Note 34 — Chapter II · MACHINATIONS OF THE ENEMIES OF JESUS; TREACHERY OF JUDAS; LAST SUPPER WITH HIS DISCIPLES.

But, it is further said, covetousness cannot have been the motive of Judas; for if gain had been his object, he could not be blind to the fact that the continued charge of the purse in the society of Jesus, would yield him more than the miserable thirty pieces of silver (from 20 to 25 thalers,34 of our money), a sum which among the Jews formed the compensation for a wounded slave, being four months’ wages. But these thirty pieces of silver are in vain sought for in any other narrator than Matthew. John is entirely silent as to any reward offered to Judas by the priests; Mark and Luke speak indefinitely of money ἀργύριον, which they had promised him; and Peter in the Acts (i. 18) merely mentions a reward, μισθὸς, which Judas obtained. Matthew, however, who alone has that definite sum, leaves us at the same time in no doubt as to the historical value of his statement. After relating the end of Judas (xxvii. 9 f.), he cites a passage from Zechariah (xi. 12 f.; he ascribes it by mistake to Jeremiah), wherein likewise thirty pieces of silver appear as a price at which some one is valued. It is true that in the prophetic passage the thirty pieces of silver are not given as purchase money, but as hire; he to whom they are paid is the prophet, the representative of Jehovah, and the smallness of the sum is an emblem of the slight value which the Jews set upon the divine benefits so plentifully bestowed on them.35 But how easily might this passage, where there was mention of a shamefully low price (ironically a goodly price ‏אֶדֶר הַיְקָר‎), at which the Israelites had rated the speaker in the prophecy, remind a Christian reader of his Messiah, who, in any case, had been sold for a paltry price compared with his value, and hence be led to determine by this passage, the price which was paid to Judas for betraying Jesus.36 Thus the thirty pieces of silver, τριάκοντα ἀργύρια, present no support to those who would prove that it could not be the reward which made Judas a traitor; for they leave us as ignorant as ever how great or how small was the reward which Judas received. Neither can we, with Neander, conclude that the sum was trifling from Matt xxvii. 6 ff.; Acts i. 18, where it is said that a field, ἀγρὸς or χωρίον, was purchased with the reward assigned to the treachery of Judas; since, even apart from the historical value of that statement, hereafter to be examined, the two expressions adduced may denote a larger or a smaller piece of land, and the additional observations of Matthew, that it was destined to bury strangers in, εἰς ταφὴν τοῖς ξένοις will not allow us to think of a very small extent. How the same theologian can discover in the statement of the two intermediate Evangelists, that the Jewish rulers had promised Judas money, ἀργύριον, an intimation that the sum was small, it is impossible to conceive.—Far more weighty is the observation above made with a different aim, that Jesus would scarcely have appointed and retained as purse-bearer one whom he knew to be covetous even to dishonesty; whence Neander directly infers that the fourth Evangelist, when he derived the remark of Judas at the meal in Bethany from his covetousness, put a false construction upon it, in consequence of the idea which ultimately prevailed respecting Judas, and especially added the accusation, that Judas robbed the common fund, out of his own imagination.37 But in opposition to this it is to be asked, whether in Neander’s point of view it be admissible to impute to the apostle John, who is here understood to be the author of the fourth gospel, so groundless a calumny—for such it would be according to Neander’s supposition; and, in our point of view, it would at least be more natural to conclude, that Jesus indeed knew Judas to be fond of money, but did not until the last believe him to be dishonest, and hence did not consider him unfit for the post in question. Neander observes in conclusion: if Judas could be induced by money to betray Jesus, he must have long lost all true faith in him. This indeed follows of necessity, and must be supposed in every view of the subject; but this extinction of faith could of itself only lead him to go back, ἀπελθειν εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω (John vi. 66); in order to prompt him to meditate treachery there must be a further, special incitement, which, intrinsically, might just as well be covetousness, as the views which are attributed to him by Neander and others.