Why did he do it?

Crosses on the hill outside Lee Abbey, Devon

OK, it’s past Easter and I’m late in terms of topicality – except that the question as to why Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus is always topical. Because people do it, or something similar, every day. We (which I prefer to “they” because none is totally exempt) betray our own principles, we turn against people who were once colleagues or friends, we do or say things behind people’s backs we would not repeat in front of them.

As Oscar Wilde once put it, “Yet each man kills the thing he loves, / By each let this be heard, / Some do it with a bitter look, / Some with a flattering word. / The coward does it with a kiss, / The brave man with a sword!”¹ 

The reasons, though, are usually complex. Social psychologist Philip Zimbardo admits that “Human behaviour is complex, so there is often more than one reason for any given act.” He notes that “Just when you think you understand someone you know only the smallest slice of their inner nature derived from a limited set of personal or mediated contacts.”² So with Judas; the reasons for his actions were probably complex. But let’s examine the usual theories.

MICE and the man

The FBI has an acronym for the most common reasons for betrayal: MICE. It stands for Money, Ideology, Compromise, Ego. We can see if any apply to Judas.

Money: He was paid for his information (Matthew 26:14-16; Luke 22:1-5). He was also said (after the event) to have had his hand in the till – he stole from the disciples’ common funds (John 12:4-6). So he might have been greedy, or in debt, or he just bent the rules: they’ll never know, never miss it.

Although the money motive has been the traditional allegation against Judas, it doesn’t totally add up. Although Matthew says he asked the authorities for something, it was more likely a token sum to seal the deal rather than (say) a hard-up man seeking to pay off his gambling debts; it wasn’t a huge amount. Besides, he gave it back when Jesus was executed (Matthew 27:1-5); clearly his intention wasn’t Jesus’ death, nor just to line his pocket.

Ideology: There are two distinct possibilities which are often put forward as the most likely single reasons for Judas’s actions. One is that he had become disillusioned with Jesus. Perhaps he expected Jesus to lead an armed rebellion against the occupying Romans and had belatedly realised that Jesus wasn’t that kind of Messiah (the other disciples appear to have been under the same illusion even after the resurrection, Acts 1:6). Frustrated and angry, he turned against his friends. Anger can do that to a person, but again his reaction to the crucifixion suggests he was far from glad at the outcome of his action.

The other option is that he tried to force Jesus’ hand by engineering an encounter with the religious authorities. He was getting impatient, and felt that Jesus was pussyfooting around: he needed to declare his Messiahship and work with the authorities to bring about change. So what better way than a private audience with the High Priest? This too is unlikely on its own, not least because the authorities had been intransigent opponents of Jesus almost from the start of his ministry.

Compromise: This is rarely levelled at Judas. We have no evidence that he was blackmailed into his actions as a contemporary spy might be; if he was being so pressured, there would have been no reason to offer him money. There is also no suggestion that he was an “agent in place”, planted by the religious authorities to report back on Jesus’ movements. Judas was one of the original twelve disciples and there was no indication in the early days that Jesus would prove such a thorn in the authorities’ side that they needed to keep track of him.

Ego:  Now we’re getting closer, and again there are two but not mutually exclusive possibilities. The Bible is clear that “Satan entered Judas” (Luke 22:3) but also that whatever that meant, Judas was still responsible for his actions (Luke 22:22); he did not suddenly become a demented demoniac.

A more modern explanation (which does not exclude malign spiritual influence) is that he was a “driven man”. Driven by ambition, desire and perhaps much else, his view of the situation became blinkered and he blundered on regardless until it was too late to turn back.

Mixed up mindset

There may have been other factors involved, too, that are not always taken into account. For example, Judas’s surname “Iscariot” almost certainly suggests that he came from the southern village of Kerioth. Most if not all the other disciples were northerners. Judas would have talked differently, and had different values to the rest. Was he perhaps too conscious of his “outsider” status, was he teased by the others, however much in jest, and this led him to exert himself: “I’m as good as (or more knowledgable than) they are”? Did he in fact suffer from a sense of inferiority or superiority and a desire to prove himself that had a disastrous effect?

Perhaps the biggest failure of Judas was not stopping to consider that there might be unforeseen consequences of his actions. He could see only what he wanted to see. He could imagine no outcome but the one he wanted (whatever that was). He consulted no-one else on the apostolic team; so far as he was concerned, his judgement was right and all others’ wrong.

Driven by powerful emotions, yes; motivated by an inadequate or inaccurate understanding of Jesus’ mission, possibly. The process smoothed, perhaps, by the warm feeling of extra cash. But most certainly, he was in the same position as Michael Bettany, an MI5 officer who passed secrets to the Russians in the 1980s: “There was no simple motive. It was a cumulative process,” he told his interrogators.³

And therein lies the warning. Most betrayals, most falls from grace, follow an incremental course. They don’t suddenly happen. Personality, circumstances, other people all contribute to a hardening of attitude, a changing mind, a determination to act in a certain way. The real question is not why did the final act occur, but what were all the small steps that led up to it. Might they have been avoided?

“If only”. We’ve all said that. Probably Judas did too as he tied the noose on his improvised gibbet. There but for God’s grace go many people. The moral is donlt go too far, too quickly.

References

1  Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol

2  Philip Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect , Rider 2009, p.365, 167
3  Christopher Andrew, The defence of the realm, Allen Lane 2009, p. 720

Think and talk

1  We’re often quick to judge people, whether we know them personally or by repute. Look again at Philip Zimbardo’s comments in the third paragraph. How might observing the truth of his words modify the way we criticise or judge others?

2   How might Judas’s loose attitude to money have affected his judgement? What does that tell us about how we should view and use money?
3  Judas may have been blinkered in some way because of his set beliefs. Many of us have strong beliefs. How might we balance these with keeping an open mind?
4  When we become convinced that we should embark on a certain course of action, what should we do before taking the final irrevocable step? Whom should we consult?