Judas Iscariot the traitor
Judas Iscariot the traitor
Having seen how Jesus was handed over by the priests to Pilate, and by Pilate to the soldiers, we now have to consider how in the first place he was handed over to the priests by Judas. This ‘handing over’ is specifically termed a ‘betrayal’. Indeed, Maundy Thursday will always be remembered as ‘the night on which he was betrayed’ (1 Cor. 11:23), and Judas as ‘he who betrayed him’. This accusing epitaph is already attached to his name when it is first mentioned in the Gospels among the Twelve. All three Synoptic evangelists put him at the bottom of their list of the apostles.13
It is not unusual to hear people expressing sympathy for Judas. They feel he was given an unfair deal in his lifetime and has had an unfair press ever since. ‘After all,’ they say, ‘if Jesus had to die, somebody had to betray him. So why blame Judas? He was but the tool of providence, the victim of predestination.’ Well, the biblical narrative certainly indicates that Jesus foreknew the identity of his betrayer14 and referred to him as ‘doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled’.15 It is also true that Judas did what he did only after Satan first ‘prompted’ him and then actually ‘entered into him’.16
Nevertheless, none of this exonerates Judas. He must be held responsible for what he did, having no doubt plotted it for some time previously. The fact that his betrayal was foretold in the Scriptures does not mean that he was not a free agent, any more than the Old Testament predictions of the death of Jesus mean that he did not die voluntarily. So Luke referred later to his ‘wickedness’ (Acts 1:18). However strong the Satanic influences upon him were, there must have been a time when he opened himself to them. Jesus seems clearly to have regarded him as responsible for his actions, for even at the last minute in the upper room he made a final appeal to him by dipping a piece of bread in the dish and giving it to him (John 13:25–30). But Judas rejected Jesus’ appeal, and his betrayal has always seemed the more odious because it was a flagrant breach of hospitality. In this it fulfilled another Scripture which said: ‘Even my close friend, whom I trusted, he who shared my bread, has lifted up his heel against me’ (Ps. 41:9). Judas’ ultimate cynicism was to choose to betray his Master with a kiss, using this sign of friendship as a means to destroy it. So Jesus affirmed his guilt, saying, ‘Woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born’ (Mark 14:21). Not only did Jesus thus condemn him, but he came in the end to condemn himself. He acknowledged his crime in betraying innocent blood, returned the money for which he had sold Jesus, and committed suicide. Doubtless he was seized more with remorse than repentance, but at least he confessed his guilt.
The motive for Judas’ crime has long occupied the curiosity and ingenuity of students. Some have been convinced that he was a Jewish zealot,17 had joined Jesus and his followers in the belief that theirs was a national liberation movement, and finally betrayed him either out of political disillusion or as a ploy to force Jesus’ hand and compel him to fight. Those who attempt a reconstruction of this kind think they find confirmatory evidence in his name ‘Iscariot’, although everybody admits that it is obscure. It is generally taken to indicate his origin as a ‘man of Kerioth’, a town in the southern territory of Judah which is mentioned in Joshua 15:25. But those who think Judas was a zealot suggest that ‘Iscariot’ is linked to the word sikarios, an assassin (from the Latin sica and Greek sikarion, a ‘dagger’). Josephus refers to the sikarioi.18
Fired with a fanatical Jewish nationalism, they were determined to recover their country’s independence from the colonial domination of Rome, and to this end did not shrink from assassinating their political enemies, whom they despised as collaborators. They are referred to once in the New Testament, namely when the Roman commander who had rescued Paul from being lynched in Jerusalem told him he had thought he was ‘the Egyptian who started a revolt and led four thousand terrorists (sikarioi) out into the desert some time ago’ (Acts 21:38).
Other commentators consider the basis for this reconstruction too flimsy, and attribute the defection of Judas to a moral fault rather than a political motivation, namely the greed which the fourth evangelist mentions. He tells us that Judas was the ‘treasurer’ (as we would say) of the apostolic band, having been entrusted with the common purse. The occasion of John’s comment was the anointing of Jesus by Mary of Bethany. She brought an alabaster jar containing very expensive perfume (‘pure nard’ according to Mark and John), which she proceeded to pour over him as he was reclining at table, until the house was filled with the fragrant scent. It was a gesture of lavish, almost reckless devotion, which Jesus himself later called a ‘beautiful thing’. But some present (of whom Judas was the spokesman) reacted in a totally different way. Watching her with incredulity, they ‘snorted’ (literally) with self-righteous indignation. ‘What a waste!’ they said. ‘What wicked extravagance! The perfume could have been sold for more than a year’s wages, and the money given to the poor.’ But their comment was sick and insincere, as John goes on to say. Judas ‘did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it’. Indeed, having witnessed and denounced what he saw as Mary’s irresponsible wastefulness, he seems to have gone straight to the priests to recoup some of the loss. ‘What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?’ he asked them. No doubt they then began to bargain, and in the end agreed on thirty silver coins, the ransom price of a common slave. The evangelists with their sense of high drama deliberately contrast Mary and Judas, her uncalculating generosity and his coldly calculated bargain. What other dark passions were seething in his heart we can only guess, but John insists that it was monetary greed which finally overwhelmed him. Incensed by the waste of a year’s wages, he went and sold Jesus for barely a third of that amount.19
It is not for nothing that Jesus tells us to ‘beware of all covetousness’, or that Paul declares the love of money to be ‘a root of all kinds of evil’.20 For in pursuit of material gain human beings have descended to deep depravity. Magistrates have perverted justice for bribes, like the judges of Israel of whom Amos said: ‘They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals’ (2:6). Politicians have used their power to give contracts to the highest bidder, and spies have sunk low enough to sell their country’s secrets to the enemy. Businessmen have entered into shady transactions, jeopardizing the prosperity of others in order to get a better deal. Even supposedly spiritual teachers have been known to turn religion into a commercial enterprise, and some are still doing it today, so that a candidate for the pastorate is warned not to be ‘a lover of money’.21 The language of all such people is the same as that of Judas: ‘what are you willing to give me, and I will hand him over to you?’ For ‘everybody has his price’, the cynic asserts, from the hired assassin, who is prepared to bargain over somebody’s life, to the petty official who delays the issue of a permit or passport until his bribe has been paid. Judas was not exceptional. Jesus had said that it is impossible to serve God and money. Judas chose money. Many others have done the same.