(3.) But to most persons these will appear to be arbi- trary or recondite arguments. Important reasons of a more practical kind, we may be sure, were not wanting for the procedure, and they are not very far to seek. The presence of such a false friend in the company of his immediate disciples was needed, first of all, to com- plete the circle of Christ's trials and temptations. He could not otherwise have known by personal experience some of the sharpest wounds inflicted by human per- vcrseness and ingratitude, nor exhibited his suiicriority to the evil of the world in its most offensive forms. But for the deceit and treachery of Judas he woidd not have been in all things tempted like his brethren. Then thus only could the things undergone by his great pro- totype David find their proper comiterpart in him who was to enter into David's heritage, and raise from the dust David's throne. Of the things written in the Psalms concerning him — written there as derived from the depths'of David's sore experience and sharp conflict with evil, but destined to meet again in a still greater than he — few have more affecting prominence given to them than those which relate to the hardened wicked- ness, base treachery, and reprobate condition of a false friend, whose' words were smooth as butter, but whose actions were drawn swords, who ate of his meat, but lift- ed up the heel against him (comp. Psa. xii, 9, with John xiii, 18 ; and see Ahithophel). Other prophecies also, especially two in Zechariah (x, 12, 13 ; xiii, 6), waited for their accomplishment on such a course of ingratitude and treachery as that pursued by Judas. Further, the relation in which this false but ungenial and shaqi- sighted disciple stood to the rectitude of Jesus afforded an important reason for his presence and agency. It was well that those who stood at a greater distance from the Saviour failed to discover any fault m him ; that none of them, when the hour of trial came, could convict him of sin, though the most watchful inspec- tion had been exercised, and the most anxious efforts had been made to enable them to do so. But it was much more that even this bosom friend, who had been privy to all his counsels, and had seen him in his most unguarded moments, was equaUy incapable of finding any evil in him; he could betray Jesus to his enemies, but he coidd furnish these enemies with no proof of his criminality; nay, with the bitterness of death in his soul, he went back to testify to them that, in delivering up Jesus, he had betrayed innocent blood. What more conclusive evidence could the world have had that our Lord was indeed without spot and blameless? Finalh', the appearance of such a person as Judas among the immediate attendants of Jesus was needed as an exam- ple of the strength of human depravity — how it can Inrk under the most sacred professions, subsist in the holiest company, live and grow amid the clearest light, the most solemn warnings, the tenderest entreaties, and the divi- nest works. The instruction afforded by the incarna- tion and public ministry of the Son of (Jod would not have been complete without such a memorable exhibi- tion by its side of the darker aspects of human nature ; the Church should have wanted a portion of the mate- rials required for her future warning and admonition: and on this account also there was a valid reason for the calling of one who could act the shameful part of Judas Iscariot.
4. Motives of Judas in the Betrayal of his Master.— The Scripture account leaves these to conjecture (comp. Neander, Leben Jesu, § 264). The mere love of money may have been strong enough to make him clutch at the bribe offered him. He came, it may be, expecting more (Matt, xxvii, 15) ; he will take that. He has lost the chance of dealing with the three hundred denarii; it will be something to get the thirty shekels as his own. It may have been that he felt that his Master saw through his hidden guilt, and that he hastened on a crisis to avoid the shame of open detection. Mingled
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with this there may have been some feeling of vindic- tiveness, a vague, confused desire to show that he liad power to stop the career of the teacher who liad re- proved him. Had the words that spoke of "the burial" of Jesus, and the lulcewarmness of the people, and the conspiracies of the priests, led him at last to see that the JNIessianic kingdom was not as the kingdoms of this world, and that his dream of power and wealth to be enjoyed in it was a delusion ? (Ewald, Ge.ic/i. Israels, v, 441-44(3). There may have been the thought tliat, af- ter all, the betrayal coidd do no harm, that his blaster would prove his innocence, or by some supernatural manifestation effect his escape (Lightfoot, J/or. Ileh. p. 880; and Whitby on Matt, xxvii, 4). Another motive has been suggested (compare Neander, Lehtn Jesu, 1. c. ; and Whately, Essays on Dunr/ers to Christian Faith, discourse iii) of an entirely different kind, altering al- together the character of the act. Not the love of money, nor revenge, nor fear, nor disappointment, but polic3', a subtle plan to force on the hour of tlie triumph of the Messianic kingdom, the belief that for this service he would receive as high a place as Peter, or James, or John — this it was that made him the traitor. If he could place his Master in a position from which retreat would 1)0 impossible, where he would be compelled to throw himself on the people, and be raised by them to the throne of his father David, then he might look for- ward to being foremost and highest in that kingdom, with all his desires for wealth and power gratified to the fulL Ingenious as this hypothesis is, it fails for that very reason. It attributes to the grovelling peasant a subtlety in forecasting political combinations, and plan- ning stratagems accordingly, which is hardly compati- ble with his character and learning, hardly consistent either with the pettiness of the faults into which he had hitherto fallen. It is characteristic of the wide, far- reaching symi'athy of Origen that he suggests another motive for the suicide of Judas. Despairing of pardon in this life, he would rush on into the world of the dead, and there {yvjxvy ry 'd/vxy) meet his Lord, and confess his guilt, and ask for pardon ( Tirict. in. Matt, xxxv ; comp. also Thco]ihanes, Horn, xxvii, in Suicer, Thes. s. V. 'lovcac). Of the other motives that have been as- signed we need not care to fix on any one as that which singly led him on. Crime is, for the most part, the re- sult of a hundred motives rushing with bewildering fury through the mind of the criminal.