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THE CAMBRIAN PESHER
THE VOICE OF THE DESPOSYNI TO THE AMERICAN DISPERSION
Day of St. James the Just, 2004 (October 23)
For the Catechumens
My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation. . . Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
- Epistle of James 3:1; 4:10
If ye fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well.
- James 2:8
Beloved:
The age of the synagogue arose during the years of the Babylonian captivity. That was the time when Israelites became Jews. "Israel" means "prince of God." Israelites were no longer princes; they lost the right to dominion. They were cast out of the Land of Promise. Thus, they could no longer be called "Israelites".
The synagogues were places of gathering for a fractured and scattered people. They were places for slaves to find aid and comfort and to preserve the memory of their former glory. They were not places of dominion.
In the land of Israel, prior to the monarchy, the family homestead was the center of life. The family shrine was the principal place of worship, in addition to the requirement that Israelite males appear before the LORD at the three annual festivals of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. The notion of synagogues, where people left their homesteads to gather to a place of weekly worship, was unheard of. Israelites worshipped on their family estates. Synagogues were an improvisation to reconstitute a people who had lost their inheritance and were fast losing the memory of who they were.
The tradition of the synagogue carried-over into the the Gentile Church. As Paul and his companions traveled throughout the Roman world, he gathered his converts - a motley collection of slaves, women, and dysfunctional pagan families - into churches headed by the most mature and learned men he could find. These people had no concept of the heritage once known among the ancient Israelites. All they knew was the heel of Rome.
These people drew great comfort from the story of Jesus: the thought of the mighty God descending to live among us, to love us, and to save us. The thought that this wonderful Savior could be coming again was a joyous encouragement in the face of the mant challenges and oppressions of the day. The weekly gathering, the melodies, the Holy Eucharist, the Homily - they were all precious to a people who had so little to look forward to in this life.
In contrast, while Paul was spreading the Gospel among the Gentiles, in Palestine, the work of evangelism was already completed and the difficult task of discipleship - of "Christian Reconstruction" - was in full swing. In crisis, the Sanhedrin had imported Jewish thugs to drive the followers of Jesus out of Jerusalem. James and the Church went underground. Gamaliel was enlisted by James as a spy and agent of influence within the Sanhedrin. The Chrisian mission moved forward only in the outlying provinces; the Romans treated the movement with benign neglect.
The Jesus Movement radicalized Judaism. It is clear that James' ruling at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 was meant as a departure from the customs and rituals of the Abrahamic and Mosaic Covenants. This is confirmed in James' Pastoral Epistle - addressed to the Dispersion (1:1) - which emphasizes practical Christian living and says nothing about Jewish ritualism. The Jewish vanguard became the first persecutors of Christianity and receiving no support from Rome, revolted in 64 AD, not long after they had martyred James by throwing him from the Temple stairs and beating him to death.
A few modern scholars - principally Robert Eisenman - cannot accept this portrayal of James as a compromiser of the Law. Arguing from extra-biblical sources which support the Ebionite position, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, Eisenman cannot imagine how James could have been held in such high esteem among the common people had he been truly the author of the ruling of the Jerusalem Council. He sees Christianity as the literary invention of Herodian Jews - Paul being among them - who wanted to Hellenize Judaism.
While one ought not dismiss in a single paragraph a thesis supported by over a thousand pages of heavily footnoted text (as is the case of Eisenman's tome on James, the Brother of Jesus), two important points of consideration have not been given sufficient weight by the Eisenman thesis.
First, the received text of the New Testament does not support Judaism, nor does it support Herodianism. While Paul and James diminish the importance of the ritual laws of the Jews by either arguing against them (Paul) or by ignoring them (James), they in no way compromise the Moral Law. A Herodian would have been convicted of sin under Paul's preaching, just as would a Pharisee. In Christianity, we have a different movement with different origins.
Second, and this is important, the common people wanted freedom to enjoy the heritage of their fathers. Their heritaage was not circumcision and ritual baths; it was the land, their homes, and the right to live their lives unmolested. The common people hated Judaism as much as they hated the Romans and saw both as oppressors. Both regimes were enforced by a "thought police" that hired assassins to kill the leaders of any populist movements. They killed Jesus; they killed James, and eventually destroyed any hope of a free Israel.
Lacking the guidance of a Christian homeland, the Gentile churches lost their moorings and eventually were absorbed into the Roman bureaucracy. What began as a simple gathering of wounded people for encouragement and hope, became the engine of state power. The Protestant movement began as a restoration of this primitive Christianity, unpolluted by political intrigue. But it quickly returned to its master as our now mighty denominations illustrate.
But what the Genitle churches never knew was that the model of the synagogue was the model of a defeated people. They were not places of dominion.
The message of the Grail Church is that the true Church - the true model of the Kingdom of God on Earth - is the family of Jesus. It grows through the process of adoption and procreation, through the rhythms and stages of family life. Righteous dominion comes, not from the cloister, but from the father's chair. It is manifested in the bed chamber, not in the bloody sword. Christ was the great Bridegroom and all who follow Him will follow the same path.
In the minds of churchmen, adoption is a metaphor, a euphemism for a fake membership in a fake family. In the Grail Church, it is a real concept and unless you are prepared to face that reality, your experience as a catechumen will forever be a wandering in the wilderness.
A servant of Jesus,
James
Collect for the Day:
Grant, we beseech thee, O God, that after the example of thy servant James the Just, brother of our Lord, thy Church may give itself continually to prayer and to the reconciliation of all who are at variance and enmity; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.