| 119. Different Opinions on the Character of Judas, and the Motives of His Treachery. | ||||
FROM the earliest to the latest time there have been persons, who have held opinions at issue with this view of the New Testament writers concerning the motives of Judas, and with their entirely reprobatory judgment upon them (comp. Acts i. 16. ff.); and this divergency has arisen partly out of an exaggerated supranatu-ralism, and partly out of a rationalist bias. | ||||
An over-strained supernaturalism, proceeding from the point of view presented in the New Testament itself, namely, that the death of Jesus, decreed in the divine plan of the world for the salvation of mankind, might even regard Judas, by whose treachery the death of Jesus was brought about, as a blameless instrument in the hand of Providence, a co-operator in the redemption of mankind. He might be placed in this light by the supposition that he had knowledge of that divine decree, and that its fulfilment was the object at which he aimed in betraying Jesus. We actually find this mode of viewing the subject on the part of the gnostic sect of the Cainites, who, according to the ancient writers on heresies, held that Judas had liberated himself from the narrow Jewish opinions of the other disciples and attained to the gnosis, and accordingly betrayed Jesus because he knew that by his death the kingdom of the inferior spirits who ruled the world would be overthrown. Others in the early Church admitted tht Judas betrayed Jesus out of covetousness; maintaining, however, that he did not anticipate the death of Jesus as a consequence of his betrayal, but supposed that he would, as he had often previously done, escape from his enemies by an exertion of his supernatural power: an opinion which forms the transition to the modern methode of justifying the traitor. | ||||
As the above mentioned supernaturalistic exaltation of Judas by the Cainites immediately proceeded from their antagonistic position with respect to Judaism, in virtue of which they had made it a principle to honour all who were blamed by the Jewish authors {P.686} of the Old Testament, and the judaizing authors of the New, and vice versa: so Rationalism, especially in its first indignation at the long subjection of the reason to the fetters of authority, felt a certain delight both in divesting of their nimbus those biblical personages who according to its views had been too zealously deified by orthodoxy, and also in defending and elevating those who were condemned or depreciated by the latter. Hence, in the Old Testament, the exaltation of Esau over Jacob, of Saul over Samuel; in the New, of Martha over Mary, the eulogiums on the doubting Thomas, and now the apology even for the traitor Judas. According to some, he became a criminal out of injured honour: the manner in which Jesus reproved him at the meal at Bethany, and, in general, the inferior degree of regard which he experienced in comparison with other disciples, converted his love for his teacher into hatred and revenge. Others have preferred the conjecture preserved by Theophylact, that Judas may havehoped to see Jesus this time also escape from his enemies. Some have taken up this idea in the supernaturalistic sense, supposing it to be the expectation of Judas that Jesus would set himself at liberty by an exertion of his miraculous power; others consistently with their point of view have supposed that Judas may probably have expected that if Jesus were taken prisoner the people would raise an insurrection in his favour and set him at liberty. These opinions represent Judas as one who, in common with the other disciples, conceived the Messianic kingdom as an earthly and political one, and hence was discontented that Jesus so long abstained from availing himself of the popular favour, in order to assume the character of the Messianic ruler. Instigated either by attempts at bribery on the part of the Sanhedrin, or by the rumour of their plan to seize Jesus in secret after the feast, Judas sought to forestall this project, which must have been fatal to Jesus, and to bring about his arrest befor the expiration of the feast time, in which he might certainly hope to see Jesus liberated by an insurrection, by which means he Would be compelled at last to throw himself into the arms of the people, and thus take the decisive step towards the establishment of his dominion. When he heard Jesus speak of the necessity of his being captured, and of his rising again in three days, he understood these expressions as an intimation of the concurrence of Jesus in his plan; under this mistake, he partly failed to hear, and partly misinterpreted, his additional admonitory discourse; and especially understood the words: What you do, do quickly, as an actual encouragement to the execution of his design, he took the thirty pieces of silver from the priests either to conceal his real intentions under the appearance of covetousness, and thus to lull every suspicion on their part; or, because, while he {P.687} expected an exaltation to one of the first places in the kingdom of his master, he was not unwilling to combine with it even that small advantage. But Judas had miscalculated in two points: first, in not considering that after the feasting of the paschal night, the people would not be early on the alert for an insurrection; secondly, in overlooking the probability, that the Sanhedrin would hasten to deliver Jesus into the hands of the Romans, from whom a popular insurrection would hardly suffice to deliver him. Thus Judas is supposed to be either an honest man misunderstood, or a deluded one, who however was of no common character, but exhibited even in his despair the wreck of apostolic greatness; or, he is supposed, by evil means, indeed to have sought the attainment of an object, which was nevertheless good. Neander imagines the two opposite opinions concerning Jesus, the supernatural and the natural, to have presented themselves to the mind of Judas in the form of a dilemma, so that he resoned thus: if Jesus is the Messiah, a delivery into the hands of his enemies will, owing to his supernatural power, in no way injure him, but will, on the contrary, serve to accelerate his glorification; if, on the other hand, he is not the Messiah, he deserves destruction. According to this, the betrayal was merely a test, by which the doubting disciple meant to try the rnessiahship of his master. | ||||
Among these views, that which derives the treachery of Judas from wounded ambition, is the only one which can adduce a positive indication in its favour: namely, the repulse which the traitor drew on himself from Jesus at the meal in Bethany. But against such an appeal to this reproof we have already, on another occasion, applied the remark of the most recent criticism, that its mildness, especially as compared with the far more severe rebuke administered to Peter, Matt. xvi. 23, must forbid our attributing to it such an effect as the rancour which it is supposed to have engendered in Judas; while that in other instances he was less considered than his fellow-disciples, we have nowhere any trace. | ||||
All the other conjectures as to what was properly the motive of the deed of Judas, can only be supported by negative grounds, i.e. grounds which make it improbable in general that his project had a bad aim, and in particular, that his motive was covetousness; a positive proof, that he intended to further the work of Jesus, and especially that he was actuated by violent political views of the Messiah's kingdom, is not to be discovered. That Judas had in general no evil designs against Jesus is argued chiefly from the fact, that after the delivery of Jesus to the Romans, and the inevitable-ness of his death had come to his knowledge, he fell into despair; this being regarded as a proof that he had expected an opposite result. But not only does the unfortunate result of crime, as Paulus thinks, but also its fortunate result, that, is, its success, exhibit {P.688} that which had before been veiled under a thousand extenuating pretexts, in all the blackness of its real form." Crime once become real, once passed into act, throws off the mask which it might wear while it remained merely ideal, and existed in thought alone; hence, as little as the repentance of many a murderer, when he sees his victim he before him, proves that he did not really intend to commit the murder; so little can the anguish of Judas, when he saw Jesus beyond rescue, prove that he had not beforehand contemplated the death of Jesus as the issue of his deed. | ||||
But, it is further said, covetoirsness cannot have been the motive of Judas; for if gain had been his object, he could not be blind to the fact that the continued charge of the purse in the society of Jesus, would yield him more than the miserable thirty pieces of silver (from 20 to 25 thalers, of our money), a sum which among the Jews formed the compensation for a wounded slave, being four months' wages. But these thirty pieces of silver are in vain sought for in any other narrator than Matthew. John is entirely silent as to any reward offered to Judas by the priests; Mark and Luke speak indefinitely of money dpyvpiov, which they had promised him; and Peter in the Acts (i. 18.) merely mentions a reward, piadbs, which Judas obtained. Matthew, however, who alone has that definite sum, leaves us at the same time in no doubt as to the historical value of his statement. After relating the end of Judas, (xxvii. 9 f.,) he cites a passage from Zcchariah (xi. 12 f.; he ascribes it by mistake to Jeremiah), wherei likewise thirty pieces of silver appear as a price at which some one is valued. It is true that in the prophetic passage the thirty pieces of silver are not given as purchase money, but as hire; he to whom they are paid is the prophet, the representative of the Lord, and the smallness of the sum is an emblem of the slight value which the Jews set upon the divine benefits, so plentifully bestowed on them. But how easily might this passage, where there was mention of a shamefully low price (ironically a goodly price Pn TIN), at which the Israelites had rated the speaker in the prophecy, remind a Christian reader of his Messiah, who, in any case, had been sold for a paltry price compared with his value, and hence be led to determine by this passage, the price which was paid to Judas for betraying Jesus. Thus the thirty pieces of silver, triakonta a)rguria, present no support to those who would prove that it could not be the reward which made Judas a traitor; for they leave us as ignorant as ever how great or how small was the reward which Judas received. Neither can we, with Neander, conclude that the sum was trifling from Matth. xxvii.6ff.; Acts i. 18, where it is said that a field, a)gron, was purchased with the reward assigned to the treachery of Judas; since, even apart from the historical value of that statement, hereafter to {P.689} be examined, the two expressions adduced may denote a larger or a smaller piece of land, and the additional observations of Matthew, that it was destined to bury strangers in, will not allow us to think of a very small extent. How the same theologian can discover in the statement of the two intermediate evangelists, that the Jewish rulers had promised Judas money, dpyvpiov, an intimation that the sum was small, it is impossible to conceive.- Far more weighty is the observation above made with a different aim, that Jesus would scarcely have appointed and retained as purse-bearer one whom he knew to be covetous even to dishonesty; from which Neander directly infers that the fourth evangelist, when he derived the remark of Judas at the meal in Bethany from his covetousness, put a false construction upon it, in consequence of the idea which ultimately prevailed respecting Judas, and especially added the accusation, that Judas robbed the common fund, out of his own imagination. But in pposition to this it is to be asked, whether in Neander's point of view it be admissible to impute to the apostle John, who is here understood to be the author of the fourth gospel, so groundless a calumny-for such it would be according to Neander's supposition; and, in our point of view, it would at least be more natural to conclude, that Jesus indeed knew Judas to be fond of money, but did not until the last believe him to be dishonest, and hence did not consider him unfit for the post in question. Neander observes in conclusion: if Judas could be induced by money to betray Jesus, he must have long lost all true faith in him. This indeed follows of necessity, and must be supposed in every view of the subject; but this extinction of faith could of itself only lead him to go back, directly (John vi. 66.); in order to prompt him to meditate treachery there must be a further, special incitement, which, intrinsically, might just as well be covetousness, as the views which are attributed to hm by Neander and others. | ||||
That covetousness, considered as such an immediate motive, suffices to explain the deed of Judas, I will not maintain; I only contend that any other motives are neither stated nor anywhere intimated in the Gospels, and that consequently every hypothesis as to their existence is built on the air. | ||||