Judas was not wholly against his teacher

Next, that he was “betrayed by those he called his disciples,” the Jew in Celsus learned from the Gospels, though he turned the one man Judas into many disciples, so as to seem to make the charge greater. But he did not go on to examine all that is recorded about Judas: that Judas fell into conflicting and opposed judgements about his teacher, and was neither against him with his whole soul, nor kept with his whole soul a pupil’s reverence for his teacher. For “he who betrayed him gave a sign” to the crowd that had come to seize Jesus, “saying, ‘The one I kiss is the man; seize him’” (Matthew 26:48). In this he kept something of his reverence for him; for had he not kept it, he would have betrayed him openly, without the pretence of a kiss.

Will this not, then, persuade everyone concerning Judas’s purpose, that together with his love of money and his wicked purpose to betray his teacher, he had something mixed into his soul, planted in him by the words of Jesus, which bore the look of a remnant, so to speak, of goodness? For it is written: “When Judas, who betrayed him, saw that he was condemned, he repented and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, ‘I have sinned in betraying righteous blood.’ But they said, ‘What is that to us? See to it yourself.’ And throwing the pieces of silver into the temple, he withdrew, and went away and hanged himself” (Matthew 27:3–5).

If Judas, the lover of money, who also stole what was put into “the money box” for the poor (John 12:6), “repented and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,” it is clear that the teachings of Jesus were able to produce some repentance in him, and had not been utterly despised and spat out by the traitor. Moreover, the words “I have sinned in betraying righteous blood” were those of a man confessing his sin. See how burning and violent a grief arose in him from repentance for his sins, so that he could no longer bear even to live, but threw the money “into the temple,” withdrew, went away and hanged himself. For he passed sentence on himself, and so showed how much the teaching of Jesus could do even in Judas, the sinner, the thief and the traitor, who could not utterly despise what he had learned from Jesus.

Or will Celsus and those like him say that the passages which show that Judas’s defection was not complete, even after all he dared against his teacher, are fictions, and that only this is true, that one of the disciples betrayed him? And will they add to what is written that he betrayed him with his whole soul as well? That is implausible: to act in everything as an enemy would, both believing and disbelieving the same writings.

If we must also set out an argument about Judas that will put them to shame, we shall say that in the Book of Psalms the whole of the hundred and eighth Psalm (Psalm 109) contains the prophecy about Judas. It begins: “O God, do not pass over my praise in silence, for the mouth of a sinner and the mouth of a deceiver have been opened against me” (Psalm 109:1–2). It is also prophesied in it that Judas cut himself off from the number of the apostles because of his sin, and that another was chosen in his place (Acts 1:25–26); and this is shown in the words, “And let another take his office” (Psalm 109:8).

But come, suppose he was betrayed by one of his disciples who was worse disposed than Judas, and who had, as it were, poured away every word he had heard from Jesus: what does this contribute to an accusation against Jesus or against Christianity? And how does this prove the teaching false? We have also answered the points that come next in what we said before, showing that Jesus was not caught while running away, but willingly gave himself up for us all. It follows that, even if he was bound, he was bound willingly, teaching us to take such things upon ourselves for the sake of godliness, not unwillingly.