The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Origen and the Salvation of Judas Iscariot

Theology Church Fathers & History
#21

Hi Jason I think I agree with everything you have said here  John Spong’s invented betrayer is not an original hypothesis – he’s using the theories of Jewish Scholars such as the late Hyam Macoby; and he was writing out of the experience of the Holocaust and in full knowledge of who Judas does become a mythic figure onto which hatred of the Jews was projected and inflamed. But although this is understandable to me it doesn’t stack up in terms of a critical reading of the sources as you have done so well here.
I fully agree with you that Matthew’s portrayal of Judas is so obviously a largely sympathetic one – and it’s hard to see how John Spong would feel that Matthew ratchets up the sinister portrayal of Judas.

I completely agree that Paul in 1 Corinthians is giving a liturgical statement when he speaks of Christ being handed over – and these are always condensed as are the later Creeds (none of which mention Judas). And it occurs to me that when Paul speaks of the handing over in the passive voice perhaps he is not only referring to Judas alone anyway. Judas hands over Jesus to the Temple authorities but they in turn hand Jesus over to Pilate and Pilate in turn hands him over for execution. So perhaps Paul’s liturgical formula has all of these ‘handing overs’ in mind.

Also if one of the criteria that the form critics use for thinking that a saying or narrative is genuine is that it is an embarrassing memory that could not be suppressed- the betrayal of Jesus by one of the twelve fits these criteria perfectly. And Origen in his refutation of Celsus has to do lots of explaining about this – it was already an embarrassment when he was writing.

Also if the Gospel writers really wanted to simply sully Judas they would have named him as a false accuser at the High Priest’s house. This doesn’t happen and the false accusers are not identified – which seems to have the ring of truth about it because it lacks contrivance.

Going back to Matthew narrative it does seem striking to me that in addition to other passages in the OT Judas betrayal and repentance bring to mind one particular OT narrative; namely the betrayal of Joseph by his brothers. It is Judah who sells Joseph to the Midianites for twenty pieces of silver. But it is Judah who also offers his life for Benjamin when he is falsely accused by Joseph’s trick that turns out to be a benign one. It seems to me that there are echoes with Judas here – the betrayal and selling of a loved one, but also the repentance and affirmation of the innocent one. Have you any views on this? (Judas is of the tribe of Judah?)

#22

I really have nothing to add as I only skim read many of the posts. But I appreciated what I did read and need to come back and spend more time on this thread when I have a chance. A great topic for Good Friday discussion. My husband and I were just discussing Judas quite a bit the other day. To me he sounds like he was repentant for what he did- he returned the money, he declared Jesus was innocent, and then he killed himself thinking there was no hope for forgiveness. Such a sad story, but I have hope that there is a happier ending than just his guts exploded all over and he died with no hope.

#23

Sobor,

It’s certainly bizarre (as I mentioned somewhere in that huge analysis) to try to claim that Christians using Judah almost exclusively in honored ways in their texts (aside from a brief mention of the false messiah in Acts), and rarely as a name for the people of Israel, would invent “Judah” as a betrayer’s name for sake of dishonoring all the people of Israel – and then for JSP to cite an appeal to Judah’s betrayal in the OT as evidence for this – when one of the most beloved stories of the OT, and the only one featuring the original Judah as a betrayer, involves Judah offering his own life to save Benjamin and even trying to save Joseph (although too late)! It’s extra bizarre when JPS goes on to draw a connection himself between OT Judah betraying Joseph, and 1 Cor Paul’s verbing of Jesus the night of the Lord’s Supper, using the same verb in Greek, after doing everything he can to cast doubt on whether Paul means a betrayal of Jesus is intended at all!

#24

Have read closely now and agree Jason :slight_smile:

A few more points about Judas :slight_smile:

  1. In the late Middle ages Judas begins to be accorded some humanity in portrayals in art and in popular theatre (whereas before this time he is simply a comical monster). The Passion play from the fourteenth century English York Mystery Cycle is an example of this. Judas in his remorse not only tries to return the money to the Chief Priests – and Pilate is present at this meeting in the play – but also begs to be given over in lifelong slavery to Pilate in return for Jesus’ freedom; and this is a direct allusion to Judah’s offer to redeem Benjamin from what seems inevitable slavery. So this is an example of a Christian play in which the possible connection between Judah and Judas is made in a way that is sympathetic towards Judas.

  2. One of the things that is striking in Origen’s view of Judas is that he argued that it was a memory of the predicted resurrection that first made Judas repent when he came to his sense after the Satan left him. When Pope Leo the Great (ca. 395–461) reflected on the death of Judas in his homilies on the Passion– and made the toxic identification of Judas with the Jewish people as a whole explicit – he promulgated the view that Judas’s suicide was due to ‘bad timing’: “If only you had waited for the completion of your crime until the blood of Christ had been poured out for all sinners, you would have put off the gruesome death by hanging”. He also speculated that Judas sinned because he “believed Jesus to be not God the Son of God, but only a man of our own race” because he was not witness to the resurrection.

In some ways – from a realistic reading of Matthew’s narrative – this makes sense (without the incipient anti-Semitism that was to have Judas die on the fig tree that Jesus cursed). Judas dies alone and without anyone to console him while Peter for example has far greater opportunities for repentance. And as Hans Urs von Balthasar explains: “the Cross and burial of Christ reveal their significance only in the light of the event of Easter, without which there is no Christian faith” Origen appears to be a little hard on Judas here. He says that all that Judas needed to do was repent like the penitent thief at Cavalry to be forgiven – but Judas did not have Christ’s present next to him to encourage him. But I simply flag up that the idea that the resurrection may have made sense to Judas at this point seems unique to Origen (along with his sympathetic/non- hating reading of the renegade apostle that emphasises Judas’s humanity). I dunno – the fact that Judas in Matthew declares that Jesus is innocent could be seen as a dim foreshadowing of the resurrection which is God’s vindication of Jesus.

  1. (This is just me blathering no as someone who is not a biblical scholar and has found it very hard to make clear distinctions between the different Gospel accounts of the betrayal. although I think they are coming clear to me now); There are so many echoes between the story of the death of Judas and that of the death of Jesus, especially in Matthew:

Both die the cursed death on a tree (and Jesus becomes a curse for us to redden us from curse). Jesus dies in the place of the skull while Judas is buried in the field of blood purchased for the burial of outsiders and foreigners who are ‘cursed according to the law’.

Both die despised and seemingly forsaken

Judas is paid a paltry price for the betrayal of Jesus – the price for redeeming a slave. Jesus redeems from death with his precious blood.

I know many have had these thoughts before me. There does seem to be a symbolic association between the two deaths – even if this is a fragmented and broken one. I know we can’t make systematic theology out of this – but to me it all suggests that Judas is redeemed.

  1. I think Pope Benedict – the resigned Pope – was a fan of Origen? Funnily enough his pronouncement about Judas seems to closely follow Origen’s sermon in the Commentary on Matthew about Judas’ death.

  2. I think perhaps the internet rumour I quoted in my first post – namely that Origen quotes a tradition that all the apostles betrayed Christ in his Commentary on Matthew – may be false. This may be referring to the part of ‘Contra Celsum’ where Origen rebuts the arguments of the Jew who Celsus has been corresponding with who claimed that all of the disciples betrayed Jesus; Origen answers that Judas was the betrayer. We’d need to know about the exact contents of Origen’s sermon here.

  3. It is interesting that Origen in Contra Celsum may have inadvertently been a source for the extreme vilification of Judas. HE compares Judas to Oedipus in this simply to argue that both were free to chose otherwise even though their crimes were foreseen. However, Peter Stanford in his book no Judas says that the conflation of the stories of Judas and Oedipuis in the medieval blockbuster ‘The Golden Legend’ – where Judas’ treachery is foretold in a dream of his mother’s before he is born and he grows up to kills his father and marry his mother – may well have been a result of a cursory reading of Contra Celsum.

  4. Interestingly, Charles Wesley’s hymn “God’s Sovereign, Everlasting Love” (Hymns on God’s Everlasting Love 1741) written at a time when Charles was much frustrated by what he termed ‘the ‘poison of Calvinism seems to have influenced nineteenth century universalist sentiment about Judas as being with the scope of Christ’s redemption. This is the relevant bit -

Thou dost not mock our race
With insufficient grace;
Thou hast reprobated none,
Thou from Pharaoh’s blood art free;
Thou didst once for all atone—
Judas, Esau, Cain, and me.

#25

A final question for you Jason Here’s something I read on the Internet -

‘’Jesus is never short on surprising things to say. One such thing comes at the moment he is betrayed by Judas.

Matthew 26:50 reads, "Jesus said to him, “Friend, do what you came to do.” Friend? Does Jesus really address the one responsible for betraying him to those plotting his cruel destruction as “friend”? What do we do with that?

Well-known preacher and teacher Thomas G. Long suggests that Jesus is speaking ironically and argues that “friend”, in the Gospel of Matthew, “means something like ‘Buster’ and is itself no term of endearment” (Matthew, WJK, 305). He references Matthew 20:13 and 22:12 as other examples in the Gospel where “friend” is used ironically to mean something other than the way it is normally used.

Alternatively, N. T. Wright insists that when Jesus is here using the word “friend” in its normal sense. He says, “It is of course the word ‘friend’ that causes us to catch our breath. Friendship, for Jesus, does not stop with betrayal, even though now it is tinged with deep sadness” (Matthew for Everyone, WJK, 2.164). He also says that the Greek sentence above translated as “do what you came to do,” could be taken as a question asking, “Do you really want to go through with this?”

What do you make of Wright’s suggestion here Jason? (I’ve no idea). Also, what do you make of Thomas Long’s suggestion – does the context in the original Greek hint at Irony in Jesus addressing Judas as ‘Friend’ or is this just a matter of personal interpretation?

P.S. I think I’ll write a letter to Illaria Ramelli about Origen’s interpretation of Judas and see if she replies. I’ll let you know if she does – I’ll show you the draft if you want to see it too

#26

Yes, I haven’t even checked the index yet of Dr. R’s Tome, to see if she commented and I just don’t recall what she said! I’m sure she has the Commentary on Matthew on access.

I had never even heard of the idea that Judas died on the fig tree that Jesus cursed. That’s pretty clever, although I can’t see any textual reason to forge the connection.

I thought I knew about the super-popular medieval “Golden Legend” – I’ve even read a book devoted to it as part of a much larger series on medieval studies (which is at the house unfortunately not here), but I don’t recall reading that Iscariot was part of it, much less that he was conflated with Oedipus in it. I agree, whoever added that in seems to have borrowed it from a cursory reading of Origen’s Contra Celsus.

I not only think the “Friend” is important for indicating the attitude of Jesus toward Judas, but also in those other two GosMatt occurrences. It isn’t like the king in the parable DIDN’T invite (and even insist) on that random guy being there. The problem wasn’t that the king wasn’t trying to be friendly, but that the guy wasn’t trying to be friendly: he either had something to wear to the wedding but insulted his host by not doing so, or he didn’t have something to wear and insulted the host by not accepting what (in cultural context) the king would have graciously provided him to wear. In a parable highly geared on acts of murderously insulting rebellion, which our later culture wouldn’t be picking up context clues about, this fits in fine. (I think it ought to be a lot more curious than people usually notice, that EVERYONE in the story was called and chosen to be at the wedding feast. The only “few” who were “chosen”, were those few in the story who were chosen to be slain and thrown into the outer darkness.)

The landowner in Matt 20 is trying to make peace with someone he himself graciously hired who is being jealously uncharitable about other people being given even more charity than he received. “Friend” doesn’t have to be ironic here, except in the sense that the one being rebuked is not being friendly to one who has indeed been a friend to him! I might even say that someone who tries to regard that usage as being “in itself no term of endearment” and/or as being only a neutral term thrown out casually like modern English “Buster”, is himself showing himself to be on par with the man being rebuked here! – envious of God being good to other people than himself.

Have we talked about the connection to Jeremiah yet and the potter’s field? – not only throwing the money to the potter (which in its context would be yet another subtle high Christology connection by the way), but the detail of Jeremiah buying a potter’s field.

#27

Hi Jason :slight_smile:

Could you have a quick look for Judas in her index before I embark on my draft letter?

I’ve seen paintings in which Judas hangs form a fig tree, and the implication is that he is the dead fruit of the tree, According to Peter Stanford this visual symbolic tradition goes back ‘very early’ – but he isn’t more specific. It’s me that made the connection between the ‘Judas Tree’ and the Fig Tree that Jesus cursed. However, I think it is a good hunch that this was the original connection that was made. Symbols as they develop have a looser logic of association than can be had by proper textual warrant.

I have the chapter from the Golden Legend that tells the Judas story in a book of sources for the development of the Judas legends complied by Mervin Myer. The Chapter number is given as 45.

Very good points Jason – thank you  Excellent.

Please do tell more :slight_smile: