XX

JUDAS ISCARIOT1

AND JUDAS, WHICH BETRAYED HIM, ANSWERED AND SAID, IS IT I, RABBI ?—-St. Matthew xxvi. 25.

THE history of Christ's Passion is haunted by the sombre and enigmatic figure of the traitor apostle. He is in sharp contrast with the loving lavishness of Mary, and the sublime magnanimity of the Master, and the quick repentance of Peter. No element of sordid meanness is absent from his treason: he is coarse, brazen, cruel; and his belated remorse expresses itself in the desperate crime of suicide. Judas has figured in the cavils of hostile critics of the Gospel, both ancient and modern; and even now, orthodox apologists cannot agree as to their line of defence; finally, the modern student of the evangelic narratives is embarrassed by the discrepancies which throw doubt on the story of his fate. "The fact of the treason of Judas," says a modern German critic,

1 Preached on Palm Sunday, April 5, 1903, in St. Margaret's, Westminster.

"is so unexpected, so incredible, so terrible: it jeopardises our faith so painfully, not only in human fidelity, but also in the dignity and greatness of Jesus, in his knowledge, his judgment, his keenness of vision, and above all, the weight of his influence, and of that love of his which could melt even ice, and it is such a mark for the scoffing of enemies, beginning with the venomous Celsus, that we should have to greet it as the removal of a hundred pound weight from the heart of Christendom, if the treason of Judas could be proved to have had no existence." 1 Accordingly it is suggested that "the growth of the story of Judas" can be “adequately explained on some other hypothesis than that of its truth. I confess that for myself I do not feel the difficulty, nor appreciate the proposed alternatives to the accepted version of the facts. No part of the Gospel seems to me to carry truth so

patently on its face as

To me

the narrative of the Passion; and no figure in the tragedy is so finely drawn as this of Judas. it seems impossible to doubt that the record of the Evangelists brings us as near the actual facts as human testimony can. The more closely the narrative is studied, the more convinced we are of its truth. Could any literary skill invest it with

1 Keim, quoted by Dr. Cheyne in Ency. Bibl. ii. 2628.

those touches, so luminous and so life-like, which arrest and move us so strangely? The change of address, for instance, from the familiar and reverent "Lord" to the chill and formal "Rabbi" could hardly have suggested itself to the Evangelist; he must have found it in his facts. "They were exceeding sorrowful, and began to say unto Him every one, Is it I, Lord? . . . And Judas, which betrayed Him, answered and said, Is it I, Rabbi?" In the very scene of betrayal the episode of the kiss is almost inexplicable apart from the fact. "The demonstrative kiss (κατεφίλησεν = he kissed Him much) has no parallel in history, and could hardly have been invented; all the less so, because the narrative tells us that by going forward to meet His captors, and declaring Himself to be the person whom they were seeking, Jesus rendered the signal unnecessary."1

And even in the most doubtful part of the record, that which narrates the death of Judas, who can avoid the impression of that scene in the Temple, when the desperate and remorseful traitor faced his priestly accomplices on the morrow of the consummated crime? "He cast down the pieces of silver in the sanctuary, and departed: and he went away 1 Dr. Plummer in Hastings' Dictionary, ii. 797.

and hanged himself." The Greek words are remarkable, and could hardly have suggested themselves to a mere literary compiler; they must have been dictated by the facts: "He hurled the silver pieces into the Holy Place and went into solitude." "Into the vaós (or sanctuary) the priests alone might go. It included both the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. It is never used like iepóv for the whole temple. Either this is a strange exception, or Judas in his desperation rushed into the sanctuary, or (most probably) he hurled the money from a distance. Again, ȧvéxwpnσev means more than ‘departed': it is commonly used of those who shun company, retire from observation.” 1

What a fearful picture of desperate disillusion! Crime, like necessity, makes strange bed-fellows : the peasant's ingrained, hereditary respect for the hierarchy, his awful, superstitious regard for the Holy Place, have vanished for ever; the discovery of his own immense guilt is as a sudden light on those solemn pontiffs who tempted and bought him. It is the most dreadful scene in all the records of human crime: the remorseful peasant turning back in an agony of prayer to his seducers, and being met with jeers, and making answer in that wild 1 Dr. Plummer, 1.c.

action-hurling the accursed bribe into the hallowed recesses of the Temple, and rushing away into a solitude which he would only leave in the crowning madness of suicide. "Such is the purchase of treason," moralises Jeremy Taylor, "and the reward of covetousness; it is cheap in its offers, momentary in its possession, unsatisfying in the fruition, uncertain in the stay, sudden in its departure, horrid in the remembrance, and a ruin, a certain and miserable ruin, is in the event." 1

The naturalness of the narrative is what I ask you to notice-the sudden and irresistible revulsion of feeling in the traitor's mind. I am sure that we need not hesitate to accept the record of the Gospel as a picture drawn from life of spiritual ruin, selfwrought, complete, and irretrievable. "And Judas, which betrayed Him, answered and said, Is it I, Rabbi?" The question has been raised and discussed with much ardour, whether or not Judas actually received the Sacrament. In the well-known exhortation which the Rubric requires to be read, "when the Minister gives warning for the celebration of the Holy Communion," and which is still very generally read before the great festivals, the sacrilegious communion of Judas is adduced in warning, “lest, 1 Works, iii. 336.