The Vision of the Temple: Antiecclesiastical Spirituality in the Gospel of Judas and the Battle for Reality

Abstract

The Gospel of Judas from Codex Tchacos (2nd century, pub. 2006) is set in the context of resistance to incipient structures of ecclesiastical power in Christianity, and in the tradition of anticlerical spirituality often associated to political resistance. In this discursive context a battle for reality often takes place: gnostic texts, like the resisting texts of other historical contexts, assume the ideological function of redefining public reality and rejecting the metaphysical assumptions of dominant groups along with the authority of their religious and political institutions.