Garry W. Trompf, «The Epistle of Jude, Irenaeus, and the Gospel of Judas», Vol. 91 (2010) 555-582
A detailed case that the New Testament Epistle of Jude was written against the socalled Cainite sectaries, who were in possession of a Gospel of Judas as Irenaeus attests is presented here. Because the names Judas and Jude were the same, the good name of Iouda, especially as being that of a relative to Jesus, needed clearing, and subversive teachings — making Cain, Judas and other Biblical figures worthy opponents of the (Old Testament) god — had to be combatted. Since a Gospel of Judas has come to light, within the newly published Tchacos Codex, one is challenged to decide whether this was the gospel appealed to by the Cainites, and, if it was, to begin to grasp how they read a text which did not readily match their interests.
556 G.W. TROMPF
mediately because it concerns a neglected issue that may be para-
doxically crucial, has to do with the similarity of names. Judas and
Jude have the same origin in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek (Yudah,
Yehuda, Ioudas); and to bear the same name as the so-called be-
trayer carried its own embarrassment. Names had to be honoured, of
course, but care had to be taken. This is witnessed to by the phrase
“ the other Judas, not Iscariot†(ouch ho Iskariotes — John 14,22a)
¯¯
for the apostle “Judas the son of Jamesâ€, and by the tendency to
read the name of this Judas as Thaddeus in Christian tradition 4. The
absence of New Testament references to Thomas as Judas Thomas
carries its own additional interest 5 ; as does the possibility of a cer-
tain relief in the Syriac-speaking world when the Jude epistle — its
heading bearing the same name as the traitorous Yehudah — was
excluded from the original Peshitta (albeit along with other texts
looking late and less authoritative) 6.
Without losing sight of this potential for embarrassment, our
very last allusion will prompt one to ask about dates. There is a
strong case for concluding that the close kin of Jesus — “brothersâ€
James, Joses, Simon, Jude and the latter’s descendants — were in
turn bishops, certainly leaders (cf. hegesasthai) of the Jerusalem
¯¯
churches at least up to (perhaps beyond) AD 70 like a “little Ca-
locate the relevant passage differently, e.g., R. Massuet at I, xxx; J.E. Grabe at
I, xxxiv, and A. Roberts and W.H. Rambaut at I, xxxi).
See Mark 10,3; Matt 3,18 (while Luke, historiographically adept, holds to
4
the best tradition he can find and writes Ioudas Iakobou at 6,16); Acta Thadd.
¯
apud Eusebius, Hist. eccles., I, × iii, esp. 11-22. Ioudas nonetheless remains in
the list of Jesus’ brothers in Mark 6,3 and parallels; Jude’s epistle carries the
Greek title of Iouda and first word Ioudas (v. 1) ; while Judah (sometimes ‘per-
sonified’, e.g., Matt 2,6; Heb 8,8) in the NT, and Judah in the LXX (as from
Gen 35,23 on) is also Ioudas, thus leading to the later anti-Semitic guilt-by-
association between Judas and Jews who rejected Jesus.
Yet cf. Evang. Thom. 80,10 (Didymos Ioudas Thomas [though the name
5
Didymos appears in John 11,16.20.24; 21,2]); Syriac Acta S. Thom. 1.
I.e., also 2 Pet 2–3, John, and the Apocalypse. The absence also applies
6
to the African Canon Mommsenianus, with the reasons others gave for
excluding Jude from the canon — that it mentioned apocryphal works, for
instance see Didymus Alex., in: T. Von ZAHN, Forschungen zur Geschichte
des neutestamentlichen Kanons und der altkirchlichen Literatur (Leipzig 1929)
III, 97; cf. Eusebius Pamph., Hist. eccles. II, xxxiii, 25; III, xxv, 3, etc. — not
being relevant.