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.
The Epistle of Jude, Irenaeus, and the Gospel of Judas *
This article looks into what connections there may be between the
(“ General â€) Epistle of Jude in the New Testament and the most im-
portant component of the newly discovered Tchacos Codex, the
Gospel of Judas 1. This is hardly a strange question, since it was sug-
gested long ago that the epistle’s strictures against subversions of
the faith were directed against the so-called Cainites 2 and it should
be well known among Patristic scholars that one of the more signif-
icant points made by Irenaeus of Lyons (ca. AD 180) about the Cai-
nite “heresy†— implicitly propagated by a Gnostic group — is that
the Cainites both possessed and used a “Gospel of Judas†(Adv.
Haer. I, xxviii, 9) 3.
I. Freeing the Name Judas from Bad Associations,
and the Provenance of Jude
As soon as one hypothesizes about any Jude/(Irenaeus)/Judas
relationships, a number of questions arise. One, to be dealt with im-
* I thank Prof. Iain Gardner and Dr. David Kim of the University of
Sydney, and Fr. Dr Henryk Skoczylas CSMA of the Pontifical Theological
Institute in Krakow, for their positive responses to the earlier draft of this
article. I am grateful for the encouraging comments by Archb. Prof. Rowan
Williams and Dr. Mark Edwards following the first presentation of my ideas at
the Fifteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies, University of Ox-
ford, 7 Aug., 2007.
For background to the discovery of this codex, cf. J.M. ROBINSON, The
1
Secrets of Judas. The Story of the Misunderstood Disciple and His Lost Gospel
(New York 2006); H. KROSNEY, The Lost Gospel. The Quest for the Gospel of
Judas Iscariot (Washington, DC 2006).
Cf. P.A. SEETHALER, “Kleine Bemerkungen zum Judasbriefâ€, BZ 31
2
(1987) 261-264. Cf., much earlier, A. VON HARNACK, Chronologie der altchris-
tlicher Literatur bis Eusebius (Leipzig 1897) II, 466 (Jude not only against the
Cainites, but the Archontics, Phibionites, Severians and Nicolaitans as well).
Following W.W. HARVEY’s classification, Sancti Irenaei Libros Quinque
3
Adversus Haereses (Cambridge 1867) I, 241-242 (rather than other editors who