betrayal

149:6.12“Well did the Prophet Jeremiah de­scribe many mor­tals when he said: ‘You are near God in the mouth but far from him in the heart.’ And have you not also read that dire­ful warn­ing of the prophet who said: ‘The priests thereof teach for hire, and the proph­ets thereof di­vine for money. At the same time they pro­fess piety and pro­claim that the Lord is with them.’ Have you not been well warned against those who ‘speak peace to their neigh­bors when mis­chief is in their hearts,’ those who ‘flat­ter with the lips while the heart is given to dou­ble-deal­ing’? Of all the sor­rows of a trust­ing man, none are so ter­ri­ble as to be ‘wounded in the house of a trusted friend.’”

184:3.6The Jew­ish law re­quired that at least two wit­nesses must agree upon any point be­fore a charge could be laid against the pris­oner. Ju­das could not be used as a wit­ness against Je­sus be­cause the Jew­ish law specif­i­cally for­bade the tes­ti­mony of a traitor. More than a score of false wit­nesses were on hand to tes­tify against Je­sus, but their tes­ti­mony was so con­tra­dic­tory and so ev­i­dently trumped up that the San­hedrists them­selves were very much ashamed of the per­for­mance. Je­sus stood there, look­ing down be­nignly upon these per­jur­ers, and his very coun­te­nance dis­con­certed the ly­ing wit­nesses. Through­out all this false tes­ti­mony the Mas­ter never said a word; he made no re­ply to their many false ac­cu­sa­tions.

139:12.12Ju­das then en­tered into the base and shame­ful in­trigue to be­tray his Lord and Mas­ter and quickly car­ried the ne­far­i­ous scheme into ef­fect. Dur­ing the out­work­ing of his anger-con­ceived plans of traitorous be­trayal, he ex­pe­ri­enced mo­ments of re­gret and shame, and in these lu­cid in­ter­vals he faint­heart­edly con­ceived, as a de­fense in his own mind, the idea that Je­sus might pos­si­bly ex­ert his power and de­liver him­self at the last mo­ment.

139:12.13When the sor­did and sin­ful busi­ness was all over, this rene­gade mor­tal, who thought lightly of sell­ing his friend for thirty pieces of sil­ver to sat­isfy his long-nursed crav­ing for re­venge, rushed out and com­mit­ted the fi­nal act in the drama of flee­ing from the re­al­i­ties of mor­tal ex­is­tence—sui­cide.

182:2.1The apos­tles were greatly shocked when they re­turned to their camp and found Ju­das ab­sent. While the eleven were en­gaged in a heated dis­cus­sion of their traitorous fel­low apos­tle, David Zeb­e­dee and John Mark took Je­sus to one side and re­vealed that they had kept Ju­das un­der ob­ser­va­tion for sev­eral days, and that they knew he in­tended to be­tray him into the hands of his en­e­mies. Je­sus lis­tened to them but only said: “My friends, noth­ing can hap­pen to the Son of Man un­less the Fa­ther in heaven so wills. Let not your hearts be trou­bled; all things will work to­gether for the glory of God and the sal­va­tion of men.”

182:2.2The cheer­ful at­ti­tude of Je­sus was wan­ing. As the hour passed, he grew more and more se­ri­ous, even sor­row­ful. The apos­tles, be­ing much ag­i­tated, were loath to re­turn to their tents even when re­quested to do so by the Mas­ter him­self. Re­turn­ing from his talk with David and John, he ad­dressed his last words to all eleven, say­ing: “My friends, go to your rest. Pre­pare your­selves for the work of to­mor­row. Re­mem­ber, we should all sub­mit our­selves to the will of the Fa­ther in heaven. My peace I leave with you.” And hav­ing thus spo­ken, he mo­tioned them to their tents, but as they went, he called to Pe­ter, James, and John, say­ing, “I de­sire that you re­main with me for a lit­tle while.”

182:2.3The apos­tles fell asleep only be­cause they were lit­er­ally ex­hausted; they had been run­ning short on sleep ever since their ar­rival in Je­ru­sa­lem. Be­fore they went to their sep­a­rate sleep­ing quar­ters, Si­mon Ze­lo­tes led them all over to his tent, where were stored the swords and other arms, and sup­plied each of them with this fight­ing equip­ment. All of them re­ceived these arms and girded them­selves there­with ex­cept Na­than­iel. Na­than­iel, in re­fus­ing to arm him­self, said: “My breth­ren, the Mas­ter has re­peat­edly told us that his king­dom is not of this world, and that his dis­ci­ples should not fight with the sword to bring about its es­tab­lish­ment. I be­lieve this; I do not think the Mas­ter needs to have us em­ploy the sword in his de­fense. We have all seen his mighty power and know that he could de­fend him­self against his en­e­mies if he so de­sired. If he will not re­sist his en­e­mies, it must be that such a course rep­re­sents his at­tempt to ful­fill his Fa­ther’s will. I will pray, but I will not wield the sword.” When An­drew heard Na­than­iel’s speech, he handed his sword back to Si­mon Ze­lo­tes. And so nine of them were armed as they sep­a­rated for the night.

182:2.4Re­sent­ment of Ju­das’s be­ing a traitor for the mo­ment ec­lipsed ev­ery­thing else in the apos­tles’ minds. The Mas­ter’s com­ment in ref­er­ence to Ju­das, spo­ken in the course of the last prayer, opened their eyes to the fact that he had for­saken them.

182:2.5Af­ter the eight apos­tles had fi­nally gone to their tents, and while Pe­ter, James, and John were stand­ing by to re­ceive the Mas­ter’s or­ders, Je­sus called to David Zeb­e­dee, “Send to me your most fleet and trust­wor­thy mes­sen­ger.” When David brought to the Mas­ter one Ja­cob, once a run­ner on the overnight mes­sen­ger ser­vice be­tween Je­ru­sa­lem and Beth­saida, Je­sus, ad­dress­ing him, said: “In all haste, go to Ab­ner at Phil­a­del­phia and say: ‘The Mas­ter sends greet­ings of peace to you and says that the hour has come when he will be de­liv­ered into the hands of his en­e­mies, who will put him to death, but that he will rise from the dead and ap­pear to you shortly, be­fore he goes to the Fa­ther, and that he will then give you guid­ance to the time when the new teacher shall come to live in your hearts.’” And when Ja­cob had re­hearsed this mes­sage to the Mas­ter’s sat­is­fac­tion, Je­sus sent him on his way, say­ing: “Fear not what any man may do to you, Ja­cob, for this night an un­seen mes­sen­ger will run by your side.”

182:2.6Then Je­sus turned to the chief of the vis­it­ing Greeks who were en­camped with them, and said: “My brother, be not dis­turbed by what is about to take place since I have al­ready fore­warned you. The Son of Man will be put to death at the in­sti­ga­tion of his en­e­mies, the chief priests and the rulers of the Jews, but I will rise to be with you a short time be­fore I go to the Fa­ther. And when you have seen all this come to pass, glo­rify God and strengthen your breth­ren.”

182:2.7In or­di­nary cir­cum­stances the apos­tles would have bid­den the Mas­ter a per­sonal good night, but this evening they were so pre­oc­cu­pied with the sud­den re­al­iza­tion of Ju­das’s de­ser­tion and so over­come by the un­usual na­ture of the Mas­ter’s farewell prayer that they lis­tened to his good-bye salu­ta­tion and went away in si­lence.

182:2.8Je­sus did say this to An­drew as he left his side that night: “An­drew, do what you can to keep your breth­ren to­gether un­til I come again to you af­ter I have drunk this cup. Strengthen your breth­ren, see­ing that I have al­ready told you all. Peace be with you.”

182:2.9None of the apos­tles ex­pected any­thing out of the or­di­nary to hap­pen that night since it was al­ready so late. They sought sleep that they might rise up early in the morn­ing and be pre­pared for the worst. They thought that the chief priests would seek to ap­pre­hend their Mas­ter early in the morn­ing as no sec­u­lar work was ever done af­ter noon on the prepa­ra­tion day for the Pass­over. Only David Zeb­e­dee and John Mark un­der­stood that the en­e­mies of Je­sus were com­ing with Ju­das that very night.

182:2.10David had ar­ranged to stand guard that night on the up­per trail which led to the Beth­any-Je­ru­sa­lem road, while John Mark was to watch along the road com­ing up by the Kidron to Geth­sem­ane. Be­fore David went to his self-im­posed task of out­post duty, he bade farewell to Je­sus, say­ing: “Mas­ter, I have had great joy in my ser­vice with you. My broth­ers are your apos­tles, but I have de­lighted to do the lesser things as they should be done, and I shall miss you with all my heart when you are gone.” And then said Je­sus to David: “David, my son, oth­ers have done that which they were di­rected to do, but this ser­vice have you done of your own heart, and I have not been un­mind­ful of your de­vo­tion. You, too, shall some day serve with me in the eter­nal king­dom.”

182:2.11And then, as he pre­pared to go on watch by the up­per trail, David said to Je­sus: “You know, Mas­ter, I sent for your fam­ily, and I have word by a mes­sen­ger that they are tonight in Jeri­cho. They will be here early to­mor­row forenoon since it would be dan­ger­ous for them to come up the bloody way by night.” And Je­sus, look­ing down upon David, only said: “Let it be so, David.”

182:2.12When David had gone up Oli­vet, John Mark took up his vigil near the road which ran by the brook down to Je­ru­sa­lem. And John would have re­mained at this post but for his great de­sire to be near Je­sus and to know what was go­ing on. Shortly af­ter David left him, and when John Mark ob­served Je­sus with­draw, with Pe­ter, James, and John, into a near-by ravine, he was so over­come with com­bined de­vo­tion and cu­rios­ity that he for­sook his sen­tinel post and fol­lowed af­ter them, hid­ing him­self in the bushes, from which place he saw and over­heard all that tran­spired dur­ing those last mo­ments in the gar­den and just be­fore Ju­das and the armed guards ap­peared to ar­rest Je­sus.

182:2.13While all this was in prog­ress at the Mas­ter’s camp, Ju­das Is­car­iot was in con­fer­ence with the cap­tain of the tem­ple guards, who had as­sem­bled his men prepara­tory to set­ting out, un­der the lead­er­ship of the be­trayer, to ar­rest Je­sus.

139:12.5Ju­das was a good busi­ness man. It re­quired tact, abil­ity, and pa­tience, as well as painstak­ing de­vo­tion, to man­age the fi­nan­cial af­fairs of such an ide­al­ist as Je­sus, to say noth­ing of wrestling with the hel­ter-skel­ter busi­ness meth­ods of some of his apos­tles. Ju­das re­ally was a great ex­ec­u­tive, a farsee­ing and able fi­nancier. And he was a stick­ler for or­ga­ni­za­tion. None of the twelve ever crit­i­cized Ju­das. As far as they could see, Ju­das Is­car­iot was a match­less trea­surer, a learned man, a loyal (though some­times crit­i­cal) apos­tle, and in ev­ery sense of the word a great suc­cess. The apos­tles loved Ju­das; he was re­ally one of them. He must have be­lieved in Je­sus, but we doubt whether he re­ally loved the Mas­ter with a whole heart. The case of Ju­das il­lus­trates the truth­ful­ness of that say­ing: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is death.” It is al­to­gether pos­si­ble to fall vic­tim to the peace­ful de­cep­tion of pleas­ant ad­just­ment to the paths of sin and death. Be as­sured that Ju­das was al­ways fi­nan­cially loyal to his Mas­ter and his fel­low apos­tles. Money could never have been the mo­tive for his be­trayal of the Mas­ter.

28:6.14On Uran­tia, you grotesquely es­say to read char­ac­ter and to es­ti­mate spe­cific abil­i­ties, but on Uversa we ac­tu­ally do these things in per­fec­tion. These se­con­a­phim weigh trust­wor­thi­ness in the liv­ing scales of unerring char­ac­ter ap­praisal, and when they have looked at you, we have only to look at them to know the lim­i­ta­tions of your abil­ity to dis­charge re­spon­si­bil­ity, ex­e­cute trust, and ful­fill mis­sions. Your as­sets of trust­wor­thi­ness are clearly set forth along­side your li­a­bil­i­ties of pos­si­ble de­fault or be­trayal.