The Fourth Gospel also makes the Anointing at Bethany (12^'-) a definite stage in the process which is sometimes called the ' demonizing ' of Judas, but is better described a,s his ' giving place to the devil ' (Eph 4^). St. Luke does not mention Mary's anointing. St. Matthew and St. Mark have full accounts of it, but Judas is not named ; yet immediately after the narrative of the Anoint- ing both Mt. and Mk. place Judas' offer to the chief priests to betray Jesus for money, thus clearly recognizing an intimate connexion between the two events. St. John explains this sequence by adding the significant detail that the murmur- ing against Mary's waste of ointment had its origin in the heart of Judas. Our Lord's defence of Mary's beautiful deed implied a rebuke to Judas,
disillusionment of His ambitious Apostle. The reproof would lankle ; the disappointment would be acute. The angry spirit engendered by such emotions is closely akin to the spirit of treachery and revenge. On insufficient grounds, therefore, Gould speaks of ' John's evident attempt to belittle Judas' (Int. Crit. Com., note on Mk \i*). No more likely origin of the murmuring, which Mas not confined to Judas (Mk 14^, Mt 26*), is sug- gested. On the other hand, there seems to be no reason for belittling St. John ; his addition to the Synoptic Gospels justifies their association of Mary s anointing with Judas' desertion of Christ ; it also furnishes a link between the Anointing of which St. Luke gives no account and his statement ' Satan entered into Judas,' — that statement is the psychological explanation of the actions of Judas recorded in the narratives of the Anointing and the Last Supper.
(b) Dcsfvibing the Betrayal.— \ji the Passion narratives all the Gospels refer to our Lord's con- sciousness of His approaching Betrayal ; all record His announcement, at the beginning of the Supper, of the presence of the Betrayer ; and all mention the consternation and self-questioning of the Apostles to which that statement gave rise (Mk
U""-, Mt 26^'"-, Lk 22="f-, Jn 13="r-). There is no reason to suppose (Weiss) that Judas was defi- nitely indicated by our Lord's words, ' He that dipped his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me ' (Mt Se''^). Before the lamb was placed on the table, each guest dipped his own bread into the bitter sauce and ate the sop. The aorist participle (6 ^/x/Sdi/'os) refers to this act, but does not necessarily fix its time ; as thus inter- preted, the phrase is in harmony with the vague expression ' that man,' used twice in v.'^, with the passage quoted (Jn 13'*) from Ps 41" ('He that eateth my bread ' ; cf. 'messmate'), and with the parallel passage in Mk 14=» where the present par- ticiple is used (6 eiijiairTi/jiei'ot). An addition to the Synoptic tradition is found in the Fourth Gospel, wliich describes Jesus as giving a sop to Judas (13-*). At Eastern meals this was a mark of special attention (cf. Macmillan, ' A Mock Sacrament,' in ExpT iii. 107 f. ) ; our Lord's action would indicate the traitor to the disciple who was ' leaning back ' on His breast, though it left John, like the rest, in ignorance of the meaning of the words with which Jesus urged Judas to hasten the work he was already doing (v.^). To the traitor himself the words of Jesus, gradually narrowing in their range and therefore increasing in intensity, were at once a tender appeal and a final warning. St. Matthew alone records the question of Judas, ' Is it I, Rabbi ? ' and our Lord's answer, ' Thou hast said ' (26^). If Judas had the chief seat at the table next to Jesus (cf. above, ii. (c)), the assent conveyed, perhaps in a whisper and certainly not in the ordinary form (cf. Dalman, The Words of Jesus, 308 f.), inust have had for him a tragic significance. As Zahn points out {op. cit. in loc.), the prefixed pronoun in aii eliras heightens the contrast between the questioner and the speaker, and conveys the meaning, ' What thou hast said, there is no need for me to say.' St. Matthew does not state that at this juncture Judas left the Supper- table, but the next allusion to Judas (v.*') implies an absence of some duration. The probable solution of the much- discussed problem, 'Did Judas eat the Passover ? ' is that, altliougli he ate the sop given to him by Jesus at the beginning of the Supper, he had gone out into the darkness (Jn 13^) before Jesus gave the bread and the wine to His disciples. It is true that in Lk 22 the narrative of the Supper precedes our Load's announcement of the Betrayer's presence, but the 'order' (P) characteristic of this Gospel does not imply chronological sequence in every detail ; Wright (op. cit. p. 132) accounts for the variation from the parallel passages by the sugges- tion that St. Luke was influenced by the language of St. Paul in 1 Co 11=".
In their accounts of the actual Betrayal of our Lord the Synoptists state that the kiss of Judas was the prearranged signal for His arrest (Mk 14«, Mt 26« ; cf. Lk 22"). In the Fourth Gospel nothing is said of the kiss, but a graphic account is given of our Lord's unexpected declaration to His foes that He was the Nazarene for whom they were seeking (18"). The silence of St. John is no proof that the kiss was not given ; nor is the fact which he records any evidence that the kiss was superfluous. A sufficient motive for the self-mani- festation of Jesus is mentioned : ' let these go their way' (v.*); such a request is appropriate whether the kiss of Judas be placed before or after the question of Jesus, 'Whom seek ye?' If before, our Lord supplemented the Betrayer's signal owing to tlie hesitancy of the awestruck soldiers, who shrank from arresting Him. If after, Judas must have been disconcerted by our Lord's action ; the kiss would not be given until later, when, as his courage returned, he did not scruple to kiss his Master with the unnecessary demonstration of a