Wishful thinking about Judas

In a recent article at Catholic Answers titled “Hope for Judas?” Jimmy Akin tells us that though he used to find convincing the traditional view that Judas is damned, it now seems to him that “we don’t have conclusive proof that Judas is in hell, and there is still a ray of hope for him.”  But there is a difference between hope and wishful thinking.  And with all due respect for Akin, it seems to me that given the evidence, the view that Judas may have been saved crosses the line from the former to the latter.

Scriptural evidence

The reason it has traditionally been held that Judas is in hell is that this seems to be the clear teaching of several scriptural passages, including the words of Christ himself.  In Matthew 26:24, Jesus says of Judas: “Woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed!  It would have been better for that man if he had not been born” (RSV translation).  (Mark 14:21 records the same remark.)  It is extremely difficult at best to see how this could possibly be true of someone who repented and was saved.  It makes perfect sense, though, if Judas was damned.  Matthew also tells us that Judas’s very last act was to commit suicide (27:5), which is mortally sinful.

The evidence of John’s gospel seems no less conclusive.  Praying to the Father about his disciples, Jesus, once again referring to Judas, says that “none of them is lost but the son of perdition” (17:12).  It is, needless to say, extremely hard to see how Judas could be “lost” and of “perdition” and yet be saved. 

Then there is the Acts of the Apostles.  It reports that Peter, referring to Judas’s death and the need to replace him, said: “For it is written in the book of Psalms, ‘Let his habitation become desolate, and let there be no one to live in it’ and ‘His office let another take’” (1:20).  This implies the opposite of a happy fate for Judas, and a later verse confirms this pessimistic judgment.  We are told that Matthias was selected “to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside, to go to his own place” (1:25).  As Haydock’s commentary notes, the reference appears to be “to his own place of perdition, which he brought himself to” (p. 1435).

Commenting on Christ’s remark in Matthew 26:24, Akin suggests that it may have been intended as a warning rather than a prediction.  On this interpretation, Jesus was merely saying that it would be better for his betrayer not to have been born if he does not repent.  But this leaves it open that Judas did indeed repent.  And in fact, Akin claims, we have evidence that Judas repented in the very next chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, which tells us:

When Judas, his betrayer, saw that he was condemned, he repented and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, saying, “I have sinned in betraying innocent blood.” (27: 3-4)

But there are several problems with this argument.  The first is that it simply is not plausible on its face to suppose that Christ’s words were meant merely as a warning rather than a prediction about Judas’s actual fate.  That it would be better for the damned not to have been born is true of everyone who might fail to repent – you, me, Judas, and for that matter, Peter, who also went on to betray Jesus (and who, we know, did indeed repent).  And yet Christ does not make this remark about Peter or about anyone else, but only about Judas.  The obvious implication is that the words apply to Judas in a way they do not apply to anyone else, and that can only be the case if he was in fact damned.

A second problem is that Akin ignores the other relevant biblical passages.  In John’s Gospel, Christ says that Judas is “lost” and a “son of perdition.”  Those are peremptory remarks about what is the case, not about what would be the case if Judas did not repent.  Moreover, he says these things to the Father, not to Judas or to any other disciple.  Hence they can hardly be said to be warnings to anyone.  Then there are Peter’s remarks in Acts, which imply an unhappy fate for Judas and were made after Judas’s death, so that they too cannot be mere warnings about what would happen if he did not repent.

A third problem is that the passage cited by Akin has traditionally been understood to be attributing to Judas a merely natural regret for what he had done, not the supernatural sorrow or perfect contrition that would be necessary for salvation.  This is evidenced by what happens immediately after the passage cited by Akin: “They said [to Judas], ‘What is that to us?  See to it yourself.’  And throwing down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed; and he went and hanged himself” (27: 4-5).  As Haydock’s commentary notes, Pope St. Leo remarks, accordingly, that Judas showed only “a fruitless repentance, accompanied with a new sin of despair” (p. 1311).  Haydock notes that St. John Chrysostom also interprets the passage from Matthew as attributing only an imperfect repentance to Judas.

To be sure, Akin remarks that “suicide does not always result in hell because a person may not be fully responsible for his action due to lack of knowledge, or psychological factors, and because ‘in ways known to him alone,’ God may help the person to repent.”  That is true, but it does not follow that we have any serious grounds for doubting that Judas’s suicide, specifically, resulted in damnation.  For one thing, there is no actual evidence from scripture that Judas found sincere repentance just before the moment of death.  The very idea is sheer ungrounded speculation at best.  But for another thing, and as we’ve already seen, there are scriptural passages that afford positive evidence that Judas was in fact damned.  And again, that is how they have traditionally been interpreted.

Evidence from the tradition

Later authorities reiterate this clear indication of scripture that Judas is damned.  We’ve already noted that Pope St. Leo the Great and St. John Chrysostom do so.  Leo elaborates on the theme as follows:

To this forgiveness the traitor Judas could not attain: for he, the son of perdition, at whose right the devil stood, gave himself up to despair before Christ accomplished the mystery of universal redemption.  For in that the Lord died for sinners, perchance even he might have found salvation if he had not hastened to hang himself.  But that evil heart, which was now given up to thievish frauds, and now busied with treacherous designs, had never entertained anything of the proofs of the Saviour's mercy… The wicked traitor refused to understand this, and took measures against himself, not in the self-condemnation of repentance, but in the madness of perdition, and thus he who had sold the Author of life to His murderers, even in dying increased the amount of sin which condemned him.

Similarly, in The City of God, St. Augustine writes:

Do we justly execrate the deed of Judas, and does truth itself pronounce that by hanging himself he rather aggravated than expiated the guilt of that most iniquitous betrayal, since, by despairing of God's mercy in his sorrow that wrought death, he left to himself no place for a healing penitence? … For Judas, when he killed himself, killed a wicked man; but he passed from this life chargeable not only with the death of Christ, but with his own: for though he killed himself on account of his crime, his killing himself was another crime. (Book I, Chapter 17)

It is true that Origen and St. Gregory of Nyssa held out hope that Judas repented.  But these Fathers also famously flirted with universalism, which the Church has since condemned, and this renders suspect their understanding of the scriptural passages relevant to this particular topic.

In De Veritate, St. Thomas Aquinas writes:

In the case of Judas, the abuse of grace was the reason for his reprobation, since he was made reprobate because he died without grace.  Moreover, the fact that he did not have grace when he died was not due to God’s unwillingness to give it but to his unwillingness to accept it – as both Anselm and Dionysius point out.  (Question Six, Article 2.  The context is Aquinas’s consideration of an objection to a thesis on predestination that he defends in the article.  But the lines quoted reflect assumptions he shares in common with his critic.)

The Catechism of the Council of Trent promulgated by Pope St. Pius V, in its treatment of penance, says: “[Some] give themselves to such melancholy and grief, as utterly to abandon all hope of salvation… Such certainly was the condition of Judas, who, repenting, hanged himself, and thus lost soul and body” (p. 264).  And in its treatment of the priesthood, the Catechism says:

Some are attracted to the priesthood by ambition and love of honors; while there are others who desire to be ordained simply in order that they may abound in riches… They derive no other fruit from their priesthood than was derived by Judas from the Apostleship, which only brought him everlasting destruction. (p. 319)

The Church has also never prayed for Judas’s soul in her formal worship.  On the contrary, the traditional liturgy for Holy Thursday contains the following prayer:

O God, from whom Judas received the punishment of his guilt, and the thief the reward of his confession, grant us the effect of Thy clemency: that as our Lord Jesus Christ in His passion gave to each a different recompense according to his merits, so may He deliver us from our old sins and grant us the grace of His resurrection.  Who liveth and reigneth.

Further authorities could be cited, but this suffices to make the point that it has been the common view in the history of the Church that Judas is in hell.  Indeed, so confident has the Church been about this that the supposition that Judas is damned has traditionally been reflected even in her catechesis and her worship. 

Now, this would be extremely odd if there really were any serious grounds for hope that Judas is saved.  As the Code of Canon Law famously reminds us, “the salvation of souls… must always be the supreme law in the Church” (1752).  And Christ famously commanded us to pray for our enemies (Matthew 5:44).  How then, consistent with Christ’s teaching and with her supreme law, could the Church for two millennia fail to pray for Judas’s soul if there really were any hope for his salvation?  The Church also assures sinners that there is no sin, no matter how grievous, that cannot be forgiven if only one is truly repentant.  What better illustration of this could there possibly be than the repentance of Christ’s own betrayer – if indeed he really had repented?  And yet the Church has not only never held Judas up as a sign of hope, but on the contrary has pointed to him as an illustration of what awaits those who refuse Christ’s mercy.

The only evidence from the tradition Akin cites in defense of his own position are some remarks from Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.  In particular, he notes that John Paul once stated that it is not “certain” from Matthew 26:24 that Judas is damned.  And Benedict, Akin notes, once remarked that it is “not up to us” to make a judgement about Judas’s suicide.

But this is hardly a powerful response to the case from scripture and tradition that I’ve summarized.  For one thing, John Paul II’s remark was not made in the context of a magisterial document, but rather in the interview book Crossing the Threshold of Hope.  It is merely the expression of his opinion as a private theologian.  Moreover, it is merely an assertion about Matthew 26:24 and fails to address the considerations that indicate that the passage does indeed show that Judas is damned.  Nor does John Paul address the other relevant scriptural passages, or the evidence from the later tradition.

Benedict XVI’s comment was made in the course of a general audience, which has a low degree of authority compared to the relevant passages from scripture, the Fathers, and the rest of the tradition cited above.  Moreover, Benedict also acknowledges that “Jesus pronounces a very severe judgement on [Judas],” and goes on to contrast Judas’s fate with Peter’s:

After his fall Peter repented and found pardon and grace.  Judas also repented, but his repentance degenerated into desperation and thus became self-destructive.  For us it is an invitation to always remember what St Benedict says at the end of the fundamental Chapter Five of his “Rule”: “Never despair of God's mercy”.

Needless to say, these remarks from Benedict tend to support rather than undermine the traditional view that Judas’s suicide shows that he had succumbed to the sin of despair.

“So you’re telling me there’s a chance?”

It may seem frivolous, when dealing with so serious a subject, to allude to a crude comedy film like Dumb and Dumber.  But it contains a line that is so apt that I will take the risk.  In a famous scene, Jim Carrey’s character asks a girl he has a crush on how likely it is that she might someday reciprocate his feelings.  She says the odds are “one out of a million.”  To which he replies: “So you’re telling me there’s a chance!  YEAH!!”

What she actually means, of course, is that the odds are so extremely low that, practically speaking, there is no chance at all.  But the lesson he draws is that, because she didn’t quite say that there is zero chance, he has reasonable grounds for hope. 

Jimmy Akin is a smart guy for whom I have nothing but respect, so I am certainly not likening him to the Jim Carrey character!  But on this particular issue, it seems to me that he, like others who have resisted the traditional view that Judas is damned, are committing an error similar to the one that character commits.  Because, they suppose, the evidence from scripture and tradition doesn’t strictly entail that Judas is damned, they judge that it is reasonable to hope that he is not.  In effect, they look at what the evidence is saying and respond: “So you’re telling me there’s a chance!”  And like Carrey’s character, they thereby entirely miss the point.