Daniel Gullotta's
last essay seemed to attract a lot of interest from readers of Catholica
if the web logs provide a good indication of which pages are read on our
website. It attracted a very good response up in the ranks of the best
responses of our regular commentators who've been doing this for a long
time. Daniel's essay today will probably attract similar interest as its
focus is on one of the most controversial and provocative characters in
all of the Gospel stories aside from Jesus himself…
Besides Jesus, Judas Iscariot stands
as one of the most interesting characters within the Gospels, and even
the whole of the Christian Scriptures. In many movies, books and plays
such as 'Jesus Christ Superstar'
and 'The Last Temptation of Christ',
he stands as the second or even most important character within the Easter
plot. Over the centuries, Judas has been seen to play every role within
the story of Jesus, from the sly betrayer to the supportive friend to
even the strongest and most faithful of all the apostles. However, while
these are all mere works of fiction, what of the real man? What of the
real apostle Judas Iscariot? Who is this man, this so named son of prediction?
This person Judas who we know so little about has so much controversy
in the role he had to play during the Christ event. The traditional view
of his status within the ministry and betrayal of Jesus has compelled
many theologians and scholars to dig deeper into history and scripture
to see if they can uncover the truth behind all this obscurity and mystery.
This essay seeks to provide an overview of the traditional Christian and
Gnostic views on Judas as well as his historical identity, suggest motivations
of why Judas sought to betray Jesus, and concludes by asking what we can
learn from Judas today.
What we know from the Gospels…
Judas Iscariot is mentioned only
a few times in the canonical gospels and while the name Judas is a common
name within the Christian Scriptures, Judas Iscariot
should not be confused with the apostles Jude Thomas
(more commonly known as Thomas) and Jude.
According to the unanimous testimony of the four gospels, Judas
was a disciple of Jesus, one of the twelve chosen apostles (Mark
6:7-13, Matthew 10:5-42, Luke 9:1-6), the one who handed Jesus
over to the priests of the Temple (Matthew 26:47-50,
Mark 14:44-45, Luke 22:47-48) and according to John alone, was
the treasurer of the group (John 12:4-6).
Close to the Passover, Luke, Matthew and John state that Satan entered
into him or his heart and then he went to cooperate with the priests,
though Mark says he simply went to the priests, whom were glad to hear
that someone was willing to betray Jesus. The gospels tell us that Judas
took money (Matthew alone states the bribe was thirty pieces of silver
(26:15)) as a bribe for giving the priests
the location of Jesus, in order for them to kill him, and that Judas
was to identify him with a kiss.
Matthew and Acts are the only two accounts that inform us what happened
to Judas after his betrayal. They give us two very different accounts
of what happened to the rest of Judas' life.
Matthew tells us that guilt-ridden, Judas
returned the bribe to the priests and committed suicide by hanging himself
(Matthew 27:1-10), while Acts states he used
the bribe to buy a field, but fell down, and burst asunder in the midst,
and all his bowels gushed out (Acts 1:18-19).
Acts also continues by describing how his place among the apostles was
filled by the disciple Matthias (Acts
1:12-26).
The very different "spin" from the Gospel of
Judas…
However a very different spin of the events has come into light with
the discovery of the 'Gospel of Judas'.
While the Gospel of Judas has been hailed as a major find that sheds new
light on the misunderstood disciple, many scholars and theologians have
asked what insight it gives us to both Gnosticism and Judas1.
According to this Gnostic text, Jesus revealed a number of secret teachings
(ironically, most of which are missing from the text) and wisdom to Judas
alone, as well as this, on the night of the Last Supper, Jesus took Judas
aside and asked him to set his spirit free from his earthly shell in order
for him to ascend to heaven and the Father. By Judas doing so, Jesus set
Judas apart from the other disciples and apostles, guaranteeing him a
place above them in heaven, this made clear when Jesus says to Judas above
other disciples by saying, "Step away from
the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom,"
and "Look, you have been told everything.
Lift up your eyes and look at the cloud and the light within it and the
stars surrounding it. The star that leads the way is your star."
It abruptly ends in the Garden of Gethsemane, with no real conclusion2.
The Gospel makes it clear that Judas was Jesus' friend and closest ally,
Jesus told Judas to betray him in order to move God's program along and
release Jesus from his body and therefore Judas was right to hand Jesus
over.
Is it credible?
However, is this take on things credible or even possible?
Despite the claims in the media, the Gospel
of Judas in reality yields very little. Being a document written
on papyrus, it was discovered in fragmentary form close to a cave in El
Minya, Egypt. In the 1970s, it was assembled and translated by a team
of scholars for a number of years and was finally released to the public
in April 20063. While the text is an authentic
old gospel it is not as old as the four canonical gospels. According to
research, the Gospel of Judas was
probably written much later, towards the second century and this clearly
because of Gnostic themes found within it. For example, the text repeatedly
mentions aeons, luminaries and the presentation of Jesus being more of
a mystical spiritual leader, all of these being typical themes in Gnostic
cosmology4. As well as this, we do know that
the Gospel of Judas existed before
180 CE, this is due to the Bishop Irenaeus
briefly describing the Gospel as a work of fiction and heresy in his work
Against Heresies (Book
1, Chapter 31).
They declare that Judas the traitor was thoroughly acquainted
with these things, and that he alone, knowing the truth as no others did,
accomplished the mystery of the betrayal; by him all things, both earthly
and heavenly, were thus thrown into confusion. They produce a fictional
history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas. Irenaeus
of Lyons - Against Heresies, Book 1, Chapter 31
While scholars may use the Gospel of Judas
to study Gnosticism and as evidence of the Gnostic sects and their dispute
with the Early Church, I must say I agree with Irenaeus
when it comes to the historical creditability of the Gospel of Judas.
Credible evidence…
So what then of the real Judas? Is there
any creditable evidence about the Judas of history? The fact that Judas
is mention in all the Gospels, (both Canonical and Gnostic) as being one
of Jesus' disciples and apostles, and the fact that it is unlikely that
Jesus' betrayal by Judas is a fabrication
of the early church, based on the embarrassment criteria (something is
an embarrassment for the church, it's unlikely that it was invented).
This being the question, why would Jesus allow a betrayer to be a member
of his inner circle? This move casts doubt on Jesus' judgment, so it's
unlikely the canonical gospel writers would have made it up5.
Yet even more insight to the historical Judas
I believe can be found within his motivation to betray Jesus and I doubt
it very much that the thirty pieces of silver was the only driving force
behind Judas' betrayal. Many different ideas have put forward theorizing
why Judas might have given Jesus over to the priests. A popular belief
is that Judas was a Zealot, which shouldn't
be surprising as another apostle, Simon the Zealot, was also a member
of this movement. This is probable because of his surname, Iscariot. Researchers
believe this is a form of the title 'sicarii', meaning "dagger-men,"
who were a group of Zealots who carried a knife with them at all times
to be prepared to assassinate traitors and capitulators. The Zealots opposed
the Roman occupation with violent and terrorist tactics, calling all of
their Jewish brothers to join arms in overthrowing the Romans. Like most
of the Jews at the time, they expected a Davidic Messiah to come and crush
all their enemies and oppressors, returning Israel to her former glory
and bring the reign of God with armies of angels. Initially, Jesus message
would have probably aroused a great amount of excitement among the Zealots
and their sympathizers6. Many dispute whether
Judas informing the priests was out of anger
because Jesus by the end of his ministry had not met up with his messianic
expectations or as a way to force Jesus to reveal his true nature.
While it wouldn't surprise me if this view was the correct one, we must
remember however, at the end of the day, we still simply don't know.
Still a mystery — but lessons for us today…
Like Jesus, Judas
is still a mystery and will always remain so. When we talk about him,
we talk about him as an enigma. We always try and dig deeper but in reality
we can only scratch the surface. However, while we can only learn so much
about the Judas of history, there is so much
we can learn from the Judas found within
the Gospels — a Judas whose actions
speak louder than his few words. The lessons we learn from the betraying
Judas stand next to the ones we learn from
denying Peter, doubting
Thomas and faithful John.
Judas represents the embodiment of all our
anger and doubts when it comes to Jesus, he shows us how far one can fall
in faith and the consequences of this — not Judas
killing himself, but rather Jesus suffering. It is because of Judas
giving Jesus over, that he suffers and indeed is handed over to death,
a death he freely accepted.
The evil in Judas' heart is something we
all feel from time to time, the anger we feel when things just simply
don't go our way. The ultimate expression of this was in the kiss of Judas,
where by the kiss, being a sign of the utmost affection, respect and love
for a person, was corrupted into a sign of betrayal and death. The theme
that follows Judas, is the consequences of
betraying innocent blood and while Judas
is a hard lesson for all of us to learn, but a lesson well learnt, when
it comes to the choices we make and how they affect others as well as
ourselves.
REFERENCES:
1. D Brock, Will the Real Judas Please Stand
Up?
www.beliefnet.com/story/189/story_18925_1.html
2. R Kasser, M Meyer & G Wurst, Excerpts: The Gospel of
Judas
www.beliefnet.com/story/189/story_18918_1.html
3. A Cockburn, The Judas Gospel, National Geographic: May 2006
4. P Jenkins, All Gospels Are Not Created Equal
www.beliefnet.com/story/189/story_18922_1.html
5. D Brock, Will the Real Judas Please Stand Up?
6. Why Did Judas Betray Jesus?
www.thenazareneway.com/holy_week/why_did_judas_betray.htm
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Daniel
Gullotta is a student at ACU National, studying a Bachelor’s
degree in Theology.
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©2007
Daniel Gullotta
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