Judas

Who was Judas Iscariot?
Notes by Thomas Madron

One of the Twelve Apostles in Jesus' inner circle, Judas became notorious for betraying Jesus. That notoriety has caused the name "Judas" to become synonymous with "traitor." The name Iscariot has received many interpretations all of which are more-or-less conjectural. The most probable is from Ish Kerioth , i.e. "man of Kerioth," a town in the tribe of Judah (Joshua 15:25). An alternative, frequently cited, interpretation suggests that Judas' surname is a corruption of the Latin sicarius ("murderer" or "assassin") rather than an indication of family origin, suggesting that he would have belonged to the Sicarii, the most radical Jewish group, some of whom were terrorists. Other than his apostleship, his betrayal, and his death, little else is revealed about Judas in the Gospels. Always the last on the list of the Apostles, he was their treasurer.

The bare story of Judas' betrayal is well known. He disclosed Jesus' whereabouts to the chief priests and elders for 30 pieces of silver. They provided the armed guard that he brought to the Garden of Gethsemane, near Jerusalem, where Jesus went to pray with the other 11 Apostles after the Last Supper. There he identified Jesus with a kiss, addressing him as "master."

What is more obscure than the actual betrayal is the reason why the betrayal took place at all. Matthew (26:14-16) and John (12:6) designate Judas' motive as avarice, but Luke 22:3-6 ascribes his action to the entrance of Satan into his body, paralleling John 13:27, where, after Judas took the bread at the Last Supper, "Satan entered into him." The troubling issue with Judas' betrayal is that it seems to be the most mysterious and unintelligible of sins. For how could one chosen as a disciple, and enjoying the the privilege of intimate friendship with Jesus, be tempted to such gross ingratitude for such a paltry price? Over the history of the church there have been many attempts to rationalize and further explain Judas' motives, although we actually have no information beyond that of the Gospels and the Acts.

From the wild dreams of ancient heretics to the bold speculations of modern critics, the problem presented by Judas and his treachery has been the subject of sometimes strange theories. At least four such theories have cropped up. (1) As a traitor naturally excites a peculiarly violent hatred, especially among those devoted to the cause or person betrayed, it was only natural that Christians should regard Judas with loathing, and, if it were possible, paint him blacker than he was by allowing him no good qualities at all. This would be an extreme view which, in some respects, lessens the difficulty. (2) At the opposite extreme is the view held by the early Gnostic sect known as the Cainites. Certain of these heretics, whose opinion has been revived by some modern writers in a more plausible form, maintained that Judas was really enlightened, and acted as he did in order that mankind might be redeemed by the death of Christ. (3) In the modern version of this theory it is suggested that Judas, who in common with the other disciples looked for a temporal kingdom of the Messiah, did not anticipate the death of Christ, but wished to precipitate a crisis and hasten the hour of triumph, thinking that the arrest would provoke a rising of the people who would set Him free and place Him on the throne. (4) Other scholars have suggested that Judas was merely the negotiator in a prearranged prisoner exchange (following the money-lender riot in the Temple) that gave Jesus to the Roman authorities by mutual agreement, and that Judas' later protrayal as "traitor" was a historical distortion.

There are variant traditions about Judas' death in 30 A.D. According to Matthew (27:3-10), he repented after seeing Jesus condemned to death, then returned the silver and hanged himself (traditionally from the Judas tree). In Acts 1:18, he "bought a field with the reward of his wickedness; and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out," implying that he threw himself down, rather than that he died accidentally. Apocryphal gospels developed the point in Acts that calls the spot of his death the place (field) of blood. The 1st/2nd-century Apostolic Father Papias is quoted to have given macabre details about Judas' death, presumably to show that Gospel prophecies were literally fulfilled. His account appears in numerous legends, particularly in Coptic works, and in medieval literature. In Dante's Inferno Judas appears in the deepest chasm of hell with Julius Caesar's assassins, Brutus and Cassius.

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