Marvin Meyer emailed me yesterday to let me know about his response to April DeConick on Judas. Meyer worked on Judas for the National Geographic team and has published many translations of the extra-biblical gospels. He has created a web site for the responses.
It is: www.chapman.edu/meyer.
He has written two responses. One is called "On the Waterfront". The more substantive piece is called "On the Thirteenth Daimon". Here he challenges DeConick's key claim that the 13th daimon should be rendered 13th demon and that the realm associated with Judas is negative. This ignores the positive tone of the piece when it comes to Judas, reaquires and unprecedented "parody" genre, and ignores parallels between The Gospel of Judas and Pistis Sophia. Meyer also includes the discussion by Irenaeus on this work and takes Irenaeus seriously on what he says about Judas. If interested in Judas, you should check out his site.
Here is a excerpt from Meyers' piece, which is used with permission:
The Pistis Sophia thus raises fundamental questions about DeConick’s understanding of Judas—and any completely negative understanding of Judas—in the Gospel of Judas. Rather than functioning as a boon companion of Yaldabaoth, as DeConick proposes, Judas may be seen, in the light of the Pistis Sophia, as the spitting image of Sophia. (Sophia, or wisdom, is referred to once in the extant pages of the Gospel of Judas, at 44,4, in a fragmentary section, as “corruptible wisdom” or “corruptible Sophia.”) It turns out that just this sort of link between Judas and Sophia was made by Gnostics already in the second century, as Irenaeus of Lyon informs us—in a passage that DeConick mentions in her book (but without making reference to the Pistis Sophia and without noting the implications for the Gospel of Judas; I did the very same thing in my book Judas). According to Irenaeus in his Adversus haereses (Against Heresies), certain Valentinian Gnostics, who must have been enunciating their beliefs around the same time in the second century when the Gospel of Judas was being composed and read, established a close connection between the suffering of Sophia and the passion of Judas—both being linked, says Irenaeus, to the number twelve, with Judas numbered as the twelfth and final disciple in the circle of the twelve and Sophia numbered as the twelfth aeon.
Irenaeus argues against the Valentinian Gnostics as follows, from his proto-orthodox perspective: “Then, again, as to their assertion that the passion of the twelfth aeon was proved through the conduct of Judas, how is it possible that Judas can be compared with this aeon as being an emblem of her—he who was expelled from the number of the twelve, and never restored to his place? For that aeon, whose type they declare Judas to be, after being separated from her Enthymesis (thought, reflection), was restored or recalled to her former position; but Judas was deprived of his office, and cast out, while Matthias was ordained in his place, according to what is written, ‘And his bishopric let another take’ (Acts 1:20). They ought therefore to maintain that the twelfth aeon was cast out of the Pleroma (the heavenly fullness of the divine), and that another was produced, or sent forth to fill her place; if, that is to say, she is pointed at in Judas.
Moreover, they tell us that it was the aeon herself who suffered, but Judas was the
betrayer, and not the sufferer. Even they themselves acknowledge that it was the
suffering Christ, and not Judas, who came to the endurance of passion. How, then, could Judas, the betrayer of him who had to suffer for our salvation, be the type and image of that aeon who suffered?” (2.20, ANF).
So Irenaeus—who knew of the existence of a text called the Gospel of Judas—admits that in the second century there were Gnostics who compared Judas and Sophia and were convinced that Judas was “the type and image of that aeon who suffered.” (Incidentally, he also states, just prior to his reference to the Gospel of Judas, that some Gnostics declared that after the resurrection, Christ, who himself was linked to Sophia, ascended to the right hand of Yaldabaoth for a thoroughly positive purpose—to aid in the salvation of souls.) This admission of Irenaeus, combined with the close similarities in theme and terminology in the presentations of Judas and Sophia in the Gospel of Judas and the Pistis Sophia (and the Books of Jeu), allows for a powerful conclusion regarding
the role of Judas Iscariot in the Gospel of Judas. I suggest that among certain Gnostics of the second century, including some Valentinians and the folks who wrote and used the Gospel of Judas, the figure of Judas could be presented in terms that are reminiscent of the figure of Sophia, and that the account of Judas in the Gospel of Judas should be read with elements of the fall, passion, grief, and redemption of the wisdom of God in mind. Like Sophia in other texts and traditions, Judas in the Gospel of Judas is “separated from” the divine realms above, even though he knows and professes the mysteries of the divine and the origin of the savior; he goes through grief and persecution as a daimon confined to this world below; he is enlightened with revelations “that no human will ever see”; and at last he is said to be on his way, much like Sophia, to the thirteenth aeon of Gnostic lore.
The story of Judas, like the story of Sophia, recalls the story of the soul of any
Gnostic who is in this world and longs for transcendence. The Gospel of Judas may be
understood to portray Judas as the type and image of Sophia and of the Gnostic, and the text proclaims how salvation may be realized—not, it is emphasized, through a theology of the cross and the experience of sacrifice (as Karen King and Elaine Pagels show so clearly), but on the contrary through gnosis and insight into the nature of the divine and the presence of the divine in the inner lives of people of knowledge.
Without a doubt this interpretation of the Gospel of Judas calls into question many of the central tenets of an argument for the text to be viewed as a gospel parody or a gospel tragedy. Still, a number of uncertainties of interpretation will linger as long as the lacunae on the top portion of pages 55-58 of the Gospel of Judas, with the account of the conclusion of the story of Jesus and Judas, are unresolved. Furthermore, there certainly is room for a more nuanced approach of the text, one which takes seriously the diverse features of this challenging document. I suspect that in the future the figure of Judas Iscariot in the Gospel of Judas may be interpreted, in good Hegelian fashion—and in the light of such parallel texts as those cited here—as neither a completely positive character nor a totally demonic being, but rather a figure, like Sophia, and like any Gnostic, who is embroiled in this world of mortality yet is striving for gnosis and enlightenment. To this extent there is room for aspects of a revisionist interpretation, like
that of DeConick and others, to be joined to the positive features of the Gospel of Judas,
to give a balanced approach to the text. After all, Judas, like Sophia, is caught between the worlds of mortality and immortality, looking for liberation, and the Gospel of Judas shows how liberation may be achieved. Thus, the evidence of the Gospel of Judas, together with insights drawn from Marsanes, the Pistis Sophia, the Books of Jeu, and Irenaeus of Lyon, may provide a new set of perspectives on Judas and Sophia in second-century Gnostic literature. What is clear, though, is that the mystical message of the Gospel of Judas, however it may be nuanced, remains supremely good news, from a Gnostic point of view, the very best news in the world. In the end, gnosis—and
wisdom—triumph."
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As you can see, the debate will continue. We shall continue to review the translation issues DeConick raises. But this blog entry ties in to her first complaint, how to render and understand Judas as the thirteenth daimon.
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