Judas Iscariote

History

According to the synoptic Gospels, Judas Iscariote, the last of the twelve Apostles, ensured the role of treasurer. He sold Jesus for 30 silver coins to the large priests of Jerusalem. Jesus was in the gardens of Gethsémani. Judas indicates it with the guards by giving him a kiss (the expression “kiss of Judas” indicates a kiss of traitor today).

The priests carried out then Jesus in front of Pontius Pilate, governor Roman of Judaea.

The New Testament makes die Judas little time after, according to two versions; the version most often quoted is that of the Évangile according to saint Matthieu:

“taken remorse, it hung shortly after its treason not without to have returned their 30 silver coins to its silent partners”, Matthieu 27 (5).

The other version, Acts of the Apostles 1 (18), indicates:

“This man, having acquired a field with the wages of the crime, fell, broke by the medium of the body, and all its entrails were spread”. These two data are not contradictory, because where Matthieu specifies sobrement that it committed suicide by hanging the Acts come to add some circumstantial details.

The attribute of Judas is the money purse. In the iconography, Judas carries a purse which represents not only its load of treasurer within the community of the apostles, but more especially the wages of its treason.

From the scripturaire point of view

The nickname of Iscariote is generally translated by the man of Qeriyyot , locality of the country of Juda, whose the book speaks about Josué Josué 15 (25). But it is also probable that the word comes from the word sicaire (of the Latin sicarius , the carrier of scraping-knives), the sicaires being another nickname of the Zélotes.

Iconography

On Cène of Léonard de Vinci, Judas is represented with a purse hung with its belt.

In the traditional iconography, Judas is often represented vêtu of yellow. It is in particular of this irrefutable fact that association rises from the yellow and the concept of treachery.

Judas and the last Judgment

It is erroneous, in Théologie, to consider that Judas played a crucial role in the process of Rédemption and to consider that, without him, there no would have been arrest of Jesus-Christ followed by crucifixion, and thus not of repurchase of the sins of the men by the work of Redemption. Because the pharisees and the scribes sought in any case an favorable occasion to carry out this arrest and were decided there well before Judas comes to propose its services to them. This progressive rise of resentments against Jesus, on behalf of the chiefs of the people, is particularly highlighted in the Gospel of Luc. When Judas was presented to them, they accepted its services against money, this means being for them an option among others, because Jesus was in any case with their range, teaching the every day in the Temple and the synagogs and being able to be found of day or night per which wanted to seek it. Its arrest was going to be achieved, by the means of Judas or another means, and was especially the consequence of the will of some pharisees, scribes and notable among the chiefs of the people.

On the theological level, it is necessary also not to lose sight of the fact that Judas was not aware that it was going to serve the divine plan of the Redemption, for the simple reason which he did not believe that Christ was the Son God. But he hoped that he would be that which would establish a terrestrial Messianic reign, by material and political ways ordinary.

Concerning the possibility of its personal damnation, it goes from there from Judas like whole man: for the Church, this option is open in front of any man, like the option of the hello. The more so as she considers, at the same time, that one cannot affirm of a person whom she is by name damnée, not even of Judas, or which it would have missed definitively . This option is open without it being able to be proven, God alone by being informed, théologiquement speaking. The Writings affirm the existence of the hell formally. But no one can affirm, according to the judgment of the Church, which are rejected among those which are late.

That being, the major part of the theologists considers today that it is not so much the problem of the treason of Judas which poses problem, because it is forgivable since for very sinned, mercy , for little that there is at least a beginning of regret. But the problem is especially the suicide of Judas which, in this precise case, marks a refusal of the Hope, therefore of the Mercy and forgiveness.

This problem was tackled in literary fictions, for example in the news of Jorge Luis Borges, “Three versions of Judas” (in Fictions , Folio). The Argentinian writer imagines a Danish theologist of the XIXe century whose thesis was that God had been made man until the infamy, Judas being makes of it the son of God, and not Christ…

See Gospel of Judas for more information.

See too

Gospel of Judas
List of the apostles
List of the catholic saints

External bonds

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