He has found beyond himself not God, who is the prohibition against crime, but a being who is unaware of prohibition. ~ Georges Bataille, "The Sacred Conspiracy"

Poor Nils Runeberg. He died in 1912 of a "ruptured aneurysm," but succeeded, at least, in leaving behind a legacy for heresiologists, by adding to the "exhausted" concept of the Son (of God, Jesus Christ) "the complexities of evil and misfortune."[1] According to Professor Runeberg (a fictional character, of course, but no poorer for that) the notion of the degradation, or emptying (kenôsis) of the Logos for the purpose of salvation must be drastically and radically complete: not a single virtue must be allowed to colorize, taint, or otherwise vindicate the absolute denial and, indeed, denigration of the divinity. If Christ Himself was incapable, due to His inherent divinity, of such utter ontological dissolution (as Hegel or Bataille might have put it), then Judas Iscariot certainly was. "In adultery there is usually tenderness and abnegation; in homicide, courage; in profanity and blasphemy, a certain satanic luster. Judas chose those sins untouched by any virtue: violation of trust (John 12:6) and betrayal."[2]

Indeed, the most despicable person is the paid informer, as the popular cable television show (and impressive work of art) The Sopranos reminds us. But what if Judas Iscariot - the most (in)famous and most hated of all informants - acted not out of a desire for personal gain, but out of absolute selflessness, for the glory of God? What if Judas was the ultimate ascetic, sacrificing not only body, but spirit, for the glory of God? This is precisely the question raised in the masterful tale, "Three Versions of Judas," by the great Argentine writer and intellectual Jorge Luis Borges. It is also a question raised by the newly discovered, and immediately popularized, Coptic Gnostic text translated as The Gospel of Judas.

There is a difference, however, between Borges's purely fictional speculation, and the historical reality of this ancient text, which portrays Judas as the beneficiary of Christ's saving message, to the exclusion of the other Apostles, who tragically misunderstood the deeper import of Our Lord's life and teachings. Speculative theology is a preeminently historical discipline, but it also invites creativity. The reason it can successfully skirt the rough land and navigate the seemingly opposed waters of academic and fictional writing, is precisely due to its grounding in history. But when a newly discovered text begins to suggest profound things that we have already begun (perhaps only with the aid of fictional works like the one by Borges) to suspect as possible and even feasible, then the comfort of dry, historical knowledge gives way to an ecstasy of investigation, in which the mind can - at least until the experts produce their academic, peer-reviewed assessments - run freely over heretofore unexplored territory.

It is a thankless task, this frisky revelry in the openness of theology; and it is fraught with the peril of obsession and careless conclusions. Poor Runeberg. "Those who read [his] article should also consider that it registers only Runeberg's conclusions, not his dialectic or proof. Someone may observe that the conclusion no doubt preceded the 'proof.'"[3] Any honest patristics scholar will tell you that the concept of the Trinity preceded the 'proofs' provided, by way of labored 'interpretation' of scripture, and yet maintain that such was a necessary outcome of the inspirational kerygma of the Christian faith. When we enter the realm of Christology, the most immediate concern of the early Fathers, the scriptural witness is more direct, but also more problematical - precisely because such terms as homoousion and hupostasis do not occur in the New Testament.[4]

When dogmatic Platonism, in the pagan world, had begun to morph into a more eclectic style of religious philosophy, based upon ancient traditions like Orphism, Pythagoreanism, and the syncretic figure of Hermes Trismegistus, an eisegetical reading of the established philosophies into the emerging Christian expression(s) became a matter of course. Marcion comes immediately to mind, here, with his concept of an alien God who sent Christ to save an equally alien race from extinction at the hands of a brutish half-wit deity. While Plato, in the Phaedrus, tried to make sense of the human condition by appealing to an inner struggle (of the soul) between rational and irrational impulses, later theologians (the so-called Gnostics) found it more acceptable to exonerate the human person from any responsibility for his/her pathetic state, and place the blame on a really lousy god, who proclaims sovereignty, but is really little more than a dupe himself - an "abortion," as the Gnostic texts describe him, of an illegitimate intercourse between the pure spiritual Sophia and the dark and unruly realm of Matter.

However, as any student of Gnosticism will easily attest, the tragedy of Sophia's fall into material existence produced a fine and poetic passion play, resulting in a new creation: the fulfillment of life in an order that will (or so they said) remain forever incorruptible. In the most humanistic of the Gnostic texts, for example the Tripartite Tractate, a pretty hierarchy of souls will forever glorify the well-spring of life, and remain … static. St. Maximus the Confessor, writing several centuries later, is not far from this less-than-promising scenario. But so be it. Tragic, emanatory, poetic effusions were not destined to exercise the minds of the thoughtful forever; the same impulse that leads us to identify (however qualifiedly and self-justifyingly) with Milton's Satan, Maturin's Melmoth, Goethe's Faust, or even Darth Vader, is the destablizing notion (tucked away safely in the 'heretical' part of our brain) that Judas was, after all, a crucial player in the beloved passion play of/that is Our Lord's death.

Taking it further, the Resurrection, the opening of the gates of Heaven, could not have occurred without the participation of Judas Iscariot. For evil is, as we take comfort in thinking, never really all that bad. Satan mourns, Melmoth struggled, Faust longed for vindication, Vader loved his wife - but Judas! That rogue betrayed the incarnate Logos, the source of humanity, the loveable and reverential life-giving power to which we all cling, in this miserable world, as we strive for a glorious end. In short, Judas destroyed the earth-walking god that is the centerpiece of so many ancient mythical systems (from Gilgamesh to Plato's Statesman, and beyond). He betrayed our trust in a higher power, and attempted to thwart or delay our salvation. To hell with him!

But do we really wish that for Judas, our brother in arms? The terror of divine intervention in a human life is one excuse; abject horror in the face of the death of God is quite another thing. Judas betrayed Christ because the revelation of the Incarnate Logos exceeded Judas's capacity for conceptualization. The other Apostles started a religion; Judas, a revolution. Never again will God be idealized; He will instead be responded to - as only humans can accomplish …a response of passion, of lust, even - a response that bears the fruit of ecstasy.

Where do we stand then, those of us who worship in an ecclesiastical context, and reject the radicalism of Gnosticism and other forms of religious rebellion? I think that Elaine Pagels and Karen L. King, in their joint production Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity (New York: Viking 2007), demonstrate a certain viable attitude vis-à-vis this perennial rebellion; but it is one which, while rejecting the traditional norms of received Christian dogma, accepts (with some highly questionable qualifications) the modus gnostici, so to speak, that produced the 'gospel' attributed to the great betrayer, the snitch, the flipper, Judas.

The textual production of an enemy always points to the possibility a hero. If we approach the complexity of early Christian speculative theology carefully, I believe that the line between friend and enemy is not only blurred, but completely erased! Once we accept the radical, problematical, and deeply unsettling idea that we are both (inherently, potentially) divine and existentially flawed and sinful offspring of God, the fall of Judas is not so surprising. The entry of the Godhead into the human ken must, by nature, absolve us of all conventional morality. For God "could have chosen any of the destinies which make up the complex web of history; He could have been Alexander or Pythagoras or Rurik or Jesus; He chose the vilest destiny of all: He was Judas."[5]

The Gospel of Judas does not, I hasten to clarify, identify Judas with the Savior. The study of Pagels and King does not, either. Yet the subtle apologetic tone in their book, which dispenses rather quickly with the homophobic and antisemitic under- or over- (depending upon your preferred position) tones in the text, stops short at a fair assessment of the rejection of the physical body as having any value whatsoever in the redemptive scheme of things. I would not have spurned even a short commentary on the Apollinarianism of the Gospel of Judas, especially since it would have indicated the prevalence and proliferation of pro-psychic/anti-hylic theology in the period in question.

Aversion to the body, and bodily things, was common to both pagan and Christian conceptions of salvation in the Hellenistic/Roman world. There were, basically, three conceptions of Christ, corresponding to the evaluation of the body. The first, and triumphant, was/is the concept of complete union of divine spirit and created flesh, with the soul as intermediary. The second, of the soul as the fallen example of human life, with the redeeming spirit as the all-encompassing redeemer, and the body as a mere incidental in the equation. The third, the body as wholly corrupt, the soul as an effusion of the body (and therefore evil), and the spirit as the only natural situation of the human being.

Throughout the ages, Christian theologians have made it a point to glorify the body, and all things of it. Procreation is considered a virtue, long life a right. Indeed, the physical production of life, as opposed to the perpetuation of the spiritual principle in/of humanity, has served to thwart spiritual development, and successfully raze the person to the level of a foundation - a fecund, biologically productive foundation. In short, the Church welcomes women bursting with fetuses, but is indifferent to philosophers bursting with ideas. If anything in the Gospel of Judas is correct, it is this:

The souls of every human race will die. But when those (who belong to the holy race) have completed the time of the kingdom and the spirit separates from them, their bodies will die but their souls will be alive and they will be lifted up. (GosJud 8 [Pagels/King 114])

The hope of the Christian, as John the Evangelist so eloquently puts it, is that everyone will be surprised by the new life granted them at the re-emergence of Christ as Lord of All (Pantokrator). As much as we love our children, our wives, our selves - this is all selfish love, and pales in comparison to the divine harmony in which we will rejoice when Christ brings His vision of perfection to the world. If the attainment of this harmony requires the absolute negation of all that we hold dear, then it is important to remember at all times that the sacrifice of Christ - and of Judas - is that ultimate partnership drawing humanity upwards toward God, by way of the path of dissolution. As Hegel said, in his Introduction to the Phenomenology of Spirit), only in utter dismemberment and dissolution will the life of the Spirit find itself.

We don't find Christ - Life, the Way, Truth - only in the midst of mystical religiosity; we find Him also in the depths of our sins, which is precisely where we need Him most. The king who rises from his throne, only to fall on his face - as Georges Bataille (Visions of Excess [Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1985] 172) has expressed our situation as noble souls trapped in a degrading world - is only to be despised if he doesn't get up again. But if he takes that fall out of love for his subjects, and then rises up again in glory, he proves himself the most venerable king of all. And his name, for us (I'm speaking to Christians) is Jesus Christ.

1. Jorge Luis Borges, "Three Versions of Judas," in Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings (New York: New Directions 1964) 100.
2. Ibid., 97.
3. Borges, 96.
4. In the case of hupostasis, it should be noted that it occurs in the LXX, but not in the later, highly technical and philosophical manner as found, for example, Philo Judaeus, and the Aristotelian commentators who influenced the Platonizing Fathers, esp. the Cappadocians.
5. Borges, 99.