Le Monde des religions, September-October 2006 —
The Gospel of Judas was the international bestseller of the summer (1) . An extraordinary destiny for this Coptic papyrus, unearthed from the sands after seventeen centuries of oblivion, whose existence was previously known only through the work of Saint Irenaeus Against Heresies (180). It is therefore an important archaeological discovery (2) . Yet it offers no revelation about the final moments of Jesus' life, and there is little chance that this small book will "stir the Church up," as the publisher proclaims on the back cover.
Firstly, because the author of this text, written in the mid-2nd century, is not Judas, but a Gnostic group that attributed the story to the apostle of Christ to give it more meaning and authority (a common practice in Antiquity). Secondly, because since the discovery of Nag Hammadi (1945), which unearthed a veritable Gnostic library including numerous apocryphal gospels, we have a much better understanding of Christian Gnosticism, and ultimately, The Gospel of Judas sheds no new light on the thought of this esoteric movement.
Its meteoric success, perfectly orchestrated by National Geographic, which bought the worldwide rights, is surely due simply to its extraordinary title: "The Gospel of Judas." A striking, unthinkable, subversive combination of words. The idea that the one whom the four canonical Gospels and Christian tradition have presented for two thousand years as "the traitor," "the wicked one," "the henchman of Satan" who sold Jesus for a handful of silver, could have written a gospel is intriguing. The fact that he wanted to tell his version of events in an attempt to lift the stigma attached to him is also wonderfully compelling, as is the fact that this lost gospel was rediscovered after so many centuries of oblivion.
In short, even without knowing anything about the contents of this little book, one cannot help but be fascinated by such a title. This is all the more true, as the success of The Da Vinci Code clearly demonstrated, given that our era doubts the official narrative of religious institutions regarding the origins of Christianity, and that the figure of Judas, like those of the long list of victims or defeated adversaries of the Catholic Church, is being rehabilitated by contemporary art and literature. Judas is a modern hero, a moving and sincere man, a disappointed friend who, ultimately, was the instrument of divine will. For how could Christ have accomplished his work of universal salvation if he had not been betrayed by this unfortunate man? The Gospel attributed to Judas attempts to resolve this paradox by having Jesus explicitly state that Judas is the greatest of the apostles, for he is the one who will allow his death: “But you will surpass them all! For you will sacrifice the man who serves as my physical vessel” (56). This statement aptly summarizes Gnostic thought: the world, matter, and the body are the work of an evil god (that of the Jews and the Old Testament); the goal of the spiritual life consists, through secret initiation, in enabling the rare chosen ones who possess an immortal divine soul, emanating from the good and unknowable God, to free it from the prison of their body. It is quite amusing to note that our contemporaries, who are fond of tolerance, rather materialistic and who criticize Christianity for its contempt for the flesh, are becoming enamored with a text from a movement that was condemned in its time by the Church authorities for its sectarianism and because it considered the material universe and the physical body to be an abomination.
1. The Gospel of Judas, translation and commentary by R. Kasser, M. Meyer and G. Wurst, Flammarion, 2006, 221 pp., €15.
2. See Le Monde des Religions, no. 18.