1. This is not a belief held by modern scholars. But there are good writers who take the statement that “after the sop Satan entered into him” almost literally. “The kingdom of evil,” says Dr. John Ker, “as well as that of good, has a personal head. That he should have the power of tempting is no more strange than that human spirits should possess it. He can no more compel than they, and he gains in influence only as we yield him place. The experience of many temptations points to such a power in operation. There is a halo cast round worldly objects and a glow of passionate attractiveness breathed into them, which are not in themselves, and which can scarcely come from the mind that looks on them. Crimes are committed and souls bartered for such miserable bribes that to the rational spectator it is utterly unnatural, and the man himself wonders at it when the delirium is past. Our great dramatic poet has seized this feature of sin-this strange residuum in temptation, which indicates an extrahuman agency,-and has set it down to those unseen powers of evil which ‘palter with us in a double sense.' It does not diminish any man's responsibility, but it should increase his vigilance. Not only are these powers unable to constrain the will, but they have no influence of seduction, no delusive atmosphere at command, where the heart has not prepared for it, by cherishing the sin long and deeply.”
“Judas was in truth,” says Dr. W. J. Dawson, “a man demented. His jealous passion had swollen into such force that he was no longer capable of sober reason. He was mad with resentment, anger, and despair: the dream of his life was shattered, and the spirit of revenge had become his only guide. This is certainly the most charitable, and it is the most probable, view of his subsequent behaviour. From the moment when he seeks the priests to the bitter last act of the appalling tragedy, we are dealing with a madman, capable of a madman's cunning, and passing through paroxysms of frantic rage to the final paroxysm of frantic grief and ineffectual remorse.”
2. But terrible as the crime was which Judas committed, and however we may attribute it to Satanic influence, we must be careful not to think of him as a solitary monster. Men of his type are by no means so rare as some may imagine. History, sacred and profane, supplies numerous examples of them, playing an important part in human affairs. Balaam, who had the vision of a prophet and the soul of a miser, was such a man. Robespierre, the evil genius of the French Revolution, was another. The man who sent thousands to the guillotine had in his younger days resigned his office as a provincial judge because it was against his conscience to pronounce sentence of death on a culprit found guilty of a capital offence. A third example, more remarkable than either, may be found in the famous Greek Alcibiades, who, to unbounded ambition, unscrupulousness, and licentiousness united a warm attachment to the greatest and best of the Greeks. The man who in after years betrayed the cause of his native city, and went over to the side of her enemies, was in his youth an enthusiastic admirer and disciple of Socrates. How he felt towards the Athenian sage may be gathered from words put into his mouth by Plato in one of his dialogues-words which involuntarily suggest a parallel between the speaker and the unworthy follower of a greater than Socrates: “I experienced towards this man alone (Socrates) what no one would believe me capable of: a sense of shame. For I am conscious of an inability to contradict him, and decline to do what he bids me; and when I go away, I feel myself overcome by the desire of popular esteem. Therefore I flee from him, and avoid him. But when I see him, I am ashamed of my admissions, and oftentimes I would be glad if he ceased to exist among the living; and yet I know well, that were that to happen, I should be still more grieved.”
By the open door out of which he had thrust the dying Christ “Satan entered into Judas.” Yet, even so, not permanently. It may, indeed, be doubted, whether, since God is in Christ, such can ever be the case in any human soul, at least on this side eternity. Since our world's night has been lit up by the promise from Paradise, the rosy hue of its morning has lain on the edge of the horizon, deepening into gold, brightening into day, growing into midday-strength and evening-glory. Since God's Voice wakened earth by its early Christmas-Hymn, it has never been quite night there, nor can it ever be quite night in any human soul.1 [Note: A. Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, ii. 471.]
