Friday January 13, 2006

Judas Priests

It looks like the Catholic Church is finally catching up with Borges. According to this article [via], Catholic scholars are looking at rehabilitating Judas in order to resolve longstanding theological questions about the betrayer’s role in God’s divine plan. In his story “Three Versions of Judas,” Borges, of course, considered the somewhat more radical possibility that Judas was the true savior—since, unlike Jesus, he sacrificed his own eternal salvation for mankind.

This used to be a favorite philosophical plaything when we were all consumed with Borges back in grad school. This Wikipedia entry details some of the cases for rehabilitating Judas. Phillip Seymour Hoffman also recently staged The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, a play by Stephen Adly Guirgis in which Sam Rockwell portrayed the conflicted traitor. The argument I’ve never seen anywhere, however, is this: Since Judas committed suicide even before the crucifixion, doesn’t that make him the most faithful apostle? Peter and Thomas both doubted before they witnessed the resurrection. Judas knew what he’d done.

In any event, whatever the Vatican does, I doubt the American Family Association is going to go for it.