Posted on 04/20/2006 6:26:03 AM PDT by Teófilo
Judas' confession displaces Peter's in the "gospel" of Judas
We're all familiar with St. Peter's Confession of Faith. It is preserved in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, Chapter 16, verses 13-19:
And Jesus came into the quarters of Cesarea Philippi: and he asked his disciples, saying: Whom do men say that the Son of man is? But they said: Some John the Baptist, and other some Elias, and others Jeremias, or one of the prophets. Jesus saith to them: But whom do you say that I am?Well, it so happens that in the gospel of Judas records another confession, that of Judas, also accompanied by a set of promises made by "Jesus" to Judas:Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven. (Douay-Rheims)
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 […] [35] 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.”Note that Judas that the author paints Judas as the only one who dared to speak to Jesus as an equal. Observe also Judas' confession and Jesus' reaction: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.”
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. [36] For someone else will replace you, in order that the twelve [disciples] may again come to completion with their god.”
Judas said to him, “When will you tell me these things, and [when] will the great day of light dawn for the generation?”
But when he said this, Jesus left 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.”Later, in another exchange in which Judas asks Jesus about his own fate, Jesus promised that Judas would be exalted over the other disciples and the receiver of special teachings to which the other disciples would not be privy: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, “Master, could it be that my seed is under the control of the rulers?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Come, that I [—two lines missing—], but that you will grieve much when you see the kingdom and all its generation.”Now, observe this statement Judas "confesses" of Jesus:You are from the immortal realm of Barbelo. Who or what is this "Barbelo" character? According to the Wikipedia,When he heard this, Judas said to him, “What good is it that I have received it? For you have set me apart for that generation.”
Jesus answered and said, “You will become the thirteenth, and you will be cursed by the other generations—and you will come to rule over them. In the last days they will curse your ascent [47] to the holy [generation].”
Barbēlo refers to the first emanation of God in the various Sethian gnostic cosmogonies. This figure is also variously referred to as 'Mother-Father' (a moniker that hints at her apparent androgyny), 'First Human Being', 'The Triple Androgynous Name', or 'Eternal Aeon'.But Judas' Jesus associates his own disciples with "Saklas," a name the Gnostics reserved to "the Demiurge," the lower deity who created the world—different from "Barbelo" or the "high God" or "aeon" from which Jesus supposedly came from, as confessed by Judas. Again, Jesus is made to explain this cosmogony in the gospel of Judas:In the Apocryphon of John, a tractate in the Nag Hammadi Library containing the most extensive recounting of the Sethian creation myth, the Barbēlo is described as "The first power, the glory, Barbēlo, the perfect glory in the aions, the glory of the revelation." All subsequent acts of creation within the divine sphere (save, crucially, that of the lowest aeon Sophia) occurs through her co-action with God.
"Then Saklas said to his angels, ‘Let us create a human being after the likeness and after the image.’ They fashioned Adam and his wife Eve, who is called, in the cloud, Zoe. For by this name all the generations seek the man, and each of them calls the woman by these names. Now, Sakla did not [53] com[mand …] except […] the gene[rations …] this […]. And the [ruler] said to Adam, ‘You shall live long, with your children.’”There is another scattered mentions of a Gnostic "aeons" in the gospel of Judas and that's "Sophia," who features in many of the Gnostic stories of the creation of the world.
Gnosticism defined: an excursus
Who are these "Gnostics" who keep creeping up throughout the text? What's "Gnosticism" exactly? Again, from the Wikipedia:
Gnosticism is a historical term for various mystical initiatory religions, sects and knowledge schools that were most active in the first few centuries C.E. around the Mediterranean and extending into central Asia.Gnosticism is a variegated religious phenomenon with different schools, philosophies, and theologies. Gnosticism is a manifold phenomenon and tt is difficult to make fair generalizations about it, although many of its schools held in common several beliefs and worldviews. If you want to find out more, please refer to the Wikipedia articles I've quoted before, or to that of the Catholic Encyclopedia which is also very informative. I'll limit myself to the "school" we meet through the gospel of Judas, whose author had no love lost for the emerging orthodox Catholic consensus in Christianity.These systems typically recommend the pursuit of mysticism or "special knowledge" (gnosis) as the central goal of life. They also commonly depict creation as a mythological struggle between competing forces of light and dark, and posit a marked division between the material realm, typically depicted as under the governance of malign forces (such as the demiurge), and the higher spiritual realm from which it is divided, governed by God (the Monad) and the Aeons.
In the gospel of Judas, the Gnostic Jesus blasts the "priests." Who is he talking about?
The Gnostic Jesus says and acts very differently from the Jesus we find in the canonical New Testament. The gospel of Judas records a diatribe by the Gnostic Jesus' against "priests" and "sacrifice." The occasion is a "dream" the apostles had and Jesus' interpretation of that dream. This is the "dream sequence":
Another day Jesus came up to [them]. They said to [him], “Master, we have seen you in a [vision], for we have had great [dreams …] night […].”[He said], “Why have [you … when] have gone into hiding?” [38]Now, the Gnostic Jesus' "interpretation":They [said, “We have seen] a great [house with a large] altar [in it, and] twelve men—they are the priests, we would say—and a name; and a crowd of people is waiting at that altar, [until] the priests [… and receive] the offerings. [But] we kept waiting.”
[Jesus said], “What are [the priests] like?”
They [said, “Some …] two weeks; [some] sacrifice their own children, others their wives, in praise [and] humility with each other; some sleep with men; some are involved in [slaughter]; some commit a multitude of sins and deeds of lawlessness. And the men who stand [before] the altar invoke your [name], [39] and in all the deeds of their deficiency, the sacrifices are brought to completion […].” After they said this, they were quiet, for they were troubled.
Jesus said to them, “Why are you troubled? Truly I say to you, all the priests who stand before that altar invoke my name. Again I say to you, my name has been written on this[…] of the generations of the stars through the human generations. [And they] have planted trees without fruit, in my name, in a shameful manner.”The text gets too fragmented after that to read coherently, but this is enough to draw some general conclusionsJesus said to them, “Those you have seen receiving the offerings at the altar—that is who you are. That is the god you serve, and you are those twelve men you have seen. The cattle you have seen brought for sacrifice are the many people you lead astray [40] before that altar. […] will stand and make use of my name in this way, and generations of the pious will remain loyal to him. After him another man will stand there from [the fornicators], and another [will] stand there from the slayers of children, and another from those who sleep with men, and those who abstain, and the rest of the people of pollution and lawlessness and error, and those who say, ‘We are like angels’; they are the stars that bring everything to its conclusion. For to the human generations it has been said, ‘Look, God has received your sacrifice from the hands of a priest’—that is, a minister of error. But it is the Lord, the Lord of the universe, who commands, ‘On the last day they will be put to shame.’” [41] Jesus said [to them], “Stop sac[rificing …] which you have […] over the altar, since they are over your stars and your angels and have already come to their conclusion there. So let them be [ensnared] before you, and let them go [—about 15 lines missing—] generations […]. A baker cannot feed all creation [42] under [heaven]. And […] to them […] and […] to us and […].
The sacrificial worship scene presented in this dream sequence is reminiscent of Jewish Temple worship and thus, I suppose most scholars will be inclined to interpret it as such, as portraying the apostles as Jewish Temple priests whose cult is rejected by the Gnostic Christ. In my lay opinion, this is not necessarily so. I posit that the worship we see portrayed here is not that of the Jewish Temple, but the Eucharistic Sacrifice of the orthodox Catholic Church. There are some clues in the dream that leads me to believe so.
The twelve men that "stand at the altar" in the dream sequence invoke Jesus' name. Needless to say that's not, shall we say, kosher in Jewish Temple worship, which would've been blasphemous, to say the least. The Gnostic Jesus confirms his apostles' perception: Truly I say to you, all the priests who stand before that altar invoke my name. What kind of "altar" is this? I sense that a Jewish altar is not meant, but a Christian one.
The Gnostic Jesus demands that all sacrifices "in his name" offered "from the hands of a priest" come from "a minister of error" be stopped: Stop sac[rificing …] which you have […] over the altar, since they are over your stars and your angels and have already come to their conclusion there. Then, the Gnostic Jesus adds one statement to his diatribe that I find very curious: A baker cannot feed all creation [42] under [heaven]. I think this is very significant.
Why the baker simile? Perhaps if we look at a baker's principal occupation, which is to make and distribute bread, we'll get the appropriate clue. Who is the baker in this "dream sequence?" It is the priest, who distributes the too material bread which is a negative symbol of the inadequate knowledge that, the Gnostic Jesus posits, is insufficient in quantity and quality to feed the souls and intellects of everyone. The Gnostic Jesus links this bread to the "temple sacrifice" described earlier in the sequence, of which the apostles are its vain "priesthood." The audience listening to the gospel of Judas read aloud would've understood the "dream sequence" and the Gnostic Jesus' indictment of "temple sacrifice" as referring to the Eucharistic Liturgy celebrated in orthodox Catholic circles.
I think the purpose of the "dream sequence" is obvious: it is an attack against the orthodox Christian hierarchy that had become dominant in Christianity and to which St. Ignatius witnesses it in his Letter to the Smyrnaeans in 110 AD. The dream sequence is also a purposeful denigration of the central act of worship of the Church over which the hierarchy presides.
The diatribe against "temple sacrifice" should not be construed as a new, disconnected "vision" arbitrarily dropped into the text of the gospel of Judas by its author(s). Instead, it should be seen as a continuation of a thread of thought that runs from the initial critique of the apostles "Eucharistic Prayer" to this rendering of Christian "temple sacrifice" of which the apostles are "priests"—An implicit criticism of bishops who claim apostolic succession and authority, and who see themselves as the proper celebrants of the Christian Eucharist.
Next time, the conclusion of this brief analysis of the "gospel of Judas."
PING!
But I am more and more becoming convinced that the document is exactly what it proports to be - sour grapes and rationalization.
Ping to read later
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