Ever since the time of the Maccabees, Jewish groups that believed that they were the true Israelites—the hidden, oppressed, and persecuted remnant of the End Time—had called themselves “the poor” (evionim in Hebrew).72 The Qumran sectarians and the Jesus community in Jerusalem both styled themselves in this way. The word “poor,” therefore, was synonymous with “righteous” or “just”; and James the Zaddik, praying constantly for the sinners of Israel, epitomized the deeply Jewish piety of the evionim who lived in the heart of the Holy City.
