Judas therefore became the chief apostle to the Cainites. They composed a Gospel under his name, τό Εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ Ἰουδα.(510) Irenæus also mentions it;(511) it must therefore date from the second century. Theodoret mentions it likewise. But none of the ancient Fathers quote it. Not a single fragment of this curious work has been preserved. “It is certainly to be regretted,” says M. Nicolas, “that this monument of human folly has completely disappeared. It should have been carefully preserved as a monument, full of instruction, of the errors into which man is capable of falling, when he abandons himself blindly to theological dogmatism.”(512) In addition to the Gospel of Judas, the Cainites possessed an apocryphal book relating to that apostle whom they venerated scarcely second to Judas, viz. St. Paul. It was entitled the “Ascension of Paul,” Ἀναβατικὸν Παύλου,(513) and related to his translation into the third heaven, and the revelation of unutterable things he there received.(514) An “Apocalypse of Paul” has been preserved, but it almost certainly is a different book from the Anabaticon. It contains nothing favouring the heretical views of the Cainites, and was read in some of the churches of Palestine. This Apocalypse in Greek has been published by Dr. Tischendorf in his Apocalypses Apocryphae (Lips. 1866), and the translation of a later Syriac version in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. VIII. 1864.(515) FOOTNOTES 1 Joseph. Antiq. xii. 5; 1 Maccab. i. 11‐15, 43, 52; 2 Maccab. iv. 9‐16. 2 πονήροι, ἀσεβεῖς.—Antiq. xiii. 4, xii. 10. 3 Baba‐Kama, fol. 82; Menachoth, fol. 64; Sota, fol. 49; San‐Baba, fol. 90. 4 Menachoth, fol. 99. 5 Baba‐Kama, fol. 63. 6 Mass. Sopherim, c. i. in Othonis Lexicon Rabbin. p. 329. 7 Philo is not mentioned by name once in the Talmud, nor has a single sentiment or interpretation of an Alexandrine Jew been admitted into the Jerusalem or Babylonish Talmud. 8 Aristobulus wrote a book to prove that the Greek sages drew their philosophy from Moses, and addressed his book to Ptolemy Philometor. 9 Gal. iv. 24, 25. 10 Col. i. 16. 11 1 Cor. x. 21. 12 Dante, Parad. xiv. 13 See the question carefully discussed in M. F. Delaunay’s Moines et Sibylles; Paris, 1874, pp. 28 sq. 14 See, on this curious topic, C. Aubertin: Sénèque et St. Paul; Paris, 1872.