Note 13 — Chapter II · MACHINATIONS OF THE ENEMIES OF JESUS; TREACHERY OF JUDAS; LAST SUPPER WITH HIS DISCIPLES.

Although it had been resolved in the council of the chief priests and elders, that the feast time should be allowed to pass over before any measures were taken against Jesus, because any act of violence against him in these days might easily excite an insurrection, on the part of his numerous adherents among the visitants to the feast (Matt. xxvi. 5; Mark xiv. 2): yet this consideration was superseded by the facility with which one of his disciples offered to deliver him into their hands. Judas, surnamed Ἰσκαριώτης, doubtless on account of his origin from the Jewish city of Kerioth13 (Josh. xv. 25), went, according to the synoptists, a few days before the passover, to the heads of the priesthood, and volunteered to deliver Jesus quietly into their hands, for which service they promised him money, according to Matthew, thirty pieces of silver (ἀργύρια, Matt xxvi. 14 ff. parall.). Of such an antecedent transaction between Judas and the enemies of Jesus, the fourth gospel not only says nothing, but appears moreover to represent the matter as if Judas had not formed the determination of betraying Jesus to the priesthood, until the last supper, and had then promptly put it into execution. The same entering (εἰσελθεῖν) of Satan into Judas, which Luke (xxii. 3) places before his first interview with the chief priests, and before any preparation had been made for Jesus and his disciples to eat the passover together, is represented by the author of the fourth gospel as occurring at this meal, before Judas left the company (xiii. 27): a proof, as it appears, that in the opinion of this Evangelist, Judas now made his first traitorous visit. He does indeed observe, before the meal (xiii. 2), that the devil had put it into the heart of Judas to betray Jesus, and this τοῦ διαβόλον βεβληκότος εἰς τὴν καρδίαν is commonly regarded as the parallel of Luke’s εἰσηλθε σατανᾶς (Satan entered into him), being understood to imply the formation of the treacherous resolve, in consequence of which Judas went to the chief priests: but if he had previously been in treaty with them, the betrayal was already completed, and it is then not easy to perceive what can be meant by the words εἰσῆλθεν εἰς αὐτὸν ὁ σατανᾶς on the occasion of the last meal, since the summoning of those who were to seize Jesus was no new diabolical resolution, but only the execution of that which had already been embraced. The expression in John v. 27 only obtains an entirely consistent sense in distinction from v. 2, when the βα’λλειν εἰς τὴν καρδίαν in the latter, is understood of the rising of the thought, the εἰσελθεῖν in the former, of the ripening of this thought into resolution, the supposition that Judas had pledged himself to the chief priests before the meal being thus excluded.14 In this manner, however, the statement of the synoptists that Judas, some time before the perpetration of his treacherous act, made a bargain with the enemies of Jesus, stands in contradiction with that of John, that he only put himself in league with them immediately before the deed; and here Lücke decides in favour of John, maintaining it to be after his departure from the last supper (xiii. 30), that Judas made that application to the chief priests which the synoptists (Matt. xxvi. 14 f. parall.) place before the meal.15 But this decision of Lücke’s is founded solely on deference to the presupposed authority of John; for even if, as he remarks, Judas could very well obtain an interview with the priests when night had commenced: still, regarding the matter apart from any presuppositions, the probability is beyond comparison stronger on the side of the synoptists, who allow some time for the affair, than on that of John, according to whom it is altogether sudden, and Judas, truly as if he were possessed, rushes out when it is already night to treat with the priests, and immediately hurry to the deed.