End of the Era
Persecution Under Trajan
In this (Trajanic) persecution we have understood that Simeon, the son of Clopas, who, as we have shown, was the second bishop of the assembly of Jerusalem, suffered martyrdom. (Eusebius, Ecclesiasticalm History 3.32.I)
Trajan's persecution focused on Gentile disciples, but Jewish followers of Yeshua the Nazarene were not immune. The government arrested Jews suspected of allegiance to the crucified one from Nazareth and made them stand trial before the tribunal. The Roman officials could not compel the Jewish believers to sacrifice to idols-Roman law protected the ancestral customs of the Jews, including their prohibition on idolatry. The tribunals required only those Jews accused of allegiance to Yeshua to renounce and curse His name.
Trajan also ordered the arrest of members of the house of David, just as Vespasian and Domitian had done in earlier decades. The Roman government targeted the descendants of David because their royal house uniquely symbolized Jewish nationalism, and the Davidic name was closely associated with the Christian superstition.
In 107 CE, the Roman legate over Judea was a wealthy, Athenian Greek named Tiberius Claudius Atticus. He dutifully discharged his responsibility, administering the affairs of the tenth legion and acting as proconsul over Judea. He called for the arrest of the sons of David and followers of Yeshua.
The Desposyni (the Master's kinsmen) stood in double jeopardy. They were dedicated followers of their famous cousin and proud members of the royal house of David. It was only a matter of time before someone denounced them to the Romans.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Rabbi Eliezer
Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus was among those arrested as a believer.
During the siege of Jerusalem, Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus and Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananiah smuggled their teacher, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, out of Jerusalem in a coffin. Eliezer and Yehoshua became important scholars in the court at Yavneh after the destruction of the Temple. Eliezer lived in the city of Lod (Lydda) with his wife, Ima Shalom (the daughter of Rabbi Shim'on ben Gamliel and the sister of Rabban Gamliel II). She gave Eliezer beautiful children, and she attributed their handsome appearance to her husband's great modesty.
Once, it happened that, while discussing a certain matter of legal minutia, Rabbi Eliezer refused to yield to the majority opinion of his colleagues. His brother-in-law, the ruthless Gamliel Il, punished him by banning him from the academy. The sentence amounted to something similar to a defrocking.
Around that same time, Rabban Gamliel turned his attention to the believers. Under his leadership, the sages at Yavneh declared the believers to be minim, i.e., sectarians. The Hebrew word min means "species, type, or kind." It also means "sect" or "sectarian." Gamliel pushed the believers out of fellowship with the rest of Judaism by inserting the Birkat HaMinim, a curse against the sectarians, into the daily prayers. From then on, the sages referred to believers in Yeshua as minim (sectarians, heretics), and they referred to faith in Yeshua as minut, i.e., heresy.
During those days, Rabban Gamliel II and his colleagues made an important trip to Rome to plead the case of the Jewish people before Emperor Domitian. It may have been on that voyage that a storm at sea arose. A great wave rose up to sink the ship. Rabban Gamliel said, "It seems to me that this is happening on account of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus." He prayed, "Master of the universe, You know that I did not do this for my own honor or for the honor of my father's household, but for your honor so that factions might not multiply in Israel." Then the stormy seas subsided.
After the sages excommunicated Rabbi Eliezer, he said, "Warm yourself before the fire of the sages, but beware of their glowing coals lest you be singed, for their bite is the bite of a fox, their sting is the sting of a scorpion, their hiss is the hiss of a serpent, and all their words are like fiery coals."
Eliezer's wife, Ima Shalom, knew that her brother had abused his position of authority when he excommunicated Eliezer. Because of the injustice that her brother committed against her husband, Ima Shalom did not permit her husband to prostrate himself before God in supplication, for she did not want him to supplicate regarding his humiliation. She feared that, if he did, he might thereby stir up Heaven's justice and bring punishment upon her brother Gamliel. Once, it happened that a poor beggar came to the door while Eliezer was saying his daily prayers. Ima Shalom answered the door and spent a few minutes giving the poor man bread. Then she returned to her elderly husband, only to discover him prostrated on the floor in prayer. She shrieked, "Get up! You have killed my brother!"
Shortly after that, word came to Lydda that Rabban Gamliel had died. Eliezer asked his wife, "How did you know that this would happen?"
Ima Shalom replied, "I have received a tradition from the house of my grandfather (Gamliel I) that all the gates of prayer are locked except the gates of wrongful suffering."
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
The Charges Against Rabbi Eliezer
t. Chullin 2:24
Sometime later, the Romans arrested the venerable Rabbi Eliezer on suspicion of being a follower of the crucified one. The story says he was arrested for minut, that is to say, he was arrested for being a sectarian. This can only mean he was arrested on suspicion of being a believer. No other type of Jewish sectarianism was illegal.
According to the story, Rabbi Eliezer was not a believer. Jewish sources indicate that the Romans mistakenly associated him with the Sect of the Nazarenes. The matter is not so certain.
Eliezer knew that his teacher, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, had held the Nazarene in high esteem. He also knew that the Nazarene had correctly predicted the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.
So far as we know, Eliezer did not participate in the excommunication that the sages of Yavneh imposed against the believers; rather, he himself faced excommunication from the same court. If Eliezer was not a believer, he might have at least had sympathies for the disciples of Yeshua.
Eliezer's teachings and opinions sometimes echoed those of Yeshua of Nazareth. Rabbi Eliezer proclaimed a message of repentance similar to the Master's. He used to say, "Repent one day before you die!" When his disciples asked him how one could know the day of one's death, he replied that one must repent every day.
The Romans brought Rabbi Eliezer before the tribunal in Caesarea. The rabbi may have stood before Atticus. If the judge followed the protocol used by Pliny the Younger, he needed to first ask the accused if he was a Christian. If the accused denied being a Christian, the judge could ask him to prove that he was not by cursing Christ. In the case of a Gentile, the judge also asked the accused to offer obeisance to an idol.
According to the story, when the Roman judge saw the old rabbi's white hair and beard, he chastised him for believing that nonsense about a man who comes back from the dead to rule the world. The governor asked, "Does an old man like you occupy himself with such things?"
Remarkably, Eliezer did not refute the charge when he had the opportunity. He could have forever dispelled suspicions about being a believer by simply denying Yeshua and speaking some imprecation against the Master's name or memory. He did not. Instead, he cryptically replied, "Faithful is the judge concerning me," which meant, "I rely on the trustworthiness of the judge." Rabbi Eliezer was speaking of God, "his Father in heaven," the true judge. He meant, "I rely on God to judge me justly."
The Roman judge misunderstood. He supposed that Rabbi Eliezer was speaking of him, and the compliment flattered him. He said to Eliezer that, since he had entrusted himself to the judge, he would judge his case favorably. The judge found it difficult to believe the claims of the accusers. He mused to himself, how could this wise, respected, white-haired rabbi be part of the absurd superstition of the Christians? He pronounced his judgment: "Dimissus (Pardoned)." Yet, the charges against Rabbi Eliezer must have had some basis.
Although the trial came out favorably, the entire matter disturbed Rabbi Eliezer. He wondered why God had allowed him to be arrested in the first place. He probably wondered who among his former colleagues might have denounced him to the government. According to the story, he was distraught over being mistaken for a believer-if it was a mistake.
His disciples came to him to offer consoling words. "I'm sure it was a big mix-up." "It could have happened to anyone." "All's well that ends well." Rabbi Eliezer took no comfort from their words. Then his former disciple Rabbi Akiva arrived. Akiva offered to speak straightforwardly and tell Eliezer why he had been arrested, "Perhaps one of the minim (sectarians) spoke a word of minut (sectarianism) with you and it pleased you."
Akiva's explanation can be understood in two ways. On the one hand, Akiva suggested that God was punishing Rabbi Eliezer for even listening to and enjoying the teachings of the believers. On the other hand, it might imply that the sages had informed against Eliezer because they knew that he enjoyed the teachings of the believers and was sympathetic toward them. Akiva's words seem to suggest that his own colleagues had called for Eliezer's arrest.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Ya’akov of Kefar Sekaniyah
Eliezer replied, "By heaven, you have reminded me! Once I was walking along the main street of Sepphoris, and I met Yaakov of Kefar Sekaniyah." And he told me a word of minut in the name of Yeshu [HaNotzri], and it pleased me!" (t. Chullin 2:24)
Rabbi Eliezer admitted that he had once encountered a disciple of Yeshua named Yaakov (James) of the village of Sekaniyah in the upper market of the city of Sepphoris (Tzippori). They had a conversation. The disciple of Yeshua told Rabbi Eliezer a teaching of the Master, and Eliezer liked it.
Rabbi Eliezer may have remembered an incident that happened as much as forty years earlier. In any event, the encounter must have happened after the Jewish War. The city of Sepphoris survived the war by surrendering to Vespasian early during his campaigns. Prior to the war, conservative Jews like Eliezer and James avoided Hellenized, Gentile cities like Sepphoris, but after the war, Sepphoris was one of the few Galilean cities that Rome left intact. It became a center of Jewish learning.
Rabbi Eliezer identified the disciple as the notorious Yaakov of the village of Sekaniyah, a known disciple of Yeshua. The Talmud remembers him as a powerful healer who healed in the name of Yeshua.
The disciple from Sekaniyah transmitted the teaching of Yeshua directly, saying, "Thus was I taught by Yeshu[a] HaNotzri." This indicates that he must have been a first-generation disciple, perhaps even one of the Twelve.
If he was one of the twelve, which Yaakov was he? The Hebrew name Ya akov enters the English New Testament as "James." The Master had three close disciples by that name. James the son of Zebedee and James the brother of Yeshua both died before the destruction of the Temple. That leaves only James the Less. Of course, the Master probably had other disciples named Yaakov from outside the circle of the Twelve, but Rabbi Eliezer spoke of the man from Sekaniyah as if he was a well-known and celebrated disciple of Yeshua. Although we cannot be certain, it is possible, perhaps even prob-able, that James of Sekaniyah was James the son of Alphaeus, also called "James the Less."
Sekaniyah sat in the vicinity of Jotapata and Sepphoris. Not far from Cana, Cochaba, and Nazareth, Sekaniyah lies near the heartland of the Yeshua movement. Sekaniyah was an important center for Nazarene believers in Yeshua who gathered there around the famous healer and disciple.
In the Talmud, the sages recalled that the population of Sekaniyah had a reputation for high moral standards, but they criticized the inhabitants of the village for not adequately mourning the destruction of Jerusalem. If Sekaniyah was largely inhabited by believers, their ambiguity regarding the Jewish Revolt and the destruction of Jerusalem is understandable. Based upon the prophecies of Yeshua, the believing community had been predicting Jerusalem's coming destruction for forty years before it happened.
The population of Sekaniyah revered their local holy man and preserved his place of burial. In I96I, local Arabs in modern Sakhnin showed the Franciscan Father Bellarmino Bagatti a collapsing mausoleum around a first-century tomb that they identified as the tomb of James. Bagatti discovered it to be a place of reverence for the local Christian Arabs. The Arab Christian community in Sekaniyah calls the first-century tomb "Alsaddik" (The Righteous One), and they explain that it is the resting place of a powerful healer. Local Arab Christians still go to the tomb to pray for healing for themselves and their loved ones.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Hire of a Harlot
Rabbi Eliezer said: "Akiva, you have reminded me. I was once walking in the upper market of Tzippori when I came across the disciple of Yeshua named Yaakov of the village of Sekaniyah, who said to me: 'It is written [in Deuteronomy 23:18], "You shall not bring the hire of a harlot….. into the house of the LORD your God." May the money from the hire of a harlot be used for building a toilet for the high priest?' I made no reply. He said to me, 'I was taught this by Yeshua of Nazareth. [It is written in Micah I:7,] "For of the hire of a harlot she collected them, and to the hire of a harlot they will return." They came from a place of filth, let them go to a place of filth.' Those words pleased me very much." (b.Avodah Zarah 17a)
What was the word of minut (sectarianism) that Rabbi Eliezer admitted to enjoying? Ya'akov of Sekaniyah transmitted a humorous, tongue-in-cheek, halachic teaching of Yeshua that lampooned the corrupt and wicked Sadducean high priesthood. In the days of the Master, the chief priests brought wicked money into the treasury, enriched themselves with it, and used it to bribe the Romans and retain their positions of power. Yeshua criticized them for their corruption. He accused them of making the Holy Temple into a den of robbers.
The Torah says, "You shall not bring the hire of a harlot or the wages of a dog into the house of the LORD your God for any votive offering, for both of these are an abomination to the LORD your God" (Deuteronomy 23:18). This means that money acquired from prostitution or immorality could not be dedicated to the Sanctuary or used to purchase a sacrifice. Jewish law codifies the law to mean, "It is forbidden to bring wicked money into the Temple treasury." Yeshua asked His disciples, "If it is forbidden to use the hire of a harlot for a holy offering, may the money be used to purchase a toilet for the high priest?" Caiaphas had a golden toilet in the Temple. When his disciples could offer no answer, Yeshua answered His own question with another text. He said, "It is written in the Prophet Micah, For of the hire of a harlot she collected them, and to the hire of a harlot they will return. If the wealth of the priesthood came from a place of filth, let it return to a place of filth."
The key to understanding the Master's cryptic teaching is in the context of the passage from Micah:
I will pour her stones down into the valley and will lay bare her foundations. All of her idols will be smashed, all of her earnings will be burned with fire and all of her images I will make desolate, for she collected them from a harlot's earnings, and to the earnings of a harlot they will return. (Micah I:6-7)
Annas, Caiaphas, and the Sadducean priesthood sold themselves to Rome in order to acquire the powerful position of high priesthood. Yeshua likened the wealth they amassed through political corruption and control of the Temple to the hire of a harlot. They used their ill-gotten wealth for extravagances like golden toilets.
By way of verbal analogy with Deuteronomy 23:18, which says, "You shall not bring the hire of a harlot... into the house of the LORD your God," Rabbi Yeshua cited Micah I:7, "For of the hire of a harlot she collected them, and to the hire of a harlot they will return." He applied the passage to the corrupt high priesthood, saying, "They came from a place of filth, let them go to a place of filth." In other words, "They acquired their position and wealth from the Roman government [through collusion and bribery], let their power and wealth return to the Romans."
Not long after the fall of Jerusalem, Yaakov of Sekaniyah related the Master's words to Rabbi Eliezer as a sort of political analysis of recent events. Rabbi Eliezer enjoyed the interpretation. According to the Talmud, Rabbi Eliezer exclaimed, "That must be why I was arrested for heresy."
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
A Ban on Healing in Yeshua’s Name
b.Avodah Zarah 27b
Even Jews who were not believers respected the reputation of Yeshua and His disciples as powerful healers. They often sought out disciples of Yeshua to ask them for healing in the name of their Master. In order to discourage people from going to the apostles for healing, the sages at Yavneh apparently made a prohibition against receiving healings in the name of Yeshua. Once, it happened that a venomous serpent bit Eleazar the son of Dama. Eleazar lived with his uncle and mentor, Ishmael the son of Elisha, the grandson of the high priest Ishmael the son of Fabi. The snake's venom sickened Eleazar, and he fell into a feverish swoon. He languished near death in his uncle's home, but nothing could be done. He knew that he was dying, and so did Ishmael.
While Eleazar ben Dama lay dying, Ya'akov of the village of Sekaniyah showed up at the door and offered to pray over him and cure him in the name of Yeshua, but Rabbi Ishmael would not allow him to enter the house or pray for his nephew.
Eleazar pleaded with his uncle, "Please, let him heal me."
Ishmael replied, "You are not permitted, Ben Dama."
Eleazar ben Dama argued from his bed, "I will bring you a proof text from the Torah that proves that I am permitted and that he may heal me." He began a Torah discourse with the intention of proving that, in his situation, the saving of his life took precedence over observing a rabbinic prohibition, but as he spoke, his voice grew fainter, and the breath left his body. So he died before he finished his argument. Ishmael sent the disciple of Yeshua away. Then he said, "Happy are you, Ben Dama, for you have departed in peace and have not broken through the ordinances of your colleagues, the sages. For punishment comes upon everyone who breaks through the fences of the sages, as it is written [in Ecclesiastes 10:8], A serpent may bite him who breaks through a fence."
The Talmud comments on the story, "It is even worse in the case of minut (sectarianism/heresy) which bites a man after his death."
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Tziyon Chadash and the Seven Synagogues
For their whole assembly consisted then of believing Hebrews who continued from the days of the apostles. (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4.5.2)
Rabbi Eliezer probably encountered James the Less in Sepphoris a few years after the fall of Jerusalem. That means that the meeting might have happened around the same time that the disciples came back from Pella under the leadership of Simeon son of Clopas. The returnees from Pella built the little synagogue of the apostles on the western hill of ruined Jerusalem. It became a place of pilgrimage for believers.
By the time Rabbi Eliezer was arrested on charges of minut, James the Less was most likely already dead. Only Simeon the son of Clopas remained from the original generation of the disciples. He had outlived the first generation of disciples and apostles and most of the believers of the second generation as well. By then, the disciples of the disciples of the apostle lived in the New Zion community at Jerusalem.
At the age of one hundred and twenty, Simeon son of Clopas was probably the last living link to the Master-the last man alive who had been commissioned directly by the resurrected Yeshua. The New Zion community of Simeon son of Clopas still shared the western hill of Jerusalem with the Roman Tenth Legion. They also had some new neighbors. In the years since they first established the Synagogue of the Apostles on the western hill (73 CE), the Romans had allowed the Jews to erect six more synagogues. Epiphanius explains:
[The synagogue of the apostles] had been built ... in that portion of Zion which escaped destruction, together with blocks of houses in the neighborhood of Zion and the seven synagogues which alone remained standing in Zion, like solitary huts. (Epiphanius, On Weights and Measures 14)
The seven synagogues served primarily as houses of worship for those Jews who still came up to Jerusalem for the pilgrimage festivals. Believers went to the Synagogue of the Apostles. The other six synagogues probably belonged to other sects of first-century Jews, especially the rabbis at Yavneh.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
A Fox In the Holy of Holies
b.Makkot 24a-b
For many years after the fall of Jerusalem, the sages attempted to redirect festival pilgrims to Yavneh, but they were not successful in establishing Yavneh as a pilgrimage center. They realized that they needed to establish their presence in Jerusalem just as the believers had done. At least a few of the seven synagogues on Jerusalem's western hill must have represented the interests of the sages.
Once, it happened that Rabban Gamliel II, Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariyah, Rabbi Yehoshua, and Rabbi Akiva were coming up to visit the ruins of Jerusalem together. Just as they came to the top of Mount Scopus, which overlooks the Temple Mount, they saw a fox emerge from the ruins of the holy of holies. They all wept except for Rabbi Akiva, who smiled happily. They asked him, "Why are you happy?"
He replied, "Why are you weeping?"
They explained, "This place where no man could tread has now become a den for foxes! Should we not weep?"
Rabbi Akiva said to them, "That is why I am happy. For if God fulfilled the prophecies about Zion's destruction, then surely He will also fulfill the prophecies about Zion's restoration."
Whenever the rabbis from Yavneh went to Jerusalem, they also encountered the believers in the New Zion community. The relationship between the believers and the rabbis from Yavneh had broken down a decade earlier when Gamliel introduced the malediction against sectarians into the daily synagogue liturgy and declared the believers heretics. The relationship between the believers and the sages must have been especially tense in the New Zion community. The climate bred increasing hostility.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
The Waning Light
While he was in Jerusalem, he also saw the disciples of the disciples of the apostles flourishing in the faith and working great signs, healings, and other miracles. (Epiphanius, On Weights and Measures 15)
As the apostles began to die off, the so-called "age of miracles" began to fade. Nevertheless, the "disciples of the disciples of the apostles" carried on the apostolic tradition of praying and healing in the name of Yeshua. The miracles might not have been of the same caliber or frequency as those of the apostles, but no one could deny the power of the Master's name. The sages continued to uphold the ban on seeking healing from the minim.
The influence and prestige of the Jewish believers in the New Zion community had significantly diminished. The excommunication placed them on the defensive against other Jews, as they tried to justify their place in Judaism while defending their faith in Yeshua. It created a polemical relationship characterized by argumentation rather than commonality. Long gone were the days when the Jewish believers enjoyed "favor with all the people, and the Lord was adding to their number day by day" (Acts 2:47). They became more insular as their numbers dwindled.
Except for the elderly Simeon son of Clopas, the Jerusalem community no longer had the weighty authority of the apostolic voices. They no longer exercised the influence over the Diaspora congregations that they once had exerted. The Gentile believers who had once looked to Jerusalem for direction no longer did so. Copies of Paul's epistles had largely supplanted the authority of the mother assembly. The increasingly Gentile communities in the Diaspora found the staunchly conservative Jewish expression of Yeshua-faith irrelevant and even contradictory to how they now understood Christianity. To many Gentile believers, it seemed as if the Jewish believers had failed to properly grasp the message of grace. The Gentile believers even called into question the salvation of Jewish believers who still practiced Judaism. Justin Martyr conceded that many Gentile Christians had come to the opinion that Jewish disciples of Yeshua who continued to observe circumcision, Sabbath, the calendar, and the purity laws could not be saved (Dialogue with Trypho 47).
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
The Informers
The historian Hegesippus writes as follows: "Certain of these heretics brought accusations against Simeon son of Clopas. They charged that he was a descendant of David and a Christian ... while Trajan was emperor and Atticus legate." (Eusebius quoting Hegesippus, Ecclesiastical History 3.32.3)
The disciples of Thebuthis the heretic impatiently waited for Simeon to die. Simeon almost certainly outlived Thebuthis himself, but the heretical teacher's descendants and followers carried on after him (See lesson Patmos). They continued to spread his deviant views and to oppose Simeon and those who stood for the truth. During the reign of Domitian, they informed against their cousins James and Zoker, the grandsons of Jude. That incident led to the arrest of James and Zoker and their journey to Rome to stand trial before Caesar.
During the reign of Trajan, the Roman legate Atticus made inquiries among the Jews of Judea. He made it known that he sought Jews associated with the Nazarene and especially those associated with the house of David. The disciples of Thebuthis saw an opportunity to finally rid themselves of Simeon son of Clopas.
They informed Atticus about Simeon. They explained that Simeon son of Clopas was of the house of David, a relative of the Nazarene, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. Hegesippus tells the story in these words:
Simeon, son of Clopas, the son of the Master's uncle, was informed against by the heretics in the same manner and for the same cause (as the grandsons of Jude) before the governor Atticus. (Eusebius quoting Hegesippus, Ecclesiastical History 3.32.6)
The arrest was easy to make. The Tenth Legion had a garrison in the remains of Herod's palace, only a short walk from the little Synagogue of the Apostles.
Atticus needed only to send a centurion up the hill to take the ancient Jew into custody. The Romans put Simeon son of Clopas in chains and brought him to Caesarea to stand trial before the tribunal. They also brought the informers along with the prisoner to offer their testimony.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
The Testimony of Shim’on Bar Klofo
Because he was obviously a Christian, they tortured him in various ways for many days. He astonished the judge and his attendants (with his fortitude and strength). Finally he suffered a death similar to that of our Master. (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.32.2)
Atticus convened his tribunal. Simeon son of Clopas stood before him just as his cousin Yeshua of Nazareth stood before the tribunal of Pontius Pilate seventy-seven years earlier. Although Simeon was one hundred and twenty years old, his eye was not dim, nor had his vigor abated (Deuteronomy 34:7). He knew that he was the last of the apostles, and he realized that the Master had preserved him all these years for this last scene in the drama of the Apostolic Era.
His accusers testified against him. They said, "He is of the house of David, a close relation to the Nazarene, and a leader of the Christians." Atticus asked him, "Are these things true?" Simeon affirmed that they were true. Atticus offered him a chance to recant and change his answer. When Simeon refused to recant, Atticus said something like, "Perhaps we can persuade you to change your answer. You only need to renounce the crucified one and curse His name. You are an old man. Why should you suffer?"
Despite Simeon's advanced age, Atticus subjected him to torture. The Roman legate understood the old man was an important symbol for the believers-the last of the apostles. Atticus hoped to make the last apostle publicly recant and deny the name of the Master.
Simeon must have endured the requisite flogging. Atticus called him back to the tribunal, but the old man remained stubborn and inflexible. Atticus assigned another method of torment to force the man to blaspheme, but this met with the same disappointing results. So it went for several days. Atticus and his men applied various types of torment, deprivation, and torture to no avail. The old man's fortitude and resolve astonished him and his colleagues.
When Atticus grew tired of the game, he decided to proceed with a crucifixion. Hegesippus tells the story in these words:
After being tortured for many days he suffered martyrdom, and everyone there, even the proconsul, marveled that, at the age of one hundred and twenty years, the man could endure so much. And orders were given that he should be crucified. (Eusebius quoting Hegesippus, Ecclesiastical History 3.32.6)
They nailed the last apostle to a cross, just as they had done to the Master seventy-seven years earlier. Then Simeon breathed his last, "and thus he suffered martyrdom, at the age of one hundred and twenty years" (Ecclesiastical History).
The trial of Simeon son of Clopas had unintended consequences for the men who informed against the apostle. During the course of the investigation, Atticus realized that the informers themselves were from the same family line as Simeon. Like Simeon son of Clopas, the Thebuthian heretics were also Desposyni. They also belonged to the royal house of David and had family ties with Yeshua of Nazareth. Atticus had them arrested, investigated, and put to death. As King Solomon said, "He who digs a pit may fall into it" (Ecclesiastes 10:8).
The same writer says, "When search was made for the descendants of David his accusers were also arrested as belonging to that family." (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.32.4)
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Justus Yehudah
All of them were said to be of Hebrew descent who had received the knowledge of Christ in purity and were deemed worthy of the office of eldership by those who were able to judge such matters. For their whole assembly consisted then of believing Hebrews who continued from the days of the apostles. (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4.5.I-2)
After the death of Simeon son of Clopas, the Desposyni and the disciples drew together to elect a new bishop in his place. The investigation under Atticus probably led to a series of further arrests, interrogations, and executions. In the midst of the new onslaught of persecution, the Jewish believers needed to appoint a new leader.
From the pool of potential Davidic candidates still surviving among the elders, they chose Justus Judas, the third and final bishop over Jerusalem, to fill the seat of steward over the throne of David and take up the scepter of leadership over the assembly. Justus Judas held the office until his death in the Bar Kochba war in 135 CE. (For a complete discussion of the Jewish bishops of Jerusalem after James, see Chronicles of the Apostles 50.)
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
The Uncorrupted Virgin
Up to that time, the assembly [of Messiah] had remained a pure and uncorrupted virgin, since, if there were any that attempted to corrupt the sound standard of the preaching of salvation, they were still then lurking, as it were in some obscure and dark hole. (Hegesippus in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.32.7)
The last of the apostles died, and all his brethren, and all that generation. A new generation arose that did not know the apostles.
So long as apostles remained alive and at the head of the assembly, false teachings did not take deep root among the believers. Hegesippus says, "Therefore, they called the assembly a virgin, for it was not yet corrupted by vain discourses." The authority of apostolic testimony safeguarded the purity of the faith. The apostles refuted error and corrected the course of the ship whenever it began to stray. When false teachers like Simon Magus and Cerinthus rose up, the apostles pursued them and refuted them. When questions arose in the assemblies of Yeshua, the leadership could send delegates to Jerusalem to ask for a ruling from the apostles.
When Simeon son of Clopas, the last apostle, died, things began to change rapidly. Our enemy the devil unleashed a generation of false teachers to corrupt the truth and incapacitate the gospel. A whole host of competing teachings sprang up. New interpretations of the gospel appeared. Heretics began to churn out forgeries, fake epistles, and fake gospels, and spread them among the assemblies. The counterfeits always espoused heretical views.
When the apostles died, the ever-growing Gentile Christian movement, which was already largely disconnected from Judaism, lost all headship except for the bishops of the local assemblies. Those men had their hands full trying to ward off all manner of strange interpretations and spiritual pollutions that began to creep into their communities.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
So-Called Knowledge
When the sacred school of apostles had suffered death in various ways, and the generation of those that had been deemed worthy to hear the inspired wisdom with their own ears had passed away, then the alliance of godless error rose up from the folly of heretical teachers. Because none of the apostles were still living, the false teachers brazenly attempted to proclaim the so-called "Knowledge (Gnosis)" in opposition to the preaching of the truth. (Hegesippus in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.32.8)
The most shameless and grievous of the heresies was the "so-called 'Knowledge'" first sown by Simon Magus and his disciples. Early church writers attribute Simon Magus and his followers with the invention of Gnosticism. Scholars use the term "Gnosticism" loosely as an academic label that categorizes a broad variety of early Christian heresies that all shared certain common elements. The word Gnosticism is built on the Greek word Gnosis, which means "knowledge." Paul coined the term in his first epistle to Timothy:
O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you, avoiding worldly and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called Gnosis —which some have professed and thus gone astray from the faith. (I Timothy 6:20-21)
By the early second century, diverse Gnostic movements had proliferated. In response, Irenaeus devoted his five-volume Against Heresies to cataloging and refuting their many branches. Rejecting a literal reading of Scripture, Gnostic teachers argued that Jesus had imparted secret esoteric knowledge (gnosis) to only a select few. According to them, the canonical Gospels contained veiled hints of this hidden wisdom-hints intelligible solely to those initiated-and salvation depended on understanding the soul's divine origin and its liberation from corrupt matter.
Central to Gnostic cosmology is a transcendent true God, utterly remote from the physical universe. From this source emanate divine attributes called aeons-angelic beings that, through complex hierarchies, generate further aeons. In many accounts, the aeon Sophia ("wisdom") falls in her longing to know the highest God, causing a cosmic accident that births chaotic substance. Sparks of her divine essence emerge, along with a flawed offspring, the Demiurge-identified with the Old Testament's creator deity (i.e., the LORD). Ignorant of the true God, the Demiurge fashions the material cosmos from Sophia's remnants and imprisons the divine sparks within it, thereby trapping souls in corruption.
Gnostic Christians viewed Judaism and the Old Testament as instruments of the Demiurge's deception, enforced by law to maintain ignorance. A "messenger of light" (the serpent) and the tree of knowledge offered humankind the crucial gnosis to escape the Demiurge. The supreme aeons dispatched Christ—a nonphysical emissary of the true God-to impart this liberating wisdom. On earth, his human form and suffering were illusory; his resurrection and subsequent teachings revealed how the spiritual elements within a person could escape the Demiurge's realm and return, in blissful unity, to the transcendent aeons and the one true God.
That's how Gnosticism managed to completely reverse everything Yeshua taught. It is difficult to imagine a more brilliant and malicious reinterpretation of the gospel. It is a truly Satanic masterpiece, and it endured alongside and inside of Christianity for several centuries. Even when Christians did not accept the whole Gnostic myth, they often adopted portions of it. It left a heavy influence on Christian thought, particularly in regard to the devaluing of the "Old Testament" and Judaism.
Gnosticism spread among the believers virally, passing from Christian to Christian by means of secret Bible study groups, secret societies within larger congregations. It spread rapidly among the Gentile Christians because it seemed to resolve so many tensions. It explained why Paul spoke against circumcision and the "works of the Law." It explained why the Old Testament was canceled and why it was not necessary to practice Judaism. It explained the conflict between Jesus and "the Jews." It allowed the Gnostic Christians to openly express anti-Jewish sentiments in their contempt for Torah and Judaism. It reconciled tensions between monotheism and polytheism. Those initiated into Gnosticism felt as if they had joined a privileged, elite, and exclusive society of people who "got it." The Gnostics looked down on the Jews and Gentile believers as unenlightened dimwits who had everything completely backward. They considered the congregational leaders and conventional teachers as unenlightened. Therefore, Gnosticism appealed to basic human egotism and bigotry.
The Gnostics were conspiracy theorists. They taught that the lack of evidence for their teachings was evidence of a massive cover-up by the apostles and the Jews. The Gnostics claimed that most of the disciples of Jesus had utterly misunderstood Him or intentionally distorted His teachings to protect Judaism. They developed Gnostic reinterpretations for the Master's parables and most of His teachings. They made all of His sayings into Gnostic riddles with hidden meanings.
According to the Gnostics, Jesus chose to conceal His true teaching from most of His disciples. He revealed the secret knowledge only to a select few, such as Philip, Thomas, Judas, and Mary Magdalene. The other disciples did not receive the secret teaching. Therefore, they tried to silence Gnostic teachings. Disciples like Peter were architects of the massive cover-up, and Jews and Christians were all deceived. To bolster their new versions of Christianity, the Gnostics wrote false gospels: The Gospel of Mary, The Gospel of Philip, The Gospel of Judas, The Gospel of Truth, The Gospel of the Savior, and so forth.
Contrary to the Gnostic heresies, the true Yeshua declared, "I have spoken openly to the world." There are no private teachings, no secret knowledge, and no hidden riddles. He said, "I always taught in synagogues, and in the temple, where all the Jews come together; and I spoke nothing in secret" (John 18:20-21).
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Ebionites and Nazarenes
Jewish believers were much less vulnerable to the deceptions of Gnosticism than Gentile believers, but the loss of apostolic authority also damaged the unity of the Jewish believers. At some point in the early second century, the Jewish believers began to divide into two primary camps: the Ebionites and the Nazarenes. Scholars question the reliability of this terminology, which is derived primarily from church fathers writing against the Jewish believers. The early church writers themselves seem confused about the distinctions.
At first, both camps probably existed under the same leadership and within the same communities; they merely reflected differing opinions. Both camps agreed on the messianic claims of Yeshua, the authority of the Torah, and the fundamentals of faith and practice, but on some other important issues, a divide formed.
The name "Ebionites" originally came from the voluntary poverty adopted by Jewish believers in the Jerusalem community. The name Evyonim meant "Poor Ones." Several of the complaints that early Christian heresy police had about the Ebionites accurately describe Jewish believers in general. Irenaeus complained, "They practice circumcision, continue in the customs of the Torah and practice a Jewish way of life, even adoring Jerusalem as if it were the house of God!" Hippolytus states, "They live conformably to Jewish customs saying that they are justified according to the Torah." In another passage, he states, "They live in all respects according to the Torah of Moses." Eusebius said, "In their opinion the observance of the ceremonial law was altogether necessary." Ironically, by these standards, the early church writers would have categorized all the apostles as heretics if they had ever met them.
By the late second century, however, Ireneus applied the name Ebionite specifically to a particular sect of Jewish believers that he had encountered and identified as heretical on the basis of non-orthodox beliefs about the Apostle Paul and the conception of Yeshua. They did not accept the authority of Paul's epistles, and they claimed that Joseph was the human father of Yeshua. In addition, the Ebionites had the peculiar conviction that the Temple and the sacrificial system were not intended by God, and they advocated vegetarianism.
The church fathers also referred to a sect of Jewish believers as the "Nazarenes." Jerome claims to have learned Hebrew from the Nazarenes, and he translated excerpts of their Hebrew version of the Gospel of Matthew. Epiphanius describes the Nazarenes as Jews in every respect, differing from other Jews only in their faith in Yeshua. He also observed that the Nazarene Jews educated themselves in Torah. They accepted Paul and the virgin birth and lived according to Judaism. They practiced circumcision, the Sabbath, and other Jewish customs, yet they were reviled by the rest of the Jewish community.
In the fourth century, Epiphanius knew of Nazarene communities in Coele Syria and in the Trans-Jordan cities of Pella and Kokab. He regarded them all as "under the curse of the Law," and described them as follows:
The Nazarenes take this name from the place of Nazareth. Actually, they remain wholly Jewish and nothing else. For they use not only the New Testament but also the Old, like the Jews do. For the Law and the Prophets and the Writings, which are called the Bible by the Jews, are not rejected by them ... They live according to the preaching of the Law as Jews. There is no fault [for other Jews] to find with them apart from the fact that they have come to believe in Christ. For they also accept the resurrection of the dead and that everything has its origin in God. They proclaim one God and his Son Jesus Christ. They have a competent mastery of the Hebrew language ... only in this respect they differ from the Jews and Christians: with Jews they do not agree because of their belief in Christ, and with the Christians they do not agree because they are trained in the Law, in circumcision, the Sabbath, and the other things. (Epiphanius, Panarion [Adversus haereses; Against Heresies] 29.7.I-5)
After the death of Simeon son of Clopas and the end of the Apostolic Era, the Nazarenes continued on as the last inheritors of the unpolluted teachings of Yeshua of Nazareth. They walked in the paths of Torah and differed from other devout, religious Jews only in their faith in Yeshua. Messianic Jews today should look to the Nazarenes for a viable, historical role model worthy of emulation.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.