The Gospel of Judas

Others again say that Cain got his being from the Power above, and they claim Esau, Korah, the men of Sodom, and everyone like them as relatives of their own. That, they add, is why the Creator went after them — and yet not one of them came to any harm, because Sophia was in the habit of carrying off to herself whatever in them belonged to her. They say that Judas the traitor knew all of this thoroughly; that he alone understood the truth as no one else did; and that he was the one who carried through the mystery of the betrayal, by which everything on earth and in heaven was thrown into confusion. They produce a made-up history along these lines, which they call the Gospel of Judas. [a]

I have also made a collection of their writings, in which they call for doing away with the works of Hystera. They call this Hystera the maker of heaven and earth. Like Carpocrates, they hold that people cannot be saved until they have gone through every kind of experience. An angel, they maintain, stands by them in every one of their sinful and disgusting acts and urges them on to be daring and to defile themselves. Whatever the act may be, they say they perform it in the angel’s name, saying, “Angel, I make use of your work; power, I carry out your operation!” And this, they maintain, is “perfect knowledge” — never shrinking from rushing into acts that it is not even lawful to name.

It had to be proved plainly — out of their own opinions and their own rules, which put it on display — that the school of Valentinus takes its origin from mothers and fathers and ancestors of this kind, and their teachings had to be brought out into the open. I did it in the hope that some of them may repent, turn back to the only Creator, the God who formed the universe, and be saved; and that others may no longer be carried off by the wicked, though plausible, persuasion of these men, imagining that they are about to get from them the knowledge of some greater and loftier mysteries. Let them rather learn from us, to good purpose, what these men actually teach, and hold their doctrines in contempt — while they pity the people who still cling to these miserable, groundless fables and have reached such a pitch of arrogance that they count themselves better than everyone else on account of such knowledge, or, as it should rather be called, ignorance. They have now been fully exposed. Simply to set out what they think is to defeat them.

That is why I have worked to bring forward and hold up clearly to view the utterly rotten carcass of this miserable little fox. There will be no need of many words now to overturn their system of teaching, once it has been made plain to everyone.

It is like this. A beast hides itself in a wood, and by rushing out of it destroys people by the score. A man who beats round the wood and searches it through, forcing the animal to break cover, does not try to take it alive; it is a savage beast, after all. But the men standing by can then watch it and keep clear of its charges, throw their javelins at it from every side, wound it, and at last kill the destroying brute. So it is in our case. Now that we have brought their hidden mysteries — the ones they keep quiet about among themselves — out into the light, it will not take many words to destroy their system of opinions. It is in your power now, and in the power of all your associates, to make yourselves familiar with what has been said, to overthrow their wicked and half-digested doctrines, and to set out in their place doctrines that agree with the truth.

Since that is how matters stand, I will do as I promised, and as far as my ability allows: I will work to overthrow them by refuting them all in the book that follows. Even to give an account of them is a tedious business, as you can see for yourself. But I will supply the means of overthrowing them, by meeting all their opinions in the order in which they have been set out, so that I may not only expose the wild beast to view but wound it from every side.