Page:An analysis of religious belief (1877).djvu/261

 *pression of a fact without which the story cannot be understood. The expressions, "he sought how he might conveniently betray him" (Mk. xiv. 11); or "he sought opportunity to betray him (Mt. xxvi. 26), plainly point to the same inference.

There are some differences in the manner in which the proceedings of Judas are related. All the Gospels agree that he received money, but Matthew alone knows how much. This Evangelist had in his mind a passage in Zechariah, which he erroneously attributes to Jeremiah, and which moreover he mis-*quotes (Mt. xxvii. 9). In the original it runs thus: "And I said unto them [the poor of the flock], If it is good in your eyes, give me my hire; and if not, forbear. And they weighed for my hire thirty pieces of silver." Matthew and Mark merely state that Judas betrayed his master, giving no reason for his conduct. Luke, however, represents it as a consequence of Satan having entered into him (Lu. xxii. 3); while John in like manner states that the devil put it into his heart, and even knows the very moment when Satan entered into him (Jo. xiii. 2, 27). This Evangelist alone places the first steps taken by Judas after the last supper, instead of before it, and strangely enough so arranges the course of events, that he only acts upon the resolution to betray him after a distinct declaration by Jesus that he was about to do so.

Slightly anticipating the course of the narrative, we may mention here the singular myth of the unhappy end of the traitor Judas; a myth which is of peculiar interest inasmuch as its origin is distinctly traceable to a mistranslation of a verse in Zechariah. The passage quoted above continues thus: "And Jehovah spoke to me: Throw it to the treasure, the costly mantle with which I am honored by them; and I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the temple of Jehovah to the treasure." But the word here used for the treasure commonly signifies potter, and was hence interpreted "Throw it to the potter." Out of this mistake arose the story that Judas, ashamed of his bargain, returned the money to the chief priests, who, deeming it unlawful to put it in the treasury, bought therewith the "potter's field to bury strangers in."