Judas
The reader may be inclined to regard the title of the present paper as a sample of Hibernicism. My purpose is to study some of the venerable personages gathered in the Cenacle during the ten days before the coming of the Holy Ghost. But Judas was not one of them! By then he had already gone to what the Eleven, in their collective prayer before the election of Matthias, cryptically describe as "his own place" (Acts, i. 25). Yet, Judas might and should have been present, for he too had been a member of the Apostolic College from the beginning. He too had had his share in the care and love which Our Lord had lavished upon His followers during the many months of their wonderful and close familiarity.
Judas Refused Response to Gesture of Lord's Love
On the last occasion of Judas' presence in the Cenacle, Jesus made a supreme effort to touch the unhappy man's heart. However, Judas would not respond to Our Lord's loving gesture when He dipped a morsel of bread in the dish and handed it to him. The gesture was regarded as a mark of special attention on the part of the Host, but the Traitor's soul remained unmoved. Scarcely had he swallowed the morsel than he rose from the table, left the room and walked out into the night — erat enim nox, St. John writes, surely not merely to mark the hour. His remark may well be a subtle reflection on the state of the Traitor's soul (John, xiii. 30). In any case, Judas' absence from the Cenacle holds a grave warning for all of us.
Of most of the members of that assembly we know very little, because our only reliable source of information is silent, while the data supplied by tradition are few and, perhaps, to a large extent legendary. But one thing we do know: with one mind and one heart they spent these ten days in prayer and preparation. St. Luke tells us expressly that fiery tongues rested on all of them, and that all were filled with the Holy Ghost. Now, we learn from the Book of Wisdom that wisdom "will not dwell in a body subject to sins," and that "the Holy Spirit will flee from the deceitful, and will withdraw Himself from thoughts that are without understanding, and He will not abide when iniquity cometh in" (Wis., i. 4, 5). Evidently, then, those who on the morning of Pentecost received the fullness of the Spirit were worthy of that gift, in so far as even the holiest of creatures can be said to be worthy of the gratuitous gifts of God.
In the persons of St. Peter and St. John we see how much grace can do when it works upon noble, generous natures. John never wavered; he never failed the Master. True, he seems to have fled like the rest while the awful scene in the Garden was being enacted. But only for a moment. Peter too fled, but presently we see him following the procession to the high priest's house, though from afar. But when he entered the courtyard, he found to his surprise that John was already there. At the last, John was once more near Jesus, close to the Cross, the only member of Our Lord's chosen followers to comfort Him by his presence in the hour of His agony and death. Peter was not there; he was perhaps in hiding, somewhere in the big city, weeping and lamenting his weakness of the previous night. What anguish, what agony the sorrowing Apostle must have endured that Friday afternoon, during those three hours of uncanny, awe-inspiring darkness, which he can hardly have failed to connect with the crime that was being committed on Calvary! Peter impersonates faith; John stands for love, and love is stronger than faith itself: "Fortis est ut mors dilectio — love is strong as death . . . Many waters cannot quench charity, neither can the floods drown it" (Canticle, viii. 6, 7).
Let us look at the sinister figure of Judas. If the sacred College of Apostles is a most inspiring spectacle and a source of edification, a study of the Traitor has also a very great and indeed a very terrible lesson to teach us.
We have seen, in a previous article, that all the splendor and grandeur of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome is but a vast marble canopy over the tomb of a humble Galilean fisherman. That tomb has acted like a mighty magnet for millions in the course of nineteen centuries. From the four corners of the earth, by land and by sea, men and women have come to prostrate themselves on the spot where the mortal remains of the Prince of the Apostles await the return of the King of Glory. Millions have regarded the precious hour when they knelt on that sacred spot and kissed the hallowed ground as the climax and crown of their whole life. Peter's glory is the reward of his loyalty.
While I lived in Jerusalem — or, to speak more exactly, outside Jerusalem, just above the village of Siloam, on the Mount of Offense — my windows overlooked the Valley of Josaphat, that part of it, in fact, which once bore the name of "the Valley of Hinnom," or "Gehenna" — a deep, narrow gorge, through which runs the brook Kedron. A little above the spot where another valley, that of the Giants (which runs down from the north), joins the Valley of Josaphat, there is a Greek monastery which occupies a field, famous and sinister, which once belonged to a potter not otherwise known to history.
Moloch, Figure of Sacrifice to Jews
A tree stood in a corner of the field. The place was shunned even in the daytime, for here had stood the monstrous image of Moloch, a hollow, brazen figure which could be heated with coals burning under it, or within its belly. This revolting deity had to be propitiated with human victims. To it the apostate Jews at one time sacrificed their little children amid the blare of trumpets and the rattle of drums — to drown the cries of the victims and their mothers. The children were placed in the out-stretched arms of the monster from which they rolled into its wide, open mouth and its fiery inside. Here also the filth of the temple and the city collected; it was a noisome place. The Scriptures speak of it as an image of hell, and it has in fact given its name to the abode of the reprobate.
Hither, on the afternoon of Good Friday, came the unhappy man who had sold his Master for thirty pieces of silver. Now he realized the enormity of his crime, or, more accurately, his eyes had been opened and his conscience accused him — that conscience whose voice he had stifled so long, but which now gave him no rest.
Peter had denied his Master; in fact, he had gone so far as to swear that he did not so much as know who this Jesus was! But scarcely were the fatal words out of his mouth than the unhappy Apostle, momentarily beside himself with fear, came to his senses, realized the enormity of his crime, and forthwith burst into a flood of bitter tears of anguish and regret. Alas! not so Judas. He too admits his guilt — he does so publicly: "Peccavi — I have sinned — tradens sanguinem justum"! (Matt., xxvii. 4). But his grief is not that of humble repentance, it is the horror of despair. At this very hour, He whom he had betrayed was also hanging on a tree and was about to die upon it, and for Judas as much as for every other sinner.
Judas Sought No Pardon of the Dying Redeemer
Had Judas groped his way through the unnatural gloom that enfolded the city to the hill of Calvary, Jesus would have pardoned him as willingly, as completely, as he pardoned the thief crucified at His side. Instead, Judas slinks through the deserted streets down to the sinister corner of the ill-omened valley, hiding under his cloak a hempen rope. Climbing over the stone wall that encloses it, he enters the potter's field. He climbs into a tree, makes a noose in the rope, and ties one end of it to one of the branches. Now he passes his neck through the noose and lets himself drop down.
We know the rest. St. Peter has described the circumstances of the Traitor's death with dreadful, almost sickening realism. We need not dwell on them, but attention may be drawn to one phase of the Apostle's discourse on the occasion of the substitution of St. Matthias for the Traitor. "Judas," St. Peter said, "was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry," (viz., a share in the apostolic vocation). The candidate chosen was "to take the place of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas . . . hath fallen, that he might go to his own place" (Acts, i. 17,25).
What an appalling contrast — the ministry of the Gospel, the apostolate of the whole world, on the one hand, and on the other "his own place"! Where can that place be? The Traitor's own place! Is not St. Peter's striking phrase an echo of Our Lord's terrible words at the Last Supper: "Woe to that man by whom the Son of Man shall be betrayed: it were better for him if that man had not been born" (Matt., xxvi. 24). We shudder at these words, for He that uttered them never spoke lightly or at random, and for Him the future held no secrets.
There was a village amid the hills of Judea which no longer figures on any map, though its name will linger in history until the end of time: it was called Kerioth. One day Jesus, while traversing its narrow, noisy street, encountered a man called Judas, a young man or one in his early middle-years at most. We cannot imagine what Jesus' thoughts may have been when He first looked into the face of the man of Kerioth, while He read the secrets of his heart and peered into the labyrinthine recesses of his soul. Since Jesus knew all things, He could even then see another meeting with that man — in the silvery light of the Easter moon, in a garden, when Judas would come to look for Him at the head of an armed band made up of the menials of the high priests. But now, in spite of the dark future that He knew, Jesus said to Judas: "Come!"
I think we need not for a moment call in question Judas' sincerity at that fateful moment. His compliance with the Master's invitation may well have been as generous as that of Peter and the rest, though it may have been more deliberate. The son of Jona was impulsive; the son of Simon of Kerioth, on the contrary, would look before he leaped and weigh the consequences of any step before he took it.
The authors of the Gospels do not attempt a full-length portrait of the various persons who appear in their pages, but a few casual remarks here and there enable us to imagine what manner of man Judas was. One thinks of him as taciturn, secretive; none of his colleagues seem to have suspected his thieving, though it was spread over a long period. He was shrewd, calculating, a man who would take no risks and would guard himself against failure and disappointment: "Whosoever I shall kiss, that is your man: seize him and bring him along carefully (tenate eum, et ducite caute)," he instructed the ruffianly mob of which the high priests had given him command.
He was no single-minded Galilean countryman; in fact, he seems to have been the only non-Galilean member of the Apostolic College. He had business ability; he knew men and the affairs of men; he had an eye for the price of things. He was not slow in assessing the value of the perfume wasted, as he complained, by Mary of Bethany. Peter or John could have told you the current price of fish, but it is unlikely that they would have any idea of the price of Mary's alabaster jar and its fragrant contents. If Judas sold his Master, it was not because he had not at one time loved Him; it was because he also loved money.
Judas observed men and things. He had his finger on the pulse of the public, so to speak. Very early in his association with Our Lord, he must have come to the conclusion that His career would end in a catastrophe which would involve Master and disciples in a common ruin. If Judas appropriated money from the common purse, it was to provide against an evil time which he could see coming. The climax of his protracted defalcations came on the day when he went over to the enemy.
Self-Preservation May Have Been Judas' Motive
That step may have been in part prompted by the instinct of self-preservation. He saw that all his hopes, all his prospects, were destined to be thwarted. By going over to the enemy, he would make a show of zeal for the authority of the Sanhedrin, which had been so long and so openly flouted by the Prophet of Nazareth. The money he asked for and received, he may have regarded as an insurance against the risk he was taking. Peter's action in the Garden subsequently showed what the fiery Apostle might have done, had he had an inkling of the Traitor's intentions.
It is quite likely that Judas had speculated on Our Lord's secret powers, which he had seen displayed so often; in fact, this seems the obvious meaning of his warning: "Lead Him carefully." Judas thought that Jesus would somehow extricate Himself from the hands of His enemies. He personally watched the proceedings in the high priest's house as well as those in Pilate's: "Videns Judas, qui eum tradidit, quod damnatus esset" (Matt., xxvii. 3). This seems to imply a physical presence, though the words could be used even if the Evangelist only meant that Judas heard of Our Lord's condemnation. Peter also watched the proceedings, and when Jesus cast a look at him after the threefold denial, the Apostle's heart was broken with grief and he left the place, weeping bitterly. Judas, too, watched, but by now he had hardened his heart so long that nothing could move it. True, he confessed that he had sinned: "Peccavi, tradens sanguinem justum". But his heart was not softened by repentance; his sorrow was that of dark despair, and from that dark despair he went and plunged into "the outer darkness," even as, on the previous day, when he had left the brightly lit Cenacle, ha had stepped out into the night (erat enim nox).
St. Peter's denial and his tears of repentance are an inspiration and a comfort for all of us. Judas' conduct and his dreadful end also teach us a profound lesson. In a moment of weakness Peter denied his Master; yet, he sleeps in glory beneath the mighty dome of his basilica in Rome. Repentance swiftly made good the havoc wrought by presumption. Hakeldama, the sinister field in the valley of ill repute, unknown today and unhallowed, keeps the dust of the Traitor. Yet, Judas too might have rested in an honored tomb. He too was chosen to be a pillar of the Church and a herald of the Gospel. His voice, like that of his colleagues, should have resounded to the ends of the earth. The ways of divine justice and mercy are awe-inspiring. Who can ponder the call of Judas, and his miserable end, without a thrill of holy and wholesome fear?
The man of Kerioth did not become all of a sudden the sinister personage that he is. Infidelity to grace, at first in small things only, induced a gradual, creeping hardening of the arteries of his heart. Here lies our danger. We too have received a high vocation. We have grace showered upon us. Let Judas' fate be a warning to us!
We began with a visit to the stupendous building where Peter sleeps in glory. Let us sometimes look at the sinister tree of Hakeldama. Let it stand by the roadside of our life, so to speak, as a warning: we need a deterrent quite as much as we need encouragement and inspiration.
© Joseph F. Wagner, Inc.
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