The Judas Proverbs in Tchacos Codex 41-44

This paper has been presented at the conference of Current Research in Egyptology XIV: Crossing Boundaries, University of Cambridge, 19-22nd March 2013.The genre of the Coptic Judas text is not historical but polemical and metaphorical, for there are several narratives written against apostolic leadership. Passages of Tchacos Codex (TC) 47-53 demonstrate the same religio-political tendency as other astral accounts. The Judas text was written for an ancient gnostic group of Sethians who were marginalized or excluded from mainline Christianity. Ironically, while the Jewish rituals of thanksgiving, fasting, sacrifice, baptism are rejected, the portrayal of the Gnostic Jesus in Judas shows no familiarity either with the canonical traditions or with the Nag Hammadi texts. The proverbs of TC 41-43 particularly offer ambiguous evidence for its origin. Then, what is the source of the Judas proverbs? How can one find its textual genesis? This paper not only analyzes the three visionary passages of TC 41:13-42:1, TC 42:25-43:12, and TC 43:26-44:7 based on the primary concept that the gospel tradition of Judas is a second century Sethian gnostic writing, but also argues a new perspective that the Coptic passages of seven proverbs contain creative ideas for evidence of its literary uniqueness