel the Lesser. And D.A. Israel comments that it was: …an expression of the deep resentment the Jewish congregations had for all thing Nazorean. It was their response to the growing success they felt the Nazoreans were experiencing. Yeshu, p. 411. A text from Epiphanius Panarion 29, around 370 CE. highlights Jews’ ‘hatred” against the Nazoreans. “Three times a day, they say ‘God curse the Nazoreans’”. It is not surprising that when Rabbis established the canon of the Hebrew Bible, they totally excluded any text that was written, even only in part, in Aramaic. Any such text would have been suspected of having been written or tainted by Nazoreans. As for ‘good’ Christians’ attitude towards Jews… it was often pure hatred. Let’s not forget this text from the canonized Church Father Saint John Chrysostom (349-407) archbishop of Constantinople, noted for his eloquence (his surname means “Golden-mouthed”): Jews are the more worthless of men––they are lecherous, greedy, rapacious––they are perfidious murderers of Christians, they worship the devil, their religion is a sickness… The Jews are the odious assassins of Christ and for killing God there is no expiation, no indulgence, no pardon. Christians may never cease vengeance. The Jews must live in servitude forever. It is incumbent on all Christians to hate the Jews. The Gnostics Confusion has reigned and still reigns in Gnosticism. As we have said, Church Fathers thought it was a contamination of pure Christian doctrine by Greek speculations or by Egyptian or Oriental thoughts. While these existed, in parallel to purely Greek and Oriental Gnostic systems, we have to recognize the existence of Nazorean Gnostic speculations, basing themselves on today-disappeared secret books. In principle, Greco-Roman Christianity stayed away from such theorizations, but Valentinus (100-155, born in Egypt!) ––who was one of the best-known and most successful Gnostic in the early-second-century Rome––said he had received from Paul’s disciple Theudas a secret wisdom that Paul would have privately taught to his inner circle. This Valentinus’ claim was ridiculed by Church Fathers, but, as we saw in chapter 14, Paul who, in all his letters, never wrote a word on Jesus’ real crucifixion under Pilate, elaborated in his 1 Corinthians curious considerations on Christ crucified in the heavens by archontes, a typical Gnostic speculation. We can probably say that ‘Gnostics’ (or, at the time, probably some unknown Aramaic equivalent of this Greek word) was the name Nazoreans called their initiates. D.A. Israel, who claims to be the heir of these early Nazoreans, call Jesus a “Gnostic Nazorean”. Competition in Egypt Religious evolution of Egypt gives us a useful glimpse on the competition between movements stemming from the Nazorean Jesus. Here are elements of the big picture. First, there were many Jews in Alexandria and many Essenes/Therapeutai in northern Egypt. Second, a tradition attributes to Mark the foundation of Jesus’ movement there, as early as the 30s or 40s CE, and we saw that, like Peter, his spiritual father, he was probably Ebionite. Thus, it is very likely that Jesus’ movement in Egypt started not as a Christian Church but as a Nazorean Church. It developed there essentially among Essenes, outside any allegiance to the Greco-Roman Christianity. The Great Church took root in Egypt only about one-century-and-a-half later, toward the end of 2nd century. The first anchorites (solitary monks), who had elected to live in the Egyptian desert, were ‘Nazoreans’ and the first ‘Christian’ monks like Antony and Pachomius, came only later, in the 4th century. The Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria (150-220), who was named by the Pope Demetrius head of the famous Didascalia of Alexandria, tried to distance himself from Nazorean influences, but was criticized for having kept too many Nazorean ideas and he was not canonized. Besides, the very fact that Rome’s bishop got involved in the Alexandria’s Church internal affairs could be an indication that the ‘Christian’ Church there was weak, needing help from outside (despite multiple indications of the strength of Jesus’ movement in Egypt). Descendants of Jesus family: the Desposyni After James, brother of the Lord, his successor, as we saw, was Simeon, second brother in line. In the first century and later, Jesus’ relatives and their descendants were bishops of Nazorean communities. According to Hegesippus, after the demise of Simeon, Jude’s grandsons [in fact, probably rather sons, historians say] were “leaders of Churches” during the reign of Domitian (emperor from 81 to 96). The descendants of Jesus family with a leadership role in Nazorean ‘Churches’ were given the name ‘Desposyni’. Desposyni, a Greek word meaning “belonging to the Lord” was used by Sextus Julius Africanus, early 3rd century, and taken back by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History. In 135, after they had vanquished Bar Kochba, the Romans prohibited the presence of Jews in Jerusalem. For the first time a non-Nazorean, non-Jew, became ‘bishop’ (mebaqer) of the Jerusalem’s Church. In 135, “Bishops of the Circumcision” (Nazoreans thinking themselves as legitimate successors to Jesus) were displaced from Jerusalem and Carmel (Epiphanius Against Heresies 4, 6, 4) With the development of the Great Church and the support it received from the Roman Emperor, the Nazoreans, considered as deviants from the true faith, would be progressively marginalized in the West (while Manicheism, a syncretistic mixt of Nazoreism and of Zoroastrianism would expand toward Asia, and gradually up to China). But, as late as 318, the Desposyni constituted a social reality noteworthy enough for their delegation to be received by Pope Sylvester in Rome. They urged him to recognize the preeminence of Jerusalem’s See, to resume the custom to remit it tithes, and to replace with Desposynis, Greek bishops on the episcopal Sees of Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus and Alexandria, to no avail. This was the last dialogue between the Roman Church and the Eastern “Sabbath-keeping Church” led by Jesus relative’s descendants. Yeshu, p. 451. Source: Malachi Martin (1921-99), who had been, as a Jesuit, secretary of Cardinal Bea during Vatican II. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church. Putnam Pub. Group, 1981. To promote Redemption––salvation through Jesus’ sacrifice––Paul concealed Jesus’ radicality In Box 20 on Sacrifices, I developed an intuition: Jesus was against sacrifices and it is Paul who took back from Judaism the archaic concept of Redemption––salvation of men through a sacrifice––and applied it to Jesus’ death on the cross. At the end of our discovery of old Nazoreans, we do not know enough about their ancient tenets to say whether Jesus changed something in the doctrine and practices he received, but we can sustain that the belief in the holy character of life, coming from God––with, as a corollary, an absolute rejection of religious sacrifices and a meat-free diet––was an essential tenet of this tradition both before and after Jesus. Paul, since he took back the archaic Jewish concept of Redemption, gave it the meaning “salvation through Jesus’ sacrifice” and made it the backbone of his Christianity, had no other way than to omit, conceal, and remove Jesus’ radical rejection of ‘any’ religious sacrifice. This rejection was not just some ritual stance but a fundamental theological position: we may not play quid-pro-quo games with God, we may not buy anything from him through sacrifices, even our salvation. While concluding, I personally wonder how Churches may continue to proclaim a religious message where God is supposed to be ‘satisfied’ by the sacrifice of an innocent victim. And I cannot help to ponder the mere survival of humankind. We know that, today, we consume in eight months what earth produces in one year. Our predatory behavior leads to the extinction of many species. See: The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, by Elizabeth Kolbert, Picador, 2015. Some talk also of extinction of the human race, see Paul Jorlon, anthropologist, Le Dernier qui sort éteint la lumière (The last who goes out turns the light off), Fayard, Paris, 2016 The western meat diet––that medical establishment claims to be required for our health––plays a non-anecdotic role in the planet’s resource depletion. Can we seriously pretend we will be able to make the seven, soon to be eight billion of human beings benefit of this consumption model? Can the old Nazorean no-meat diet be considered today only as an irrelevant superstition of another era? Table 22: Nazoreans and Essenes: evolution, fusions and splits Early 1st century CE Jews (Palestine & Diaspora) Paul Nazoreans1 (mainly in Palestine) Essenes (mainly in Egypt) Nazorean Gnostics (secret upper level ?) Jesus Years 30-68 CE Paul: (Diaspora) Pagans + Jews > Christians James: (Jerusalem) Nazoreans1 + Jews > Nazoreans2 Years 68-70 CE In Pella (Transjordan), during Jerusalem sack: Nazoreans2 split in Naoreans3 similar to Converted Jews (they came back to Jerusalem) Ebionites similar to Nazoreans1 (they flew farther to Syria) Years 30-90 CE John: (the Evangelist): Nazoreans1 + Jews + Samaritans (+ Pagans?): an isolated group After several scissions, the rest migrated to Ephesus and, finally, joined the Christian Church 2nd century and later Nazoreans1 + Essenes (not integrated in the Church) > Elkasaites Valentinians, … Mandaeans (who distanced themselves from Jesus and flew towards Arab countries) + Zoroastrian influence > Manicheans (in Iran, and then in central Asia, and later, up to China) Compilation by the author