20260630 T&MP

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Introduction to the Gospel of Judas and Dante's Inferno

Historical and Theological Perspectives on Judas

The Gospel of Judas: Recovery and Context

Judas in the New Testament and Canonical Gospels

Analyzing the Secret Teachings of the Gospel of Judas

Episodes referenced

Religious Studies Terms

Individuals Named

Bible Passages

Non English Words

Books Mentioned

Graphics Referenced

Linguistics Terms

Scientific Terms

Biblical Cities

Archealogical Sites

T&MP 2026-7-14 The Gospel of Judas - Centre Place

The Gospel of Judas

Transcript:

Introduction to the Gospel of Judas and Dante's Inferno

(00:03) Our topic this evening is one of the apocryphal Gospels, the Gospel of Judas, which was known in antiquity, but was lost for all through the Middle Ages and into the modern era until, like so many texts, was discovered buried in Egypt or somewhere in Egypt anyway, like we always um talk about in terms of the the fabled Library of Alexandria that was constantly burning down.

(00:38) My plea to time travelers is to tell all the people back then to just take some of these books, go out in the desert in Egypt and bury them because that's the best way for them to be preserved. And so this is how we ended up with this one. So if you go into the Baptistery, which is part of the cathedral complex in Florence, um there are some beautiful medieval mosaics including this sort of remarkable vision or image of hell where Satan is presiding over the damned.

(01:15) And this mosaic would have been relatively new anyway when a young Dante Alighieri was growing up in Florence and he might have gone in there a few times and pondered this vision as he and maybe gave him some inspiration for his famous work. And one of the things he might have done, I think, is ask himself, "Who's that guy sticking out of Satan's mouth?" In other words, Satan is swallowing somebody in in the mid swallow here during the pose.

(01:47) And so who is that guy? Who deserves what arguably then is the worst punishment of all, getting directly, personally devoured by Satan? Half the fun of Dante's Inferno, um this amazing uh work of literature written in the early 14th century, is seeing which figures Dante includes in what circle of hell, how they're being tortured, and so on.

(02:14) So, he takes his near contemporaries, people who have recently died and are political figures or religious figures. He also takes people from all of history, classical history, and even from mythology, and he places them in different uh circles of hell or in purgatory or in heaven. So, at the very worst circle, punished and being eaten by headfirst by Satan himself, is Judas Iscariot.

(02:40) So, we read in the Inferno,

"At every mouth, Satan, with his teeth, was crunching a sinner in the manner of a break, so that he uh three of them tormented thus. To him in the front, the biting was as not unto the clawing, for sometimes the spine utterly stripped out all of the skin remained. That soul up there which has the greatest pain, the master said, is Judas Iscariot.

(03:13) With head inside, he plies his legs without. Of the two others who are head downward are the one who hangs from the back jaw, is Brutus. See how he writhes himself and speaks no word. And the other who so stalwart seems is Cassius. But night is re-ascending, and it's time that we depart, for we have seen the whole.

(03:38) "

So, this is having uh seen ha- uh Satan himself at the hole of hell, this is how it sort of ends. So, the person with the worst um punishment then is Judas, and then the other two guys there uh in the other mouths that Satan has, are Brutus and Cassius, who are also betrayers, also traders. In this case, you know, you would think, um, for a Christian, less important traders.

(04:04) I mean, after all, somebody who's betraying Caesar, a pagan emperor, as opposed to, somebody who is betraying, Christ, the son of God, the the center of the religion. But, the reason for that is, Dante is a really, um, stalwart Ghibelline. So, he is, a person who is part of the Imperial Party. He would like the Holy Roman Emperor, who considers himself to be the heir of Julius Caesar.

(04:33) He would like the Holy Roman Emperor to impose order and unity on Italy, um, which Italy hasn't had because it's broken up into all sorts of little city-states, and so forth. So, while much of Christian writing about Judas follows along similar lines to Dante, that is, they see, we see, or lots of people have written about Judas as the ultimate traitor, and indeed, his name has become a synonym for traitor.

(05:05) So, if you say, "You Judas," that you're you're meaning, "You traitor." Few Christians have suggested that maybe Judas, though, was actually remorseful and was seeking forgiveness. So, in a kind of an interesting theory, there is an Archbishop of Ohrid, in the Balkans, Theophylact, who suggests that Judas hanged himself in order to get into Hades before Jesus descends, so he could plead for mercy.

(05:38) And so, um, we know what is this about. So, we know from the, Apostle's Creed, there's a phrase that after Jesus is crucified and died on the cross, he descended into hell, and this reflects a very early Christian tradition that um between Jesus' crucifixion and his resurrection, uh there's the harrowing of hell as it's sometimes called, where Jesus goes to the realm of the dead, Sheol in Hebrew, Hades in Greek, where he, according to, for example, the first Epistle of Peter, taught spirits in prison. And so, this is a major um

(06:14) component of medieval artwork and thought. And so, Theophylact's idea here is that, well, since Jesus goes down and personally is talking to all of the people in Hades, um maybe Judas hanged himself uh right at that moment with the an attempt or intent of of trying to, you know, uh beg for mercy while Jesus is down there.

(06:40) An interesting idea, anyway. Also coming down on the side that Juda- Judas recognized and regretted his action, is a pseudepigraphical Gospel of Nicodemus, which probably dates from the 4th century. So, we read in um that Gospel,

"Departing to his house to make a halter of rope to hang himself, to to create a hangman's noose, Judas found his wife sitting and roasting a a male chicken, on a fire of coals or in a pan before eating it. (07:16) Judas said to her, 'Get up, wife, and provide me a rope, for I would hang myself as I deserve.'"

So, there's some regret for his action. But his wife said to him,

"Why do you say such things?" And Judas replied to her, "Know of a truth that I have wickedly betrayed my master Jesus to evildoers for Pilate to put him to death, but he will rise again on the third day, and then woe be to us.

(07:43) And his wife said to him, "Don't say or think that, for it's more likely this that is roasting on a fire of coals can crow than what you're saying about Jesus rising again. Um that's that's never going to happen, so don't worry about it." But immediately at her word, the spread his wings and crowed three times.

(08:05) Then Judas was even more convinced and hurried to make the halter of rope, which he used to hang himself.

And so, this is an interesting um you know, late tradition, but anyway of pseudepigraphical tradition that um that is also reconnecting um the uh denial of Jesus by Peter, where um a crows three times and that causes him to realize that he has denied that he knew Jesus, and then feel all kinds of regret.

(08:40) And uh this same kind of thing anyway happening if after Jesus' betrayal with a dead chicken getting resurrected in order to prove um Judas's wife wrong. More recently in modern times, there's been retellings of the story that go much further in their attempt to rehabilitate the character of Judas. And so, for example, uh apparently in Jesus Christ Superstar, and I say apparently because in fact I have never seen Jesus Christ Superstar.

(09:12) This is on our list of movies that we'll react to at some point for the first time, and Lander and I will do our historian and theologian react to. But anyway, apparently after Jesus himself, Judas is the kind of co-protagonist of the musical, and his motivation apparently is that he's really deeply concerned for the poor. And as Jesus becomes ever more famous, and his movie movement starts to really grow, that causes, in his opinion, Jesus to lose focus on what really matters most about what they were doing for the poor and stuff, and actually it may end up

(09:45) causing um great harm both to Jesus, the movement, and even to the people that they're from, Judea, as the Romans may decide that they need to come in and destroy the whole thing to to squelch it. We did already review The Last Temptation of Christ, and um and this is another uh story that really rehabilitates the character of Ju- Judas.

(10:15) So, Judas is a much more important figure than Peter in The Last Temptation of Christ. He's sort of the same way like in apparently in Jesus Christ Superstar, he's his first um collaborator in all of these things, and he's the most loyal of the supporters. When um Jesus realizes in the movie that he needs to die on the cross in order to bring about salvation, in order in order to accomplish what he's been brought to Earth for, he takes Judas aside, and he gives him the instructions, "You're the one who has to hand him over to the authorities so that he can be uh

(10:51) executed." Judas absolutely doesn't want to do that, he refuses, and Jesus ultimately, in trying to persuade him, tells Judas that not only uh does Judas have to fulfill this role, but that his role is actually more difficult than even the part Jesus is going to play in this whole thing.

(11:11) So, in other words, this is something for which you're going to get condemned, uh but it's critically important that you do this so that the whole plan can play out. Ultimately, then, and this is a spoiler alert, don't let you know fast forward here a little bit if you didn't already watch The Last Temptation of Christ and uh or hear Lander and I talking about it for 2 hours a couple months ago when we did.

(11:33) Ultimately, when Jesus is having that last temptation on the cross, and the idea is that he um forsake his role as the Christ and instead live a very ordinary life as a husband and a father, it's Judas who comes and argues with him, no, he's got to go back and do what he set out to do because that's what all this sacrifice have been about.

Historical and Theological Perspectives on Judas

(11:56) So, The Last Temptation of Christ is hardly the first time readers of the gospel have attempted to fully rehabilitate Judas Iscariot. So, as Christians began to develop theological arguments that the death of Jesus on the cross was necessary for the salvation of humanity, so it's something that they didn't immediately have a sense of, but um ideas developed pretty quickly.

(12:26) Paul pretty quickly um himself had a had a sense of very high Christology about um what this was all about. Christians also began to wonder whether Judas' act in um handing Jesus over to authorities who then executed Jesus wasn't necessary to bring about um this whole very necessary plan. Um we also have once the gospels are written um the tradition that Jesus very well knows he's going to be betrayed by Judas and predicts that betrayal uh publicly to the disciples before it happens.

(13:06) And so there's a sense anyway that Jesus is then the one calling the shots as in is in control rather than Judas. And so that has led to people to think about or question uh the determinism or free will. So, does Jesus' foreknowledge of Judas' betrayal rob Judas of free will? So, in other words, is this determinism where he's fated to do this? Or is Jesus' foreknowledge somehow still compatible with the idea that Judas nevertheless made his own choice? And so, we've had a lecture before on free will and determinism, and this is

(13:50) one of the ways some people reconcile free will with it by what's called compatibilism. And so, the idea that um even though God you know, or Jesus in this case, knows what's going to happen, um you still yourself are making the free choice to get to that that future that's known. Um that the idea that it still allows you to exercise free will is one of the ways that people um reconcile that is through this idea of compatibilism.

(14:21) So, if it's not compatibilism, though, if determinism is the answer, then how can anybody um justify uh eternal damnation as a punishment for someone doing something that's necessary to the plan? So, the idea that Jesus did not merely predict and allow his betrayal, but actually commanded it, like happens in The Last Temptation of Christ, that's developed in an apocryphal text known as The Gospel of Judas.

The Gospel of Judas: Recovery and Context

(14:56) So, like I say, this text has been lost for centuries, but it was partially recovered when a single damaged and now even more damaged manuscript was found in Egypt in the 1970s. This manuscript codex contained a co- co- Coptic translation um of the original Greek gospel, and so Greekisms within it um show that this was originally, like so many texts written in Greek, but translated into the language of ancient Egypt, Coptic, for early Christian Gnostics who are interested in such texts.

Judas in the New Testament and Canonical Gospels

(15:37) So, before we get to the Gospel of Judas, I think we should take a look step back and just take a look at the character of Judas in the New Testament. All of the New Testament texts are written before the Gospel of Judas, and the author may well or probably is aware of all of them. And so, Jesus Sorry, Judas betrayal of Jesus is multiply attested in early Christian sources, including although not by name, a our earliest source, Paul.

(16:14) So, that the historical Jesus was betrayed seems to be attested by Paul, the earliest Christian whose writings survive. In his discussion of the practice of the Eucharist in 1 Corinthians, Paul, who rarely talks about events in Jesus' life, Paul mentions, "For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he'd given thanks, he broke it and said, 'This is my body, which is for you.

(16:53) Do this in remembrance of me.'" And so, this is Paul's awareness already at the earliest stratum we have of a a Christian tradition, Christian that he is aware of that Jesus is handed over is what this means here. Probably is that he betrayed the words, the underlying words, "On the night he was handed over. And that this is also um when he is having what we now call the last supper with the disciples and um is showing them or sharing with them what becomes the practice of communion, so breaking bread uh as his body, uh

(17:34) sharing the cup which is uh his blood. And so um this is a sense sense that Paul is aware of that at the earliest stratum. Although Paul doesn't name Judas betrayer, all four canonical gospels do. They call him Judas Iscariot or Judas son of Simon Iscariot, one of the 12 apostles. So, the name Judas is a Greek rendering for the Hebrew name Judah or Yehuda.

(18:09) And the New Testament also has a second rendering, which is also another way to say the in Greek or in English version of the Greek, Jude. And so, the book of of Jude in the Bible, which uh is claims anyway that it was written by Jude the brother of James, the brother of Jesus, um would also be a Judas.

(18:33) In other words, it's just called Jude in order to differentiate him from uh Judas Iscariot. In the Hebrew Bible, Judah is the eponymous ancestor of the tribe and kingdom of Judah. So, um when Jacob, who in the Old Testament in Genesis, uh has the name shares the name Israel, he has his name changed to Israel, he has 12 uh sons who become the eponymous ancestors of the 12 tribes of Israel.

(19:04) And the uh son Judah is important because he is the um the eponymous ancestor of the main tribe that constitutes the southern kingdom, which is the one that survives after the northern kingdom after the larger, more important kingdom of Israel is destroyed. So, the Synoptic Gospels give Judas the surname Iscariot in order to identify him from all these other Judases that exist in the New Testament and uh Judas was a very common popular name in first-century Judea.

(19:44) The most commonly accepted etymology for that surname is a Greek rendering of Iscariot, that is to say um man from Kerioth. And so, that's the most likely idea that it's a place name. So, in the same way that the most commonly accepted um s- you know, definite etymology for Mary Magdalene's surname is that she's from um Magdala, although that's That one's contested.

(20:15) But, Jesus being of Nazareth uh is that's a place name surname to um identify him from all of the other Jesuses that are running around in the New Testament. So, alternative suggestions though for this include like a a garbled version of a Sicarius, that is to say a a brigand that's uh it's a group that Josephus says is active in the area.

(20:39) Or it's also potentially a version of the Hebrew or Aramaic word for the liar. And so, it's not entirely sure that it's a place name, but in any event, it's uh used to identify this particular Judas, Judas Iscariot. Judas appears twice in Mark, the earliest narrative gospel. So, his first appearance is in Mark's list of the 12 apostles, which concludes, "And Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

(21:11) " And then he next appears in Mark's account of the betrayal, which is set immediately after an unnamed woman anoints Jesus in Bethany. So, we read in Mark chapter 14,

"Then Judas Iscariot, one of the 12, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus to them. They were delighted to hear this and promised to give him money. (21:34) So, he watched over I mean he watched for an opportunity to hand him over."

So, in this first account, Judas acts sort of spontaneously, and although he's promised money afterwards, his motivation is actually not clear why he why he um decides to do this. That's changed in Matthew's account. So, the author of Matthew has access to Mark's text and is using it as a source, but often uh it makes additions or changes.

(22:06) And money now is much more clearly Judas' motivation in Matthew's account. So, we read in chapter 26

, "Then one of the 12, the one called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and asked, 'What are you willing to give me if I deliver him over to you?' So, they counted out for him 30 pieces of silver. From then on, Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over. (22:33) "

So, it's the author of Matthew that um adds the detail of, you know, how much the payment is. So, Judas is motivated for money here, and the amount is 30 pieces of silver, which has also become a very famous amount and gets it's it gets quoted in its own right. But Matthew is taking the author of Matthew is taking that actually from a passage in the Hebrew Bible, from one one the minor prophets, Zechariah.

(23:03) So, um the authors of the Gospels believed that as the Messiah, Jesus fulfilled every one of the Messianic prophecies in the Hebrew Bible. Um as Paul testified uh to all of the early Christian communities that he planted, he says, um Jesus lived according to scripture, died, and came and was raised again according to scripture.

(23:32) So, in crafting their narratives, whenever an author of a gospel lacked, let's say, an oral tradition of what happened, if they didn't know well what this or that detail in Jesus' life, they felt very free to add the details from the Hebrew Bible because they knew that Jesus lived according to scripture. And that's the case here with Zechariah.

(23:56) So, if we go back to Zechariah chapter 11, um uh the text says, "I took my staff called Favor, and I broke it, revoking the covenant I had made with all the nations. It was revoked on that day, and so the oppressed of the flock, who were watching me, knew it was the word of the Lord. I told them, 'If you think it best, give me my pay, but if not, keep it.

(24:24) ' So, they paid me 30 pieces of silver. And the Lord said to me, 'Throw it to the potter, the handsome price at which they valued me.' So, I took the 30 pieces of silver, and I threw them to the potter at the house of the Lord." So, this image of the worthless shepherd who de- deserts his flock in Zechariah, throwing his pay of 30 pieces of silver at the house of the Lord, at the temple, that informs this final appearance of Judas in Matthew's gospel, when he shows regret after Jesus is condemned.

(25:02) So, we read in Matthew 27,

when Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse, and he returned the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. I've sinned, he said, for I betrayed innocent blood. What is that to us? They replied, that's your responsibility. So, Judas threw the money into the temple and left, and then he went away and hanged himself.

(25:31) So, both the amount, 30 pieces of silver, and the detail of throwing it into the temple, come from that passage in Zechariah. So, in Matthew's gospel, the priests then confer what to do about the blood money. The chief priests, taking the silver pieces, said, it's not lawful to put them into the treasury, since they're blood money.

(25:53) So, after conferring together, they used the 30 pieces of silver to buy the potter's field as a place to bury foreigners. So, again, this is just another detail that comes from Zechariah. So, the worthless shepherd who threw the silver at a potter at the temple, now the author of Matthew adds the decision of the priests to buy the potter's field with the money.

(26:18) That makes it another connection to that Old Testament scripture, this Messianic verse as the author of Matthew saw it. However, that's not he's not done. >> [laughter] >> So, Matthew is the most interested in um taking Old Testament texts, reading them as Messianic prophecies, and then saying that the life of Jesus fulfills the prophecy.

(26:42) And he does that here by linking this potter's field to a burial place uh as a potter's field as as a burial place for foreigners with a burial place described in Jeremiah. So, in Jeremiah chapter 19, we read,

"Thus says the Lord, go and buy a potter's earthenware jug. Take with you some of the elders of the people and some of the senior priests, and go to the valley of the son of Hinnom at the entry of the Potsherd Gate. (27:13) There you shall break the jug in the sight of those who go with you and shall say to them, 'Thus says the Lord of hosts, so I will break this people and this city as one breaks a potter's vessel, so that it can never be mended. In Topheth, they shall bury until there is no more room to bury.

So, Matthew, using that passage as well or being inspired by that passage, concludes his episode this uh Jesus's I'm sorry, Judas's fate episode stating that it's all a fulfillment of these prophecies.

(27:51) So, Matthew says, "For this reason, that field has been called the field of blood to this day. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah, {quote} And they took the 30 pieces of silver, the price of the one on whom a price had been set, on whom some of the people of Israel had set a price, and they gave them for the potter's field as the Lord commanded me.

(28:17) " Well, as I've just read the two passages to you, you can see that that's not a direct quote from Jeremiah for sure. Um, the author is mostly drawing those words from Zechariah. Um, and so this is again one of the complexities of uh how the evangelists are crafting the gospel narratives. While biblical literalists sometimes imagine that references like these show that Old Testament prophets kind of foresaw and predicted events in the life of Jesus.

(28:48) It actually illustrates the opposite. So, lacking knowledge of such details, the authors of the Gospel used Old Testament texts in order to craft their story. And so, whenever we find details from the Old Testament uh interlaced with uh descriptions of the life of Jesus in the Gospels, we can see that as the source um uh for that tradition that then gets introduced into the Gospels.

(29:17) Okay. So, while Mark gives Judas no clear motivation, and Matthew states that he was motivated by money, the Gospels of Luke and John add a more cosmic explanation, stating that Satan entered Judas before or during the Last Supper. And so, this is an interesting point of minor agreement between Luke, one of the Synoptic Gospels, and John, two Gospels that don't normally align.

(29:48) So, it's much more common for Luke to agree with both Mark and Matthew, since both Luke and Matthew are using Mark as a source, and for John to be the outlier, because the Gospel of John is so different. But, it's rarer then for uh anyway, Luke and and John to be aligned against Mark and Matthew. But, that's how it is here.

(30:12) In Luke's account, the motivation of money is supplemented by, like I said, direct satanic involvement.

So, we read in Luke 22,

"Now, the festival of unleavened bread, which is called the Passover, was near. The chief priests and scribes were looking for a way to put Jesus to death, for they were afraid of the people. (30:35) Then, Satan entered into Judas, called Iscariot, who was one of the 12. He went away and conferred with the chief priests and officers of the temple police about how he might betray him to them. They were greatly pleased and agreed to give him money.

So, one question that we have going back to that free will and determinism thing is if Satan literally enters you, does that compromise your free will? Or conversely, is poor exercise of free will what allows Satan to enter you in the first place? So, that's still uh

(31:15) obviously something that people uh theologians and philosophers have argued uh using Judas's example. Um in terms of this Satan entering uh Judas, this also occurs during the last supper in the Gospel of John when Jesus is predicting his betrayal.

So, we read in John chapter 13,

"Jesus was troubled in spirit and declared, 'Very truly I tell you, one of you will betray me. (31:45) '" The disciples looked at one another uncertain of whom he was speaking. One of his disciples, the one whom Jesus loved, was reclining close to his heart.

So, this is the an example of this anonymous character that's so central to a lot of the texts of the Gospel of John, the the beloved disciple as we call him, but we whose name is not is very explicitly not mentioned.

(32:08) Simon Peter therefore motioned to this anonymous beloved disciple to ask Jesus of whom Jesus was speaking. So, while reclining next to Jesus, the beloved disciple asked him, "Lord, who is it?" Jesus answered, "It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I've dipped it in the dish." So, when he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot. (32:38) After Judas received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him and Jesus said to him, "Do quickly what you were going to do."

So, even though Jesus was pretty explicit here, we now hear that now no one knew why he said this to him. Some thought that because Judas held the common purse for the whole group, was the treasurer of the group, Jesus was telling him, "Buy what we need for the festival or that he should give something to the poor.

(33:10) " So, after receiving the piece of bread, Judas immediately went out and it was night. So, the detail that Judas had the common purse for Jesus and the disciples, that's found only in John's gospel and it's referenced earlier in the gospel as well during the story of a woman anointing Jesus' feet with precious funerary ointment.

(33:37) That occurs in the other gospels as well, but in Mark that story, the woman is unnamed. But in John, she's identified as Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and of Lazarus. Again, a character that is only in John's gospel. And in John's version of this anointing story,

we read,

"Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany to the house of Lazarus, Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. (34:08) There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard and anointed Jesus' feet and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, the one who was about to betray him, said, "Why was this perfume not sold for 300 denarii and the money given to the poor?"

And that seems like a very uh noble concern.

(34:48) Apparently, that's the concern that he has in Jesus Christ Superstar, but the authors of John immediately disabuse us of that, saying, "Judas said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief. He kept the common purse and he used to steal what was put into it." And so, in John's account anyway, Judas is also an embezzler.

(35:12) So, um the next phase of this is how Judas actually betrays Jesus, and it's pictured in art with a kiss, but the Gospels actually disagree about whether Judas identified Jesus with a kiss to um the different guards who came to capture Jesus. In Mark's account, the earliest one, after the Last Supper, as Jesus and the disciples are praying in private at night in Gethsemane, Jesus tells them, "The hour has come.

(35:46) Look, the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us go. Here comes my betrayer." Just as he was speaking, Judas, one of the 12, appeared, and with him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests, the teachers of law, and the elders. Now, the betrayer had arranged a signal with them.

(36:09) "The one I kiss is the man. Arrest him and lead him away under guard." So, going at once to Jesus, Judas said, "Rabbi," and kissed him. The men then seized Jesus and arrested him. Then one of those standing near drew his sword and cut the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. So, in Mark's account now, the disciples flee as Jesus is taken to trial and then executed.

(36:37) And we hear no more of Judas' fate in Mark's gospel, anyway. Matthew and Luke, as I say, had access to Mark's texts, which which Matthew follows by having Judas identify Jesus with a kiss. But, in Luke's gospel, uh the author has Jesus take control of the situation by interrupting Jesus.

So, we read in Luke's version of the same story,

"Suddenly a crowd came, and the one called Judas, one of the 12, he was leading them. (37:09) He approached Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus said to him, 'Judas, is it with a kiss that you are betraying the Son of Man?'"

So, he gets interrupted in this version. The Gospel of John always portrays Jesus as being fully in control. That's a very different picture than we get in the synoptics, and so it includes no mention of Judas or a kiss or anything like that.

(37:35) I mean, Judas is there, but not a kissing. So, Judas in uh the Gospel of John, chapter 18, brought a detachment of soldiers together with police from the chief priests and the Pharisees. And they came there with lanterns and torches and weapons. Then, Jesus, knowing what was to happen to him, came forward and asks, "Whom are you looking for?" They answered, "Jesus of Nazareth.

(38:02) " Jesus replied, "I am he." So, operating here with full foreknowledge, Jesus in John, like I say, takes charge of the conversation. He identifies himself, doesn't wait for Judas to do it. And in addition, by saying, "I am he," Jesus, once again, as he does so often in the Gospel of John through the I Am sayings and so forth, identify himself identifies himself with the God of Israel who gave his name for the first time to Moses at the burning bush when he said, "I am that I am.

(38:41) You shall say I am sent me." So, this identification seems to affect Judas and the other guards some of the other guards that are with him in the account in John. So, Judas who betrayed him was standing with them. When Jesus said to them, "I am he." They stepped back and fell to the ground. So, that's all we hear about Judas in uh the Gospel of John and he now falls out of the narrative.

(39:11) So, we're really not told if this realization led to remorse or anything like that as happened in Matthew. John and Mark are silent about Judas' fate and we already went through in detail how the author of Matthew used passages from Zechariah and Jeremiah to have Jesus throw the money into the temple and then commit suicide. The Book of Acts, however, which is the second half of the Gospel of Luke by the same author, creates a contradictory end for Judas.

(39:48)

So, we read in Acts chapter 1,

"Now, this man, Judas Iscariot, acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness. So, he didn't throw the 30 pieces of silver away. He used it to buy a field and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. So, he didn't commit suicide. He had an accident and died there on this field. (40:11) This became known to all the residents of Jerusalem, so the field was called in their language Haceldama, that is field of blood.

So, we have an association anyway with both Acts and Matthew with this field, but two different stories of how you get to that association. Um I've talked before um actually within a recent lecture about how um you know, for people who are biblical literalists and and people who don't think the Bible uh contains any contradictions that this you know, this actually is a direct contradiction that you really can't um

(40:49) uh fix, but that doesn't stop people from trying. So, people have wanted to harmonize those and they do all the way to this day. Some of the people who I who I said it the last time were probably rapidly typing uh how you can harmonize this. And so, a harmonization of these contradictory accounts was made by a Christian author in the 4th century, Apollinarius.

(41:11) Um and so, he says Judas did not die by hanging, but lived on having been cut down before he was suffocated. So, he tried to hang himself like it says in Matthew, but he didn't actually die and so then he was still alive. And the Acts of the Apostles show this that falling headlong he burst asunder in the midst and his gut bowels were gushed out.

(41:34) So, in other words, he died in the way it says in Acts after he didn't quite die the in the as he did in Matthew according to Apollinarius. Apollinarius then, though, records a third tradition circulating among early Christians. And so, we've had before this very early writer uh Bishop Papias of Hierapolis um who gives us all kinds of, you know, crazy weird statements that he says, but he also has um his own tradition about the fate of Judas.

(42:05) And so, um Apollinarius in quoting Papias says, "The fact is related more clearly by Papias, the disciple of John. And the fourth book of the expositions on the Oracles of the Lord. So, this is a lost book of Papias that's being quoted. Um so,

we read in that book,

"Judas walked about in this world a terrible example of impiety. (42:29) His flesh swollen to such an extent that where hay wagon uh where hay wagon can pass with ease, he was not able to pass.

So, he becomes just grossly swollen and obese. No, or not even the mass of his head merely. They say that his eyelids swelled to such an extent that he could not see light at all.

(42:50) While as for his eyes, they were not visible even by a physician looking through the instrument so far that they had sunk from the surface. His genitals appeared entirely disfigured, nauseous, and large. And when he carried himself about, discharge and worms flowed from his entire body. Through it but through his private areas only on account of his outrageous.

(43:11) After many agonies and punishments, he died in his own place. And on account of this, the place is desolate and uninhabited even now. And to this day, no one is able to go to that place except if it be they block their noses with their hands. Such judgment was spread through his body upon and upon the earth.

So, this tradition like Acts gives sort of a traitor uh poetic justice rather than a remorse and potential rehabilitation like we have in Matthew.

(43:41) Um and in fact, for this is getting closer to Dante, you know, which where the very worst punishment in hell is reserved for Judas in this case. Um Papias has imagined a really disgusting um physical dis you know, uh disease and death for for Judas. Um so, some have argued that um perhaps Judas is not actually a historical figure, but maybe is uh an example of for century anti-semitism.

(44:14) Um, and so Judas' name has the same root as the word we have for Jew. So again, because his name Judah is the same as the eponymous ancestor of the tribe and kingdom of Judah, which is where our word Judea comes from. So it becomes Judean and Jew. So that has led some people to speculate that um Judas is an anti-semitic literary creation.

(44:44) Um, but arguing against that is both the fact that Paul is aware of a tradition of Jesus being handed over on the night of the last supper. And also the fact that we have this character who's not just Judas, but Judas Iscariot um, multiply attested through the rest of our tradition as early as it gets anyway. Um and so you know, while the story of Judas has sometimes led later Christians to be anti-semitic and there's certainly a big long history of Christian anti-semitism and including for example you know, just this

(45:30) tradition that becomes very common where um where the people are making paintings of the 12 apostles and for whatever reason Judas has the most Jewish features when when Jesus should have just as Jewish of features as as Judas. And so that I would say is a an example of kind of Christian anti-semitism when that happens.

(45:52) The historical figures like I say multiply attested name in the early tradition is likely you know, not just an invention or a stand-in for Judaism in general. And we also have um you know, many positive uh figures that are named Judah in the New Testament, including, like I say, Jude, the brother of Jesus.

(46:16) So, that's still a person named Judas uh or Judah, in other words, something for Jew. Uh the Book of Jude is uh uh you know, pseudonymously uh written by that figure. And there is even in the list of the 12 apostles, there's a second Judas. So, um he's called in uh in the Gospel of John, Judas not the Iscariot. So, and uh in the other some of the other Gospels, he's called Judas the son of James.

(46:46) So, apparently anyway, the fact that um Judas's name is the same as Judah is coincidental. So, Mark gives us a relatively limited portrait of Jesus as we kind of are reflecting now on what we're getting from the Gospels. In Matthew, he's motivated by money and ends his life in remorse at having uh you know, at the response of the results of his betrayal.

(47:17) So, he's already a little rehabilitated in that sense in Matthew's account, but he doesn't show that kind of remorse in Luke-Acts, where his accidental death appears as a kind of a just deserts style punishment, like the one Papias of Hierapolis is also um aware of within a another third tradition for his death. Um he's especially venal in the Gospel of John, where he's also um portrayed as an embezzler among all of his other uh traits.

(47:48) So, that's all uh thrown out when we get to the Gospel of Judas. So, similar to Judas's portrayal in The Last Temptation of Christ, the Gospel of Judas has Jesus take Judas aside, instructing him that this supposed betrayal that is that Judas is going to get blamed for is actually necessary and this is part of the plan.

Analyzing the Secret Teachings of the Gospel of Judas

(48:18) Jesus needs this to happen and he needs Judas to be the one to make it happen. So, in stark contrast to the portraits in the canonical Gospels, Judas in the Gospel of Judas is portrayed actually as the most loyal of the disciples, the only one who really gets it, and one who therefore then serves as a special confident confidant to Jesus and is uh told the actual true Gospel message.

(48:45) So, like many of the texts found in the library of codices at Nag Hammadi, the Gospel of Judas is a Gnostic text. However, it is a different find. It's not from that same Nag Hammadi collection. So, the manuscript has been carbon dated to about the year 280 plus or minus 60 years.

(49:12) So, the manuscript itself is from the later 3rd century probably and it's a Coptic text which everyone more or less agrees is a translation of a Greek original that has been lost. And because many of our early um uh Christian proto-orthodox writers, like our good friend Irenaeus of Lyon, who um who writes about um texts that they consider heretical and is aware of a Gospel of Judas, uh and he's writing about that by around the year 180, um most um scholars argue that the original Greek of this gospel was written sometime in the 2nd century but before the year 180

(49:58) when when uh Irenaeus gets a hold of a copy or is aware of a copy. So, after the manuscript the Coptic manuscript was discovered in the 1970s, it suffered unfortunately additional damage. Um so, it was uh held by a dealer, was stolen, it was recovered, and so on. In the meantime, its pages got shuffled, a lot of them disintegrated, and so on.

(50:24) Finally made its way to Yale University where it has been preserved and translated um including with the help of the National Geographic Society. But unfortunately, the kind of rough interim um history that it had means that significant portions of it are lost and or are unreadable. But I'm going to share what with you a lot of what we do get from it or some of the highlights.

(50:49) So, the text begins with an introductory note. This is the secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot during a week 3 days before he celebrated Passover. So, this is coming from that same passion time period when uh the other gospels focus on the last week in Jesus's life um 3 days before the Passover.

(51:13) So, emphasis on possessing, you know, secret accounts and teachings, this is very central to how Gnostic groups in the 2nd century, for example, understood their movement. And so, many people who are Gnostics um were nevertheless participating in regular proto-orthodox Christian churches.

(51:36) They didn't create their own bishoprics and have their own um uh separate rival church the way um you know, some of the other groups that the proto-orthodox were fighting. Instead, they um would be members within a community who kind of secretly sought each other out and introduced each other to secret knowledge that is telling what the actual, let's say, higher and the real truth about the gospel is.

(52:03) And the Gospel of Judas would have been one of these. So, the introduction to the gospel identifies Jesus as someone who appeared on Earth. Um so, again, not not having a birth narrative that has Jesus being, you know, fully human the way uh occur the way is emphasized in the proto-orthodox telling of the story.

(52:26) And so, uh the Gospel of Judas says, "When Jesus appeared on Earth, he performed miracles and great wonders for the salvation of humanity. And since some walked in the way of righteousness while others walked in their transgressions, the 12 disciples were called." Jesus began to speak with them about the mysteries beyond the world and what uh would take place at the end of times.

(52:52) Often he did not appear to his disciples as himself, but he was found among them as a child. So, this idea that Jesus' appearance can shift between that of a man and a child, this already gives us a clue that in the understanding of the author of the Gospel of Judas, Jesus isn't really either. Um and so, uh he'll reveal this a bit in his secret teachings that he gives to Judas, but it seems to be like the kind of thing where we're looking at um docetism, which means um a Jesus who only appears to be human as opposed to

(53:29) one that is, you know, fully human like the proto-orthodox understand him. So, the gospel then begins kind of setting the scene with the disciples gathered together offering a prayer of Thanksgiving over shared bread and as the disciples are doing this as the 12 are doing that Jesus starts to laugh at them and the disciples said to him master why are you laughing at our prayer of Thanksgiving we have done what is right and he answered and said to them I'm not laughing at you you are not doing this because of your own will but because it

(54:06) is through you that your God will be praised and the disciples are really confused at this they protest well look our God what are you talking about you Jesus you're the son of our God and they say that not realizing that the God they're actually worshipping as they go through this ritual is Saclas so Saclas is a fallen angel associated with false God Nebro aka Yaldabaoth in the Gnostic cosmology who is the creator of this flawed material world while Jesus isn't the son of that God at all but rather is the son of the true

(54:52) spiritual God from the spiritual realm when Jesus observed their lack of understanding he said to them why has this agitation led you to anger and so Jesus continues to challenge them and says does anybody of you have the the perfect spirit within you that you can actually stand up and face him but none of the 12 can except Judas so Judas Iscariot we read was able to stand before him before Jesus but he could not look him in the eyes and he turned his face away so Jesus said to him I know who you are and where you have come from you are

(55:33) from the immortal realm of Barbelo and I am not worthy to utter the name of the one who has sent you. So, in Gnosticism, the Barbelo is the first emanation of the Monad, that is to say, the true uh spiritual God. As the universe is created, the Barbelo is uh the counterpart who is helping uh female counterpart of the Monad who is helping um cause all of uh creation to happen.

(56:09) Um in a previous uh lecture, I think the lecture on Valentinus, we created a chart um of kind of the general or classic Gnostic cosmogeny. These are all different because different ones, different Gnostic groups had different ways of telling their um their creation myth, but this kind of will give you an idea.

(56:31) But essentially, the idea in most Gnosticism is that there is a big stark divide between the uh realm of light, the eternal realm, the imperishable realm or realm of spirit, and this realm of darkness, the impermanent, perishable, material realm. And so, this is the same dualism um that Plato talks about, where the um the material world is a just a dim shadow of the true world, which is the world of spirit.

(57:02) And so, um in many ways, the Gnostic myths are trying to bring this philosophical ideal of idea of Platonic realism um and making it into kind of secret knowledge, which is also more of a religion. Uh and so, and so, from this, like I said, the Monad, which is the the ultimate source, the first principle, it emanates a series of um other divine beings, the Barbelo, as we mentioned, then all of the different aeons and luminaries, including Christ, who is um, you know, a son of God, the true God, who then enters into the world with the

(57:45) uh, message of salvation. The material world, meanwhile, um, occurs by an error, um, and essentially, it's usually told in the most of the cosmogonies, including the Apocryphon of John, that one of the aeons, one of the luminaries, Sophia, that is to say wisdom, attempts to, um, mirror what the, uh, what the other beings had tried to do and make a creation, but without her her partner, so just on her own, and that causes a, um, a demiurge, a divine craftsman, but a flawed divine craftsman, sometimes called Yaldabaoth, to emerge, who then

(58:31) reproduces the true spiritual creation by creating a material world, and into the, uh, this becomes then the God of the Old Testament, and so when, um, Gnostics look at the Old Testament scripture, they believe that all references to God are to this false God, uh, including, you know, the creation of Adam and Eve's material bodies that are made from dust, into which some of these sparks, these divine sparks, then are trapped.

(59:06) And it is with this message of salvation that Christ, as the son of the true God, brings into the world through his association with Jesus, that, um, some of the posterity of Seth, the Gnostics, are identified, and they are able to then return to the realm of light after after their death. And so this essentially is a general um Gnostic conception.

(59:35) Like I said, there's more than one way to um to identify all these things in different numbers and names and how it all works. So, in Matthew, um you know, so it was Judas here in the Gospel of Judas that is able to identify Jesus or his who he is. He's from this realm of the Barbelo. That mirrors the um testimony of Peter in the Gospel of Matthew.

(59:57) It's Peter who perceives who Jesus really is when Judas Jesus asks, "Who Who do you say that I am?" And Peter says, "You're the Messiah, the son of the living God." And this is the proto-orthodox uh understanding. And Peter then um is the lead apostle in terms of uh pos- possessing on authority as the proto-orthodox understand it, which is why ultimately um uh the Popes considered themselves the successors of Peter.

(1:00:27) So, in the Gospel of Judas, like I said, it's Judas who perceives the real truth. So, we read

that knowing that Judas was reflecting upon something that was exalted, that um that uh Jesus is coming from this realm of the Barbelo, and he can't even say the name of whom sent Jesus, Jesus said to Jesus Judas, "Step away from the others, these other disciples, and I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom.

(1:00:55) 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 12 disciples may again come to completion with their God."

So, Jesus Jesus here gives Judas a glimpse into his future, that future recorded in the first chapter of the Book of Acts, where the other 11 apostles choose Matthias as a replacement for Judas after Judas' betrayal and his death betrayal of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke and his death in the first chapter of Acts.

(1:01:34) So, in a later section of the Gospel of Judas, Jesus predicts that Judas will come to be reviled as a villain. So, you will become the 13th and you will be cursed by the other generations. You will and you will be cursed by the other generations and you will rule come to rule over them. So, in the last days, they will curse your ascent to the holy generation.

(1:02:02) So, you're going to be decried. Everyone's going to see you, Judas, as a villain, but the joke's going to be on them eventually because you are going to rule over these 12 apostles and they're going to curse you because you're the one who is going to ascend and become part of the the holy generation that is the the eternal posterity of Seth, the people who are within the the divine aeons as are understood in this vision of Gnosticism.

(1:02:35) So, Judas himself has a vision that seems to confirm this fate in the Gospel of Judas. Judas said, "Master, you have listened to all of them. You listened to all the other disciples. Now also listen to me for I have seen a great vision." When Jesus heard this, he laughed and he said to him, "You 13th spirit, why do you try so hard? But speak up and I shall bear with you.

(1:03:02) " And Jesus said to him, "In a vision, I saw myself as the 12 disciples were stoning me and persecuting me severely." So, he's um perceiving this tradition that you know, in the 2nd century will be happening, where um where all of the uh Christians who look to the proto-orthodox disciples as um as authority, they all look at Judas as this horrible traitor.

(1:03:31) They stone him, persecute him, and so forth. But despite that popular condemnation, Jesus again assures Judas that he actually ranks above and rules over the other 12 because they are mistakenly worshipping Saklas. And so, truly Jesus says, "To you, Judas, those who offer sacrifices to Saklas um we don't have I'm missing some part here. Everything that is evil.

(1:04:00) So, these guys are involved, you know, with Saklas, they're involved with everything that is evil, the other 12. But you will exceed all of them, for you will sacrifice the man that clothes me." So, Christ's true form is this spirit from the realm of the Barbelo, and thus this role that Jesus had Judas has in handing him over to the authorities to have that body uh destroyed and executed.

(1:04:27) Um that's good because he's getting rid of this material body that the true Jesus is only temporarily clothed in. Sacrificing the man that clothes me. So, the Gospel of Judas ends with that betrayal account, which though, now that having read that, according to the Gospel of Judas anyway, we know is not really a betrayal at all.

(1:04:50) So, their high priests murmured because uh Jesus had gone into the guest room for his prayer, but some scribes were there I'm sorry, this is Judas, I guess. Was he there? I'm sorry. The high priest murmured because he had gone into the guest room for his prayer, but some scribes were there watching carefully in order to arrest him during the prayer.

(1:05:09) So, no, that is Jesus. So, for they were afraid of the people since he was regarded by all as a prophet. They approached Judas and said to him, "What are you doing here? You are Jesus' disciple." And Judas answered them as they wished, and he received some money and handed him over to them. So, it's a short account in the Gospel of Judas of the betrayal, which uh Jesus actually commanded Judas to do in that account.

(1:05:38) So, in between those narrative bookends that are explaining and rehabilitating and changing uh the understanding of Judas' role in the whole thing, the Gospel of Judas covers teachings that Jesus both gives to the 12, along with then special truths that he shares only with Judas. So, for example, early on, as Jesus is talking to the 12, they have a vision of 12 sinful priests who are receiving offerings before an altar in the temple, and then Jesus interprets this vision for them.

(1:06:13) So, Jesus says, "Truly I say to you, all the priests who stand before that altar invoke my name. And they have all planted trees without fruit in my name in a shameful manner." So, it doesn't matter that people are saying that they're Christians. Um everybody does everybody's doing that. Um uh this is they're not doing it um they're doing it actually in a shameful manner, and so as a result, the trees that they planted don't bear any fruit.

(1:06:44) Jesus said to them, "Those you have seen receiving the offerings in this vision of yours at the altar, that is who you are." He's saying to the 12 apostles. "That is the god you serve, and you are those 12 men you have seen. The cattle you've seen brought for sacrifice, those are the many people that you lead astray before the altar.

(1:07:08) " So, Jesus is explicitly stating here that the 12 apostles whom proto-orthodox Christians look to as their source of authority, people like Peter and John and so forth, they are in there performing these proto-orthodox sacraments like the Eucharist, they've been planting fruitless trees, they've been leading people like cattle astray, and what they're actually doing is worshipping the false god Saclas uh instead of what they should be doing.

(1:07:39) And so, this is a um a kind of a message that resonates with Gnostics who are able to exist within um a regular proto-orthodox community. So, you have a you're you're like a smart potential investigator, you have a friend in this church who uh likewise is, let's say, a more learned person compared to the average member.

(1:08:02) They come to you one day with a text, this Secret Gospel of Judas, uh which identifies all of your uh fellow Christians, including the bishop or whatever, as people the bishop is uh somebody who in the is leading people astray, and all the other uh people in the pews are all just cattle that are being led astray, but we all know um the secret teaching and the truth because we have we're smarter than this.

(1:08:26) We are um people who have a spark of uh divine light in us, and we are able to We're the ones that are going to uh inherit um the real um the real heaven. So, the remainder of this text are secret truths that Jesus reveals to Judas alone. And as is so often the case with Gnostic texts, these consist primarily of elaborate cosmological myths, cosmogonies, how is the world created? And so, it's it's sort of um again, in the what Plato sort of does, where Plato creates myths as well, but trying to explain how um the forms that Plato has, how these can

(1:09:11) be understood as divine entities and so forth. So, Jesus says to Judas, "Come that I may teach you about secrets that no person has ever seen, for there exists a great and boundless realm whose extent no generation of angels has seen, in which there's a great invisible spirit which no eye of an angel has ever seen, no thought of of the heart has ever comprehended, and it was never called by any name.

(1:09:41) " So, the ultimate source, the true God, is a great invisible spirit, and we shouldn't even be trying to name uh this. So, we don't get the name monad, for example, in this or the description monad in this text. "And a luminous cloud appeared there," he said, "Let an angel come into being as my attendant." And so, a great angel, the enlightened divine self-generated, emerged from the cloud.

(1:10:06) Because of him, four other angels came into being from another cloud, and they became attendants for the angelic self-generated. The self-generated then said, "Let dot dot dot missing lines come into being." That came into being, and he created the first luminary to reign over them.

(1:10:25) He said, "Let angels come into being to serve him," and myriads without number came into being. And so, from this one unnamed invisible source, we have the first divine self-generated being, which is the Barbelo. And then when that happens, there's other emanations that immediately happen. And then a whole divine creation of countless myriads of of angels and beings exist within this realm of light, the imperishable realm, the realm of the forms.

(1:10:55) After several more rounds, the text concludes, "So, that's how he created the rest of the enlightened enlightened aeons." So, the luminaries with their enlightened aeons and multitudes of attendant angels, they bring forth figures like Adamas, again, a not a not a fleshy being, but you know, having the same name as Adam, but the um the the in spiritual being with the form of God or the uh has the first form of God, who makes 72 luminaries of the what's called incorruptible generation of Seth here, who appear, and then they generate 360

(1:11:35) more luminaries. So, all these beings constitute the incorruptible eternal realm of spirit and light, an order that contrasts with the corruptible perishable material realm of chaos as it's uh described in the Gospel of Judas. Humans then are daily lives, what we're what we're getting with our senses, are part of this sensible material realm that we can touch and feel.

(1:12:02) But, some humans possess spirits that will live on after death. So, Jesus tells um Judas, "The souls of every human generation will die. When these people, however, have completed their time of the kingdom and the spirit leaves them, their bodies will die, but their souls will be alive and they'll be taken up.

(1:12:24) " And Judas says, "Well, what will the rest of the human generations do?" Jesus says, "It's impossible to sow seed on rock and harvest its fruit. This is also the way" and then we miss parts are missing, "the defiled generation some parts are missing, the corruptible Sophia, the hand that has created mortal people so that their souls go to the eternal realm above.

(1:12:52) " So, we don't really know some of that's all missing, but um in this shorthand, Jesus tells part of that general Gnostic myth that's more elaborated in things like the Apocryphon of John, where Sophia um as one of the divine Aeons, the last of these Aeons, is responsible for the creation of this corruptible material realm. Um but, we don't have it explained very well here, and in the part of the text in the Gospel of Judas uh Judas, where Jesus shares the myth of the creation of the cosmos um Sophia isn't mentioned, and it seems like the luminaries create

(1:13:31) Yaldabaoth and his dark angels on purpose. So, in that part of the text,

we read

The Aeon appeared with his generation, and the Aeon in whom the cloud of knowledge and the angel is is called El.

And so, that's you know, one of the names of God in the Old Testament, but this doesn't seem to be the the bad one.

(1:13:54) Anyway, this is this is an Aeon. So, Aeon after, you know, with some things are missing, let 12 angels come into being to rule over the chaos and the underworld. So, maybe maybe this is. I'm not sure exactly what is meant by El here. And look, from the cloud there appeared an angel whose face flashed with fire and whose appearance was defiled with blood.

(1:14:16) His name was Nebro, which means rebel. Others called him Yaldabaoth. So, now we're getting to this figure who is the Demiurge, the craftsman, divine craftsman in other Gnostic myths, but has his new name here, Nebro. Another angel, Saklas, also came from the cloud. So, Nebro created six angels, as well as Saklas, to be assistants, and these produced 12 angels in the heavens, with each one receiving a portion in the heavens.

(1:14:46) So, in the Gospel of Judas, then, it's Saklas who acts as the God of the Old Testament creating material humanity. So, Saklas, quoting the God of Genesis, Saklas is the one who says to his angels, "Let us create a human being after the likeness and after the image." And they fashioned Adam and his wife Eve. Eve, who is called in the cloud Zoe.

(1:15:11) For by this name all generations seek the man. And each of them calls the woman by these names. So, the real beings, however, among humanity are the immortal spirits within them. Which the true God orders his angels to give to people, these flesh beings that Saklas is creating. They're given those as a loan, it says in the Gospel of Judas.

(1:15:39) And so, if we take that same chart that I had made for the Apocryphon, we have some of these, you know, just slightly different um way it the some of the details appear uh as I've tried And this is not meant to be a um a perfect uh description of what happens in the Gospel of Judas, but essentially it's naming the monad, the great invisible spirit.

(1:16:01) The Barbelo is mentioned, but it's called the self-generated as well. Somehow Christ is part of that as is L. As we are creating the incorruptible generation of Seth. Sophia's mentioned, but not necessarily as what creates Nebro, maybe it's L that is doing that. Um and then there are these additional angels, six angels along with Saklas, and 12 more that are creating Adam and Eve {slash} Zoe.

(1:16:30) And somehow then that's going to probably get to, you know, the the human Jesus or just just the the clothing that the Christ is wearing uh in this realm of darkness, this impermanent material world, and who is working with his one disciple who really gets it, Judas, who, as, um, Jesus promised, will eventually also, um, be able to join the incorruptible generation of Seth, so and therefore be a ruler over the other 12 disciples.

(1:17:05) So, Jesus concludes his secret teachings telling Judas, "Look, you have been told everything." And it's a lot lot faster than a many Gnostic texts tell you everything. So, lift up your eyes and look at the cloud and the light within it and the stars surrounding it. The star that leads the way is your star. So, although the details of the cosmological myth in the Gospel of Judas, they differ from, like, all the variety that exists in all the other Gnostic texts, the basic idea is the same. So, suffering exists in this world

(1:17:42) because we're in a corrupt material world that's really only a shadow and a dark reflection of the true spiritual realm from which we, as part of the, um, the true in-group, uh, the people who actually have divine sparks and are able to recognize it will one day be able to return to that, um, wonderful realm, uh, that the Barbelo is in.

(1:18:07) So, by the end of the 1st century and in the 2nd century, when the Gospel of Judas is written, proto-orthodox bishops had been developing traditions about the apostles in order to establish their own claims of authority, so, um, folks like, um, uh, uh, um, well, Irenaeus really spells it out, but previ- previous ones would previous, uh, proto-orthodox leaders also um, established the idea of apostolic succession, which is to say that the original Peter and the other original apostles appointed bishops who have continued to appoint one another in

(1:18:51) uh due orderly succession. And that those traditions go all the way back, especially in Rome, which is founded by Peter. And so, um the Gnostic Gospel of Judas turns all of these authority claims on their head by more or less rehabilitating the one apostle that the proto-orthodox consider to be just a horrible traitor and saying, "No, no, no.

(1:19:17) This was the one guy who really got it." We have his text. This is what the teachings Jesus taught him, where we also learned that all of those other guys are getting it wrong. And when they are um pretending to uh share things like communion and so forth in church, uh and all the cattle come and just and think that that's the real thing. No, no, no, it's not.

(1:19:40) They are serving Saklas. They They are not getting it at all. But we, who have access to this text, you and I, who are who are talking about this in secret within the community or whatever, we we are the ones that are actually in the know. We have the real claim to apostolic authority. And so, that's my take on the Gospel of Judas.

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