Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (826 page)

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Vol. II. § 89.covetousness and love of money. And, if so, would he have made him purse-bearer, i.e. placed him in a position in which his propensity to seek gain by any means, even though dishonest, must have had the most abundant nourishment? Would he have made him a thief by giving him opportunity, and thus, as if designedly, have brought up in him a betrayer for himself? Considered simply in an economical point of view, who entrusts a purse to one of whom he knows that he robs it? Then, in relation to the idea of Jesus as a moral teacher, who places the weak in a situation which so constantly appeals to his weak point, as to render it certain that he will sooner or later give way to the temptation? No truly: Jesus assuredly did not so play with the souls immediately entrusted to him, did not exhibit to them so completely the opposite of what he taught them to pray for,
lead us not into temptation
(Matt. vi. 13), as to have made Judas, of whom he foreknew that he would become his betrayer out of covetousness, the purse-bearer of his society; or, if he gave him this office, he cannot have had such a foreknowledge.

In order to arrive at a decision in this alternative, we must consider that foreknowledge separately, and inquire whether, apart from the treasurership of Judas, it be probable or not? We shall not enter on the question of the psychological possibility, because there is always freedom of appeal to the divine nature of Jesus; but with regard to the moral possibility it is to be asked, whether presupposing that foreknowledge, it be justifiable in Jesus to have chosen Judas among the twelve, and to have retained him within this circle? As it was only by this vocation that his treachery as such could be rendered possible; so Jesus appears, if he foresaw this treachery, to have designedly drawn him into the sin. It is urged that intercourse with Jesus afforded Judas the possibility of escaping that abyss :* but Jesus is supposed to have foreseen that this possibility would not be realized. It is further said that even in other circles the evil implanted in Judas would not the less have developed itself in a different form: a proposition which has a strong tinge of fatalism. Again, when it is said to be of no avail to a man that the evil, the germ of which lies within him, should not be developed, this appears to lead to consequences which are repudiated by the apostle Paul, Rom. iii. 8, vi.1 f. And regarding the subject in relation to feeling merely, — how could Jesus endure to have a man, of whom he knew that he would be his betrayer, and that all instruction would be fruitless to him, as his constant attendant throughout the whole period of his public life? Must not the presence of such a person have every hour interfered with his confidential intercourse with the rest of the twelve? Assuredly they must have been weighty motives, for the sake of which Jesus imposed on himself anything so repugnant and difficult. Such motives or objects must either have had relation to Judas, and thus have consisted in the design to make him better — which however was

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See these and the following reasons in Olshausen, 2, s. 458 ff
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precluded by the decided foreknowledge of his crime; or they must have had relation to Jesus himself and his work, i.e. Jesus had the conviction that if the work of redemption by means of his death were to be effected, there must be one to betray him.* But for the purpose of redemption, according to the Christian theory, the death of Jesus was the only indispensable means: whether this should be brought about by a betrayal, or in any other way, was of no moment, and that the enemies of Jesus must, earlier or later, have succeeded in getting him into their power without the aid of Judas, is undeniable. That the betrayer was indispensable in order to bring about the death of Jesus exactly at the passover, which was a type of himself † — with such trivialities it will scarcely be attempted to put us off in these days.

If then we are unable to discover any adequate motive which could induce Jesus advertently to receive and retain in his society his betrayer in the person of Judas: it appears decided that he cannot beforehand have known him to be such. Schleiermacher, in order that he may not infringe on the authority of John by denying this foreknowledge, prefers doubting that Jesus chose the twelve purely by his own act, and supposes that this circle was rather formed by the voluntary adherence of the disciples: since it would be more easy to justify the conduct of Jesus, if he merely refrained from rejecting Judas when he spontaneously offered himself than if he drew him to himself by free choice.‡ But hereby the authority of John is still endangered, for it is he who makes Jesus say to the twelve:
Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you
(xv. 16, comp. vi. 76); moreover, even dismissing the idea of a decided act of election, still for any one to remain constantly with Jesus there needed his permission and sanction, and even these he could not, acting humanly, give to a man of whom he knew that, by means of this relation to himself, he would be enabled to mature the blackest crime. It is said, however, that Jesus put himself entirely into the Divine point of view, and admitted Judas into his society, for the sake of the possibility of reformation which he yet foreknew would never be realised; but this would be a Divine inhumanity, — not the conduct of the God-man. If, according to this, it is extremely difficult to maintain as historical the statement of the fourth gospel, that Jesus from the beginning knew Judas to be his betrayer: so it is equally easy to discern what even without historical foundation might lead to such a representation.

It would be natural to suppose, that the fact of Jesus being betrayed by one of his own disciples, would be injurious to him in the eyes of his enemies, even if
we did not know that Celsus, in the character of a Jew, reproached Jesus
that he was betrayed by one of those whom he called his disciples,
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as a proof that he was less able to attach his followers

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Olshausen, ut sup.

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Such an argument may be gathered from what Olshausen says, 2,
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387,
388.

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Ueber den Lukas, s. 88.to himself than every robber-chief.* Now as the injurious consequences to be drawn from the ignominious death of Jestis, appeared to be most completely obviated by the assertion that he had long foreknown his death: so, the arguments against Jesus derived from the treachery of Judas, might seem to be most effectually repelled by the statement, that he had penetrated into the character of the traitor from the first, and could have escaped what his treason prepared for him ; since this would involve the inference that he had exposed himself to the effects of his faithlessness by his own free will, and out of higher considerations.† This method included a second advantage, which attaches to the enunciator of every prediction alleged to be fulfilled, and which the fourth Evangelist naïvely makes his Jesus express, when, after the exposure of the betrayer, he puts into his mouth the words :
Now I tell you before it come, that when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he
(xiii. 19) — In fact, the best motto for every
vaticinium post eventum.
These two objects were the more completely attained, the earlier the period in the life of Jesus to which this foreknowledge was referred; whence it is to be explained why the author of the fourth gospel, not satisfied with the ordinary representation, that Jesus predicted his betrayal by Judas at the last supper, placed his knowledge on this subject in the commencement of the connexion between him and Judas.‡

This early knowledge on the part of Jesus concerning the treachery of Judas being dismissed as unhistorical, there would be room for the statement that Judas carried the purse of the society; since this particular only appeared incompatible with the above foreknowledge, while, if Jesus was in general mistaken in Judas, he might, under this error, have entrusted the funds to him. But by the proof that the representation of John, in relation to the knowledge of Jesus concerning his betrayer, is a fictitious one, its credibility in this matter is so shaken, that no confidence can be placed in the other statement. If the author of the fourth gospel has embellished the relation between Jesus and Judas on the side connected with Jesus, he can scarcely have left the side of Judas unadorned; if he has introduced the fact, that Jesus
was betrayed,
by making Jesus foresee this part of his destiny, his other statement, that Judas had beforehand exhibited his avarice by a dishonest use of the common purse, may easily be only an introduction to the fact, that Jesus was betrayed
by Judas.

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Orig. c. Cels., ii. 11 f,
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Comp. Probabil., p. 139.

^‡
Still farther back we find, not the knowledge of Jesus concerning his betrayer, but an important meeting between them, in the apocryphal
Evangelium infantiæ arabicum,
c. xxxv. ap. Fabricius I, p. 197 f., ap. Thilo, I, p. 108 f. Here a demoniacal boy, who in his attacks bit violently at everything around him, is brought to the child Jesus, attempts to bite him, and because he cannot reach him with his teeth gives him a blow on the right side, whereupon the child Jesus weeps, while Satan comes out of the boy in the form of a furious dog.
Hic autem puer, qui Jesum percussit et ex quo Salanas sub forma canis exivit, fuit Judas Ischariotes, qui illum Judaeis prodidit.
But even though we renounce the information given by John concerning the character and motives of Judas: we still retain, in the forementioned statement of the synoptists, the most decided intimation that the chief motive of his deed was covetousness.

§ 119
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DIFFERENT OPINIONS CONCERNING THE CHARACTER OF JUDAS, AND THE MOTIVES OF HIS TREACHERY.

From the earliest to the latest times there have been persons, who have held opinions at issue with this view of the New Testament writers concerning the motives of Judas, and with their entirely reprobatory judgment upon them (comp. Acts i. 16 ff.);
and this divergency has arisen partly out of au exaggerated supranaturalism, and partly out of a rationalistic bias.

An over-strained supranaturalism, proceeding from the point of view presented in the New Testament itself, namely, that the death of Jesus, decreed in the Divine plan of the world for the salvation of mankind, might even regard Judas, by whose treachery the death of Jesus was brought about, as a blameless instrument in the hand of Providence, a co-operator in the redemption of mankind. He might be placed in this light by the supposition that he had knowledge of that Divine decree, and that its fulfilment was the object at which he aimed in betraying Jesus. We actually find this mode of viewing the subject on the part of the gnostic sect of the Cainites, who, according to the ancient writers on heresies, held that Judas had liberated himself from the narrow Jewish opinions of the other disciples and attained to the gnosis, and accordingly betrayed Jesus because he knew that by his death the kingdom of the inferior spirits who ruled the world would be overthrown.* Others in the early church admitted that Judas betrayed Jesus out of covetousness; maintaining, however, that be did not anticipate the death of Jesus as a consequence of his betrayal, hut supposed that he would, as he had often previously done, escape from his enemies by an exertion of his supernatural power :
^†
an opinion which forms the transition to the modern methods of justifying the traitor.

As the above mentioned supranaturalistic exaltation of Judas by the Cainites immediately proceeded from their antagonistic position with respect to Judaism, in virtue of which they had made it a principle to honour all who were blamed by the Jewish authors

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Iren. adv. hær. r. 35
Judam proditorem — solum præ ceteris cognoscentem veritatem perfecisse proditionis mysterium, per quem et terrena et coelestia omnia dissoluta dicunt.
Epiphan. xxxviii. 3:
Some Cainites say, that Judas betrayed Jesus because he regarded him as a wicked man
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who meant to destroy the good law.

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Theophylact, in Matth. xxvii. 4.of the Old Testament, and the judaizing authors of the New, and vice versa: so Rationalism especially in its first indignation at the long subjection of the reason to the fetters of authority, felt a certain delight both in divesting of their nimbus those biblical personages who according to its views had been too zealously deified by orthodoxy, and also in defending and elevating those who were condemned or depreciated by the latter. Hence, in the Old Testament, the exaltation of Esau over Jacob, of Saul over Samuel; in the New, of Martha over Mary, the eulogiums on the doubting Thomas, and now the apology even for the traitor Judas. According to some, he became a criminal out of injured honour: the manner in which Jesus reproved him at the meal at Bethany, and, in general, the inferior degree of regard which he experienced in comparison with other disciples, converted his love for his teacher into hatred and revenge.* Others have preferred the conjecture preserved by Theophylact, that Judas may have hoped to see Jesus this time also escape from his enemies. Some have taken up this idea in the supranaturalistic sense, supposing it to be the expectation of Judas that Jesus would set himself at liberty by an exertion of his miraculous power ;† others consistently with their point of view have supposed that Judas may probably have expected that if Jesus were taken prisoner the people would raise an insurrection in his favour and set him at liberty.‡ These opinions represent Judas as one who, in common with the other disciples, conceived the messianic kingdom as an earthly and political one, and hence was discontented that Jesus so long abstained from availing himself of the popular favour, in order to assume the character of the messianic ruler. Instigated either by attempts at bribery on the part of the Sanhedrim, or by the humour of their plan to seize Jesus in secret after the feast, Judas sought to forestall this project, which must have been fatal to Jesus, and to bring about his arrest before the expiration of the feast time, in which he might certainly hope to see Jesus liberated by an insurrection, by which means he would be compelled at last to throw himself into the arms of the people, and thus take the decisive step towards the establishment of his dominion. When he heard Jesus speak of the necessity of his being captured, and of his rising again in three clays, he understood these expressions as an intimation of the concurrence of Jesus in his plan; under this mistake, he partly failed to hear, and partly misinterpreted, his additional admonitory discourse; and especially understood the words:
What thou doest, do quickly,
as an actual encouragement to the execution of his design. He took the thirty pieces of silver from the priests either to conceal his real intentions under the appearance of covetousness, and thus to lull every suspicion on their part; or, because, while he