The agents of the priests sounded his disciples, hoping to obtain useful information from their weakness or their simplicity.  They found what they sought in Judas of Kerioth.  This wretch, actuated by motives impossible to explain, betrayed his Master, gave all the necessary information, and even undertook himself (although such an excess of vileness is scarcely credible) to guide the troop which was to effect his arrest.  The remembrance of horror which the folly or the wickedness of this man has left in the Christian tradition has doubtless given rise to some exaggeration on this point.  Judas, until then, had been a disciple like the others; he had even the title of apostle; and he had performed miracles and driven out demons.  Legend, which always uses strong and decisive language, describes the occupants of the little supper-room as eleven saints and one reprobate.  Reality does not proceed by such absolute categories.  Avarice, which the synoptics give as the motive of the crime in question, does not suffice to explain it.  It would be very singular if a man who kept the purse, and who knew what he would lose by the death of his chief, were to abandon the profits of his occupation[4] in exchange for a very small sum of money.[5] Had the self-love of Judas been wounded by the rebuff which he had received at the dinner at Bethany?  Even that would not explain his conduct.  John would have us regard him as a thief, an unbeliever from the beginning,[6] for which, however, there is no probability.  We would rather ascribe it to some feeling of jealousy or to some dissension amongst the disciples.  The peculiar hatred John manifests toward Judas[7] confirms this hypothesis.  Less pure in heart than the others, Judas had, from the very nature of his office, become unconsciously narrow-minded.  By a caprice very common to men engaged in active duties, he had come to regard the interests of the treasury as superior even to those of the work for which it was intended.  The treasurer had overcome the apostle.  The murmurings which escaped him at Bethany seem to indicate that sometimes he thought the Master cost his spiritual family too dear.  No doubt this mean economy had caused many other collisions in the little society.

[Footnote 1:  Matt. xxvi. 1, 5; Mark xiv. 1, 2; Luke xxii. 1, 2.]

[Footnote 2:  Matt. xxi. 46.]

[Footnote 3:  Matt. xxvi. 55.]

[Footnote 4:  John xii. 6.]

[Footnote 5:  John does not even speak of a payment in money.]

[Footnote 6:  John vi. 65, xii. 6.]

[Footnote 7:  John vi. 65, 71, 72, xii. 6; xiii. 2, 27, and following.]