Gnostic Character of Jesus Christ’s Teachings in the Novel by L. N. Andreev «Judas Iscariot»

Abstract

For many years the name of Judas Iscariot has been for Christians the synonym of the most terrible betrayal. The apocryphal gospel from Judas discovered in the middle of the 20th century did not change the perception of «the thirteenth apostle». The writer L. N. Andreev could not be acquainted with the text of Gospel from Judas, and this fact makes his novel «Judas Iscariot» (1907) doubly interesting. It is telling another version of the story which happened in Palestine in the second quarter of the first century AD, and it is different from the generally accepted view. The purpose of this study is to prove the assumption that L. N. Andreev not only deviates from the Orthodox canon in his novel but interprets the image of Judas and his relationship with Christ from the point of view of gnostic myth. The main methodological principle which has been used in the study is the tautological analysis of the novel based on actual scientific «Russian philosophy» researches (in particular, on the study of I. I. Evlampiev, professor of SPBU, on F. M. Dostoevsky’s works). During the process of research and after the goal has been achieved a number of perspective directions have been revealed for further research. One of them is the problem of sources which had impact on L. N. Andreev’s work (specifically on the novel «Judas Iscariot»).