Secrets of Judas
I have long had an interest in the figure of Judas Iscariot and have a few posts about him here in the drafts section which have yet to see the light of day. Thankfully, this will remain so as a real scholar has written a new book exploring the position of Judas in the Christian paradigm and featuring an in-depth analysis of the Gnostic ‘Gospel of Judas’.
James Robinson’s Secrets of Judas
I shall get a copy soon an write a review but in the meantime here is a short extract to (hopefully) get some discussion going:
The Gospel of Judas was composed after the canonical Gospels were written, at about the same time as the Nag Hammadi Gospels were written. No doubt, like them, The Gospel of Judas made use of the title Gospel to accredit itself over against the canonical Gospels that had popularized the title in their own quest for accreditation. As a result, we assume not only that The Gospel of Judas was not written by Judas - after all, he had been dead for over a century - but may not be what the public assumes a Gospel would be: a collection of the stories and/or sayings of Jesus. For the four Gospels among the Nag Hammadi Codices have shown that the honorific title could be ascribed to works which we today would never call Gospels, if that title had not been attached to them in the tradition. The Gospel of Judas will in all probability teach us a lot more about the Gnosticism of the second century, than about the public ministry of Jesus, or sayings of Jesus, or Holy Week, or the like.
How has Judas been understood down through the centuries, after the New Testament presented him as giving Jesus over to the Jewish authorities, and The Gospel of Judas somehow vindicating him? In antiquity, to fall on one’s sword when one’s leader is slain is considered a noble death. Should not Judas’ suicide after Jesus’ crucifixion be accorded this distinction of being a noble death? Apparently it was first Saint Augustine who decided that Judas’ suicide was in fact a sin. Listen to the way Augustine put it:
He did not deserve mercy; and that is why no light shone in his heart to make him hurry for pardon from the one he had betrayed.
And so, irrespective of what one might think of Judas giving Jesus over to the Jewish authorities, as implementing God’s plan of salvation, or as a traitor betraying his friend, he cannot be forgiven for his suicide!
The most generous that early Christian monasticism could be to Judas was to suggest that Jesus forgave him, but ordered him to purify himself with “spiritual exercisesâ€? in the desert, such as they themselves practiced. In the seventh century, the Bible commentator Theophylact thought Judas had not expected things to turn bad once he arranged a hearing between Jesus and the Jewish authorities, and in anguish at the outcome killed himself to ‘get to Hades before Jesus and thus to implore and gain salvation’.
Some say that Judas, being covetous, supposed that he would make money by betraying Christ, and that Christ would not be killed but would escape from the Jews as many a time he had escaped. But when he saw him condemned, actually already condemned to death, he repented since the affair had turned out so differently from what he had expected. And so he hanged himself to get to Hades before Jesus and thus to implore and gain salvation. Know well, however, that he put his neck into the halter and hanged himself on a certain tree, but the tree bent down and he continued to live, since it was God’s will that he either be preserved for repentance or for public disgrace and shame. For they say that due to dropsy he could not pass where a wagon passed with ease; then he fell on his face and burst asunder, that is, was rent apart, as Luke says in the Acts.
A Dominican preacher, Vinzenz Ferrer, in a sermon in 1391, had a similar explanation for the suicide, that “Judas’ soul rushed to Christ on Calvary’s mount”? to ask and receive forgiveness:
Judas who betrayed and sold the Master after the crucifixion was overwhelmed by a genuine and saving sense of remorse and tried with all his might to draw close to Christ in order to apologize for his betrayal and sale. But since Jesus was accompanied by such a large crowd of people on the way to the mount of Calvary, it was impossible for Judas to come to him and so he said to himself: Since I cannot get to the feet of the master, I will approach him in my spirit at least and humbly ask him for forgiveness. He actually did that and as he took the rope and hanged himself his soul rushed to Christ on Calvary’s mount, asked for forgiveness and received it fully from Christ, went up to heaven with him and so his soul enjoys salvation along with all elect.
Yet the all-too-rampant anti-Semitism of the Middle Ages exploited Judas as the arch-betrayer in order to arouse just such sentiments, by painting him as a caricature of a Jew, with exaggerated features, a large hooked nose, red hair, and of course greed for money. . . .
There is a strong Gnostic tradition (and esoteric - see Gurdjieff) that Judas was the favourite disciple and in fact, the only one who really understood Christ’s message. In an esoteric/Gnostic sense, Judas is often seen as the Saviour of the World rather than Jesus.
Such a view, whilst unorthodox, is attractive from my perspective as it fits more elegantly onto the overall pattern and avoids the myriad traps and ambiguities that the orthodox reading falls into.
How could Jesus be a sacrifice for our sins (if that is what it took) when he was God - or even capable of rising again? Surely almost anyone who ever lived would sacrifice his life if he could be guaranteed of continuing existence? The resurrection negates the sacrifice - this is not a problem with Judas, he did indeed pay the ultimate price.
Again, in the orthodox reading, it is hard to avoid the impression that there was a certain mendacity on God’s part to construct a schemata where an innocent man - as we all are before ‘sin’ - is marked down for being used in such a plan. Damned literally before the fact. All these issues are neatly resolved if we see Judas as a co-conspirator with Jesus and having the requisite faith and trust to carry out Christ’s instructions - perhaps losing faith after Christ’s apparent death.
But there are many other subtleties - did Judas really kiss Jesus for example? He could have led the authorities to anyone. They were relying on him solely - and he certainly wouldn’t have needed the money if he was the treasurer. And of course there are two conflicting versions of his death.
It is an interesting topic.
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