Gubar Susan - Judas: a biography

Delivering up was done by the Father, delivering up was done by the Son, delivering up was done by Judas; one thing was done.

Augustine,
Tractates on the First Epistle of John

God does not forgive the sins He makes us commit.

Jos Saramago,
The Gospel according to Jesus Christ

Love is the weather. Betrayal is the lightning that cleaves and reveals it.

Toni Morrison,
foreword to Love

3. D AMNED M ISCEGENATION :
A F IENDISH A DOLESCENCE FROM A NTIQUITY O N

4. A RRESTING K ISSES :
C OMING OF A GE , E SPECIALLY DURING THE R ENAISSANCE

5. I N A M ODERN G LASS D ARKLY :
T HE I SSUE OF S ACRIFICE

6. T WENTIETH -C ENTURY D EATHS AND R ESURRECTIONS :
W HAT W OULD J UDAS D O ?

7. J ESUS , A CCORDING TO J UDASS B AD N EWS :
H E W HO I S P RAISED

i.1 Judas, played by Rip Torn, in Nicholas Rays King of Kings (1961)

1.1 Daniele Crespi, Last Supper (162425)

1.2 Judas, played by Carl Anderson, in Norman Jewisons Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)

2.1 The Kiss of Judas, Scenes from the Life of Christ, Ravenna, the San Apollinare Nuovo cycle (520526 c.e.)

2.2 Ivory Crucifixion, plaque from a northern Italian casket (400420 c.e.)

2.3 Judas with black bird, manuscript illumination from the Stuttgart Psalter (ca. 820830 c.e.)

2.4 Judas with dragon, pulpit in the cathedral of Volterra (ca. 11001200)

3.1 The death of Judas, Church of Saint-Sbastien de Nvache (ca. 1530)

3.2 Valentin Lendenstreich, Christ on the Mount of Olives, part of the Wllersleben Triptych (1503)

3.3 The Master of the Housebook, Last Supper, panel from the Speyer Altar (ca. 148085)

3.4 Last Supper, detail from Winchester Psalter (ca. 1150)

3.5 Last Supper, detail from Hours of Elizabeth the Queen of England (ca. 142030)

3.6 Last Supper, detail from stained-glass window at Kings College, Cambridge University (ca. 1500)

3.7 The Judas cradle or chair (ca. 1680)

3.8 The Devil Devours Judas, ceiling boss, Southwark Cathedral (ca. 1400)

3.9 Jrg Ratgeb, Last Supper, part of the Herrenberg Altar in Stuttgart (ca. 1519)

3.10 Willem van Swanenburg, Judas, engraving after Abraham Bloemaert, from Sinners of the Bible (1611)

4.1 Betrayal and Arrest of Christ, Chichester Psalter (ca. 1250)

4.2 Betrayal and Arrest of Christ, St. Peters Church, Wimpfen in Tal, Germany (128090)

4.3 Fra Angelico, Kiss of Judas, detail from the Silver Treasury of Santissima Annunziata (ca. 145053)

4.4 Martin Schongauer, Betrayal and Arrest of Christ, Church of the Dominicans of Colmar (148090)

4.5 Johann Koerbecke, Betrayal and Arrest of Christ, panel from the Marienfeld Altar in Munster (1457)

4.6 Gaspard Isenmann, Betrayal and Arrest of Christ, the Church of St. Martin in Colmar (146265)

4.7 Betrayal and Arrest of Christ, Sforza Hours, Milan (ca. 1490)

4.8 Giotto, Betrayal of Christ, Arena Chapel, Padua (ca. 1305)

4.9 Albrecht Drer, The Betrayal of Christ, from the Small Passion (1508)

4.10 Albrecht Drer, The Taking of Christ, from the Small Passion (1509)

4.11 Albrecht Drer, The Betrayal of Christ, from the Large Passion (1510)

4.12 The kissJudas played by Otello Sestili and Jesus by Enrique Irazoquiin Pier Paolo Pasolinis The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964)

5.1 Paul Peter Rubens, The Last Supper (ca. 163031)

5.2 Judas, played by Joseph Schildkraut, receiving the coins from Caiaphas, played by Rudolph Schildkraut, in Cecil B. DeMilles King of Kings (1927)

5.3 The Last Supper in DeMilles King of Kings

5.4 Hans Holbein the Younger, Last Supper (152425)

5.5 Geoff Todd, Betrayal 1 (1995)

6.1 Jew Sss, played by Ferdinand Marian, in Veit Harlans Jew Sss (1940)

6.2 Marc Chagall, Yellow Crucifixion (1938)

6.3 John Heartfield, As in the Middle AgesSo in the Third Reich (1934)

6.4 Paul Strand, Skeleton/Swastika, Connecticut (1939)

6.5 Jir Anderle, Kiss of Judas (1994)

7.1 Masked Judas with severed noose, Guatemalan Highlands (late twentieth century)

(after chapter 4)

1 Albert Tucker, Judas (1955)

2 Giotto, Pact of Judas , on the side of the chancel arch in Arena Chapel, Padua (ca. 130305)

3 Alsatian or Southern German, The Hanging of Judas , ca. 1520

4 Kiss of Judas, Rheinau Psalter (1250)

5 Copy of Ludovico Carraccis The Kiss of Judas, by a follower of Carracci (ca. 158990)

6 Caravaggio, The Taking of Christ (160203)

7 Rembrandt, Judas Returning the Thirty Pieces of Silver (1629)

8 Last Supper by unknown Ottonian artist, Regensburg (ca. 103040)

E VERY GREAT MAN HAS DISCIPLES , Oscar Wilde often quipped, but Judas usually writes the biography.1 According to this sly proposition, malice motivates biographers, who divulge incriminating evidence that most people would prefer to incinerate before their demise or at least lock in a vault for a good long time. But with respect to Judas, what dirty secrets havent already been aired? For more than twenty centuries, poets and painters, novelists and dramatists, theologians and moviemakers have berated him every which way forwhatever, as my younger daughter might have once phrased it. That Christs betrayer is a fascinating figure whose life has mattered finds immediate confirmation in the first-name basis Wilde assumes with a personage holding sway over his imagination. But before the publication of Judas: A Biography, no book had examined the chronological evolution of the twelfth apostle over the extensive span of his multimedia existence. There are a number of reasons for this curious paucity of scholarly and critical studies.

How can one possibly set out to write the life story of someone about whom so very little is known? Most biographical studies begin or end with sentences like Born in the town of B during the year of C, our subject eventually died at H from Q in the time of W. They include family genealogies, interviews with descendants and friends, descriptions of homes and haunts, quotations of public speeches, snippets of private letters and journals, accounts of formative childhood experiences, evidence of flings or significant relationships in youth and later adulthood. None of these facts is available in the case of Judas. This may be whydespite the plethora of creative material produced over the centuriesthere is so little scholarly or critical analysis of the twelfth apostle in contemporary times. Judass life cannot be reconstructed as a factual record. It can be approached only through pictures and stories and sermons that represent his varied development from its biblical beginnings to the present, though Wildes adage reminds us how firmly that development remains attached to treachery.