"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.'
...
'Judas said to him, 'When will you tell me these things and when will the great day of light dawn for the generations?'
But when he said this, Jesus left him."
(Image: Judas Betrays Him by the wildly eccentric William Blake; his oddities make him a fitting artist)
Early Christianity, often lumped into the collective, amorphous, and relatively unhelpful term 'Gnostic,' remains one of my favorite topics. Maybe because it's when the overlap between ancient and more modern religious rites were at their parting of the ways and, as a result, at their closest. Maybe it's because Gnosticism is a bit like the Supreme Court's idea of hardcore pornography: I couldn't define it, but I know it when I see it. Who knows? Either way, The Gospel of Judas is up for debate as to whether it should be classified among them. For the intent of this review, we are going to be using a more Gnostic-inspired viewpoint, and contrasting it a bit with more standard Christian teachings.
The Gospel of Judas, introduced and explained with incredible contextualization by the phenomenal pair of Elaine Pagels and Karen L. King, carries a title that is on its surface a bit scandalous, tantalizing, and controversial: what kind of heretic would want to hear it, anyway? Just about anyone with a bit of understanding of the story of Christianity knows Judas Iscariot as the disciple who betrayed Jesus to the Romans and crucifixion. He is one of the most hated figures in the Bible.
In The Gospel of Judas, we see this narrative flipped on its head.
There are several reasons for this, of course, which can be situated both historically and culturally. You have to think that to a lot of people who believed in the ancient gods, Jesus wouldn't seem like much: if you go and piss off Odin or Zeus, they'll fuck your shit up. Jesus claims to be divine—not just part-divine like one of Zeus' numerous bastard kids—gets nailed to the cross and dies, crying out to his father and asking why he had forsaken him. With the gods ancient people were used to, that would be the time when some serious smiting happened and people were punished for their arrogance. This new guy showing up and dying as a criminal wasn't anything too special to them.
So we have a multitude of things going on here: Christianity wants to explain why Jesus is special (see: the Resurrection, a fleshed out afterlife, and another explanation along these lines that's better put in O'Donnell's Pagans but is eluding me at the moment) and also we have to reconcile a God who is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient with the existence of evil (a long-standing issue of religion and philosophy) and maybe trying to figure all of this out as part of 'God's Plan.' And, in all of this, what was the meaning of Jesus' crucifixion, anyway? Is he a spirit or a physical being—and which one was up there on the cross? Was it just an illusion? And hey, since we're talking about Jesus' resurrection: if we're all going to be resurrected, how will we be coming back, purely spiritual like a ghost or like the zombie pirates in Curse of the Black Pearl?
Many possible would-be early Christians were turned away by the man who claimed to be divine but died an ignominious death reserved for criminals and some of these other, oddball questions actually were the kinds of things that concerned people at the time. (Only some—archaeological evidence indicates Roman awareness of the Pirates of the Caribbean series is scanty to the point of "nonexistent.")
It's also worth noting that it wasn't until the 300s that Constantine converted to Christianity—and even that was closer to a "provisional contract" than a true conversion, thus why he waited for his death bed to convert and go into the afterlife with a clean slate by cheating the system (Side note: decent chance it worked, as folklore like Faust and more modern fictional tropes show contract law is more of Hell's specialty, thus the common stories about "deals with the devil" and the buying of souls).
Anyway, in the interim between Jesus' death and the 300s, you have persecuted Christians—and accepting martyrdom is often being encouraged by Church fathers, which can be kind of read into with one quote from Judas' Gospel: “I’m not laughing at you. You aren’t doing this out of your own will, but because in this way, your god will be praised.”
Note: this is Jesus mocking the other Twelve Disciples, a recurring theme throughout The Gospel of Judas. Judas is not exempt from this disparaging treatment (from another translation, when Judas says he has had a vision: "Why are you all worked up, thirteenth demon? But speak up, and I'll bear with you."). Considering the heavily fragmented nature of the text, there's likely plenty more hectoring that we no longer possess. Also note that Jesus is distinguishing himself from the God the Twelve perceive to be Jesus' father.
We'll return to that in a minute. For now, I'll say: Judas is a nifty little silver bullet for a lot of the above problems. Let's talk about why.
Within the Bible, Jesus Must Die (like Harry to destroy the Horcrux or Dante because that's the difficulty mode you chose) in order that his blood will atone mankind. There are any number of differing explanations as to why. One of the more interesting explanations I've come across during my comparative studies is from the Epic of Eden by Richter and argues that Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, in a sort of literary sense, can be seen as the culmination of the covenant initially created between God and Adam and renewed with Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and, ultimately, Jesus.
She has a great explanation about the tribal bonds of ancient Israelites and how this ties into early imagery regarding God's covenant with mankind. As Richter points out, in real life the practice worked with an animal sacrifice as a stand-in for the person being brought into a new pact with the tribal/family unit—'if you betray me, this is what will happen to you' as the animal's limbs are ripped off and it is ultimately given a pretty brutal death. In the Bible, when God makes his covenant, he reverses the roles—'if mankind betrays me, this is what will happen to me.' To repeat: read in this traditional biblical interpretation of the narrative, Jesus' sacrifice is the final culmination of the covenant God originally made with Adam. This is also considered one of the major demarcation points that makes it difficult for people to connect the Old and New Testaments, per Richter, so there's one helpful little link.
As another fun little aside: Genesis also includes two separate, and distinct, stories of Creation. Chapter One sees the seven day creation myth (male and female created simultaneously after plants and animals); Chapter Two sees a much more human God and the Garden of Eden story (humanity is created before plants/animals, later split into male/female). Anyway, I digress.
Back to the Gospel and Jesus' crucifixion: within the text, it is heavily implied that Jesus is a spiritual being trapped in a physical body, and Jesus even explains to Judas that his death is necessary: "you'll sacrifice the human who bears me."
"But you'll do more than all of them, because you'll sacrifice the human who bears me. Your horn has already been raised, your anger has been kindled, your star has ascended, and your heart has [strayed]."
(Image: Kiss of Judas, Giotto)
Jesus is not just giving Judas permission to turn him over—he is commanding it. Because while Jesus must die to atone mankind, he is condemning the later Christians, including the Twelve, who encouraged others to become martyrs in the Colosseum, be crucified, or otherwise die for their faith. While Jesus' death was necessary in the divine sense, humanity making martyrs of themselves is seen, in this interpretation, as akin to the worship of Moloch condemned in the Old Testament.
"You're the ones receiving the offerings on the altar you've seen. That's the God you serve, and you're the twelve people you've seen. And the animals you saw brought in to be sacrificed are the crowd you lead astray."
(Image: Moloch, WikiMedia Commons)
Now, let's return to that whole pesky bit about Jesus mocking the Twelve, which already may be starting to come together. In Gnostic cosmology, the physical world was crafted by a Demiurge that ran the gamut from ignorant to malevolent to just. This figure is often associated with the vengeful God of the Old Testament, which can lead to perverse, shitty, and inaccurate Gnostic readings that dabble into antisemitism.
In The Gospel of Judas, the more direct antagonistic figure is an underling of Yaldabaoth, Saklas, but the same Gnostic principle applies: the "true" God exists in a divine realm often called the Pleroma. This True God created Emanations/Aeons loosely comparable to angels or mythical deities, ultimately leading to the Demiurge/Yaldabaoth being created by the female Aeon Sophia (Wisdom) without her male half.
This Demiurge created the earth based on imperfect blueprints of a half-remembered or briefly-glimpsed Pleroma (in a more forgiving, ignorant reading) or as a spiteful imitation (in a more malevolent reading). As with all myths, there is no "true" version, as many of these were told originally in oral tradition (or debated in various writings, many of them now lost) which adapted and changed to fit times, circumstances, the message the teller was trying to communicate, and the popularity of the message with audiences. Our written versions of oral traditions are effectively "locked in" as we put them down, but that doesn't mean the myths don't continue to evolve and change, especially in cultures with more oral traditions of storytelling. The earlier tangent about Genesis' two creation accounts can be seen this way, or, for an easier example, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, which doubtless saw change from their "original" form to the ones that were finally recorded for posterity.
In our reading for The Gospel of Judas, which views things through an idiosyncratic lens, Jesus is sent from the God of the Pleroma, not from Saklas of the physical world. This is why the Twelve are worshipping a deity Jesus distinguishes himself from and mocks them. This is why Judas says Jesus is "from the immortal realm of Barbelo. And I am not worthy to utter the name of the one who has sent you."
This is why Judas, while speaking alone with Jesus, admits to having visions of his own where the other Twelve are stoning him and chasing him away. The cosmological scope, I'll admit, I find baffling here, as well as just what Judas will become. Let's Talk Religion has a great video on this gospel as well and he knows a helluva lot more than I do: per his understanding, Judas eventually exists as a kind of representative on earth of the divine realm. Which seems like a real Pyrrhic victory, considering he seems to get a glimpse of Heaven, described as a beautiful, peaceful house and when he asks Jesus if he can go inside is basically told, "Yeah, that's never happening." (Hard not to be reminded a bit of Moses in Deuteronomy getting a glimpse of the Promised Land and then, "I have let you see it with your own eyes, but you shall not cross over into it." It's possible this is an intentional allusion).
As is also pointed out in the video, what Jesus requests of Judas is the ultimate sign of his loyalty. He appears to accept that he will never enter Heaven itself and will remain consigned to being hated, as he is to this day in Christianity. The Gospel itself ends on a very cryptic and unsettling note. Approached at the Temple, Judas "answered them according to their will. Then Judas received some copper coins. He handed him over to them."
I'm sure it comes as no surprise that The Gospel of Judas did not make it into the biblical canon and, in fact, was only known from refutations except for the very fortunate discovery of a horribly maintained bit of that wonder plant papyrus. Looks like April DeConick has an interesting refutation of the popular reading of this text, too, which I just found out. Shame it's a bit pricey, but that'll have to go on the distant future to-read list. Always interesting to see a different interpretation, but I don't know that I find the synopsis of her argument as compelling or convincing as I do Pagels and King.
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