Judas
Scarcely had the echoes of the multitude died away when there stood at the door of the high priest an unwonted visitor. His name was Judas Iscariot. He was one of the innermost circle of the Galilean band. He was not only a member of the original league; he was treasurer of the company’s funds. It was a post requiring some culture and more shrewdness; and it was doubtless these qualities that had commended him for the situation.
What is it that brings this man to the door of the high priest? Has he come with overtures from Jesus? Has he brought from his Master a proposal of alliance with the Sanhedrin? I can imagine such a hope to have flashed through the heart of Caiaphas. I am sure he would have welcomed such a suggestion. A Christ who would support the kingdom of the theocracy instead of the kingdom of God would have been to him a valuable ally. But in his wildest dreams Caiaphas had never hoped for what he was about to receive. Judas stands before him and says: ‘I am come to extricate you from all your difficulties. You wish to secure the person of the Galilean without foreign aid, without domestic bloodshed. You may; you can, I have the power to give you what you wish. I can point to the day and the hour when you will find him unbefriended, alone. What price will you put upon a service so essential to your peace? ’
Now, it is my opinion that Caiaphas would have acceded to almost any sum. It was his interest, however, to minimise the service. The priesthood of Israel ought not to seem afraid. He therefore makes light of the offer. He determines in his own mind that he will begin by proposing the lowest sum, and rise in the scale in proportion to the demands of Judas. Starting from the foot of the ladder he offers at first the market price of a slave — thirty pieces of silver. He must have laughed inwardly when he offered it, and must have waited to hear Judas laugh outwardly. To his astonishment, to the astonishment of all posterity, the outward laugh was never uttered. Judas never makes a demur, never suggests that his possession is worth more. He seems quite oblivious of the value of what he offers. He proposes no rise in his demand. He plants his foot upon the lowest round and holds it there; he accepts the contemptible sum — thirty pieces of silver!
Yet Judas was a covetous man. If ever a man knew the value of money, Judas knew it. He had been for some time suspected of commercial dishonesty. The love of gold had been too strong for him. It had led him into nefarious transactions. One of his brethren in the league, in plain language, calls him ’ a thief, and suggests that he appropriated the donations to the poor. Yet this is the man who, in exchange for the most valuable information — information whose value he had thoroughly estimated, accepted without murmur the market price of a slave!
This fact has led me to two conclusions — first, however covetous Judas may have been, covetousness was not his motive for the betrayal of Jesus; and, second, he wished it to be thought that covetousness was his motive. If you come to my conclusion on the first point you will have no difficulty in appreciating the second. We have to consider, first, the real motive for the betrayal, and then, why Judas pretended to act from a different motive.
Judas never sold his Lord with the view of obtaining thirty pieces of silver. The very badness of the man prevents such a supposition; it is inconsistent with his past avarice. The acceptance of so small a sum is conclusive to my mind that money was not in the question. I believe the mind of Judas to have been at this time animated by a passion; this alone suits our Lord’s description, ‘I have chosen you twelve, and one of you is subject to diabolic influences.’ A diabolic or demoniacal influence was a passion. It was something which swept over the mind in gusts, which operated drastically, which took captive the will. Avarice is not such a state. It is not a passion; it is rather the want of passion. It does not come in gusts; it is a permanent state of the heart existing equally at all times. I am not denying that avarice was a quality of Judas. What I maintain is that he must have had another bad quality of a different kind, of a more violent and intermittent kind. Every thing about the narrative shows that the motive which led him to the betrayal was one which took possession of his mind periodically, almost spasmodically. It came to him at certain times and in certain places. It was not an atmosphere which permeated all his actions as his avarice did. Rather did it come to him in special currents and break upon him in peculiar storms. The thirty pieces of silver will not explain the deed of Judas.
What, then, does explain it? We have seen
1 The language of St. John xiii. 27 seems to bear out this view.
VOL. II. O that it came from a passion — a passion that took the form of a Satanic impulse, a passion which arose at periodic intervals, and which in the moment of its coming overmastered the will, and possessed the heart. Is there a passion in the human soul that will correspond to these conditions? I know of only one — jealousy. It is the root of malice and hatred and envy and all uncharitableness. The passion of drink has wrought many evils; but they have not been the result of deliberation. The passion of anger has kindled deadly fires; but we never associate it with that which is mean or malign. But jealousy is a lurid power, an underground power. It works in the mine; it undermines. It is a subterranean fire that can burn invisibly, stealthily. It feeds upon its own flame. Anger exhausts itself by its very exercise; jealousy is quickened by the spending of its gall!
Now, I believe this to have been the passion of Judas. I think his jealousy was deeper than his avarice — it was, I think, the root of his avarice. What I conceive him to have said to his own heart is something like this: 1 1 feel that my merits in this community have not been properly recognised. I have done more physical work than any man of the league; I have gathered and disbursed the material funds of the company. But my work has been disparaged because it is physical. Men without half my talent are set above me because they are said to possess a vapoury thing called spirituality. Peter is looked up to as a ringleader. James and John are called pillars. Philip and Andrew get the honour of introducing the Greeks. But I am left among the inferiors of the band — I, who am equal to the best of them! My work, for sooth, is only physical; it does not entitle me to be taken up to the mount with the pillar brothers. I should like to show the league what they would be without the physical. They look down upon mere financial talent; where would they be without finance! If I were to become the rich man of the company, I might teach them not to depreciate the gift of finding gold. I should then pass from the rear to the van. I should make this proud upper circle feel their dependence on me for bread; the men of the mount would find that they had to seek their subsistence from the man on the plain! ’
Such is my analysis of the mind of Judas. I believe the spirit of jealousy was the great incentive to the spirit of avarice. I do not think that originally his discontent extended to the Master. He must have often heard Jesus rebuke the ambition of His disciples, and it must have been balm to him. His first design was to outshine the upper circle. He strove to gain that end by getting rich. His mode of getting rich was the purloining of the missionary funds. By and by, dark suspicions arose; at last, one day, detection came. And then in no measured terms must have fallen the rebuke of the Master; and Judas himself must have seen that within the circle of that band his must be for ever only a servant’s place.
This Judas could not brook. Before he would consent to take, in the band, the position of a permanent subordinate he resolved to break up the band altogether. I believe this was his real motive. There are some mean natures who would rather see a thing destroyed than have another get it instead of them. Judas was one of these. He sought the arrest of Jesus as the only available means of breaking up the league of pity. The death of Jesus, the personal suffering of Jesus, was no part of his programme; his object in smiting the shepherd was that the sheep might be scattered. He was actuated by jealousy. He saw a boat sailing over a very pleasant sea, and he was himself forbidden to enter it. He resolved that since he was forbidden nobody else should enter it — that he would forthwith sink it That was his motive — a dastardly motive, a contemptibly mean motive, yet a motive in its nature radically distinct from the actual avarice for gold.
But now, if Judas was to receive any future favour from the priesthood, it was essential that this motive should be concealed. It was no compliment to that body that a man should
2i4 JUDAS
say, ‘I reject the service of Jesus, because I have been refused promotion in it.’ That was practically to state that he was still in principle an adherent of that hated sect which had been founded by the Galilean. A man with the business talents of Judas might expect promotion in a worldly sphere like that of the Jewish theocracy. It would be shutting the door upon himself to say that he had not really returned to a conviction of the national faith, but had only yielded to the expediency of the hour. Judas felt that it would be better to assume another motive — a motive which should indicate a change of Christian conviction. Jealousy did not indicate a change of conviction; it rather suggested that the longing for the old cause still was there. But avarice, the sordid love of gold, the greed of personal gain — this was a motive which would at once relieve a man from the charge of sympathy with Jesus! Judas said: c I will dissimulate. I will represent a cause for my deed, different from the real one. I will suggest to the chief priests a motive which they, of all men, will appreciate — the love of gold. Are not the men in high places often guilty of selling the truth for a bribe? These will best understand me, will most kindly remember me, if I put a price upon my service.’
That the motive of Judas was jealousy is to my mind made clear by one passage, St. Luke xxii. 21-24. Jesus is there telling His disciples of the man who would betray Him. Suddenly He turns round and points a moral to the disciples themselves (verse 25 and seq.). And the reason of the transition is explained by the evangelist in verse 24: ’ there was also a strife among them who should be the greatest.’ If you so emphasise the word ’ them ’ you will get a flood of meaning on the passage. Will it not read thus? — ‘Do not think you are altogether exempt from the danger of the pit into which this man will fall! He has simply carried to an exaggerated height a sin which is present in you all — a sin whose development I have watched with deep concern. Beware of jealousy! it is the sin of him who shall betray me, You have the germ of the same complaint; stifle it, suppress it, kill it! If you suffer it to grow, there are no bounds to its possibilities; it may stretch between you and the sun, and eclipse the light of heaven! ’
The betrayal by Judas is, indeed, to all of us a very solemn incident It shows us that no religious environment will suffice to make a man religious. The environment of Judas was perfect. Side by side with Jesus from the beginning, auditor of all His words, witnesser of all His deeds, recipient even of His personal ordination to the service of humanity, this man had everything given to him which could be given from the outside. He had more opportunities of being with Jesus than any of the others. His office of treasurer to the company was one which involved frequent interviews with the Master. Never was a man so privileged; never was a life placed in an environment so Divine! And yet, Judas did not become a religious man. His life destroyed his environment as the worm destroyed Jonah’s gourd. I do not believe that at the outset he was altogether free from the promise and potency of Divine grace; I do not believe Jesus would have elected him to His ministry in the absence of such a promise. But the worm got in — «the worm called jealousy. It gnawed away the gourd. It vitiated the value of every privilege. It made of none effect the Sermon on the Mount; it destroyed the benefit of the communion in the desert. Judas is the finest existing testimony to the power of the internal. He shows how powerless is everything else unless supported from within. He is the strongest comment on the passage, ‘Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.’
T T OW shall I keep my heart from jealousy, * * O Lord? Only by loving my brother as myself. I can never be free from jealousy by fleeing from the prize I covet. Often in my hour of envy I have said to myself, ‘Give up the world, and you will have peace! ‘I forget that the thing I covet is not the object in the hand but the object in the fancy. In vain I summon the wings of a dove and flee away; I carry in my heart the glitter of my brother’s gold! Not by the wings of a dove shall I find rest, O Lord; only by the wings of Thy spirit — love’s wings! Not even by depreciating the prize shall I find rest! Thou wouldst not have me cease to admire its beauty; Thou wouldst have me rejoice that its beauty is in the possession of my brother. I need, not less glitter, but more love. I should not like to reach peace by disparaging my brother’s possession — by saying, ‘It is not pretty.’ Nay, rather, for his sake, would I revel in its loveliness, would I admire it more and more. I would feel that my brother is a part of myself; I would rejoice in his pleasure as a pleasure of my own. If he is taken up to the mount and I am left on the plain, I would not solace my self by saying, * The mount is cold.’ I would say, ‘I thank Thee, O Lord, that a member of my body has been invigorated by a stream of Thy glory.’ So shall I lose the jealousy and still preserve the joy!