There's been a bit of a tempest lately about this new "Gospel of Judas" by Jeffrey Archer. My first reaction was a cynical "so what else is new". That's probably not a good thing to have to admit. Then I got to thinking, "you know, there are probably a few people who just might get suckered in to believing what's in there". For that, I'm most grateful to the rapid and comprehensive witness to the truth delivered by all those in St. Blog's.
For that matter, I'm in agreement with Jimmy Akin when he says:
I don't know what it is with authors (and filmmakers) who want to rehabilitate Judas in this fashion.But I suspect it's this: They themselves have an uneasy conscience.
They themselves feel that they have betrayed Christ (as have we all by our sins), but rather than throw themselves on Christ's mercy and accepting his grace, they want to rationalize or excuse their sins and so--using the character of Judas as a psychological surrogate for themselves--they rationalize and excuse his in fictional form.
The underlying psychological message they're trying to give themselves is: Hey, if Judas didn't really betray Christ--if he was a tragic victim of circumstance--then that's what I am, too. I haven't really betrayed him. I'm just a victim of fate, too, and I'm not really responsible for what I've done.
By their lives of Judas you shall know them.
That is a message we can't get through to people fast or deeply enough. If you run into someone pretending to have some deep knowledge (or is that, "gnosis"?) that the Early Church was busy covering up, you've probably run into someone who is busy doing what they call in psychology "transference". They have problems, so they transfer them to the Church and voila everything makes sense again. Kind of like those Pharisees of old who refused to believe what was standing in front of them and made up their own interpretation of history to conform to their intentions.
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