The Gospel of Judas

"The secret message of judgment Jesus spoke with Judas Iscariot" in the days before Passover: Jesus laughs at the disciples' worship of their God, reveals to Judas alone the great invisible Spirit, the realm of Barbelo, the generation of Seth and the rulers Nebro (Yaldabaoth) and Saklas who made Adam, and tells him he will "sacrifice the human who bears me". A Sethian Gnostic work; Irenaeus (c. AD 180) already knew of a Gospel of Judas, so the Greek original is 2nd-century. It survives only in Coptic in Codex Tchacos (3rd-4th century), found in Middle Egypt in the 1970s and published in 2006; the papyrus is damaged, and scholars still disagree whether the book makes Judas a hero or the "thirteenth demon" it also calls him. This is Mark M. Mattison's public-domain translation; chapter numbers are the manuscript's page numbers (33-58) and each paragraph is a verse. Square brackets mark gaps and restorations. Not part of any church's canon.