Sects: A Text from the Early Church

Christian faith proclaims that Jesus was God’s divine son. But church historians have long known that certain Jewish followers of Christ, in the early decades after his death, regarded him as merely another prophet of Israel, and denounced Peter and Paul for preaching his message to the Gentiles. Now extraordinary new light has been cast on the beliefs of one such sect of Jewish Christians known as the Nassoreans or Nazarenes, in the form of a medieval Arab manuscript discovered in the archives of Istanbul. Biblical Scholar David Flusser of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, one of the world’s ranking experts on early church history, calls the discovery “as important for the story of the first Christians as the Dead Sea Scrolls were for understanding the pre-Christian background.”

The document itself is a rambling, 600-page manuscript, written by the 10th century Moslem theologian, Abd-al-Jabbar. About 140 pages of his text consist of an Arabic translation of a much older Syriac account of Nazarene beliefs, probably dating from the 5th century and presumably written by members of the sect. The Nazarenes, who claimed descent from Jesus’ first disciples, were driven out of Palestine into Syria around 62 A.D. after a bitter quarrel with other Christians.

Primitive Faith. The book was un earthed by an Oxford Islamic scholar, Dr. Samuel Stern, who just in passing told Hebrew University Philosopher Shlomo Pines about it. Pines, also an expert on early Christian history, concluded that the text accurately reflected the primitive faith of the Nazarenes, whose doctrines had previously been known through polemics against them by such orthodox theologians of the early church as Jerome and Epiphanius.

Abd-al-Jabbar’s account of the Naza renes is widely at variance with previous conceptions about the sect. Although Jerome claimed that the Nazarenes be lieved in Christ’s divinity, the book declares that they regarded Joseph as the natural father of Jesus, whose Passion and death were proof that he was simply a great prophet and righteous man. On the grounds that Jesus himself was an observant Jew, the Nazarenes practiced circumcision, abstained from eating forbidden foods, faced toward Jerusalem when praying, and observed the Sabbath on Saturday instead of Sunday. The Nazarenes refused to celebrate Christmas, which they regarded as a pagan feast.

Much of the Nazarene text copied by Abd-al-Jabbar consists of polemics against St. Paul, charging that he heretically substituted Roman customs for the authentic teachings of Jesus and falsely proclaimed him to be God. What intrigues scholars far more, however, is the presence of passages with a strikingly Gospel-like ring, including several previously unknown sayings attributed to Jesus. One such teaching, as translated by Pines: “I shall not judge men nor call them to account for their actions. He who sent me will do this.”

Judas’ Trickery. The text also gives two versions of Christ’s Passion, which differ from those in the canonical Gos pels. One of these accounts suggests that Judas tricked the Jews by delivering to them another man in the place of Jesus. This unknown victim denied explicitly before Herod and Pilate that he was the Messiah, as his accusers charged. In this version, Herod, not Pilate, took a basin of water and washed his hands of the accused man’s blood to indicate that he found no guilt in him. Herod then imprisoned the supposed Jesus for the night; but the next morning he was seized by angry Jews who tortured and finally crucified him. The other Passion story follows the account found in the Gospel according to John, but more strongly places on the Jews the responsibility for Jesus’ Crucifixion.

Pines and Flusser believe that the Nazarene text gives added weight to the theory of some scholars that a majority of Jesus’ early followers in Palestine, rather than just a dissident few, did not accept his divinity. Christian Biblicists in Jerusalem, none of whom have yet had a chance to examine the document, readily concede its significance, but they understandably question Flusser’s sweeping conclusion that “we will have to revise our thinking about the origins of Christianity.” They believe that the primary value of the document will probably prove to be the new insight it provides into the beliefs of a minor sect of heretics that has long since been lost to history.