JUDAS ISCARIOT
JUDAS ISCARIOT
feigned afiection (Kare0(X7,(re;', Mk 14«, Mt- 26''»). Our Lord's discernment of the evil purpose under- lying this emotional display is indicated by His question, 'Judas, betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss?' (Lk 2-2^"). In Mt 26=" Jesus is re- ported to have also said (RV), ' Friend, do that for Avhich thou art come ' (cf. AV ' Friend, wherefore art thou come ? ').
Bruce (Expos. Gr. Test, in loc.) takes the laconic phrase if' o tripu as a 'question in effect, though not in form' ; its probable meaning is 'Comrade, anrl as a conuade here?' (cf. Bengel, in loc. ' Roccine illud est mjiis causa adesV). Blass unneces- sarily (cf. 2212) changes s™;^i into «;>£, which yields the meaning: 'take away that for which thou art come,' or |^art here,' according as Tupu is taken from ^ccptivcci or Tucpiivui. Cheyne (Bncy. Bibl. ii. 262C) conjectures that the true reading is urrexpivu, ' thou actest a part,' or ' thou art no friend of mine ' ; irmpt is got rid of as a dittograph.
(c) After the Betrayal. — In three of the Gospels (Mk., Lk., Jn.) there is no mention of the Betrayer after the arrest of Jesus ; but Mt 27^°^- relates the after-history and fate of Judas as the fulfilment of prophecy. The ascription to Jeremiah of Zee 11'^ is probably due to a failure of memory ; the passage is freely quoted, and may include reminis- cences of the language of Jeremiah (cf. IS^'^- IQ'"- 326ff.). The absence of 'lepefiiov from some of the Old Lat. and ancient Syr. VSS shows that the name was a stumbling-block to early translators of the NT. Zahn (Gesch. clcs NT Kanons, ii. 696) says that the Nazarenes had a Hebrew MS ascribed to Jeremiah, in which tlie passage is found ver- batim,— 'manifestly an Apocryphon invented to save the honour of Matthew.' The variations from the Heb. and LXX are not consistent with the theory that the Evangelist's narrative is a legend evolved from the passage in Zechariah ; they are explicable on the supposition that the facts suggested the prophecy. J. H. Bernard (Expositor, 6th series, ix. 422 ff.) shows that St. Matthew's account must be based upon ' a tradi- tion independent of the prophecy cited.' The ' salient features ' of tliis tradition are thus sum- marized— ' (a) Judas, stricken by remorse, returned the money paid liiiii ; (h) lie lianged himself in despair ; (c) the ]iriests with tliu money buuj;lit a field called the " Potter's l''ifia," which was hence- forth called 'A7pAs Ai'/iaros ; ((/) the field was used as a cemetery for forei>.;ners.' The point of con- nexion between the fact and the jiropheey is the exact correspondence between the amount paid for the prophet's hire and for the prophet of Nazareth's betrayal. In both cases the paltry sum was tlie expression of the nation's ingratitude ; the thirty pieces of silver was the price of a slave (Ex 21-'-). Meditating on the details of the Betrayal, the Evangelist called to mind the experience of Zech- ariah, and saw in it the foreshadowing of the treatment of Jesus in which the sin of a thankless people reached its climax.
In Ac 1''- " a different account of the death of Judas is given. Plummer regards the tradition preserved in the Gospel as ' nearer in time to the event, and probably nearer to the truth ' (Hastings' DB ii. 798"). Bartlet holds that the Lukan tra- dition ' represents the actual facts most nearly ' ('Acts' in Cent. Bible, Note A). The chief argu- ment for the latter view is a saying of Papias which resembles the statement in Acts, though it adds repulsive details (Cramer, Catena on Mt.). Dr. Bendel Harris, AJTh iv. 4901?., thinks that the Papias tradition is ' the fountainhead of the Judas legends, to which fountainhead Luke lies nearer than Matthew.' The difficulties involved in this supposition are, (1) that it treats the account in Matthew as ' a mere substitution ' ; (2) that it involves the conjecture of an original reading in Acts, ' he swelled up and burst asunder.' It is more probable that the Papias story contains later
additions from folk - lore than that the present text of Acts omits essential details. Dr. Harris points out striking coincidences between the Judas narratives and the accounts of the death of Nadan, the traitorous nephew of Ahikar, Sennacherib's grand vizier ; but the parallel does not prove that the Ahikar stories are ' the literary parent ' of the Judas stories. Knowling (Expos. Gr. Test, in loc.) rightly says : ' Whatever may be alleged as to tlie growth of popular fancy and tradition in the later account in Acts of the death of Jiulas, it cannot be said to contrast unfavourably ^^■ith the details given by Papias, Fragment 18, which Blass describes as " insulsissima et foidissima." ' See, further, Akeldama.
iv. The Character of Judas.— (a) The good motives theori/. —Msmj have attempted to explain the action of Judas as arising not from treachery and avarice, but from an honest endeavour to arouse Jesus to action and to liasten His Messianic triumph. Modern writers reproduce, with slight modifications, the theory to which the charm of De Quincey's literary style has imparted a fascina- tion out of all proportion to its probability ( Works, vi. 21 ff. ; cf. Whately, Essays on. Dangers to the Chriitian Faith, Discourse iii.). The theory as- sumes (1) that Jesus, like Hamlet, was 'sublimely over-gifted for purposes of speculation, . . . but not correspondingly endowed for the business of action'; (2) that Judas was alive to the danger resulting from this morliid feature in the tempera- ment of Jesus, and acted not from perfidy, but with a genuine conviction that if Christ's kingdom was to be set up on earth, He 'must be compro- mised before doubts could have time to form.' This theory implies that the judgment of Judas was at fault, but that he had no evil intent ; it finds no support in the Gospel history, and it is inconsistent with our Lord's stern words of con- demnation.