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.
562 G.W. TROMPF
after Adam†(v. 14b : hebdomos apo Adam) 22. The polemic in Jude
is thus much less that of ‘dropping names’ of notoriously punished
evildoers (when compared to 2 Peter) than of making suspiciously
sarcastic allusions to wilful corrupting alternative images of worthi-
ness. Of course one must be wary of reading the content of the sub-
versives’ views out of Jude’s own criticisms (as also in the case of 2
Peter), yet the pointed language and initially obscure allusions in the
former’s letter reassures us that his is a piece-by-piece “dis-
mantling †of his adversaries’ ‘belief system’ (and occasionally
finding 2 Peter’s vocabulary very useful in doing so!).
Again, we are left asking questions, this time with a sociological
quandary applying, as to why any social configuration allying itself
to such ‘opponents of God’ should ever emerge. At this point one
may well ask why such a ‘group positioning’ would ever arise in a
Christian context, when enticements to thoroughly external alterna-
tives would suffice. For surely various equivalents of these anti-
nomian possibilities, indeed an expectedly predictable range of
voices antipathetical to Jewish and Christian ideas about God, could
be readily found among the various forms of ‘pagan life’ in first-
and second-century Near Eastern societies 23. But of course the sub-
versive notions reflected in Jude’s criticisms make little sense if
they were not a matter of internal knowledge to the epistle’s recip-
ient church(es), that is, unless there was a forum of common dis-
course in which select ‘exemplars of rebellion’ would be deployed
against the normative embodiments of righteousness.
Proceeding with this line of enquiry (looking for points of sub-
stantiation while moving on), can we tell, insofar as Jude’s crit-
icisms enable us to construct a picture of the troublemakers’ views,
whether or not the opposed group is Jewish (or Judaizing) in
Cf. also 1 Enoch 60,8; 113,3; Jub 7. The opinion that Jude erroneously
22
places the Book of Enoch seven generations from Adam – C.H. THOMPSON,
Revelation and the General Epistles (Nashville, TN 21983) 132-133 — is unfair
and not the point. Also note that the absence of any known mother for Enoch
the son of Cain could obviously lead to speculation that he had part-angelic/
archontic parentage (cf. Gen 6,2).
If we are thinking first of bodily licentiousness, we may have to rely
23
more for clues on the archaeology of bath houses and prostibules than literature
of the learned (often sober) souls bequeathed to us from Antiquity. Cf.
P. BROWN, The Body and Society. Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in
Early Christianity (London 1988).