Note 49 — Chapter III · RETIREMENT TO THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, ARREST, TRIAL, CONDEMNATION AND CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS.

According to the three first Evangelists, Judas steps forth and kisses Jesus, in order by this preconcerted sign to indicate him to the approaching band as the individual whom they were to seize: according to the fourth gospel, on the contrary, Jesus advances apparently out of the garden (ἐξελθὼν) to meet them, and presents himself as the person whom they seek. In order to reconcile this divergency, some have conceived the occurrences thus: Jesus, to prevent his disciples from being taken, first went towards the multitude, and made himself known; hereupon Judas stepped forth, and indicated him by the kiss.49 But had Jesus already made himself known, Judas might have spared the kiss; for that the people did not believe the assertion of Jesus that he was the man whom they sought, and still waited for its confirmation by the kiss of the bribed disciple, is a supposition incompatible with the statement of the fourth gospel that the words I am he, made so strong an impression on them that they went backward and fell to the ground. Hence others have inverted the order of the scene, imagining that Judas first stepped forward and distinguished Jesus by the kiss, and that then, before the crowd could press into the garden, Jesus himself advanced and made himself known.50 But if Judas had already indicated him by the kiss, and he had so well understood the object of the kiss as is implied in his answer to it, Luke v. 48: there was no need for him still to make himself known, seeing that he was already made known; to do so for the protection of the disciples was equally superfluous, since he must have inferred from the traitor’s kiss, that it was intended to single him out and carry him away from his followers; if he did so merely to show his courage, this was almost theatrical: while, in general, the idea that Jesus, between the kiss of Judas, and the entrance of the crowd, which was certainly immediate, advanced towards the latter with questions and answers, throws into his demeanour a degree of hurry and precipitancy so ill suited to his circumstances, that the Evangelists can scarcely have meant such an inference to be drawn. It should therefore be acknowledged that neither of the two representations is designed as a supplement to the other,51 since each has a different conception of the manner in which Jesus was made known, and in which Judas was active in the affair. That Judas was guide to them that took Jesus, ὁδηγὸς τοῖς συλλαβοῦσι τὸν Ἰησοῦν (Acts i. 16), all the Evangelists agree. But while according to the synoptical account the task of Judas includes not only the pointing out of the place, but also the distinguishing of the person by the kiss, John makes the agency of Judas end with the indication of the place, and represents him after the arrival on the spot as standing inactive among the crowd (εἱστήκει δὲ καὶ Ἰούδας—μετ’ αὐτῶν, v. 5). Why John does not assign to Judas the task of personally indicating Jesus, it is easy to see: because, namely, he would have Jesus appear, not as one delivered up, but as delivering himself up, so that his sufferings may be manifested in a higher degree as undertaken voluntarily. We have only to remember how the earliest opponents of Christianity imputed the retirement of Jesus out of the city into the distant garden, as an ignominious flight from his enemies,52 in order to find it conceivable that there arose among the Christians at an early period the inclination to transcend the common evangelical tradition in representing his demeanour on his arrest in the light of a voluntary self-resignation.