The Genealogy of Jesus
Part Five
"THE MASTER'S PEOPLE"
Julius Africanus noted that the members of Jesus' natural family went
about as traveling preachers in the early third century AD. They called
themselves desposynoi, a
Greek term approximately meaning "those belonging to the Master" or
"the Master's people." He reports,
From
the Jewish villages of Nazareth and Kokhaba
they traveled around the rest of the land and interpreted the genealogy
they had [from family traditions] and the Book of Days [i.e.,
Chronicles] as far as they could trace it.
Meaning probably that they
traveled around Israel preaching the gospel, using a family genealogy
(like that in Mt 1:1-17 or Lk 3:23-28) as a way of explaining the
Christian claim
that Jesus was the messianic Son of David. Kokhaba, like
Nazareth, may have been a traditional home of members of the family. It
is only about ten miles north of Nazareth.
Richard Bauckham ("The Relatives of Jesus") writes,
This
information from Julius Africanus is of great interest.
It gives us a very rare glimpse of Christianity in Galilee, showing us
that not only Jerusalem, where James was leader, but also Nazareth and
Kokhaba, where other members of the family were based, were significant
centres of early Christianity in Jewish Palestine. Moreover, it
preserves the term desposynoi,
not found in any other source. Julius
Africanus has to explain what it means, and clearly it is not a term he
would himself have used had he not found it in his source. It must be
the term by which members of the family of Jesus were known in those
Palestinian Jewish Christian circles in which they were revered
leaders. It demonstrates that not only ‘the brothers of the Lord,’ but
also a wider circle of relatives—‘the Master’s people’—played a
prominent leadership role.
The desposynoi were revered
among the Jewish faithful for several
generations. They were the leaders of churches in Jerusalem and
surrounding areas. With the rapid spread of Christianity
throughout the empire and its
eventual appointment by Constantine as the official religion of the
empire, however, this early Judaic expression of Christianity found
itself to be a backwater both of
the empire and of the entire Christian movement.
THE FIRST GENERATION
The first generation represents the "brothers of Jesus" mentioned in
Mark 6 and Matthew 13. I have explained
elsewhere
that I strongly suspect these were in fact the children of Clopas and
thus technically first cousins of Jesus. They would have been born, by
my estimation, ca. 10-1 BC.
James
assumed pre-eminent
leadership at the center of the Christian movement. Later writers
called him a “bishop”—in fact the first bishop—of Jerusalem. Bauckham
notes that, though the term may be anachronistic, “he seems to have
been more like a later monarchical bishop than anyone else in the
period of the first Christian generation.” In fact, James’ role was not
confined to Jerusalem. Bauckham continues:
Since the Jerusalem
church was the mother church of all the churches, and was naturally
accorded the same kind of central authority over the whole Christian
movement that Jerusalem and the temple had long had for the Jewish
people, James now occupied a position of unrivalled importance in the
whole early Christian movement.
Furthermore, the Gospel of Thomas (early 2nd century) reflects
a connection between James and northern Mesopotamia. Logion 12 states,
The disciples said
to Jesus, “We know that you will depart from us. Who is to be great
over us?” Jesus said to them, “Wherever you shall have come, you are to
go to James the Righteous, for whose sake heaven and earth came into
being.”
Although this obviously hyperbolic statement has no possibility of
being an authentic saying of Jesus, it does demonstrate the centrality
of James for the Gospel of Thomas community, and Bauckham
suggests that the saying may in fact go back to James’ lifetime.
James is also exalted in the Pseudo-Clementine writings, where he is
called by such terms as “the chief of the bishops” and “archbishop”
(see James Julius Scott Jr., “Glimpses
of Jewish Christianity from the End of Acts to Justin Martyr (A.D.
62-150)”). In the first book of the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions,
James is described as carrying on activities characteristic of an
administrative head.
James has the distinction of being the only follower of Jesus mentioned
by name in a first-century source not written by a Christian: Josephus
records his martyrdom in AD 62 under the high priest Ananus II.
Josephus noted the high regard in which the people of Jerusalem held
James and invested him with the designation “James the Righteous.”
The other “brothers of Jesus” were known to Paul as traveling
missionaries (1 Co 9:5).
Joseph/Joses
might possibly be Joseph Barsabbas mentioned in Acts 1:23, but all we
can go on is speculations based on church tradition.
Simon
succeeded James. After the death of James, it seems the Jerusalem
community existed in a state of turmoil that only ended after the first
Jewish War (AD 66-70) with the appointment of Simon. This selection was
contested by one Theboutis, who appears to have been a viable
candidate. As Hegesippus described the proceedings, there being no
other grounds for choosing between the two, Simon was chosen “because
he was another cousin of the Lord.” He was martyred at a very advanced
age (Hegesippus claims he was 120!) either ca. 99-103 or ca. 108-117,
but during the reign of Trajan at any event.
Evidences of the continuing existence of a distinctively Jewish form of
Christianity after AD 70 could come in a number of forms, including
accounts of
events, references to its leaders, information about its internal
affairs, evidence of its relationship with outsiders, its lasting
legacy, etc. Two writers make conflicting statements about the size and
significance of this movement. Eusebius says that following the AD
66-70 war, "there was a very important Church, composed of Jews, which
existed
until the siege of the city under Hadrian" (i.e., AD 132). On the other
hand,
Epiphanius implies that between AD 70 and 132 there was little more
than a struggling, insignificant church on the site of old Jerusalem.
Judas (or
Jude) and Simon are switched in order between Mark and Matthew. Might
they have been twins? At any rate, this is almost certainly the same
person as “Jude the brother of James,” author of the New Testament
letter that bears his name.
Mary and Salome
are the names traditionally given to the "sisters" of Jesus. Salome is
apparently a strictly Palestinian-Jewish name, so the tradition that
names Jesus’ two sisters may have some basis in fact.
Some early medieval sources make the claim that Joseph of Arimathea
(Mk 15:43) was a paternal uncle of the Virgin Mary, that he was an
early evangelist in Britain, and that his daughter Anna married into a British
royal family. I am not aware of as much as a scrap of evidence to
support this theory, which is unfortunate because otherwise I might be
able to claim to be a desposynos
myself!
THE SECOND AND THIRD GENERATIONS
At least some of the succeeding bishops of Jerusalem were likely
desposynic, and most likely of the second and third generations.
Zoker and James were grandsons of Judas and
leaders in the
Jewish Jesus movement during the time of Domitian (AD 81-96).
Hegesippus reports
how they lived as commoners, not as Davidic heirs. Brought before the
emperor for questioning,
He asked them whether they were of the
family of David; and they confessed they were. Next he asked them what
property they had, or how much money they possessed. They both replied
that they had only 9000 denaria between them, each of them owning half
that sum; but even this they said they did not possess in cash, but as
the estimated value of some land, consisting of thirty-nine plethra
only, out of which they had to pay the dues, and that they supported
themselves by their own labour. And then they began to hold out their
hands, exhibiting, as proof of their manual labour, the roughness of
their skin, and the corns raised on their hands by constant work.
THE FOURTH, FIFTH, AND SIXTH GENERATIONS
At least some of the later Jewish bishops of Jerusalem were desposynic.
They would have been of the fourth or fifth generations.
Judas Kyriakos was, according to
Epiphanius, the
last Messianic Jewish bishop of Jerusalem. He is sometimes
identified as a
desposynos, possibly a son or
grandson of either Zoker or James. It was
during his episcopacy that Jerusalem fell in the Second Jewish War (AD
135), at which time the Jewish believers in Jesus are said to have fled
to Pella in present-day Jordan.
This figure is shrouded in mystery and miscommunication. A second
"Judas Kyriakos" is hailed as the fourth-century discoverer of the True
Cross, a Jew who took the name Kyriakos
("belonging to the Lord") upon his conversion and was eventually
made bishop of Jerusalem. This final detail may have arisen because of
the similarity of Kyriakos and
Kyrillos (Cyril), the famous
fourth-century bishop of Jerusalem. The two figures are often blurred
together in later legend. Yet
another strand of tradition has Judas killed in a riot in AD 133.
The fall of Jerusalem was a major blow. With the Bar-Kokhba revolt the
Jewish nation was crushed by Emperor Hadrian. Jerusalem was renamed
Aelia Capitolina and Jews were expelled from the city.
Abris, Oraham, and Ya'qub were bishops of
Ctesiphon-Seleucia in Mesopotamia, most likely of the fourth, fifth,
and sixth generations. Their three names follow that of Mari, the
late-first-century founder of the church.
According to Gregory Barhebraeus (13th century), Abris or Ahrosis
(Ambrosios) is said to have been “of the family and race of Joseph” the
husband of Mary (although apparently another
tradition makes him a "relative of the Virgin Mary"). He is said
to have been elected in Jerusalem and consecrated in Antioch. Oraham
(Abraham) was “of the kin of James called the brother of the Lord.”
Ya’qub (James) was the son of Oraham. The dates of their episcopacies
are disputed. A low dating
assigns Abris 82-98, Oraham 98-110/120, and Ya'qub 120-138. A high dating
assigns Abris 90-107, Oraham 130-152, and Ya'qub 172-190.
Bauckham notes,
While it may seem hazardous to trust
such late sources, the medieval chronicles had access to good older
sources. The claim to descent from the family of Jesus should not be
regarded as a mark of legend, since claims to descent from the family
of Jesus are extremely rare in Christian literature and the very few
other such alleged descendants who are to be found in the
literature…are entirely credible.
These
three are almost certainly not father, son, and grandson or else Abris
would also be described as "of the kin of James." Could the phrase "of
the family
and race of Joseph" be a garbled recollection that he was a descendant
of Joseph/Joses, the brother of James?
THE SEVENTH AND LATER GENERATIONS
The desposynoi to which Julius Africanus referred in the early 200's,
went about as traveling preachers with bases in Nazareth and Kokhaba,
were likely at least this far removed from Jesus' generation. There is
one last named desposynos in the church's memory:
Konon
(or Conon) is still revered
in the Orthodox church. He was a gardener on the imperial estate who
was martyred at Magydos in Pamphylia, Asia Minor, under emperor Decius
(ca. 250-251). According to the acts of his martyrdom, when questioned
at court as to his origin and ancestry he replied: "I am of the city of
Nazareth in Galilee, I am of the family of Christ, whose worship I have
inherited from my ancestors."
Bauckham states, "Perhaps this is a metaphorical reference to his
spiritual origins as a Christian, but it seems more plausible to read
it as a literal claim to natural family relationship with Jesus."
Finally, a contingent of eight desposynic bishops
said to have presided over various branches of the church met with
Sylvester, the bishop of Rome, in AD 318. They are said to have
requested (1) that the confirmation of Christian bishops of Jerusalem,
Antioch, Ephesus and Alexandria be revoked; (2) that these episcopal
sees be conferred instead on members of the desposynoi; and (3) that Christian
churches 'resume' sending money to the Jerusalem church, which was to
be regarded as the mother church of the Jesus movement. Not
surprisingly, Sylvester dismissed their claims.