The Gospel Of Judas
What a stir has been caused by the Gospel Of Judas, a Gnostic gospel found relatively recently. It is a 4th century copy of a gospel written in the second century.
Judas has, likely, had the worst reputation of any historical person. To use C. G. Jung’s description, we would say that Judas is a representation of the dark side of human nature, which he called the shadow.
It is interesting to see him rescued by this gospel from this position. Instead of the worst villain of history, he is presented as the best friend of Jesus who by betraying him, did his bidding. In this gospel, the Gnostics rescued Judas from his position carrying this dark shadow.
The problem is that it doesn’t really work. The battle between the Gnostics and the mainline church went on for a long time in the early Christian era. There were many points of argument but one of them was that the Gnostics did not stick to the historical story. They had great faith in imagination and tended to see it as inspired as the Gospels themselves.
So the Gnostics did not focus on historical truth as we know it. They were much more interested in their mystical kind of inner experiences. We can not really look to them for the kind of history that we are used to. So it is interesting to see their rescuing of Judas in this gospel, but it would be a rash person indeed who would take this as historical fact.