JUDAS ISCARIOT
To the civil trial of our Lord there is a sad appendix, as we have
already had one to the ecclesiastical trial. Christ's great confession
in the palace of the high priest was accompanied by the great denial of
Peter outside; and the proceedings in the court of Pontius Pilate were
accompanied by the final act of the treachery of Judas. Only in the
latter case we are not able with the same accuracy to fix the
circumstances of time and place.
I.
Judas is one of the darkest riddles of human history. In the Vision of
Hell the poet Dante, after traversing the circles of the universe of
woe, in which each separate kind of wickedness receives its peculiar
punishment, arrives at last, in the company of his guide, at the
nethermost circle of all, in the very bottom of the pit, where the
worst of all sinners and the basest of all sins are undergoing
retribution. It is a lake not of fire but of ice, beneath whose
transparent surface are visible, fixed in painful postures, the figures
of those who have betrayed their benefactors; because this, in Dante's
estimation, is the worst of sins. In the midst of them stands out,
vast and hideous, "the emperor who sways the realm of woe"--Satan
himself; for this was the crime which lost him Paradise. And the next
most conspicuous figure is Judas Iscariot. He is in the mouth of
Satan, being champed and torn by his teeth as in a ponderous engine.
Such was the mediaeval view of this man and his crime. But in modern
times opinion has swung round to the opposite extreme. Ours is an age
of toleration, and one of its favourite occupations is the
rehabilitation of evil reputations. Men and women who have stood for
centuries in the pillory of history are being taken down; their cases
are retried; and they are set up on pedestals of admiration. Sometimes
this is done with justice, but is other cases it has been carried to
absurdity. Nobody, it would appear, has ever been very bad; the
criminals and scoundrels have been men whose motives have been
misunderstood. Among those on whose behalf the attempt has thus been
made to reverse the verdict of history is Judas Iscariot. Eighteen
centuries had agreed to regard him as the meanest of mankind, but in
our century he has been transmuted into a kind of hero. The theory is
of German origin; but it was presented to the English public by De
Quincey, who adorned it with all the persuasiveness of his meretricious
genius.
It is held that the motive of Judas was totally different from the one
hitherto supposed: it was not filthy lucre. The smallness of the price
for which he sold his Master--it was less than four pounds of our
money, though the value of this sum was much greater then--proves that
there must have been another motive. The traditional conception is
inconsistent with Christ's choice of him to be a disciple; and it is
irreconcilable with the tragic greatness of his repentance. His view
of Christ's enterprise was no doubt of a material cast: he expected
Christ to be a king, and hoped to hold a high place in His court: but
these ideas were common to all the disciples, who to the very end were
waiting to see their Master throw off the cloak of His humble condition
and take to Himself His great power and reign; only they left the time
and the means in their Master's hands, not venturing to criticise His
proceedings. Judas was not so patient. He was a man of energy and
practicality, and he allowed himself to believe that he had discerned a
defect in the character of his Master. Jesus was too spiritual and
unworldly for the enterprise on which he had embarked--too much
occupied with healing, preaching and speculating. These would be well
enough when once the kingdom was established; but He was losing His
opportunities. His delay had turned against Him the authoritative
classes. One vast force, indeed, was still on His side--the enthusiasm
of the populace--but even of it He was not taking advantage. When, on
Palm Sunday, He was borne into the capital by a crowd throbbing with
Messianic expectation, He seemed to have in His hand what Judas
supposed to be the object of His life; but He did nothing, and the
crowd dispersed, disappointed and disheartened. What Jesus required
was to be precipitated into a situation where He would be compelled to
act. He lacked energy and decision; but, if He were delivered into the
hands of the authorities, who were known to be seeking His life, He
could hesitate no longer. When they laid hands on Him, He would of
course liberate Himself from them, and His miraculous power would
exhibit itself in forms so irresistible as to awaken universal
enthusiasm. Thus would His kingdom be set up in magnificence; and the
man whom the king would delight to honour would surely be the humble
follower by whose shrewdness and audacity the crisis had been brought
about.
II.
Even if this were the true history of Judas, his conduct would not,
perhaps, be as innocent as it looks. In the course of His life our
Lord had frequently to deal with persons who attempted, from what
appeared to themselves to be good motives, to interfere with His
plans--to precipitate Him into action before His time or to restrain
Him when His time had come--and He always resented such interference
with indignation. Even His own mother was not spared when she played
this part. To do God's will exactly, neither more nor less, neither
anticipating it nor lagging behind it, was the inner-most principle of
the life of Jesus; and He treated any interference with it as a
suggestion of the Evil One.
Still the theory will not hold water. The Scriptures know nothing of
it, and it is inconsistent with the tone of moral repulsion in which
they speak of Judas. Besides, they assign a totally different motive.
They affirm that Judas was a thief and stole out of the bag from which
Jesus gave to the poor and supplied His own wants--a sacrilege which
most thieves would have scorned. It is in entire accordance with this
that the word with which he approached the Sanhedrim was, "How much
will ye give me?" That he was willing to accept so little proves how
strong his passion was.
It is altogether impossible that a character of this kind can have been
combined with the generous although mistaken enthusiasm which the
theory attributes to him.[1] But, on the other hand, the passion of
avarice may easily have been nourished by brooding with disappointment
on Messianic visions; and the theory of De Quincey may supply important
hints for unravelling the mystery of his career.
There can be no doubt that at one time the life of Judas seemed full of
promise. Jesus, who was so strict about permitting any to follow Him,
would not have chosen him into the apostolic circle unless he had
exhibited enthusiasm for His person and His cause. He well knew,
indeed, that in his motives there was a selfish alloy; but this was the
case with all His followers; and fellowship with Himself was the fire
in which the alloy was to be purged out.
In the other apostles this process actually took place: they were
refined by fellowship with Him. Their worldliness, indeed, remained to
the end of His earthly career, but it was growing less and less; and
other ties, stronger than their hopes of earthly glory, were slowly but
surely binding them indissolubly to His cause. In Judas, on the
contrary, the reverse process took place: what was good in him grew
less and less, and at last the sole bond which held him to Christ was
what he could make out of the connection.
When the suspicion first dawned on him that the hope of a Messianic
kingdom was not to be fulfilled, the inner man of Judas underwent a
critical change. This happened a year before the end, on the occasion
when Christ resisted the attempt of His followers to take Him by force
and make Him a king, and when many of His disciples went back and
walked no more with Him. At that time Jesus warned Judas against the
evil spirit which he was allowing to take possession of his mind by the
strong saying, "Have I not chosen you twelve? and one of you is a
devil." But the disciple did not heed the warning. Perhaps it was at
this stage that he commenced to steal from the bag which he carried.
He felt that he must have some tangible reward for following Christ,
and he justified his peculation by saying to himself that what he was
taking was infinitely less than he had been led to expect. He regarded
himself as an ill-used man.
Under the practice of this secret sin his character could not but
rapidly deteriorate. Jesus dropped a word of warning now and then; but
it had the reverse of the desired effect. Judas knew that Jesus knew;
and he grew to hate Him. This was by far the worst aspect of the case.
The other disciples were becoming more and more attached to their
Master, because they felt increasingly how much they owed Him; but
Judas did not feel that he owed Him anything: on the contrary, his
feeling was that he had been betrayed. Why should he not betray in
turn? There may even have been an element of scorn in selling Christ
for so little.
More than one of the Evangelists seem to connect the treachery of Judas
directly with the scene at Bethany in which Mary anointed Jesus with
costly ointment. Apparently this beautiful act brought all the evil in
his heart to such a head that an outbreak could no longer be deferred.
His spite found vent in the angry contention that the money ought to
have been given to the poor. It was a large sum, off which he could
have taken an unusually large slice of booty. But probably there was
more in the occasion to incense Judas. To him this feasting and
anointing, at the moment when the crisis of Christ's fortunes had
obviously come, appeared sheer folly; as a practical man he despised
it. It was manifest that the game was up; a leader loitering and
dreaming in this fashion at the crisis of his fate was doomed. It was
time to get out of the ship, for it was clearly sinking; but he would
do so in such a way as to gratify his resentment, his scorn and his
love of money all at once.
Thus the master-passion of Judas was nourished from potent springs.
But, indeed, avarice in itself is one of the most powerful of motives.
In the teaching of the pulpit it may seldom be noticed, but both in
Scripture and in history it occupies a prominent place. It is
questionable if anything else makes so many ill deeds to be done.
Avarice breaks all the commandments. Often has it put the weapon into
the hand of the murderer; in most countries of the world it has in
every age made the ordinary business of the market-place a warfare of
falsehood; the bodies of men and the hearts of women have been sold for
gold. Why is it that gigantic wrongs flourish from age to age, and
practices utterly indefensible are continued with the overwhelming
sanction of society? It is because there is money in them. Avarice is
a passion of demonic strength; but it may help us to keep it out of our
hearts to remember that it was the sin of Judas.
III.
The repentance of Judas is alleged as the sign of a superior spirit.
Certainly it is an indication of the goodness which he once possessed,
because it is only by the light of a spark of goodness that the
darkness of sin can be perceived; and the more the conscience has been
enlightened the severer is the reaction when it is outraged. Those who
have in any degree shared the company of Christ can never afterwards be
as if they had not enjoyed this privilege; and religion, if it does not
save, will be the cruellest element in the soul's perdition.
It is not certain at what point the reaction in the mind of Judas set
in.[2] There were many incidents of the trial well calculated to
awaken in him a revulsion of feeling. At length, however, the
retributive powers of conscience were thoroughly aroused--those powers
which in all literature have formed the theme of the deepest tragedy;
which in the Bible are typified by Cain, escaping as a fugitive and a
vagabond from the cry of his brother's blood; which in Greek literature
are shadowed forth by the terrible figures of the Eumenides, with
gorgon faces and blood-dropping eyes, following silently but
remorselessly those upon whose track they have been set; and which in
Shakespeare are represented in the soul-curdling scenes of Macbeth and
Richard III. He was seized with an uncontrollable desire to undo what
he had done. The money, on which his heart had been set, was now like
a spectre to his excited fancy. Every coin seemed to be an eye through
which eternal justice was gazing at his crime or to have a tongue
crying out for vengeance. As the murderer is irresistibly drawn back
to the spot where his victim lies, he returned to the place where his
deed of treachery had been transacted and, confronting those by whom he
had been employed, handed back the money with the passionate
confession, "I have betrayed innocent blood." But he had come to
miserable comforters. With cynical disdain they asked, "What is that
to us? See thou to that." They had been cordial enough to him when he
had come before, but now, after the instrument has served their turn,
they fling it contemptuously aside. The miserable man had to turn away
from the scorn of the partners of his guilt; but he could keep the
money no longer--it was burning in his hands--and, before escaping from
the precincts, he flung it down. This is said to have happened in that
part of the temple which could be entered only by the priests;[3] and
he must either have made a rush across the forbidden threshold or
availed himself of an open door to fling it in. Not only did he desire
to be rid of it, but a passionate impulse urged him to leave with the
priests their own share of the guilt.
Then he rushed away from the temple. But where was he going? Oh that
it had been in him to flee to Christ--that, breaking through all
obstacles and rules, he had rushed to Him wherever He was to be found
and cast himself at His feet! What if the soldiers had cut him down?
Then he would have been the martyr of penitence, and that very day he
would have been with Christ in Paradise. Judas repented of his sin; he
confessed it; he cast from him the reward of iniquity; but his
penitence lacked the element which is most essential of all--he did not
turn to God. True repentance is not the mere horror and excitement of
a terrified conscience: it is the call of God; it is letting go the
evil because the good has prevailed; it includes faith as well as fear.
IV.
The manner of his end is also used as an argument in favour of the more
honourable view of Judas. The act of suicide is one which has not
infrequently been invested with a glamour of romance, and to go out of
life the Roman way, as it is called, has been considered, even by
Christians, an evidence of unusual strength of mind. The very reverse
is, however, the true character of suicide: except in those melancholy
cases where the reason is impaired, it must be pronounced the most
contemptible act of which a human being is capable. It is an escape
from the burdens and responsibilities of existence; but these burdens
and responsibilities are left to be borne by others, and along with
them is left an intolerable heritage of shame. From a religious point
of view it appears in a still worse light. Not only does the suicide,
as even heathen writers have argued, desert the post of duty where
Providence has placed him, but he virtually denies the character and
even the existence of God. He denies His character, for, if he
believed in His mercy and love, he would flee to instead of from Him;
and he denies His existence, for no one who believed that he was to
meet God on the other side of the veil would dare in this disorderly
way to rush into His presence.
The mode of Judas' suicide was characteristically base. Hanging does
not appear to have been at all usual among the Jews. In the entire Old
Testament there is said to occur only a single case; and, strange to
say, it is that of the man who, in the principal act of his life also,
was the prototype of Judas. Ahithophel, the counsellor and friend of
David, betrayed his master, as Judas betrayed Christ; and he came to
the same ignominious end.
It would seem, further, that the hanging of Judas was accompanied with
circumstances of unusual horror. This we gather from the account in
the beginning of Acts.[4] The terms employed are obscure; but they
probably signify that the suicidal act was attended by a clumsy
accident, in consequence of which the body, being suspended over a
precipice and suddenly dropped by the snapping of the rope, was mangled
in a shocking manner, which made a profound impression on all who heard
of it.[5]
And this sense of his end being accursed was further accentuated in the
minds of the early Christians by the circumstance that the money for
which he had sold Christ was eventually used for the purchase of a
graveyard for burying strangers in. The priests, though they picked up
the coins from the floor over which Judas had strewn them, did not,
scrupulous men, consider them good enough to be put in the sacred
treasury; so they applied them to this purpose. The public wit,
hearing of it, dubbed the place the Field of Blood; and thus the
cemetery became a kind of monument to the traitor, of which he took
possession as the first of the outcasts for whom it was designed.
The world has agreed to regard Judas as the chief of sinners; but, in
so judging, it has exceeded its prerogative. Man is not competent to
judge his brother. The master-passion of Judas was a base one; Dante
may be right in considering treachery the worst of crimes; and the
supreme excellence of Christ affixes an unparalleled stigma to the
injury inflicted on Him. But the motives of action are too hidden, and
the history of every deed is too complicated, to justify us in saying
who is the worst of men. It is not at all likely that those whom human
opinion would rank highest in merit or saintliness will be assigned the
same positions in the rewards of the last day; and it is just as
unlikely that human estimates are right when they venture to assign the
degrees of final condemnation. Two things it is our duty to do in
regard to Judas: first, not so to palliate his sin as to blunt the
healthy, natural abhorrence of it; and, secondly, not to think of him
as a sinner apart and alone, with a nature so different from our own
that to us he can be no example. But for the rest, there is only one
verdict which is at once righteous, dignified and safe; and it is
contained in the declaration of St. Peter, that he "went to his own
place."
[1] Hanna, in _The Last Day of Our Lord's Passion_, attempts to combine
both motives, but without being able really to unite them; they remain
as distinct as oil and water.
[2] If, as St. Matthew seems to indicate, Judas disappeared from the
scene long before the end of the trial, this is strongly against the
theory of De Quincey, according to which he must have stayed to the
last moment, hoping to see Jesus assert Himself.
[3] _En to nao_.
[4] St. Matthew knows best the beginning, St. Luke the end of the story.
[5] De Quincey's interpretation of the words as a description of mental
anguish must be felt by every reader of the brilliant essay to be
forced and unnatural.