The Gospel of Perfection was another work regarded as sacred by the Ophites. St. Epiphanius says: “Some of them (i.e. of the Gnostics) there are who vaunt the possession of a certain fictitious, far-fetched poem which they call the Gospel of Perfection, whereas it is not a Gospel, but the perfection of misery. For the bitterness of death is consummated in that production of the devil. Others without shame boast their Gospel of Eve.”

St. Epiphanius calls this Gospel of Perfection a poem, p???a. But M. Nicolas justly observes that the word p???a is used here, not to describe the work as a poetical composition, but as a fiction. In a passage of Irenaeus,490 of which only the Latin has been preserved, the Gospel of Judas is called “confictio,” and it is probable that the Greek word rendered by “confictio” was p???a.491

Baur thinks that the Gospel of Perfection was the same as the Gospel of Eve.492 But this can hardly be. The words of St. Epiphanius plainly distinguish them: “Some vaunt the Gospel of Perfection ... others boast ... the Gospel of Eve;” and elsewhere he speaks of their books in the plural.493