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.
564 G.W. TROMPF
brate the divine gift of nature (physis). Carpocrates taught freedom
from guilt or from the accusation of sin in the superior (“perfectâ€)
gnosis that the Law is of the Devil and that we are “to free ourselves
¯
from the adversary†(using Lk. 12,58) 26. Carpocrates and his son
Epiphanes, usually placed in Alexandria, were detectably affected
by Platonizing habits of mind (including those favouring communal
sex), and were perhaps the first group to define themselves as gnos-
¯
tikoi, lineaments of their ideas soon showing up in Rome and further
east by the third century 27.
III. Exploring the Case that Jude wrote against the Cainites
as described by Irenaeus
One has to admit that clear signs of a detested group’s special
acquisition of superior gnosis do not make an appearance in Jude
¯
(as they do, by comparison, in 1 Tim 6,20b). Admittedly that has
never been enough to deter contemporary scholars from scenting
anti-Gnostic (or anti-proto-Gnostic) tendencies in various New
Testament authors, Jude of course included 28 ; and naturally it comes
Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. I, xx, 2-3; cf. Hippolytus, Praesc. vii, 32; and see
26
Epiphanes, apud Clement, Strom. iii, 2-6.
For Alexandria as a breeding-ground for ‘heretical’ sexual libertism, cf.
27
Epiphanius, Panar., XXVI. Cf. also B. LAYTON (ed.), The Gnostic Scriptures
(ABRL ; New York 1987) 201-203. For comments on libertinism spreading to
the East see S. GERO, “With Walter Bauer on the Tigris: Encratitic Orthodoxy
and Libertine Heresy in Syro-Mesopotamian Christianityâ€, Nag Hammadi
Gnosticism and Early Christianity (eds. C.W. HEDRICK – R. HODGSON, Jr.)
(Peabody, MA 1988) 287-292. And for the West, see esp. H.J. Lawlor’s con-
vincing case for saying that Hegesippus, as contender against the Carpocra-
teans, is the common source behind the differing accounts of them (and their
presence in Rome with Marcellina) given by Irenaeus and Epiphanius (Panar.
XXVII,vi) and of their self-definition as Gnostics according to Irenaeus and
Eusebius. H.J. LAWLOR, Eusebiana. Essays on the Ecclesiastical History of Eu-
sebius Pamphili, ca. 264-349 AD, Bishop of Caesarea (Oxford 1912) 74-76.
For such tendencies in German scholarship on Jude, see P.H. DAVIDS,
28
The Letters of 2 Peter and Jude (Grand Rapids, MI 2006) 57-58. Cf. R. BULT-
MANN, Theology of the New Testament (London 21965) I, 164-183; C.H. TAL-
BERT, Luke and the Gnostics. An Examination of the Lucan Purpose (New York
1966) ; G.W. MCCRAE, “Why the Church rejected Gnosticismâ€, Jewish and
Christian Self-Definition (eds. B. MEYER – E.P. SANDERS) (London 1980) I,
128-130.