The Gospel of Judas

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Marvin W. Meyer. The Gospel of Judas

The Gospel of Judas

acknowledgments

introduction

translation

epilogue. A Night with Judas Iscariot: A Script for Readers’ Theater

bibliography

index of ancient texts

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on a night with judas iscariot

Marvin Meyer

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The title Gospel of Judas derives from the titular subscript (peuaggelion enioudas, 58,27–28), and the incipit or prologue of the gospel provides an overview of its contents: “The hidden revelatory discourse (plogo[s] ethēp entapophasis) that Jesus spoke with Judas Iscariot during a period of eight days, up to three days before he celebrated Passover” (33,1–6). The narrative introduces Jesus calling the twelve disciples and speaking with them about “the mysteries (emmustēri[o]n) that transcend the world and what is going to happen at the end” (33,16–18).

One day, it is said, Jesus happens upon the disciples as they are celebrating a sacred meal reminiscent of the Passover meal or the eucharist, and he laughs. Jesus laughs a great deal in the Gospel of Judas, as he does in other Sethian texts as well as elsewhere in gnostic literature.5 The disciples complain about the laughter, but Jesus insists that he is not laughing at them. He says, “You are not doing this of your own will but because this is how your god [will be] praised” (34,8–11). The disciples respond by confessing, “Master, you . . . are the son of our god” (34,11–13), but Jesus turns away from this statement of confession. They are talking about the creator of the world, the demiurge, and Jesus is not the son of the demiurge. At this the disciples are furious, and Jesus invites them to step up to him and face him, but none has the strength to do so—except Judas Iscariot. He stands before Jesus, averts his eyes, apparently in a respectful manner, and offers a profession, from a Sethian gnostic point of view, of who Jesus really is. Judas states before Jesus, “I know who you are and where you have come from. You have come from the immortal aeon of Barbelo, and I am not worthy to utter the name of the one who has sent you” (35,15–21). With a term from Hebrew, Barbelo, perhaps meaning something like “God in four” (that is, God in the tetragrammaton, the four-letter ineffable name of the divine), this profession declares that Jesus is from a transcendent realm far beyond this mortal world, and that the name of the one sending Jesus to this world is too holy to utter.6

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