Green Earth Foundation

In 2006, there appeared the first English translation of a Gnostic text known as the Gospel of Judas, that had been lost for 1600 years, and was discovered in the 1970s in a cave in Egypt. It was traded and moved across through continents and suffered major damage that reduced it to fragments. This fragmented text was finally translated by scholars, from the Coptic into English, in 2001. The appearance of the text, and an article about it in the National Geographic magazine, caused a sensation, because it turned the traditional Christian conception of Judas as the prototypal traitor, on its head. In this version of the story, Judas is portrayed as one of Jesus’s closest disciples and friends, who carries out the so-called betrayal at the request of Jesus, and is rewarded by being given some secret, very high teachings that the other disciples did not get.

Students and readers of Gurdjieff’s All and Everything no doubt recalled, as I did, that Gurdjieff had himself declared a very similar perspective on the story of Judas, calling him “not only the most faithful and devoted of all the near followers of Jesus Christ, but also, only thanks to his Reason and presence of mind, all the acts of this Sacred Individual (Jesus) could form that result…which was, during twenty centuries the source of nourishment and inspiration for the majority of them in their desolate existence and made it at least a little endurable.” (p. 740). Since Gurdjieff wrote his book in the 1940s, long before this Gospel of Judas, or any other of the by now extensive Gnostic texts had been re-discovered, this synchronicity confirms the notion that Gurdjieff was aware of and could draw on secret initiatory teachings and revelations that had not seen the light of day in almost two millennia.

When I read the published translation of the Gospel of Judas, and the accompanying commentaries, I was struck by the fact that the Gnostic text, no doubt due to its fragmented condition, gives a very inadequate and obviously incomplete account of the reasons for Judas’ apparent betrayal, though it quotes Jesus as prophesying that “You will be the thirteenth, and you will be cursed by the other generations… but you will exceed all of them” (p. 33 / 43). Gurdjieff’s version of this story makes the apparent curse, and the evil reputation that Judas’ name has endured, though he is actually devoted and faithful, understandable.

In the fragmentary Gnostic text we read that Jesus is talking with the disciples about visions they all had at a gathering in the Temple. Judas relates his vision, which was that “the twelve disciples were stoning me and persecuting me severely”; he also relates that he saw a great and magnificent house with many people. Jesus tells him that this was no house that mortal men could enter, but rather the “eternal realm with the holy angels”. Jesus then proceeds to take Judas aside and relates to him cosmic secrets about a “great and boundless realm.. in which there is a great invisible Spirit”. There are further passages, tantalizingly incomplete, that speak of high angelic realms, filled with luminaries and immortals engaged in the creating and guiding of humanity and the cosmos. Jesus, still addressing Judas, concludes – “Look, you have been told everything. Lift up your eyes and look at the cloud and the light within it and the stars surrounding it. The star that leads the way is your star.” (p. 44). Then there are a couple of sentences simply stating that Judas met the High Priests and handed Jesus over to them.

What is missing from this story is any explanation of why Judas took on this onerous role, and why Jesus asked him to do it as a favor. That is is a favor is implied by the fact that Jesus prophesies that Judas will be cursed, and rewards him, alone of the disciples, with a magnificent cosmological vision. Jesus predicted that he was about to be arrested and killed. He must have known, with his superior transcendent perception, that the priests and guards knew his whereabouts and were coming to arrest him. Why was Judas sent on this apparently unnecessary and cursed mission to guide the soldiers to his teacher? Clearly it was an assigned task of great importance, for which Judas received a supreme reward in compensation.

I believe Gurdjieff’s version of this story provides the missing element of motivation for Judas’ mission – an element which is missing from the Gospel of Judas, perhaps only because the surviving text is so fragmented. In Gurdjieff’s version, as related by his alter ego Beelzebub, the basic reason for Judas’ mission of apparent betrayal was to buy some time for Jesus to carry out a certain sacrament with the other twelve disciples.

“I must inform you that when this Sacred Individual Jesus Christ, intentionally actualized from Above in a planetary body of a terrestrial being, completely formed Himself for a corresponding existence, He decided to actualize the mission imposed on Him from Above, through the way of enlightening the reason of these terrestrial three-brained beings, by means of twelve different types of beings, chosen from among them and who were specially enlightened and prepared by him personally.

“And so, in the very heat of His Divine Activities, surrounding circumstances independent of Him were so arranged, that not having carried out His intention, i.e. not having had time to explain certain truths and to give the required instructions for the future, He was compelled to allow the premature cessation of his planetary existence to be accomplished.

“He then decided, together with these twelve terrestrial beings intentionally initiated by Him, to have recourse to the sacred sacrament Almznhoshinoo – the process of the actualization of which sacred sacrament was already well known to all of them, as they had already acquired in their presences all the data for its fulfillment – so that He should have the possibility, while He still remained in such a cosmic individual state, to finish the preparation begun by Him for the fulfillment of the plan designed for actualization of the mission imposed on Him from Above.

“And so, when having decided on this and being ready to begin with the preliminary preparations required for this sacred sacrament, it then became clear that it was utterly impossible to do this, as it was too late; they were all surrounded by beings, called “guards” and their arrest and everything that would follow from it, was expected at any moment. …This wise, onerous and disinterestedly devoted manifestation taken upon himself consisted in this, that while in a state of desperation on ascertaining that it was impossible to fulfill the required preliminary procedure for the actualization of the sacred Almznoshinoo, this Judas, now a Saint, leaped from his place and hurriedly said:

“ ‘I shall go and do everything in such a way that you should have the possibility of fulfilling this sacred preparation without hindrance, and meanwhile set to work at once.’

“Having said this, he approached Jesus Christ and having confidentially received His blessing, hurriedly left.

“The others, indeed without hindrance finished everything necessary for the possibility of accomplishing this sacred process Almznoshinoo.” (All and Everything, p. 740-742).

Almost as an afterthought, Beelzebub ventures the sarcastic opinion that the reason that the compilers of Holy Writ allowed such a misrepresentation of the character of Judas to come in to the conventional Gospels, is that they wanted to somehow belittle the significance of Jesus Christ himself. “He appeared to be so naïve , so unable to feel and see beforehand, in a word, so unperfected that in spite of knowing and existing together with this Judas so long, He failed to sense and be aware that this immediate disciple of His was such a perfidious traitor and that he would sell Him for thirty worthless pieces of silver.”

We see from this version of the Judas story, that Gurdjieff’s reading of this, as of other religious myths, opens up much deeper layers of significance and meanings in well-known but often misunderstood stories. And the publication of the Gnostic Gospel of Judas provides a striking confirmation of his penetrating insight.

The Gospel of Judas, edited by Rodolphe Kasser, Marvin Meyer and Gregor Wurst. New York: National Geographic, 2006.