Judas Iscariot the Apostle

Drawing of Judas by Lorenzo Ferri Salton under the indications of Maria Valtorta. Source: documentary collection of the Maria Valtorta Heritage Foundation.

Judas, the apostle who betrayed the Christ, holds a significant place in the work of Maria Valtorta. In one of her dictations, Jesus advises the reader:

"for you it is necessary to learn by studying Judas, and I say that particularly for those who are responsible for the spiritual care of souls."

Later, he justifies the importance given to this apostle in the visions and dictations given to Maria Valtorta:

"Why do I elucidate Judas’ figure? Many may wonder why. I reply. Judas’ figure has been distorted too much in the course of time. And lately it has been completely perverted. Some schools have sung his praises as if he had been the second and indispensable author of Redemption. Many also think that he succumbed to a sudden fierce assault of the Temptor. No. Every fall has premises in time."

Origin

He is a Judean from Kerioth south of Hebron. He is the only son of Simon and Mary.

Appearance

Judas is "handsome and young." He is about 25 years old and about the same height as Jesus, approximately 1.80 m. He has dark hair and complexion, black eyes and curly hair, but short, in the Judean fashion. Martha describes him as clean-shaven, but Lorenzo Ferri, drawing him according to Maria Valtorta's description, portrays him with a beard. No doubt he followed the fashion of the time. He has a tenor voice, powerful and with unusual Beauty.

He is always elegant, a trait he shares with Matthew, Simon the Zealot and Bartholomew.

Character

He was a spoiled and capricious child who became ambitious and greedy under the influence of his father who pushed him early on to make a career in Jerusalem.

Judas is gifted but deceitful:

"You have intelligence, boldness, education, readiness, fine appearance and so many other attributes. But they are disorganised within you and you leave them as they are", Jesus said to him.

Much later, when Judas is Satanized and close to his final betrayal, Jesus tells him:

"You are a demon: You have stolen the Serpent’s prerogative to seduce and deceive in order to take people away from God. Your behaviour is neither a stone nor a club, but it hurts Me more than a blow with a stone or a club. Oh! in my atrocious suffering there will be nothing greater than your behaviour capable of torturing the Martyr."

Judas lies without changing color. Even in his best moments, he is always violent and authoritarian. Under the effect of distress, he talks to himself aloud.

He is contemptuous:

"I know I can make a fool of Her", he said in a monologue speaking of the Virgin Mary, "She is as dull as ditch-water… [...] She confuses virtue with foolishness. Like Mother like Son..."

Judas is also subject to sudden reversals according to moments of consciousness:

"I am a demon, I am a demon," he said to Jesus. "Save me, Master, as You save so many demoniacs. Save me! Save me!"

Jesus keeps sending him back to his will. But his good intentions are short-lived. His badly channeled temperament causes him to succumb to the seductions of the world:

"Gold is your ruin. Because of gold you have become lustful and treacherous…"

Judas is so complex that he is impossible to decipher, observes Maria Valtorta. Judas’ mother had immediately entrusted her pain to Jesus:

"Be careful of my son. He is greedy, hard-hearted, vicious, proud and inconstant".

The Virgin Mary herself had this intuition:

"I do not like him, Son. His eye is not crystal-clear and his heart even less so. He frightens Me. [...] in case You should disappoint him, he will not hesitate to take Your place, or endeavour to do so. He is ambitious, greedy and vicious. He is more suitable to be the courtier of a worldly king, than Your apostle, My Son. [...]"

In a dictation to Maria Valtorta, Jesus paints an indictment but nuanced portrait:

"My eyes had seen into the heart of Judas Iscariot. [...] Deceitful, shrewd, greedy, lustful, dishonest, more intelligent and cultured than the masses, he had been able to impose himself on everybody. Daring as he was, he prepared the way for Me, also when the way was a difficult one. He was above all fond of standing out and showing his position of trust near Me. He was not obliging out of instinctive charity, but only because he was one of those whom you would call a 'hustler'. That enabled him also to look after the purse and approach women. Two things which he loved without restraint, together with a third one: position amongst men. The Pure, Humble Virgin, detached from earthly wealth, could but feel disgust for that serpent. I felt disgust, too. And only I and the Father and the Spirit know what I had to overcome to be able to endure him at My side."

Judas is poorly accepted by the other apostles: they distrust him and poorly tolerate his moods. Without Jesus personally watching over his constant integration, he would be rejected.

Paradoxically, he is the one Jesus loved most of all the apostles, but with a suffering love: while Judas roots himself in a path of perdition, Jesus, in a pathetic dialogue with his Father, asks to live a second Passion solely to save Judas’s soul, which God refuses.

Judas becomes disciple

Judas is briefly engaged to Joanna, a girl from Kerioth. He abandons her to try to marry a rich heiress from Jerusalem. Joanna dies and Judas joins the Temple.

There, like Thomas, he witnesses Jesus expelling the merchants from the Temple. Struck with admiration, they ask to follow him. Jesus accepts Thomas, but gives Judas time to reflect:

"You want to follow Me for a human reason, Judas. But I must dissuade you. I have not come for that."

After reflection, Judas confirms his intention to commit to following Jesus:

"I reject nobody, because those who reject do not love", said Jesus.

Judas becomes the 10th apostle. Prophetically, his admission takes place at Gethsemane, where, three years later, Jesus’ Passion will begin. But it is in Kerioth, Judas's village, that Jesus officially launches the apostolic ministry: the apostles will now speak on his behalf. Judas had prepared the home of the Christ through his mother and the inhabitants of Kerioth by speaking of him as the King promised to Israel. This displeases Jesus greatly, who tells him (privately, to avoid humiliating him):

"Judas: what have you done? Have you understood so little of Me so far? Why lower Me to the extent of making Me only a mighty man of the world, and what is more: a man intriguing to become mighty? And do you not understand that that is an offence, even an obstacle to My mission? Yes. Do not deny it. It is an obstacle."

The beginnings of betrayal

The ambiguity between earthly and heavenly glory shows in Judas’s teaching when he speaks publicly. His distorted vision of Jesus’s mission leads him to first disserve him among the notables of Nazareth. Then he reports to the Temple, for a "good cause," the presence among Jesus’s followers of an uncircumcised (Hermasteus), a runaway slave (Syntyche) and a former galley slave (John of Endor).

Judas believes Jesus’s earthly kingdom is imminent when Claudia Procula, spouse of Pontius Pilate, promises Jesus her protection. He then multiplies ambiguous statements. Claudia Procula and Chuza, steward of Herod Antipas, fear a sedition and Jesus has to reassure them. Disappointed by Claudia Procula’s protection, Judas reconnects with his contacts at the Temple: Elchias and Simon, the Sanhedrin member. These Sanhedrists were more than ready to annihilate Jesus.

During an initial retreat, Judas had made efforts to conform to Jesus’s expectations:

"Gold has always been a serpent to me," he admitted before becoming the apostolic group’s treasurer. "I do not want to suffer from its charm anymore. Because I feel so well now that I am good. I feel free. And I am happy."

But he does not persist and his tendency resumes control. He absents himself from the group under false excuses.

An illness cured by the holy women gives him the opportunity to question himself: "I mistrust myself," he admits. He also questions himself about death.

Jesus still hopes

Jesus encourages him:

"Judas, you are still in time to choose between My way and the way of the Judaeans, whom you approve of. But consider that My way goes to God; the other to God’s Enemy. Consider that and make up your mind. But be sincere."

Judas briefly confesses to Jesus:

"«But it is hard, Master, to say: “I have sinned.”» «I know, My friend.», replies Jesus. [...] «I now forgive you and cure you… With what joy you have filled Me, My Judas!»"

But it does not last.

The descent into hell

Judas begins to steal from the common purse. He indulges in necromancy.

The spiritual break with Jesus increases when he notices that the power to perform miracles, given to the apostles, has disappeared for himself:

"To me, Master. It is because of You that I no longer have power. You took it away from me to increase it in John, Simon, James, in everybody, except me. You do not love me, that’s what it is! And I will end up by not loving You and by cursing the hour when I did love You [...]" he said to Jesus.

Because of necromancy, which involves dark forces and is firmly condemned by the Bible:

"You stink of hell more than Satan himself!" Jesus tells him.

But Judas no longer believes in Hell or in Satan:

"You do not see or perceive Satan, because he is all one with you." warns Jesus.

Judas tries to lead John, the youngest of the apostles, whose purity Jesus so loves, into debauchery. He increasingly steals so that the Master praises his false generosity. Magic and necromancy compensate for the loss of his power to perform miracles. He calls his mother sick, then reconciles with her.

"Judas went so far as to hate God, as he had never loved his father and mother or any other neighbour with true love.", says Jesus.

In a monologue, Judas fully recognizes the consequences of a betrayal against Jesus. But he makes a definitive choice against which Jesus can do nothing:

"I would like not to have become Incarnate in vain for you", Jesus said to him. "But by now you belong to another father, to another country, you speak a different language…"

Judas’s possession becomes evident when Jesus and John catch him stealing: for a time, Satan speaks through Judas’s mouth.

Final possession

A few days before the Passion, Jesus tries to prevent Judas from entering Jerusalem. The dialogue is harsh. Judas no longer listens; he sees himself as the eternal persecuted, with neither remorse nor regret. Jesus collapses:

"Oh! Father! Will You accuse Me of omitting anything that may save him? You know that I am struggling to prevent his crime for the sake of his soul, not for my life… Father! Oh! Father! I beg You! Hasten the hour of darkness, the hour of the Sacrifice, because it is too cruel for Me to live near the friend who does not want to be redeemed…"

Shortly after, Jesus updates for his apostles the prophecy of Genesis 3:15:

"The most cunning demon has blended with the most corrupt man, and like the poison enclosed in the teeth of an asp, the demon is closed in him who can approach the Woman [Mary] and thus bite Her treacherously. Cursed be the hybrid monster that is Satan and is man! Shall I curse it? No. It is not the word of a Redeemer."

But he omits the name of the man so corrupt he just mentioned.
Judas witnesses only one great event: the Last Supper. This "communion" with the body and blood of Christ accelerates his Satanic possession. In a dictation, Jesus comments:

"If he had only thrown himself at the feet of My Mother saying: 'Mercy', She, the Merciful Mother, would have picked him up as a wounded man [...]"

While the body of the Christ resurrects in glory, Judas’s body, who has hanged himself in suicide, undergoes accelerated decay. His decomposing body is thrown into the Temple, probably by pagans. Likewise, his entrails are thrown against the house of High Priest Anna. Subsequently, the Sanhedrin decides to bury his remains at the foot of the olive tree where he hanged himself.

An atrocious, eternal suffering

There was no predestination of Judas’s soul:

"Between the soul of John, I mean the Baptist, and yours, there was no difference, when they were infused into your bodies. [...] Good and Evil were placed before you. You chose Evil."

"[...] I could do nothing in Judas because his heart was possessed, nor could I penetrate into it because he barred my entry. He followed Me out of human hope. He betrayed Me out of human greed. He sold the Christ to his crucifiers and his soul to Satan, who had been instigating him for years, for Satan is not God, who gives even if you do not give so as to conquer you for Himself. Satan wants one hundred percent. He wants you, eternally, in exchange for an hour of deceitful success. Remember this. I endured this snake in the group to teach men forbearance and persistence in order to save. Not a single one of Judas' thoughts was unknown to Me. And it was an advance passion to have him nearby. A torment which you do not contemplate, but which was no less bitter than the others. I taught you to put up with bothersome things and persons‑for what person is more repulsive than the one who betrays?"

On Mount Tabor, where he appears to the five hundred disciples, the resurrected Jesus still suffers the damnation of Judas. He confides:

"Judas has been and is the deepest sorrow in the sea of My sorrows. It is the sorrow that remains… The other sorrows have come to an end with the end of the Sacrifice. But this one remains. I loved him. I consumed Myself in the effort to save him… I was able to open the doors of Limbo and bring out the just, I was able to open the doors of Purgatory, and bring out those who were being purified. But the place of horror was closed upon him. In vain I died for him."

Judas is damned, Jesus specifies:

"he is the damned deicide, infinitely guilty as an Israelite and as a disciple, as a suicide and a deicide, in addition to his seven deadly sins and every other sin of his."

He is in hell for eternity:

"I solemnly tell you that, if Hell did not already exist and was not perfect in its torments, it would have been created even more dreadful and eternal for Judas, because of all sinners and damned souls, he is the most damned and the biggest sinner, and throughout eternity there will be no mitigation of his sentence."

Jesus had revealed to Judas the terrifying fate of the deicide:

"Because Blood will have for him the power of damnation and he will forever know another fire, in which he will burn belching blood and swallowing blood, because he will see blood wherever he lays his material or spiritual eyes, having betrayed the Blood of a God."

His name

Judas יהודה (Yehouda) or Jude, like its feminine Judith, come from the Hebrew “yehoudi,” meaning Judean, Jew. Historical references: Judah, son of Jacob. Judas Maccabeus, the liberator of the Jewish people.

Where is he discussed in the work?

GRM 35

Calling of the first apostles: GRM 53 GRM 54 GRM 66 GRM 67 GRM 68 GRM 69 GRM 70 GRM 70 GRM 71 GRM 72 GRM 73 GRM 74 GRM 75 GRM 76 GRM 77 GRM 78 GRM 79 GRM 80 GRM 81 GRM 82 GRM 83 GRM 83 GRM 85 GRM 86

Calling of the last apostles: GRM 87 GRM 88 GRM 89 GRM 90 GRM 91 GRM 92 GRM 93 GRM 94 GRM 95 GRM 96 GRM 97 GRM 98 GRM 99 GRM 100 GRM 101 GRM 106 GRM 102 GRM 104 GRM 112 GRM 115 GRM 116 GRM 117 GRM 118

Beginning of common life: GRM 119 GRM 120 GRM 121 GRM 122 GRM 123 GRM 124 GRM 125 GRM 126 GRM 127 GRM 128 GRM 132 GRM 133 GRM 134 GRM 135 GRM 136 GRM 137 GRM 138 GRM 139 GRM 140 GRM 141 GRM 142 GRM 143 GRM 144 GRM 145 GRM 146 GRM 147 GRM 149 GRM 152 GRM 153 GRM 154 GRM 155 GRM 157 GRM 158

Election of the apostles: GRM 160 GRM 161 GRM 162 GRM 163 GRM 164 GRM 165 GRM 166

Sermon on the Mount: GRM 169 GRM 170 GRM 171 GRM 172 GRM 173 GRM 174 GRM 176 GRM 177 GRM 178 GRM 179 GRM 180 GRM 181 GRM 182 GRM 183 GRM 184 GRM 186

Second paschal journey: GRM 187 GRM 188 GRM 189 GRM 190 GRM 191 GRM 192 GRM 193 GRM 194 GRM 195 GRM 196 GRM 197 GRM 198 GRM 199 GRM 200 GRM 201 GRM 202 GRM 203 GRM 205 GRM 206 GRM 206 GRM 207 GRM 208 GRM 210 GRM 211 GRM 212 GRM 212 GRM 214 GRM 215 GRM 216 GRM 217 GRM 218 GRM 219 GRM 220 GRM 221 GRM 222 GRM 223 GRM 224 GRM 225 GRM 226 GRM 228 GRM 230 GRM 232 GRM 233 GRM 235 GRM 237 GRM 238 GRM 239 GRM 240 GRM 241 GRM 242 GRM 243 GRM 244 GRM 247 GRM 248 GRM 249 GRM 250 GRM 251 GRM 252 GRM 253 GRM 254 GRM 255

Sending of apostles and disciples on Mission: GRM 256 GRM 257 GRM 260 GRM 261 GRM 262 GRM 264 GRM 265 GRM 268 GRM 269 GRM 271 GRM 272 GRM 273 GRM 274 GRM 275 GRM 276 GRM 277 GRM 278 GRM 279 GRM 280 GRM 281 GRM 282 GRM 283 GRM 284 4.149 - GRM 294 GRM 296 GRM 297 GRM 298 GRM 299 GRM 300 GRM 301 GRM 302 GRM 303 GRM 309 GRM 310.

GRM 313 GRM 317 GRM 333 GRM 334 GRM 335 GRM 336 GRM 338 GRM 339 GRM 340 GRM 341 GRM 342 GRM 343 GRM 344 GRM 345 GRM 346 GRM 347

The Transfiguration and the Bread of Heaven: GRM 348 GRM 349 GRM 350 GRM 351 GRM 352 GRM 353 GRM 354 GRM 355 GRM 356 GRM 357 GRM 358 GRM 359 GRM 360 GRM 361 GRM 362 GRM 363

The penultimate Passover: GRM 364 GRM 365 GRM 366 GRM 367 GRM 368 GRM 369 GRM 370 GRM 371 GRM 372 GRM 374 GRM 375 GRM 376 GRM 377 GRM 378 GRM 379 GRM 380 GRM 381 GRM 382 GRM 383 GRM 384 GRM 385 GRM 386 GRM 387 GRM 388 GRM 393 GRM 394 GRM 395 GRM 398 GRM 399 GRM 400 GRM 401 GRM 402 GRM 403 GRM 404 GRM 405 GRM 406 GRM 407 GRM 408 GRM 410 GRM 411 GRM 412

Pentecost: GRM 413 GRM 414 GRM 415 GRM 416 GRM 417 GRM 418 GRM 419 GRM 420 GRM 421 GRM 422 GRM 423 GRM 426 GRM 427 GRM 428 GRM 429 GRM 430 GRM 430 GRM 431 GRM 432 GRM 435 GRM 437 GRM 438 GRM 439 GRM 440 GRM 441 GRM 442 GRM 445 GRM 446 GRM 447 GRM 448 GRM 449 GRM 450 GRM 451 GRM 452 GRM 453 GRM 454 GRM 455 GRM 456 GRM 457 GRM 458 GRM 459 GRM 460 GRM 461 GRM 465 –GRM 466 GRM 467 GRM 468 GRM 468 GRM 469 GRM 470 GRM 471 GRM 475 GRM 473 GRM 473 GRM 474 GRM 475 GRM 481 GRM 482 GRM 483

The Feast of Tabernacles: GRM 485 GRM 492 GRM 493 GRM 495 –GRM 496 GRM 497 GRM 498 GRM 499 GRM 500 GRM 501 GRM 502 GRM 503 GRM 504 GRM 505 GRM 507 GRM 509 GRM 510 GRM 511 GRM 514 GRM 515 GRM 517 GRM 518 GRM 519 GRM 520

The Feast of Dedication: GRM 527 GRM 528 GRM 529 GRM 530 GRM 531 GRM 532 GRM 533 GRM 535 GRM 536 GRM 537 GRM 538

The Resurrection of Lazarus: GRM 547 GRM 550

Exile in Samaria: GRM 551 GRM 552 GRM 553 GRM 554 GRM 555 GRM 556 GRM 557 GRM 559 GRM 560 GRM 561 GRM 564 GRM 565 GRM 566 GRM 567 GRM 568 GRM 571 GRM 573 GRM 574 GRM 575

Return to Jerusalem: GRM 576 GRM 577 GRM 579 GRM 580 GRM 582 GRM 584 GRM 586 GRM 601 GRM 106 GRM 477 GRM 587 GRM 588

Holy Week: GRM 589 GRM 590 GRM 591 GRM 592 GRM 593 GRM 594 GRM 595 GRM 596 GRM 597 GRM 598

The Passion: GRM 600 9.20 GRM 602 GRM 604 GRM 605 GRM 605 GRM 609 GRM 611 GRM 612 GRM 614 GRM 615

Resurrection Sunday: GRM 616 GRM 628 GRM 630 10.18/2 GRM 634 GRM 635 GRM 647 GRM 648 GRM 649 GRM 652

Learn more about this character

In other works by Maria Valtorta

Catechesis of January 2, 1944 – 11 p.m.

"[John of Zebedee] was the youngest in the apostolic group. The Iscariot came after him in age. And he, too, could have been like John by virtue of his age. But he was not. And if he was not virginal, neither did he become chaste after having known Me. He was impure. And impurity impedes God's work in hearts and favors Satan's as does no other passion.

His face is familiar to you. It's that one. He appeared to you as the Seducer. For, in his attractiveness, he in fact resembled the Most Attractive One, who had rebelled against God and who is the father of all God's enemies.

Attractiveness, too, is a weapon in Satan's hands, and he does not neglect impressing his seductive character on his instruments. In this way he attracts them towards his abyss and can gnaw at their hearts, injecting the threefold sin into them. And Judas had concupiscence in his heart regarding money, the flesh, and power.[...]."

Catechesis of January 15, 1944

"[Men of our time, instructed by Satan, believe] sacrilegiously that the greatest of all the sinners of mankind, the favorite son of Satan, the one who was a thief, as stated in the Gospel, who was lascivious and anxious for human glory, as I state, the Iscariot, who through the hunger of the threefold concupiscence became a merchant of the Son of God and for thirty coins and with the sign of a kiss‑a ridiculous monetary value and an infinite emotional value‑placed Me in the hands of the executioners, can be redeemed and arrive at Me by passing through successive stages. No. If he was the sacrilegious one par excellence, I am not. If he was the unjust one par excellence, I am not. If he was the one who shed my Blood with disdain, I am not. And to forgive Judas would be sacrilege for my Divinity, betrayed by him; it would be injustice towards all other men, who are always less blameworthy than he and are still punished for their sins; it would be disdain for my Blood; finally, it would be to neglect my laws."

In other sources

Excerpts from the Dictionary of Gospel Characters, according to Maria Valtorta (Msgr. René Laurentin, François-Michel Debroise, Jean-François Lavère), Editions Salvator, 2012:

In the Gospel of Judas, a 2nd-century apocryphal narrative, the apostle is presented as an initiated who dedicates himself to denouncing Jesus on orders from him, so as to fulfill the Scripture.

According to Irenaeus of Lyon, 2nd century and Epiphanius of Salamis, 4th century, this text was part of the Cainite writings, a community that venerated Cain and the sodomites. It came from the Ophites who found in the serpent’s words of Genesis an invitation to esoteric gnosis.

Judas’s damnation was considered evident until the beginning of the 20th century. Since then, Judas has sometimes been presented as an excusable victim of his tendencies or saved by divine mercy because of his role in Redemption, which Maria Valtorta denies, as can be read: Judas is damned for eternity.