The Gospel of Judas
A friend emailed me asking for my reactions on the recently-announced Gospel of Judas. Since I responded with a disproportionately long email, I thought I might as well post it here. Happy Holy Week.
I. Announcement of the Gospel of Judas
Like its counterparts discovered at Nag Hammadi in the 1945, the Gospel of Judas sheds light on the competing early Christian traditions. The National Geographic Society assembled a top team of international experts on conservation and early Christian and Coptic traditions - some of the best names in the field, including Princeton's Elaine Pagels and UNC Chapel Hill's Bart Ehrman (who wrote my introductory Christianity textbook and tries to educate humanity by writing against the Da Vinci Code - see his appearance on the Daily Show here; it is obviously wonderful that someone besides Dan Brown has made a stack of money, especially when he writes about real history).
The text itself is interesting, although not particularly surprising. A Coptic translation of a Greek original, it contains many common elements found in other Gnostic writings. Scholars have predicted a text discussing the relationship between Jesus and Judas Iscariot for some years now, and that story of the Gospel of Judas is really a frame for a discussion of standard Gnostic theology. To understand what role the Gospel of Judas plays in this larger tradition, it may be useful to examine the existing corpus of Gnostic writings and their historical significance vis à vis what became orthodox Christianity and the Roman Church.
II. Gnostic Traditions
Gnosticism is a modern scholarly appellation for a complex phenomenon that colored much of the Early Christian period. After the death of Jesus of Nazareth circa 34 AD, many competing traditions arose, pushing and shoving to claim his legacy. One of the crucial post-Jesus figures was of course Paul the Apostle, whose active career ran from about 45-57 AD. It is quite clear that by this point - a mere twenty-odd years after Jesus's death, several varieties of gnostic teaching were already quite successful. In his First Epistle to Timothy, Paul writes
The crucial phrase is "oppositions of knowledge, falsely called" which is in Greek antitheseis tes pseudonomou gnoseos -- "the antitheses of so-called Gnosis". Paul here is referring to a larger tradition which we call Gnosticism, and which in antiquity was characterized by an emphasis on secret knowledge - gnosis.
The earliest accounts of the ministry of Jesus would have been maintained in oral form, and the three Synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew, and Luke) were not written down until 65-95 AD. The Gospel of Judas, it is thought, was composed shortly afterward, probably c. 100 AD. Most of these written efforts were in response to outside pressures - the failure of the Jewish Revolt in 70 AD and the destruction of the Temple, the increasing strength of Pauline and Hellenistic Christian efforts, and competing claims for orthodoxy. There was no consensus in the years following Jesus's death about how to conduct a continuation of his movement, nor who should be in charge. A third century apocalypse (an account of visions) of Peter presents a Christian Gnostic criticism of proto-orthodox Christianity:
While it is impossible to present a dogma or central belief structure that would include all the gnostic traditions, several generalizations can be made. Most traditions were complex fusions of many Near Eastern religious movements, including early Christian ideas, mystic Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Platonism/neo-Platonism, and traditional Egyptian religion. Various schools rose to prominence in the Near East during the first two centuries after Jesus's death, and nearly all featured an tortuously complicated cosmogony.
A compendium of gnostic themes is showcased in the extraordinarily well-preserved On the Origin of the World. In his introduction to his translation, Hans-Gebhard Bethge writes that it "shows to what a high degree and with what freedom and authority a gnostic author makes use of foreign, even non-gnostic and heterogeneous thoughts. It thus attests the greater importance ascribed to the gnostic stance toward the world and existence than to its mythological formulation. On the Origin of the World can help us understand how the gnostic world view, in debate with other intellectual currents, but also making use of them, could maintain itself or perhaps at times even win the field."
And it goes on and on and on and on. There are lists of sub-deities, lists of angels, lists of archons and aeons, and other crazy things as well. Most gnostic traditions focus on the role of a deity called Sophia (wisdom) and her various problems. She is usually credited with some sort of flawed creation or mistake and, as the supreme feminine principle in the cosmos, gives women the short end of the stick once again.
As far as Jesus is concerned, the plethora of roles assigned to him is mind-boggling. Most are variations on a theme of radical dualism, of clear separation between soul/spirit and corporeal being/body. He variously only appears human, is sort of really human, does not appear at all, is fully human and then switches out with a god, but in most versions, he has little to no redemptive value. There is no doctrine of salvation associated with Christ's sacrifice - in gnostic traditions, salvation - i.e. the final re-union of a soul with its ultimate creator in the Pleroma, or Fullness - can only be achieved by gnosis. Which Jesus, apparently, had.
There are many, many, many more things to be said on various brands of gnosticism, but it would take all day. For more information on specifics, I point you to the Wikipedia article, which is fairly solid.
III. The Gospel - A Closer Look
The text of the Gospel of Judas is online, available in .pdf format here, courtesy of the New York Times. You can also access it at the excellent site provided by National Geographic. Let me pull out a few excerpts which are particularly compelling.
At the beginning of the gospel, the disciples are sitting with Jesus and he says that they do not know him, and they grow angry. Fine, says Jesus, if one among you is brave enough, stand before me. And no one would, except Judas Iscariot.
Eventually, after a few false starts, Jesus begins to tell Judas all the secret gnosis, or knowledge, that he needs to reach the immortal realm. He details the creation, the organization of the cosmos, and tells a few vision-stories. When Judas asks Jesus about his own faith, they have the following exchange:
With this statement, we can place The Gospel of Judas firmly within a Christian Gnostic tradition. Clearly the author of this text was interested in the dual nature of Christ - a concern most commonly articulated in those Christian texts which were heavily influenced by neo-Platonist and Valentinian traditions. Often, the rhetoric was drunkenness/sobriety-centered, or concentrated on the torments of the flesh. Generally speaking, the flesh was seen as punishment and corruption for an error in the past (there were many disagreements about what that error might have been), and the renunciation of the flesh was mandatory if one wished to attain a reunion with the divine creating principle. Returning briefly to the Apocalypse of Peter, we see this articulated in a vision with two Christs:
This sort of rejection of the flesh naturally led many Gnostic groups to practice severe asceticism. Furthermore, they believed in an immanent eschatology - that is to say, that the end times were near. Consequently, they were willing to renounce traditional gender roles, family structures, and civic niceties, all of which made Romans and Romanized folks very nervous indeed. Gnostic traditions were often profoundly counter-cultural, and it would be the triumph of orthodoxy which recognized that a successful Christianity had to incorporate traditional Roman values into a radical belief system.
IV. Catholic Response
Most of the response from the Church has been provided by third parties who allege vast conspiracies and cover-ups. The film Stigmata, featuring incredibly hot priest Gabriel Byrne, is an excellent example of this genre. It's all typical Da Vinci Code crap - the Church is repressing some secret and really interesting (and probably vaguely sexy) knowledge that will change everything we know about Christianity. The fact of the matter is, we know lots and lots about Christianity, and one of the things we know for sure is that what became orthodoxy only barely edged out its competitors. It was touch and go for centuries, and there was never any certainty that a gnostic tradition - which some scholars allege was far, far more widespread and more popular than proto-orthodoxy - would not become the order of the day.
Since 165 AD, the Catholics have been writing nasty things about the Gnostics, and in fact, prior to the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library, most of our information on competing traditions came through them. Treatises like Adversus Haereses (Against the Heresies) by Bishop Irenaeus of Lyon, or Epiphanius's Panarion (the Medicine-Chest) detailed all the horrible things Gnostics did and their strange beliefs. Just to give you an idea of the sort of rhetoric that was typical of the desperate early Christian struggle for survival:
Gnosticism, added to the list of heresies, continued to be bandied about as a label for any heresy vaguely similar through the Middle Ages - paired with Manicheism, it was a favorite of inquisitors'. But an actual gnostic tradition, insofar as we are able to determine, died out with the supremacy of orthodox Christianity (between the persecutions of the Romans and the persecutions of the proto-orthodox Christians, the Gnostics didn't stand much of a chance).
But the modern Church has, of course, little to fear from Gnostic writings. The President of the Catholic Theological Union in the US, who is also a member of the Pontifical Biblical Council, remarked that it wasn't really on the radar screen of the Vatican. Really, he added, he was just glad it hadn't been found in one of their bank vaults.
Hopefully the public reception of the Gospel of Judas at a time when interest in early Christianity and antique history is at a heightened level will prompt more inquiry into Christian origins and responsible histories of the period. Although most of the text is not particularly accessible, the mere awareness that orthodox Christianity was not always so is a crucial one.
I. Announcement of the Gospel of Judas
Like its counterparts discovered at Nag Hammadi in the 1945, the Gospel of Judas sheds light on the competing early Christian traditions. The National Geographic Society assembled a top team of international experts on conservation and early Christian and Coptic traditions - some of the best names in the field, including Princeton's Elaine Pagels and UNC Chapel Hill's Bart Ehrman (who wrote my introductory Christianity textbook and tries to educate humanity by writing against the Da Vinci Code - see his appearance on the Daily Show here; it is obviously wonderful that someone besides Dan Brown has made a stack of money, especially when he writes about real history).
The text itself is interesting, although not particularly surprising. A Coptic translation of a Greek original, it contains many common elements found in other Gnostic writings. Scholars have predicted a text discussing the relationship between Jesus and Judas Iscariot for some years now, and that story of the Gospel of Judas is really a frame for a discussion of standard Gnostic theology. To understand what role the Gospel of Judas plays in this larger tradition, it may be useful to examine the existing corpus of Gnostic writings and their historical significance vis à vis what became orthodox Christianity and the Roman Church.
II. Gnostic Traditions
Gnosticism is a modern scholarly appellation for a complex phenomenon that colored much of the Early Christian period. After the death of Jesus of Nazareth circa 34 AD, many competing traditions arose, pushing and shoving to claim his legacy. One of the crucial post-Jesus figures was of course Paul the Apostle, whose active career ran from about 45-57 AD. It is quite clear that by this point - a mere twenty-odd years after Jesus's death, several varieties of gnostic teaching were already quite successful. In his First Epistle to Timothy, Paul writes
O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding the profane novelties of words and oppositions of knowledge, falsely called, which some promising, have erred concerning the faith.
- I Timothy 6:20-21
The crucial phrase is "oppositions of knowledge, falsely called" which is in Greek antitheseis tes pseudonomou gnoseos -- "the antitheses of so-called Gnosis". Paul here is referring to a larger tradition which we call Gnosticism, and which in antiquity was characterized by an emphasis on secret knowledge - gnosis.
The earliest accounts of the ministry of Jesus would have been maintained in oral form, and the three Synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew, and Luke) were not written down until 65-95 AD. The Gospel of Judas, it is thought, was composed shortly afterward, probably c. 100 AD. Most of these written efforts were in response to outside pressures - the failure of the Jewish Revolt in 70 AD and the destruction of the Temple, the increasing strength of Pauline and Hellenistic Christian efforts, and competing claims for orthodoxy. There was no consensus in the years following Jesus's death about how to conduct a continuation of his movement, nor who should be in charge. A third century apocalypse (an account of visions) of Peter presents a Christian Gnostic criticism of proto-orthodox Christianity:
They [the proto-orthodox Christians] will cleave to the name of a dead man, thinking that they will become pure. But they will become greatly defiled and they will fall into the name of error and into the hand of an evil, cunning man and a manifold dogma, and they will be ruled heretically. For some of theme will blaspheme the truth and proclaim evil teaching. And they will say evil things against each other...
And there shall be others of those who are outside our number who name themselves bishop and also deacons, as if they have received their authority from God. They bend themselves under the judgement of the leaders. These people are dry canals.
- Apocalypse of Peter
While it is impossible to present a dogma or central belief structure that would include all the gnostic traditions, several generalizations can be made. Most traditions were complex fusions of many Near Eastern religious movements, including early Christian ideas, mystic Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Platonism/neo-Platonism, and traditional Egyptian religion. Various schools rose to prominence in the Near East during the first two centuries after Jesus's death, and nearly all featured an tortuously complicated cosmogony.
A compendium of gnostic themes is showcased in the extraordinarily well-preserved On the Origin of the World. In his introduction to his translation, Hans-Gebhard Bethge writes that it "shows to what a high degree and with what freedom and authority a gnostic author makes use of foreign, even non-gnostic and heterogeneous thoughts. It thus attests the greater importance ascribed to the gnostic stance toward the world and existence than to its mythological formulation. On the Origin of the World can help us understand how the gnostic world view, in debate with other intellectual currents, but also making use of them, could maintain itself or perhaps at times even win the field."
Seeing that everybody, gods of the world and mankind, says that nothing existed prior to chaos, I in distinction to them shall demonstrate that they are all mistaken, because they are not acquainted with the origin of chaos, nor with its root. Here is the demonstration. How well it suits all men, on the subject of chaos, to say that it is a kind of darkness! But in fact it comes from a shadow, which has been called by the name darkness. And the shadow comes from a product that has existed since the beginning. It is, moreover, clear that it (viz., the product) existed before chaos came into being, and that the latter is posterior to the first product...
After the natural structure of the immortal beings had completely developed out of the infinite, a likeness then emanated from Pistis (Faith); it is called Sophia (Wisdom). It excercised volition and became a product resembling the primeval light. And immediately her will manifested itself as a likeness of heaven, having an unimaginable magnitude; it was between the immortal beings and those things that came into being after them, like [text corrupted]: she (Sophia) functioned as a veil dividing mankind from the things above.
Now the eternal realm (aeon) of truth has no shadow outside it, for the limitless light is everywhere within it. But its exterior is shadow, which has been called by the name darkness. From it there appeared a force, presiding over the darkness. And the forces that came into being subsequent to them called the shadow "the limitless chaos." From it, every kind of divinity sprouted up [text corrupted]
Then shadow perceived that there was something mightier than it, and felt envy; and when it had become pregnant of its own accord, suddenly it engendered jealousy. Since that day, the principle of jealousy amongst all the eternal realms and their worlds has been apparent. Now as for that jealous, it was found to be an abortion without any spirit in it. Like a shadow it came into existence in a vast watery substance. Then..
And it goes on and on and on and on. There are lists of sub-deities, lists of angels, lists of archons and aeons, and other crazy things as well. Most gnostic traditions focus on the role of a deity called Sophia (wisdom) and her various problems. She is usually credited with some sort of flawed creation or mistake and, as the supreme feminine principle in the cosmos, gives women the short end of the stick once again.
As far as Jesus is concerned, the plethora of roles assigned to him is mind-boggling. Most are variations on a theme of radical dualism, of clear separation between soul/spirit and corporeal being/body. He variously only appears human, is sort of really human, does not appear at all, is fully human and then switches out with a god, but in most versions, he has little to no redemptive value. There is no doctrine of salvation associated with Christ's sacrifice - in gnostic traditions, salvation - i.e. the final re-union of a soul with its ultimate creator in the Pleroma, or Fullness - can only be achieved by gnosis. Which Jesus, apparently, had.
There are many, many, many more things to be said on various brands of gnosticism, but it would take all day. For more information on specifics, I point you to the Wikipedia article, which is fairly solid.
III. The Gospel - A Closer Look
The text of the Gospel of Judas is online, available in .pdf format here, courtesy of the New York Times. You can also access it at the excellent site provided by National Geographic. Let me pull out a few excerpts which are particularly compelling.
At the beginning of the gospel, the disciples are sitting with Jesus and he says that they do not know him, and they grow angry. Fine, says Jesus, if one among you is brave enough, stand before me. And no one would, except Judas Iscariot.
But their spirits did not dare to stand before [him], except for Judas Iscariot. He was able to stand before him, but he could not look him in the eyes, and he turned his face away.
Judas [said] to him, "I know how you are and where you have come from. You are from the immortal realm of Barbelo. And I am not worthy to utter the name of the one who has sent you."
Knowing that Judas was reflecting upon something that was exalted, Jesus said to him, "Step away from the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom. It is possible for you to reach it, but you will grieve a great deal."
- The Gospel of Judas
Eventually, after a few false starts, Jesus begins to tell Judas all the secret gnosis, or knowledge, that he needs to reach the immortal realm. He details the creation, the organization of the cosmos, and tells a few vision-stories. When Judas asks Jesus about his own faith, they have the following exchange:
Judas said to Jesus, "Look, what will those who have been baptized in your name do?"
Jesus said, "Truly I say [to you], this baptism [...] my name [--about nine lines missing--] to me. Truly [I] say to you, Judas, [those who] offer sacrifices to Saklas [...] God [--three lines missing--] everything that is evil. But you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.
- The Gospel of Judas
With this statement, we can place The Gospel of Judas firmly within a Christian Gnostic tradition. Clearly the author of this text was interested in the dual nature of Christ - a concern most commonly articulated in those Christian texts which were heavily influenced by neo-Platonist and Valentinian traditions. Often, the rhetoric was drunkenness/sobriety-centered, or concentrated on the torments of the flesh. Generally speaking, the flesh was seen as punishment and corruption for an error in the past (there were many disagreements about what that error might have been), and the renunciation of the flesh was mandatory if one wished to attain a reunion with the divine creating principle. Returning briefly to the Apocalypse of Peter, we see this articulated in a vision with two Christs:
When he [Jesus] had said these things, I saw him seemingly being seized by them. And I said, "What do I see, O Lord, that it is you yourself whom they take, and that you are grasping me? Or who is this one, glad and laughing on the tree? And is it another one whose hands and feet they are striking?"
The Savior said to me, "He whom you saw on the tree, glad and laughing, this is the living Jesus. But this one into whose hands and feet they drive the nails is the fleshly part, which is the substitute being put to shame, the wone who came into being in his likeness.
- The Apocalypse of Peter
This sort of rejection of the flesh naturally led many Gnostic groups to practice severe asceticism. Furthermore, they believed in an immanent eschatology - that is to say, that the end times were near. Consequently, they were willing to renounce traditional gender roles, family structures, and civic niceties, all of which made Romans and Romanized folks very nervous indeed. Gnostic traditions were often profoundly counter-cultural, and it would be the triumph of orthodoxy which recognized that a successful Christianity had to incorporate traditional Roman values into a radical belief system.
IV. Catholic Response
Most of the response from the Church has been provided by third parties who allege vast conspiracies and cover-ups. The film Stigmata, featuring incredibly hot priest Gabriel Byrne, is an excellent example of this genre. It's all typical Da Vinci Code crap - the Church is repressing some secret and really interesting (and probably vaguely sexy) knowledge that will change everything we know about Christianity. The fact of the matter is, we know lots and lots about Christianity, and one of the things we know for sure is that what became orthodoxy only barely edged out its competitors. It was touch and go for centuries, and there was never any certainty that a gnostic tradition - which some scholars allege was far, far more widespread and more popular than proto-orthodoxy - would not become the order of the day.
Since 165 AD, the Catholics have been writing nasty things about the Gnostics, and in fact, prior to the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library, most of our information on competing traditions came through them. Treatises like Adversus Haereses (Against the Heresies) by Bishop Irenaeus of Lyon, or Epiphanius's Panarion (the Medicine-Chest) detailed all the horrible things Gnostics did and their strange beliefs. Just to give you an idea of the sort of rhetoric that was typical of the desperate early Christian struggle for survival:
Inasmuch as certain men have set the truth aside, and bring in lying words and vain genealogies, which, as the apostle says, "minister questions rather than godly edifying which is in faith," and by means of their craftily-constructed plausibilities draw away the minds of the inexperienced and take them captive, [I have felt constrained, my dear friend, to compose the following treatise in order to expose and counteract their machinations.]
These men falsify the oracles of God, and prove themselves evil interpreters of the good word of revelation. They also overthrow the faith of many, by drawing them away, under a pretence of [superior] knowledge, from Him who rounded and adorned the universe; as if, forsooth, they had something more excellent and sublime to reveal, than that God who created the heaven and the earth, and all things that are therein. By means of specious and plausible words, they cunningly allure the simple-minded to inquire into their system; but they nevertheless clumsily destroy them, while they initiate them into their blasphemous and impious opinions respecting the Demiurge; and these simple ones are unable, even in such a matter, to distinguish falsehood from truth...
Wherefore also it comes to pass, that the "most perfect" among them addict themselves without fear to all those kinds of forbidden deeds of which the Scriptures assure us that "they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." For instance, they make no scruple about eating meats offered in sacrifice to idols, imagining that they can in this way contract no defilement.
Then, again, at every heathen festival celebrated in honour of the idols, these men are the first to assemble; and to such a pitch do they go, that some of them do not even keep away from that bloody spectacle hateful both to God and men, in which gladiators either fight with wild beasts, or singly encounter one another.
Others of them yield themselves up to the lusts of the flesh with the utmost greediness, maintaining that carnal things should be allowed to the carnal nature, while spiritual things are provided for the spiritual. Some of them, moreover, are in the habit of defiling those women to whom they have taught the above doctrine, as has frequently been confessed by those women who have been led astray by certain of them, on their returning to the Church of God, and acknowledging this along with the rest of their errors.
Others of them, too, openly and without a blush, having become passionately attached to certain women, seduce them away from their husbands, and contract marriages of their own with them. Others of them, again, who pretend at first. to live in all modesty with them as with sisters, have in course of time been revealed in their true colours, when the sister has been found with child by her [pretended] brother.
And committing many other abominations and impieties, they run us down (who from the fear of God guard against sinning even in thought or word) as utterly contemptible and ignorant persons, while they highly exalt themselves, and claim to be perfect, and the elect seed. For they declare that we simply receive grace for use, wherefore also it will again be taken away from us; but that they themselves have grace as their own special possession, which has descended from above by means of an unspeakable and indescribable conjunction; and on this account more will be given them.
- Irenaeus of Lyon, Adversus haereses
Gnosticism, added to the list of heresies, continued to be bandied about as a label for any heresy vaguely similar through the Middle Ages - paired with Manicheism, it was a favorite of inquisitors'. But an actual gnostic tradition, insofar as we are able to determine, died out with the supremacy of orthodox Christianity (between the persecutions of the Romans and the persecutions of the proto-orthodox Christians, the Gnostics didn't stand much of a chance).
But the modern Church has, of course, little to fear from Gnostic writings. The President of the Catholic Theological Union in the US, who is also a member of the Pontifical Biblical Council, remarked that it wasn't really on the radar screen of the Vatican. Really, he added, he was just glad it hadn't been found in one of their bank vaults.
Hopefully the public reception of the Gospel of Judas at a time when interest in early Christianity and antique history is at a heightened level will prompt more inquiry into Christian origins and responsible histories of the period. Although most of the text is not particularly accessible, the mere awareness that orthodox Christianity was not always so is a crucial one.
posted by Katie at
5:15 AM
2 Comments:
Well written. You have done your reading and have had good orthodox teachers. The one thing I find missing here is "synthesis". What does the popularity of Gnosticism say about humankind or what does Gnostic thought say about what might be missing from Orthodox philosophy? Your work was definitely worth reading. Keep it up!
I was born Roman Catholic, but I realised once I could think for myself, that beside the fact more blood has been spilled in the name of religion, but that the Roman Catholic religions has in it's vaults enough wealth to end world poverty and hunger. How hypocritical is that?
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