CHAPTER TEN
Antipas - the figure most commonly identified as “Herod” from the gospel text
she would personally witness his execution –
p. 71
the “Tiberian terror” –
[Gaius] saved me from the jaws of death –
[Claudius] made me king of the Jews –
[Nero] commission me to write the gospel
the same outward infirmities -
the very name “Herod” - was deliberately chosen by the son of Antipater because it came from the word “hero.”
Aristobulos - The discussion of course of the identity of Marcus’ father is one which has considerable complexity to it. If one is to take the surviving statements of Josephus at face value of course (as most Catholic writers do) there are two Herodian kings named Agrippa – Agrippa the son of Aristobulos and Agrippa the son of Agrippa. Most writers take for granted this state of affairs save for the fact that there are deep problems with it which include (a) the fact that the Jews and Roman writers only know of one Agrippa and (b) the idea of father and son sharing the same name is completely contradictory to the spirit of Jewish parenting. Indeed the relation of the figures scholars call “Agrippa I” and “Agrippa II” has more difficulties too including why Josephus would refer to both by their family name rather than their personal names. In other words if father and son really existed why would he not have called father and son by their personal names? To call both “Agrippa” would be like a historian of the modern period not distinguishing between George H Bush and George W Bush. We know Marcus Julius Agrippa’s first name but not his father’s – why? The most likely possibility given the underlying assumption of Jewish and Roman writers before the Christian era that there was only one “Agrippa” is that the real material of Josephus was altered after the pattern of the Testimonium Flavium i.e. where it is now agreed that a Christian editor made the Jewish Pharisee mouth contemporary Christian orthodoxy. Scholars have never before considered the possibility that Marcus Julius Agrippa was Mark the evangelist so the idea of a wider campaign of deliberate corruption never occurs to them. However there has to be a reason why so many textual variants exist in Josephus writings – not mere the hundred of Slavonic (old Russian) variants but also the development of an early Christian variant preserved as Hegessipus (a corruption of Josephus). The manner in which Josephus was preserved as canonical writings within the early Catholic Church, the fact that the editor of the Catholic canon appropriates material from Josephus to reshape the gospels and develop the Acts of the Apostles and finally that Goldberg has noticed similarities in style between the Catholic gospels and the acknowledged places where a Christian editor has tampered with our existing copies of Josephus (Testimonium Flavium) all lead to the inevitable conclusion that the centerpiece to the reworking of both gospel and the writings of Josephus went hand in hand to erase the significance of Marcus Julius Agrippa over the Christian religion. To this end we must start to see that many of the strange disagreements between the Gospels-Acts on the one hand and Josephus on the other have more to do with the editor (Polycarp of Smyrna) and his ability to dupe the public. For instance as the works of Josephus were supplementary texts for the question of the canonicity of the gospels there was more leeway with regards to acknowledged truths. Take the example of the invented figure of “Agrippa the father of Agrippa.” The idea never appears whatsoever in the Acts of the Apostles. Indeed when the same story about a Herodian messianic pretender appears in both sources in Acts he is simply called “Herod” (i.e. it could be argued to the reader that it was Antipas) but in Josephus he is “Agrippa.” The point then that in my mind there had to have been some presbyters in the Church who knew that Marcus Julius Agrippa was their apostle and great lengths were taken to avoid upsetting them (notice the ambiguous reference to him being “a little Christian” the only person in Acts to be identified as “Christian”). In the same way then the invention of two Agrippa’s one the father and the other the son was not forced down the throats of converts from Marcionitism. It was developed cunningly through the Josephus material which only supplemented the gospels originally. The historical reality was that there was only one “Agrippa” as the Jews claim and his father was Aristobolus. Herod the Great did not kill Aristobulos but the other figure identified as “Herod” in Josephus i.e. Herod Antipas (who took the name of his father after he died). Notice the strange parallels here of both Herod’s being killers of boys. According to our surviving tradition Herod the Great kills both of his sons by Miriam (Ant 16:4:6). Aristobolus because he is Agrippa’s father and Alexander because he is the Alexander who was influential in Agrippa’s life when he was poor and on the run. Two other things are noteworthy here. If Aristobulos was really killed by Herod Antipas it is interesting that while Josephus never tells the story of Marcus Julius Agrippa marrying his sister Berenice he has a Marcus who is said to be the son of Alexander marry Berenice. According to Jewish Law the young boy would have naturally transferred from brother to brother. The Copts say two significant things in support of this arrangement. The first is that Philo of Alexandria was related to their Apostle Mark cf Shenouda p. 8 “Josephus, in his book, mentioned that [Mark] was the cousin of Philo” (he provides the footnote Ant. 18 :8 :1 and 19 :5 : 1 for this assertion) and the second even more eye opening is the clear identification of the Marcus who married Berenice was the Coptic apostle which comes from the second one of the footnotes from the last statement. The idea of Alexander and Aristobolus surviving only to be killed by Herod Antipas has another thing going for it – the explanation about why the cult of Mark was established in Alexandria and Egypt so early and so quickly. When his father died Marcus became adopted by Alexander who became his benefactor. On the Coptic understanding of Aristobulos the father of Mark see Severus of Al-Ushmunain: HISTORY OF THE PATRIARCHS OF THE COPTIC CHURCH OF ALEXANDRIA Life of the Apostle and Evangelist Mark y Severus, Bishop of Al-Ushmunain (fl. ca. AD 955 - 987) Translated from the Arabic by B. Evetts (from Patrologia Orientalis, first series) CHAPTER I. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, the One God. The first biography of the history of the holy Church. The history of Saint Mark, the Disciple and Evangelist, Archbishop of the great city of Alexandria, and first of its Bishops. In the time of the dispensation of the merciful Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, when he appointed for himself disciples to follow him, there were two brothers living in a city of Pentapolis in the West, called Cyrene. The name of the elder of them was Aristobulus, and the name of the other was Barnabas; and they were cultivators of the soil, and sowed and reaped; for they had great possessions. And they understood the Law of Moses excellently well, and knew by heart many of the books of the Old Testament. But great troubles came upon them from the two tribes of the Berbers and Ethiopians, when they were robbed of all their wealth, in the time of Augustus Caesar, prince of the Romans. So on account of the loss of their property, and the trials which had befallen them, they fled from that province, in their anxiety to save their lives, and travelled to the land of the Jews. Now Aristobulus had a son named John. And after they had taken up their abode in the province of Palestine, near the city of Jerusalem, the child John grew and increased in stature by the grace of the Holy Ghost. And these two brothers had a cousin, the wife of Simon Peter, who became the chief of the disciples of the Lord Christ; and the said John whom they had surnamed Mark, used to visit Peter, and learn the Christian doctrines from him out of the holy Scriptures. And on a certain day, Aristobulus took his son Mark to the Jordan, and while they were walking there a lion and a lioness met them. And when Aristobulus saw them approaching him, and perceived the violence of their rage, he said to his son Mark: "My son, seest thou the fury of this lion who is coming to destroy us ? Escape now, and save thyself, my son, and leave them to devour me, according to the will of God Almighty." But the disciple of Christ, the holy Mark, answered and said to his father: "Fear not, my father, Christ in whom I believe will deliver us from all danger." And when the lions approached them, Mark, the disciple of the Lord Christ, shouted against them with a loud voice, and said: "The Lord Jesus Christ, son of the Living God, commands that you be rent asunder, and that your kind be cut off from these mountains, and that there be no more offspring to you here for ever." Then the lion and the lioness burst asunder in the midst at that moment, and perished straightaway; and their young were destroyed. And when Aristobulus, the father of Mark, saw this great miracle which was manifested by his son, through the power of the invincible Lord Jesus Christ, he said to his son: "I am thy father who begat thee, Mark, my son; but today thou art my father, and my saviour and deliverer. And now, my dear son, I and my brother pray thee to make us servants of the Lord Jesus Christ whom thou preachest." Then the father of holy Mark and his uncle began to learn the doctrines of Christ from that day.
took up and lived with my uncle –
Philip - Lendering “Philip: Jewish leader, ruled between 4 BCE and 34 CE in the southwest of what is now Syria. Philip was the son of the Jewish king Herod the Great and his wife Cleopatra of Jerusalem. He was married to his relative Salome. (In the Gospel of Mark 6.17, Philip is mentioned as the first husband of Herodias. This is a mistake; Herodias was never married to Philip.) Together with his half-brothers Herod Archelaus and Herod Antipas, he was educated at Rome, a kind of honorable detention to guarantee his father's loyalty. When Herod the Great died in 4 BCE, Philip became tetrarch of the outlying parts in the northeast of his father's kingdom: Gaulanitis (the Golan heights), Batanaea (or Basan, the southern part of modern Syria), Trachonitis and Auranitis (Hauran). Among his subjects, the Jews were a minority; most people were of Syrian or Arabian descent. The latter had a nomadic way of life, although Herod had established some towns (such as Adraa, modern Dar`a). Philip was to continue this policy in the western half of his realm, strengthening the villages Paneas -at the sources of the Jordan- and Bethsaida, calling them Caesarea and Julias in honor of the emperor and his daughter Julia. To his nomadic subjects, Philip behaved himself as a sheik. He was constantly traveling through their country with only a small entourage. When someone invoked his help, he immediately ordered his throne to be set down, heard the complaints and gave his opinion. His subjects in the cities considered this behavior rather remarkable, but the Arabs must have thought of their king as 'one of us'. He had Greek and Roman subjects too, usually living in the cities. They must have appreciated his coinage. The example to the left shows the Roman emperor Tiberius wearing his laurel wreath; on the reverse one could discern an unidentified Greek temple with the name of the tetrarch around. (Incidentally, this coin proves that Philip had not many Jewish subjects, because the representation of a pagan temple and the divine emperor were considered blasphemous by any pious Jew.) He died at Julias in 34 CE, having ruled his dominions for thirty-seven years. According to the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, he had been a person of moderation and quietness in the conduct of his life and government (Jewish Antiquities, 18.106). Since he left no sons, the emperor Tiberius ordered his realms to be added to the province of Syria. When Tiberius died in 37, his successor Caligula almost immediately restored the principality; as its king, he appointed Philip's nephew Herod Agrippa. Literature The most important ancient source for the rule of king Philip was written by Flavius Josephus: his Jewish Antiquities. Modern literature: Nikos Kokkinos, The Herodian Dynasty: Origins, Role in Society and Eclipse (1998 Sheffield)
Herod’s assassination campaign -
Judas –
Mary - Not only do the surviving texts of Josephus identify someone other than Aristobolus as Marcus Agrippa’s historical father, they claim that his father “Agrippa with no first name” received his son through his mother Cypros. The name appears as the name of Herod the Great’s historical mother (Ant 14:7) “Cypros wife of Antipater” which is probably the point of origin. Another Cypros is said to have been “married also to her first cousin Antipater, the son of Salome, Herod's sister.” (Ant 18:5:4) The passage then continues in a manner which no serious scholar can believe for a moment is actually the original text of Josephus so confused is its contents. Herod the Great and Miriam are claimed to have had “two daughters, Alexandra and Cypros; which last Agrippa, the son of Aristobulus, married; and Timius of Cyprus married Alexandra; he was a man of note, but had by her no children. Agrippa had by Cypros two sons and three daughters, which daughters were named Bernice, Mariarune, and Drusius; but the names of the sons were Agrippa and Drusus, of which Drusus died before he came to the years of puberty; but their father, Agrippa, was brought up with his other brethren, Herod and Aristobulus, for these were also the sons of the son of Herod the Great by Bernice; but Bernice was the daughter of Costobarus and of Salome, who was Herod's sister. Aristobulus left these infants when he was slain by his father, together with his brother Alexander, as we have already related. But when they were arrived at years of puberty, this Herod, the brother of Agrippa, married Mariamne, the daughter of Olympias, who was the daughter of Herod the king, and of Joseph, the son of Joseph, who was brother to Herod the king, and had by her a son, Aristobulus; but Aristobulus, the third brother of Agrippa, married Jotape, the daughter of Sampsigeramus, king of Emesa; they had a daughter who was deaf, whose name also was Jotape; and these hitherto were the children of the male line. But Herodias, their sister, was married to Herod [Philip], the son of Herod the Great, who was born of Mariamne, the daughter of Simon the high priest, who had a daughter, Salome; after whose birth Herodias took upon her to confound the laws of our country, and divorced herself from her husband while he was alive, and was married to Herod [Antipas], her husband's brother by the father's side, he was tetrarch of Galilee; but her daughter Salome was married to Philip, the son of Herod, and tetrarch of Trachonitis; and as he died childless, Aristobulus, the son of Herod, the brother of Agrippa, married her; they had three sons, Herod, Agrippa, and Aristobulus; and this was the posterity of Phasaelus and Salampsio. But the daughter of Antipater by Cypros was Cypros, whom Alexas Selcias, the son of Alexas, married; they had a daughter, Cypros; but Herod and Alexander, who, as we told you, were the brothers of Antipater, died childless. As to Alexander, the son of Herod the king, who was slain by his father, he had two sons, Alexander and Tigranes, by the daughter of Archelaus, king of Cappadocia. Tigranes, who was king of Armenia, was accused at Rome, and died childless; Alexander had ason of the same name with his brother Tigranes, and was sent to take possession of the kingdom of Armenia by Nero; he had a son, Alexander, who married Jotape, the daughter of Antiochus, the king of Commagena; Vespasian made him king of an island in Cilicia. But these descendants of Alexander, soon after their birth, deserted the Jewish religion, and went over to that of the Greeks. But for the rest of the daughters of Herod the king, it happened that they died childless. And as these descendants of Herod, whom we have enumerated, were in being at the same time that Agrippa the Great took the kingdom, and I have now given an account of them, it now remains that I relate the several hard fortunes which befell Agrippa, and how he got clear of them, and was advanced to the greatest height of dignity and power.” It is unimaginable that Josephus himself could have written anything so confusing and in my mind it is deliberately intended to distract from the kernel of truth which lies within – namely that “Herod … married Mariamne … had by her a son, Aristobulus; Aristobulus, … the son of Herod the Great, who was born of Mariamne, the daughter of Simon the high priest …[and] Salome [had a daughter] … Herodias [who] took upon her to confound the laws of our country, and divorced herself from her husband while he was alive; [she] was married to Herod [Antipas] … he was tetrarch of Galilee … Salome was married to Philip, the son of Herod, and tetrarch of Trachonitis; and as he died childless, Aristobulus, the son of Herod … [and her] had … Agrippa, and this was the posterity of Phasaelus and Salampsio.” There are several ways to determine that Salome was the real mother of Marcus Julius Agrippa. We have just demonstrated that (a) Josephus’ list of Herodians cannot possibly be authentic owing to the ridiculously confusing style of the passage. It concludes by leading into a discussion of Agrippa who must have been the original subject – so why are all the other Herod’s necessary for the discussion? At the very least we have determined that the list included an Agrippa who had Salome for a mother and Aristobulos for a father. The next most obvious historical reference to a Marcus Agrippa who had Salome as a mother comes from the most unlikely of sources – the so-called Acts of the Pagan Martyrs from Alexandria during the life of Claudius where a Greek gymnasiarch named Isidore is about to be sentenced to death for his part in the slaughter of Jews. With Agrippa standing in front of him Isidore lashes out calling him a “two penny-halfpenny Jew” and more importantly “I am neither a slave nor a girl-musician’s son, but gymnasiarch of the glorious city of Alexandria. But you are the cast-off son of the Jewess Salome! And therefore …” This evidence once again demonstrates how inaccurate the Christian copies of Josephus are. Yet this is only the beginning of our lines of proof. We must remember how the Copts say that the disciple called “John” was also named “Mark” and was the beloved disciple, the apostle of the universal Church and most significantly a son of Mary. It doesn’t take rocket-science to figure out that this “John Mark” actually has a mother named Mary Salome who appears by name only in the Gospel written by Mark. She appears in greater detail the more we look to Mark gospels outside of the Catholic Church. The Secret Gospel of Mark mentioned by Clement had additional Salome references as does the so-called “Egyptian Gospel” mentioned elsewhere by the same Church Father (they are undoubtedly the same gospel). Indeed if you look to the earliest statements about the number of “Marys” in the text you end up with pseudo-Papias’ claim that there was “(1.) Mary the mother of the Lord; (2.) Mary the wife of Cleophas or Alphaeus, who was the mother of James the bishop and apostle, and of Simon and Thaddeus, and of one Joseph; (3.) Mary Salome, wife of Zebedee, mother of John the evangelist and James; (4.) Mary Magdalene. These four are found in the Gospel. James and Judas and Joseph were sons of an aunt (2) of the Lord's. James also and John were sons of another aunt (3) of the Lord's. Mary (2), mother of James the Less and Joseph, wife of Alphaeus was the sister of Mary the mother of the Lord, whom John names of Cleophas, either from her father or from the family of the clan, or for some other reason. Mary Salome (3) is called Salome either from her husband or her village. Some affirm that she is the same as Mary of Cleophas, because she had two husbands.” Indeed there can be no doubt that Mary (2) and Mary (3) are the same persons which tentatively leaves only three Marys. We can indeed further narrow that number among the Marqionites when we realize that Marcion argued that Jesus was an angel and had no mortal mother – that eliminates Mary (1). The Marcionites certainly did refer to Mary (2) as we read in Tertullian’s passing remark in AM 4: 26 “"A mother of the company exclaims, `Blessed is the womb that bare Thee, and the paps which Thou hast sucked; 'but the Lord said, `Yea, rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.'” [Luke xi. 27,28] Now He had in precisely similar terms rejected His mother or His brethren, whilst preferring those who heard and obeyed God. His mother, however, was not here present with Him. On that former occasion, therefore, He had not denied that He was her son by birth. On hearing this (salutation) the second time, He the second time transferred, as He had done before the "blessedness" to His disciples from the womb and the paps of His mother, from whom, however, unless He had in her (a real mother) He could not have transferred it.” The passage in our Luke reads interestingly “a woman in the crowd called out.” The emphasis on Marcion’s part that this was a mother in the company or one of the disciples – there is only one i.e. Salome - is actually matched in material from outside of the gospels where Salome is more prominent but most especially the Gospel of the Egyptian tradition. The last category of a distinction between Mary the mother of the disciples and Mary Magdala is most difficult because in later tradition it certainly manifests itself as a split between mother Salome and sister Berenice (or Veronica). However if I am correct in identifying the title of Mary Magdala as a separate person came later; it is important to look carefully various rabbinic legends i.e. Talmud Shabbat 104b, Sanhedrin 67a Miriam megadla nashaia gave birth to a bastard son who flourished in the period after the destruction of the temple (i.e. 70 – 100 A.D.) It all comes back to the issue of the title “Mary Magdala” which I connect with “Mary made Great” – i.e. “On Mariam. First, some data, not all of it immediately relevant. The original form of the name in all the Gospels was Mariam. The form Maria is an adaptation within Greek later on. The ms. evidence on this is overwhelming. Mariam is a straight phonetic transcription of the Hebrew form. (The commonest pronunciation in Hebrew at the time was Maryam, with Miryam being fairly rare). A sequence of two M’s, one at the end of the name and one at the start of the epithet, is certain. Remember I said that word division was not always shown in Greek. Neither was it always shown in Hebrew or Aramaic. The use of special final forms for some letters, including MEM, was unsystematic. One M could thus become two, or two could become one, in Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic. As said before, there are three formulas in the Greek. (a) The commonest is mariam magdlEnE (using capitals to show long vowels). This means Mariam from Magdala. (b) Once there is hE magdalEnE maryam, meaning the Magdalene Maryam, distinguishing her from other Maryams. (c) Once there is mariam hE kaloumenE magdalEnE, meaning Mariam known as the magdalEnE. Second, some possible routes. I said that there was a difficulty with the assumption of a phonetic transcription of a title or epithet rather than a translation. Form (c) is actually natural Greek. A phonetic transcription of a title can be used with this phrasing. The difficulty remains that the title is Greek in form. Too much would have to be assumed for this to have been the route. Also, I think the loss of knowledge (deliberate or not) of what the title meant must have been before the formulation in Greek. Here is the route I favour. An Aramaic name and title Maryam Magdalta meaning Maryam who has been made great (perhaps an initiatory technical term) has become IN ARAMAIC by a misunderstanding that might well have been deliberate Maryam Magdelayta, meaning Maryam from Magdela, with the addition of one letter, a YOD. Then this has been translated into Greek. I can’t see any way of going from any Hebrew form to Maryam of Magdela. Too much would have had to be changed. A form Maryam Hammagdalit MRYM HMGDLYT meaning Maryam from Magdela is too from Maryam Haggedola MRYM HGDWLH As far as I can see, the only route that works is the one that assumes the existence of a title “made great”. The only alternative would be to start with Maryam Hammeguddelet MRYM HMGDLT meaning Maryam brought up in the household, but this would more normally be spelt MRYM HMGWDLT, and besides, I can’t see how the meaning would fit.
