Contrarian Thoughts on The Gospel of Judas
by Eric Mader
In Asia Minor or in Alexandria, in the second
century of our faith, when Basilides disseminated the idea that the cosmos was
the reckless or even improvisation of deficient angels, Nils Runeberg would
have directed, with singular intellectual passion, one of the Gnostic
conventicles. . . . [Some] fragments of his preachings, embellished with
invective, would survive in the apocryphal Liber adversus omnes haereses or would have perished when the
burning of a monastery library devoured the last copy of the Syntagmata.
Instead, God afforded Runeberg the twentieth century and the
university town of Lund. --Jorge Luis Borges, "Three
Versions of Judas"
After suffering 1700 years buried in a cave in Egypt, followed by
thirty years of depredations at the hands of bungling antique dealers, the
ancient Gospel of Judas, or at
least what remains of it, has finally been published. Though most scholars strongly suspect the text can tell us
nothing original about the historical Jesus and his ill-fated disciple, many
still feel the discovery has a particular importance. In considering religious works from antiquity, questions of
historical reliability in the narrow sense are not the only ones that matter.
The newly uncovered Gospel of Judas resounds because it forces us to face again the
perils of interpretation, that activity of mind and spirit typically set going
by an initial challenge: What does it (all) mean?
Confronted by the outrageousness of this gospel's premise, namely that
Judas was Jesus' preferred disciple, we are compelled to remember that all
texts written about Jesus, including those in the New Testament, are
interpretations of events that remain mysterious. In its uncanny way, this new gospel reminds us of an
important distance we are always in danger of forgetting: namely, the distance
that separated the events of sacred history from the words in which those
events came to be written down and handed on to posterity. In the case of the oldest of our four
biblical gospels, i.e., Mark and Matthew, that distance was already one of
decades.
Probably very few Christians will ever read The Gospel of Judas or ponder its strangeness beyond the slight frisson
they felt when first reading of it in the press. The documentary aired on National Geographic, though strong
in respects, didn't finally give an adequate idea of just how bizarre the text
is if viewed from a mainstream Christian perspective. The Gospel of Judas is radically different in theology and cosmology from the New
Testament gospels. To tell the truth,
that it makes Judas the preferred disciple and has Jesus telling Judas to
betray him, telling him that he alone truly understands--these already striking
elements are, from an orthodox viewpoint, probably the least objectionable
things about the text.
The Gospel of Judas is a
Sethian Gnostic work, similar in this to many of the works in the Nag Hammadi
collection found in Egypt in 1945.
To read it with any profit requires some knowledge of Sethian beliefs
and cosmology: the basic Sethian myth about how the world and human beings were
created. But even the reader armed
with such knowledge will find that the text poses myriad problems. The cosmological sections in particular
are difficult to interpret in any straightforward sense.
For the Sethians, Adam and Eve's third son Seth was a divine
incarnation. Seth was a human
being but also a divine being that pre-existed his birth on earth. The Gospel of Judas, in one of its many damaged sections, mentions Seth
as follows:
He made the incorruptible [generation] of Seth appear
[. . .] the twelve [. . .] the twenty-four [. . .].
One encounters the doctrine of "generations" elsewhere in the
text: the idea that there is an "incorruptible generation" and a
merely "human generation."
According to Sethians, the incorruptible generation can return to the
divine realm (called the Pleroma) while the merely human generation will
ultimately succumb:
Judas said to [him, "Rabb]i, what kind of fruit
does this generation produce?"
Jesus said, "The souls of every human generation will die. When these people, however, have
completed the time of the kingdom and the spirit leaves them, their bodies will
die but their souls will be alive, and they will be taken up."
Jesus' last sentence here apparently refers to the "incorruptible
generation." This notion of
two spiritual races, of course, is not accepted by orthodox Christians. One also sees clearly in this passage a
rejection of any resurrection of the body, which is characteristic of all the
Gnostic sects and which puts them at doctrinal odds with any Christians who
accept physical resurrection (i.e., all those who would later be recognized as
orthodox).
Jesus indicates several times in the text that the misguided disciples'
worship of "[their] god" is something they are destined to: they
could never overcome it in any case.
Of course the "wrong god" the disciples worship is none other
than the God of Moses, understood by Gnostics to be the Demiurge, the tyrant
god that created our deeply flawed earth.
In the passage where Jesus first indicates his recognition of Judas'
special role, there is also an interesting statement regarding the disciples'
wrongheaded worship and how Judas, or a double of Judas, will come to figure in
the "completion" of that wrongheaded worship:
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. For someone else will
replace you, in order that the twelve [disciples] may again come to completion
with their god."
What does this last suggestive sentence refer to? How will Judas' replacement by another
help the twelve "come to completion"?
Are we to understand this replacement simply as a matter of the election
of Matthias to take Judas' place (Acts 1:12-26)? Or are we rather to understand this "someone else"
as a kind of virtual Judas responsible for the disciple's bad
reputation--"Judas" as a mistaken figment of merely human
perception? If the latter, the
canonical gospels' negative presentation of Judas is somehow understood to be
part of the machinery of self-destruction in which the misguided "human
generation" takes part. As it
would offer a parallel to the illusory Jesus on the cross of docetism.
The most difficult challenge this text will offer to readers is in its
presentation of the origin and structure of the universe. Certainly the many lacunae are partly
responsible for this, but there's also a confusing inconsistency in the use of
terms: angel seems replaceable by aeon, and the function or place of the luminaries will be far from clear if one is not adept at Gnostic
usage. One might get a better grip
on this terminology through studying The Apocryphon of John or consulting the introductory essays in Bentley
Layton's The Gnostic Scriptures
(cf. especially pp. 12-19). Or one
might not: the details of Sethian cosmological myth differ from text to text.
A challenge for any careful reader of ancient texts would be to stand
at a blackboard and sketch out in terms of narrative order exactly which of the
divine principles mentioned precedes which other and exactly where the borders
between the different realms are to be placed. For one, the border between the lower realm that we inhabit
and the perfect realm called the Pleroma is not as clearly delineated as in
other Gnostic texts. But this
confusion, again, may be a result of crumbled or missing pages. Thanks to the irresponsibility of the
antique dealers through whose hands the manuscript passed after discovery, much
of the Gospel of Judas has
crumbled to dust.
The sections from the text that were acted out in the documentary are
indeed its most dramatically powerful.
The scene where Jesus laughs at the disciples during their thanksgiving
prayer is particularly effective.
Here the narrative artistry of the Gnostic writers is on a par with that
of the writers of the canonical gospels.
Doubtless this is a result of the direct influence of the canonical
gospels--the gospel genre, to the best of our knowledge, having been invented
by the writer of Mark. Mark's was
a major invention indeed, one whose importance would be hard to overestimate. The early gospels had an enormous
influence on later narrative. For
one, the gospel writers, as pointed out by the great German critic Erich
Auerbach in Mimesis, were the
first writers in our literature to directly and realistically narrate the
experiences of the common people.
(See Mimesis, ch. 2, "Fortunata." Auerbach was one of modern Europe's
most insightful readers: one would be hard pressed to find a more perceptive or
seminal discussion of the power of biblical narrative than one finds in the
opening chapters of Mimesis.)
Just as texts like the Apocryphon of John rewrite sections of Genesis, so the Gnostic writer
behind this recently discovered gospel is obvioulsy taking up and recastings
scenes from the canonical gospels.
Here it is Judas rather than Peter who knows Jesus for what he really is. Just as in the Gospel of Thomas it is
Thomas who correctly confesses Jesus' identity (after Peter and the others have
gotten it wrong). In the Gospel of
Judas:
Jesus said to them, "How do you know me? Truly [I] say to you, no
generation of the people that are among you will know me."
When his disciples heard this, they started getting angry and infuriated
and began blaspheming against him in their hearts.
When Jesus observed their lack of [understanding, he said] to them, "Why
has this agitation led you to anger? Your god who is within you and [...] have
provoked you to anger [within] your souls. [Let] any one of you who is [strong
enough] among human beings bring out the perfect human and stand before my
face."
They all said, "We have the strength."
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 who 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."
By an irony of literary history, we in the early 21st century have been
well prepared for the discovery of this lost gospel. When I first heard rumors of The Gospel of Judas, I was reminded of a short story I'd last read some
time in the 1990s, "Three Versions of Judas," which was published in
1944 by the Argentine master storyteller Jorge Luis Borges. In the tale's first paragraph, fleeting
mention is made of Bishop Irenaeus' c. 180 C.E. work Against Heresies, in which the bishop condemns a text called The
Gospel of Judas (it's the bishop's
reference more than anything that allows us to date the gospel before the third
century). Probably Borges' allusion
to Irenaeus is not merely apt--as any allusion by Borges must be--but we might
also take it as a nod at the source of his idea for the tale. Borges, who read everything, of course
read Irenaeus.
"Three Versions of Judas" presents a series of three interpretations
of Judas developed by the fictional Swedish theologian Nils Runeberg over the
course of his career. The narrator
pointedly informs the reader that Runeberg, "a member of the National
Evangelical Union, was deeply religious." This is meant to underline the irony of Runeberg's heretical
ideas about Judas. How, after all,
could such a devout man in such a learned environment go so gravely wrong? But Borges, theologically speaking, is
among the wisest of modern writers.
Like Kierkegaard before him, he knows that it is precisely the devout and learned who are most likely to drift
into heresy: only those who care deeply about theological issues to begin with
are likely to be prodded into developing heretical systems. Against these, the throngs of Sunday
morning Christians can't be bothered to sit down and actually think through
what they believe. The heretic, on
the other hand, thinks through what he or she believes, thinks hard, and then
comes to conclusions different from those of the Church.
The evolution of Runeberg's ideas on Judas is a tribute to Borges'
subtlety. Runeberg doesn't move
steadily from heresy to ever deeper heresy; rather he begins, in his first
book, with a more or less heretical thesis, and then, in response to criticism
from his peers, retreats somewhat in a later edition of the book. Finally, however, in his last major
work, the theologian returns full force with a new and yet more heretical
thesis, one that even the most contrarian of ancient heresiarchs would be hard
pressed to invent. Runeberg's
first thesis can be gleaned from the following:
To suppose an error in the Scriptures is intolerable;
no less intolerable is to admit an accidental happening in the most precious
event in world history. Ergo, Judas' betrayal was not accidental; it was a
preordained fact which has its mysterious place in the economy of
redemption. Runeberg continues:
The Word, when it was made flesh, passed from ubiquity to space, from eternity
to history, from limitless satisfaction to change and death; in order to correspond
to such a sacrifice, it was necessary that one man, in representation of all
men, make a sacrifice of condign nature.
Judas Iscariot was that man.
Judas, alone among the apostles, sensed the secret divinity and terrible
intent of Jesus. The Word had been
lowered to mortal condition; Judas, a disciple of the Word, could lower himself
to become an informer (the worst crime in all infamy) and reside among the
perpetual fires of Hell. The lower
order is a mirror of the higher; . . . Judas in some way reflects Jesus. Hence the thirty pieces of silver and
the kiss; hence the suicide, in order to merit Reprobation even more. Thus Nils Runeberg elucidated the enigma
of Judas.
Runeberg's final thesis on Judas is pure Borges, an example of the literary
metaphysician at his best. But I
won't reveal it here: the development is lengthy and Borges' tale is so fine
that I don't want to spoil it for any who may decide to read it. (The translation quoted from above is
in the collection Labyrinths, New
Directions, 1962; there's a different English translation online at:
http://www.yksi.org/tekst/ald/borges_3giuda-en.txt
)
Borges' analysis of the potential righteousness of Judas has echoes in
the ancient Gospel of Judas. They both concern themselves with how
an act that is outwardly evil may actually be good. Given the presentation of Judas in the New Testament, to speculate
on this is already heretical: it contradicts the letter of the text.
Then Satan entered into Judas, called Iscariot, one of
the Twelve. And Judas went to the
chief priests and the officers of the temple guard and discussed with them how
he might betray Jesus. They were
delighted and agreed to give him money.
Thus Luke (22:3-5). And
here is John:
The evening meal was being served, and the devil had
already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. (13:2)
Mark and Matthew are slightly more ambiguous in that neither mentions Satan,
though both have Jesus saying of Judas' act:
The Son of Man will go just as it is written about
him. But woe to that man who
betrays the Son of Man! It would
be better for him if he had not been born. (14:21)
In the National Geographic documentary, one of the
scholars interviewed implies that the portrait of Judas gets darker with each
successive gospel and that the earliest gospel, Mark, doesn't even directly
condemn Judas for the betrayal but merely narrates it as a fact. This simply isn't true. It is clear by the text that Mark
considers Judas a traitor with nothing to recommend him: "It would be
better for him if he had not been born."
Obviously all the attempts to justify Judas come on
the heels of the first sentence in the Mark quote above: "The Son of Man
will go just as it is written about him." This is Jesus speaking, and he is talking of what must
happen. In John, Jesus even tells
him: "What you are about to do, do quickly." Isn't Judas then fulfilling the
Scripture? Wouldn't it be possible
to interpret Jesus' words about going "quickly" as something close to
a directive? But the text also
says that Satan entered into Judas, so how can Jesus' words be a
directive? From my own point of
view, they are not a directive, and yet it isn't hard to understand how early
Christians (perhaps depending on oral accounts of the Last Supper or even
different gospel versions now lost) might begin to interpret the scene that
way.
As Jesus neared Jerusalem he had told his disciples repeatedly
that he would be betrayed and condemned to death. Here is Jesus' first prediction as it is found in Matthew:
From that time on Jesus began to explain to his
disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of
the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed
and on the third day be raised to life.
Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. "Never, Lord!" he said. "This shall never happen to you."
Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do
not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." (16:21-3)
Jesus knows that he must suffer and be killed. Peter denies he will be killed, Judas
hands him over to be killed.
According to the canonical texts, both disciples are inspired by Satan,
Peter when he denies, Judas when he betrays. Of course Peter has the excuse that his sin is one of
misunderstanding: it is his concern for Jesus that leads him to speak this
way. Presumably later, after the
resurrection, Peter will see how he had misunderstood: he will realize the
divine necessity of Jesus' death in Jerusalem. Judas' sin, however, has no excuse. Still the gospels don't explain it very
well except to say that money was involved and that the act was inspired by
Satan. And yet although Judas' sin
has no excuse, it does have a kind of metaphysical loophole. Because Judas' act leads to the
fulfillment of what Jesus insisted must happen all along. Indeed, if trying to shun the necessity
of Jesus' arrest and death is itself a kind of sin, as we saw from the text of
Matthew above, some may be led to see Judas' act as the opposite. Though the four gospels explicitly
state otherwise, the loophole remains.
Both Borges in his tale and the anonymous author(s) of The Gospel of
Judas exploit this loophole to
different ends. (But how different
are these ends really? Of course
many would say that Borges exploits the loophole to achieve a literary and philosophical affect, while the Gnostics do so as a means of
putting forth their theology, and
that this is a very different matter.
In other words, Borges' work is merely literature, while the Gnostic work is meant to be
scripture. But isn't it possible
that this distinction between literature and scripture is ultimately
misleading? Isn't it possible that
modern readers of Borges and ancient readers of the Gnostic gospels may be
reading, finally, for similar reasons?
Not a few critics have noticed that these ancient texts read oddly like
modern science fiction. Perhaps
both sets of readers, ancient and modern, come to their respective texts with
similar expectations, seeking through their reading similar kinds of
intellectual challenge, a similar expanded grasp of the universe. Perhaps we are wrong to put strict
distinctions between the reading of scriptural narratives and the reading of
certain kinds of literature. One
remembers Blake's famous definition of priesthood: "Choosing forms of
worship from poetic tales."
I'm among those who would insist that reading literature is the other,
more positive side of this coin: "Choosing poetic tales as a form of
worship.")
Nearly all the press coverage around the publication
of The Gospel of Judas focused on
the "challenge" the gospel posed to the orthodox Christian view. This challenge was supposedly in the
fact that the new gospel represented Judas as the preferred disciple. As Jesus says to Judas:
But you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that
clothes me.
I've tried to show above that this is only a secondary
aspect of the gospel's challenge: that the truly objectionable thing for the
orthodox should be the cosmology and the Sethian doctrine of generations (I didn't
mention the gospel's Christology, but that too of course is heretical). The idea that Judas was maybe
performing a holy act by betraying Jesus--this I believe could be narrated
rather easily without, in any fundamental sense, breaking the tenets of
orthodoxy.
Imagine now that another tattered codex is discovered,
also entitled The Gospel of Judas. Yes, a mere two months after the
publication of the Coptic Gospel of Judas another similarly titled text appears. But this new text is in Greek. And it tells the story differently. In it there's no talk of aeons or
incorruptible generations, and Jesus does not refer to his body as clothing to
be thrown off. Among the intact
sections of the manuscript is the Last Supper scene. Imagine the following paragraphs are part of it:
When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table
with the Twelve. And while they
were eating, he asked them, "Who among you would betray me to the chief
priests, to those who seek my life, so that I should be arrested and condemned
to death?"
They all began to protest loudly, "Not I, Lord. Surely I would not betray you!"
But Jesus said to them: "And yet how many times have I told you that
the Son of Man must be betrayed, and must be arrested and killed? Did you not hear my words?"
Then Peter said, "Lord, we would protect you to the death from
those who would seek to kill you."
Jesus said: "And so you do not understand. And your lack of understanding brings
weakness. And I tell you, Peter,
that you yourself will disown me three times tonight before the rooster
crows."
But Peter declared he would never deny him, and all the other disciples
said the same.
Then Jesus repeated: "Who among you will betray me, for it is
written that the Son of Man must be betrayed?"
Then Judas said, "I will do it, Lord, if it is your will."
Jesus said, "What you must do, do quickly." And Judas got up from the table and
left.
If such a fragment were discovered, and if its
antiquity were established, it would certainly challenge the orthodox
understanding of Judas. Imagine
that the manuscript were datable to the late first century. Then the case of Judas would truly
become a thorn in the side of the Church, and the debates would be fierce. Because such a fragment would put in
doubt the accepted biblical versions of the betrayal: the only thing those
versions would have to hang on would be their canonization by the Church. Because this text too would be dated,
like the canonical gospels, to the first century. And yet such a fragment would in the fundamentals be
entirely orthodox. Though offering
the scandal of an alternate version of the Last Supper--and so putting the biblical
versions in doubt--it would not change the fundamental meaning.
For some Christians, the reliability of the four
gospels cannot be put in question without them feeling their faith is being
undermined. For others, and I am
one of them, the gospels are reliable enough if they sketch the general arc of
Jesus' life story and capture many of his authentic teachings. I believe they do. The Jesus we see in the gospels, though
shrouded in many errors of detail and alloyed by later additions, is in a rough
way reliable. Probably Jesus never
said many of the things he is quoted as saying, and certainly many important
words of his were not remembered.
But the figure we find in the canonized texts is far from being a
literary or mythical character: he is not an Odysseus or Dionysus.
But even if accurately quoted, Jesus' teachings would
require interpretation. Being that
many of his true words are mixed with others attributed to him, the work of
interpretation becomes harder.
What was his precise teaching?
On what grounds can we be confident that such or such a phrase is part
of the real canon, that core
collection of authentic sayings wrapped up in additions invented by his
followers. Scholars have devised
some excellent methods for making such decisions; though certainly not entirely
reliable, these methods offer us is something better than an educated guess. Christians who refuse to consider such
work deny themselves the possibility of a richer, more nuanced understanding of
Jesus.
Like other Christians, I accept that Jesus is the
Messiah. Unlike many Christians,
however, I cannot assert that I understand exactly what that means. This is my difference, what makes me
one of a minority of Christians who see the study of texts like The Gospel
of Judas important. Certainly I have ideas on what words
like Messiah or salvation or redemption mean, but these ideas shift, I remain a seeker, and my theology is
always in process. I know that
many in the modern world, certainly those who love the life of the mind, live
their faith in this way. Such
faith is an ongoing struggle to interpret what we are called upon to believe
and what we actually do believe.
Those of a fundamentalist mindset would say this makes our faith
weaker. I think the opposite is
true.
The Gospel of Judas, as I've said above, probably contains no new
information about the historical Jesus and his disciples. Nonetheless it is of great importance
in the ongoing Christian debate because, in a roundabout way, it reminds us
that the gospel stories in the New Testament are themselves not
monolithic. But also this gospel
will likely prod many otherwise incurious Christians to go and read something
about Gnosticism. And when they
read about the strange new Gnostic doctrine, only new in that they haven't
encountered it before, maybe some small minority of them will realize that much
in their accepted orthodox doctrine is strange also, and maybe this will prod
them to begin the work of questioning where the truth may lie in all this. They will ask the great question at the
base of all serious interpretation: What does it (all) mean?
April, 2006
Added February, 2008: The translation and interpretation of the Gospel
of Judas offered by the National
Geographic team has recently been criticized by April DeConick in her fascinating
book The Thirteenth Apostle. I've a brief review here:
DeConick: *The Thirteenth Apostle*
An English translation of The Gospel of Judas and a variety of other material can be found here:
http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/manuscripts/gospel_of_judas
Other works mentioned in this essay:
Jorge Luis Borges: *Labyrinths: Selected Stories and
Other Writings*
St. Irenaeus of Lyons: *Against the Heresies*
Bentley Layton: *The Gnostic Scriptures*
Email: inthemargins03@hotmail.com
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