The First Apocalypse of James

The First Apocalypse of James

By Colm Ó’Riada

Summary:

TheFirstApocalypseof James ispart of theNew Testament apocrypha isalso called theRevelation of Jacob it was first discovered amongst 52 otherGnosticChristian texts spread over 13codicesby an Arab peasant, Mohammad Ali al-Samman, in the Egyptian town ofNag Hammadi inlate December 1945. Another copy has been found recently in theCodex Tchacos.

The text itself is very well preserved for its age; it was reported that a cache of texts which contained the apocalypses of James and other texts, called the "Nag Hammadi library", when originally discovered, were sealed within a large terracotta vessel. It is very probable that they were hidden during the fourth century, in an effort to hide the texts from destruction.

The form of the text is primarily that of a Revelation Dialogue/Discourse betweenJames the Just(thebrotherof Jesus – according to the text, James is not a biological brother but a spiritual brother)and Jesus, with a rather fragmentary account of the martyrdom of Saint James attached to the bottom of the manuscript, connected to the remainder by an obscure reference to crucifixion. The first portion of the text describes James' understandable concern about being crucified, whereas the latter portion describes secretpasswordsgiven to James so that he can ascend to the highest heaven (out of seventy-two) after dying, without being blocked by evilpowersof thedemiurge.

Some of the framing background details about James given in the text are thought by academics to reflect early traditions; according to the text:

• James was the head of theearly church
• James was the most seniorapostle
• James fled toPellawhen the Romans invaded Jerusalem in 70AD. This contradicts the testimony ofJosephusandEusebiuswho both state that James was executed in Jerusalem in 62 AD.

One of the most curious features of the First Apocalypse of James is that the range of dating of its original text, assigned to it by scholars, requires that it was writtenafterthe Second Apocalypse of James

James the Just:

Known asJames the Righteous,James of Jerusalem orJames, the Brother of the Lord was an important figure inearly Christianity.

James the Just was the leader of theChristian movement in Jerusalemin the decades after Jesus' death but information about his life is scarce and ambiguous. Apart from a handful of references in the Gospels the main sources for his life are theActs of the Apostles, theepistles of Saint Paul, the historianJosephus andSt. Jerome. TheEpistle of Jamesin theNew Testamentis signed by him and he is the author of theApostolic Decreeof Acts 15. He is sometimes said to be the first of theSeventy Apostles.

James was called "the Just" because of his righteousness and piety and to distinguish him from other James’s in religious texts.

There is dispute about the title James ‘brother of Jesus’ as some would say that he is a cousin or spiritual brother to him but others look at it in a more literal sense as most Jews at the time were encouraged to have many children and it would have been very odd if Jesus was an only child and Mary an eternal virgin (an idea propose in another non-cannon text), others say that he’s is an adopted brother or that after the early death of Joeseph led to Mary remarrying and having more children.

James died in 62 A.D. by a reformed Sanhedrin who put him to death by stoning for an unknown crime. This information’s source is very vague.

My Thoughts on the Text:

The only translation I could find was missing parts so my understanding may be off by a little. The first thing I found strange in the text was that Jesus speaks to James (before the crucifixion) and calls him his brother but make a specific mention that it is not materially (leading me ask questions about some of the theories about this.) Jesus doesn’t refer to God as the Father but rather Him-who-is which seems out of place and continues to talk about his redemption (the crucifixion I can assume.) He talks about how he will be seized and how James is to be seized and how James can avoid the same fate for a time.

Jesus talks about Jerusalem saying she always offers a cup of bitterness to the sons of the light. And than there are Archons in the city who would persecute James and that he should leave so that he can learn why they do what they do.

James the questions the number of hebdomads saying that Jesus has told him that there are twelve rather than the seven that the scripture say. Jesus goes on to enlighten him that the hebdomads control the seventy-two heavens. They are in turn under the control twelve Archons. They are now uncountable and they are given power by the number of angels in the heavens.

James asks how he can reach the highest levels of heaven with the hebdomads and Archons are against him. Jesus tells him that they are not armed at him but at another.

The rest of the text is either too difficult get a meaning from them because of missing sentences or talks about why Jesus has to be killed and how he will for give humanity for it. A

small portion of this is based on a character called Sophia who is either the virgin mother Mary, a virgin mother to James or some kind of eternal being who helped the creation of the world. The story of genesis is also mentioned and talks about man and woman being created.

This text is an interesting piece of work as it seems to go against the grain on some of the ideas put forward by the church and it also is quite question able as it has only one copy and is dated long after the original was written, we can assume. I wouldn’t say that I could judge this piece of work that on the sole purpose that there is the possibility that some of the crucial details in the piece could have been lost in the translation and the face that some of the pages have been damaged and whole sentences have been lost.

Why it has been excluded from the Bible:

The first reason I would say it wasn’t made cannon or even considered for the Bible was that it was probably hidden in a monastery or somewhere else. Although if this wasn’t the case it was probably wasn’t picked because it’s message is unclear, the references to this Sophia character are ambiguous and potentially contradict the teachings of the church. The talk about heaven and it’s seventy-two levels seems a little too much like Dante’s seven circles of hell. The most alarming part was that there might be supernatural beings in heaven that would be armed and have a prejudice of certain people trying to get into heaven. The possibility that Jesus had a brother of any kind was probably too far of a stretch for the early church and would lead to the kind of “writers” such as Dan Brown who would base their books on very questionable material (see holy blood and holy grail, authors admit it a hoax)

Well thank for reading and I hope it was what was asked for .