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In the meantime, what happened to Judas? Only Judas knew where to find Our Lord after dark. The soldiers did not know, and therefore they had to be given a sign. Christ was delivered into the hands of His enemies from within. The greatest harm that is done is not always from the enemies, but from those who have been cradled in His sacred associations. It is the failure of those within that provides opportunities for enemies who are still without. The enemies will do the bloody work of Crucifixion, but those who have had the faith and lost it and who are anxious to salve their consciences by destroying the root of moralities commit the greater evil.
The hatred of Judas against Our Blessed Lord was due to the contrast between his sin and the virtue of the Divine Master. Iago says of Cassio: “He hath a daily beauty in his life that makes me ugly.” Judas’ disgust with himself was vented on One Who made him uncomfortable by His Goodness. The hatred against Divinity is not the result always of unbelief, but very often the effect of anti-belief. Conscience, Christ, and the gift of faith make evil men uneasy in their sin. They feel that if they could drive Christ from the earth, they would be free from “Moral inhibitions.” They forget that it is their own nature and conscience which make them feel that way. Being unable to drive God from the heavens, they would drive His ambassadors from the earth. In a lesser sphere, that is why many men sneer at virtue—because it makes vice uncomfortable. A chaste face is a judgment. Judas was more zealous in the cause of his enemies than he ever was in the cause of Our Lord. When men leave Christ, they seek to redeem their reputation by going to extremes.
The betrayal took place with a kiss. When wickedness would destroy virtue and when man would crucify the Son of God, there is felt a necessity to preface the evil deed by some mark of affection. Judas would compliment and deny Divinity with the same lips. Only one word came back in answer to the kiss: “Friend.” It was the last time Our Lord spoke to Judas. For the moment, he was not the traitor but a friend. He had had the right to the fatted calf, but he had rejected it.
And now Judas, His betrayer,
Was full of remorse at seeing Him condemned,
So that he brought back to the chief priest and elders
Their thirty pieces of silver;
I have sinned, he told them, in betraying
The blood of an Innocent Man.
MATTHEW 27:3
Though in English we have both Peter and Judas “repenting,” the Greek words used in the original are different for Judas and for Peter. The word used in connection with Judas signifies only a change of feeling, a regret of the consequences, a desire of undoing what had been done. This kind of repentance did not ask for pardon, for even the devils in hell repented the consequences of their sin of pride. The reason for his betrayal of Christ now seemed utterly evil and base; the political Messias whom he expected now seemed unworthy of thought. Before a sin, the devil makes light of it; after the sin, the devil becomes an accuser inciting despair and worse crimes in the guilty. Evidently the devil “left him for a time,” which gave Judas time to regret his action and to return the money. But later the devil returned to drive him to despair.
The condemnation of Our Lord produced a double effect: one on Judas, the other on the chief priests of the Sanhedrin. On Judas, it produced the bondage of guilt through the agony of his conscience. The thirty pieces of silver within his purse were weighing him down; he ran to the temple, took the shekels from the money bag and threw them mockingly across the pavement floor of the Holy Place. To get rid of the very advantage of his betrayal was a sign that he was none the richer for the thing that he had gained, and infinitely poorer because of the way he had gained it.
No one has ever denied Christ or sold Him for any fleeting pleasure or temporary recompense, without realizing that he has bartered Him away out of all proportion to His due worth. Judas seemed to be getting so much when the bargain was struck. Afterward, he took the money back to the temple and threw the silver coins jingling and rolling across the floor, because he no longer wanted what he had bargained for. He had cheated himself. The fruits of sin never compensate for the loss of grace. The money was good for nothing now except to buy a field of blood.
Those who were associated with him in the crime now attempted to shake off the responsibility for the common act. One of the punishments in concerted sin is mutual recrimination; whenever men band together to do evil against a good man, they always end by falling out with one another. However, in the case of Judas, we find the reversal of the usual conduct of evil characters. The greater the wrong, the more reluctant one is to admit that it had no justification. Evil men, in order to appear innocent, load accusations of guilt on those whom they have wronged. If there was anything that would have justified the sin of Judas, he certainly would have seized on it and exaggerated it in order to cover up his perfidy and his shame. But Judas himself pronounced Our Lord innocent. He who had once complained about the waste of Mary’s precious ointment now wasted his thirty pieces of silver by throwing them away. Could not the money have been given to the poor? Judas no longer thought of them. The shekels lay in the temple where Judas had thrown them. The chief priests hated both them and Judas, their miserable tool. He tried to throw responsibility on the Sanhedrin; they tossed it back in his face. Without in any way confessing to the Divinity of His Master, he, nevertheless, condemned himself. As Cain asked, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” so they disdained sympathy for their own accomplice.
But the money must not be left on the temple floor, and so the chief priests gathered it up, saying:
It must not be put in the treasury,
Since it is the price of blood;
And after consultation, they used it to
Buy the potter’s field,
As a burial place for strangers; it is upon
That account that the field has been called
Haceldama, the field of blood, to this day.
MATTHEW 27:6–8
Judas’ fellow conspirators were willing to consult about the money, but not about the innocent man. They should have rejoiced in the confession of Judas, but they discarded him as a useless tool. He was no longer wanted; neither was the money, so it was used to buy a field of blood.
Judas was repentant unto himself, but not unto the Lord. He was disgusted with the effects of his sin, but not with the sin. Everything can be pardoned except the refusal to seek pardon, as life can forgive everything except the acceptance of death. His remorse was only a self-hatred, and self-hatred is suicidal. To hate self is the beginning of slaughter. It is salutary only when associated with the love of God. Repenting to oneself is not enough. Conscience speaks lowest when it ought to speak loudest. It is a lamp which sometimes goes out in darkness.
When a man hates himself for what he has done and is without repentance to God, he will sometimes pound his breast as if to blot out a sin. There is a world of difference between pounding a breast in self-disgust and pounding it with the mea culpa in which one asks for pardon. Sometimes this self-hatred can become so intense as even to pound the life out of a man, and thus it leads to suicide. Though death is one of the penalties of original sin and though it is something to be universally dreaded, nevertheless there are some who rush into its arms. A warning conscience came to Judas before the sin, but the gnawing conscience followed after, and it was so great that he could not bear it. Down the valley of Cedron he went—that valley with all of its ghostly associations. Amidst jagged rocks and between gnarled and stunted trees, he was so disgusted with himself that he would empty himself of self. Everything around him seemed to tell of his destiny and his end. Nothing seemed more hideous to his eyes than the gilded roof of the temple, which reminded him of the Temple of God he had sold; every tree seemed the gibbet to which he had sentenced innocent blood; every branch was an accusing finger; the very hill on which he stood overlooked Calvary whereon the One Whom he had sentenced to death would unite heaven and earth; but he would now separate them as much as it was in his power. Throwing a rope over the limb of a tree, he hanged himself as his bowels burst asunder. God can be sold, but He cannot be bought. Judas sold Him, but his evil collaborators could not buy Him, for He was present again in risen glory on Easter.
An interesting parallel can be drawn between Peter and Judas. There are some similarities, and yet such tremendous differences. First, Our Lord called them both “devils.” He called Peter “Satan” when he rebuked Him for saying He would be crucified; He called Judas a devil when He promised the Bread of Life. Second, He warned both that they would fall. Peter said that even though others would deny the Master, he would not. Whereupon, he was told that during that very night, before the cock crowed, Peter would deny Him thrice. Judas, in his turn, was warned when offered the dipped bread; and he was also told, in answer to his question, that he was the betrayer. Third, both denied Our Lord: Peter to the maidservants during the night trial; Judas in the garden when he delivered Our Lord to the soldiers. Fourth, Our Lord tried to save both: Peter through a look, and Judas by addressing him as “Friend.” Fifth, both repented: Peter went out and wept bitterly; Judas repented by taking back the thirty pieces of silver and affirming the innocence of Our Lord.
Why, then, is one at the head of the list, the other at the bottom? Because Peter repented unto the Lord and Judas unto himself. The difference was as vast as Divine reference and self-reference; as vast as the difference between a Cross and a psychoanalytic couch. Judas said he had “betrayed innocent blood,” but he never wished to be bathed in it. Peter knew he had sinned and sought redemption; Judas knew he had made a mistake and sought escape—the first of the long army of escapists from the Cross. Divine pardon presupposes but never destroys human freedom. One wonders if Judas, as he stood beneath the tree that would bring him death, ever looked around the valley to the tree that would have brought him life. On this difference between repenting unto the Lord and repenting unto self as did Peter and Judas respectively, St. Paul would later comment in these words:
Supernatural remorse leads to an abiding
And salutary change of heart,
Whereas the world’s remorse leads to death.
II CORINTHIANS 7:10
The tragedy of the life of Judas is that he might have been St. Judas.
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