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Feast of the Resurrection Commentary
Hello everyone,
My question is about the Feast of Resurrection Commentary/Exposition (Arabic: Tarh). It starts with "Illuminate, illuminate..." (Coptic: Chi-o-oini).
You will find the full text of it here: http://tasbeha.org/hymn_library/view/2427 but this is the part that I want to discuss:
"Let Judas Iscariot be ashamed for his bishopric has been given to another. And his evil wife became blind because she counseled him to take the silver."
I am fairly sure the Holy Bible does not mention the part about Judas' wife. Is there any evidence that what this Commentary states is true?
My question is about the Feast of Resurrection Commentary/Exposition (Arabic: Tarh). It starts with "Illuminate, illuminate..." (Coptic: Chi-o-oini).
You will find the full text of it here: http://tasbeha.org/hymn_library/view/2427 but this is the part that I want to discuss:
"Let Judas Iscariot be ashamed for his bishopric has been given to another. And his evil wife became blind because she counseled him to take the silver."
I am fairly sure the Holy Bible does not mention the part about Judas' wife. Is there any evidence that what this Commentary states is true?
Comments
It is not hard to make some symbolic interpretation but I don't believe that would be fruitful.
The answer will be found once we answer who 'counseled him to take the silver'? Maybe his literal wife (if he had one), maybe the Pharisees, maybe the devil, etc.
Hopefully Fr. Peter has time to explain this odd passage.
I also wonder, since I don't know, if the Coptic text is shorter than the Arabic. If it is then at some point this tradition of Judas' wife has been introduced together with the additional verses.
The source is from a rare apocryphal Coptic text of the 5th/6th century or afterwards. This tells us no more than that at some point there were some Coptic Christians who shared this story about Judas, and we know that many apocryphal stories were created since they are the sort of thing that simple folk like to hear. Sometimes they contain a germ of historical truth, at other times they are meant only to be edifying stories. It is wrong to read back any ideas of modern academic history into earlier periods. Apocrypha was not meant to be history.
The fragment, and it is a fragment, of a text I discovered printed in an old volume says the following (my translation from French).
The Apostle Judas, when the devil had entered into him, went out and ran to the High Priests. He said 'What will you give me for the life?' They gave him 30 pieces of silver.
Now the wife of Judas had taken the son of Joseph of Arimathea so as to be a nursemaid to him. And the day on which the unfortunate Judas had received the 30 pieces of silver, and had taken them to his house, the little one would not suckle. Joseph came to the chamber of the wife of Judas. He came with anxiety for his son.
When the little child saw his father, he was seven months old, he cried out, saying,
'My father, come, take me from the hands of this woman, who is a savage beast. Since the 9th hour yesterday, they received the price of the blood of the righteous'.
As soon as he heard this, his father took him.
There are vague hints elsewhere in a few volumes that it was thought that Judas had a wife who nagged him into taking silver from the common purse. These references are also found in the fragments of Coptic apocrypha. I haven't been able to locate the exact passage anywhere available to me online, but in essence the apocryphal fragment says that the wife of Judas would urge him to take the money, and that sometimes he shared it with her, and other times he kept it for himself and they argued.
So this passage in the Resurrection Commentary is from an Apocryphal Coptic source of the 5th/6th centuries.
Father Peter
I find the account that Fr. Peter posted very fascinating. But at the same time, doesn't that seem to be a detail too important for all four Evangelists to leave out?
If you took every detail that is included in the wide range of Apocryphal works then the Gospels would be about 100 times bigger than they are. But the Apocrypha is not Scripture, which is why the Fathers did not include it in the New Testament. Indeed most of it was not written until hundreds of years after the New Testament writings.
Do not treat it the same as Scripture and you will escape confusion. It represents some of the stories and ideas that might have been popularly held, or were used for pious purposes. It is not Scripture.
Father Peter
Yeah, in the last part the Coptic text only says the very last bit: "Therefore we glorify Him, proclaiming and saying, “ 'Blessed are You O my Lord Jesus, for You have risen and saved us.' "
well...the reason for that is it is the gospel response (general gospel response in fact for many feasts and occasions). so i believe that across the years publishers mixed it into the exposition so abouna would say the arabic text of it and than the deacons would chant it in coptic. it's that same exact case with the bright saturday commentary.
In another apocrapha, Judas has a conversation with Mary Magdelene about the value of 30 pieces of silver. And Judas tells Mary Magdelene that he was once married but he does not know for sure because he "left her" immediately. This corroborates the first story.
There are multiple versions that attest to a discussion of Judas with his wife. She convinced him to betray his master. She is known as the woman of evil who deceived her husband to sin. This is an illusion to the Adam and Eve story. This is found in the Coptic Gospel of the Twelve Apostles and the Coptic Gospel of Peter. This seems to be the source of the text found in the Chioowini (Illuminate) Commentary.
Take out the legendary-like characteristics of the story, we can probably conclude that Judas Iscariot did have an evil wife who convinced him to betray Jesus. We can't say this for sure because there seems to be a completely separate Oedipus story of Judas Iscariot. This seems to be secondary to the other story.
Regardless, Apocrypha is really interesting stories. Most were meant to give a biblical truth. But many took it too far and added facts. It's ironic that most of the Apocrypha exists in Coptic when it is completely rejected by the Coptic Church.
George
Most were meant to give a biblical truth. But many took it too far and added facts.
Didn't get that part...
Your methods or resources. . .or any tips in general would be great. Thanks in advance :)
For myself, I tend to start with books.google.com which gives (limited) access to the content of many academic works. It usually works out that the paragraph you want to read most is not available in the sections of the book that are published via google. But usually books.google.com provides plenty of material to follow up.
In regard to this particular question there were volumes on New Testament Apocrypha which pointed to various texts and where they could be found. One was in a French translation in the Patrologia Orientalis series. This is a series of translations of works from the Oriental Orthodox tradition (and others). Many of the volumes are available on www.archive.org, so I downloaded the volumes that contained Coptic Apocrypha and scanned through them. They were in French so it was a little more time consuming than if they had been in English.
If I am looking for commentary on the Scriptures I use books.google.com, and try to access the Ancient Christian Commentary on the Scriptures series. But I also have (from www.archive.org) the Catena (or chain) of commentaries on the Gospels produced by Aquinas, but which is just excerpts from the Fathers so it remains very useful. I also use the commentaries by St Cyril which are available at www.tertullian.org/fathers, and on the same site there are letters by St Severus.
Mostly I use scanned books on books.google.com and www.archive.org
I don't presently have access to a university library, but when my wife was doing a module of her nursing degree I also had access to the online libraries of theological journals, and to full text copies of many academic theological works. I miss such access!
There is a vast amount of material available on line, both primary texts in original and translated languages from our Orthodox tradition, and many secondary materials, both dated and just released. Indeed there are more and more excellent works appearing. Father Richard Price, a Roman Catholic scholar in London, has produced definitive editions of the Acts of Chalcedon and Constantinople II, which are wonderful.
I just wish I had time to study :-(
Lord have mercy.
I also used Google books.
Most of the material I quoted came from this book The mediaeval legend of Judas Iscariot. The other book was Judas: images of the lost disciple, p.102. This also has a lot of information The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot: a new look at the betrayer and betrayed
Most of the time, I start reading a book and I look at the footnotes. They usually give references to the original Coptic texts. Many times authors ellaborate a certain point and to prove their point they give more references. Then I check those references and I instantly find a large web of information. I just have to weed through repetitious facts and come up with a summary.
The best way to get information is to go to a library. The best library in the world is Harvard Weidner. It has EVERYTHING. I don't get many opportunities to go to Harvard anymore since my reading privileges expired. But everytime I find a book on Google and search for the book in a library, WorldCat always finds it in Harvard. There are other libraries closer that I have access to and I find a lot of good stuff there.
But it's no secret. Use the correct search query in Google, start reading through some books and look for references, then read the book at a library.
George
Let me give you an example: you read that wine is prohibited and thus should not be used in the liturgy, and there were a group in the 2nd and 3rd centuries who actually did not use wine in the consecration of the offerings. The question you should ask: Does this agree with the Bible? How about the Church Tradition? The Fathers.
That is at least how I approach studying.
Thanks, man - duly noted.
WOW!!!.... this is interesting. i can try to find the full coptic text (since in almost all the coptic commentaries only a couple of verses are shown to be chanted).
I have all of the Coptic text; however, it is in a Coptic Katamaros for the Feast of the Resurrection and the 50 days. It is kind of long so is there anyway of sharing it with everyone without me typing it all out?
[quote author=minatasgeel link=topic=11309.msg136525#msg136525 date=1303747695]
WOW!!!.... this is interesting. i can try to find the full coptic text (since in almost all the coptic commentaries only a couple of verses are shown to be chanted).
I have all of the Coptic text; however, it is in a Coptic Katamaros for the Feast of the Resurrection and the 50 days. It is kind of long so is there anyway of sharing it with everyone without me typing it all out?
you should take the blessing of typing it up.
[quote author=minatasgeel link=topic=11309.msg136525#msg136525 date=1303747695]
WOW!!!.... this is interesting. i can try to find the full coptic text (since in almost all the coptic commentaries only a couple of verses are shown to be chanted).
I have all of the Coptic text; however, it is in a Coptic Katamaros for the Feast of the Resurrection and the 50 days. It is kind of long so is there anyway of sharing it with everyone without me typing it all out?
What is the title of your Katameros? Maybe if you give us the reference, we can find it locally and see if someone else can type it.
George
There are many reasons why pious tradition enters into liturgical texts and becomes common. There are also reasons why some pious stores are explicitly excluded and resisted. But if we are to remove or question all stories for actual fact, we are faced with a bigger problem: How do you define fact? As I said, it cannot be defined as "found in the scripture" or "written centuries later". Otherwise, I can give you a few stories off that top of my head that everyone considers factual but is not found in scripture and no one has any proof whatsoever.
In addition, when searching for truth and fact, there needs to be a balance between piety and intellect. We know God reveals more truth and revelation about Himself to pious saints. Are we to question all our saints who spoke to God since there is no actual evidence? No. We also need simple piety to trust in God's revelations, trust in the Church who decides what is important, and trust in the gifts God gives (including piety and intellect). At the same time, we don't declare apocrypha as having equal credibility as scripture (as many non-evangelical Protestants and atheists do).
I hope this helped.