JUDAS ISCARIOT.Thisname doubtless strikes the eye of the Christian reader, as almost a stain to the fair page of apostolic history, and a dishonor to the noble list of the holy, with whom the traitor was associated. But he who knew the hearts of all men from the beginning, even before their actions had developed and displayed their characters, chose this man among those whom he first sent forth on the message of coming grace; and all the gospel records bear the name of the traitor along with those who were faithful even unto death; nor does it behove the unconsecrated historian to affect, about the arrangement of this name, a delicacy which the gospel writers did not manifest.Of his birth, his home, his occupation, his call, and his previous character, the sacred writers bear no testimony; and all which the inventive genius of modern criticism has been able to present in respect to any of these circumstances, is drawn from no more certain source than the various proposed etymologies and significations of his name. But the plausibility which is worn by each one of these numerous derivations, is of itself a sufficient proof of the little dependence which can be placed upon any conclusion so lightly founded. The inquirer is therefore safest in following merely the reasonable conjecture, that his previous character had been respectable, not manifesting to the world at least, any baseness which would make him an infamous associate. For though the Savior in selecting the chief ministers of his gospel, did not take them from the wealthy, the high-born, the refined, or the learned; and though he did not scruple even to take those of a low and degraded occupation, his choice would nevertheless entirely exclude those who were in any way marked by previous character, as more immoral than the generality of the people among whom they lived. In short, it is very reasonable to suppose;that Judas Iscariot was a respectable man, probably with a character as good as most of his neighbors had, though he may have been considered by some of his acquaintance, as a close, sharp man in money matters; for this is a character most unquestionably fixed on him in those few and brief allusions which are made to him in the gospel narratives. Whatever may have been the business to which he had been devoted during his previous life, he had probably acquired a good reputation for honesty, as well as for careful management of property; for he is on two occasions distinctly specified as the treasurer and steward of the little company or family of Jesus;——an office for which he would not have been selected, unless he had maintained such a character as that above imputed to him. Even after his admission into the fraternity, he still betrayed his strong acquisitiveness, in a manner that will be fully exhibited in the history of the occurrence in which it was most remarkably developed.Iscariot.——The present form of this word appears from the testimony of Beza, to be different from the original one, which, in his oldest copy of the New Testament, was given without theIin the beginning, simply;Σκαρίωτης; (Scariotes;) and this is confirmed by the very ancient Syriac version, which expresses it by(‡ Syriac word)(Sekaryuta.) Origen also, the oldest of the Christian commentators, (A. D. 230,) gives the word without the initial vowel, “Scariot.” It is most reasonable therefore to conclude that the name was originallyScariot, and that theIwas prefixed, for the sake of the easier pronunciation of the two initial consonants; for some languages are so smoothly constructed, that they do not allow evenSto precede a mute, without a vowel before. Just as the Turks, in taking up the names of Greek towns, changeScopiaintoIscopia,&c.The French too, change the LatinSpiritusintoEsprit, as do the Spaniards intoEspiritu; and similar instances are numerous.The very learned Matthew Poole, in his Synopsis Criticorum, (Matthewx.4,) gives a very full view of the various interpretations of this name.Sixdistinct etymologies and significations of this word have been proposed, most of which appear so plausible, that it may seem hard to decide on their comparative probabilities. That which is best justified by the easy transition from the theme, and by the aptness of the signification to the circumstances of the person, is theFirst, proposed by an anonymous author, quoted in the Parallels of Junius, and adopted by Poole. This is the derivation from the Syriac(‡ Syriac word)(sekharyut,) “a bag,” or “purse;” root cognate with the Hebrewסכר(sakhar.)No.1, Gibbs’s Hebrew Lexicon, andסגר(sagar,) Syrian & Arabicid.The word thus derived must mean the “bag-man,” the “purser,” which is a most happy illustration of John’s account of the office of Judas, (xii.6:xiii.29.) It is, in short, a name descriptive of his peculiar duty in receiving the money of the common stock of Christ and his apostles, buying the necessary provisions, administering their common charities to the poor, and managing all their pecuniary affairs,——performing all the duties of that officer who in English is called a “steward.” JudasIscariot, or rather “Scariot,” means therefore “Judas theSTEWARD.”Thesecondderivation proposed is that of Junius, (Parall.) who refers it to a sense descriptive of his fate. The Syriac, Hebrew, and Arabic root,סכר(sakar,) has in the first of these languages, the secondary signification of “strangle,” and the personal substantive derived from it, might therefore mean, “one who was strangled.” Lightfoot says that if this theme is to be adopted, he should prefer to trace the name to the wordאשכראwhich with the Rabbinical writers is used in reference to the same primitive,in the meaning of “strangulation.” But both these, even without regarding the great aptness of the first definition above given, may be condemned on their own demerits; because, they suppose either that this name was applied to him, onlyafterhis death,——an exceedingly unnatural view,——or (what is vastly more absurd) that he was thus named during his life-time, by aprophetical anticipation, that he would die by the halter!!! It is not very uncommon, to be sure, for such charitable prophetic inferences to be drawn respecting the character and destiny of the graceless, and the point of some vulgar proverbs consists in this very allusion, but the utmost stretch of such predictions never goes to the degree of fixing upon the hopeful candidate for the gallows, a surname drawn from this comfortable anticipation of his destiny. Besides, it is hard to believe that a man wearing thus, as it were, a halter around his neck, would have been called by Jesus into the goodly fellowship of the apostles; for though neither rank, nor wealth, nor education, nor refinement were requisites for admission, yet a tolerable good moral character may be fairly presumed to have been an indispensable qualification.Thethirdderivation is of such a complicated and far-fetched character, that it bears its condemnation on its own face. It is that of the learned Tremellius, who attempts to analyze Iscariot intoשכר(seker,) “wages,” “reward,” andנטה(natah,) “turn away,” alluding to the fact that for money he revolted from his Master. This, besides its other difficulties, supposes that the name was conferred after his death; whereas he must certainly have needed during his life, some appellative to distinguish him from Judas the brother of James.Thefourthis that of Grotius and Erasmus, who derive it fromאיש יששכר(Ish Issachar,) “a man of Issachar,”——supposing the name to designate his tribe, just as the same phrase occurs in Judgesx.1. But all these distinctions of origin from the ten tribes must have been utterly lost in the time of Christ; nor does any instance occur of a Jew of the apostolic age being named from his supposed tribe.Thefifthis the one suggested and adopted by Lightfoot. In the Talmudic Hebrew, the wordסקורטיא(sekurti,)——also written with an initialא(aleph) and pronouncedIscurti,——has the meaning of “leatherapron;” and this great Hebraician proposes therefore, to translate the name, “Judaswith the leather apron;” and suggests some aptness in such a personal appendage, because in such aprons they had pockets or bags in which money,&c.might be carried. The whole derivation, however, is forced and far-fetched,——doing great violence to the present form of the word, and is altogether unworthy of the genius of its inventor, who is usually very acute in etymologies.Thesixthis that of Beza, Piscator and Hammond, who make itאיש־קריות(Ish-QeriothorKerioth,) “a man ofKerioth,” a city of Judah. (Joshuaxv.25.) Beza says that a very ancientMS.of the Greek New Testament, in his possession, (above referred to,) in all the five passages in John, where Judas is mentioned, has this surname writtenαπο Καριωτου. (apo Cariotou,) “Judasof Kerioth.” Lucas Brugensis observes, that this form of expression is used in Ezraii.22, 23, where the “men of Anathoth,”&c.are spoken of; but there is no parallelism whatever between the two cases; because in the passage quoted it is a mere general designation of the inhabitants of a place,——nor can any passage be shown in which it is thus appended to a man’s name, by way of surname. The peculiarity of Beza’sMS.is therefore undoubtedly an unauthorized perversion by some ancient copyist; for it is not found on any other ancient authority.The motives which led such a man to join himself to the followers of the self-denying Nazarene, of course could not have been of a very high order; yet probably were about as praiseworthy as those of any of the followers of Jesus. Not one of the chosen disciples of Jesus is mentioned in the solemnly faithful narrative of the evangelists, as inspired by a self-denying principle of action. Wherever an occasion appeared on which their true motives and feelings could be displayed, they all without exception, manifested the most sordid selfishness, and seemed inspired by noidea whatever but that of worldly honors, triumphs, and rewards to be won in his service! Peter, indeed, is not very distinctly specified as betraying any remarkable regard for his own individual interest, and on several occasions manifested, certainly by starts, much of a true self-sacrificing devotion to his Master; yet his great views in following Jesus were unquestionably of an ambitious order, and his noblest conception was that of a worldly triumph of a Messiah, in which the chosen ones were to have a share proportioned no doubt to their exertions for its attainment. The two Boanerges betrayed the most determined selfishness, in scheming for a lion’s share in the spoils of victory; and the whole body of the disciples, on more than one occasion, quarreled among themselves about the first places in Christ’s kingdom. Judas therefore, was not greatly worse than his fellow-disciples,——no matter how bad may have been his motives; and probably at the beginning maintained a respectable stand among them, unless occasion might have betrayed to them the fact, that he was mean in money matters. But he, after espousing the fortunes of Jesus, doubtless went on scheming for his own advancement, just as the rest did for theirs, except that probably, when those of more liberal conceptions were contriving great schemes for the attainment of power, honor, fame, titles, and glory, both military and civil, his penny-saving soul was reveling in golden dreams, and his thoughts running delightedly over the prospects of vast gain to be reaped in the confiscation of the property of the wealthy Pharisees and lawyers, that would ensue immediately on the establishment of the empire of the Nazarene and his Galileans. While the great James and his amiable brother were quarreling with the rest of the fraternity about the premierships,——the highest administration of spiritual and temporal power,——the discreetly calculating Iscariot was doubtless expecting the fair results of a regular course of promotion, from the office of bag-carrier to the strolling company of Galileans, to the stately honors and immense emoluments of lord high-treasurer of the new kingdom of Israel; his advancement naturally taking place in the line in which he had made his first beginning in the service of his Lord, he might well expect that in those very particulars where he had shown himself faithful in few things, he would be made ruler over many things, when he should enter into the joy of his Lord,——sharing the honors and profits of His exaltation, as he had borne his part in the toils and anxieties of his humble fortunes. The careful management of his littlestewardship, “bearing the bag, and what was put therein,” and “buying those things that were necessary” for all the wants of the brotherhood of Jesus,——was a service of no small importance and merit, and certainly would deserve a consideration at the hands of his Master. Such a trust also, certainly implied a great confidence of Jesus in his honesty and discretion in money matters, and shows not only the blamelessness of his character in those particulars, but the peculiar turn of his genius, in being selected, out of the whole twelve, for this very responsible and somewhat troublesome function.Yet the eyes of the Redeemer were by no means closed to the baser inclinations of this much-trusted disciple. He knew (for what did he not know?) how short was the step from the steady adherence to the practice of a particular virtue, to the most scandalous breach of honor in that same line of action,——how slight, and easy, and natural was the perversion of a truly mean soul, or even one of respectable and honorable purposes, from the honest pursuit of gain, to the absolute disregard of every circumstance but personal advantage, and safety from the punishment of crime,——a change insensibly resulting from the total absorption of the soul in one solitary object and aim; for in all such cases, the honesty is not thepurpose; it is only an incidental principle, occasionally called in to regulate the modes and means of the grand acquisition;——butgainis the great end and essence of such a life, and the forgetfulness of every other motive, when occasion suggests, is neither unnatural nor surprising. With all this and vastly more knowledge, Jesus was well able to discriminate the different states of mind in which the course of his discipleship found this calculating follower. He doubtless traced from day to day, and from week to week, and from month to month, as well as from year to year of his weary pilgrimage, the changes of zeal, resolution and hope, into distaste and despair, as the day of anticipated reward for these sacrifices seemed farther and farther removed, by the progress of events. The knowledge too, of the manner in which these depraved propensities would at last develope themselves, is distinctly expressed in the remark which he made in reply to Peter’s declaration of the fidelity and devotion of himself and his fellow disciples, just after the miracle of feeding the five thousand by the lake, when some renounced the service of Christ, disgusted with the revelations which he there made to them of the spiritual nature of his kingdom, and its rewards, and of the difficultand disagreeable requisites for his discipleship. Jesus seeing the sad defection of the worldly, turned to the twelve and said, “Will ye also go away?” Simon Peter, with ever ready zeal replied, “Lord! to whom shall we go but unto thee? For thou only hast the words of eternal life.” Jesus answered them, “Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is anaccuser?” This reply, as John in recording it remarks, alluded to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon; for he it was that was to betray him, though he was one of the twelve. He well knew that on no ear would these revelations of the pure spiritualism of his kingdom, and of the self-denying character of his service, fall more disagreeably than on that of the money-loving steward of the apostolic family, whose hopes would be most wofully disappointed by the uncomfortable prospects of recompense, and whose thoughts would be henceforth contriving the means of extricating himself from all share in this hopeless enterprise. Still he did not, like those mal-contents who were not numbered among the twelve, openly renounce his discipleship, and return to the business which he had left for the deceptive prospect of a profitable reward. He found himself too deeply committed to do this with advantage, and he therefore discontentedly continued to follow his great summoner, until an opportunity should occur of leaving this undesirable service, with a chance of some immediate profit in the exchange. Nor did he yet, probably, despair entirely of some more hopeful scheme of revolution than was now held up to view. He might occasionally have been led to hope, that these gloomy announcements were but a trial of the constancy of the chosen, and that all things would yet turn out as their high expectations had planned. In the occasional remarks of Jesus, there was also much, which an unspiritual and sordid hearer, might very naturally construe into a more comfortable accomplishment of his views, and in which such a one would think he found the distinct expression of the real purposes of Jesus in reference to the reward of his disciples. Such an instance, was the reply made to Peter when he reminded his Master of the great pecuniary sacrifices which they had all made in his service: “Lo! we have left all, and followed thee.” The assurances contained in the reply of Jesus, that among other things, those who had left houses and lands for his sake, should receive a hundred fold more in the day of his triumph, must have favorably impressed the baser-minded, with some idea of a real, solid return for the seemingly unprofitable investment which theyhad made in his scheme. Or, on the other hand, if the faith and hope of Iscariot in the word of Jesus were already too far gone to be recalled to life by any cheering promises, these sayings may have only served to increase his indifference, or to deepen it into downright hatred, at what he would regard as a new deceit, designed to keep up the sinking spirits of those, who had begun to apprehend the desperate character of the enterprise in which they had involved themselves. If his feelings had then reached this point of desperation, the effect of this renewal of promises, which he might construe into a support of his original views of the nature of the rewards accruing to the followers of Christ, on the establishment of his kingdom, would only excite and strengthen a deep rooted spite against his once-adored Lord, and his malice, working in secret over the disappointment, would at last be ready to rise on some convenient occasion into active revenge.An accuser.——This is the true primary force ofδιαβολος(diabolos) in this passage. (Johnvi.70.) This word is never applied to any individual in the sense of “devil,” except to Satan himself; but wherever it occurs as a common substantive appellation, descriptive of character, pointedly refers to its primary signification of “accuser,” “calumniator,” “informer,”&c., the root of it beingδιαβαλλω, which means “to accuse,” “to calumniate;” and when applied to Satan, it still preserves this sense,——though it then has the force of a proper name; sinceשטן(Satan,) in Hebrew, means primarily “accuser” but acquires the force of a proper name, in its ordinary use. Grotius however, suggests that in this passage, the word truly corresponds to the Hebrewצר(tsar,) the word which is applied to Haman, (Esthervii.6.viii.1.) and has here the general force of “accuser,” “enemy,”&c.The context here (verse 71,) shows that John referred to this sense, and that Christ applied it to Judas prophetically,——thus showing his knowledge of the fact, that this apostle would “accuse” him, and “inform” against him, before the Sanhedrim. Not only Grotius, but Vatablus, Erasmus, Lucas Brugensis, and others, maintain this rendering.This occasion, before long, presented itself. The successful labors of Jesus, in Jerusalem, had raised up against him a combination of foes of the most determined and dangerously hostile character. The great dignitaries of the nation, uniting in one body all the legal, literary and religions honors and influence of the Hebrew name, and strengthened too by the weight of the vast wealth belonging to them and their immediate supporters, as well as by the exaltation of high office and ancient family, had at last resolved to use all this immense power, (if less could not effect it,) for the ruin of the bold, eloquent man, who, without one of all the privileges which were the sources and supports of their power, had shaken their ancient dominion to its foundation by his simple words, and almost overthrown all their power over the people, whose eyes were now beginning to be opened to the mystery of “how little wisdom it took, to govern them!” Self-preservationseemed to require an instantaneous and energetic action against the bold Reformer; and they were not the men to scruple about the means or mode of satisfying both revenge and ambition by his destruction. This state of feeling among the aristocracy could not have been unknown to Iscariot. He had doubtless watched its gradual developments, from day to day, during the displays in the temple; and as defeat followed defeat in the strife of mind, he had abundant opportunity to see the hostile feeling of the baffled and mortified Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes and lawyers, mounting to the highest pitch of indignation, and furnishing him with the long-desired occasion of making up for his own disappointment in his great plans for the recompense of his sacrifices, in the cause of Jesus. He saw that there was no chance whatever for the triumphant establishment of that kingdom in whose honors he had expected to share. All the opportunities and means for effecting this result, Jesus was evidently determined to throw away, nor could anything ever move him to such an effort as was desirable for the gratification of the ambition of his disciples. The more splendid and tempting the occasions for founding a temporal dominion, the more resolutely did he seem to disappoint the golden hopes of his followers; and, proceeding thus, was only exposing himself and them to danger, without making any provision for their safety or escape. And where was to be the reward of Iscariot’s long services in the management of the stewardship of the apostolic fraternity? Had he not left his business, to follow them about, laboring in their behalf, managing their affairs, procuring the means of subsistence for them, and exercising a responsibility which none else was so competent to assume? And what recompense had he received? None, but the almost hopeless ruin of his fortunes in a desperate cause. That such were the feelings and reflections which his circumstances would naturally suggest, is very evident. The signs of the alienation of his affections from Jesus, are also seen in the little incident recorded by all the evangelists, of the anointing of his feet by Mary. She, in deep gratitude to the adored Lord who had restored to life her beloved brother, brought, as the offering of her fervent love, the box of precious ointment of spikenard, and poured it over his feet, anointing them, and wiping them with her hair, so that the whole house was filled with the fragrance. This beautiful instance of an ardent devotion, that would sacrifice everything for its object, awakened no corresponding feeling inthe narrow soul of Iscariot; but seizing this occasion for the manifestation of his inborn meanness, and his growing spite against his Master, he indignantly exclaimed, (veiling his true motive, however, under the appearance of charitable regard for the poor,) “To what purpose is this waste? Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?” So specious was this honorable pretense for blaming what seemed the inconsiderate and extravagant devotion of Mary, that others of the disciples joined in the indignant remonstrance against this useless squandering of property, which might be converted to the valuable purpose of ministering to the necessities of the poor, many of whose hearts might have been gladdened by a well-regulated expenditure of the price of this costly offering, which was now irrecoverably lost. But honorable as may have been the motives of those who joined with Iscariot in this protest, the apostle John most distinctly insists that he was moved by a far baser consideration. “This he said,NOTbecause he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and kept the coffer, and carried what was cast into it.” This is a most distinct exposition of a piece of villainy in the traitor, that would have remained unknown, but for the record which John gives of this transaction. It is here declared in plain terms, that Iscariot had grossly betrayed the pecuniary trust which had been committed to him on the score of his previous honesty, and had been guilty of downright peculation,——converting to his own private purposes, the money which had been deposited with him as the treasurer and steward of the whole company of the disciples. He had probably made up his mind to this rascally abuse of trust, on the ground that he was justified in thus balancing what he had lost by his connection with Jesus; and supposed, no doubt, that the ruin of all those whom he was thus cheating, would be effectually secured before the act could be found out. What renders this crime doubly abominable, is, that it was robbing the poor of the generous contributions which, by the kindness of Jesus, had been appropriated to their use, out of this little common stock; for it seems that Iscariot was the minister of the common charities of the brotherhood, as well as the provider of such things as were necessary for their subsistence, and the steward of the common property. With the pollution of this base crime upon his soul, before stirred up to spite and disgust by disappointed ambition, he was now so dead to honor and decency, that he was abundantlyprepared for the commission of the crowning act of villainy. The words in which Jesus rebuked his specious concern for the economical administration of the money in charity, was also in a tone that he might construe into a new ground of offense, implying, as it did, that his zeal had some motive far removed from a true affection for that Master, whose life was in hourly peril, and might any moment be so sacrificed by his foes, that the honorable forms of preparation for the burial might be denied; and being thus already devoted to death, he might well accept this costly offering of pure devotion, as the mournful unction for the grave. In these sadly prophetic words, Judas may have found the immediate suggestion of his act of sordid treachery; and incited, moreover, by the repulse which his remonstrance had received, he seems to have gone directly about the perpetration of the crime.The nature and immediate object of this plot may not be perfectly comprehended, without considering minutely the relations in which Jesus stood to the Jewish Sanhedrim, and the means he had of resisting or evading their efforts for the consummation of their schemes and hopes against him. Jesus of Nazareth was, to the chief priests, scribes and Pharisees, a dangerous foe. He had, during his visits to Jerusalem, in his repeated encounters with them in the courts of the temple, and all public places of assembly, struck at the very foundation of all their authority and power over the people. The Jewish hierarchy was supported by the sway of the Romans, indeed, but only because it was in accordance with their universal policy of tolerance, to preserve the previously established order of things, in all countries which they conquered, so long as such a preservation was desired by the people; but no longer than it was perfectly accordant with the feelings of the majority. The Sanhedrim and their dependents therefore knew perfectly well that their establishment could receive no support from the Roman government, after they had lost their dominion over the affections of the people; and were therefore very ready to perceive, that if they were to be thus confounded and set at nought, in spite of learning and dignity, by a poor Galilean, and even their gravest and most puzzling attacks upon his wisdom and prudence, turned into an absolute jest against them,——it was quite clear that the amused and delighted multitude would soon cease to regard the authority and opinions of their venerable religious and legal rulers, whose subtleties were so easily foiledby one of the common, uneducated mass. But the very circumstances which effected and constituted the evil, were also the grand obstacles to the removal of it. Jesus was by these means seated firmly in the love and reverence of the people,——and of the vast numbers of strangers then in Jerusalem at the feast, there were very many who would have their feelings strongly excited in his favor, by the circumstance that they, as well as he, were Galileans, and would therefore be very apt to make common cause with him in case of any violent attack. All these obstacles required management; and after having been very many times foiled in their attempts to seize him, by the resolute determination of the thousands by whom he was always encircled, to defend him, they found that they must contrive some way to get hold of him when he was without the defenses of this admiring host. This could be done, of course, only by following him to his secret haunts, and coming quietly upon him before the multitude could assemble to his aid. But his movements were altogether beyond their notice. No armed band could follow him about, as he went from the city to the country in his daily and nightly walks. They needed some spy who could watch his private movements when unattended, save by the little band of the twelve, and give notice of the favorable moment for a seizure, when the time, the place, and the circumstances, would all conspire to prevent a rescue. Thus taken, he might be safely lodged in some of the impregnable fortresses of the temple and city, so as to defy the momentary burst of popular rage, on finding that their idol had been taken away. They knew too, the fickle character of the commonalty, well enough to feel certain, that when the tide of condemnation was once strongly set against the Nazarene, the lip-worship of “Hosannas” could be easily turned, by a little management, into the ferocious yell of deadly denunciation. The mass of the people are always essentially the same in their modes of action. Mobs were then managed by the same rules as now, and demagogues were equally well versed in the tricks of their trade. Besides, when Jesus had once been formally indicted and presented before the secular tribunal of the Roman governor, as a rioter and seditious person, no thought of a rescue from the military force could be thought of; and however unwilling Pilate might be to minister to the wishes of the Jews, in an act of unnecessary cruelty, he could not resist a call thus solemnly made to him, in the character of preserver of the Roman sway, thoughhe would probably have rejected entirely any proposition to seize Jesus by a military force, in open day, in the midst of the multitude, so as to create a troublesome and bloody tumult, by such an imprudent act. In the full consideration of all these difficulties, the Jewish dignitaries were sitting in conclave, contriving means to effect the settlement of their troubles, by the complete removal of him who was unquestionably the cause of all. At once their anxious deliberations were happily interrupted by the entrance of the trusted steward of the company of Jesus, who changed all their doubts and distant hopes into absolute certainty, by offering, for a reasonable consideration, to give up Jesus into their hands, a prisoner, without any disturbance or riot. How much delay and debate there was about terms, it would be hard to say; but after all, the bargain made, does not seem to have been greatly to the credit of the liberality of the Sanhedrim, or the sharpness of Judas. Thirty of the largest pieces of silver then coined, would make but a poor price for such an extraordinary service, even making all allowance for a scarcity of money in those times. And taking into account the wealth and rank of those concerned, as well as the importance of the object, it is fair to pronounce them a very mean set of fellows. But Judas especially seems to forfeit almost all right to the character given him of acuteness in money matters; and it is only by supposing him to be quite carried out of his usual prudence, by his woful abandonment to crime, that so poor a bargain can be made consistent with the otherwise reasonable view of his character.Thirty pieces of silver.——The value of these pieces is seemingly as vaguely expressed in the original as in the translation; but a reference to Hebrew usages throws some light on the question of definition. The common Hebrew coin thus expressed was the shekel,——equivalent to the Greekdidrachmon, and worth about sixteen cents. In Hebrew the expression, thirty “shekels of silver,” was not always written out in full; but the name of the coin being omitted, the expression was always equally definite, because no other coin was ever left thus to be implied. Just so in English, the phrase, “a million of money,” is perfectly well understood here, to mean “a million ofdollars;” while in England, the current coin of that country would make the expression mean so manypounds. In the same manner, to say, in this country, that any thing or any man is worth “thousands,” always conveys, with perfect definiteness, the idea of “dollars;” and in every other country the same expression would imply a particular coin. Thirty pieces of silver, each of which was worth sixteen cents, would amount only to four dollars and eighty cents, which are just one pound sterling. A small price for the great Jewish Sanhedrim to pay for the ruin of their most dangerous foe! Yet for this little sum, the Savior of the world was bought and sold!Having thus settled this business, the cheaply-purchased traitor returned to the unsuspecting fellowship of the apostles, mingling with them, as he supposed, without the slightest suspicion on thepart of any one, respecting the horrible treachery which he had contrived for the bloody ruin of his Lord. But there was an eye, whose power he had never learned, though dwelling beneath its gaze for years,——an eye, which saw the vainly hidden results of his treachery, even as for years it had scanned the base motives which governed him. Yet no word of reproach or denunciation broke forth from the lips of the betrayed One; the progress of crime was suffered unresistedly to bear him onward to the mournfully necessary fulfilment of his destiny. Judas meanwhile, from day to day, waited and watched for the most desirable opportunity of meeting his engagements with his priestly employers. The first day of the feast of unleavened bread having arrived, Jesus sat down at evening to eat the Paschal lamb with his twelve disciples, alone. The whole twelve were there without one exception,——and among those who reclined around the table, sharing in the social delights of the entertainment which celebrated the beginning of the grand national festival, was the dark-souled accuser also, like Satan among the sons of God. Even here, amid the general joyous hilarity, his great scheme of villainy formed the grand theme of his meditations,——and while the rest were entering fully into the natural enjoyments of the occasion, he was brooding over the best means of executing his plans. During the supper, after the performance of the impressive ceremony of washing their feet, Jesus made a sudden transition from the comments with which he was illustrating it; and, in a tone of deep and sorrowful emotion, suddenly exclaimed, “I solemnly assure you, that one of you will betray me.” This surprising assertion, so emphatically made, excited the most distressful sensations among the little assembly;——all enjoyment was at an end; and grieved by the imputation, in which all seemed included until the individual was pointed out, they each earnestly inquired, “Lord, is it I?” As they sat thus looking in the most painful doubt around their lately cheerful circle, the disciple who held the place of honor and affection at the table, at the request of Peter, whose position gave him less advantage for familiar and private conversation,——plainly asked of Jesus, “Who is it, Lord?” Jesus, to make his reply as deliberate and impressive as possible, said, “It is he to whom I shall give a sop when I have dipped it.” The design of all this circumlocution in pointing out the criminal, was, to mark the enormity of the offense. “He that eateth bread with me, hath lifted up his heel againstme.” It was his familiar friend, his chosen companion, enjoying with him at that moment the most intimate social pleasures of the entertainment, and occupying one of the places nearest to him, at the board. As he promised, after dipping the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, who, receiving it, was moved to no change in his dark purpose; but with a new Satanic spirit, resolved immediately to execute his plan, in spite of this open exposure, which, he might think, was meant to shame him from his baseness. Jesus, with an eye still fixed on his most secret inward movements, said to him, “What thou doest, do quickly.” Judas, utterly lost to repentance and to shame, coolly obeyed the direction, as if it had been an ordinary command, in the way of his official duty, and went out at the words of Jesus. All this, however, was perfectly without meaning, to the wondering disciples, who, not yet recovered from their surprise at the very extraordinary announcement which they had just heard of the expected treachery, could not suppose that this quiet movement could have anything to do with the occurrence which preceded it; but concluded that Judas was going about the business necessary for the preparation of the next day’s festal entertainment,——or that he was following the directions of Jesus about the charity to be administered to the poor out of the funds in his keeping, in accordance with the commendable Hebrew usage of remembering the poor on great occasions of enjoyment,——a custom to which, perhaps, the previous words of Judas, when he rebuked the waste of the ointment by Mary, had some especial reference, since at that particular time, money was actually needed for bestowment in alms to the poor. Judas, after leaving the place where the declaration of Jesus had made him an object of such suspicion and dislike, went, under the influence of that evil spirit, to whose direction he was now abandoned, directly to the chief priests, (who were anxiously waiting the fulfilment of his promise,) and made known to them that the time was now come. The band of watchmen and servants, with their swords and cudgels, were accordingly mustered and put under the guidance of Judas, who, well knowing the place to which Jesus would of course go from the feast, conducted his band of low assistants across the brook Kedron, to the garden of Gethsemane. On the way he arranged with them the sign by which they should recognize, in spite of the darkness and confusion, the person whose capture was the grand object of this expedition. “The man whom I shall kiss is he: seize him.” Entering thegarden, at length, he led them straight to the spot which his intimate familiarity with Jesus enabled him to know, as his favorite retreat. Going up to him with the air of friendly confidence, he saluted him, as if rejoiced to find him, even after this brief absence,——another instance of the very close intimacy which had existed between the traitor and the betrayed. Jesus submitted to this hollow show, without any attempt to repulse the movement which marked him for destruction, only saying, in mild but expressive reproach,——“Judas! Betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss?” Without more delay he announced himself in plain terms, to those who came to seize him; thus showing how little need there was of artful contrivance in taking one who did not seek to escape. “If ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, I am he.” The simple majesty with which these words were uttered, was such as to overawe even the low officials; and it was not till he himself had again distinctly reminded them of their object, that they could execute their errand. So vain was the arrangement of signals, which had been studiously made by the careful traitor.No further mention is made of Iscariot after the scene of his treachery, until the next morning, when Jesus had been condemned by the high court of the Sanhedrim, and dragged away to undergo punishment from the secular power. The sun of another day had risen on his crime; and after a very brief interval, he now had time for cool meditation on the nature and consequences of his act. Spite and avarice had both now received their full gratification. The thirty pieces of silver were his, and the Master whose instructions he had hated for their purity and spirituality, because they had made known to him the vileness of his own character and motives, was now in the hands of those who were impelled, by the darkest passions, to secure his destruction. But after all, now came the thought, and inquiry, ‘what had the pure and holy Jesus done, to deserve this reward at his hands?’ He had called him from the sordid pursuits of a common life, to the high task of aiding in the regeneration of Israel. He had taught him, labored with him, prayed for him, trusted him as a near and worthy friend, making him the steward of all the earthly possessions of his apostolic family, and the organ of his ministrations of charity to the poor. All this he had done without the prospect of a reward, surely. And why? To make him an instrument, not of the base purposes of a low ambition;——not to acquire by this means the sordid and bloody honors of a conqueror,——but toeffect the moral and spiritual emancipation of a people, suffering far less under the evils of a foreign sway, than under the debasing dominion of folly and sin. And was this an occasion to arm against him the darker feelings of his trusted and loved companions?——to turn the instruments of his mercy into weapons of death? Ought the mere disappointment of a worldly-minded spirit, that was ever clinging to the love of material things, and that would not learn the solemn truth of the spiritual character of the Messiah’s reign, now to cause it to vent its regrets at its own errors, in a traitorous attack upon the life of him who had called it to a purpose whose glories and rewards it could not appreciate? These and other mournful thoughts would naturally rise to the repentant traitor’s mind, in the awful revulsion of feeling which that morning brought with it. But repentance is not atonement; nor can any change of feeling in the mind of the sinner, after the perpetration of the sinful act, avail anything for the removal or expiation of the evil consequences of it. So vain and unprofitable, both to the injurer and the injured, are the tears of remorse! And herein lay the difference between the repentance of Judas and of Peter. The sin of Peter affected no one but himself, and was criminal only as the manifestation of a base, selfish spirit of deceit, that fell from truth through a vain-glorious confidence,——and the effusion of his gushing tears might prove the means of washing away the pollution of such an offense from his soul. But the sin of Judas had wrought a work of crime whose evil could not be affected by any tardy change of feeling in him. Peter’s repentance came too late indeed, to exonerate him from guilt; because all repentance is too late for such a purpose, when it comes after the commission of the sin. The repentance of an evil purpose, coming in time to prevent the execution of the act, is indeed available for good; but both Peter and Judas came to the sense of the heinousness of sin, only after its commission. Peter however, had no evil to repair for others,——while Judas saw the bloody sequel of his guilt, coming with most irrevocable certainty upon the blameless One whom he had betrayed. Overwhelmed with vain regrets, he took the now hateful, though once-desired price of his villainy, and seeking the presence of his purchasers, held out to them the money, with the useless confession of the guilt, which was too accordant with their schemes and hopes, for them to think of redeeming him from its consequences. The words of his confession were, “I have sinned, in betraying innocent blood.” This late protestation was receivedby the proud priests, with as much regard as might have been expected from exulting tyranny, when in the enjoyment of the grand object of its efforts. With a cold sneer they replied, “What is that to us? See thou to that!” Maddened with the immovable and remorseless determination of the haughty condemners of the just, he flung down the price of his infamy and woe, upon the floor of the temple, and rushed out of their presence, to seal his crimes and eternal misery by the act that put him for ever beyond the power of redemption. Seeking a place removed from the observation of men, he hurried out of the city, and contriving the fatal means of death for himself, before the bloody doom of him whom he betrayed had been fulfilled, the wretched man saved his eyes the renewed horrors of the sight of the crucifixion, by closing them in the sleep which earthly sights can not disturb. But even in the mode of his death, new circumstances of horror occurred. Swinging himself into the air, by falling from a highth, as the cord tightened around his neck, checking his descent, the weight of his body produced the rupture of his abdomen, and his bowels bursting through, made him, as he swung stiffening and convulsed in the agonies of this doubly horrid death, a disgusting and appalling spectacle,——a monument of the vengeance of God on the traitor, and a shocking witness of his own remorse and self-condemnation.A very striking difference is noticeable between the account given by Matthew of the death of Judas, and that given by Luke in the speech of Peter, Actsi.18, 19. The various modes of reconciling these difficulties are found in the ordinary commentaries. In respect to a single expression in Actsi.18, there is an ingenious conjecture offered by Granville Penn, in a very interesting and learned article in the first volume of the transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, which may very properly be mentioned here, on account of its originality and plausibility, and because it is found only in an expensive work, hardly ever seen in this country.Mr.Penn’s view is, that “the wordελακησε(elakese,) in Actsi.18, is only an inflection of the Latin verb,laqueo, (to halter or strangle,) rendered insititious in the Hellenistic Greek, under the formλακεω.” He enters into a very elaborate argument, which can not be given here, but an extract may be transcribed, in order to enable the learned to apprehend the nature and force of his views. (Translated by R. S. Lit.Vol. I.P. 2,pp.51, 52.)“Those who have been in the southern countries of Europe know, that the operation in question, as exercised on a criminal, is performed with a great length of cord, with which the criminal isprecipitatedfrom a high beam, and is thus violentlylaqueated, or snared in a noose,mid-way——mediusorin medio;μεσος, andmedius, referring toplaceas well as toperson; as,μεσος ὑμων ἑστηκεν. (Johni.26.) ‘Considit scopulo medius————’ (Virgil, Georgics,iv.436.) ‘———— medius prorumpit in hostes.’ (Aeneid,x.379.)“Erasmus distinctly perceived this sense in the wordsπρηνης γενομενος, although he did not discern it in the wordελακησε, which confirms it: ‘πρηνηςGraecis dicitur, quivultu est in terram dejecto: expressit autemgestum et habitumLAQUEO PRAEFOCATI; alioquin, ex hoc sane loco non poterat intelligi, quod Judassuspenderit se,’ (in loc.) And so Augustine also had understood those words, as he shows in hisRecit. in Act. Apostol.l. i.col.474. ‘et collem sibi alligavit, et dejectus in faciem,’&c.Hence oneMS., cited by Sabatier, forπρηνης γενομενος, readsαποκρεμαμένος; and Jerom, in hisnew vulgate, has substitutedsuspensusfor thepronus factusof the old Latin version, which our old English version of 1542 accordingly renders,and when he was hanged.“That which follows, and which evidently determined the vulgar interpretation ofελακησε——εξεχυνθη παντα τα σπλαγχνα αυτου,all his bowels gushed out——states a natural and probable effect produced, by the sudden interruption in the fall and violent capture in the noose, in a frame of great corpulency and distension, such as Christian antiquity has recorded that of the traitor to have been; so that a term to express rupture would have been altogether unnecessary, and it is therefore equally unnecessary to seek for it in the verbελακησε. Had the historian intended to express disruption, we may justly presume that he would have said, as he had already said in his gospel,v.6,διερρηγνυτο, orxxiii.45,εσχισθη μεσος: it is difficult to conceive, that he would here have traveled into the language of ancient Greek poetry for a word to express a common idea, when he had common terms at hand and in practice; but he used the Romanlaqueo,λακεω, to mark the infamy of the death.“(Πρησθεις επι τοσουτον την σαρκα, ὡστε μη δυνασθαι δειλθειν. Papias, from Routh'sReliquiæ Sacrætom. I.p.9. and Oecumenius, thus rendered by Zegers,Critici Sacri, Actsi.18,in tantum enim corpore inflatus est ut progredi non posset. The tale transmitted by those writers of the first and tenth centuries, that Judas was crushed to death by a chariot proceeding rapidly, from which his unwieldiness rendered him unable to escape, merits no further attention, after the authenticated descriptions of the traitor’s death which we have here investigated, than to suggest a possibility that the place where the suicide was committed might have overhung a public way, and that the body falling by its weight might have been traversed, after death, by a passing chariot;——from whence might have arisen the tales transmitted successively by those writers; the first of whom, being an inhabitant of Asia Minor, and therefore far removed from the theater of Jerusalem, and being also (as Eusebius witnesses,iii.39,) a man of a very weak mind——σφοδρα μκρος τον νουν——was liable to be deceived by false accounts.)“The words ofSt.Peter, in the Hellenistic version ofSt.Luke, will therefore import,praeceps in ora fusus, laqueavit(i. e.implicuit se laqueo)medius; (i. e.in medio, inter trabem et terram;)et effusa sunt omnia viscera ejus——throwing himself headlong, he caught mid-way in the noose, and all his bowels gushed out. And thus the two reporters of the suicide, from whose respective relations charges of disagreement, and even of contradiction, have been drawn in consequence ofmistaking an insititious Latin word for a genuine Greek word of corresponding elements, are found, by tracing that insititious word to its true origin, to report identically the same fact; the one by asingle term, the other by aperiphrasis.”Such was the end of the twelfth of Jesus Christ’s chosen ones. To such an end was the intimate friend, the trusted steward, the festal companion of the Savior, brought by the impulse of some not very unnatural feelings, excited by occasion, into extraordinary action. The universal and intense horror which the relation of his crime now invariably awakens, is by no means favorable to a just and fair appreciation of his sin and its motives, nor to such an honest consideration of his course from rectitude to guilt, as is most desirable for the application of the whole story to the moral improvement of its readers. Originally not an infamous man, he was numbered among the twelve as a person ofrespectablecharacter, and long held among his fellow-disciples a responsible station, which is itself a testimony of his unblemished reputation. He was sent forth with them, as one of the heralds of salvation to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He shared with them the counsels, the instructions, and the prayers of Jesus. If he was stupid in apprehending, and unspiritual in conceivingthe truths of the gospel, so were they. If he was an unbeliever in the resurrection of Jesus, so were they; and had he survived till the accomplishment of that prophecy, he could not have been slower in receiving the evidence of the event, than they. As it was, he died in his unbelief; while they lived to feel the glorious removal of all their doubts, the purification of all their gross conceptions, and the effusion of that spirit of truth, through which, by the grace of God alone, they afterwards were what they were. Without a merit, infaith, beyond Judas, they maintained their dim and doubtful adherence to the truth, only by their nearer approximation tomoralperfection; and by their nobler freedom from the pollution of sordid and spiteful feeling. Through passion alone he fell, a victim, not to a want of faith merely,——for therein, the rest could hardly claim a superiority,——but to the radical deficiency of truelovefor Jesus, of that “charity which never faileth,” but “endureth to the end.” It was their simple, devoted affection, which, through all their ignorance, their grossness of conception, and their faithlessness in his word, made them still cling to his name and his grave, till the full revelations of his resurrection and ascension had displaced their doubts by the most glorious certainties, and given their faith an eternal assurance. The great cause of the awful ruin of Judas Iscariot, then, was the fact, thathe did notLOVEJesus. Herein was his grand distinction from all the rest; for though their regard was mingled with so much that was base, there was plainly, in all of them, a solid foundation of true, deep affection. The most ambitious and skeptical of them, gave the most unquestionable proofs of this. Peter, John, both the Jameses, and others, are instances of the mode in which these seemingly opposite feelings were combined. But Judas was without this great refining and elevating principle, which so redeemed the most sordid feelings of his fellows. It was not merely for the love of money that he was led into this horrid crime. The love of four dollars and eighty cents! Who can believe that this was the sole motive? It was rather thathissordidness and selfishness, and ambition, if he had any, lacked this single, purifying emotion, which redeemed their characters. Is there not, in this reflection, a moral which each Christian reader can improve to his own use? For the lack of the love of Jesus alone, Judas fell from his high estate, to an infamy as immortal as their fame. Wherever, through all ages, the high heroic energy of Peter, the ready faith of Andrew, the martyr-fire of JamesBoanerges, the soul-absorbing love of John, the willing obedience of Philip, the guileless purity of Nathanael, the recorded truth of Matthew, the slow but deep devotion of Thomas, the blameless righteousness of James the Just, the appellative zeal of Simon, and the earnest warning eloquence of Jude, are all commemorated in honor and bright renown,——the murderous, sordid spite of Iscariot, will insure him an equally lasting proverbial shame. Truly, “THE SIN OF JUDAS IS WRITTEN WITH A PEN OF IRON ON A TABLET OF MARBLE.”
Thisname doubtless strikes the eye of the Christian reader, as almost a stain to the fair page of apostolic history, and a dishonor to the noble list of the holy, with whom the traitor was associated. But he who knew the hearts of all men from the beginning, even before their actions had developed and displayed their characters, chose this man among those whom he first sent forth on the message of coming grace; and all the gospel records bear the name of the traitor along with those who were faithful even unto death; nor does it behove the unconsecrated historian to affect, about the arrangement of this name, a delicacy which the gospel writers did not manifest.Of his birth, his home, his occupation, his call, and his previous character, the sacred writers bear no testimony; and all which the inventive genius of modern criticism has been able to present in respect to any of these circumstances, is drawn from no more certain source than the various proposed etymologies and significations of his name. But the plausibility which is worn by each one of these numerous derivations, is of itself a sufficient proof of the little dependence which can be placed upon any conclusion so lightly founded. The inquirer is therefore safest in following merely the reasonable conjecture, that his previous character had been respectable, not manifesting to the world at least, any baseness which would make him an infamous associate. For though the Savior in selecting the chief ministers of his gospel, did not take them from the wealthy, the high-born, the refined, or the learned; and though he did not scruple even to take those of a low and degraded occupation, his choice would nevertheless entirely exclude those who were in any way marked by previous character, as more immoral than the generality of the people among whom they lived. In short, it is very reasonable to suppose;that Judas Iscariot was a respectable man, probably with a character as good as most of his neighbors had, though he may have been considered by some of his acquaintance, as a close, sharp man in money matters; for this is a character most unquestionably fixed on him in those few and brief allusions which are made to him in the gospel narratives. Whatever may have been the business to which he had been devoted during his previous life, he had probably acquired a good reputation for honesty, as well as for careful management of property; for he is on two occasions distinctly specified as the treasurer and steward of the little company or family of Jesus;——an office for which he would not have been selected, unless he had maintained such a character as that above imputed to him. Even after his admission into the fraternity, he still betrayed his strong acquisitiveness, in a manner that will be fully exhibited in the history of the occurrence in which it was most remarkably developed.
Thisname doubtless strikes the eye of the Christian reader, as almost a stain to the fair page of apostolic history, and a dishonor to the noble list of the holy, with whom the traitor was associated. But he who knew the hearts of all men from the beginning, even before their actions had developed and displayed their characters, chose this man among those whom he first sent forth on the message of coming grace; and all the gospel records bear the name of the traitor along with those who were faithful even unto death; nor does it behove the unconsecrated historian to affect, about the arrangement of this name, a delicacy which the gospel writers did not manifest.
Of his birth, his home, his occupation, his call, and his previous character, the sacred writers bear no testimony; and all which the inventive genius of modern criticism has been able to present in respect to any of these circumstances, is drawn from no more certain source than the various proposed etymologies and significations of his name. But the plausibility which is worn by each one of these numerous derivations, is of itself a sufficient proof of the little dependence which can be placed upon any conclusion so lightly founded. The inquirer is therefore safest in following merely the reasonable conjecture, that his previous character had been respectable, not manifesting to the world at least, any baseness which would make him an infamous associate. For though the Savior in selecting the chief ministers of his gospel, did not take them from the wealthy, the high-born, the refined, or the learned; and though he did not scruple even to take those of a low and degraded occupation, his choice would nevertheless entirely exclude those who were in any way marked by previous character, as more immoral than the generality of the people among whom they lived. In short, it is very reasonable to suppose;that Judas Iscariot was a respectable man, probably with a character as good as most of his neighbors had, though he may have been considered by some of his acquaintance, as a close, sharp man in money matters; for this is a character most unquestionably fixed on him in those few and brief allusions which are made to him in the gospel narratives. Whatever may have been the business to which he had been devoted during his previous life, he had probably acquired a good reputation for honesty, as well as for careful management of property; for he is on two occasions distinctly specified as the treasurer and steward of the little company or family of Jesus;——an office for which he would not have been selected, unless he had maintained such a character as that above imputed to him. Even after his admission into the fraternity, he still betrayed his strong acquisitiveness, in a manner that will be fully exhibited in the history of the occurrence in which it was most remarkably developed.
Iscariot.——The present form of this word appears from the testimony of Beza, to be different from the original one, which, in his oldest copy of the New Testament, was given without theIin the beginning, simply;Σκαρίωτης; (Scariotes;) and this is confirmed by the very ancient Syriac version, which expresses it by(‡ Syriac word)(Sekaryuta.) Origen also, the oldest of the Christian commentators, (A. D. 230,) gives the word without the initial vowel, “Scariot.” It is most reasonable therefore to conclude that the name was originallyScariot, and that theIwas prefixed, for the sake of the easier pronunciation of the two initial consonants; for some languages are so smoothly constructed, that they do not allow evenSto precede a mute, without a vowel before. Just as the Turks, in taking up the names of Greek towns, changeScopiaintoIscopia,&c.The French too, change the LatinSpiritusintoEsprit, as do the Spaniards intoEspiritu; and similar instances are numerous.
The very learned Matthew Poole, in his Synopsis Criticorum, (Matthewx.4,) gives a very full view of the various interpretations of this name.Sixdistinct etymologies and significations of this word have been proposed, most of which appear so plausible, that it may seem hard to decide on their comparative probabilities. That which is best justified by the easy transition from the theme, and by the aptness of the signification to the circumstances of the person, is theFirst, proposed by an anonymous author, quoted in the Parallels of Junius, and adopted by Poole. This is the derivation from the Syriac(‡ Syriac word)(sekharyut,) “a bag,” or “purse;” root cognate with the Hebrewסכר(sakhar.)No.1, Gibbs’s Hebrew Lexicon, andסגר(sagar,) Syrian & Arabicid.The word thus derived must mean the “bag-man,” the “purser,” which is a most happy illustration of John’s account of the office of Judas, (xii.6:xiii.29.) It is, in short, a name descriptive of his peculiar duty in receiving the money of the common stock of Christ and his apostles, buying the necessary provisions, administering their common charities to the poor, and managing all their pecuniary affairs,——performing all the duties of that officer who in English is called a “steward.” JudasIscariot, or rather “Scariot,” means therefore “Judas theSTEWARD.”
Thesecondderivation proposed is that of Junius, (Parall.) who refers it to a sense descriptive of his fate. The Syriac, Hebrew, and Arabic root,סכר(sakar,) has in the first of these languages, the secondary signification of “strangle,” and the personal substantive derived from it, might therefore mean, “one who was strangled.” Lightfoot says that if this theme is to be adopted, he should prefer to trace the name to the wordאשכראwhich with the Rabbinical writers is used in reference to the same primitive,in the meaning of “strangulation.” But both these, even without regarding the great aptness of the first definition above given, may be condemned on their own demerits; because, they suppose either that this name was applied to him, onlyafterhis death,——an exceedingly unnatural view,——or (what is vastly more absurd) that he was thus named during his life-time, by aprophetical anticipation, that he would die by the halter!!! It is not very uncommon, to be sure, for such charitable prophetic inferences to be drawn respecting the character and destiny of the graceless, and the point of some vulgar proverbs consists in this very allusion, but the utmost stretch of such predictions never goes to the degree of fixing upon the hopeful candidate for the gallows, a surname drawn from this comfortable anticipation of his destiny. Besides, it is hard to believe that a man wearing thus, as it were, a halter around his neck, would have been called by Jesus into the goodly fellowship of the apostles; for though neither rank, nor wealth, nor education, nor refinement were requisites for admission, yet a tolerable good moral character may be fairly presumed to have been an indispensable qualification.
Thethirdderivation is of such a complicated and far-fetched character, that it bears its condemnation on its own face. It is that of the learned Tremellius, who attempts to analyze Iscariot intoשכר(seker,) “wages,” “reward,” andנטה(natah,) “turn away,” alluding to the fact that for money he revolted from his Master. This, besides its other difficulties, supposes that the name was conferred after his death; whereas he must certainly have needed during his life, some appellative to distinguish him from Judas the brother of James.
Thefourthis that of Grotius and Erasmus, who derive it fromאיש יששכר(Ish Issachar,) “a man of Issachar,”——supposing the name to designate his tribe, just as the same phrase occurs in Judgesx.1. But all these distinctions of origin from the ten tribes must have been utterly lost in the time of Christ; nor does any instance occur of a Jew of the apostolic age being named from his supposed tribe.
Thefifthis the one suggested and adopted by Lightfoot. In the Talmudic Hebrew, the wordסקורטיא(sekurti,)——also written with an initialא(aleph) and pronouncedIscurti,——has the meaning of “leatherapron;” and this great Hebraician proposes therefore, to translate the name, “Judaswith the leather apron;” and suggests some aptness in such a personal appendage, because in such aprons they had pockets or bags in which money,&c.might be carried. The whole derivation, however, is forced and far-fetched,——doing great violence to the present form of the word, and is altogether unworthy of the genius of its inventor, who is usually very acute in etymologies.
Thesixthis that of Beza, Piscator and Hammond, who make itאיש־קריות(Ish-QeriothorKerioth,) “a man ofKerioth,” a city of Judah. (Joshuaxv.25.) Beza says that a very ancientMS.of the Greek New Testament, in his possession, (above referred to,) in all the five passages in John, where Judas is mentioned, has this surname writtenαπο Καριωτου. (apo Cariotou,) “Judasof Kerioth.” Lucas Brugensis observes, that this form of expression is used in Ezraii.22, 23, where the “men of Anathoth,”&c.are spoken of; but there is no parallelism whatever between the two cases; because in the passage quoted it is a mere general designation of the inhabitants of a place,——nor can any passage be shown in which it is thus appended to a man’s name, by way of surname. The peculiarity of Beza’sMS.is therefore undoubtedly an unauthorized perversion by some ancient copyist; for it is not found on any other ancient authority.
The motives which led such a man to join himself to the followers of the self-denying Nazarene, of course could not have been of a very high order; yet probably were about as praiseworthy as those of any of the followers of Jesus. Not one of the chosen disciples of Jesus is mentioned in the solemnly faithful narrative of the evangelists, as inspired by a self-denying principle of action. Wherever an occasion appeared on which their true motives and feelings could be displayed, they all without exception, manifested the most sordid selfishness, and seemed inspired by noidea whatever but that of worldly honors, triumphs, and rewards to be won in his service! Peter, indeed, is not very distinctly specified as betraying any remarkable regard for his own individual interest, and on several occasions manifested, certainly by starts, much of a true self-sacrificing devotion to his Master; yet his great views in following Jesus were unquestionably of an ambitious order, and his noblest conception was that of a worldly triumph of a Messiah, in which the chosen ones were to have a share proportioned no doubt to their exertions for its attainment. The two Boanerges betrayed the most determined selfishness, in scheming for a lion’s share in the spoils of victory; and the whole body of the disciples, on more than one occasion, quarreled among themselves about the first places in Christ’s kingdom. Judas therefore, was not greatly worse than his fellow-disciples,——no matter how bad may have been his motives; and probably at the beginning maintained a respectable stand among them, unless occasion might have betrayed to them the fact, that he was mean in money matters. But he, after espousing the fortunes of Jesus, doubtless went on scheming for his own advancement, just as the rest did for theirs, except that probably, when those of more liberal conceptions were contriving great schemes for the attainment of power, honor, fame, titles, and glory, both military and civil, his penny-saving soul was reveling in golden dreams, and his thoughts running delightedly over the prospects of vast gain to be reaped in the confiscation of the property of the wealthy Pharisees and lawyers, that would ensue immediately on the establishment of the empire of the Nazarene and his Galileans. While the great James and his amiable brother were quarreling with the rest of the fraternity about the premierships,——the highest administration of spiritual and temporal power,——the discreetly calculating Iscariot was doubtless expecting the fair results of a regular course of promotion, from the office of bag-carrier to the strolling company of Galileans, to the stately honors and immense emoluments of lord high-treasurer of the new kingdom of Israel; his advancement naturally taking place in the line in which he had made his first beginning in the service of his Lord, he might well expect that in those very particulars where he had shown himself faithful in few things, he would be made ruler over many things, when he should enter into the joy of his Lord,——sharing the honors and profits of His exaltation, as he had borne his part in the toils and anxieties of his humble fortunes. The careful management of his littlestewardship, “bearing the bag, and what was put therein,” and “buying those things that were necessary” for all the wants of the brotherhood of Jesus,——was a service of no small importance and merit, and certainly would deserve a consideration at the hands of his Master. Such a trust also, certainly implied a great confidence of Jesus in his honesty and discretion in money matters, and shows not only the blamelessness of his character in those particulars, but the peculiar turn of his genius, in being selected, out of the whole twelve, for this very responsible and somewhat troublesome function.Yet the eyes of the Redeemer were by no means closed to the baser inclinations of this much-trusted disciple. He knew (for what did he not know?) how short was the step from the steady adherence to the practice of a particular virtue, to the most scandalous breach of honor in that same line of action,——how slight, and easy, and natural was the perversion of a truly mean soul, or even one of respectable and honorable purposes, from the honest pursuit of gain, to the absolute disregard of every circumstance but personal advantage, and safety from the punishment of crime,——a change insensibly resulting from the total absorption of the soul in one solitary object and aim; for in all such cases, the honesty is not thepurpose; it is only an incidental principle, occasionally called in to regulate the modes and means of the grand acquisition;——butgainis the great end and essence of such a life, and the forgetfulness of every other motive, when occasion suggests, is neither unnatural nor surprising. With all this and vastly more knowledge, Jesus was well able to discriminate the different states of mind in which the course of his discipleship found this calculating follower. He doubtless traced from day to day, and from week to week, and from month to month, as well as from year to year of his weary pilgrimage, the changes of zeal, resolution and hope, into distaste and despair, as the day of anticipated reward for these sacrifices seemed farther and farther removed, by the progress of events. The knowledge too, of the manner in which these depraved propensities would at last develope themselves, is distinctly expressed in the remark which he made in reply to Peter’s declaration of the fidelity and devotion of himself and his fellow disciples, just after the miracle of feeding the five thousand by the lake, when some renounced the service of Christ, disgusted with the revelations which he there made to them of the spiritual nature of his kingdom, and its rewards, and of the difficultand disagreeable requisites for his discipleship. Jesus seeing the sad defection of the worldly, turned to the twelve and said, “Will ye also go away?” Simon Peter, with ever ready zeal replied, “Lord! to whom shall we go but unto thee? For thou only hast the words of eternal life.” Jesus answered them, “Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is anaccuser?” This reply, as John in recording it remarks, alluded to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon; for he it was that was to betray him, though he was one of the twelve. He well knew that on no ear would these revelations of the pure spiritualism of his kingdom, and of the self-denying character of his service, fall more disagreeably than on that of the money-loving steward of the apostolic family, whose hopes would be most wofully disappointed by the uncomfortable prospects of recompense, and whose thoughts would be henceforth contriving the means of extricating himself from all share in this hopeless enterprise. Still he did not, like those mal-contents who were not numbered among the twelve, openly renounce his discipleship, and return to the business which he had left for the deceptive prospect of a profitable reward. He found himself too deeply committed to do this with advantage, and he therefore discontentedly continued to follow his great summoner, until an opportunity should occur of leaving this undesirable service, with a chance of some immediate profit in the exchange. Nor did he yet, probably, despair entirely of some more hopeful scheme of revolution than was now held up to view. He might occasionally have been led to hope, that these gloomy announcements were but a trial of the constancy of the chosen, and that all things would yet turn out as their high expectations had planned. In the occasional remarks of Jesus, there was also much, which an unspiritual and sordid hearer, might very naturally construe into a more comfortable accomplishment of his views, and in which such a one would think he found the distinct expression of the real purposes of Jesus in reference to the reward of his disciples. Such an instance, was the reply made to Peter when he reminded his Master of the great pecuniary sacrifices which they had all made in his service: “Lo! we have left all, and followed thee.” The assurances contained in the reply of Jesus, that among other things, those who had left houses and lands for his sake, should receive a hundred fold more in the day of his triumph, must have favorably impressed the baser-minded, with some idea of a real, solid return for the seemingly unprofitable investment which theyhad made in his scheme. Or, on the other hand, if the faith and hope of Iscariot in the word of Jesus were already too far gone to be recalled to life by any cheering promises, these sayings may have only served to increase his indifference, or to deepen it into downright hatred, at what he would regard as a new deceit, designed to keep up the sinking spirits of those, who had begun to apprehend the desperate character of the enterprise in which they had involved themselves. If his feelings had then reached this point of desperation, the effect of this renewal of promises, which he might construe into a support of his original views of the nature of the rewards accruing to the followers of Christ, on the establishment of his kingdom, would only excite and strengthen a deep rooted spite against his once-adored Lord, and his malice, working in secret over the disappointment, would at last be ready to rise on some convenient occasion into active revenge.
The motives which led such a man to join himself to the followers of the self-denying Nazarene, of course could not have been of a very high order; yet probably were about as praiseworthy as those of any of the followers of Jesus. Not one of the chosen disciples of Jesus is mentioned in the solemnly faithful narrative of the evangelists, as inspired by a self-denying principle of action. Wherever an occasion appeared on which their true motives and feelings could be displayed, they all without exception, manifested the most sordid selfishness, and seemed inspired by noidea whatever but that of worldly honors, triumphs, and rewards to be won in his service! Peter, indeed, is not very distinctly specified as betraying any remarkable regard for his own individual interest, and on several occasions manifested, certainly by starts, much of a true self-sacrificing devotion to his Master; yet his great views in following Jesus were unquestionably of an ambitious order, and his noblest conception was that of a worldly triumph of a Messiah, in which the chosen ones were to have a share proportioned no doubt to their exertions for its attainment. The two Boanerges betrayed the most determined selfishness, in scheming for a lion’s share in the spoils of victory; and the whole body of the disciples, on more than one occasion, quarreled among themselves about the first places in Christ’s kingdom. Judas therefore, was not greatly worse than his fellow-disciples,——no matter how bad may have been his motives; and probably at the beginning maintained a respectable stand among them, unless occasion might have betrayed to them the fact, that he was mean in money matters. But he, after espousing the fortunes of Jesus, doubtless went on scheming for his own advancement, just as the rest did for theirs, except that probably, when those of more liberal conceptions were contriving great schemes for the attainment of power, honor, fame, titles, and glory, both military and civil, his penny-saving soul was reveling in golden dreams, and his thoughts running delightedly over the prospects of vast gain to be reaped in the confiscation of the property of the wealthy Pharisees and lawyers, that would ensue immediately on the establishment of the empire of the Nazarene and his Galileans. While the great James and his amiable brother were quarreling with the rest of the fraternity about the premierships,——the highest administration of spiritual and temporal power,——the discreetly calculating Iscariot was doubtless expecting the fair results of a regular course of promotion, from the office of bag-carrier to the strolling company of Galileans, to the stately honors and immense emoluments of lord high-treasurer of the new kingdom of Israel; his advancement naturally taking place in the line in which he had made his first beginning in the service of his Lord, he might well expect that in those very particulars where he had shown himself faithful in few things, he would be made ruler over many things, when he should enter into the joy of his Lord,——sharing the honors and profits of His exaltation, as he had borne his part in the toils and anxieties of his humble fortunes. The careful management of his littlestewardship, “bearing the bag, and what was put therein,” and “buying those things that were necessary” for all the wants of the brotherhood of Jesus,——was a service of no small importance and merit, and certainly would deserve a consideration at the hands of his Master. Such a trust also, certainly implied a great confidence of Jesus in his honesty and discretion in money matters, and shows not only the blamelessness of his character in those particulars, but the peculiar turn of his genius, in being selected, out of the whole twelve, for this very responsible and somewhat troublesome function.
Yet the eyes of the Redeemer were by no means closed to the baser inclinations of this much-trusted disciple. He knew (for what did he not know?) how short was the step from the steady adherence to the practice of a particular virtue, to the most scandalous breach of honor in that same line of action,——how slight, and easy, and natural was the perversion of a truly mean soul, or even one of respectable and honorable purposes, from the honest pursuit of gain, to the absolute disregard of every circumstance but personal advantage, and safety from the punishment of crime,——a change insensibly resulting from the total absorption of the soul in one solitary object and aim; for in all such cases, the honesty is not thepurpose; it is only an incidental principle, occasionally called in to regulate the modes and means of the grand acquisition;——butgainis the great end and essence of such a life, and the forgetfulness of every other motive, when occasion suggests, is neither unnatural nor surprising. With all this and vastly more knowledge, Jesus was well able to discriminate the different states of mind in which the course of his discipleship found this calculating follower. He doubtless traced from day to day, and from week to week, and from month to month, as well as from year to year of his weary pilgrimage, the changes of zeal, resolution and hope, into distaste and despair, as the day of anticipated reward for these sacrifices seemed farther and farther removed, by the progress of events. The knowledge too, of the manner in which these depraved propensities would at last develope themselves, is distinctly expressed in the remark which he made in reply to Peter’s declaration of the fidelity and devotion of himself and his fellow disciples, just after the miracle of feeding the five thousand by the lake, when some renounced the service of Christ, disgusted with the revelations which he there made to them of the spiritual nature of his kingdom, and its rewards, and of the difficultand disagreeable requisites for his discipleship. Jesus seeing the sad defection of the worldly, turned to the twelve and said, “Will ye also go away?” Simon Peter, with ever ready zeal replied, “Lord! to whom shall we go but unto thee? For thou only hast the words of eternal life.” Jesus answered them, “Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is anaccuser?” This reply, as John in recording it remarks, alluded to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon; for he it was that was to betray him, though he was one of the twelve. He well knew that on no ear would these revelations of the pure spiritualism of his kingdom, and of the self-denying character of his service, fall more disagreeably than on that of the money-loving steward of the apostolic family, whose hopes would be most wofully disappointed by the uncomfortable prospects of recompense, and whose thoughts would be henceforth contriving the means of extricating himself from all share in this hopeless enterprise. Still he did not, like those mal-contents who were not numbered among the twelve, openly renounce his discipleship, and return to the business which he had left for the deceptive prospect of a profitable reward. He found himself too deeply committed to do this with advantage, and he therefore discontentedly continued to follow his great summoner, until an opportunity should occur of leaving this undesirable service, with a chance of some immediate profit in the exchange. Nor did he yet, probably, despair entirely of some more hopeful scheme of revolution than was now held up to view. He might occasionally have been led to hope, that these gloomy announcements were but a trial of the constancy of the chosen, and that all things would yet turn out as their high expectations had planned. In the occasional remarks of Jesus, there was also much, which an unspiritual and sordid hearer, might very naturally construe into a more comfortable accomplishment of his views, and in which such a one would think he found the distinct expression of the real purposes of Jesus in reference to the reward of his disciples. Such an instance, was the reply made to Peter when he reminded his Master of the great pecuniary sacrifices which they had all made in his service: “Lo! we have left all, and followed thee.” The assurances contained in the reply of Jesus, that among other things, those who had left houses and lands for his sake, should receive a hundred fold more in the day of his triumph, must have favorably impressed the baser-minded, with some idea of a real, solid return for the seemingly unprofitable investment which theyhad made in his scheme. Or, on the other hand, if the faith and hope of Iscariot in the word of Jesus were already too far gone to be recalled to life by any cheering promises, these sayings may have only served to increase his indifference, or to deepen it into downright hatred, at what he would regard as a new deceit, designed to keep up the sinking spirits of those, who had begun to apprehend the desperate character of the enterprise in which they had involved themselves. If his feelings had then reached this point of desperation, the effect of this renewal of promises, which he might construe into a support of his original views of the nature of the rewards accruing to the followers of Christ, on the establishment of his kingdom, would only excite and strengthen a deep rooted spite against his once-adored Lord, and his malice, working in secret over the disappointment, would at last be ready to rise on some convenient occasion into active revenge.
An accuser.——This is the true primary force ofδιαβολος(diabolos) in this passage. (Johnvi.70.) This word is never applied to any individual in the sense of “devil,” except to Satan himself; but wherever it occurs as a common substantive appellation, descriptive of character, pointedly refers to its primary signification of “accuser,” “calumniator,” “informer,”&c., the root of it beingδιαβαλλω, which means “to accuse,” “to calumniate;” and when applied to Satan, it still preserves this sense,——though it then has the force of a proper name; sinceשטן(Satan,) in Hebrew, means primarily “accuser” but acquires the force of a proper name, in its ordinary use. Grotius however, suggests that in this passage, the word truly corresponds to the Hebrewצר(tsar,) the word which is applied to Haman, (Esthervii.6.viii.1.) and has here the general force of “accuser,” “enemy,”&c.The context here (verse 71,) shows that John referred to this sense, and that Christ applied it to Judas prophetically,——thus showing his knowledge of the fact, that this apostle would “accuse” him, and “inform” against him, before the Sanhedrim. Not only Grotius, but Vatablus, Erasmus, Lucas Brugensis, and others, maintain this rendering.
This occasion, before long, presented itself. The successful labors of Jesus, in Jerusalem, had raised up against him a combination of foes of the most determined and dangerously hostile character. The great dignitaries of the nation, uniting in one body all the legal, literary and religions honors and influence of the Hebrew name, and strengthened too by the weight of the vast wealth belonging to them and their immediate supporters, as well as by the exaltation of high office and ancient family, had at last resolved to use all this immense power, (if less could not effect it,) for the ruin of the bold, eloquent man, who, without one of all the privileges which were the sources and supports of their power, had shaken their ancient dominion to its foundation by his simple words, and almost overthrown all their power over the people, whose eyes were now beginning to be opened to the mystery of “how little wisdom it took, to govern them!” Self-preservationseemed to require an instantaneous and energetic action against the bold Reformer; and they were not the men to scruple about the means or mode of satisfying both revenge and ambition by his destruction. This state of feeling among the aristocracy could not have been unknown to Iscariot. He had doubtless watched its gradual developments, from day to day, during the displays in the temple; and as defeat followed defeat in the strife of mind, he had abundant opportunity to see the hostile feeling of the baffled and mortified Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes and lawyers, mounting to the highest pitch of indignation, and furnishing him with the long-desired occasion of making up for his own disappointment in his great plans for the recompense of his sacrifices, in the cause of Jesus. He saw that there was no chance whatever for the triumphant establishment of that kingdom in whose honors he had expected to share. All the opportunities and means for effecting this result, Jesus was evidently determined to throw away, nor could anything ever move him to such an effort as was desirable for the gratification of the ambition of his disciples. The more splendid and tempting the occasions for founding a temporal dominion, the more resolutely did he seem to disappoint the golden hopes of his followers; and, proceeding thus, was only exposing himself and them to danger, without making any provision for their safety or escape. And where was to be the reward of Iscariot’s long services in the management of the stewardship of the apostolic fraternity? Had he not left his business, to follow them about, laboring in their behalf, managing their affairs, procuring the means of subsistence for them, and exercising a responsibility which none else was so competent to assume? And what recompense had he received? None, but the almost hopeless ruin of his fortunes in a desperate cause. That such were the feelings and reflections which his circumstances would naturally suggest, is very evident. The signs of the alienation of his affections from Jesus, are also seen in the little incident recorded by all the evangelists, of the anointing of his feet by Mary. She, in deep gratitude to the adored Lord who had restored to life her beloved brother, brought, as the offering of her fervent love, the box of precious ointment of spikenard, and poured it over his feet, anointing them, and wiping them with her hair, so that the whole house was filled with the fragrance. This beautiful instance of an ardent devotion, that would sacrifice everything for its object, awakened no corresponding feeling inthe narrow soul of Iscariot; but seizing this occasion for the manifestation of his inborn meanness, and his growing spite against his Master, he indignantly exclaimed, (veiling his true motive, however, under the appearance of charitable regard for the poor,) “To what purpose is this waste? Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?” So specious was this honorable pretense for blaming what seemed the inconsiderate and extravagant devotion of Mary, that others of the disciples joined in the indignant remonstrance against this useless squandering of property, which might be converted to the valuable purpose of ministering to the necessities of the poor, many of whose hearts might have been gladdened by a well-regulated expenditure of the price of this costly offering, which was now irrecoverably lost. But honorable as may have been the motives of those who joined with Iscariot in this protest, the apostle John most distinctly insists that he was moved by a far baser consideration. “This he said,NOTbecause he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and kept the coffer, and carried what was cast into it.” This is a most distinct exposition of a piece of villainy in the traitor, that would have remained unknown, but for the record which John gives of this transaction. It is here declared in plain terms, that Iscariot had grossly betrayed the pecuniary trust which had been committed to him on the score of his previous honesty, and had been guilty of downright peculation,——converting to his own private purposes, the money which had been deposited with him as the treasurer and steward of the whole company of the disciples. He had probably made up his mind to this rascally abuse of trust, on the ground that he was justified in thus balancing what he had lost by his connection with Jesus; and supposed, no doubt, that the ruin of all those whom he was thus cheating, would be effectually secured before the act could be found out. What renders this crime doubly abominable, is, that it was robbing the poor of the generous contributions which, by the kindness of Jesus, had been appropriated to their use, out of this little common stock; for it seems that Iscariot was the minister of the common charities of the brotherhood, as well as the provider of such things as were necessary for their subsistence, and the steward of the common property. With the pollution of this base crime upon his soul, before stirred up to spite and disgust by disappointed ambition, he was now so dead to honor and decency, that he was abundantlyprepared for the commission of the crowning act of villainy. The words in which Jesus rebuked his specious concern for the economical administration of the money in charity, was also in a tone that he might construe into a new ground of offense, implying, as it did, that his zeal had some motive far removed from a true affection for that Master, whose life was in hourly peril, and might any moment be so sacrificed by his foes, that the honorable forms of preparation for the burial might be denied; and being thus already devoted to death, he might well accept this costly offering of pure devotion, as the mournful unction for the grave. In these sadly prophetic words, Judas may have found the immediate suggestion of his act of sordid treachery; and incited, moreover, by the repulse which his remonstrance had received, he seems to have gone directly about the perpetration of the crime.The nature and immediate object of this plot may not be perfectly comprehended, without considering minutely the relations in which Jesus stood to the Jewish Sanhedrim, and the means he had of resisting or evading their efforts for the consummation of their schemes and hopes against him. Jesus of Nazareth was, to the chief priests, scribes and Pharisees, a dangerous foe. He had, during his visits to Jerusalem, in his repeated encounters with them in the courts of the temple, and all public places of assembly, struck at the very foundation of all their authority and power over the people. The Jewish hierarchy was supported by the sway of the Romans, indeed, but only because it was in accordance with their universal policy of tolerance, to preserve the previously established order of things, in all countries which they conquered, so long as such a preservation was desired by the people; but no longer than it was perfectly accordant with the feelings of the majority. The Sanhedrim and their dependents therefore knew perfectly well that their establishment could receive no support from the Roman government, after they had lost their dominion over the affections of the people; and were therefore very ready to perceive, that if they were to be thus confounded and set at nought, in spite of learning and dignity, by a poor Galilean, and even their gravest and most puzzling attacks upon his wisdom and prudence, turned into an absolute jest against them,——it was quite clear that the amused and delighted multitude would soon cease to regard the authority and opinions of their venerable religious and legal rulers, whose subtleties were so easily foiledby one of the common, uneducated mass. But the very circumstances which effected and constituted the evil, were also the grand obstacles to the removal of it. Jesus was by these means seated firmly in the love and reverence of the people,——and of the vast numbers of strangers then in Jerusalem at the feast, there were very many who would have their feelings strongly excited in his favor, by the circumstance that they, as well as he, were Galileans, and would therefore be very apt to make common cause with him in case of any violent attack. All these obstacles required management; and after having been very many times foiled in their attempts to seize him, by the resolute determination of the thousands by whom he was always encircled, to defend him, they found that they must contrive some way to get hold of him when he was without the defenses of this admiring host. This could be done, of course, only by following him to his secret haunts, and coming quietly upon him before the multitude could assemble to his aid. But his movements were altogether beyond their notice. No armed band could follow him about, as he went from the city to the country in his daily and nightly walks. They needed some spy who could watch his private movements when unattended, save by the little band of the twelve, and give notice of the favorable moment for a seizure, when the time, the place, and the circumstances, would all conspire to prevent a rescue. Thus taken, he might be safely lodged in some of the impregnable fortresses of the temple and city, so as to defy the momentary burst of popular rage, on finding that their idol had been taken away. They knew too, the fickle character of the commonalty, well enough to feel certain, that when the tide of condemnation was once strongly set against the Nazarene, the lip-worship of “Hosannas” could be easily turned, by a little management, into the ferocious yell of deadly denunciation. The mass of the people are always essentially the same in their modes of action. Mobs were then managed by the same rules as now, and demagogues were equally well versed in the tricks of their trade. Besides, when Jesus had once been formally indicted and presented before the secular tribunal of the Roman governor, as a rioter and seditious person, no thought of a rescue from the military force could be thought of; and however unwilling Pilate might be to minister to the wishes of the Jews, in an act of unnecessary cruelty, he could not resist a call thus solemnly made to him, in the character of preserver of the Roman sway, thoughhe would probably have rejected entirely any proposition to seize Jesus by a military force, in open day, in the midst of the multitude, so as to create a troublesome and bloody tumult, by such an imprudent act. In the full consideration of all these difficulties, the Jewish dignitaries were sitting in conclave, contriving means to effect the settlement of their troubles, by the complete removal of him who was unquestionably the cause of all. At once their anxious deliberations were happily interrupted by the entrance of the trusted steward of the company of Jesus, who changed all their doubts and distant hopes into absolute certainty, by offering, for a reasonable consideration, to give up Jesus into their hands, a prisoner, without any disturbance or riot. How much delay and debate there was about terms, it would be hard to say; but after all, the bargain made, does not seem to have been greatly to the credit of the liberality of the Sanhedrim, or the sharpness of Judas. Thirty of the largest pieces of silver then coined, would make but a poor price for such an extraordinary service, even making all allowance for a scarcity of money in those times. And taking into account the wealth and rank of those concerned, as well as the importance of the object, it is fair to pronounce them a very mean set of fellows. But Judas especially seems to forfeit almost all right to the character given him of acuteness in money matters; and it is only by supposing him to be quite carried out of his usual prudence, by his woful abandonment to crime, that so poor a bargain can be made consistent with the otherwise reasonable view of his character.
This occasion, before long, presented itself. The successful labors of Jesus, in Jerusalem, had raised up against him a combination of foes of the most determined and dangerously hostile character. The great dignitaries of the nation, uniting in one body all the legal, literary and religions honors and influence of the Hebrew name, and strengthened too by the weight of the vast wealth belonging to them and their immediate supporters, as well as by the exaltation of high office and ancient family, had at last resolved to use all this immense power, (if less could not effect it,) for the ruin of the bold, eloquent man, who, without one of all the privileges which were the sources and supports of their power, had shaken their ancient dominion to its foundation by his simple words, and almost overthrown all their power over the people, whose eyes were now beginning to be opened to the mystery of “how little wisdom it took, to govern them!” Self-preservationseemed to require an instantaneous and energetic action against the bold Reformer; and they were not the men to scruple about the means or mode of satisfying both revenge and ambition by his destruction. This state of feeling among the aristocracy could not have been unknown to Iscariot. He had doubtless watched its gradual developments, from day to day, during the displays in the temple; and as defeat followed defeat in the strife of mind, he had abundant opportunity to see the hostile feeling of the baffled and mortified Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes and lawyers, mounting to the highest pitch of indignation, and furnishing him with the long-desired occasion of making up for his own disappointment in his great plans for the recompense of his sacrifices, in the cause of Jesus. He saw that there was no chance whatever for the triumphant establishment of that kingdom in whose honors he had expected to share. All the opportunities and means for effecting this result, Jesus was evidently determined to throw away, nor could anything ever move him to such an effort as was desirable for the gratification of the ambition of his disciples. The more splendid and tempting the occasions for founding a temporal dominion, the more resolutely did he seem to disappoint the golden hopes of his followers; and, proceeding thus, was only exposing himself and them to danger, without making any provision for their safety or escape. And where was to be the reward of Iscariot’s long services in the management of the stewardship of the apostolic fraternity? Had he not left his business, to follow them about, laboring in their behalf, managing their affairs, procuring the means of subsistence for them, and exercising a responsibility which none else was so competent to assume? And what recompense had he received? None, but the almost hopeless ruin of his fortunes in a desperate cause. That such were the feelings and reflections which his circumstances would naturally suggest, is very evident. The signs of the alienation of his affections from Jesus, are also seen in the little incident recorded by all the evangelists, of the anointing of his feet by Mary. She, in deep gratitude to the adored Lord who had restored to life her beloved brother, brought, as the offering of her fervent love, the box of precious ointment of spikenard, and poured it over his feet, anointing them, and wiping them with her hair, so that the whole house was filled with the fragrance. This beautiful instance of an ardent devotion, that would sacrifice everything for its object, awakened no corresponding feeling inthe narrow soul of Iscariot; but seizing this occasion for the manifestation of his inborn meanness, and his growing spite against his Master, he indignantly exclaimed, (veiling his true motive, however, under the appearance of charitable regard for the poor,) “To what purpose is this waste? Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?” So specious was this honorable pretense for blaming what seemed the inconsiderate and extravagant devotion of Mary, that others of the disciples joined in the indignant remonstrance against this useless squandering of property, which might be converted to the valuable purpose of ministering to the necessities of the poor, many of whose hearts might have been gladdened by a well-regulated expenditure of the price of this costly offering, which was now irrecoverably lost. But honorable as may have been the motives of those who joined with Iscariot in this protest, the apostle John most distinctly insists that he was moved by a far baser consideration. “This he said,NOTbecause he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and kept the coffer, and carried what was cast into it.” This is a most distinct exposition of a piece of villainy in the traitor, that would have remained unknown, but for the record which John gives of this transaction. It is here declared in plain terms, that Iscariot had grossly betrayed the pecuniary trust which had been committed to him on the score of his previous honesty, and had been guilty of downright peculation,——converting to his own private purposes, the money which had been deposited with him as the treasurer and steward of the whole company of the disciples. He had probably made up his mind to this rascally abuse of trust, on the ground that he was justified in thus balancing what he had lost by his connection with Jesus; and supposed, no doubt, that the ruin of all those whom he was thus cheating, would be effectually secured before the act could be found out. What renders this crime doubly abominable, is, that it was robbing the poor of the generous contributions which, by the kindness of Jesus, had been appropriated to their use, out of this little common stock; for it seems that Iscariot was the minister of the common charities of the brotherhood, as well as the provider of such things as were necessary for their subsistence, and the steward of the common property. With the pollution of this base crime upon his soul, before stirred up to spite and disgust by disappointed ambition, he was now so dead to honor and decency, that he was abundantlyprepared for the commission of the crowning act of villainy. The words in which Jesus rebuked his specious concern for the economical administration of the money in charity, was also in a tone that he might construe into a new ground of offense, implying, as it did, that his zeal had some motive far removed from a true affection for that Master, whose life was in hourly peril, and might any moment be so sacrificed by his foes, that the honorable forms of preparation for the burial might be denied; and being thus already devoted to death, he might well accept this costly offering of pure devotion, as the mournful unction for the grave. In these sadly prophetic words, Judas may have found the immediate suggestion of his act of sordid treachery; and incited, moreover, by the repulse which his remonstrance had received, he seems to have gone directly about the perpetration of the crime.
The nature and immediate object of this plot may not be perfectly comprehended, without considering minutely the relations in which Jesus stood to the Jewish Sanhedrim, and the means he had of resisting or evading their efforts for the consummation of their schemes and hopes against him. Jesus of Nazareth was, to the chief priests, scribes and Pharisees, a dangerous foe. He had, during his visits to Jerusalem, in his repeated encounters with them in the courts of the temple, and all public places of assembly, struck at the very foundation of all their authority and power over the people. The Jewish hierarchy was supported by the sway of the Romans, indeed, but only because it was in accordance with their universal policy of tolerance, to preserve the previously established order of things, in all countries which they conquered, so long as such a preservation was desired by the people; but no longer than it was perfectly accordant with the feelings of the majority. The Sanhedrim and their dependents therefore knew perfectly well that their establishment could receive no support from the Roman government, after they had lost their dominion over the affections of the people; and were therefore very ready to perceive, that if they were to be thus confounded and set at nought, in spite of learning and dignity, by a poor Galilean, and even their gravest and most puzzling attacks upon his wisdom and prudence, turned into an absolute jest against them,——it was quite clear that the amused and delighted multitude would soon cease to regard the authority and opinions of their venerable religious and legal rulers, whose subtleties were so easily foiledby one of the common, uneducated mass. But the very circumstances which effected and constituted the evil, were also the grand obstacles to the removal of it. Jesus was by these means seated firmly in the love and reverence of the people,——and of the vast numbers of strangers then in Jerusalem at the feast, there were very many who would have their feelings strongly excited in his favor, by the circumstance that they, as well as he, were Galileans, and would therefore be very apt to make common cause with him in case of any violent attack. All these obstacles required management; and after having been very many times foiled in their attempts to seize him, by the resolute determination of the thousands by whom he was always encircled, to defend him, they found that they must contrive some way to get hold of him when he was without the defenses of this admiring host. This could be done, of course, only by following him to his secret haunts, and coming quietly upon him before the multitude could assemble to his aid. But his movements were altogether beyond their notice. No armed band could follow him about, as he went from the city to the country in his daily and nightly walks. They needed some spy who could watch his private movements when unattended, save by the little band of the twelve, and give notice of the favorable moment for a seizure, when the time, the place, and the circumstances, would all conspire to prevent a rescue. Thus taken, he might be safely lodged in some of the impregnable fortresses of the temple and city, so as to defy the momentary burst of popular rage, on finding that their idol had been taken away. They knew too, the fickle character of the commonalty, well enough to feel certain, that when the tide of condemnation was once strongly set against the Nazarene, the lip-worship of “Hosannas” could be easily turned, by a little management, into the ferocious yell of deadly denunciation. The mass of the people are always essentially the same in their modes of action. Mobs were then managed by the same rules as now, and demagogues were equally well versed in the tricks of their trade. Besides, when Jesus had once been formally indicted and presented before the secular tribunal of the Roman governor, as a rioter and seditious person, no thought of a rescue from the military force could be thought of; and however unwilling Pilate might be to minister to the wishes of the Jews, in an act of unnecessary cruelty, he could not resist a call thus solemnly made to him, in the character of preserver of the Roman sway, thoughhe would probably have rejected entirely any proposition to seize Jesus by a military force, in open day, in the midst of the multitude, so as to create a troublesome and bloody tumult, by such an imprudent act. In the full consideration of all these difficulties, the Jewish dignitaries were sitting in conclave, contriving means to effect the settlement of their troubles, by the complete removal of him who was unquestionably the cause of all. At once their anxious deliberations were happily interrupted by the entrance of the trusted steward of the company of Jesus, who changed all their doubts and distant hopes into absolute certainty, by offering, for a reasonable consideration, to give up Jesus into their hands, a prisoner, without any disturbance or riot. How much delay and debate there was about terms, it would be hard to say; but after all, the bargain made, does not seem to have been greatly to the credit of the liberality of the Sanhedrim, or the sharpness of Judas. Thirty of the largest pieces of silver then coined, would make but a poor price for such an extraordinary service, even making all allowance for a scarcity of money in those times. And taking into account the wealth and rank of those concerned, as well as the importance of the object, it is fair to pronounce them a very mean set of fellows. But Judas especially seems to forfeit almost all right to the character given him of acuteness in money matters; and it is only by supposing him to be quite carried out of his usual prudence, by his woful abandonment to crime, that so poor a bargain can be made consistent with the otherwise reasonable view of his character.
Thirty pieces of silver.——The value of these pieces is seemingly as vaguely expressed in the original as in the translation; but a reference to Hebrew usages throws some light on the question of definition. The common Hebrew coin thus expressed was the shekel,——equivalent to the Greekdidrachmon, and worth about sixteen cents. In Hebrew the expression, thirty “shekels of silver,” was not always written out in full; but the name of the coin being omitted, the expression was always equally definite, because no other coin was ever left thus to be implied. Just so in English, the phrase, “a million of money,” is perfectly well understood here, to mean “a million ofdollars;” while in England, the current coin of that country would make the expression mean so manypounds. In the same manner, to say, in this country, that any thing or any man is worth “thousands,” always conveys, with perfect definiteness, the idea of “dollars;” and in every other country the same expression would imply a particular coin. Thirty pieces of silver, each of which was worth sixteen cents, would amount only to four dollars and eighty cents, which are just one pound sterling. A small price for the great Jewish Sanhedrim to pay for the ruin of their most dangerous foe! Yet for this little sum, the Savior of the world was bought and sold!
Having thus settled this business, the cheaply-purchased traitor returned to the unsuspecting fellowship of the apostles, mingling with them, as he supposed, without the slightest suspicion on thepart of any one, respecting the horrible treachery which he had contrived for the bloody ruin of his Lord. But there was an eye, whose power he had never learned, though dwelling beneath its gaze for years,——an eye, which saw the vainly hidden results of his treachery, even as for years it had scanned the base motives which governed him. Yet no word of reproach or denunciation broke forth from the lips of the betrayed One; the progress of crime was suffered unresistedly to bear him onward to the mournfully necessary fulfilment of his destiny. Judas meanwhile, from day to day, waited and watched for the most desirable opportunity of meeting his engagements with his priestly employers. The first day of the feast of unleavened bread having arrived, Jesus sat down at evening to eat the Paschal lamb with his twelve disciples, alone. The whole twelve were there without one exception,——and among those who reclined around the table, sharing in the social delights of the entertainment which celebrated the beginning of the grand national festival, was the dark-souled accuser also, like Satan among the sons of God. Even here, amid the general joyous hilarity, his great scheme of villainy formed the grand theme of his meditations,——and while the rest were entering fully into the natural enjoyments of the occasion, he was brooding over the best means of executing his plans. During the supper, after the performance of the impressive ceremony of washing their feet, Jesus made a sudden transition from the comments with which he was illustrating it; and, in a tone of deep and sorrowful emotion, suddenly exclaimed, “I solemnly assure you, that one of you will betray me.” This surprising assertion, so emphatically made, excited the most distressful sensations among the little assembly;——all enjoyment was at an end; and grieved by the imputation, in which all seemed included until the individual was pointed out, they each earnestly inquired, “Lord, is it I?” As they sat thus looking in the most painful doubt around their lately cheerful circle, the disciple who held the place of honor and affection at the table, at the request of Peter, whose position gave him less advantage for familiar and private conversation,——plainly asked of Jesus, “Who is it, Lord?” Jesus, to make his reply as deliberate and impressive as possible, said, “It is he to whom I shall give a sop when I have dipped it.” The design of all this circumlocution in pointing out the criminal, was, to mark the enormity of the offense. “He that eateth bread with me, hath lifted up his heel againstme.” It was his familiar friend, his chosen companion, enjoying with him at that moment the most intimate social pleasures of the entertainment, and occupying one of the places nearest to him, at the board. As he promised, after dipping the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, who, receiving it, was moved to no change in his dark purpose; but with a new Satanic spirit, resolved immediately to execute his plan, in spite of this open exposure, which, he might think, was meant to shame him from his baseness. Jesus, with an eye still fixed on his most secret inward movements, said to him, “What thou doest, do quickly.” Judas, utterly lost to repentance and to shame, coolly obeyed the direction, as if it had been an ordinary command, in the way of his official duty, and went out at the words of Jesus. All this, however, was perfectly without meaning, to the wondering disciples, who, not yet recovered from their surprise at the very extraordinary announcement which they had just heard of the expected treachery, could not suppose that this quiet movement could have anything to do with the occurrence which preceded it; but concluded that Judas was going about the business necessary for the preparation of the next day’s festal entertainment,——or that he was following the directions of Jesus about the charity to be administered to the poor out of the funds in his keeping, in accordance with the commendable Hebrew usage of remembering the poor on great occasions of enjoyment,——a custom to which, perhaps, the previous words of Judas, when he rebuked the waste of the ointment by Mary, had some especial reference, since at that particular time, money was actually needed for bestowment in alms to the poor. Judas, after leaving the place where the declaration of Jesus had made him an object of such suspicion and dislike, went, under the influence of that evil spirit, to whose direction he was now abandoned, directly to the chief priests, (who were anxiously waiting the fulfilment of his promise,) and made known to them that the time was now come. The band of watchmen and servants, with their swords and cudgels, were accordingly mustered and put under the guidance of Judas, who, well knowing the place to which Jesus would of course go from the feast, conducted his band of low assistants across the brook Kedron, to the garden of Gethsemane. On the way he arranged with them the sign by which they should recognize, in spite of the darkness and confusion, the person whose capture was the grand object of this expedition. “The man whom I shall kiss is he: seize him.” Entering thegarden, at length, he led them straight to the spot which his intimate familiarity with Jesus enabled him to know, as his favorite retreat. Going up to him with the air of friendly confidence, he saluted him, as if rejoiced to find him, even after this brief absence,——another instance of the very close intimacy which had existed between the traitor and the betrayed. Jesus submitted to this hollow show, without any attempt to repulse the movement which marked him for destruction, only saying, in mild but expressive reproach,——“Judas! Betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss?” Without more delay he announced himself in plain terms, to those who came to seize him; thus showing how little need there was of artful contrivance in taking one who did not seek to escape. “If ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, I am he.” The simple majesty with which these words were uttered, was such as to overawe even the low officials; and it was not till he himself had again distinctly reminded them of their object, that they could execute their errand. So vain was the arrangement of signals, which had been studiously made by the careful traitor.No further mention is made of Iscariot after the scene of his treachery, until the next morning, when Jesus had been condemned by the high court of the Sanhedrim, and dragged away to undergo punishment from the secular power. The sun of another day had risen on his crime; and after a very brief interval, he now had time for cool meditation on the nature and consequences of his act. Spite and avarice had both now received their full gratification. The thirty pieces of silver were his, and the Master whose instructions he had hated for their purity and spirituality, because they had made known to him the vileness of his own character and motives, was now in the hands of those who were impelled, by the darkest passions, to secure his destruction. But after all, now came the thought, and inquiry, ‘what had the pure and holy Jesus done, to deserve this reward at his hands?’ He had called him from the sordid pursuits of a common life, to the high task of aiding in the regeneration of Israel. He had taught him, labored with him, prayed for him, trusted him as a near and worthy friend, making him the steward of all the earthly possessions of his apostolic family, and the organ of his ministrations of charity to the poor. All this he had done without the prospect of a reward, surely. And why? To make him an instrument, not of the base purposes of a low ambition;——not to acquire by this means the sordid and bloody honors of a conqueror,——but toeffect the moral and spiritual emancipation of a people, suffering far less under the evils of a foreign sway, than under the debasing dominion of folly and sin. And was this an occasion to arm against him the darker feelings of his trusted and loved companions?——to turn the instruments of his mercy into weapons of death? Ought the mere disappointment of a worldly-minded spirit, that was ever clinging to the love of material things, and that would not learn the solemn truth of the spiritual character of the Messiah’s reign, now to cause it to vent its regrets at its own errors, in a traitorous attack upon the life of him who had called it to a purpose whose glories and rewards it could not appreciate? These and other mournful thoughts would naturally rise to the repentant traitor’s mind, in the awful revulsion of feeling which that morning brought with it. But repentance is not atonement; nor can any change of feeling in the mind of the sinner, after the perpetration of the sinful act, avail anything for the removal or expiation of the evil consequences of it. So vain and unprofitable, both to the injurer and the injured, are the tears of remorse! And herein lay the difference between the repentance of Judas and of Peter. The sin of Peter affected no one but himself, and was criminal only as the manifestation of a base, selfish spirit of deceit, that fell from truth through a vain-glorious confidence,——and the effusion of his gushing tears might prove the means of washing away the pollution of such an offense from his soul. But the sin of Judas had wrought a work of crime whose evil could not be affected by any tardy change of feeling in him. Peter’s repentance came too late indeed, to exonerate him from guilt; because all repentance is too late for such a purpose, when it comes after the commission of the sin. The repentance of an evil purpose, coming in time to prevent the execution of the act, is indeed available for good; but both Peter and Judas came to the sense of the heinousness of sin, only after its commission. Peter however, had no evil to repair for others,——while Judas saw the bloody sequel of his guilt, coming with most irrevocable certainty upon the blameless One whom he had betrayed. Overwhelmed with vain regrets, he took the now hateful, though once-desired price of his villainy, and seeking the presence of his purchasers, held out to them the money, with the useless confession of the guilt, which was too accordant with their schemes and hopes, for them to think of redeeming him from its consequences. The words of his confession were, “I have sinned, in betraying innocent blood.” This late protestation was receivedby the proud priests, with as much regard as might have been expected from exulting tyranny, when in the enjoyment of the grand object of its efforts. With a cold sneer they replied, “What is that to us? See thou to that!” Maddened with the immovable and remorseless determination of the haughty condemners of the just, he flung down the price of his infamy and woe, upon the floor of the temple, and rushed out of their presence, to seal his crimes and eternal misery by the act that put him for ever beyond the power of redemption. Seeking a place removed from the observation of men, he hurried out of the city, and contriving the fatal means of death for himself, before the bloody doom of him whom he betrayed had been fulfilled, the wretched man saved his eyes the renewed horrors of the sight of the crucifixion, by closing them in the sleep which earthly sights can not disturb. But even in the mode of his death, new circumstances of horror occurred. Swinging himself into the air, by falling from a highth, as the cord tightened around his neck, checking his descent, the weight of his body produced the rupture of his abdomen, and his bowels bursting through, made him, as he swung stiffening and convulsed in the agonies of this doubly horrid death, a disgusting and appalling spectacle,——a monument of the vengeance of God on the traitor, and a shocking witness of his own remorse and self-condemnation.
Having thus settled this business, the cheaply-purchased traitor returned to the unsuspecting fellowship of the apostles, mingling with them, as he supposed, without the slightest suspicion on thepart of any one, respecting the horrible treachery which he had contrived for the bloody ruin of his Lord. But there was an eye, whose power he had never learned, though dwelling beneath its gaze for years,——an eye, which saw the vainly hidden results of his treachery, even as for years it had scanned the base motives which governed him. Yet no word of reproach or denunciation broke forth from the lips of the betrayed One; the progress of crime was suffered unresistedly to bear him onward to the mournfully necessary fulfilment of his destiny. Judas meanwhile, from day to day, waited and watched for the most desirable opportunity of meeting his engagements with his priestly employers. The first day of the feast of unleavened bread having arrived, Jesus sat down at evening to eat the Paschal lamb with his twelve disciples, alone. The whole twelve were there without one exception,——and among those who reclined around the table, sharing in the social delights of the entertainment which celebrated the beginning of the grand national festival, was the dark-souled accuser also, like Satan among the sons of God. Even here, amid the general joyous hilarity, his great scheme of villainy formed the grand theme of his meditations,——and while the rest were entering fully into the natural enjoyments of the occasion, he was brooding over the best means of executing his plans. During the supper, after the performance of the impressive ceremony of washing their feet, Jesus made a sudden transition from the comments with which he was illustrating it; and, in a tone of deep and sorrowful emotion, suddenly exclaimed, “I solemnly assure you, that one of you will betray me.” This surprising assertion, so emphatically made, excited the most distressful sensations among the little assembly;——all enjoyment was at an end; and grieved by the imputation, in which all seemed included until the individual was pointed out, they each earnestly inquired, “Lord, is it I?” As they sat thus looking in the most painful doubt around their lately cheerful circle, the disciple who held the place of honor and affection at the table, at the request of Peter, whose position gave him less advantage for familiar and private conversation,——plainly asked of Jesus, “Who is it, Lord?” Jesus, to make his reply as deliberate and impressive as possible, said, “It is he to whom I shall give a sop when I have dipped it.” The design of all this circumlocution in pointing out the criminal, was, to mark the enormity of the offense. “He that eateth bread with me, hath lifted up his heel againstme.” It was his familiar friend, his chosen companion, enjoying with him at that moment the most intimate social pleasures of the entertainment, and occupying one of the places nearest to him, at the board. As he promised, after dipping the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, who, receiving it, was moved to no change in his dark purpose; but with a new Satanic spirit, resolved immediately to execute his plan, in spite of this open exposure, which, he might think, was meant to shame him from his baseness. Jesus, with an eye still fixed on his most secret inward movements, said to him, “What thou doest, do quickly.” Judas, utterly lost to repentance and to shame, coolly obeyed the direction, as if it had been an ordinary command, in the way of his official duty, and went out at the words of Jesus. All this, however, was perfectly without meaning, to the wondering disciples, who, not yet recovered from their surprise at the very extraordinary announcement which they had just heard of the expected treachery, could not suppose that this quiet movement could have anything to do with the occurrence which preceded it; but concluded that Judas was going about the business necessary for the preparation of the next day’s festal entertainment,——or that he was following the directions of Jesus about the charity to be administered to the poor out of the funds in his keeping, in accordance with the commendable Hebrew usage of remembering the poor on great occasions of enjoyment,——a custom to which, perhaps, the previous words of Judas, when he rebuked the waste of the ointment by Mary, had some especial reference, since at that particular time, money was actually needed for bestowment in alms to the poor. Judas, after leaving the place where the declaration of Jesus had made him an object of such suspicion and dislike, went, under the influence of that evil spirit, to whose direction he was now abandoned, directly to the chief priests, (who were anxiously waiting the fulfilment of his promise,) and made known to them that the time was now come. The band of watchmen and servants, with their swords and cudgels, were accordingly mustered and put under the guidance of Judas, who, well knowing the place to which Jesus would of course go from the feast, conducted his band of low assistants across the brook Kedron, to the garden of Gethsemane. On the way he arranged with them the sign by which they should recognize, in spite of the darkness and confusion, the person whose capture was the grand object of this expedition. “The man whom I shall kiss is he: seize him.” Entering thegarden, at length, he led them straight to the spot which his intimate familiarity with Jesus enabled him to know, as his favorite retreat. Going up to him with the air of friendly confidence, he saluted him, as if rejoiced to find him, even after this brief absence,——another instance of the very close intimacy which had existed between the traitor and the betrayed. Jesus submitted to this hollow show, without any attempt to repulse the movement which marked him for destruction, only saying, in mild but expressive reproach,——“Judas! Betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss?” Without more delay he announced himself in plain terms, to those who came to seize him; thus showing how little need there was of artful contrivance in taking one who did not seek to escape. “If ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, I am he.” The simple majesty with which these words were uttered, was such as to overawe even the low officials; and it was not till he himself had again distinctly reminded them of their object, that they could execute their errand. So vain was the arrangement of signals, which had been studiously made by the careful traitor.
No further mention is made of Iscariot after the scene of his treachery, until the next morning, when Jesus had been condemned by the high court of the Sanhedrim, and dragged away to undergo punishment from the secular power. The sun of another day had risen on his crime; and after a very brief interval, he now had time for cool meditation on the nature and consequences of his act. Spite and avarice had both now received their full gratification. The thirty pieces of silver were his, and the Master whose instructions he had hated for their purity and spirituality, because they had made known to him the vileness of his own character and motives, was now in the hands of those who were impelled, by the darkest passions, to secure his destruction. But after all, now came the thought, and inquiry, ‘what had the pure and holy Jesus done, to deserve this reward at his hands?’ He had called him from the sordid pursuits of a common life, to the high task of aiding in the regeneration of Israel. He had taught him, labored with him, prayed for him, trusted him as a near and worthy friend, making him the steward of all the earthly possessions of his apostolic family, and the organ of his ministrations of charity to the poor. All this he had done without the prospect of a reward, surely. And why? To make him an instrument, not of the base purposes of a low ambition;——not to acquire by this means the sordid and bloody honors of a conqueror,——but toeffect the moral and spiritual emancipation of a people, suffering far less under the evils of a foreign sway, than under the debasing dominion of folly and sin. And was this an occasion to arm against him the darker feelings of his trusted and loved companions?——to turn the instruments of his mercy into weapons of death? Ought the mere disappointment of a worldly-minded spirit, that was ever clinging to the love of material things, and that would not learn the solemn truth of the spiritual character of the Messiah’s reign, now to cause it to vent its regrets at its own errors, in a traitorous attack upon the life of him who had called it to a purpose whose glories and rewards it could not appreciate? These and other mournful thoughts would naturally rise to the repentant traitor’s mind, in the awful revulsion of feeling which that morning brought with it. But repentance is not atonement; nor can any change of feeling in the mind of the sinner, after the perpetration of the sinful act, avail anything for the removal or expiation of the evil consequences of it. So vain and unprofitable, both to the injurer and the injured, are the tears of remorse! And herein lay the difference between the repentance of Judas and of Peter. The sin of Peter affected no one but himself, and was criminal only as the manifestation of a base, selfish spirit of deceit, that fell from truth through a vain-glorious confidence,——and the effusion of his gushing tears might prove the means of washing away the pollution of such an offense from his soul. But the sin of Judas had wrought a work of crime whose evil could not be affected by any tardy change of feeling in him. Peter’s repentance came too late indeed, to exonerate him from guilt; because all repentance is too late for such a purpose, when it comes after the commission of the sin. The repentance of an evil purpose, coming in time to prevent the execution of the act, is indeed available for good; but both Peter and Judas came to the sense of the heinousness of sin, only after its commission. Peter however, had no evil to repair for others,——while Judas saw the bloody sequel of his guilt, coming with most irrevocable certainty upon the blameless One whom he had betrayed. Overwhelmed with vain regrets, he took the now hateful, though once-desired price of his villainy, and seeking the presence of his purchasers, held out to them the money, with the useless confession of the guilt, which was too accordant with their schemes and hopes, for them to think of redeeming him from its consequences. The words of his confession were, “I have sinned, in betraying innocent blood.” This late protestation was receivedby the proud priests, with as much regard as might have been expected from exulting tyranny, when in the enjoyment of the grand object of its efforts. With a cold sneer they replied, “What is that to us? See thou to that!” Maddened with the immovable and remorseless determination of the haughty condemners of the just, he flung down the price of his infamy and woe, upon the floor of the temple, and rushed out of their presence, to seal his crimes and eternal misery by the act that put him for ever beyond the power of redemption. Seeking a place removed from the observation of men, he hurried out of the city, and contriving the fatal means of death for himself, before the bloody doom of him whom he betrayed had been fulfilled, the wretched man saved his eyes the renewed horrors of the sight of the crucifixion, by closing them in the sleep which earthly sights can not disturb. But even in the mode of his death, new circumstances of horror occurred. Swinging himself into the air, by falling from a highth, as the cord tightened around his neck, checking his descent, the weight of his body produced the rupture of his abdomen, and his bowels bursting through, made him, as he swung stiffening and convulsed in the agonies of this doubly horrid death, a disgusting and appalling spectacle,——a monument of the vengeance of God on the traitor, and a shocking witness of his own remorse and self-condemnation.
A very striking difference is noticeable between the account given by Matthew of the death of Judas, and that given by Luke in the speech of Peter, Actsi.18, 19. The various modes of reconciling these difficulties are found in the ordinary commentaries. In respect to a single expression in Actsi.18, there is an ingenious conjecture offered by Granville Penn, in a very interesting and learned article in the first volume of the transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, which may very properly be mentioned here, on account of its originality and plausibility, and because it is found only in an expensive work, hardly ever seen in this country.Mr.Penn’s view is, that “the wordελακησε(elakese,) in Actsi.18, is only an inflection of the Latin verb,laqueo, (to halter or strangle,) rendered insititious in the Hellenistic Greek, under the formλακεω.” He enters into a very elaborate argument, which can not be given here, but an extract may be transcribed, in order to enable the learned to apprehend the nature and force of his views. (Translated by R. S. Lit.Vol. I.P. 2,pp.51, 52.)
“Those who have been in the southern countries of Europe know, that the operation in question, as exercised on a criminal, is performed with a great length of cord, with which the criminal isprecipitatedfrom a high beam, and is thus violentlylaqueated, or snared in a noose,mid-way——mediusorin medio;μεσος, andmedius, referring toplaceas well as toperson; as,μεσος ὑμων ἑστηκεν. (Johni.26.) ‘Considit scopulo medius————’ (Virgil, Georgics,iv.436.) ‘———— medius prorumpit in hostes.’ (Aeneid,x.379.)
“Erasmus distinctly perceived this sense in the wordsπρηνης γενομενος, although he did not discern it in the wordελακησε, which confirms it: ‘πρηνηςGraecis dicitur, quivultu est in terram dejecto: expressit autemgestum et habitumLAQUEO PRAEFOCATI; alioquin, ex hoc sane loco non poterat intelligi, quod Judassuspenderit se,’ (in loc.) And so Augustine also had understood those words, as he shows in hisRecit. in Act. Apostol.l. i.col.474. ‘et collem sibi alligavit, et dejectus in faciem,’&c.Hence oneMS., cited by Sabatier, forπρηνης γενομενος, readsαποκρεμαμένος; and Jerom, in hisnew vulgate, has substitutedsuspensusfor thepronus factusof the old Latin version, which our old English version of 1542 accordingly renders,and when he was hanged.
“That which follows, and which evidently determined the vulgar interpretation ofελακησε——εξεχυνθη παντα τα σπλαγχνα αυτου,all his bowels gushed out——states a natural and probable effect produced, by the sudden interruption in the fall and violent capture in the noose, in a frame of great corpulency and distension, such as Christian antiquity has recorded that of the traitor to have been; so that a term to express rupture would have been altogether unnecessary, and it is therefore equally unnecessary to seek for it in the verbελακησε. Had the historian intended to express disruption, we may justly presume that he would have said, as he had already said in his gospel,v.6,διερρηγνυτο, orxxiii.45,εσχισθη μεσος: it is difficult to conceive, that he would here have traveled into the language of ancient Greek poetry for a word to express a common idea, when he had common terms at hand and in practice; but he used the Romanlaqueo,λακεω, to mark the infamy of the death.
“(Πρησθεις επι τοσουτον την σαρκα, ὡστε μη δυνασθαι δειλθειν. Papias, from Routh'sReliquiæ Sacrætom. I.p.9. and Oecumenius, thus rendered by Zegers,Critici Sacri, Actsi.18,in tantum enim corpore inflatus est ut progredi non posset. The tale transmitted by those writers of the first and tenth centuries, that Judas was crushed to death by a chariot proceeding rapidly, from which his unwieldiness rendered him unable to escape, merits no further attention, after the authenticated descriptions of the traitor’s death which we have here investigated, than to suggest a possibility that the place where the suicide was committed might have overhung a public way, and that the body falling by its weight might have been traversed, after death, by a passing chariot;——from whence might have arisen the tales transmitted successively by those writers; the first of whom, being an inhabitant of Asia Minor, and therefore far removed from the theater of Jerusalem, and being also (as Eusebius witnesses,iii.39,) a man of a very weak mind——σφοδρα μκρος τον νουν——was liable to be deceived by false accounts.)
“The words ofSt.Peter, in the Hellenistic version ofSt.Luke, will therefore import,praeceps in ora fusus, laqueavit(i. e.implicuit se laqueo)medius; (i. e.in medio, inter trabem et terram;)et effusa sunt omnia viscera ejus——throwing himself headlong, he caught mid-way in the noose, and all his bowels gushed out. And thus the two reporters of the suicide, from whose respective relations charges of disagreement, and even of contradiction, have been drawn in consequence ofmistaking an insititious Latin word for a genuine Greek word of corresponding elements, are found, by tracing that insititious word to its true origin, to report identically the same fact; the one by asingle term, the other by aperiphrasis.”
Such was the end of the twelfth of Jesus Christ’s chosen ones. To such an end was the intimate friend, the trusted steward, the festal companion of the Savior, brought by the impulse of some not very unnatural feelings, excited by occasion, into extraordinary action. The universal and intense horror which the relation of his crime now invariably awakens, is by no means favorable to a just and fair appreciation of his sin and its motives, nor to such an honest consideration of his course from rectitude to guilt, as is most desirable for the application of the whole story to the moral improvement of its readers. Originally not an infamous man, he was numbered among the twelve as a person ofrespectablecharacter, and long held among his fellow-disciples a responsible station, which is itself a testimony of his unblemished reputation. He was sent forth with them, as one of the heralds of salvation to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He shared with them the counsels, the instructions, and the prayers of Jesus. If he was stupid in apprehending, and unspiritual in conceivingthe truths of the gospel, so were they. If he was an unbeliever in the resurrection of Jesus, so were they; and had he survived till the accomplishment of that prophecy, he could not have been slower in receiving the evidence of the event, than they. As it was, he died in his unbelief; while they lived to feel the glorious removal of all their doubts, the purification of all their gross conceptions, and the effusion of that spirit of truth, through which, by the grace of God alone, they afterwards were what they were. Without a merit, infaith, beyond Judas, they maintained their dim and doubtful adherence to the truth, only by their nearer approximation tomoralperfection; and by their nobler freedom from the pollution of sordid and spiteful feeling. Through passion alone he fell, a victim, not to a want of faith merely,——for therein, the rest could hardly claim a superiority,——but to the radical deficiency of truelovefor Jesus, of that “charity which never faileth,” but “endureth to the end.” It was their simple, devoted affection, which, through all their ignorance, their grossness of conception, and their faithlessness in his word, made them still cling to his name and his grave, till the full revelations of his resurrection and ascension had displaced their doubts by the most glorious certainties, and given their faith an eternal assurance. The great cause of the awful ruin of Judas Iscariot, then, was the fact, thathe did notLOVEJesus. Herein was his grand distinction from all the rest; for though their regard was mingled with so much that was base, there was plainly, in all of them, a solid foundation of true, deep affection. The most ambitious and skeptical of them, gave the most unquestionable proofs of this. Peter, John, both the Jameses, and others, are instances of the mode in which these seemingly opposite feelings were combined. But Judas was without this great refining and elevating principle, which so redeemed the most sordid feelings of his fellows. It was not merely for the love of money that he was led into this horrid crime. The love of four dollars and eighty cents! Who can believe that this was the sole motive? It was rather thathissordidness and selfishness, and ambition, if he had any, lacked this single, purifying emotion, which redeemed their characters. Is there not, in this reflection, a moral which each Christian reader can improve to his own use? For the lack of the love of Jesus alone, Judas fell from his high estate, to an infamy as immortal as their fame. Wherever, through all ages, the high heroic energy of Peter, the ready faith of Andrew, the martyr-fire of JamesBoanerges, the soul-absorbing love of John, the willing obedience of Philip, the guileless purity of Nathanael, the recorded truth of Matthew, the slow but deep devotion of Thomas, the blameless righteousness of James the Just, the appellative zeal of Simon, and the earnest warning eloquence of Jude, are all commemorated in honor and bright renown,——the murderous, sordid spite of Iscariot, will insure him an equally lasting proverbial shame. Truly, “THE SIN OF JUDAS IS WRITTEN WITH A PEN OF IRON ON A TABLET OF MARBLE.”
Such was the end of the twelfth of Jesus Christ’s chosen ones. To such an end was the intimate friend, the trusted steward, the festal companion of the Savior, brought by the impulse of some not very unnatural feelings, excited by occasion, into extraordinary action. The universal and intense horror which the relation of his crime now invariably awakens, is by no means favorable to a just and fair appreciation of his sin and its motives, nor to such an honest consideration of his course from rectitude to guilt, as is most desirable for the application of the whole story to the moral improvement of its readers. Originally not an infamous man, he was numbered among the twelve as a person ofrespectablecharacter, and long held among his fellow-disciples a responsible station, which is itself a testimony of his unblemished reputation. He was sent forth with them, as one of the heralds of salvation to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He shared with them the counsels, the instructions, and the prayers of Jesus. If he was stupid in apprehending, and unspiritual in conceivingthe truths of the gospel, so were they. If he was an unbeliever in the resurrection of Jesus, so were they; and had he survived till the accomplishment of that prophecy, he could not have been slower in receiving the evidence of the event, than they. As it was, he died in his unbelief; while they lived to feel the glorious removal of all their doubts, the purification of all their gross conceptions, and the effusion of that spirit of truth, through which, by the grace of God alone, they afterwards were what they were. Without a merit, infaith, beyond Judas, they maintained their dim and doubtful adherence to the truth, only by their nearer approximation tomoralperfection; and by their nobler freedom from the pollution of sordid and spiteful feeling. Through passion alone he fell, a victim, not to a want of faith merely,——for therein, the rest could hardly claim a superiority,——but to the radical deficiency of truelovefor Jesus, of that “charity which never faileth,” but “endureth to the end.” It was their simple, devoted affection, which, through all their ignorance, their grossness of conception, and their faithlessness in his word, made them still cling to his name and his grave, till the full revelations of his resurrection and ascension had displaced their doubts by the most glorious certainties, and given their faith an eternal assurance. The great cause of the awful ruin of Judas Iscariot, then, was the fact, thathe did notLOVEJesus. Herein was his grand distinction from all the rest; for though their regard was mingled with so much that was base, there was plainly, in all of them, a solid foundation of true, deep affection. The most ambitious and skeptical of them, gave the most unquestionable proofs of this. Peter, John, both the Jameses, and others, are instances of the mode in which these seemingly opposite feelings were combined. But Judas was without this great refining and elevating principle, which so redeemed the most sordid feelings of his fellows. It was not merely for the love of money that he was led into this horrid crime. The love of four dollars and eighty cents! Who can believe that this was the sole motive? It was rather thathissordidness and selfishness, and ambition, if he had any, lacked this single, purifying emotion, which redeemed their characters. Is there not, in this reflection, a moral which each Christian reader can improve to his own use? For the lack of the love of Jesus alone, Judas fell from his high estate, to an infamy as immortal as their fame. Wherever, through all ages, the high heroic energy of Peter, the ready faith of Andrew, the martyr-fire of JamesBoanerges, the soul-absorbing love of John, the willing obedience of Philip, the guileless purity of Nathanael, the recorded truth of Matthew, the slow but deep devotion of Thomas, the blameless righteousness of James the Just, the appellative zeal of Simon, and the earnest warning eloquence of Jude, are all commemorated in honor and bright renown,——the murderous, sordid spite of Iscariot, will insure him an equally lasting proverbial shame. Truly, “THE SIN OF JUDAS IS WRITTEN WITH A PEN OF IRON ON A TABLET OF MARBLE.”