morning for some sign in the clouds, a prophecy of their immediate
appointment as vicegerents of a power that would supersede the awful
majesty of the Imperial city? He may have been heated by a long series
of petty annoyances to such a degree that at last they may have ended in
rage and a sudden flinging loose of himself from the society. It is the
impulsive man who frequently suffers what appears to be inversion, and
Judas was impulsive exceedingly. Matthew, and Matthew only, says that
Judas asked for money from the chief priests. "What will ye give me,
and I will deliver Him unto you?" According to Mark, whose account of
the transaction is the same as Luke's, "Judas . . . went unto the chief
priests to betray Him unto them. And when they heard it, they were
glad, and promised to give him money." If the priests were the
tempters, a slight difference is established in favour of Judas, but
this we will neglect. The sin of taking money and joining in that last
meal in any case is black enough, although, as we have before pointed
out, Judas did not at the time know what the other side of the bargain
was. Admitting, however, everything that can fairly be urged against
him, all that can be affirmed with certainty is that we are in the
presence of strange and unaccountable inconsistency, and that an apostle
who had abandoned his home, who had followed Jesus for three years
amidst contempt and persecution, and who at last slew himself in self-
reproach, could be capable of committing the meanest of sins. Is the
co-existence of irreconcilable opposites in human nature anything new?
The story of Judas may be of some value if it reminds us that man is
incalculable, and that, although in theory, and no doubt in reality, he
is a unity, the point from which the divergent forces in him rise is
often infinitely beyond our exploration; a lesson not merely in
psychology but for our own guidance, a warning that side by side with
heroic virtues there may sleep in us not only detestable vices, but
vices by which those virtues are contradicted and even for the time