R
Ridgerunner
Guest
But did Judas repent in the way we sometimes think? “Repent” can also simply mean “regret”. Why did he regret? Did he realize he had sunk himself in the eyes of men only and seek to regain a better role than he had exposed himself to be playing?
Remember, his signal to the temple’s men was to give Jesus a kiss. It was not to walk up and say "there he is! Arrest him!
But Jesus saw through the whole thing and exposed him as a betrayer.
Judas then sought to regain the approval of men. He did not, it appears, seek the forgiveness of God. I do not take his attempt to return the money as real repentence, but as a vain attempt to return to an earthly status he had before being exposed by the truth of God.
This reminds me a bit of MacBeth, which is the story of a betrayer of his master for his own gain as well as a story of the willing embrace of deceit. MacBeth willingly chooses to be deceived by the infernal powers represented by the witches. He rejects Providence notwithstanding that Providence has treated him kindly, and tries to become his own “god”; the master of his own fate, regardless of the increasingly bloody acts that role led him to. At each evil step, he rejected the Providence of God and adhered to the promptings of evil.
At the climax, when MacBeth’s fate is evident to him, he wants to be let off. “Lay off MacDuff”, he cries. MacDuff offers him the conditions of true repentence, by which he might be redeemed and live. He must give up his ill-gained, therefore false, crown. He must expose himself as a humbled wrongdoer and do temporal penance. But MacBeth rejects true repentence, deliberately returns to the infernal deceit of the witches by which he “made himself king” and says: “Then lay on, MacDuff and damned be he who first cries 'Hold! Enough!”
Remembering as we do that he, indeed, was the one who first cried “Hold!” “Enough!”, his rejection of repentence is his knowingly going to his own death, and his willing acceptance of damnation. Chilling.
(I have always thought Shakespeare was Catholic, and this play is part of the reason I thought it.)
Remember, his signal to the temple’s men was to give Jesus a kiss. It was not to walk up and say "there he is! Arrest him!
But Jesus saw through the whole thing and exposed him as a betrayer.
Judas then sought to regain the approval of men. He did not, it appears, seek the forgiveness of God. I do not take his attempt to return the money as real repentence, but as a vain attempt to return to an earthly status he had before being exposed by the truth of God.
This reminds me a bit of MacBeth, which is the story of a betrayer of his master for his own gain as well as a story of the willing embrace of deceit. MacBeth willingly chooses to be deceived by the infernal powers represented by the witches. He rejects Providence notwithstanding that Providence has treated him kindly, and tries to become his own “god”; the master of his own fate, regardless of the increasingly bloody acts that role led him to. At each evil step, he rejected the Providence of God and adhered to the promptings of evil.
At the climax, when MacBeth’s fate is evident to him, he wants to be let off. “Lay off MacDuff”, he cries. MacDuff offers him the conditions of true repentence, by which he might be redeemed and live. He must give up his ill-gained, therefore false, crown. He must expose himself as a humbled wrongdoer and do temporal penance. But MacBeth rejects true repentence, deliberately returns to the infernal deceit of the witches by which he “made himself king” and says: “Then lay on, MacDuff and damned be he who first cries 'Hold! Enough!”
Remembering as we do that he, indeed, was the one who first cried “Hold!” “Enough!”, his rejection of repentence is his knowingly going to his own death, and his willing acceptance of damnation. Chilling.
(I have always thought Shakespeare was Catholic, and this play is part of the reason I thought it.)
