This page of the site contains a literary work Judas Iscariot the author whose name is Andreev Leonid Nikolaevich. On the website you can either download the book Judas Iscariot for free in RTF, TXT, FB2 and EPUB formats, or read the online e-book Andreev Leonid Nikolaevich - Judas Iscariot without registration and without SMS.
Archive size with the book Judas Iscariot = 79.76 KB
Leonid Andreev
Judas Iscariot
I
Jesus Christ was warned many times that Judas of Kerioth was a man of very bad reputation and should be avoided. Some of the disciples who were in Judea knew him well themselves, others heard a lot about him from people, and there was no one who could say a good word about him. And if the good ones reproached him, saying that Judas was selfish, treacherous, prone to pretense and lies, then the bad ones, who were asked about Judas, reviled him with the most cruel words. “He constantly quarrels with us,” they said, spitting, “he thinks of something of his own and gets into the house quietly, like a scorpion, and comes out of it noisily. And thieves have friends, and robbers have comrades, and liars have wives to whom they tell the truth, and Judas laughs at thieves, as well as at honest ones, although he himself steals skillfully, and his appearance is uglier than all the inhabitants of Judea. No, he is not ours, this red-haired Judas from Kariot,” said the bad ones, surprising the good people, for whom there was not much difference between him and all the other vicious people of Judea.
They further said that Judas abandoned his wife a long time ago, and she lives unhappy and hungry, unsuccessfully trying to squeeze out bread for food from the three stones that make up Judas’s estate. He himself has been wandering around senselessly among the people for many years and has even reached one sea and another sea, which is even further away, and everywhere he lies, makes faces, vigilantly looks out for something with his thief’s eye, and suddenly leaves suddenly, leaving behind troubles and quarrel - curious, crafty and evil, like a one-eyed demon. He had no children, and this once again said that Judas was a bad person and God did not want offspring from Judas.
None of the disciples noticed when this red-haired and ugly Jew first appeared near Christ, but for a long time he had been relentlessly following their path, interfering in conversations, providing small services, bowing, smiling and ingratiating himself. And then it became completely familiar, deceiving tired vision, then suddenly it caught the eyes and ears, irritating them, like something unprecedentedly ugly, deceitful and disgusting. Then they drove him away with harsh words, and for a short time he disappeared somewhere along the road - and then he quietly appeared again, helpful, flattering and cunning, like a one-eyed demon. And there was no doubt for some of the disciples that in his desire to get closer to Jesus there was some secret intention hidden, there was an evil and insidious calculation.
But Jesus did not listen to their advice, their prophetic voice did not touch his ears. With that spirit of bright contradiction that irresistibly attracted him to the rejected and unloved, he decisively accepted Judas and included him in the circle of the chosen. The disciples were worried and grumbled restrainedly, but he sat quietly, facing the setting sun, and listened thoughtfully, maybe to them, or maybe to something else. There had been no wind for ten days, and the same transparent air, attentive and sensitive, remained the same, without moving or changing. And it seemed as if he had preserved in his transparent depths everything that was shouted and sung these days by people, animals and birds - tears, crying and a cheerful song. prayer and curses, and these glassy, frozen voices made him so heavy, anxious, thickly saturated with invisible life. And once again the sun set. It rolled down heavily like a flaming ball, lighting up the sky, and everything on earth that was turned towards it: the dark face of Jesus, the walls of houses and the leaves of trees - everything obediently reflected that distant and terribly thoughtful light. The white wall was no longer white now, and the red city on the red mountain did not remain white.
And then Judas came.
He came, bowing low, arching his back, carefully and fearfully stretching his ugly, lumpy head forward - just the way those who knew him imagined him. He was thin, of good height, almost the same as Jesus, who stooped slightly from the habit of thinking while walking and this made him seem shorter, and he was quite strong in strength, apparently, but for some reason he pretended to be frail and sickly and had a voice changeable: sometimes courageous and strong, sometimes loud, like an old woman scolding her husband, annoyingly thin and unpleasant to hear, and often I wanted to pull the words of Judas out of my ears, like rotten, rough splinters. Short red hair did not hide the strange and unusual shape of his skull: as if cut from the back of the head with a double blow of a sword and put back together again, it was clearly divided into four parts and inspired distrust, even anxiety: behind such a skull there cannot be silence and harmony, behind such a skull there is always the sound of bloody and merciless battles can be heard. Judas’s face was also double: one side of it, with a black, sharply looking eye, was alive, mobile, willingly gathering into numerous crooked wrinkles. On the other there were no wrinkles, and it was deathly smooth, flat and frozen, and although it was equal in size to the first, it seemed huge from the wide open blind eye. Covered with a whitish turbidity, not closing either at night or during the day, he equally met both light and darkness, but whether it was because there was a living and cunning comrade next to him, one could not believe in his complete blindness. When, in a fit of timidity or excitement, Judas closed his living eye and shook his head, this one swayed along with the movements of his head and looked silently. Even people completely devoid of insight clearly understood, looking at Iscariot, that such a person could not bring good, but Jesus brought him closer and even sat Judas next to him.
John, his beloved student, moved away with disgust, and everyone else, loving their teacher, looked down disapprovingly. And Judas sat down - and, moving his head to the right and to the left, in a thin voice began to complain about illness, that his chest hurts at night, that, when climbing mountains, he suffocates, and standing at the edge of an abyss, he feels dizzy and can barely hold on from a stupid desire to throw himself down. And he shamelessly invented many other things, as if not understanding that illnesses do not come to a person by chance, but are born from the discrepancy between his actions and the precepts of the Eternal. This Judas from Kariot rubbed his chest with a wide palm and even coughed feignedly in the general silence and downcast gaze.
John, without looking at the teacher, quietly asked Peter Simonov, his friend:
“Aren’t you tired of this lie?” I can't stand it any longer and I'll leave here.
Peter looked at Jesus, met his gaze and quickly stood up.
- Wait! - he told his friend. He looked at Jesus again, quickly, like a stone torn from a mountain, moved towards Judas Iscariot and loudly said to him with broad and clear friendliness:
- Here you are with us, Judas.
He affectionately patted his hand on his bent back and, without looking at the teacher, but feeling his gaze on himself, decisively added in his loud voice, which crowded out all objections, like water crowds out air:
“It’s okay that you have such a nasty face: we also get caught in our nets who are not so ugly, and when it comes to food, they are the most delicious.” And it’s not for us, our Lord’s fishermen, to throw away our catch just because the fish is prickly and one-eyed. I once saw an octopus in Tyre, caught by the local fishermen, and I was so scared that I wanted to run away. And they laughed at me, a fisherman from Tiberias, and gave me some to eat, and I asked for more, because it was very tasty. Remember, teacher, I told you about this, and you laughed too. And you. Judas looks like an octopus - only with one half.
And he laughed loudly, pleased with his joke. When Peter said something, his words sounded so firmly, as if he was nailing them down. When Peter moved or did something, he made a far-audible noise and evoked a response from the most deaf things: the stone floor hummed under his feet, the doors trembled and slammed, and the very air shuddered and made noise timidly. In the gorges of the mountains, his voice awakened an angry echo, and in the mornings on the lake, when they were fishing, he rolled round and round on the sleepy and shining water and made the first timid rays of the sun smile. And, probably, they loved Peter for this: the shadow of the night still lay on all the other faces, and his large head, and wide naked chest, and freely thrown arms were already burning in the glow of the sunrise.
Peter's words, apparently approved by the teacher, dispelled the painful state of those gathered. But some, who had also been by the sea and seen the octopus, were confused by its monstrous image, which Peter so frivolously dedicated to his new student. They remembered: huge eyes, dozens of greedy tentacles, feigned calm - and time! – hugged, doused, crushed and sucked, without even blinking his huge eyes. What is this? But Jesus is silent, Jesus smiles and looks from under his brows with friendly mockery at Peter, who continues to talk passionately about the octopus - and one after another, embarrassed disciples approached Judas, spoke kindly, but walked away quickly and awkwardly.
And only John Zebedee remained stubbornly silent and Thomas, apparently, did not dare to say anything, pondering what had happened. He carefully examined Christ and Judas, who were sitting next to each other, and this strange proximity of divine beauty and monstrous ugliness, a man with a gentle gaze and an octopus with huge, motionless, dull, greedy eyes oppressed his mind, like an unsolvable riddle. He tensely wrinkled his straight, smooth forehead, squinted his eyes, thinking that he would see better this way, but all he achieved was that Judas really seemed to have eight restlessly moving legs. But this was not true. Foma understood this and again looked stubbornly.
And Judas gradually dared: he straightened his arms, bent at the elbows, loosened the muscles that kept his jaw tense, and carefully began to expose his lumpy head to the light. She had been in everyone’s sight before, but it seemed to Judas that she was deeply and impenetrably hidden from view by some invisible, but thick and cunning veil. And now, as if he was crawling out of a hole, he felt his strange skull in the light, then his eyes stopped and resolutely opened his entire face. Nothing happened. Peter went somewhere, Jesus sat thoughtfully, leaning his head on his hand, and quietly shaking his tanned leg, the disciples talked among themselves, and only Thomas carefully and seriously looked at him like a conscientious tailor taking measurements. Judas smiled - Thomas did not return the smile, but apparently took it into account, like everything else, and continued to look at it. But something unpleasant was disturbing the left side of Judas’s face; he looked back: John was looking at him from a dark corner with cold and beautiful eyes, handsome, pure, not having a single spot on his snow-white conscience. And, walking like everyone else, but feeling as if he was dragging along the ground, like a punished dog. Judas approached him and said:
- Why are you silent, John? Your words are like golden apples in transparent silver vessels, give one of them to Judas, who is so poor.
John looked intently into the motionless, wide-open eye and was silent. And he saw how Judas crawled away, hesitated hesitantly and disappeared into the dark depths of the open door.
Since the full moon rose, many went for a walk. Jesus also went for a walk, and from the low roof where Judas had made his bed, he saw those leaving. In the moonlight, each white figure seemed light and leisurely and did not walk, but as if glided in front of its black shadow, and suddenly the man disappeared into something black, and then his voice was heard. When people reappeared under the moon, they seemed silent - like white walls, like black shadows, like the entire transparent, hazy night. Almost everyone was already asleep when Judas heard the quiet voice of the returning Christ. And everything became quiet in the house and around it. A rooster crowed, resentfully and loudly, as if during the day; a donkey, who had woken up somewhere, crowed and reluctantly, intermittently, fell silent. But Judas still did not sleep and listened, hiding. The moon illuminated half of his face and, as if in a frozen lake, was reflected strangely in his huge open eye.
Suddenly he remembered something and hastily coughed, rubbing his hairy, healthy chest with his palm: perhaps someone else was still awake and listening to what Judas was thinking.
II
Gradually they got used to Judas and stopped noticing his ugliness. Jesus entrusted him with the money chest, and at the same time all household worries fell on him: he bought the necessary food and clothing, distributed alms, and during his wanderings he looked for a place to stop and spend the night. He did all this very skillfully, so that he soon earned the favor of some students who saw his efforts. Judas lied constantly, but they got used to it, because they did not see bad deeds behind the lie, and it gave special interest to Judas’ conversation and his stories and made life look like a funny and sometimes scary fairy tale.
According to Judas' stories, it seemed as if he knew all people, and every person he knew had committed some bad act or even a crime in his life. Good people, in his opinion, are those who know how to hide their deeds and thoughts, but if such a person is hugged, caressed and questioned well, then all untruths, abominations and lies will flow from him, like pus from a punctured wound. He readily admitted that sometimes he himself lies, but he assured with an oath that others lie even more, and if there is anyone in the world who is deceived, it is he. Judas. It happened that some people deceived him many times in this way and that. Thus, a certain treasure keeper of a rich nobleman once confessed to him that for ten years he had been constantly wanting to steal the property entrusted to him, but he could not, because he was afraid of the nobleman and his conscience. And Judas believed him, but he suddenly stole and deceived Judas. But even here Judas believed him, and he suddenly returned the stolen goods to the nobleman and again deceived Judas. And everyone deceives him, even animals: when he caresses the dog, she bites his fingers, and when he hits her with a stick, she licks his feet and looks into his eyes like a daughter. He killed this dog, buried it deep and even buried it with a large stone, but who knows? Perhaps because he killed her, she became even more alive and now does not lie in a hole, but runs happily with other dogs.
Everyone laughed merrily at Judas’ story, and he himself smiled pleasantly, narrowing his lively and mocking eye, and then, with the same smile, he admitted that he had lied a little: he did not kill that dog. But he will certainly find her and will certainly kill her, because he does not want to be deceived. And these words of Judas made them laugh even more.
But sometimes in his stories he crossed the boundaries of the probable and plausible and attributed to people such inclinations that even an animal does not have, accused them of crimes that never happened and never will happen. And since he named the names of the most respectable people, some were indignant at the slander, while others jokingly asked:
- Well, what about your father and mother? Judas, weren't they good people?
Judas narrowed his eyes, smiled and spread his arms. And along with the shaking of his head, his frozen, wide-open eye swayed and looked silently.
-Who was my father? Maybe the man who beat me with a rod, or maybe the devil, the goat, or the rooster. How can Judas know everyone with whom his mother shared a bed? Judas has many fathers, the one you are talking about?
But here everyone was indignant, since they greatly revered their parents, and Matthew, very well read in the Scriptures, sternly spoke in the words of Solomon:
“Whoever curses his father and mother, his lamp will go out in the midst of deep darkness.”
John Zebedee arrogantly said:
- Well, what about us? What bad thing can you say about us, Judas of Kariot?
But he waved his hands in feigned fear, hunched over and whined, like a beggar vainly begging for alms from a passerby:
- Oh, they are tempting poor Judas! They are laughing at Judas, they want to deceive poor, gullible Judas!
And while one side of his face writhed in buffoonish grimaces, the other swayed seriously and sternly, and his never-closing eye looked wide. Peter Simonov laughed the loudest and loudest at Iscariot’s jokes. But one day it happened that he suddenly frowned, became silent and sad, and hastily took Judas aside, dragging him by the sleeve.
- And Jesus? What do you think about Jesus? – he leaned over and asked in a loud whisper. - Just don't joke, please.
Judas looked at him angrily:
- And what do you think?
Peter whispered fearfully and joyfully:
“I think he is the son of the living god.”
- Why are you asking? What can Judas, whose father is a goat, tell you?
- But do you love him? It's like you don't love anyone, Judas.
With the same strange malice, Iscariot said abruptly and sharply:
- I love.
After this conversation, Peter loudly called Judas his octopus friend for two days, and he clumsily and still angrily tried to slip away from him somewhere in a dark corner and sat there gloomily, his white, unclosed eye brightening.
Only Thomas listened to Judas quite seriously: he did not understand jokes, pretense and lies, playing with words and thoughts, and looked for the fundamental and positive in everything. And he often interrupted all Iscariot’s stories about bad people and actions with short businesslike remarks:
- This needs to be proven. Have you heard this yourself? Who else was there besides you? What's his name?
Judas became irritated and shrilly shouted that he had seen and heard it all himself, but stubborn Thomas continued to interrogate unobtrusively and calmly, until Judas admitted that he had lied, or invented a new plausible lie, which he thought about for a long time. And, having found a mistake, he immediately came and indifferently caught the liar. In general, Judas aroused strong curiosity in him, and this created something like a friendship between them, full of shouting, laughter and curses on the one hand, and calm, persistent questions on the other. At times Judas felt an unbearable disgust for his strange friend and, piercing him with a sharp gaze, said irritably, almost with a plea:
- But what do you want? I told you everything, everything.
“I want you to prove how a goat can be your father?” - Foma interrogated with indifferent persistence and waited for an answer.
It happened that after one of these questions, Judas suddenly fell silent and in surprise felt him from head to toe with his eye: he saw a long, straight figure, a gray face, straight transparent light eyes, two thick folds running from his nose and disappearing into a hard, evenly trimmed hair. beard, and said convincingly:
- How stupid you are, Foma! What do you see in your dream:
tree, wall, donkey?
And Foma was somehow strangely embarrassed and did not object.
It would be great to have a book Judas Iscariot author Andreev Leonid Nikolaevich you would like it!
If so, then would you recommend this book? Judas Iscariot to your friends by placing a hyperlink to the page with this work: Andreev Leonid Nikolaevich - Judas Iscariot.
Page Keywords: Judas Iscariot; Andreev Leonid Nikolaevich, download, free, read, book, electronic, online
A few words about Leonid Andreev
Once in the Russian National Library I happened to get acquainted with the first issue of the magazine “Satyricon”, which was published, as you know, in 1908. The reason was to study the work of Arkady Averchenko or, more likely, to collect materials for writing a novel in which one of the chapters takes place in St. Petersburg in 1908. On the last page of "Satyricon" a cartoon portrait of Leonid Andreev was placed. The following was written:
“Rejoice that you are holding an issue of Satyricon in your hands.” Rejoice that such a person is your contemporary... He once looked into the Abyss, and horror froze forever in his eyes. And from then on he laughed only with a blood-chilling Red laugh.”
The cheerful magazine ironized the darkly prophetic image of Leonid Andreev, referring to his stories “The Abyss” and “Red Laughter”. Leonid Andreev was very popular in those years: his elegant style, expressiveness of presentation, and bold subject matter attracted the reading public to him.
Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev was born on August 9 (21 n.s.) 1871 in the city of Orel. His father was a land surveyor and tax collector, his mother was from the family of a bankrupt Polish landowner. At the age of six he learned to read “and read extremely a lot, everything that came to hand”. At the age of 11 he entered the Oryol gymnasium, from which he graduated in 1891. In May 1897, after graduating from the Faculty of Law of Moscow University, he was planning to become a sworn attorney, but unexpectedly received an offer from a lawyer he knew to take the place of a court reporter in the Moskovsky Vestnik newspaper. Having received recognition as a talented reporter, two months later he moved to the Courier newspaper. Thus began the birth of the writer Andreev: he wrote numerous reports, feuilletons, and essays.
Literary debut - the story “In Cold and Gold” (zvezda, 1892, No. 16). At the beginning of the century, Andreev became friends with A.M. Gorky and together with him joined the circle of writers united around the publishing house “Znanie”. In 1901, the St. Petersburg publishing house “Znanie”, headed by Gorky, published “Stories” by L. Andreev. The following were also published in the literary collections “Knowledge”: the story “The Life of Vasily of Fiveysky” (1904); story “Red Laughter” (1905); dramas “To the Stars” (1906) and “Sava” (1906); story “Judas Iscariot and Others” (1907). In “Rosehip” (an almanac of modernist orientation): drama “Human Life” (1907); story "Darkness" (1907); "The Tale of the Seven Hanged Men" (1908); pamphlet “My Notes” (1908); drama "Black Masks" (1908); the plays “Anfisa” (1909), “Ekaterina Ivanovna” (1913) and “The One Who Receives Slaps” (1916); story “The Yoke of War. Confessions of a Little Man about Great Days" (1916). Andreev's last major work, written under the influence of the world war and revolution, is “Notes of Satan” (published in 1921).
I. Repin. Portrait of L. Andreev
Andreev did not accept the October Revolution. At that time he lived with his family at a dacha in Finland and in December 1917, after Finland gained independence, he found himself in exile. The writer died on September 12, 1919 in the village of Neivola in Finland, and was reburied in Leningrad in 1956.
More details biography of Leonid Andreev can be read , or , or .
L. Andreev and L. Tolstoy; L. Andreev and M. Gorky
With L.N. Tolstoy and his wife Leonid Andreev do not have mutual understanding found. "He's scary, but I'm not scared" - So Lev Tolstoy spoke about Leonid Andreev in a conversation with a visitor. Sofya Andreevna Tolstaya in a “Letter to the Editor” of Novoye Vremya accused Andreev of “ loves to enjoy the baseness of the phenomena of vicious human life" And, contrasting Andreev’s works with her husband’s works, she called for “ to help those unfortunates come to their senses, whose wings they, Messrs. Andreevs, are knocking down, given to everyone for a high flight to the understanding of spiritual light, beauty, goodness and... God" There were other critical reviews of Andreev’s work; they made fun of his gloominess, as in the micro-pamphlet from Satyricon cited above, while he himself wrote: “Who knows me among the critics? No one, it seems. Loves? Nobody either."
Interesting statement M. Gorky , very close acquaintance with L. Andreev:
« To Andreev, man seemed spiritually poor; woven from the irreconcilable contradictions of instinct and intellect, he is forever deprived of the opportunity to achieve any internal harmony. All his deeds are “vanity of vanities,” corruption and self-deception. And most importantly, he is a slave to death and all his life
The story of Leonid Andreev is also "gospel of Judas" since the Traitor is the main character there and performs the same function as in the heretical treatise, but the interaction between Judas and Jesus occurs more subtly:
Jesus does not ask Judas to betray Him, but by His behavior forces him to do so;
Jesus does not inform Judas about the meaning of his atoning sacrifice, and therefore condemns him to the torments of his conscience, i.e., to put it in the language of the special services, he “uses in the dark” the unfortunate Judas. Andreev’s “shifters” are not limited to this:
Judas not only overshadows many of the heroes of the gospel narrative, since they turn out to be clearly stupider and more primitive than him, but also replaces them with himself. Let's take a closer look at St. Andrew's “gospel inside out.”
Illustration by A. Zykina.
The appearance of Judas in the text of the story does not bode well: “Jesus Christ was warned many times that Judas of Kerioth was a man of very bad reputation and should be avoided. Some of the disciples who were in Judea knew him well themselves, others heard a lot about him from people, and there was no one who could say a good word about him. And if the good ones reproached him, saying that Judas was selfish, cunning, inclined to pretense and lies, then the bad ones, who were asked about Judas, reviled him with the most cruel words... And there was no doubt for some of the disciples that his desire to get closer to Jesus had some kind of secret intention hidden, there was an evil and insidious calculation. But Jesus did not listen to their advice, their prophetic voice did not touch his ears. With that spirit of bright contradiction that irresistibly attracted him to the outcast and unloved, he decisively accepted Judas and included him in the circle of the chosen ones.».
The author at the beginning of the story tells us about some oversight of Jesus, excessive gullibility, improvidence, for which he had to pay later and that his disciples were more experienced and far-sighted. Come on, is he really God after this, to whom the future is open?
There are three options:
either he is not God, but a beautiful-hearted, inexperienced person;
either He is God, and specially brought closer to Him the person who would betray Him;
or he is a person who does not know the future, but for some reason it was necessary for him to be betrayed, and Judas had a corresponding reputation.
The discrepancy with the Gospel is obvious: Judas was an apostle of the twelve, he, like the other apostles, preached and healed; was the treasurer of the apostles, however, a lover of money, and the Apostle John directly calls him a thief:
« He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief. He had a cash drawer with him and wore what was put there"(John 12:6).
IN it is explained that
« Judas not only carried the donated money, but also carried it away, i.e. secretly took a significant part of them for himself. The verb here (?????????), translated in Russian by the expression “carried”, is more correctly translated “carried away”. Why was Judas entrusted with a box of money by Christ? It is very likely that with this manifestation of trust Christ wanted to influence Judas, to inspire him with love and devotion to Himself. But such trust did not have favorable consequences for Judas: he was already too attached to money and therefore abused the trust of Christ».
Judas was not deprived of free will in the Gospel, and Christ knew in advance about his betrayal and warned of the consequences: “ However, the Son of Man comes, as it is written about Him; but woe to that man through whom the Son of Man is betrayed: it was better if that person would never have been born "(Matthew 26, 24). This was said at the Last Supper, after Judas visited the high priest and received thirty pieces of silver for betrayal. At the same Last Supper, Christ said that the traitor was one of the apostles sitting with Him, and the Gospel of John says that Christ secretly pointed him to Judas (John 13: 23-26).
Earlier, even before entering Jerusalem, addressing the apostles, “ Jesus answered them: Have I not chosen you twelve? but one of you is the devil. He spoke this about Judas Simon Iscariot, for he wanted to betray Him, being one of the twelve "(John 6, 70-71). IN “Explanatory Bible” by A.P. Lopukhina The following interpretation of these words is given: “ So that the apostles do not fall into excessive arrogance about their position as constant followers of Christ, the Lord points out that among them there is one person whose attitude is close to the devil. Just as the devil is in a constantly hostile mood towards God, so Judas hates Christ, as destroying all his hopes for the foundation of the earthly Messianic Kingdom, in which Judas could take a prominent place. This one wanted to betray Him. More precisely: “this one was going, so to speak, to betray Christ, although he himself was not yet clearly aware of this intention of his.” ».
Further, according to the plot of the story, St. Andrew's Jesus constantly keeps Judas at a distance, forcing him to envy other disciples who are objectively stupider than Judas, but enjoy the favor of the teacher, and when Judas is ready to leave Christ or the disciples are ready to expel him, Jesus brings him closer to himself and does not let him go. There are many examples that can be given, let us highlight a few.
The scene when Judas is accepted as an apostle looks like this:
Judas came to Jesus and the apostles, telling something that was obviously false. “John, without looking at the teacher, quietly asked Peter Simonov, his friend:
- Aren't you tired of this lie? I can't stand her any longer and I'll leave here.
Peter looked at Jesus, met his gaze and quickly stood up.
- Wait! - he told his friend. He looked at Jesus again, quickly, like a stone torn from a mountain, moved towards Judas Iscariot and loudly said to him with broad and clear friendliness:
“Here you are with us, Judas.”.
St. Andrew's Jesus is silent. He does not stop Judas, who is clearly sinning; on the contrary, he accepts him as he is, into the number of his disciples; Moreover, he does not verbally call on Judas: Peter guesses his desire and formalizes it in word and deed. This is not how things happened in the Gospel: apostleship was always preceded by a clear calling by the Lord, often by repentance of the one called, and always by a radical change in life immediately after the calling. This is what happened to the fisherman Peter: “ Simon Peter fell at the knees of Jesus and said: Depart from me, Lord! because I am a sinful man... And Jesus said to Simon: Do not be afraid; from now on you will catch people "(Luke 5, 8, 10). So it was with the publican Matthew: “ Passing from there, Jesus saw a man named Matthew sitting at the toll booth, and he said to him, “Follow Me.” And he stood up and followed Him"(Matthew 9:9).
Leonardo da Vinci. Last Supper
But Judas does not abandon his way of life after his calling: he also lies and makes faces, but for some reason St. Andrew’s Jesus does not speak out against it.
« Judas lied constantly, but they got used to it, because they did not see bad deeds behind the lie, and it gave special interest to Judas’ conversation and his stories and made life look like a funny and sometimes scary fairy tale. He readily admitted that sometimes he himself lies, but he assured with an oath that others lie even more, and if there is anyone deceived in the world, it is he, Judas." Let me remind you that the Gospel Christ spoke quite definitely about lies. He characterizes the devil this way: “ When he tells a lie, he speaks his own way, for he is a liar and the father of lies. "(John 8:44). But for some reason St. Andrew’s Jesus allows Judas to lie - except for the case when Judas lies to save himself.
To protect the teacher from the angry crowd, Judas flatters her and calls Jesus a simple deceiver and a tramp, diverts attention to himself and allows the teacher to leave, saving the life of Jesus, but he is angry. This was not the case in the Gospel, of course, but they actually wanted to kill Christ more than once for preaching, and this was always resolved successfully solely thanks to Christ himself, for example, with the admonition:
« I have shown you many good works from My Father; For which of them do you want to stone Me?"(John 10:32) or simply a supernatural departure:« Hearing this, everyone in the synagogue was filled with rage, stood up, drove Him out of the city and took Him to the top of the mountain on which their city was built in order to overthrow Him; but He passed through the midst of them and departed"(Luke 4, 28-30).
St. Andrew's Jesus is weak, cannot cope with the crowd on his own, and at the same time condemns the man who made great efforts to save him from death; The Lord, as we remember, “welcomes intentions,” i.e. White lies are not a sin.
In the same way, St. Andrew's Jesus refuses to help Peter defeat Judas in throwing stones, and then pointedly does not notice that Judas defeated Peter; and he is angry with Judas, who proved the ingratitude of the people in the village where Jesus preached earlier, but for some reason allows Judas to steal from the cash drawer... He behaves very contradictory, as if tempering Judas for betrayal; he inflates Judas’s pride and love of money and at the same time hurts his pride. And all this in silence.
“And before, for some reason, it was the case that Judas never spoke directly to Jesus, and he never directly addressed him, but he often looked at him with gentle eyes, smiled at some of his jokes, and if he did not see him for a long time, he asked : where is Judas? And now he looked at him, as if not seeing him, although as before, and even more persistently than before, he looked for him with his eyes every time he began to speak to his disciples or to the people, but either he sat with his back to him and threw words over his head. his own towards Judas, or pretended not to notice him at all. And no matter what he said, even if it was one thing today and something completely different tomorrow, even if it was the same thing that Judas was thinking, it seemed, however, that he was always speaking against Judas. And for everyone he was a tender and beautiful flower, fragrant with the rose of Lebanon, but for Judas he left only sharp thorns - as if Judas had no heart, as if he had no eyes and nose and no better than everyone else, he understood the beauty of tender and immaculate petals."
Naturally, Judas eventually grumbled:
« Why is he not with Judas, but with those who do not love him? John brought him a lizard - I would have brought him a poisonous snake. Peter threw stones - I would have turned a mountain for him! But what is a poisonous snake? Now her tooth has been pulled out, and she is wearing a necklace around her neck. But what is a mountain that can be torn down with your hands and trampled underfoot? I would give him Judas, brave, beautiful Judas! And now he will perish, and Judas will perish with him." Thus, according to Andreev, Judas did not betray Jesus, but took revenge on him for his inattention, for his lack of love, for his subtle mockery of the proud Judas. What kind of love of money there is!.. This is the revenge of a loving, but offended and rejected person, revenge out of jealousy. And St. Andrew’s Jesus acts as a completely conscious provocateur.
Judas is ready until the last moment to save Jesus from the inevitable: “ With one hand betraying Jesus, with the other hand Judas diligently sought to thwart his own plans" And even after the Last Supper he tries to find a way not to betray the teacher, he directly turns to Jesus:
“Do you know where I’m going, Lord? I am coming to deliver you into the hands of your enemies.
And there was a long silence, the silence of the evening and sharp, black shadows.
-Are you silent, Lord? Are you ordering me to go?
And again silence.
- Let me stay. But you can't? Or don't you dare? Or don't you want to?
And again silence, huge, like the eyes of eternity.
- But you know that I love you. You know everything. Why are you looking at Judas like that? The mystery of your beautiful eyes is great, but is mine less so? Order me to stay!.. But you are silent, are you still silent? Lord, Lord, why, in anguish and torment, have I been looking for you all my life, looking for you and finding you! Set me free. Take away the heaviness, it is heavier than mountains and lead. Can't you hear how the chest of Judas of Kerioth is cracking under her?
And the last silence, bottomless, like the last glance of eternity.
- I'm coming."
And who is betraying whom here? This is the “gospel inside out,” in which Jesus betrays Judas, and Judas begs Jesus just as Christ in the present Gospel begs His Father in the Garden of Gethsemane to carry the cup of suffering past him. In the present Gospel, Christ prays to His Father for his disciples, and St. Andrew’s Jesus condemns the disciple to betrayal and suffering.
Icon “Prayer for the Cup” by Caravaggio. Kiss of Judas
Even in the Gnostic Gospel of Judas, Jesus is not so cruel:
Video fragment 2. "National Geographic. Gospel of Judas"
In general, Andreev’s Judas often replaces the disciples, Christ, and even God the Father. Let's look at these cases briefly.
We have already said about the prayer for the cup: here Judas replaces the suffering Christ, and St. Andrew’s Jesus acts as Sabaoth in the Gnostic understanding, i.e. like a cruel demiurge.
Well, it is Judas who contextually appears as Andreev’s loving “God’s father”: it is not without reason that, observing the suffering of Jesus, he repeats: “Oh, it hurts, it hurts a lot, my son, my son, my son. It hurts, it hurts a lot."
Another replacement of Christ by Judas: Judas asks Peter who he thinks Jesus is. " Peter whispered fearfully and joyfully: “I think that he is the son of the living God.” And in the Gospel it is written like this: “ Simon Peter answered Him: Lord! who should we go to? You have the words of eternal life: and we have believed and known that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God"(John 6, 68-69). The twist is that Peter’s gospel remark is addressed to Christ, not Judas.
Appearing to the apostles after the death of Jesus, St. Andrew’s Judas again creates an inverted situation and replaces the risen Christ with himself. "Jesus' disciples sat in sad silence and listened to what was happening outside the house. There was also a danger that the revenge of Jesus’ enemies would not be limited to him alone, and everyone was waiting for the guards to invade... At that moment, Judas Iscariot entered, loudly slamming the door».
And the Gospel describes the following: “ On the same first day of the week in the evening, when the doors of the house where His disciples were meeting were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst and said to them: Peace be with you! "(John 20:19).
Here the quiet and joyful appearance of the risen Christ is replaced by the noisy appearance of Judas, denouncing His disciples.
The denunciation of Judas is permeated by the following refrain: “Where was your love? ... Who loves... Who loves!.. Who loves! Compare with the Gospel: “When they were dining, Jesus said to Simon Peter: Simon the Jonah! Do you love Me more than they? Peter says to Him: Yes, Lord! You know I love you. Jesus says to him: Feed my lambs. Another time he says to him: Simon the Jonah! do you love me? Peter says to Him: Yes, Lord! You know I love you. Jesus says to him: Feed My sheep. He says to him for the third time: Simon the Jonah! do you love me? Peter was saddened that he asked him for the third time: Do you love Me? and said to Him: Lord! You know everything; You know I love you. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep."(John 21:15-17).
Thus, after His resurrection, Christ restored the apostolic dignity to Peter, who had denied Him three times. In L. Andreev we see an inverted situation: Judas three times denounces the apostles for their dislike for Christ.
Same scene: “Judas fell silent, raising his hand, and suddenly noticed the remains of a meal on the table. And with strange amazement, curiosity, as if he saw food for the first time in his life, he looked at it and slowly asked: “What is this? Did you eat? Perhaps you slept the same way? Let's compare: " When they still did not believe for joy and were amazed, He said to them: Do you have any food here? They gave Him some of the baked fish and honeycomb. And he took it and ate before them"(Luke 24:41-43). Once again, Judas exactly the opposite repeats the actions of the risen Christ.
« I'm going to him! - said Judas, extending his imperious hand upward. “Who is following Iscariot to Jesus?” Let's compare: " Then Jesus said to them plainly: Lazarus is dead; and I rejoice for you that I was not there, so that you might believe; but let's go to him. Then Thomas, otherwise called the Twin, said to the disciples: come and we will die with him"(John 11, 14-16). To the courageous statement of Thomas, who, like the other apostles, could not confirm it with deeds on the night when Judas betrayed Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, L. Andreev contrasts the same statement of Judas, and Judas fulfills his promise, showing greater courage than the other apostles.
By the way, Andreev’s apostles are shown as fools, cowards and hypocrites, and against their background Judas looks more than advantageous; he outshines them with his sharp paradoxical mind and sensitive love for Jesus. Yes, this is no wonder: Thomas is stupid and cowardly, John is arrogant and hypocritical, Peter is a complete ass. Judas characterizes him this way:
« Is there anyone stronger than Peter? When he shouts, all the donkeys in Jerusalem think that their Messiah has come, and they also start shouting." Andreev completely agrees with his favorite hero, as can be seen from this passage: “A rooster crowed, resentfully and loudly, as if during the day, a donkey, who had woken up somewhere, crowed and reluctantly, intermittently, fell silent.”
The motif of a cock crowing in the night is associated with Peter’s denial of Christ, and the braying donkey obviously correlates with Peter weeping bitterly after his denial: “ And Peter remembered the word that Jesus had spoken to him: Before the rooster crows twice, you will deny Me three times; and started crying"(Mark 14:72).
Judas even replaces Mary Magdalene. According to Andreev’s version, it was Judas who bought the ointment with which Mary Magdalene anointed Jesus’ feet, while in the Gospel the situation is completely opposite. Let's compare: " Mary, taking a pound of pure precious ointment of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped His feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the world. Then one of His disciples, Judas Simon Iscariot, who wanted to betray Him, said: Why not sell this ointment for three hundred denarii and give it to the poor?"(John 12:3-5).
Sebastian Ritchie. Mary Magdalene washes Christ's feet
And in the light of what has been said above, the outburst of Judas does not look at all strange, who, to the public question of Peter and John about which of them will sit next to Jesus in the Kingdom of Heaven, answered: “I! I will be near Jesus!”
One can, of course, talk about the inconsistency of the image of Judas, which was reflected in his behavior, and in his speeches, and even in his appearance, but the main intrigue of the story is not this, but the fact that St. Andrew’s silent Jesus, without uttering a word , was able to force this smart, contradictory and paradoxical man to become a great Traitor.
« And everyone - good and evil - will equally curse his shameful memory, and among all nations, which were and are, he will remain alone in his cruel fate - Judas of Kariot, Traitor" The Gnostics, with their theory of a “gentleman’s agreement” between Christ and Judas, never dreamed of this.
A domestic film adaptation of Andreev's story "Judas Iscariot" - "Judas, the Man from Kariot" - should soon be released. I wonder what emphasis the director made. For now, you can only watch the trailer for the film.
Video fragment 3. Trailer “Judas, the Man from Kariot”
M. Gorky recalled this statement by L. Andreev:
“Someone proved to me that Dostoevsky secretly hated Christ. I also don’t like Christ and Christianity, optimism is a disgusting, completely false invention... I think that Judas was not a Jew - a Greek, a Hellenic. He, brother, is an intelligent and daring man, Judas... You know, if Judas had been convinced that Jehovah himself was in the face of Christ before him, he would still have betrayed Him. Killing God, humiliating Him with a shameful death, this, brother, is not a trifle!”
It seems that this statement most accurately defines the author’s position of Leonid Andreev.
Jesus Christ was warned many times that Judas of Kerioth was a man of very bad reputation and should be avoided. Some of the disciples who were in Judea knew him well themselves, others heard a lot about him from people, and there was no one who could say a good word about him. And if the good ones reproached him, saying that Judas was selfish, treacherous, prone to pretense and lies, then the bad ones, who were asked about Judas, reviled him with the most cruel words. “He constantly quarrels with us,” they said, spitting, “he thinks of something of his own and gets into the house quietly, like a scorpion, and comes out of it noisily. And thieves have friends, and robbers have comrades, and liars have wives to whom they tell the truth, and Judas laughs at thieves, as well as at honest ones, although he himself steals skillfully, and his appearance is uglier than all the inhabitants of Judea. No, he is not ours, this red-haired Judas from Kariot,” said the bad ones, surprising the good people, for whom there was not much difference between him and all the other vicious people of Judea.
They further said that Judas abandoned his wife a long time ago, and she lives unhappy and hungry, unsuccessfully trying to squeeze out bread for food from the three stones that make up Judas’s estate. He himself has been wandering around senselessly among the people for many years and has even reached one sea and another sea, which is even further away, and everywhere he lies, makes faces, vigilantly looks out for something with his thief's eye, and suddenly leaves suddenly, leaving behind troubles and quarrel - curious, crafty and evil, like a one-eyed demon. He had no children, and this once again said that Judas was a bad person and God did not want offspring from Judas.
None of the disciples noticed when this red-haired and ugly Jew first appeared near Christ, but for a long time he had been relentlessly following their path, interfering in conversations, providing small services, bowing, smiling and ingratiating himself. And then it became completely familiar, deceiving tired vision, then suddenly it caught the eyes and ears, irritating them, like something unprecedentedly ugly, deceitful and disgusting. Then they drove him away with harsh words, and for a short time he disappeared somewhere along the road - and then he quietly appeared again, helpful, flattering and cunning, like a one-eyed demon. And there was no doubt for some of the disciples that in his desire to get closer to Jesus there was hidden some secret intention, there was an evil and insidious calculation.
But Jesus did not listen to their advice, their prophetic voice did not touch his ears. With that spirit of bright contradiction that irresistibly attracted him to the rejected and unloved, he decisively accepted Judas and included him in the circle of the chosen. The disciples were worried and grumbled restrainedly, but he sat quietly, facing the setting sun, and listened thoughtfully, maybe to them, or maybe to something else. There had been no wind for ten days, and the same transparent air, attentive and sensitive, remained the same, without moving or changing. And it seemed as if he had preserved in his transparent depths everything that was shouted and sung these days by people, animals and birds - tears, crying and a cheerful song, prayer and curses, and from these glassy, frozen voices he was so heavy , alarming, densely saturated with invisible life. And once again the sun set. It rolled down heavily like a flaming ball, lighting up the sky, and everything on earth that was turned towards it: the dark face of Jesus, the walls of houses and the leaves of trees - everything obediently reflected that distant and terribly thoughtful light. The white wall was no longer white now, and the red city on the red mountain did not remain white.
And then Judas came.
He came, bowing low, arching his back, carefully and timidly stretching his ugly, lumpy head forward - just as those who knew him imagined him to be. He was thin, of good height, almost the same as Jesus, who stooped slightly from the habit of thinking while walking and this made him seem shorter, and he was quite strong in strength, apparently, but for some reason he pretended to be frail and sickly and had a voice changeable: sometimes courageous and strong, sometimes loud, like an old woman scolding her husband, annoyingly thin and unpleasant to hear, and often I wanted to pull the words of Judas out of my ears, like rotten, rough splinters. Short red hair did not hide the strange and unusual shape of his skull: as if cut from the back of the head with a double blow of a sword and put back together again, it was clearly divided into four parts and inspired distrust, even anxiety: behind such a skull there cannot be silence and harmony, behind such a skull there is always the sound of bloody and merciless battles can be heard. Judas’s face was also double: one side of it, with a black, sharply looking eye, was alive, mobile, willingly gathering into numerous crooked wrinkles. On the other there were no wrinkles, and it was deathly smooth, flat and frozen, and although it was equal in size to the first, it seemed huge from the wide open blind eye. Covered with a whitish turbidity, not closing either at night or during the day, he met both light and darkness equally, but whether because he had a living and cunning comrade next to him, one could not believe in his complete blindness. When, in a fit of timidity or excitement, Judas closed his living eye and shook his head, this one swayed along with the movements of his head and looked silently. Even people completely devoid of insight clearly understood, looking at Iscariot, that such a person could not bring good, but Jesus brought him closer and even sat Judas next to him.
John, his beloved student, moved away with disgust, and everyone else, loving their teacher, looked down disapprovingly. And Judas sat down - and, moving his head to the right and to the left, in a thin voice began to complain about illness, that his chest hurts at night, that, when climbing mountains, he suffocates, and standing at the edge of an abyss, he feels dizzy and can barely hold on from a stupid desire to throw himself down. And he shamelessly invented many other things, as if not understanding that illnesses do not come to a person by chance, but are born from the discrepancy between his actions and the precepts of the Eternal. This Judas from Kariot rubbed his chest with a wide palm and even coughed feignedly in the general silence and downcast gaze.
John, without looking at the teacher, quietly asked Peter Simonov, his friend:
“Aren’t you tired of this lie?” I can't stand her any longer and I'll leave here.
Peter looked at Jesus, met his gaze and quickly stood up.
- Wait! - he told his friend. He looked at Jesus again, quickly, like a stone torn from a mountain, moved towards Judas Iscariot and loudly said to him with broad and clear friendliness: “Here you are with us, Judas.”
He affectionately patted his hand on his bent back and, without looking at the teacher, but feeling his gaze on himself, decisively added in his loud voice, which crowded out all objections, like water crowds out air:
“It’s okay that you have such a nasty face: we also get caught in our nets who are not so ugly, and when it comes to food, they are the most delicious.” And it is not for us, the fishermen of our Lord, to throw away our catch just because the fish is prickly and one-eyed. I once saw an octopus in Tyre, caught by the local fishermen, and I was so scared that I wanted to run away. And they laughed at me, a fisherman from Tiberias, and gave me some to eat, and I asked for more, because it was very tasty. Remember, teacher, I told you about this, and you laughed too. And you, Judas, look like an octopus - only with one half.
And he laughed loudly, pleased with his joke. When Peter said something, his words sounded so firmly, as if he was nailing them down. When Peter moved or did something, he made a far-audible noise and evoked a response from the most deaf things: the stone floor hummed under his feet, the doors trembled and slammed, and the very air shuddered and made noise timidly. In the gorges of the mountains, his voice awakened an angry echo, and in the mornings on the lake, when they were fishing, he rolled round and round on the sleepy and shining water and made the first timid rays of the sun smile. And, probably, they loved Peter for this: on all the other faces the shadow of the night still lay, and his large head, and wide naked chest, and freely thrown arms were already burning in the glow of the sunrise.
Peter's words, apparently approved by the teacher, dispelled the painful state of those gathered. But some, who had also been by the sea and seen the octopus, were confused by its monstrous image, which Peter so frivolously dedicated to his new student. They remembered: huge eyes, dozens of greedy tentacles, feigned calm - and time! – hugged, doused, crushed and sucked, without even blinking his huge eyes. What is this? But Jesus is silent, Jesus smiles and looks from under his brows with friendly mockery at Peter, who continues to talk passionately about the octopus - and one after another the embarrassed disciples approached Judas, spoke kindly, but walked away quickly and awkwardly.
And only John Zebedee remained stubbornly silent and Thomas, apparently, did not dare to say anything, pondering what had happened. He carefully examined Christ and Judas, who were sitting next to each other, and this strange proximity of divine beauty and monstrous ugliness, a man with a gentle gaze and an octopus with huge, motionless, dull, greedy eyes oppressed his mind, like an unsolvable riddle. He tensely wrinkled his straight, smooth forehead, squinted his eyes, thinking that he would see better this way, but all he achieved was that Judas really seemed to have eight restlessly moving legs. But this was not true. Foma understood this and again looked stubbornly.
And Judas gradually dared: he straightened his arms, bent at the elbows, loosened the muscles that kept his jaw tense, and carefully began to expose his lumpy head to the light. She had been in everyone’s sight before, but it seemed to Judas that she was deeply and impenetrably hidden from view by some invisible, but thick and cunning veil. And now, as if he was crawling out of a hole, he felt his strange skull in the light, then his eyes - he stopped - he decisively opened his entire face. Nothing happened. Peter went somewhere, Jesus sat thoughtfully, leaning his head on his hand, and quietly shaking his tanned leg, the disciples talked among themselves, and only Thomas carefully and seriously looked at him like a conscientious tailor taking measurements. Judas smiled - Thomas did not return the smile, but apparently took it into account, like everything else, and continued to look at it. But something unpleasant was disturbing the left side of Judas’s face; he looked back: John was looking at him from a dark corner with cold and beautiful eyes, handsome, pure, not having a single spot on his snow-white conscience. And, walking like everyone else, but feeling as if he was dragging along the ground like a punished dog, Judas approached him and said:
- Why are you silent, John? Your words are like golden apples in transparent silver vessels, give one of them to Judas, who is so poor.
John looked intently into the motionless, wide-open eye and was silent. And he saw how Judas crawled away, hesitated hesitantly and disappeared into the dark depths of the open door.
Since the full moon rose, many went for a walk. Jesus also went for a walk, and from the low roof where Judas had made his bed, he saw those leaving. In the moonlight, each white figure seemed light and unhurried and did not walk, but as if glided in front of its black shadow, and suddenly the man disappeared into something black, and then his voice was heard. When people reappeared under the moon, they seemed silent - like white walls, like black shadows, like the entire transparent, hazy night. Almost everyone was already asleep when Judas heard the quiet voice of the returning Christ. And everything became quiet in the house and around it. A rooster crowed, resentfully and loudly, as if during the day, a donkey, who had woken up somewhere, crowed and reluctantly fell silent intermittently. But Judas still did not sleep and listened, hiding. The moon illuminated half of his face and, as in a frozen lake, was reflected strangely in his huge open eye.
Suddenly he remembered something and hastily coughed, rubbing his hairy, healthy chest with his palm: perhaps someone was still awake and listening to what Judas was thinking.
II
Gradually they got used to Judas and stopped noticing his ugliness. Jesus entrusted him with the money chest, and at the same time all household worries fell on him: he bought the necessary food and clothing, distributed alms, and during his wanderings he looked for a place to stop and spend the night. He did all this very skillfully, so that he soon earned the favor of some students who saw his efforts. Judas lied constantly, but they got used to it, because they did not see bad deeds behind the lie, and it gave special interest to Judas’ conversation and his stories and made life look like a funny and sometimes scary fairy tale.
According to Judas' stories, it seemed as if he knew all people, and every person he knew had committed some bad act or even a crime in his life. Good people, in his opinion, are those who know how to hide their deeds and thoughts, but if such a person is hugged, caressed and questioned well, then all untruths, abominations and lies will flow from him, like pus from a punctured wound. He readily admitted that sometimes he himself lies, but he assured with an oath that others lie even more, and if there is anyone deceived in the world, it is he, Judas. It happened that some people deceived him many times in this way and that. Thus, a certain treasure keeper of a rich nobleman once confessed to him that for ten years he had been constantly wanting to steal the property entrusted to him, but he could not, because he was afraid of the nobleman and his conscience. And Judas believed him, but he suddenly stole and deceived Judas. But even here Judas believed him, and he suddenly returned the stolen goods to the nobleman and again deceived Judas. And everyone deceives him, even animals: when he caresses the dog, she bites his fingers, and when he hits her with a stick, she licks his feet and looks into his eyes like a daughter. He killed this dog, buried it deep and even buried it with a large stone, but who knows? Perhaps because he killed her, she became even more alive and now does not lie in a hole, but runs happily with other dogs.
Everyone laughed merrily at Judas’ story, and he himself smiled pleasantly, narrowing his lively and mocking eye, and then, with the same smile, he admitted that he had lied a little: he did not kill that dog. But he will certainly find her and will certainly kill her, because he does not want to be deceived. And these words of Judas made them laugh even more.
But sometimes in his stories he crossed the boundaries of the probable and plausible and attributed to people such inclinations that even an animal does not have, accused them of crimes that never happened and never will happen. And since he named the names of the most respectable people, some were indignant at the slander, while others jokingly asked:
- Well, what about your father and mother, Judas, weren’t they good people?
Judas narrowed his eyes, smiled and spread his arms. And along with the shaking of his head, his frozen, wide-open eye swayed and looked silently.
-Who was my father? Maybe the man who beat me with a rod, or maybe the devil, the goat, or the rooster. How can Judas know everyone with whom his mother shared a bed? Judas has many fathers; who are you talking about?
But here everyone was indignant, since they greatly revered their parents, and Matthew, very well read in the Scriptures, sternly spoke in the words of Solomon:
“Whoever curses his father and mother, his lamp will go out in the midst of deep darkness.”
John Zebedee arrogantly said:
- Well, what about us? What bad thing can you say about us, Judas of Kariot?
But he waved his hands in feigned fear, hunched over and whined, like a beggar vainly begging for alms from a passerby:
- Oh, they are tempting poor Judas! They are laughing at Judas, they want to deceive poor, gullible Judas!
And while one side of his face writhed in buffoonish grimaces, the other swayed seriously and sternly, and his never-closing eye looked wide. Peter Simonov laughed the loudest and loudest at Iscariot’s jokes. But one day it happened that he suddenly frowned, became silent and sad, and hastily took Judas aside, dragging him by the sleeve.
- And Jesus? What do you think about Jesus? – He leaned over and asked in a loud whisper. - Just don't joke, please.
Judas looked at him angrily:
- And what do you think?
Peter whispered fearfully and joyfully:
“I think he is the son of the living God.”
- Why are you asking? What can Judas, whose father is a goat, tell you?
- But do you love him? It's like you don't love anyone, Judas.
With the same strange malice, Iscariot said abruptly and sharply:
After this conversation, Peter loudly called Judas his octopus friend for two days, and he clumsily and still angrily tried to slip away from him somewhere into a dark corner and sat there gloomily, his white, unclosed eye brightening.
Only Thomas listened to Judas quite seriously: he did not understand jokes, pretense and lies, playing with words and thoughts, and looked for the fundamental and positive in everything. And he often interrupted all Iscariot’s stories about bad people and actions with short businesslike remarks:
- This needs to be proven. Have you heard this yourself? Who else was there besides you? What's his name?
Judas became irritated and shrilly shouted that he had seen and heard it all himself, but stubborn Thomas continued to interrogate unobtrusively and calmly, until Judas admitted that he had lied, or invented a new plausible lie, which he thought about for a long time. And, having found a mistake, he immediately came and indifferently caught the liar. In general, Judas aroused strong curiosity in him, and this created something like a friendship between them, full of shouting, laughter and curses on the one hand, and calm, persistent questions on the other. At times Judas felt an unbearable disgust for his strange friend and, piercing him with a sharp gaze, said irritably, almost with a plea:
- But what do you want? I told you everything, everything.
“I want you to prove how a goat can be your father?” - Foma interrogated with indifferent persistence and waited for an answer.
It happened that after one of these questions Judas suddenly fell silent and in surprise examined him from head to toe with his eye: he saw a long, straight figure, a gray face, straight transparent light eyes, two thick folds running from his nose and disappearing into a tight, evenly trimmed hair. beard, and said convincingly:
- How stupid you are, Foma! What do you see in your dream: a tree, a wall, a donkey?
And Foma was somehow strangely embarrassed and did not object. And at night, when Judas was already covering his lively and restless eye for sleep, he suddenly said loudly from his bed - they were both now sleeping together on the roof:
-You're wrong, Judas. I have very bad dreams. What do you think: should a person also be responsible for his dreams?
- Does anyone else see dreams, and not himself?
Foma sighed quietly and thought. And Judas smiled contemptuously, tightly closed his thief's eye and calmly surrendered to his rebellious dreams, monstrous dreams, insane visions that tore his lumpy skull to pieces.
When, during Jesus’ wanderings through Judea, travelers approached some village, Iscariot told bad things about its inhabitants and foreshadowed trouble. But it almost always happened that the people about whom he spoke ill greeted Christ and his friends with joy, surrounded them with attention and love and became believers, and Judas’s money box became so full that it was difficult to carry it. And then they laughed at his mistake, and he meekly threw up his hands and said:
- So! So! Judas thought that they were bad, but they were good: they believed quickly and gave money. Again, it means they deceived Judas, poor, gullible Judas from Kariot!
But one day, having already moved far from the village that greeted them cordially, Thomas and Judas argued heatedly and returned back to resolve the dispute. Only the next day they caught up with Jesus and his disciples, and Thomas looked embarrassed and sad, and Judas looked so proudly, as if he expected that now everyone would begin to congratulate and thank him. Approaching the teacher, Thomas decisively declared:
- Judas is right, Lord. These were evil and stupid people, and the seed of your words fell on the stone.
And he told what happened in the village. After Jesus and his disciples left, one old woman began to shout that her young white goat had been stolen from her, and accused those who had left of the theft. At first they argued with her, and when she stubbornly proved that there was no one else to steal like Jesus, many believed and even wanted to go in pursuit. And although they soon found the kid entangled in the bushes, they still decided that Jesus was a deceiver and, perhaps, even a thief.
- So that’s how it is! – Peter cried, flaring his nostrils. - Lord, do you want me to go back to these fools, and...
But Jesus, who had been silent all the time, looked at him sternly, and Peter fell silent and disappeared behind him, behind the backs of the others. And no one spoke about what had happened anymore, as if nothing had happened at all and as if Judas had been wrong. In vain he showed himself from all sides, trying to make his bifurcated, predatory face with a hooked nose appear modest; no one looked at him, and if anyone did, it was very unfriendly, even with contempt.
And from that same day, Jesus’ attitude towards him changed somehow strangely. And before, for some reason, it was the case that Judas never spoke directly to Jesus, and he never directly addressed him, but he often looked at him with gentle eyes, smiled at some of his jokes, and if he did not see him for a long time, he asked: where is Judas? And now he looked at him, as if not seeing him, although as before, and even more stubbornly than before, he looked for him with his eyes every time he began to speak to his disciples or to the people, but either he sat with his back to him and threw words over his head. his own towards Judas, or pretended not to notice him at all. And no matter what he said, even if it was one thing today and something completely different tomorrow, even if it was the same thing that Judas was thinking, it seemed, however, that he was always speaking against Judas. And for everyone he was a tender and beautiful flower, fragrant with the rose of Lebanon, but for Judas he left only sharp thorns - as if Judas had no heart, as if he had no eyes and nose and no better than everyone else, he understood the beauty of tender and immaculate petals.
The story by Leonid Andreev, published in 1907, turned out to be unacceptable for many of his contemporaries, among whom was Leo Tolstoy. No wonder. The author decided to turn to one of the most complex characters in the Gospels - the traitor apostle Judas Iscariot. It so happened that, over the centuries, few people tried to identify the nature and motives of this betrayal, because the Gospel does not provide answers to these questions. Scripture only narrates events and actions:
"21. Having said this, Jesus was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”
22. Then the disciples looked around at each other, wondering who he was talking about... 26. Jesus answered: the one to whom I will dip a piece of bread and give it to. And having dipped the piece, he gave it to Judas Simon Iscariot 27. And after this piece Satan entered into him. Then Jesus said to him, “Whatever you are doing, do it quickly.” 28. But none of those reclining understood why He told him this. 29. And since Judas had a box, some thought that Jesus was saying to him: “Buy what we need for the holiday,” or to give something to the poor. 30. Having accepted the piece, he immediately went out; and it was night.
31 When he went out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.”
For what reason did Judas betray Jesus? The Gospel offers two options: the love of money and the entry of Satan into it. But why did Satan enter Judas specifically? Moreover, together with the piece of bread given to him by Jesus. We do not find psychological motivations in writing. This is what gives impetus to understanding the image of Judas and his actions. Andreev’s story is an occasion to reflect and find your point of view.
Let's decide right away. I do not agree with the opinions of critics who called the story an “apology for betrayal.” But the positive assessment of the Apostle Jude, in my opinion, is not acceptable. Throughout the entire narrative, Judas is characterized rather by negative qualities: he is deceitful, dishonest, and envious. So why did Jesus bring such a two-faced man close to him? This can be fully explained by such a concept as kenosis (self-abasement, self-abasement) of the deity. Indeed, Christ came to help the sick, not the healthy. Judas is free in his choice. He decides whether to betray or not. And, even if Christ is not particularly close to Judas, he emphatically puts him on an equal footing with the others, and even justifies him, as, for example, in the case of stealing money. This is also noticeable in the episode describing the competition between Peter and Judas, who alternately lift heavy stones in order to throw them down the mountain. Peter asks Jesus to help him win the race. “Who will help Judas?” asks Christ. But is this the only way to explain the acceptance of Judas among the elect? Could the god-man not have foreseen the betrayal? If so, does that mean God needs Judas? This thesis is very close to Berdyaev’s philosophy: God needs people just as much as people need him.
Despite Iscariot’s negative qualities, he cannot be accused of not loving Jesus. And this love is effective and decisive. He saves Christ and the apostles from stoning, he manages the finances, chooses the best wine for Jesus, etc. He is a believing materialist, who stands out among the apostolic disciples who comprehend the spiritual values of the teachings of Christ. Judas believes in a messiah who will establish divine power on earth based on goodness and justice. This is the great delusion of Judas. The Kingdom of God is impossible in this world; a completely different force rules here. But Judas is proud, and he decides to act. With his betrayal, he is trying to force God to show his power. Judas follows Jesus until his death, and waits, wondering when the time will come for retribution for these sinners who mock the deity. But something else is happening - a great atonement by the blood of the Savior for human sins.
This is the faith of Judah. But even after the death of Jesus he is full of pride. Iscariot blames the death of the savior and the high priests and apostles. He brands cowardice and apostasy; he no longer wants to be in the same world with these people - people who crucified God. He hurries to follow the Savior:
- No, they are too bad for Judas. Are you listening, Jesus? Now will you believe me? I am going to you. Greet me kindly, I'm tired. I am very tired. Then you and I, hugging like brothers, will return to earth. Fine?
The death of Iscariot, who hung himself on a branch over the abyss, is no less symbolic than the crucifixion of Christ.
Despite the attempt to reveal his image, the secret of Judas remains a mystery. Andreev’s work raises questions rather than provides answers. The figure of Judas attracts attention and remains iconic in world culture. After all, the onset of a new era in the history of mankind is connected with it. And yet, the last word of this complex, contradictory story is the word traitor.
Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev
Judas Iscariot
Jesus Christ was warned many times that Judas of Kerioth was a man of very bad reputation and should be avoided. Some of the disciples who were in Judea knew him well themselves, many had heard a lot about him from people, and there was no one who could say a good word about him. And if the good ones reproached him, saying that Judas was selfish, treacherous, prone to pretense and lies, then the bad ones, who were asked about Judas, reviled him with the most cruel words. “He constantly quarrels with us,” they said, spitting, “he thinks of something of his own and gets into the house quietly, like a scorpion, and comes out of it noisily. And thieves have friends, and robbers have comrades, and liars have wives to whom they tell the truth, and Judas laughs at thieves, as well as at honest ones, although he himself steals skillfully and is uglier in appearance than all the inhabitants of Judea. No, he is not ours, this red-haired Judas from Kariot,” said the bad ones, surprising the good people, for whom there was not much difference between him and all the other vicious people of Judea.
They further said that Judas abandoned his wife a long time ago and she lives unhappy and hungry, unsuccessfully trying to squeeze out bread for food from the three stones that make up Judas’s estate. He himself wandered around senselessly among the people for many years and even reached one sea and another sea, which was even further; and everywhere he lies, grimaces, vigilantly looks out for something with his thief's eye; and suddenly leaves suddenly, leaving behind troubles and quarrels - curious, crafty and evil, like a one-eyed demon. He had no children, and this once again said that Judas was a bad person and God did not want offspring from Judas.
None of the disciples noticed when this red-haired and ugly Jew first appeared near Christ; but for a long time now he had been relentlessly following their path, interfering in conversations, providing small services, bowing, smiling and ingratiating himself. And then it became completely familiar, deceiving tired vision, then suddenly it caught the eyes and ears, irritating them, like something unprecedentedly ugly, deceitful and disgusting. Then they drove him away with stern words, and for a short time he disappeared somewhere along the road - and then quietly appeared again, helpful, flattering and cunning, like a one-eyed demon. And there was no doubt for some of the disciples that in his desire to get closer to Jesus there was hidden some secret intention, there was an evil and insidious calculation.
But Jesus did not listen to their advice; their prophetic voice did not touch his ears. With that spirit of bright contradiction that irresistibly attracted him to the rejected and unloved, he decisively accepted Judas and included him in the circle of the chosen. The disciples were worried and grumbled restrainedly, but he sat quietly, facing the setting sun, and listened thoughtfully, maybe to them, or maybe to something else. There had been no wind for ten days, and the same transparent air, attentive and sensitive, remained the same, without moving or changing. And it seemed as if he had preserved in his transparent depths everything that was shouted and sung these days by people, animals and birds - tears, crying and a cheerful song, prayer and curses; and these glassy, frozen voices made him so heavy, anxious, thickly saturated with invisible life. And once again the sun set. It rolled down like a heavy flaming ball, lighting up the sky; and everything on earth that was turned towards him: the dark face of Jesus, the walls of houses and the leaves of trees - everything obediently reflected that distant and terribly thoughtful light. The white wall was no longer white now, and the red city on the red mountain did not remain white.
And then Judas came.
He came, bowing low, arching his back, carefully and timidly stretching his ugly, lumpy head forward - and just as those who knew him imagined him to be. He was thin, of good height, almost the same as Jesus, who was slightly stooped from the habit of thinking while walking and this made him seem shorter; and he was strong enough in strength, apparently, but for some reason he pretended to be frail and sickly and had a changeable voice: sometimes courageous and strong, sometimes loud, like an old woman scolding her husband, annoyingly thin and unpleasant to the ear: and often I wanted to pull the words of Judas out of my ears like rotten, rough splinters. Short red hair did not hide the strange and unusual shape of his skull: as if cut from the back of the head with a double blow of a sword and put back together again, it was clearly divided into four parts and inspired distrust, even anxiety: behind such a skull there cannot be silence and harmony, behind such a skull there is always the sound of bloody and merciless battles can be heard. Judas’s face was also double: one side of it, with a black, sharply looking eye, was alive, mobile, willingly gathering into numerous crooked wrinkles. On the other there were no wrinkles, and it was deathly smooth, flat and frozen: and although it was equal in size to the first, it seemed huge from the wide open blind eye. Covered with a whitish haze that did not close either night or day, it met both light and darkness equally; but was it because there was a living and cunning comrade next to him that he could not believe in his complete blindness? When, in a fit of timidity or excitement, Judas closed his living eye and shook his head, this one swayed along with the movements of his head and looked silently. Even people completely devoid of insight clearly understood, looking at Iscariot, that such a person could not bring good, but Jesus brought him closer and even sat Judas next to him.
John, his beloved student, moved away with disgust, and everyone else, loving their teacher, looked down disapprovingly. And Judas sat down - and, moving his head to the right and left, in a thin voice began to complain about illness, that his chest hurts at night, that, when climbing mountains, he is out of breath, and standing at the edge of an abyss, he feels dizzy and can barely hold on from a stupid desire to throw himself down. And he shamelessly invented many other things, as if not understanding that illnesses do not come to a person by chance, but are born from the discrepancy between his actions and the precepts of the Eternal. This Judas from Kariot rubbed his chest with a wide palm and even coughed feignedly in the general silence and downcast gaze.
John, without looking at the teacher, quietly asked Peter Simonov, his friend:
“Aren’t you tired of this lie?” I can't stand her any longer and I'll leave here.
Peter looked at Jesus, met his gaze and quickly stood up.
- Wait! - he told his friend.
He looked at Jesus again, quickly, like a stone torn from a mountain, moved towards Judas Iscariot and loudly said to him with broad and clear friendliness:
- Here you are with us, Judas.
He affectionately patted his hand on his bent back and, without looking at the teacher, but feeling his gaze on himself, decisively added in his loud voice, displacing all objections, like water displacing air:
“It’s okay that you have such a nasty face: we also get caught in our nets who are not so ugly, and when it comes to food, they are the most delicious.” And it’s not for us, our Lord’s fishermen, to throw away our catch just because the fish is prickly and one-eyed. I once saw an octopus in Tyre, caught by the local fishermen, and I was so scared that I wanted to run away. And they laughed at me, a fisherman from Tiberias, and gave me some to eat, and I asked for more, because it was very tasty. Remember, teacher, I told you about this, and you laughed too. And you, Judas, look like an octopus - only with one half.
And he laughed loudly, pleased with his joke. When Peter said something, his words sounded so firmly, as if he was nailing them down. When Peter moved or did something, he made a far-audible noise and evoked a response from the most deaf things: the stone floor hummed under his feet, the doors trembled and slammed, and the very air shuddered and made noise timidly. In the gorges of the mountains, his voice awakened an angry echo, and in the mornings on the lake, when they were fishing, he rolled round and round on the sleepy and shining water and made the first timid rays of the sun smile. And, probably, they loved Peter for this: on all the other faces the shadow of the night still lay, and his large head, and wide naked chest, and freely thrown arms were already burning in the glow of the sunrise.
Peter's words, apparently approved by the teacher, dispelled the painful state of those gathered. But some, who had also been by the sea and seen the octopus, were confused by its monstrous image, which Peter so frivolously dedicated to his new student. They remembered: huge eyes, dozens of greedy tentacles, feigned calm - and time! – hugged, doused, crushed and sucked, without even blinking his huge eyes. What is this? But Jesus is silent, Jesus smiles and looks from under his brows with friendly mockery at Peter, who continued to talk passionately about the octopus - and one after another the embarrassed disciples approached Judas, spoke kindly, but walked away quickly and awkwardly.
And only John Zebedee remained stubbornly silent and Thomas, apparently, did not dare to say anything, pondering what had happened. He carefully examined Christ and Judas, who were sitting next to each other, and this strange proximity of divine beauty and monstrous ugliness, a man with a gentle gaze and an octopus with huge, motionless, dull, greedy eyes oppressed his mind, like an unsolvable riddle. He tensely wrinkled his straight, smooth forehead, squinted his eyes, thinking that he would see better this way, but all he achieved was that Judas really seemed to have eight restlessly moving legs. But this was not true. Foma understood this and again looked stubbornly.
And Judas gradually became bolder: he straightened his arms, bent at the elbows, loosened the muscles that kept his jaw tense, and carefully began to expose his brownish head to the light. She had been in everyone’s sight before, but it seemed to Judas that she was deeply and impenetrably hidden from view by some invisible, but thick and cunning veil. And now, as if he was crawling out of a hole, he felt his strange skull in the light, then his eyes - he stopped - he decisively opened his entire face. Nothing happened. Peter went somewhere; Jesus sat thoughtfully, leaning his head on his hand, and quietly shook his tanned leg; The students talked among themselves, and only Thomas looked at him carefully and seriously, like a conscientious tailor taking measurements. Judas smiled - Thomas did not return the smile, but apparently took it into account, like everything else, and continued to look at it. But something unpleasant was disturbing the left side of Judas’s face - he looked back: John was looking at him from a dark corner with cold and beautiful eyes, handsome, pure, not having a single spot on his snow-white conscience. And, walking like everyone else, but feeling as if he was dragging along the ground like a punished dog, Judas approached him and said:
- Why are you silent, John? Your words are like golden apples in transparent silver vessels, give one of them to Judas, who is so poor.
John looked intently into the motionless, wide-open eye and was silent. And he saw how Judas crawled away, hesitated hesitantly and disappeared into the dark depths of the open door.
Since the full moon rose, many went for a walk. Jesus also went for a walk, and from the low roof where Judas had made his bed, he saw those leaving. In the moonlight, each white figure seemed light and leisurely and did not walk, but as if glided in front of its black shadow; and suddenly the man disappeared into something black, and then his voice was heard. When people reappeared under the moon, they seemed silent - like white walls, like black shadows, like the entire transparent, hazy night. Almost everyone was already asleep when Judas heard the quiet voice of the returning Christ. And everything became quiet in the house and around it. The rooster crowed; A donkey who had woken up somewhere screamed offendedly and loudly, as if during the day, and reluctantly, intermittently, fell silent. But Judas still did not sleep and listened, hiding. The moon illuminated half of his face and, as in a frozen lake, was reflected strangely in his huge open eye.
Suddenly he remembered something and hastily coughed, rubbing his hairy, healthy chest with his palm: perhaps someone was still awake and listening to what Judas was thinking.
Gradually they got used to Judas and stopped noticing his ugliness. Jesus entrusted him with the money chest, and at the same time all household worries fell on him: he bought the necessary food and clothing, distributed alms, and during his wanderings he looked for a place to stop and spend the night. He did all this very skillfully, so that he soon earned the favor of some students who saw his efforts. Judas lied constantly, but they got used to it, because they did not see bad deeds behind the lie, and it gave special interest to Judas’ conversation and his stories and made life look like a funny and sometimes scary fairy tale.
According to Judas' stories, it seemed as if he knew all people and every person he knew had committed some bad act or even a crime in his life. Good people, in his opinion, are those who know how to hide their deeds and thoughts; but if you hug such a person, caress him and question him thoroughly, then all untruths, abominations and lies will flow out of him, like pus from a punctured wound. He readily admitted that sometimes he himself lies, but he assured with an oath that others lie even more, and if there is anyone deceived in the world, it is he, Judas. It happened that some people deceived him many times in this way and that. Thus, a certain treasure keeper of a rich nobleman once confessed to him that for ten years he had been constantly wanting to steal the property entrusted to him, but he could not, because he was afraid of the nobleman and his conscience. And Judas believed him - and he suddenly stole and deceived Judas. But even then Judas believed him - and he suddenly returned the stolen goods to the nobleman and again deceived Judas. And everyone deceives him, even animals; when he caresses the dog, she bites his fingers, and when he hits her with a stick, she licks his feet and looks into his eyes like a daughter. He killed this dog, buried it deep and even buried it with a large stone, but who knows? Perhaps because he killed her, she became even more alive and now does not lie in a hole, but runs happily with other dogs.
Everyone laughed merrily at Judas’ story, and he himself smiled pleasantly, narrowing his lively and mocking eye, and then, with the same smile, he admitted that he had lied a little; He did not kill this dog. But he will certainly find her and will certainly kill her, because he does not want to be deceived. And these words of Judas made them laugh even more.
But sometimes in his stories he crossed the boundaries of the probable and plausible and attributed to people such inclinations that even an animal does not have, accused them of crimes that never happened and never will happen. And since he named the names of the most respectable people, some were indignant at the slander, while others jokingly asked:
- Well, what about your father and mother, Judas, weren’t they good people?
Judas narrowed his eyes, smiled and spread his arms. And along with the shaking of his head, his frozen, wide-open eye swayed and looked silently.
-Who was my father? Maybe the man who beat me with a rod, or maybe the devil, the goat, or the rooster. How can Judas know everyone with whom his mother shared a bed? Judas has many fathers: which one are you talking about?
