Did Judas go to Hell?

D

DeiGratia

Guest
Matthew 27:3-5 (King James Version)

3 Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, 4 Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that. 5 And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.


The action Judas took right before his death displays his admission of guilt and remorse. Should it or should it not suffice for him to be redeemed?
 
In my belief....there is no hell for Judas to be in...

But for those that believe in hell, I am interested in hearing their responses...
 
DeiGratia said:
The action Judas took right before his death displays his admission of guilt and remorse. Should it or should it not suffice for him to be redeemed?
Click to expand...
Well who can know what lies in store for any of us? But if you ask my opinion, then yes, it suffices.
 
I agree. I'm glad I've found someone with the same view. I wonder if there are any denominations that officially hold this view (Judas may have been redeemed)...
 
I'm curious - why would Judas be punished for providing the basis of the Resurrection and the foundations of Christian belief?
 
According to The Gospel of Judas, written by Gnostic followers of Jesus in the 2nd century CE, Judas is a hero not a villain. The explanation they give is that Jesus actually instructed Judas to give him up to the Romans.

I would have thought that Jesus’s reason for this strange request would be so he could fulfill his mission on earth. But, no, the Gnostics claimed that God did not demand any such sacrifice. Instead Jesus's death was simply a final way for him to leave the realm of the flesh and return to God.

According to the gospel, the other disciples didn’t know about this plan.

So I think it's safe to say that the Gnostics would have come out firmly on the side of Judas going to heaven.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Judas
 
He was the treasurer....he kept the money, insured they were fed, sheltered in their travels... and when Jesus said go and do what you must do....He followed the command.
 
Marcialou said:
According to The Gospel of Judas, written by Gnostic followers of Jesus in the 2nd century CE, Judas is a hero not a villain. The explanation they give is that Jesus actually instructed Judas to give him up to the Romans.
Click to expand...
By the 2nd century, Christianity was spreading like an epidemic. The Gnostics were desperate to get in on the act, and so began touting their own versions of events. Some Gnostic 'gospels' say Our Lord told Judas to give Him up, others say Judas took Our Lord's place, others that Simon or someone else (not Judas) took Our Lord's place, others that Our Lord was crucified, but survived the event, others that Our Lord was an angel and only appeared as a man ... so there's a Gnostic version for every alternate reading! I think there wasn't one for Our Lord was an alien, though. That, like Our Lord in Tibet, is a new twist on an old tale ...

Marcialou said:
So I think it's safe to say that the Gnostics would have come out firmly on the side of Judas going to heaven.
Click to expand...
Oh, I think so!
 
Marcialou said:
According to the gospel, the other disciples didn’t know about this plan.
Click to expand...
There is a marked tendency among Gnostic texts to affirm that none of the disciples got anything — only the one to whom the Gospel is attributed 'got it', and only because he was taken aside and instructed in secret.

So in the Gospel of Thomas, only Thomas got it; in the Gospel of Judas, only Judas got it; in The Secret Book of James ... etc.

Marcialou said:
So I think it's safe to say that the Gnostics would have come out firmly on the side of Judas going to heaven.
Click to expand...
I rather think it's safer to say that the Gnostics come out firmly on the side of their particular man, and that no-one else gets to heaven!
 
Thomas said:
I rather think it's safer to say that the Gnostics come out firmly on the side of their particular man
Click to expand...

Really! So either there were competing groups of Gnostics, each with their own disciple to tout, or the Gnostics were engaging in a kind of fan fiction, proposing different possible alternative universes just for fun.

Thomas said:
and that no-one else gets to heaven!
Click to expand...

That's harsh. Condemned for eternity just for being clueless.
 
Marcialou said:
Really! So either there were competing groups of Gnostics, each with their own disciple to tout, or the Gnostics were engaging in a kind of fan fiction, proposing different possible alternative universes just for fun.
Click to expand...
Well in my opinion I doubt they did it for fun, but there was certainly a degree of fan fiction going on! :D

The 2nd century Gnostics were dyed-in-the-wool dualists, who believed that all created nature was fundamentally evil. The aim was to 'escape' this world.

It also seems axiomatic that each Master established his own cosmology of intermediate states, each composed of a balanced syzergy (Gk: 'pair'), through which one could only ascend if possessing certain 'keys of knowledge' which, of course, only your Master actually possessed. The other 'Masters' were no doubt seen as lacking the true pneuma (the indwelling 'spark'), which is the 'bit' that escapes the prison of the flesh.

Only the 'pneumatics' were guaranteed 'salvation', in fact it was a given. They were bound for heaven, whatever they did. The Gnostics were, by and large, not too encumbered by a moral dimension, as morality and sin governed the physical, not the pneuma.

The 'psychics' – some, but not necessarily all of their disciples – could only attain salvation by being initiated by the pneumatic. They were otherwise helpless and incapable of saving themselves. The hylics – the rest of humanity – did not have the pneuma in their souls, and were therefore irredeemably doomed.

It's the primordial dialectic between the will and the intellect. To the Church, it's who you are that matters; to the gnostic it's what you know.

Marcialou said:
That's harsh. Condemned for eternity just for being clueless.
Click to expand...
Well I think the appeal of the Gnostics is in no small measure due to the fact that they are the anti-establishment position. They're against the instutional church, so that must be a good thing! ;) The problem is that their outlook and disciplines were quite draconian compared to orthodoxy. neither Love nor Compassion plays any significant part of their doctrines — it's all about secret knowledge.

In fact the institutional church is quite mild by comparison! :D

And there is always the dangerous tendency towards elitism in esoteric – which carry the baton of Gnosticism – societies.
 
Thomas said "By the 2nd century, Christianity was spreading like an epidemic."

What a curious way for you to describe the spread of Christianity! I would'a thought that was more Nick's kind of thinking. ;)
 
The pneumatics were the ones that realized the G!d within eh? But that the divine spark is released by all at death...

Most religions including Christianity think only their annointed, their believers get the best rooms at the inn....
 
wil said:
The pneumatics were the ones that realized the G!d within eh?
Click to expand...
Ooh, I wouldn't jump to that conclusion. They held a fundamentally opposite position to you regarding human nature.

wil said:
But that the divine spark is released by all at death...
Click to expand...
Not in their book. They insisted that only a very few had it in the first place ...

wil said:
Most religions including Christianity think only their annointed, their believers get the best rooms at the inn....
Click to expand...
Well the 'old school' of every stripe used to think that. I'm sure there's many as still do.

But the 'new school' is all 'instant karma' these days, getting your goodies in the here and now – again, not the Gnostic way at all.
 
Good question. Have not had any luck thus far finding out who are the major authorities for and against. Here are some sites that put the basic facts of the religion down.

GNOSTICISM - Beliefs and practices

Basic Beliefs of a True Gnostic

There are plenty more sites where Gnosticism is either the salvation of Christianity (!) or the greatest evil on the planet (!!).

I'm still doing a lot of processing and have come to no conclusions as of yet. The only 'fact' I have found is that no one today has any real idea what the rites and rituals of Gnostics might have been; the Church having done such a good job of murdering the heretics and burning all material that spoke of this tradition.
 
Gordian Knot said:
Good question. Have not had any luck thus far finding out who are the major authorities for and against. Here are some sites that put the basic facts of the religion down.
Click to expand...
Elaine Pagels is probably the most famous published pro-Gnostic, but she has few fans amongs scholars.

GNOSTICISM - Beliefs and practices
As good a place to start as any, I would have thought.

Basic Beliefs of a True Gnostic
Well this is one person's notion of what Gnosticism is, so not really much use as a historical reference.

Gordian Knot said:
The only 'fact' I have found is that no one today has any real idea what the rites and rituals of Gnostics might have been...
Click to expand...
Up until the Dead Sea Scrolls, all that scholars had was Irenaeus' Adversus Haereses and snippets from other writings. This did help, as often the writer would state the Gnostic doctrine, then ridicule it ... but scholars knew they were reading a very jaundiced account.

When the Dead Sea finds turned up, everyone hoped that there would be a 'breakthrough' that would turn the world on its head with regard to Christianity. Pro-Gnostics waited for the proof that the Gnostics were the good guys, the Fathers the bad ... but it never happened ...

Gordian Knot said:
... the Church having done such a good job of murdering the heretics and burning all material that spoke of this tradition.
Click to expand...
Not sure we can make that claim. We were nowhere near as powerful enough yet! :eek: Valentinus had a school in Rome, and spawned other schools, and Gnostic schools flourished for quite a while.

Texts were burnt, of course, or simply no-one bothered copying them. Many of the Father's writings were lost on the latter count, so I wouldn't read too much of a conspiracy into it.

The death of Hypatia in 415AD stands out, but really I think a thousand years were to pass before we got into our hetetics-at-the-stake stride ...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top