Elaine Pagels on Judas

Elaine Pagels, author of The Gnostic Gospels made a good point today in a New York Times about the Gospel of Thomas:

Many scholars who first read these gospels had been taught that they were "heretical," which meant they were the wrong gospels. When I was introduced to them as a student, we called them "Gnostic" gospels, the name given to them nearly 2,000 years ago by Irenaeus, one of the fathers of the church, who denounced them as false and "heretical."

Yet those early Christians who loved and revered such texts did not think of themselves as heretics, but as Christians who had received not only what Jesus preached publicly, but also what he taught his disciples when they were talking privately. Many regarded these secret gospels not as radical alternatives to the New Testament Gospels, but as advanced-level teaching for those who had already received Jesus' basic message. Even the Gospel of Mark tells us that Jesus explained things to certain disciples in private, entrusting to them alone "the mystery of the Kingdom of God."

...

Irenaeus, however, insisted that Jesus did not teach any of his disciples secretly; such secret revelations, he said, were all illegitimate, and those who revered them heretics. Knowing many such gospels circulated among early Christian groups, Irenaeus wrote that "the heretics say that they have more gospels than there actually are; but really, they have no gospel that is not full of blasphemy."

Many of these secret writings, however, were still read and revered by Christians 200 years later when Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria, an admirer of Irenaeus, wrote an Easter letter to Christians in Egypt. He ordered them to reject what he called those "secret, illegitimate books" and keep only 27 approved ones. The 27 he named constitute the earliest known list of the New Testament canon, which Athanasius intended above all to be a guideline for books to be read publicly in church. The New Testament Gospels, which contain much that Jesus taught in public, were the most obvious books to put on that list. The secret books, which contained paradox and mystery akin to the mystical teachings of kabbalah, were not considered suitable for beginners.

These recently recovered gospels were not just being read by non-orthodox groups. Some of them were being read by members of orthodox churches. They saw the "secret" teachings as a deeper path to Christian spiritual growth. The problem, of course, with these teachings was that they not only freed those members from their earthly concerns, they also freed those members from a need to listen to orthodox authority.