The Gospel of Judas: Is it really faith-shaking?

The Gospel of Judas was hyped by the media (those with the hidden agenda of undermining the truths of our Catholic Faith) as something that would shake the faith of its readers specifically on the passion and death of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The showing of the documentary on the said gospel over the National Geographic Channel was obviously deliberately timed to coincide with the Catholic Church's Palm Sunday celebration to add more sense of relativity. A brother priest sent me a copy of the said Gospel of Judas. It has seven pages on PDF format. I read it and found nothing faith-shaking.

The said gospel is believed to have been written by the Gnostics which is described by the Catholic Encyclopedia as those who believe in the "doctrine of salvation by knowledge. This definition, based on the etymology of the word (gnosis "knowledge", gnostikos, "good at knowing"), is correct as far as it goes, but it gives only one, though perhaps the predominant, characteristic of Gnostic systems of thought. Whereas Judaism and Christianity, and almost all pagan systems, hold that the soul attains its proper end by obedience of mind and will to the Supreme Power, i.e. by faith and works, it is markedly peculiar to Gnosticism that it places the salvation of the soul merely in the possession of a quasi-intuitive knowledge of the mysteries of the universe and of magic formulae indicative of that knowledge. Gnostics regard themselves as "people who knew", and their knowledge at once constituted them a superior class of beings, whose present and future status was essentially different from that of those who, for whatever reason, did not know."

Gnosticism is a heresy. Projecting the Gospel of Judas as historically true is tantamount to reviving a doctrine of the Gnostic heresy. Those who brought it up have an agenda. They point out that the Gnostic Gospels were not included in the Canonical Books that would comprise the Bible because mainstream Crhistianity wanted to silence Gnosticism. My sacred scriptures professor in UST, Fr. Angel Aparicio, OP contends in an interview that "the Gospel of Judas and other Gnostic writings such as the supposed Gospel of Mary Magdalene were excluded from the final canon of the New Testament not because the Catholic Church was trying to silence other Christian groups, but because their authenticity and fidelity to the teachings of Christ were suspect right from the start." (cf. http://news.inq7.net/nation/index.php?index=1&story_id=72478 ).

The peddlers of the Gospel of Judas try to project that Christ has mandated his own betrayal and that Judas facilitated the salvation of the world by his act of betrayal. One passage quotes Jesus telling Judas, "For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me." I only have one argument against such claim that Judas merely obeyed our Lord Jesus Christ in betraying Him: If that was the case, why did he feel the guilt and committed suicide???

The Gospel of Judas failed its peddlers for it did not snowball faith-shaking doubt from believers. The text itself is incomplete, there were missing lines as the manuscript has deteriorated.

I conclude by quoting James Martin in his article "Betrayal or devotion?: No revelations in Gospel of Judas": "The Gospel of Judas will continue to be fodder for television shows, magazine covers and lunchtime conversations. But the answer to the question raised every Good Friday remains the same. Why did Judas do it? Because Judas, like many of us, wanted to make God in his own image- rather than the other way round." (cf. The international Herald Tribune, April 12, 2006, p. 8 )

G. C. UANAN
23 April 2006