The Two Judases. The Betrayer and the Friend

Judas Iscariot, the Darkness of Desperation

From the Hebrew Judah, which means “ favorite.” One of the first to be chosen by Christ. Living together and the disappointment of not believing. The thirty pieces of silver and Christ’s cry from the cross for the friend who was lost

BY PAOLA RONCONI

The last in the list of the apostles, his name is always accompanied by the connotation of traitor; among his companions, he is the only non-Galilean (his secondary name, “Iscariot,” almost certainly points to origins in Kerioth or Cariot, a city in Judah). It is not known when and how Jesus chose him as a disciple. Within the Twelve, when they began to operate as a group and to live together, it was Judas’s task to keep track of the money; he was their “administrator.” (Jn 12:4-6) The little group of Jesus’s loyal followers shared their life, each one paying his contribution into a common cash fund.
So Judas was able to take small sums of money out every so often. He was a thief, in a word. The Evangelists do not hesitate to point this out. Think how annoyed he must have been in Bethany, at Lazarus’s house, when Mary anointed Jesus’s feet with precious ointment. “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (Jn 12:4-5). And John immediately explains: “He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he was in charge of the common fund and used to help himself to the contents.” (Jn 12:6)
Bethany was on the road from Jericho to Jerusalem. Jesus and his disciples were on their way to the Holy City to celebrate Passover. The Sanhedrin had already decided to have Jesus killed, and were only looking for a way to capture Him without causing too much of a sensation.
The group arrived in Jerusalem the day after the Sabbath. The high priests wanted to settle the matter before Passover started, to avoid any rebellion on the part of the Jews. Hordes of pilgrims were arriving in Jerusalem for the holidays, and the Roman soldiers were already standing on alert. How surprised they must have been when, the Wednesday before Passover started, one of Jesus’s followers came before the Sanhedrin and asked, “‘What are you prepared to give me if I hand him over to you?’ They paid him thirty silver pieces.” (Matt 26:14-16). Luke tells us that in that moment, “Satan entered into Judas.” (Lk 22:3)

A slave’s price
Usually we speak of thirty denarii, but in reality it was much more: thirty shekels or thirty silver staters (corresponding to 120 Roman denarii), which was the price fixed by law for the life of a slave. An interesting book by William Klassen, of the École Biblique of Jerusalem, reports how the informer, the “collaborator with justice” or “state’s evidence,” was fully integrated into the social texture of Hebrew culture: those who acted as informers on behalf of the Hebrew authorities were considered essential to the health of the community.
Greed and avarice, love of money punctuated his personality, as perhaps did disappointment at having intuited from the strange things Jesus was saying that He had not come to bring earthly glory or power, but the anticipation of another kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven. Judas, who cared about practical matters, wanted to be rich; thus it was in his interest to find allies somewhere else, and at the same time, put aside a nice bit of money for himself.
The next day, Thursday, Jewish ritual prescribed supper with unleavened bread. Jesus was aware that these were the last moments He would be spending with his friends, but above all, He already knew who was going to betray Him. “In truth I tell you, one of you is about to betray me,” He said after washing their feet, according to tradition. And a little later, “Someone who has dipped his hand into the dish with me will betray me. The Son of Man is going to his fate, as the scriptures say he will, but alas for that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! Better for that man if he had never been born!” (Matt 26:21,24) Jesus’s answer (“It is you who say it”) to that brusque question, “Not me, Rabbi, surely?” went unobserved by the others, who had their minds on other things. None of the apostles, probably, understood the drama playing out between the two. If anyone there had even guessed what was happening, he would have tried to stop Judas.

He alone understood
Giuseppe Ricciotti, in his Life of Jesus Christ, explains how the disciples were probably arranged around the table: assuming that this was semicircular and that they reclined on low benches, Jesus was in the center; on his left was Peter, on his right John, and next to John, Judas. If John was leaning on Jesus’s breast, as the Gospels say, then the Master would have been turned toward Judas and it would have been easy for them to dip their bread in the same dish and for Jesus to talk to him without anyone else hearing. “An attempt had to be made with this unhappy man,” says Ricciotti; “he had to be given a last chance to save himself.”
What must Judas have felt, hearing these allusions by Jesus? He may have felt discovered, pursued. Or he may have felt reassured: his companions did not suspect anything. Perhaps he thought that if Jesus were truly so powerful, no one could hurt Him, not even the Sanhedrin, not even the Romans.
After supper was over, Judas disappeared; this was the right time to alert the soldiers. “It was night.” (Jn 13:30) This is not only a notation of the time of day, but it also describes in three words the abyss into which Judas’s soul was slowly sinking.
The scene now moves to the Mount of Olives, in the area called Gethsemane (“oil press”), which probably belonged to Mark’s family, like the house where they had just eaten.

A friendly sign
The soldiers accompany Judas, who performs the gesture they had agreed on to indicate Jesus: “‘The one I kiss, he is the man. Arrest him.’” (Matt 26:48) A kiss on the face was the sign of friendship, different from a kiss on the hands, which showed a disciple’s respect for his master. But why did Jesus, who knew what was going to happen, not run away, not react? All He said was, “My friend, do what you are here for.” (Matt 26:50) Everything was inevitable by this point, because Judas was the indispensable link so that the salvation of the world could be accomplished. “While I was with them, I kept those you had given me true to your name, I have watched over them and not one is lost except one who was destined to be lost, and this was to fulfill the scriptures.” (Jn 17:12) In the CL Easter 1999 poster, Father Giussani describes what Jesus meant by the word “friend.” “He said to Judas: ‘We have the same destiny, the same path; you are part of me and I part of you: your happiness is mine, my happiness is yours. You are me.’ This is what ‘friend’ means. Saying ‘friend’ to Judas, Christ is saying it to every man.”
Jesus was brought before the Sanhedrin, and already by the next day the death sentence was decided. Perhaps Judas found out before the others; it was an easy matter for him to have news on this subject. This was when his desperation at what he had done began to emerge in his soul. Jesus was not so invulnerable. They were really going to kill Him.

The potter’s field
“When he found that Jesus had been condemned, then Judas, his betrayer, was filled with remorse and took the thirty silver pieces back to the chief priests and elders, saying, ‘I have sinned. I have betrayed innocent blood.’” (Matt 27:3-4) But the chief priests had no intention of taking them back. He threw them furiously on the temple floor. Then he “went and hanged himself.” (Matt 27:5)
The Sanhedrin, considering the coins to be blood-money, used them to buy the field where Judas hung himself. Tradition says that it was a field (called the “potter’s field”) in the area of Gehenna, just outside the walls of Jerusalem to the south, considered from ancient times a wicked place. From that time on it was called “Field of Blood” and was used as a burial ground for pilgrims.
The love of gold and riches no longer existed. Now, too, the love for that man by whom he had felt himself truly loved and his burden of guilt were limitless. Are we always willing to accept such all-encompassing, unconditional love, or rather, do we rebel? Peter, too, had betrayed Him. Like Judah, he too had repented. But “if man recognizes mercy, he accepts himself and he puts himself in the hands of an Other the hands of a merciful Other, so he can be changed.” (Luigi Giussani, In Search of the Human Face). Judas lacked this faith in pardon and in that mercy.
In The Mystery of Charity of Joan of Arc, Péguy writes, “Being the Son of God, Jesus knew everything,/ And the Savior knew that Judas, the beloved,/ Would not save him, giving himself totally./ And it was then that he knew infinite suffering./ It is then that he knew, it is then that he learned,/ It is then that he felt infinite agony,/ And shouted like a madman his frightening anguish,/ A noise that made Mary waver, still standing,/ And by the mercy of the Father he knew human death.” Christ, reiterates Father Giussani, “the mercy of the Infinite, offered his life for every man, even for Judas.”
It is significant that the Greek name Judas derives from the Hebrew Judah, which means “favorite.”
What is more desperate than this “favorite” not accepting forgiveness, and thus love, from the person he held most dear?