ISCARIOT, or, as he is usually called, the traitor, and betrayer of our Lord. “The _treachery_ of Judas Iscariot,” says Dr. Hales, “his _remorse_, and _suicide_, are occurrences altogether so strange and extraordinary, that the motives by which he was actuated require to be developed, as far as may be done, where the evangelists are, in a great measure, silent concerning them, from the circumstances of the history itself, and from the feelings of human nature. Judas, the leading trait in whose character was covetousness, was probably induced to follow Jesus at first with a view to the riches, honours, and other temporal advantages, which he, in common with the rest, expected the Messiah’s friends would enjoy. The astonishing miracles he saw him perform left no room to doubt of the reality of his Master’s pretensions, who had, indeed, himself in private actually accepted the title from his Apostles; and Judas must have been much disappointed when Jesus repeatedly refused the proffered royalty from the people in Galilee, after the miracle of feeding the five thousand, and again after his public procession to Jerusalem. He might naturally have grown impatient under the delay, and dissatisfied also with Jesus for openly discouraging all ambitious views among his disciples; and, therefore, he might have devised the scheme of delivering him up to the sanhedrim, or great council of the nation, (composed of the chief priests, scribes, and elders,) in order to compel him to avow himself openly as the Messiah before them; and to work such miracles, or to give them the sign which they so often required, as would convince and induce them to elect him in due form, and by that means enable him to reward his followers. Even the rebukes of Jesus for his covetousness, and the ...detection of his treacherous scheme, although they unquestionably offended Judas, might only serve to stimulate him to the speedier execution of his plot, during the feast of the passover, while the great concourse of the Jews, from all parts assembled, might powerfully support the sanhedrim and their Messiah against the Romans. The success of this measure, though against his Master’s will, would be likely to procure him pardon, and even to recommend him to favour afterward. Such might have been the plausible suggestions by which Satan tempted him to the commission of this crime. But when Judas, who attended the whole trial, saw that it turned out quite contrary to his expectations, that Jesus was capitally convicted by the council, as a false Christ and false prophet, notwithstanding he had openly avowed himself; and that he wrought no miracle, either for their conviction or for his own deliverance, as Judas well knew he could, even from the circumstance of healing Malchus, after he was apprehended; when he farther reflected, like Peter, on his Master’s merciful forewarnings of his treachery, and mild and gentle rebuke at the commission of it; he was seized with remorse, and offered to return the paltry bribe of thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders instantly on the spot, saying, ‘I sinned in delivering up innocent blood;’ and expected that on this they would have desisted from the prosecution. But they were obstinate, and not only would not relent, but threw the whole load of guilt upon him, refusing to take their own share; for they said, ‘What is that to us? see thou to that;’ thus, according to the aphorism, loving the treason, but hating the traitor, after he had served their wicked turn. Stung to the quick at their refusal to take back the money, while they condemned himself, he went to the temple, cast down the whole sum in the treasury, or place for receiving the offerings of the people; and, after he had thus returned the wages of iniquity, he retired to some lonely place, not far, perhaps, from the scene of Peter’s repentance; and, in the frenzy of despair, and at the instigation of the devil, hanged himself; crowning with suicide the murder of his Master and his friend; rejecting his compassionate Saviour, and plunging his own soul into perdition! In another place it is said that, ‘falling headlong, he burst asunder, and all his bowels gushed out,’ Acts i, 18. Both these accounts might be true: he might first have hanged himself from some tree on the edge of a precipice; and, the rope or branch breaking, he might be dashed to pieces by the fall.” The above view of the case of Judas endeavours ingeniously to account for his conduct by supposing him influenced by the motive of compelling our Lord to declare himself, and assume the Messiahship in its earthly glory. It will, however, be recollected, that the only key which the evangelic narrative affords, is, Judas’s covetousness; which passion was, in him, a growing one. It was this which destroyed whatever of honest intention he might at first have in following Jesus; and when fully under its influence he would be blinded by it to all but the glittering object of the reward of iniquity. In such a mind there could be no true faith, and no love; what wonder, then, when avarice was in him a ruling and unrestrained passion, that he should betray his Lord? Still it may be admitted that the knowledge which Judas had of our Lord’s miraculous power, might lead him the more readily to put him into the hands of the chief priests. He might suppose that he would deliver himself out of their hands; and thus Judas attempted to play a double villany, against Christ and against his employers.
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JUDAS ISCARIOT (Ιoι‰s Ίσκαριώττ/ς or Ισκαpιω0), the son of Simon Iscariot (John. vi. 71, xiii. 26), and one of the twelve apostles; he is always enumerated last, with special mention of the fact that he was the betrayer of Jesus. If the now generally accepted explanation of his surname (Γ∏Γ ’ ιi ’ E j % i.e∙, “man of Kerioth”; see Josh. XV. 25) be correct, he was the only original member of the apostolic band who was not a Galilaean. (For other suggested etymologies of the name see Winer’s Bibl. Realw'orterb., s. vj) The circumstances which led to his admission into the apostolic circle are not stated; according to the Fourth Gospel (vi. 64), his treachery had been foreseen by Jesus from the very first, but this is not suggested by the synoptists. The motives by which he was actuated in rendering to the J ewish authorities the petty and base service of enabling them to arrest his Master without tumult have been analysed by scholars with very various degrees of subtlety and insight. According to some his sole object was to place Jesus in a position in which He should be compelled to make what had seemed to His followers the too tardy display of His Messianic power; according to others (and their view seems the best supported by the narrative of the Gospels) he was simply an avaricious and dishonest man, who felt that his opportunities for petty peculation—as keeper of the common purse, John xii. 6, xiii. 29—were rapidly disappearing. As regards the effects of his subsequent remorse and the use to which his ill-gotten gains were put, the strikingly apparent discrepancies between the narratives of Matt, xxvii. 3-10 and Acts i. 18, 19 have continually attracted the attention of Biblical scholars ever since Papias, in his fourth book, ...of which a fragment has been preserved, discussed the subject; the probability is that they simply represent divergent traditions, one of which has possibly been coloured by the history of Ahithophel. In ecclesiastical legend and in sacred art Judas Iscariot has taken a prominent place, being generally treated as the very incarnation of treachery, ingratitude, and impiety. The Middle Ages, after their fashion, have supplied the lacunae in what they deemed his too meagre biography. According to the common form of their story, he belonged to the tribe.of Reuben ∕ before he was born his mother Cyborea had a dream that he was destined to murder his father, commit incest with his mother, and sell his God. The attempts made by her and her husband to avert this curse simply led to its accomplishment. At his birth he was enclosed in a chest and flung into the sea; picked up on a foreign shore, he was educated at the court until an act of murder committed in a moment of passion compelled his flight. Coming to Judaea, he entered the service of Pontius Pilate as page, and during this period committed the first two of the crimes which had been expressly foretold. Learning the secret of his birth, he, full of remorse, seeks the prophet who, he has heard, has power on earth to forgive sins. He is accepted as a disciple and promoted to a position of trust, where avarice, the only vice in which he has hitherto been unpractised, gradually takes possession of his soul, and leads to the complete fulfilment of his evil destiny. This Judas legend, as given by Jacobus a Voragine, obtained no small popularity; and it is to be found in various shapes in every important literature of Europe. For the history of its genesis and its diffusion the reader may consult D’Ancona, La leggenda di Vergogna e la leggenda di Giuda, Bologna, 1869, and papers by W. Creizenach in Paul and Braune’s Beitτ. zur Gesch. der deutschen Sprache und Literatur, vol. ii., Halle, 1875, and Victor Diederich in Russiche Revue, St Petersburg, 1880. Cholevius, in his Geschichte der deutschen Poesie nach ihren antiken Elementen (Leipsic, 1854), pointed out the connexion of the legend with the Oedipus story. The popular hatred of Judas has found strange symbolical expression in various parts of Christendom. In Corfu, for instance, the people at a given signal on Easter eve throw vast quantities of crockery from their windows and roofs into the streets, and thus execute an imaginary stoning of Judas (see Kirkwall, Ionian Islands, vol. ii. p. 47). At one time (according to Mustoxidi, Delle cose corciresi) the tradition prevailed that the traitor’s house and country villa existed in the island, and that his descendants were to be found among the local Jews. Details in regard to some Judas legends and superstitions are given in Notes and Queries, 2d series, v., vi., and vii.; 3d ser., vii.; 5th ser., vi.
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JUDAS TREE, the Cereis Siliquastrum of botanists, belongs to the section Caesalpineae of the natural family Leguminosae. It is a native of the south of France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor, and forms a handsome low tree with a flat spreading head. In spring it is covered with a profusion of purplish pink flowers, which appear before the leaves. The flowers have an agreeable acid taste, and are eaten mixed with salad or made into fritters. The tree was one frequently figured by thé older herbalists. One woodcut by Castor Durante is a copy of Lobel’s cut, with the addition of the figure of Judas suspended from one of the branches, illustrating the popular tradition regarding this tree. A second species, C. canadensis, is common in North America from Canada to Virginia, and differs from the European species in its smaller size and pointed leaves. The flowers are also used in salads and for making pickles, while the branches are used to dye wool a nankeen colour.
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