JUDAS ISCARIOT

died c. AD 30 one of the Twelve Apostles, notorious for betraying Jesus. Judas' surname is more probably a corruption of the Latin sicarius (murderer or assassin) than an indication of family origin, suggesting that he would have belonged to the Sicarii, the most radical Jewish group, some of whom were terrorists. Other than his apostleship, his betrayal, and his death, little else is revealed about Judas in the Gospels. Always the last on the list of the Apostles, he was their treasurer. John 12:6 introduces Judas' thievery by saying, . . . as he had the money box he used to take what was put into it. He disclosed Jesus' whereabouts to the chief priests and elders for 30 pieces of silver. They provided the armed guard that he brought to the Garden of Gethsemane, near Jerusalem, where Jesus went to pray with the other 11 Apostles after the Last Supper. There he identified Jesus with a kiss, addressing him as master. Matt. 26:1416 and John 12:6 designate Judas' motive as avarice, but Luke 22:36 ascribes his action to the entrance of Satan into his body, paralleling John 13:27, where, after Judas took the bread at the Last Supper, Satan entered into him. Jesus then says, What you are going to do, do quickly. This is the culmination of John 6:7071, which, after Jesus says, Did I not choose you, the Twelve, and one of you is a devil? discloses that he meant Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the Twelve, was to betray him. There are variant traditions about Judas' death. According to Matt. 27:310, he repented after seeing Jesus condemned to death, then returned the silver and hanged himself (traditionally from the Judas tree). In Acts 1:18, he bought a field with the reward of his wickedness; and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out, implying that he threw himself down, rather than that he died accidentally. Apocryphal gospels developed the point in Acts that calls the spot of his death the place (field) of blood. The 1st/2nd-century Apostolic Father Papias is quoted to have given macabre details about Judas' death, presumably to show that Gospel prophecies were literally fulfilled. His account appears in numerous legends, particularly in Coptic works, and in medieval literature. In Dante's Inferno Judas appears in the deepest chasm of hell with Julius Caesar's assassins, Brutus and Cassius. In Muslim polemic literature, however, Judas ceases to be a traitor; instead, he supposedly lied to the Jews in order to defend Jesus (who was not crucified). The 14th-century cosmographer ad-Dimashqi maintains that Judas assumed Jesus' likeness and was crucified in his place. The 2nd-century apocryphal Gospel of Judas favourably evaluates him. His name has subsequently become associated with traitor (a Judas) and treacherous kiss (a Judas kiss). Additional reading J.M. Robertson, Jesus and Judas, a Textual and Historical Investigation (1927); and William Klassen, Judas: Betrayer or Friend of Jesus? (1996).