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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 539. The Traitor
Subjects in this Topic:
III
The Traitor
Literature
Ainsworth, P. C., The Pilgrim Church, 52.
Austin, A. B., Linked Lives (1913), 97.
Blakiston, F. M., The Life of Christ, ii. (1913) 276.
Bruce, A. B., The Training of the Twelve (1871), 371.
Burn, A. E., The Crown of Thorns (1911), 1.
Carpenter, W. B., The Son of Man among the Sons of Men (1893), 63.
Davies, D., Talks with Men, Women and Children, iv. (1892) 599.
Dawson, W. J., The Man Christ Jesus (1901), 358.
De Quincey, T., Collected Writings, viii. (1897) 177.
Edersheim, A., The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, ii. (1887) 471.
Fairbairn, A. M., Studies in the Life of Christ (1881), 258.
Holtzmann, O., The Life of Jesus (1904), 457.
Ingram, A. F. W., Addresses in Holy Week (1902), 1.
Jones, J. D., The Glorious Company of the Apostles (1904), 239.
Ker, J., Sermons, i. (1885) 282.
Killip, R., Citizens of the Universe (1914), 207.
Liddon, H. P., Passiontide Sermons (1891), 210.
Lightfoot, J. B., Sermons Preached in St. Paul's Cathedral (1891), 58.
Lorimer, G. C., Jesus the World's Saviour (1883), 210.
Maclaren, A., The Wearied Christ (1893), 286.
Moulton, J. H., Visions of Sin (1898), 93.
Neander, A., The Life of Jesus Christ (1880), 123, 419.
Peck, G. C., Ringing Questions (1902), 201.
Rattenbury, J. E., The Twelve (1914), 285.
Salmon, G., Cathedral and University Sermons (1900), 88.
Simpson, P. C, in Men of the New Testament: Matthew to Timothy (1905), 205.
Stalker, J., The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ (1894), 110.
Stephen, R., Divine and Human Influence, i. (1897) 187.
Stevenson, J. G., The Judges of Jesus (1909), 1.
Wakinshaw, W., John's Ideal City (1915), 122.
Whately, R., Dangers to Christian Faith (1857), 213.
Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels, i. (1906) 907 (J. G. Tasker).
Expositor, 3rd Ser., x. (1889) 161 (G. A. Chadwick).
Literary Churchman, xxvii. (1881) 130 (C. Marriott).
Preacher's Magazine, xxiv. (1913) 197 (E. S. Waterhouse).
Judas is one of the standing moral problems of the gospel history. What was the character of the man? What motives induced him first to seek and then to forsake the society of Jesus? Why did he turn traitor? Why was he so little penetrated by the spirit and awed by the authority of Christ as to be able to do as he did? And why, having done it, did he so swiftly and tragically avenge on himself his deliberately planned and executed crime? These questions invest the man with a fascination now of horror and now of pity; of horror at the crime, of pity for the man. If his deed stands alone among the evil deeds of the world, so does his remorse among the acts and atonements of conscience; and the remorse is more expressive of the man than even the deed. Lavater said, “Judas acted like Satan, but like a Satan who had it in him to be an apostle.” And it is this evolution of a possible apostle into an actual Satan that is at once so touching and so tragic.
In the Vision of Hell the poet Dante, after traversing the circles of the universe of woe, in which each separate kind of wickedness receives its peculiar punishment, arrives at last, in the company of his guide, at the nethermost circle of all, in the very bottom of the pit, where the worst of all sinners and the basest of all sins are undergoing retribution. It is a lake not of fire but of ice, beneath whose transparent surface are visible, fixed in painful postures, the figures of those who have betrayed their benefactors; because this, in Dante's estimation, is the worst of sins. In the midst of them stands out, vast and hideous, “the emperor who sways the realm of woe”-Satan himself; for this was the crime which lost him Paradise. And the next most conspicuous figure is Judas Iscariot. He is in the mouth of Satan, being champed and torn by his teeth as in a ponderous engine.1 [Note: J Stalker, The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ, 110.]