THE IX JUDAS: THE MAN WHO MIGHT HAVE BEEN HE story of Judas is a study in the varying results of religious privilege. Here was a life admitted into the closest intimacy with the Highest that ever walked the earth! He was "one of the Twelve" standing alongside of Peter, James, and John. He saw at first-hand the glory of the Eternal in the face of Jesus Christ. He heard those gracious words fall from the lips of Him who spake as never man spake. Yet before the curtain falls upon his period of high privilege, we see this man going out into the darkness of treachery, remorse, and suicide. His fate brings home to every heart an effective reminder that high privilege does not insure any man against ultimate spiritual ruin. Here was one man who grew worse in personal character while others, under a set of influences identically the same, were steadily growing better. It has been often remarked that Greek history offers an instance in many respects parallel. The handsome, gifted, forceful Alcibiades in his youth came under the personal influence of Socrates, the seer and the saint of Athens, professing for him the highest admiration and the warmest attachment. Yet he lived to betray his own city and to go over to the side of her enemies. Judas Iscariot soiled for all time the name he bore. No woman in Christendom, Jewish or Gentile, thinks of naming her baby to-day "Judas." Yet "Judas" up to that time had been a name as honorable as John or Jesus. There was Judas Maccabeus, one of the outstanding patriots and heroes of the Hebrew nation! One of the brothers of our Lord bore the name of Judas. Judas and John-"why should one name be sounded more than the other," Cassius might have said. "Write them together, one is as fair as the other. Sound them, and Judas doth become the mouth as well. Weigh them, it is as heavy. Conjure with them, and Judas will start a spirit as soon as John." But Judas Iscariot wrecked that name and made it unfit for further use by the evil associations which he packed into it. Did He When He We are all familiar with the stock questions which have been asked about Judas. Why did Jesus choose such a man in the first place? know that Judas would prove a traitor? first recognized that Judas would play him false, why did He not instantly expel him from among the Twelve? Did the disciples really believe that Judas was a thief when he protested against the use made of the precious ointment which "might have been sold for three hundred pence?" Was Judas false from the first, following Christ from some ulterior motive? Was there some redeeming motive underlying his willingness to betray Christ into the hands of his foes? We find it difficult to pass a hard-and-fast judgment upon the psychology of a man so far removed from our direct scrutiny. With such meager data regarding his mental and spiritual processes as we now possess, we cannot dogmatize upon his action. There seems to be no sufficient |