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.
580 G.W. TROMPF
disobey the false creator’s impositions of his so-called righ-
teousness ? Put another way, how could a self-willed antinomian
group justify attacking Christians who, according to the Judas gos-
pel’s representation of them, behaved very much against acceptable
norms themselves? At last we have opened a discussion of the rela-
tive unlikelihood of excessive immorality in antinomian/libertinist
reaction in an early Christian context. There had to be limits. There
would be enough in returning to pagan life-styles in many and var-
ied ways, in fact, to bring on a sense of outrage in the eyes of
Christian leadership: freer sexual life (with slaves, prostitutes,
through ritually controlled outlets, etc.) 70, renewed use of idols,
incantation practices, polyspiritist approaches to worship, and espe-
cially the redeployment of angelic forces against the very principles
of goodwill on which the early Christian communities were recur-
rently enjoined to stand 71. But the ritual slaughter of humans was
likely to be unthinkable among antinomians, and other norms of
what is unacceptable (uncontrolled ‘general fornication’, perhaps
same-sex activity) could be drawn to ensure a particular group’s
continuance. In any case, the sources on the Cainites do not specify
extremities, and even accusations of sexual freedom are not
emphatic 72. To engage in the horrors of cannibalism 73, however, or
child and spouse murder or “sacrifice on the altar†74, would be un-
imaginable and a sign of cosmic disorder, which both the author of
Judas, and the Cainites who read the little gospel in their own
terms, would be only too ready to impute to members of the
churches they had come to despise.
See e.g., O. KIEFER, Kulturgeschichte Roms unter besonderer Berück-
70
sichtigung der römischen Sitten (Berlin 1933) esp. Ch. 3-6; F. HENRIQUES, Pro-
stitution and Society. A Study (London 1962) I, ch. 2-3.
W.A. WEEKS, The Origins of Christian Morality. The First Two Centu-
71
ries (New Haven, CN 1993).
DE FAYE, Gnostiques, 372-373.
72
To illustrate the depth of this horror, e.g., Pap. Oxyr. 42 (1974) 3065,
73
G.H.R. HORSLEY (ed.), New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity (Sydney
1987) IV, doc. 16; Josephus, Bell. Iud., VI, 201-213; Eusebius, Hist. eccles., III,
vi, 24-28.
I.e., as distinct from infanticide, for which see, e.g., S.B. POMEROY,
74
“ Infanticide in Hellenistic Greeceâ€, Images of Women in Antiquity (eds.
A. CAMERON – A. KUHRT) (London 1983), ch. 13; N. LEWIS, Life in Egypt
under Roman Rule (Oxford 1983) 54.