Paul and Jesus

The book of Acts mentions James one other time, when Paul has returned to Jerusalem toward the end of the 50s A.D. The day after his arrival Paul went to “visit James and all the elders were present” (Acts 21:18). Once again it is clear that James is leader of the group and Paul knows he must account to him. There had been a serious charge raised against Paul, based on rumors that had circulated as to what he was preaching in Asia Minor and Greece. The claim was that Paul himself, as a Jew, had given up an observant Jewish life and that he was privately teaching other fellow Jews that they could do the same (Acts 21:17–26). Presumably this action might involve such things as dietary laws, observance of the Sabbath day and other Jewish holy days, and even the requirement of male circumcision (Galatians 4:10; Colossians 2:16–17). It is noteworthy that Luke, who wants to present a perfect picture of harmony and agreement between Paul and James, does not actually say that Paul denied this charge, but only that Paul allowed James and the other leaders in Jerusalem to think that it was not true.

Acts presents both of Paul’s meetings with James and the Jerusalem apostles and elders as harmonious and positive. Fortunately we have Paul’s side of the story in his letters and we know there was a diametrically opposite outcome. The irony of the Luke-Acts portrayal of James is quite amazing. James is mentioned only twice, both times in the book of Acts in an account that stretches over a thirty-year period. James is not even identified as Jesus’ brother, yet those two scenes, separated by ten years, offer us the strongest kind of historical evidence that James presided over the Twelve as leader of the Christian movement.

To get the details of how James assumed this role of leadership, beyond what the letters of Paul indicate, we have to go to sources outside the New Testament. The Gospel of Thomas was discovered in upper Egypt in 1945 outside the little village of Nag Hammadi. Although the text itself dates to the third century, scholars have shown that it preserves, despite later theological embellishments, an original Aramaic document that comes to us from the early days of the Jerusalem church.¹⁷ It provides us a rare glimpse into what scholars have called “Jewish Christianity,” that is, the earliest followers of Jesus led by James. The Gospel of Thomas is not a narrative of the life of Jesus but rather a listing of 114 of his “sayings” or teachings. Saying 12 reads as follows:

The disciples said to Jesus, “We know you will leave us. Who is going to be our leader then?” Jesus said to them, “No matter where you go you are to go to James the Just, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being.”

Here we have an outright statement, placed in the mouth of Jesus, that he is handing over the leadership and spiritual direction of his movement to James. One should keep in mind that the Gospel of Thomas in its present form comes to us from a later period, when the matter of “who is going to be our leader” had become a critical one for the followers of Jesus, with many competing claims of authority and power. The phrase “no matter where you go” implies that the authority and leadership of James is not restricted to the Jerusalem church. According to this text, James had been put in charge over all of Jesus’ followers. The phrase “for whose sake heaven and earth came into being” reflects a Jewish notion that the world, though wicked and unworthy of God’s grace, is sustained because of the extraordinary virtues of a handful of righteous or “just” individuals.¹⁸ James the brother of Jesus acquired the designation “James the Just” both to distinguish him from others named James and to honor him for his preeminent position.

Clement of Alexandria, who wrote in the late second century A.D., is another early source that confirms this succession of James. Clement writes: “Peter and James [the fisherman] and John after the Ascension of the Savior did not struggle for glory, because they had previously been given honor by the Savior, but chose James the Just as Overseer of Jerusalem.”¹⁹ In a subsequent passage Clement elaborated: “After the resurrection the Lord [Jesus] gave the tradition of knowledge to James the Just and John and Peter, these gave it to the other Apostles, and the other Apostles to the Seventy.”²⁰ This passage preserves for us the tiered structure of the leadership that Jesus left behind: James the Just as successor; John and Peter as his left- and right-hand advisors; the rest of the Twelve; then the Seventy, who are referred to in the book of Acts as the “elders.” This council of Seventy is one that Jesus himself had established and appears to function as a kind of proto-Christian “Sanhedrin,” the official governing body of the Jews at that time.