But who is Judas? Is it the representation of the devil, of evil, of betrayal or is it a key character in the history of Christianity and the salvation of man? Judas still remains today, two thousand years later, the upside-down mystery of Christian faith and civilization. His story, as we know, is that of a traitor disciple who sells Jesus for thirty denarii; but his figure is, as we know, necessary in Christian eschatology, because from him comes the Savior’s death sentence, his Calvary and his Resurrection, therefore the sacrifice for the redemption of humanity. Subjectively a diabolical traitor, objectively a pawn in the hands of divine Providence.
I saw a preview of the film The Gospel of Judas by Giulio Base which tells the story of Jesus’ disciple with the narrative voice of Giancarlo Giannini: the film begins with the image of Christ on the cross and then immediately after that of him hanging himself. And it ends with the words of Judas before he is suffocated by the rope which leave no room for doubt: he considers the defeat of the death announced by Christ to be a lie and adds a comment later sensationally denied by history: «Jesus of Nazareth, no one will remember you anymore». Intense and Christian film on a crucial theme which is at the origins of Christianity and which returns forcefully in the Easter days.
I return to the starting question, but who really was Judas Iscariot, the most infamous or most precious disciple for the death and resurrection of Christ? It is the cross of the human race, according to Christian tradition. His betrayal is at the origins of the divorce between the human and the divine, between the world and Jesus. It is the metaphor of humanity which in exchange for an immediate and earthly advantage, such as the thirty pieces of silver, sells out its soul, its faith in God, the Friend and the Master. And yet, from a theological and eschatological point of view, Judas is necessary for the salvation of man through the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ. Traces of this interpretation were found in a manuscript from 300 AD, a papyrus written in Coptic, which was defined as the Gospel of Judas: the thesis was that he would not have been the traitor but the most faithful disciple, who had sacrificed himself for the glory of Jesus, thus becoming the means for his crucifixion and therefore for Salvation. This thesis appeared several times, often cloaked in prudence, in philosophical and religious thought, especially of Gnostic inspiration, and was found more fully in the twentieth century in Bertrand Russell when he addressed the problem of natural wickedness, recalling the example of Judas.
On a literary level, it was Borges who dedicated a story to the Three Versions of Judas in which the apostle damned himself for Salvation. In 1978 Giuseppe Berto published the novel The Glory dedicated to the story of Judas: the apostle was redeemed precisely in that key, he had sacrificed himself for the glory of Christ and the salvation of men. A not dissimilar thesis expressed in one of his novel-essays by the Catholic writer Francesco Grisi. But there was also a revolutionary version of his figure. It was written in the 19th century by a great atheist, anticlerical and radical journalist, a left-wing parliamentarian in post-Risorgimento Italy. It was Fernando Petruccelli della Gattina who Indro Montanelli defined as the greatest Italian journalist of his century. In 1870, while the Italian Risorgimento was taking place with the breach of Porta Pia, Petruccelli wrote a political-religious book, a novel, Memoirs of Judas, which read Jesus as an egalitarian revolutionary and a failed rebel, who disappoints his followers. In his book the historical and evangelical perspective is reversed: it is not Judas who betrays Jesus but it is Christ who betrays the revolution. It is an insurrectionist and conspiratorial political reading. According to Petruccelli, Judas would be a kind of Risorgimento ante litteram, a Mazzinian, a Garibaldino or a carbonaro of his time. He belonged to the Sadducees, seen by Petruccelli as the radicals of that time, as opposed to the hypocritical Pharisees, prone to clerical power. Judas would like the Jews to rise up against Roman power and he, but also the Sanhedrin, are looking for a young and charismatic Rabbi to lead the revolt. And they think that the suitable figure is Jesus of Nazareth. He seems like the right leader; but Jesus has a spiritual and religious “deviation”. Jesus is seen as a Garibaldi or a failed Spartacus. Or even a failed Marx. According to Petruccelli, Judas is not a traitor but betrayed: he dreamed of a Jewish, historical and earthly Risorgimento; Jesus, on the other hand, “is lost” in the eternal and otherworldly Risorgimento, called the Resurrection.
However, the mystery of Judas remains, which is the mystery of evil, of death and of the presence of the devil in the history of the world. Inextricable mystery on the theological level: is evil necessary on the path to salvation or is it the absolute enemy of good, of right, of truth? In the first case there is a risk of legitimizing evil and in any case justifying it as a premise of good, a beneficial agent; in the second there is a risk of falling into Manichaeism and the antagonistic presence of two autonomous principles, Good and Evil. We are left with the tragedy of a man who turned his back on his Master, and perhaps did not know – as Giulio Base’s film seems to conclude – that he was faced with the son of God. The first antichrist was a friend of Christ, the son of God. Compared to the paschal lamb who takes away the sins of the world, Judas is the scapegoat. And the goat is both a representation of the devil and a sacrificial symbol, as René Girard taught.
