Note 20 — Chapter II · MACHINATIONS OF THE ENEMIES OF JESUS; TREACHERY OF JUDAS; LAST SUPPER WITH HIS DISCIPLES.

If then we are unable to discover any adequate motive which could induce Jesus advertently to receive and retain in his society his betrayer in the person of Judas: it appears decided that he cannot beforehand have known him to be such. Schleiermacher, in order that he may not infringe on the authority of John by denying this foreknowledge, prefers doubting that Jesus chose the twelve purely by his own act, and supposes that this circle was rather formed by the voluntary adherence of the disciples: since it would be more easy to justify the conduct of Jesus, if he merely refrained from rejecting Judas when he spontaneously offered himself than if he drew him to himself by free choice.20 But hereby the authority of John is still endangered, for it is he who makes Jesus say to the twelve: Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you (xv. 16, comp. vi. 76); moreover, even dismissing the idea of a decided act of election, still for any one to remain constantly with Jesus there needed his permission and sanction, and even these he could not, acting humanly, give to a man of whom he knew that, by means of this relation to himself, he would be enabled to mature the blackest crime. It is said, however, that Jesus put himself entirely into the Divine point of view, and admitted Judas into his society, for the sake of the possibility of reformation which he yet foreknew would never be realised; but this would be a Divine inhumanity,—not the conduct of the God-man. If, according to this, it is extremely difficult to maintain as historical the statement of the fourth gospel, that Jesus from the beginning knew Judas to be his betrayer: so it is equally easy to discern what even without historical foundation might lead to such a representation.