JUDAS ISCARIOT has become to Christian people an object of horror more
loathsome than even the devil himself. The devil rebelled because he
could not brook subjection to the Son of God, a failing which was noble
compared with treachery to the Son of man. The hatred of Judas is not
altogether virtuous. We compound thereby for our neglect of Jesus and
His precepts: it is easier to establish our Christianity by cursing the
wretched servant than by following his Master. The heinousness also of
the crime in Gethsemane has been aggravated by the exaltation of Jesus to
the Redeemership of the world. All that can be known of Judas is soon
collected. He was chosen one of the twelve apostles, and received their
high commission to preach the kingdom of heaven, to heal the sick, raise
the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out devils. He was appointed
treasurer to the community. John in telling the story of the anointing
at Bethany says that he was a thief, but John also makes him the sole
objector to the waste of the ointment. According to the other
evangelists all the disciples objected. Since he remained in office it
could hardly have been known at the time of the visit to Bethany that he
was dishonest, nor could it have been known at any time to Matthew and
Mark, for they would not have lost the opportunity of adding such a touch
to the portrait. The probability, therefore, is that the robbery of the
bag is unhistorical. When the chief priests and scribes sought how they
might apprehend Jesus they made a bargain with Judas to deliver Him to
them for thirty pieces of silver. He was present at the Last Supper but
went and betrayed his Lord. A few hours afterwards, when he found out
that condemnation to death followed, he repented himself and brought
again the thirty pieces of silver to his employers, declared that he had
sinned in betraying innocent blood, cast down the money at their feet,
and went and hanged himself.
This is all that is discoverable about Judas, and it has been considered
sufficient for a damnation deeper than any allotted to the worst of the
sons of Adam. Dante places him in the lowest round of the ninth or last
of the hellish circles, where he is eternally “champed” by Satan,
“bruised as with ponderous engine,” his head within the diabolic jaws and
“plying the feet without.” In the absence of a biography with details,
it is impossible to make out with accuracy what the real Judas was. We
can, however, by dispassionate examination of the facts determine their
sole import, and if we indulge in inferences we can deduce those which
are fairly probable. As Judas was treasurer, he must have been trusted.
He could hardly have been naturally covetous, for he had given up in
common with the other disciples much, if not all, to follow Jesus. The
thirty pieces of silver—some four or five pounds of our money—could not
have been considered by him as a sufficient bribe for the ignominy of a
treason which was to end in legal murder. He ought perhaps to have been
able to measure the ferocity of an established ecclesiastical order and
to have known what would have been the consequence of handing over to it
perfect, and therefore heretical, sincerity and purity, but there is no
evidence that he did know: nay, we are distinctly informed, as we have
just seen, that when he became aware what was going to happen his sorrow
for his wicked deed took a very practical shape.
We cannot allege with confidence that it was any permanent loss of
personal attachment to Jesus which brought about his defection. It came
when the belief in a theocracy near at hand filled the minds of the
disciples. These ignorant Galilean fishermen expected that in a very
short time they would sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of
Israel. The custodian of the bag, gifted with more common sense than his
colleagues, probably foresaw the danger of a collision with Rome, and may
have desired by a timely arrest to prevent an open revolt, which would
have meant immediate destruction of the whole band with women and
children. Can any position be imagined more irritating that that of a
careful man of business who is keeper of the purse for a company of
heedless enthusiasts professing complete indifference to the value of
money, misunderstanding the genius of their chief, and looking out every
morning for some sign in the clouds, a prophecy of their immediate
appointment as vicegerents of a power that would supersede the awful
majesty of the Imperial city? He may have been heated by a long series
of petty annoyances to such a degree that at last they may have ended in
rage and a sudden flinging loose of himself from the society. It is the
impulsive man who frequently suffers what appears to be inversion, and
Judas was impulsive exceedingly. Matthew, and Matthew only, says that
Judas asked for money from the chief priests. “What will ye give me, and
I will deliver Him unto you?” According to Mark, whose account of the
transaction is the same as Luke’s, “Judas . . . went unto the chief
priests to betray Him unto them. And when they heard it, they were glad,
and promised to give him money.” If the priests were the tempters, a
slight difference is established in favour of Judas, but this we will
neglect. The sin of taking money and joining in that last meal in any
case is black enough, although, as we have before pointed out, Judas did
not at the time know what the other side of the bargain was. Admitting,
however, everything that can fairly be urged against him, all that can be
affirmed with certainty is that we are in the presence of strange and
unaccountable inconsistency, and that an apostle who had abandoned his
home, who had followed Jesus for three years amidst contempt and
persecution, and who at last slew himself in self-reproach, could be
capable of committing the meanest of sins. Is the co-existence of
irreconcilable opposites in human nature anything new? The story of
Judas may be of some value if it reminds us that man is incalculable, and
that, although in theory, and no doubt in reality, he is a unity, the
point from which the divergent forces in him rise is often infinitely
beyond our exploration; a lesson not merely in psychology but for our own
guidance, a warning that side by side with heroic virtues there may sleep
in us not only detestable vices, but vices by which those virtues are
contradicted and even for the time annihilated. The mode of betrayal,
with a kiss, has justly excited loathing, but it is totally
unintelligible. Why should he have taken the trouble to be so base when
the movement of a finger would have sufficed? Why was any sign necessary
to indicate one who was so well known? The supposition that the devil
compelled him to superfluous villainy in order that he might be secured
with greater certainty and tortured with greater subtlety is one that can
hardly be entertained except by theologians. It is equally difficult to
understand why Jesus submitted to such an insult, and why Peter should
not have smitten down its perpetrator. Peter was able to draw his sword,
and it would have been safer and more natural to kill Judas than to cut
off the ear of the high priest’s servant. John, who shows a special
dislike to Judas, knows nothing of the kiss. According to John, Jesus
asked the soldiers whom they sought, and then stepped boldly forward and
declared Himself. “Judas,” adds John, “was standing with them.” As John
took such particular notice of what happened, the absence of the kiss in
his account can hardly have been accidental. It is a sound maxim in
criticism that what is simply difficult of explanation is likely to be
authentic. An awkward reading in a manuscript is to be preferred to one
which is easier. But an historical improbability, especially if no
corroboration of it is to be found in a better authority, may be set
aside, and in this case we are justified in neglecting the kiss.
Whatever may have been the exact shade of darkness in the crime of Judas,
it was avenged with singular swiftness, and he himself was the avenger.
He did not slink away quietly and poison himself in a ditch. He boldly
encountered the sacred college, confessed his sin and the innocence of
the man they were about to crucify. Compared with these pious miscreants
who had no scruples about corrupting one of the disciples, but shuddered
at the thought of putting back into the treasury the money they had taken
from it, Judas becomes noble. His remorse is so unendurable that it
drives him to suicide.
If a record could be kept of those who have abjured Jesus through love of
gold, through fear of the world or of the scribes and Pharisees, we
should find many who are considered quite respectable, or have even been
canonised, and who, nevertheless, much more worthily than Iscariot, are
entitled to “champing” by the jaws of Sathanas. Not a single scrap from
Judas himself has reached us. He underwent no trial, and is condemned
without plea or excuse on his own behalf, and with no cross-examination
of the evidence. No witnesses have been called to his character. What
would his friends at Kerioth have said for him? What would Jesus have
said? If He had met Judas with the halter in his hand would He not have
stopped him? Ah! I can see the Divine touch on the shoulder, the
passionate prostration of the repentant in the dust, the hands gently
lifting him, the forgiveness because he knew not what he did, and the
seal of a kiss indeed from the sacred lips.