The Gospel of Judas & the unutterable Tetragrammaton / Το Ευαγγέλιο του Ιούδα & το άρρητο Τετραγράμματο

Judas [said] to him , “I know who you are and where you have come from. You are from the immortal realm of Barbelo. And I am not worthy to utter the name of the one who has sent you.”


Ο Ιούδας [είπε] σ' αυτόν <τον Ιησού>, «Γνωρίζω ποιος είσαι και από πού έρχεσαι. Κατάγεσαι από τον αθάνατο κόσμο του Μπάρμπελο <Βαρβηλώ>. Και είμαι ανάξιος να προφέρω το όνομα του ενός που σε έχει στείλει».

— Gospel of Judas / Ευαγγέλιο Ιούδα 35:15-21.

[Judas Iscariot] stands before Jesus, averts his eyes, apparently in a respectful manner, and offers a profession, from a Sethian gnostic point of view, of who Jesus really is. Judas states before Jesus, “I know who you are and where you have come from. You have come from the immortal aeon of Barbelo, and I am not worthy to utter the name of the one who has sent you” (35,15-21). With a term from Hebrew, Barbelo, perhaps meaning something like “God in four” (that is, God in the tetragrammaton, the four-letter ineffable name of the divine), this profession declares that Jesus is from a transcendent realm far beyond this mortal world, and that the name of the one sending Jesus to this world is too holy to utter.

* Marvin W. Meyer,
The Gospel of Judas: On a Night with Judas Iscariot,
Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2011,
p./σ. 8.

Information about the Gospel of Judas: / Πληροφορίες για το Ευαγγέλιο του Ιούδα:

Wilhelm Schneemelcher, ed., transl. by R. McL. Wilson,
New Testament Apocrypha: Gospels and Related Writings,
Louisville: John Knox Press, 1992,
pp./σσ. 386-387.