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seems to me that even the hint of the suggestion of Jesus having a literal "twin" would immediately raise all sorts of very, very worrying, shall i say, conceptual questions in the minds of even the most anatomically challenged Early Christian/Middlevil. surely it is a matter, in the later West at least, of J. Iskariot serving as another sort of doppleganger, something like a Jungian "shadow" figure? this is how the lovely St. Gilles (or was it Arles?) Kiss speaks to me, at least. or, for that matter the equally interesting one in the capital frieze of the Royal Portal @ Chartres. best to all from here, christopher [log in to unmask] (Robert Kraft) wrote: It is difficult to ascertain what the "twin" category may have meant to people in the early centuries as well, but my point was to suggest how the appellation "twin" (Aramaic "Thoma") could come to be associated with a Judah/Judas other than the one we call Thomas. Since the Acts of Thomas were preserved in Greek in the east, I would expect to find some later evidence for the Judas Thomas = twin tradition in eastern sources. What happened to it in the west is another matter. But I doubt that it appeared in the west out of nowhere, as it were. Probably the vague reference to "Judas" as "twin" (Thoma, Didymos) led to the misidentification with Judas Iskariot somewhere along the line. Bob Kraft, UPenn > <pre>The "twinning" in question is not physical but symbolic: Judas and Jesus > (and God the Father for that matter) both handed over Jesus' body for > crucifixion. Jeffrey Burton Russell (The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from > Antiquity to Primitive Christianity. Cornell UP, 1977) says this: > "Judas is such a close counterpart of Jesus that one senses an analogy between > their relationship and that of the doublets so often found in mythology...The > analogy may be even closer: in the great scheme of salvation the [sic] God knew > from all time that Jesus would be the savior and Judas the betrayer; and as the > betrayer of Jesus was necessary for the Passion of Christ, the God might be said > to have chosen Judas for his part in the act of salvation as well as Jesus for > his." (pp. 239-40 > This comes very close to Abelard's thinking. He puts the apostle Thomas in > (almost) the same boat as Judas for his doubt. > Elasticus mentioned Luscombe's work; here is what Luscombe says: > "Abelard distinguished the various gifts which Christ gave to his Apostles and > suggested, not without hesitation, that the gift of the Spirit to remit or > retain sins (Jn20:22.3) was specially reserved to the worthy Apostles, excluding > the traitor Judas and the unbelieving Thomas..." (Abelard would have had to rely > solely on John's Gospel for such an argument.) > In a word, the "twinning" is moral or symbolic, not physical. > Kathryn Wildgen RAK wrote: > If someone else has covered this, forgive me. I just returned from a two > week tour of early Jewish and early Christian sites in western Turkey, and > am frantically playing catch up. > > Judas as twin of Jesus is an important theme in some early Christian > circles, but the Judas in question is not the betrayer, but Judas Didymus > Thomas (Didymus [Greek] = "twin" = Thomas [Aramaic]). The apostle/disciple > popularly known as Thomas seems to have been named Judah/Judas (one of > several by that name), and the tradition about him makes him a "twin" in > some sense of Jesus. See especially the "Acts of Thomas," and discussions > of the opening lines of the Nag Hammadi Coptic "Gospel of Thomas." In the > Acts of Thomas, there is even a passage that says something like "we both > nursed at the same breast." > > Bob Kraft, UPenn -- Robert A. Kraft, Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania 227 Logan Hall (Philadelphia PA 19104-6304); tel. 215 898-5827 [log in to unmask] http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/kraft.html ____________________________________________________________________ Get free email and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%