How do you solve a problem like Judas?

I just finished all the monologues for a play I'm writing for Holy Week. In my take on The Last Supper I have each of the disciples arriving for the meal and, at some point, delivering a monologue to the audience showing their innermost thoughts about Jesus, their journey, and what they believe is about to happen. The first eleven disciples showed varying degrees of difficulty related to what research I could do on them and the various inner monologues that I was giving them. (My favorite is Nathanael/Bartholomew.) But today, after nearly two months working on this project, it was my turn to tackle the 12th disciple - Judas.

There's not much known about Judas prior to the Last Supper. He was one of the twelve disciples. John accused him of stealing from the group's purse (He was supposedly their treasurer). And Judas had that famous exchange with Jesus about the price of perfume that was used to anoint his feet - the one where Jesus said, "The poor will always be amongst us." That's really about it.

We do know, of course, that Judas took the 30 pieces of silver from the priests, betrayed Jesus with a kiss, and afterwards knew that he was cursed and hung himself from a tree. Ironically, it was here that I started in my quest to unlock what Judas might say in the moments leading up to his betrayal.

Had Judas merely been evil, Jesus' arrest and death would not have made Judas commit suicide. This was no Thelma and Louise style self-sacrifice - Judas wasn't surrounded by cops and decided to kill himself rather than face the music. On the contrary, Judas might have been regarded by some people in the establishment as a hero - the man who finally rid them of Jesus. No, Judas felt guilt - the kind of guilt so terrible that it makes you wish that you were dead. He realized, too late, that he had betrayed his friend and killed him.

So, back up. Judas knowingly took 30 pieces of silver. He knowingly kissed Jesus. And only after the fact did he have guilt about it? What was Judas thinking?

When I wrote my first novel I had to go to some pretty dark places. How does one write a rape scene, for instance, from the point of the view of the rapist? Its not an easy thing to do. I discovered that the only way into such a scene was to approach it from my own point of view and then skew it so far out of whack that I could imagine myself doing that horrible thing. In the case of the novel, I had to take an idea of lust and give it steroids to the point that the rage and the anger and the passion all combined to make this character rape another character. It was a very dark thing to write and it was a very hard thing to imagine. After writing that scene, I knew that I wanted nothing more to do with stories that dark again.

The reason I mention this is that I had to somewhat the same thing with Judas - but I think it was a little easier this time. I started with what I knew about Judas - that he was a thief, but that he was also a disciple - and I added what I knew about Judas after the Last Supper - that he was so remorseful that he killed himself - and I came up with a scenario that worked in my head.

Basically, I have Judas leaving a somewhat blameless life - human, not perfect - who succumbs to temptation. I simply extrapolated a situation where I succumbed to temptation into the story. Judas takes some coins from the purse for his own gain - not out of any perceived notion of greed, but simply to pay for a better meal and a nicer place to stay while on the road. Its still theft and its still greed, but its easily justifiable to Judas' way of thinking. Since he's in charge of the purse, he knows that he'll be able to pay it all back without anyone knowing about it. Except that maybe it worked too well. He was able to pay it back and nobody noticed or said anything. So he did it again. And again. And... then John started to suspect Judas. Judas became paranoid that they were on to him. He needed to pay back all that he had borrowed. He hears that the priests are offering 30 pieces of silver to anyone who helps them arrest Jesus. So far, Jesus has been able to make the High Priests look like fools every time he's dealt with them. A little arrest will be no big deal for Jesus. He'll make the priests look like idiots again and then they'll all continue on their way. In the meantime, Judas can put the 30 pieces of silver into the purse and nobody will be any the wiser. Of course, if his plan works, he swears that he will never borrow money again. Maybe he'll even suggest that someone else take the purse for a while.

Of course, we all know that the plan backfired. Jesus was arrested, flogged, put on trial and executed. Judas, seeing it all spin out of control, and knowing that he was the one responsible, would have known that he was cursed. So, he kills himself.

There is no evil mustache twirling villain here. Jesus was not so blind as to have the greatest villain in history as one of his disciples. The real tragedy of this evil is that its the sort of evil human beings perpetuate every day of existence - the lie told to ourselves, the delusions, the greed, the belief that they can get away with it without anyone knowing. As Jesus was the greatest of all human beings, unfortunately Judas was the worst case example of where sinning can lead us - the epitome of what happens when we sin and become separated from God forever.