Appearance of Judas Iscariot Andreev. Integrated lesson on L. Andreev's story "Judas Iscariot"

A few words about Leonid Andreev

Once in the Russian National Library I happened to get acquainted with the first issue of the magazine “Satyricon”, which was published, as you know, in 1908. The reason was to study the work of Arkady Averchenko or, more likely, to collect materials for writing a novel in which one of the chapters takes place in St. Petersburg in 1908. On the last page of "Satyricon" a cartoon portrait of Leonid Andreev was placed. The following was written:

“Rejoice that you are holding an issue of Satyricon in your hands.” Rejoice that such a person is your contemporary... He once looked into the Abyss, and horror froze forever in his eyes. And from then on he laughed only with a blood-chilling Red laugh.”

The cheerful magazine ironized the darkly prophetic image of Leonid Andreev, referring to his stories “The Abyss” and “Red Laughter”. Leonid Andreev was very popular in those years: his elegant style, expressiveness of presentation, and bold subject matter attracted the reading public to him.

Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev was born on August 9 (21 n.s.) 1871 in the city of Orel. His father was a land surveyor and tax collector, his mother was from the family of a bankrupt Polish landowner. At the age of six he learned to read “and read extremely a lot, everything that came to hand”. At the age of 11 he entered the Oryol gymnasium, from which he graduated in 1891. In May 1897, after graduating from the Faculty of Law of Moscow University, he was planning to become a sworn attorney, but unexpectedly received an offer from a lawyer he knew to take the place of a court reporter in the Moskovsky Vestnik newspaper. Having received recognition as a talented reporter, two months later he moved to the Courier newspaper. Thus began the birth of the writer Andreev: he wrote numerous reports, feuilletons, and essays.

Literary debut - the story “In Cold and Gold” (zvezda, 1892, No. 16). At the beginning of the century, Andreev became friends with A.M. Gorky and together with him joined the circle of writers united around the publishing house “Znanie”. In 1901, the St. Petersburg publishing house “Znanie”, headed by Gorky, published “Stories” by L. Andreev. The following were also published in the literary collections “Knowledge”: the story “The Life of Vasily of Fiveysky” (1904); story “Red Laughter” (1905); dramas “To the Stars” (1906) and “Sava” (1906); story “Judas Iscariot and Others” (1907). In “Rosehip” (an almanac of modernist orientation): drama “Human Life” (1907); story "Darkness" (1907); "The Tale of the Seven Hanged Men" (1908); pamphlet “My Notes” (1908); drama "Black Masks" (1908); the plays “Anfisa” (1909), “Ekaterina Ivanovna” (1913) and “The One Who Receives Slaps” (1916); story “The Yoke of War. Confessions of a Little Man about Great Days" (1916). Andreev's last major work, written under the influence of the world war and revolution, is “Notes of Satan” (published in 1921).

I. Repin. Portrait of L. Andreev

Andreev did not accept the October Revolution. At that time he lived with his family at a dacha in Finland and in December 1917, after Finland gained independence, he found himself in exile. The writer died on September 12, 1919 in the village of Neivola in Finland, and was reburied in Leningrad in 1956.

More details biography of Leonid Andreev can be read , or , or .

L. Andreev and L. Tolstoy; L. Andreev and M. Gorky

With L.N. Tolstoy and his wife Leonid Andreev do not have mutual understanding found. "He's scary, but I'm not scared" - So Lev Tolstoy spoke about Leonid Andreev in a conversation with a visitor. Sofya Andreevna Tolstaya in a “Letter to the Editor” of Novoye Vremya accused Andreev of “ loves to enjoy the baseness of the phenomena of vicious human life" And, contrasting Andreev’s works with her husband’s works, she called for “ to help those unfortunates come to their senses, whose wings they, Messrs. Andreevs, are knocking down, given to everyone for a high flight to the understanding of spiritual light, beauty, goodness and... God" There were other critical reviews of Andreev’s work; they made fun of his gloominess, as in the micro-pamphlet from Satyricon cited above, while he himself wrote: “Who knows me among the critics? No one, it seems. Loves? Nobody either."

Interesting statement M. Gorky , very close acquaintance with L. Andreev:

« To Andreev, man seemed spiritually poor; woven from the irreconcilable contradictions of instinct and intellect, he is forever deprived of the opportunity to achieve any internal harmony. All his deeds are “vanity of vanities,” corruption and self-deception. And most importantly, he is a slave to death and all his life

The story of Leonid Andreev is also "gospel of Judas" since the Traitor is the main character there and performs the same function as in the heretical treatise, but the interaction between Judas and Jesus occurs more subtly:

Jesus does not ask Judas to betray Him, but by His behavior forces him to do so;

Jesus does not inform Judas about the meaning of his atoning sacrifice, and therefore condemns him to the torments of his conscience, i.e., to put it in the language of the special services, he “uses in the dark” the unfortunate Judas. Andreev’s “shifters” are not limited to this:

Judas not only overshadows many of the heroes of the gospel narrative, since they turn out to be clearly stupider and more primitive than him, but also replaces them with himself. Let's take a closer look at St. Andrew's “gospel inside out.”

Illustration by A. Zykina.

The appearance of Judas in the text of the story does not bode well: “Jesus Christ was warned many times that Judas of Kerioth was a man of very bad reputation and should be avoided. Some of the disciples who were in Judea knew him well themselves, others heard a lot about him from people, and there was no one who could say a good word about him. And if the good ones reproached him, saying that Judas was selfish, cunning, inclined to pretense and lies, then the bad ones, who were asked about Judas, reviled him with the most cruel words... And there was no doubt for some of the disciples that his desire to get closer to Jesus had some kind of secret intention hidden, there was an evil and insidious calculation. But Jesus did not listen to their advice, their prophetic voice did not touch his ears. With that spirit of bright contradiction that irresistibly attracted him to the outcast and unloved, he decisively accepted Judas and included him in the circle of the chosen ones.».

The author at the beginning of the story tells us about some oversight of Jesus, excessive gullibility, improvidence, for which he had to pay later and that his disciples were more experienced and far-sighted. Come on, is he really God after this, to whom the future is open?

There are three options:

either he is not God, but a beautiful-hearted, inexperienced person;

either He is God, and specially brought closer to Him the person who would betray Him;

or he is a person who does not know the future, but for some reason it was necessary for him to be betrayed, and Judas had a corresponding reputation.

The discrepancy with the Gospel is obvious: Judas was an apostle of the twelve, he, like the other apostles, preached and healed; was the treasurer of the apostles, however, a lover of money, and the Apostle John directly calls him a thief:

« He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief. He had a cash drawer with him and wore what was put there"(John 12:6).

IN it is explained that

« Judas not only carried the donated money, but also carried it away, i.e. secretly took a significant part of them for himself. The verb here (?????????), translated in Russian by the expression “carried”, is more correctly translated “carried away”. Why was Judas entrusted with a box of money by Christ? It is very likely that with this manifestation of trust Christ wanted to influence Judas, to inspire him with love and devotion to Himself. But such trust did not have favorable consequences for Judas: he was already too attached to money and therefore abused the trust of Christ».

Judas was not deprived of free will in the Gospel, and Christ knew in advance about his betrayal and warned of the consequences: “ However, the Son of Man comes, as it is written about Him; but woe to that man through whom the Son of Man is betrayed: it was better if that person would never have been born "(Matthew 26, 24). This was said at the Last Supper, after Judas visited the high priest and received thirty pieces of silver for betrayal. At the same Last Supper, Christ said that the traitor was one of the apostles sitting with Him, and the Gospel of John says that Christ secretly pointed him to Judas (John 13: 23-26).

Earlier, even before entering Jerusalem, addressing the apostles, “ Jesus answered them: Have I not chosen you twelve? but one of you is the devil. He spoke this about Judas Simon Iscariot, for he wanted to betray Him, being one of the twelve "(John 6, 70-71). IN “Explanatory Bible” by A.P. Lopukhina The following interpretation of these words is given: “ So that the apostles do not fall into excessive arrogance about their position as constant followers of Christ, the Lord points out that among them there is one person whose attitude is close to the devil. Just as the devil is in a constantly hostile mood towards God, so Judas hates Christ, as destroying all his hopes for the foundation of the earthly Messianic Kingdom, in which Judas could take a prominent place. This one wanted to betray Him. More precisely: “this one was going, so to speak, to betray Christ, although he himself was not yet clearly aware of this intention of his.” ».

Further, according to the plot of the story, St. Andrew's Jesus constantly keeps Judas at a distance, forcing him to envy other disciples who are objectively stupider than Judas, but enjoy the favor of the teacher, and when Judas is ready to leave Christ or the disciples are ready to expel him, Jesus brings him closer to himself and does not let him go. There are many examples that can be given, let us highlight a few.

The scene when Judas is accepted as an apostle looks like this:

Judas came to Jesus and the apostles, telling something that was obviously false. “John, without looking at the teacher, quietly asked Peter Simonov, his friend:

- Aren't you tired of this lie? I can't stand her any longer and I'll leave here.

Peter looked at Jesus, met his gaze and quickly stood up.

- Wait! - he told his friend. He looked at Jesus again, quickly, like a stone torn from a mountain, moved towards Judas Iscariot and loudly said to him with broad and clear friendliness:

“Here you are with us, Judas.”.

St. Andrew's Jesus is silent. He does not stop Judas, who is clearly sinning; on the contrary, he accepts him as he is, into the number of his disciples; Moreover, he does not verbally call on Judas: Peter guesses his desire and formalizes it in word and deed. This is not how things happened in the Gospel: apostleship was always preceded by a clear calling by the Lord, often by repentance of the one called, and always by a radical change in life immediately after the calling. This is what happened to the fisherman Peter: “ Simon Peter fell at the knees of Jesus and said: Depart from me, Lord! because I am a sinful man... And Jesus said to Simon: Do not be afraid; from now on you will catch people "(Luke 5, 8, 10). So it was with the publican Matthew: “ Passing from there, Jesus saw a man named Matthew sitting at the toll booth, and he said to him, “Follow Me.” And he stood up and followed Him"(Matthew 9:9).

Leonardo da Vinci. Last Supper

But Judas does not abandon his way of life after his calling: he also lies and makes faces, but for some reason St. Andrew’s Jesus does not speak out against it.

« Judas lied constantly, but they got used to it, because they did not see bad deeds behind the lie, and it gave special interest to Judas’ conversation and his stories and made life look like a funny and sometimes scary fairy tale. He readily admitted that sometimes he himself lies, but he assured with an oath that others lie even more, and if there is anyone deceived in the world, it is he, Judas." Let me remind you that the Gospel Christ spoke quite definitely about lies. He characterizes the devil this way: “ When he tells a lie, he speaks his own way, for he is a liar and the father of lies. "(John 8:44). But for some reason St. Andrew’s Jesus allows Judas to lie - except for the case when Judas lies to save himself.

To protect the teacher from the angry crowd, Judas flatters her and calls Jesus a simple deceiver and a tramp, diverts attention to himself and allows the teacher to leave, saving the life of Jesus, but he is angry. This was not the case in the Gospel, of course, but they actually wanted to kill Christ more than once for preaching, and this was always resolved successfully solely thanks to Christ himself, for example, with the admonition:

« I have shown you many good works from My Father; For which of them do you want to stone Me?"(John 10:32) or simply a supernatural departure:« Hearing this, everyone in the synagogue was filled with rage, stood up, drove Him out of the city and took Him to the top of the mountain on which their city was built in order to overthrow Him; but He passed through the midst of them and departed"(Luke 4, 28-30).

St. Andrew's Jesus is weak, cannot cope with the crowd on his own, and at the same time condemns the man who made great efforts to save him from death; The Lord, as we remember, “welcomes intentions,” i.e. White lies are not a sin.

In the same way, St. Andrew's Jesus refuses to help Peter defeat Judas in throwing stones, and then pointedly does not notice that Judas defeated Peter; and he is angry with Judas, who proved the ingratitude of the people in the village where Jesus preached earlier, but for some reason allows Judas to steal from the cash drawer... He behaves very contradictory, as if tempering Judas for betrayal; he inflates Judas’s pride and love of money and at the same time hurts his pride. And all this in silence.

“And before, for some reason, it was the case that Judas never spoke directly to Jesus, and he never directly addressed him, but he often looked at him with gentle eyes, smiled at some of his jokes, and if he did not see him for a long time, he asked : where is Judas? And now he looked at him, as if not seeing him, although as before, and even more persistently than before, he looked for him with his eyes every time he began to speak to his disciples or to the people, but either he sat with his back to him and threw words over his head. his own towards Judas, or pretended not to notice him at all. And no matter what he said, even if it was one thing today and something completely different tomorrow, even if it was the same thing that Judas was thinking, it seemed, however, that he was always speaking against Judas. And for everyone he was a tender and beautiful flower, fragrant with the rose of Lebanon, but for Judas he left only sharp thorns - as if Judas had no heart, as if he had no eyes and nose and no better than everyone else, he understood the beauty of tender and immaculate petals."

Naturally, Judas eventually grumbled:

« Why is he not with Judas, but with those who do not love him? John brought him a lizard - I would have brought him a poisonous snake. Peter threw stones - I would have turned a mountain for him! But what is a poisonous snake? Now her tooth has been pulled out, and she is wearing a necklace around her neck. But what is a mountain that can be torn down with your hands and trampled underfoot? I would give him Judas, brave, beautiful Judas! And now he will perish, and Judas will perish with him." Thus, according to Andreev, Judas did not betray Jesus, but took revenge on him for his inattention, for his lack of love, for his subtle mockery of the proud Judas. What kind of love of money there is!.. This is the revenge of a loving, but offended and rejected person, revenge out of jealousy. And St. Andrew’s Jesus acts as a completely conscious provocateur.

Judas is ready until the last moment to save Jesus from the inevitable: “ With one hand betraying Jesus, with the other hand Judas diligently sought to thwart his own plans" And even after the Last Supper he tries to find a way not to betray the teacher, he directly turns to Jesus:

“Do you know where I’m going, Lord? I am coming to deliver you into the hands of your enemies.

And there was a long silence, the silence of the evening and sharp, black shadows.

-Are you silent, Lord? Are you ordering me to go?

And again silence.

- Let me stay. But you can't? Or don't you dare? Or don't you want to?

And again silence, huge, like the eyes of eternity.

- But you know that I love you. You know everything. Why are you looking at Judas like that? The mystery of your beautiful eyes is great, but is mine less so? Order me to stay!.. But you are silent, are you still silent? Lord, Lord, why, in anguish and torment, have I been looking for you all my life, looking for you and finding you! Set me free. Take away the heaviness, it is heavier than mountains and lead. Can't you hear how the chest of Judas of Kerioth is cracking under her?

And the last silence, bottomless, like the last glance of eternity.

- I'm coming."

And who is betraying whom here? This is the “gospel inside out,” in which Jesus betrays Judas, and Judas begs Jesus just as Christ in the present Gospel begs His Father in the Garden of Gethsemane to carry the cup of suffering past him. In the present Gospel, Christ prays to His Father for his disciples, and St. Andrew’s Jesus condemns the disciple to betrayal and suffering.

Icon “Prayer for the Cup” by Caravaggio. Kiss of Judas

Even in the Gnostic Gospel of Judas, Jesus is not so cruel:

Video fragment 2. "National Geographic. Gospel of Judas"

In general, Andreev’s Judas often replaces the disciples, Christ, and even God the Father. Let's look at these cases briefly.

We have already said about the prayer for the cup: here Judas replaces the suffering Christ, and St. Andrew’s Jesus acts as Sabaoth in the Gnostic understanding, i.e. like a cruel demiurge.

Well, it is Judas who contextually appears as Andreev’s loving “God’s father”: it is not without reason that, observing the suffering of Jesus, he repeats: “Oh, it hurts, it hurts a lot, my son, my son, my son. It hurts, it hurts a lot."

Another replacement of Christ by Judas: Judas asks Peter who he thinks Jesus is. " Peter whispered fearfully and joyfully: “I think that he is the son of the living God.” And in the Gospel it is written like this: “ Simon Peter answered Him: Lord! who should we go to? You have the words of eternal life: and we have believed and known that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God"(John 6, 68-69). The twist is that Peter’s gospel remark is addressed to Christ, not Judas.

Appearing to the apostles after the death of Jesus, St. Andrew’s Judas again creates an inverted situation and replaces the risen Christ with himself. "Jesus' disciples sat in sad silence and listened to what was happening outside the house. There was also a danger that the revenge of Jesus’ enemies would not be limited to him alone, and everyone was waiting for the guards to invade... At that moment, Judas Iscariot entered, loudly slamming the door».

And the Gospel describes the following: “ On the same first day of the week in the evening, when the doors of the house where His disciples were meeting were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst and said to them: Peace be with you! "(John 20:19).

Here the quiet and joyful appearance of the risen Christ is replaced by the noisy appearance of Judas, denouncing His disciples.

The denunciation of Judas is permeated by the following refrain: “Where was your love? ... Who loves... Who loves!.. Who loves! Compare with the Gospel: “When they were dining, Jesus said to Simon Peter: Simon the Jonah! Do you love Me more than they? Peter says to Him: Yes, Lord! You know I love you. Jesus says to him: Feed my lambs. Another time he says to him: Simon the Jonah! do you love me? Peter says to Him: Yes, Lord! You know I love you. Jesus says to him: Feed My sheep. He says to him for the third time: Simon the Jonah! do you love me? Peter was saddened that he asked him for the third time: Do you love Me? and said to Him: Lord! You know everything; You know I love you. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep."(John 21:15-17).

Thus, after His resurrection, Christ restored the apostolic dignity to Peter, who had denied Him three times. In L. Andreev we see an inverted situation: Judas three times denounces the apostles for their dislike for Christ.

Same scene: “Judas fell silent, raising his hand, and suddenly noticed the remains of a meal on the table. And with strange amazement, curiosity, as if he saw food for the first time in his life, he looked at it and slowly asked: “What is this? Did you eat? Perhaps you slept the same way? Let's compare: " When they still did not believe for joy and were amazed, He said to them: Do you have any food here? They gave Him some of the baked fish and honeycomb. And he took it and ate before them"(Luke 24:41-43). Once again, Judas exactly the opposite repeats the actions of the risen Christ.

« I'm going to him! - said Judas, extending his imperious hand upward. “Who is following Iscariot to Jesus?” Let's compare: " Then Jesus said to them plainly: Lazarus is dead; and I rejoice for you that I was not there, so that you might believe; but let's go to him. Then Thomas, otherwise called the Twin, said to the disciples: come and we will die with him"(John 11, 14-16). To the courageous statement of Thomas, who, like the other apostles, could not confirm it with deeds on the night when Judas betrayed Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, L. Andreev contrasts the same statement of Judas, and Judas fulfills his promise, showing greater courage than the other apostles.

By the way, Andreev’s apostles are shown as fools, cowards and hypocrites, and against their background Judas looks more than advantageous; he outshines them with his sharp paradoxical mind and sensitive love for Jesus. Yes, this is no wonder: Thomas is stupid and cowardly, John is arrogant and hypocritical, Peter is a complete ass. Judas characterizes him this way:

« Is there anyone stronger than Peter? When he shouts, all the donkeys in Jerusalem think that their Messiah has come, and they also start shouting." Andreev completely agrees with his favorite hero, as can be seen from this passage: “A rooster crowed, resentfully and loudly, as if during the day, a donkey, who had woken up somewhere, crowed and reluctantly, intermittently, fell silent.”

The motif of a cock crowing in the night is associated with Peter’s denial of Christ, and the braying donkey obviously correlates with Peter weeping bitterly after his denial: “ And Peter remembered the word that Jesus had spoken to him: Before the rooster crows twice, you will deny Me three times; and started crying"(Mark 14:72).

Judas even replaces Mary Magdalene. According to Andreev’s version, it was Judas who bought the ointment with which Mary Magdalene anointed Jesus’ feet, while in the Gospel the situation is completely opposite. Let's compare: " Mary, taking a pound of pure precious ointment of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped His feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the world. Then one of His disciples, Judas Simon Iscariot, who wanted to betray Him, said: Why not sell this ointment for three hundred denarii and give it to the poor?"(John 12:3-5).

Sebastian Ritchie. Mary Magdalene washes Christ's feet

And in the light of what has been said above, the outburst of Judas does not look at all strange, who, to the public question of Peter and John about which of them will sit next to Jesus in the Kingdom of Heaven, answered: “I! I will be near Jesus!”

One can, of course, talk about the inconsistency of the image of Judas, which was reflected in his behavior, and in his speeches, and even in his appearance, but the main intrigue of the story is not this, but the fact that St. Andrew’s silent Jesus, without uttering a word , was able to force this smart, contradictory and paradoxical man to become a great Traitor.

« And everyone - good and evil - will equally curse his shameful memory, and among all nations, which were and are, he will remain alone in his cruel fate - Judas of Kariot, Traitor" The Gnostics, with their theory of a “gentleman’s agreement” between Christ and Judas, never dreamed of this.

A domestic film adaptation of Andreev's story "Judas Iscariot" - "Judas, the Man from Kariot" - should soon be released. I wonder what emphasis the director made. For now, you can only watch the trailer for the film.

Video fragment 3. Trailer “Judas, the Man from Kariot”

M. Gorky recalled this statement by L. Andreev:

“Someone proved to me that Dostoevsky secretly hated Christ. I also don’t like Christ and Christianity, optimism is a disgusting, completely false invention... I think that Judas was not a Jew - a Greek, a Hellenic. He, brother, is an intelligent and daring man, Judas... You know, if Judas had been convinced that Jehovah himself was in the face of Christ before him, he would still have betrayed Him. Killing God, humiliating Him with a shameful death, this, brother, is not a trifle!”

It seems that this statement most accurately defines the author’s position of Leonid Andreev.

Annex 1. Features of the portrait of Judas Iscariot in the story by Leonid Andreev

In Leonid Andreev's story, Judas appears before the reader in an unconventional form. The traitor stands out from other students even externally. Andreev gives Judas a terrible, contradictory appearance. His skull and face immediately catches the eye: “as if cut from the back of the head with a double blow of a sword and put back together, it was clearly divided into four parts and inspired distrust, even anxiety: behind such a skull there can be no silence and agreement, behind such a skull one can always hear the noise of bloody and merciless battles.

Judas’s face also doubled: one side of it, with a black, sharply looking eye, was alive, mobile, willingly gathering into numerous crooked wrinkles. On the other there were no wrinkles, and it was deathly smooth, flat and frozen, and although it was equal in size to the first, it seemed huge from the wide open blind eye. Covered with a whitish turbidity, not closing either at night or during the day, he equally met both light and darkness, but was it because there was a living and cunning comrade next to him, one could not believe in his complete blindness?

Andreev’s image of Judas correlates with the traditional idea of ​​a demon, an evil spirit, who are usually depicted in profile, that is, with one eye (“... and suddenly leaves suddenly, leaving behind troubles and quarrels - curious, crafty and evil, like a one-eyed demon” in addition the writer emphasizes that Judas had one blind eye.

The hero combines the dead and the living. The dark side of St. Andrew’s Judas is the feigned calmness that most often manifested itself when communicating with his disciples, and the “light” side is sincere love for Jesus. An interesting detail: the author mentions in the text that Judas had red hair. In mythology, this often means being chosen by God, being close to the Sun, and having the right to power. Gods of war are often red or on a red horse. Many leaders and famous personalities had this fiery hair color. "Red" is an epithet for deities. It is not for nothing that Andreev assigns this particular hair color to the hero, because according to the stories of the Traitor, it always turned out that HE would be the first near Jesus. But red hair color is also attributed to Joseph, the husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus (for example, in Rembrandt’s painting “Simeon in the Temple” - as a sign of his origin from the red-haired, according to legend, King-Psalmist David). Perhaps with this detail in this case the author once again emphasizes the contradictory nature of the character.

The author himself in the text points to the duality of Judas: “in vain he showed himself from all sides, trying to make modest his forked, predatory face with a hooked nose...” Judas “pretended to be frail and sickly,” but in fact “he was quite strong in strength.” . No less controversial is the characterization of Judas’s voice, which is said to be “loud like an old woman’s” and sometimes “masculine and strong.”

Duality, two-facedness was also manifested in his actions: “When he caresses a dog, it bites his fingers, and when he hits it with a stick, it licks his feet... He killed this dog, buried it deep and even buried it with a large stone, but who knows? Perhaps because he killed her, she became even more alive and now does not lie in a hole, but runs happily with other dogs.” In fact, he did not kill the dog.

Appendix 2. The chthonic principle in the image of Judas Iscariot in Leonid Andreev’s story “Judas Iscariot”

The double appearance of Judas is closely intertwined with the behavior and actions of the Traitor.

Judas calls the rest of the disciples cowardly dogs who run away as soon as a person bends down to pick up a stone. By the way, the stone is one of the images of death (non-life or pre-life). The symbolic image of a stone on the ground is sterility. A grain that falls on a stone does not germinate. The stone symbolizes “something that can crush with its weight, block the path, bury under itself. Stone is synonymous with grave; stone is a tombstone” [Karasev, 110] Note that Judas was born among stones. Rocky Jerusalem and Judaea is contrasted with green Galilee, the birthplace of Jesus, and the tree, as a creature marked by God, accompanies Jesus and is his emblem. The symbolism of wood is ambivalent to stone.

The author repeatedly emphasizes the chthonic (animal, dark, pre-human) principle in Judas. Peter compares Judas to an octopus: “I once saw an octopus in Tire, caught by the fishermen there, and I was so afraid that I wanted to run away. And they laughed at me, a fisherman from Tiberias, and gave me something to eat, and I asked for more, because it was very tasty... Judas is like an octopus - only with one half.” The author draws a parallel between the Traitor and the mollusk, his dexterity and mobility. In addition, octopuses have a strange habit of eating themselves; they also have such a “means” for salvation from enemies as tearing off their own limbs. The disciples of Jesus compare Judas to a scorpion: “He constantly quarrels with us,” they said, spitting, “he thinks of something of his own and gets into the house quietly, like a scorpion, and comes out of it noisily.” “There is a legend that this animal, being surrounded by a ring of burning coals, inflicts a fatal blow on itself with its stinger in order to avoid a painful death.”

Appendix 3. The role of the “visual code” in creating the image of Judas Iscariot.

Relatedness of key lexemes "stone", "eye", "head" reveals a close and unexpected relationship at the etymological level. So, “head” comes from “zhelva” - “bump, bone-like thickening”, where -zhel

The eye symbolizes omniscience, the all-seeing eye, the ability to intuitively see. On the one hand, this is the mystical eye, light, insight, knowledge, intelligence, vigilance, protection, stability and determination, on the other hand, the limitation of the visible. In Christianity, the eye symbolizes the all-seeing God, omniscience, power, light. "The light of the body is the eye." The image of Judas is isomorphic to the image of his eyes. ( Isomorphism is a correspondence (relationship) between objects, expressing the identity of their structure (structure).

The motif of duality sounds clearly in the description of Judas’s eyes: “... while one side of his face was writhing in jesterish grimaces, the other was swaying seriously and sternly, and his never-closing eye looked wide.”

In one of the key episodes of the text - the denouement of the confrontation between Peter and John - the dialogue between Jesus and Judas occurs at the level of views: “... Judas was silent, breathing heavily and with his eyes he asked the calm, deep eyes of Jesus about something”; "Jesus slowly lowered his gaze"

In the episode of the stories of Peter and John, Jesus “laughs with his eyes,” “tears appear in his eyes,” and Judas “as if pinned him to the wall with his keen gaze.”

Judas feels with his eyes: “Then he quickly moved closer to Jesus, who was waiting for him in silence, and plunged, like a knife, his direct and sharp gaze into his calm, darkened eyes.” Jesus “with the lightning of his gaze sanctified that monstrous pile of wary shadows that was the soul of Iscariot, but could not penetrate into its bottomless depths.” The slightest internal movements of Judas are given in the “visual” code: “that pretense that he so easily wore all his life, suddenly became an unbearable burden; and with one movement of his eyelashes he threw it off. And when he looked at Anna again, his gaze was simple and direct, and terrible in its naked truthfulness”; “...don’t let your eyes deceive you”; “Rejoice in the eyes of Judas”; “looked greedily”, “furiously turned his head to look”

John has “cold and beautiful eyes”; the conversation with the high priest Anna, the owner of a “shrewd and contemptuous” look, takes place “eye to eye”: “[Anna] silently looked at the traitor and accurately counted the hairs on his lumpy head. ... Both fell silent, continuing to examine each other with attention." The straight, slow-witted Thomas is the owner of transparent-light eyes, through which, "like through Phoenician glass, the wall behind him and the dejected donkey tied to it could be seen." Thomas, trying to understand, is closest to the reader, who " he carefully examined Christ and Judas sitting next to each other, and this strange proximity of divine beauty and monstrous ugliness, a man with a gentle gaze and an octopus with huge, motionless, dull, greedy eyes oppressed his mind like an unsolvable riddle. He tensely wrinkled his straight, smooth forehead, squinted his eyes, thinking that he would see better this way, but all he achieved was that Judas really seemed to have eight restlessly moving legs. But this was not true. Foma understood this and again watched stubbornly.”

One of the key “visual” nerves of the symbolic plot is the definition of “blind”, which sounds like a sentence to the disciples of Jesus. With maximum importance of vision as visions, blindness is thought of as a symbol of non-existence, doom.

Thus, the eyes, as conductors of thought, express the essence, meaning, emblem of the hero, his leitmotif. Although only Judas “lives” through the eyes, all the characters in the story are involved in the “visual” collision.

Appendix 4. The combination of the beautiful and the ugly in Leonid Andreev’s story “Judas Iscariot”

Judas sincerely believed in his rightness and chosenness, and most importantly, he strove for his goal by any means - betrayal became a way to get closer to the Messiah . In addition, Judas several times “saved” Christ from the massacre of the crowd, showing belligerence.

Andreev, already at the beginning of the text, compares Judas with Jesus: “good height, almost the same as Jesus, who was slightly stooped from the habit of thinking while walking and this made him seem shorter.” “Judas, in some mysterious way, is a reflection of Jesus. Hence the thirty pieces of silver and a kiss, hence the voluntary death, in order to earn the Curse even more surely.” This is how Nils Runeberg explained the riddle of Judas.

Zealous love for Christ pushed Iscariot in L. Andreev’s story to vile betrayal. But jealousy is a low feeling, and love is a high feeling, which can be opposed, like good and evil, light and darkness, i.e. stable antithesis. The relationship between Iscariot and Jesus in Andreev’s work remains a mystery; there is a combination of the beautiful and the ugly.

Christ is compared to a Lebanese rose, and Judas to a cactus. The author writes about the external relationship of the heroes: “And this strange proximity of divine beauty and monstrous ugliness, a man with a gentle gaze and an octopus with huge, motionless, dull, greedy eyes oppressed his mind like an unsolvable riddle.” It is also paradoxical that Andreev calls Judas and Jesus brothers: “From the same cup of suffering, like brothers, they both drank, the betrayer and the traitor, and the fiery moisture equally scorched clean and unclean lips.”

In Andreev's story, Christ loved Judas just like the other apostles. Even when they stopped communicating, Christ “often looked at him with tender eyes, smiled at some of his jokes, and if he did not see him for a long time, he asked: where is Judas? And for everyone he was a tender and beautiful flower, fragrant with the rose of Lebanon, but for Judas he left only sharp thorns - as if Judas had no heart.” Jesus, according to Andreev, tried to hide his feelings for him, but he always worried about his disciple, imperceptibly helping Judas. The traitor felt this and tried to be closer and closer to Jesus, but Christ’s external coldness towards him still hurt Iscariot: “Why is he not with Judas, but with those who do not love him? ...I would give him Judas, brave, beautiful Judas! And now he will perish, and Judas will perish with him.

Thus, according to Andreev, beauty and ugliness are two components of a single whole. This reflects the writer’s special vision of the world, where one is impossible without the other.
Appendix 5. The marginality of Judas Iscariot in Leonid Andreev’s story “Judas Iscariot”

In the story “Judas Iscariot,” the hero was driven by envy of the purity and innocence of Jesus and jealousy of the other disciples. The traitor loves the teacher and seeks to prove to Christ that he is right. Andreev writes that it was precisely provocations and relationships with other apostles that forced Judas to deceive everyone and give the “innocent” into the hands of the servants.

The image of Judas balances between the position of a swindler/deceiver/clown and a sage and, being realized between the categories of “spirituality” and “game”, explains his marginality, falling out of the community of disciples.

In Andreev’s work, the relationship between the Traitor and other disciples of Christ is shown ambiguously. Just as in the Gospel text, Andreev has twelve of them. But in the story “Judas Iscariot” itself, Andreev introduces the reader to only five students, whose images play a certain, rather important role in the work. The apostles in Andreev’s text are completely different: each has their own character, their own vision of the world, their own special attitude towards Jesus. But they all have one thing in common - love for their teacher and... betrayal.

A the second portrays Judas as deceitful, which clearly pushes other heroes away from him. The traitor wants to fool people, it gives him pleasure. According to Andreev, Judas “knew to tell everyone what he especially liked”

N. Chuikina in her work “Comparison of Leonid Andreev” suggests looking at the text space “Judas - the Apostles”: “He knew nothing, this Thomas, although he asked about everything and looked so directly with his transparent and clear eyes, through which, as through the Phoenician glass, one could see the wall behind him and the dejected donkey tied to it.” “Like a bunch of frightened lambs, the disciples crowded together, not hindering anything, but disturbing everyone - even themselves.”

“Do you want to see fools? - Judas said to Thomas, who was walking thoughtfully behind. “Look: here they are walking along the road, in a group, like a herd of sheep, and raising dust.” A chain of images appears: lambs, a herd of rams, a donkey. There is a contradiction in this series: a comparison with a lamb appears in the author’s speech, while a flock of rams is a characterization of the apostles by Judas . The comparison with a donkey characterizes only one student - Thomas.

The image of a lamb in the Russian poetic (in the broad sense) tradition is associated with the meaning of innocence, sacrifice, timidity. However, from this image grows something that in the popular language is associated not just with stupidity, but with stupidity and stubbornness, with cowardice. This is not just a herd; each student exhibits an individual embodiment of stupidity.”

Consequently, Judas and the rest of the disciples are united by another common feature - they are all, to varying degrees, characterized by the presence of a dark, unenlightened, unspiritualized principle, in contrast to Jesus. But only Judas does not hide his duality, his “ugliness,” his dark sides. This makes him stand out from other students.

Thus, the relationship between Judas and other disciples of Christ not only reveals many qualities of his personality, but also largely explains the reasons for his betrayal.

The Gospel personification of the archetype of betrayal does not have a sufficiently convincing justification in the canonical texts.

The contradictions of the gospel stories shaped the main directions of interpretation of the New Testament character: on the one hand, the act of Judas is considered as the greatest atrocity against humanity; on the other hand, the Cainite sect that existed in the second century “understood the betrayal of Judas Iscariot as the fulfillment of the highest service necessary for the redemption of the world and prescribed by Christ himself.”

If the first direction was used by writers to create an axiologically complex symbolic plan in the context of a work, then various moral and psychological motivations determined not only the intensive development of the event plan, but also a comprehensive study of complex moral problems that arise before an individual in existential situations [for more details, see: 7, 228] .

As Neamtsu A.E. defines, “the functional activity of a traditional plot (image, motif) in a literary work is determined and “implemented” by a systemic set of integral features: the breadth of the interpretive range, the variety of forms and methods of transformation, the potential ambiguity of the semantics of the traditional structure, etc. " .

The idea of ​​the human plurality of the image of the traitor, which has been developed and will be conceptualized more than once by the authors, makes Judas an archetypal model of behavior, which is absolutized as a manifestation of one of the aspects of the individual worldview. The versatility of interpretations of the image of Judas in world literature, believes A. Neamtsu, “confirms the complexity and inconsistency of the Gospel riddle, for in the New Testament texts one of the fundamental problems of individual existence, which enters into an antagonistic relationship with the universal human ideal, is succinctly expressed.”

At the beginning of the century, Polish researcher A. Nemoevsky emphasized that “the image of Judas is the result of experience, a psychological product of everyday truth. His name is a symbol, but this symbol has already become hackneyed. ...the image of Judas is a moral and psychological concentrate of a universal behavioral model that has absorbed a certain part of universal human experience. This explains the fact that “the image of the red-haired traitor Judas, betraying his teacher with a kiss of love into the hands of brute force for the paltry price of thirty pieces of silver, has become some kind of ghost. It is found everywhere. It would be possible to compose a museum of Judas from paintings and sculptures of famous artists, from thousands of novels, short stories and poems, ethical treatises and revolutionary poems.”

The number of examples can be significantly increased, since the image of Judas has been actively used over the centuries in various versions as a generally significant archetype of betrayal and the subsequent inevitable retribution for what has been done. The relative unambiguous interpretation of the image of Iscariot over the course of centuries of literary functioning underwent qualitative changes at the end of the 19th-20th centuries. What comes to the fore is not a statement of the fact of betrayal, but a study of the moral and psychological motivations of the act from the point of view of the national historical originality of specific literature and universal ethical ideas.

G.V. F. Hegel believed that “greed was, apparently, the strongest passion of Judas, communication with Jesus did not change his way of thinking for the better. Greed probably motivated him to side with Jesus, for he hoped to satisfy it when Jesus established his messianic kingdom. Seeing that Jesus pursues completely different goals and does not think about such a kingdom, and convinced of the futility of his hopes, Judas tried to benefit from his closeness to Jesus by betrayal.”

This is perhaps why L. Andreev’s story, although written at the beginning of the century, is so popular today: the author’s assessment of the motives for betrayal (distinguished by a paradoxical view) is interesting; the purpose of the title character’s act and the prerequisites for it are explored. Also perceived as unexpected is “the obvious unconventionality of the image of Judas, the complexity of his spiritual world and the ambiguity of the motives of betrayal, which determined the inconsistency of critical assessments of the interpretation.” The plot of the story, which we see in other Andreev’s works, is based on the gospel story, although, as Gorky wrote, “in the first edition of the story “Judas” he had several errors that indicated that he did not even bother to read the Gospel.”

Indeed, using the gospel story, the author interpreted it very subjectively. How can we understand the psychology of Judas’ act in L. Andreev’s story, what made him betray Jesus, thereby seemingly violating all the laws of morality and morality? From the very beginning and throughout the story, the words “Judas the Traitor” are heard. This name was ingrained in people’s minds from the very beginning, and Andreev accepts and uses it, but only as a “nickname” given by people. For the writer, Judas is in many ways a symbolic traitor. In Andreev, at the very beginning of the story, Judas is presented as a very repulsive character: his appearance is already unpleasant (“an ugly lumpy head,” a strange expression on his face, as if divided in half), his changeable voice is strange, “either courageous and strong, then loud, like an old woman’s.” , scolding her husband, is annoyingly thin and unpleasant to hear.”

It is quite possible to explain the great sin of Judas - the betrayal of his Teacher - by the nature of Judas. After all, it is possible that his envy of the purity, integrity of Jesus, his unlimited kindness and love for people, which Judas is not capable of, led to the fact that he decided to destroy his teacher. But this is only the first impression of L. Andreev’s story. Why does the author, at the beginning of the story and then many times later, compare Jesus and Judas? “He (Judas) was thin, of good height, almost the same as Jesus,” that is, the writer puts two of them on a par; seemingly opposite images, he brings them together.

There seems to be some kind of connection between Jesus and Judas; they are constantly connected by an invisible thread: their eyes often meet, and they almost guess each other’s thoughts. Jesus loves Judas, although he foresees betrayal on his part. But Judas, Judas loves Jesus too! He loves him immensely, he reveres him. He listens carefully to his every phrase, feeling in Jesus some kind of mystical power, special, forcing everyone who listens to him to bow before the Teacher. When Judas accused people of depravity, deceit and hatred of each other, Jesus began to move away from him.

Judas felt this, taking everything very painfully, which also confirms Judas’ unlimited love for his Teacher. Therefore, it is not surprising that Judas desires to get closer to him, to be constantly near him. The thought arises whether the betrayal of Judas was a way to get closer to Jesus, but in a completely special, paradoxical way. The Teacher will die, Judas will leave this world, and there, in another life, they will be side by side: there will be no John and Peter, there will be no other disciples of Jesus, there will only be Judas, who, he is sure, loves his Teacher more than anyone else.

When reading L. Andreev’s story, the thought often arises that Judas’s mission is predetermined. Not one of Jesus' disciples could have endured this, could not have accepted such a fate. Indeed, Andreev’s images of other students are only symbols. Thus, Peter is associated with a stone: wherever he is, whatever he does, the symbolism of the stone is used everywhere, even with Judas he competes in throwing stones. John - the beloved disciple of Jesus - is tenderness, fragility, purity, spiritual beauty.

Thomas is straightforward, slow-witted, in reality, Thomas is an unbeliever. Even Foma’s eyes are empty, transparent, no thought lingers in them. The images of the other disciples are also symbolic: none of them could betray Jesus. Judas is the chosen one who suffered this fate, and only he is capable of co-creation in the feat of Jesus - he also sacrifices himself. Knowing in advance that he will betray Jesus, commit such a grave sin, he struggles with this: the best part of his soul struggles with the mission destined for him. And the soul cannot stand it: it is impossible to defeat predestination.

So, Judas knew that betrayal would be committed, there would be the death of Jesus and that he would kill himself after this, he even marked out a place for death. He hid the money so that he could later throw it to the high priests and Pharisees - that is, greed was not the reason for Judas’ betrayal. Having committed an atrocity, Judas blames it... on his disciples. He is amazed that when the Teacher died, they could eat and sleep, they could continue their previous life without Him, without their Teacher. It seems to Judas that life is meaningless after the death of Jesus. It turns out that Judas is not as heartless as we first thought.

Love for Jesus reveals many of his hitherto hidden positive traits, immaculate, pure sides of his soul, which, however, are revealed only after the death of Jesus, just as with the death of Jesus the betrayal of Judas is revealed. The paradoxical combination of betrayal and the manifestation of the best qualities in the hero’s soul is explained only by predestination from above: Judas cannot defeat him, but he cannot help but love Jesus. And the whole psychology of betrayal then lies in the struggle of the individual with predestination in the struggle of Judas with the mission destined for him.

The socio-political and philosophical-psychological aspects of the gospel image were comprehensively studied in numerous treatises of the late 19th - early 20th centuries. Literature in different versions offers an interpretation of the most terrible betrayal in the history of mankind. N. O. Lossky expressed himself very clearly and, perhaps, accurately, asserting the need to understand and explain the act of Judas, without diminishing his sinfulness [see more details: 4, 249-256]. This point of view exalts Christ and contributes to his enrichment with various and numerous motivations.

In his study of the personality of Jesus Christ, D. S. Merezhkovsky in the chapter about Judas says: “The memory of what really prompted Judas to betray Jesus has already died out in the Gospels themselves... It seems that the evangelists do not know, do not remember, or do not they want to remember, perhaps because it is too scary... The image of Judas, as he appears in the Gospel testimonies, is only an incomprehensible monster. But, if we could look into what really was in this betrayal, then perhaps we would see in it the problem of evil, posed in a way that nowhere else and never in humanity.” Indeed, the author touched upon the very “essence” of the question, which, in fact, opens the door to the solution to what has been done.

A complex system of motivations for Judas’ act is constructed by H. L. Borges in the story “Three Versions of the Betrayal of Judas.” The first version states that “the betrayal of Judas was not accidental, it was a predetermined act, occupying its mysterious place in the work of redemption... The Word, having become incarnate, passed from omnipresence into organic space, from eternity - into history, from boundless bliss - into a state variability and death; it was necessary that in response to such a sacrifice, a certain person, representing all people, should make an equal sacrifice. This man was Judas Iscariot.”

The second version says: “The ascetic, for the sake of the greater glory of God, defiles and mortifies the flesh; Judas did the same with his spirit. He renounced honor, goodness, peace, the kingdom of heaven... He believed that bliss, like goodness, is an attribute of deity and people have no right to appropriate it for themselves.” The third version - fantastic - destroys the line between Jesus and Judas and is built on the principle of “one instead of the other”: “God became a man completely, but became a man down to his baseness, a man down to the point of abomination and the abyss. To save us, he could have chosen any fate from those that weave the complex web of history; he could become Alexander or Pythagoras, or Rurik, or Jesus; he chose the most despicable fate: he became Judas.”

It is probably impossible to find out how it really was. And therefore the image of Judas Iscariot will remain an eternal mystery. Rightly or wrongly, the name of Judas forever became a symbol of worldwide betrayal. As you know, Dante placed it in the very last circle, as a symbol of the most serious sin. Ditus, frozen in ice, torments a traitor in each of his three mouths: Brutus, Cassius and Judas. It is difficult to destroy a stereotype that has been established for centuries, and perhaps it is not worth it. The destruction of symbols is always fraught with unforeseen consequences. It’s just, perhaps, worth distinguishing between its specific bearer, a specific person, and the world image created on the basis of her.

Describing the fact of betrayal and its dark consequences, the evangelists paid almost no attention to explaining the reasons for the monstrous act. Mark simply stated a fact: he went and betrayed. Matthew hinted at Judas's greed: “...he said, whatever you give me, I will deliver it to you” (Matthew 26:15). Luke generally freed the traitor from personal responsibility for his deed, shifting it to the eternal enemy of man: “... Satan entered into Judas, who was called Iscariot” (Luke 22:3).

And only the Apostle John tried to penetrate the secret of the traitor’s soul. His story is a psychological narrative in its simplest form. He gives an outline of his character, his Judas is double-minded and selfish: “He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief” (John 12:6). The logic of this character also contains a reason for action. The Holy Gospel of John is the first artistic treatment of the plot of Judas the traitor with hints of psychologism. It was followed by thousands of other, increasingly complex literary interpretations, including Russian ones.

The artistic image was actively introduced into the sphere of pressing social problems of different stages of Russian social life. In different eras of social development, the myth of the traitor Judas attracted Russian writers with different aspects of its meaning. Classical literature of the 19th century, formed in the atmosphere of the formation, triumph and bankruptcy of capitalism, developed the gospel plot primarily as a “trading business.” In the age of the triumph of capital, when moral values ​​are measured in banknotes, thirty pieces of silver came to the fore in ancient history: the words “betray” and “sell” were perceived as synonyms. This is exactly how the “sin of Judas” of the criminal elder is explained in Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”:

Gleb - he was greedy - is tempted:
The will is burned!
For decades, until recently
Eight thousand souls were secured by the villain...
God forgives everything, but Judas sin
Doesn't say goodbye /5/.

As a concentration of the trend, Pavel Popov’s poem “Judas Iscariot” appeared in 1890. The entire story of the title character from the moment of conception, when his father, the “Pharisee lender,” violently blasphemed against God, and until his shameful death on the aspen tree, is an exposure of the “restless and corrupt age” of the domination of capital:

In homes and families, Kariota
Among the Jews and Romans
One pressing concern;
Everyone is possessed by Baal.
There are no prophets in Judea,
Rome's gods fell to dust;
And the villains multiply... /8/.

The divine curse for the sins of the father and the vicious upbringing of Judas are intertwined here into a chain of reasons that formed the betrayal, but the second reason clearly dominates. Having presented ancient history in a new light, the author of the poem admits that his hopes for the educational significance of the ancient legend are small: the corrupt age daily generates so many moral crimes based on acquisitiveness that the literary (“paper”) Judas seems almost harmless against this background. And yet I want to believe the poet, perhaps

...he will push many away from evil
With its gloomy fate -
And this will benefit /8/.

Thus, at the turn from the depressive 80s of the last century to the decade illuminated by the revival of liberation illusions, the evangelical anti-hero was placed by literature at the service of the concept of “small deeds”, born of the despair of populist thought driven into a dead end.

From the depths of faded centuries
You showed me, my misunderstood brother,
Your burning thorn in its victorious light /9/.

Conventional wisdom teaches: “To understand means to forgive.” That is why M. Gorky, in his article “On Modernity” (1912), fiercely rebelled against the “psychologization” of the theme of Judas, considering it a path to the rehabilitation of betrayal. Such an action can indeed be seen, for example, in the translated story “Judas, the Story of One Suffering” by Thor Gedberg, published in 1908. The translator characterized this work as an attempt, with a sense of compassion, to show the “complex and tortuous” mental process leading to betrayal. The psychological background of “The Tragedy of Judas, Prince Iscariot” by A. Remizov (1908) is even more complex, but the task of the drama is the same: “to understand - to forgive.”

A tragic collision (in the soul of Judas there was a double involuntary sin - parricide and incest) determined a new role for him. He must become the forerunner of the prophet, who has already stopped at a crossroads and is “waiting for another to come to him”: “... and such a one must come to him exhausted, not finding consolation anywhere, ready to take upon himself the last and heaviest guilt, in order to be overwhelmed with his last sin. sin and through your sacrifice open the way for Him... Betrayal (“the last guilt”) is the path to light; the traitor Judas is the forerunner of the Redeemer. From such a shuffling of motives and consequences, the author of the article “On Modernity” once became furious.

Freed from the biblical canon, the anti-hero of the ancient legend helped literature at different stages of its development to fulfill its social educational role, intervening in the complex problems of changing social systems, the bankruptcy of religious foundations, sick tendencies of social psychology - in order to establish certain absolute, universal moral foundations.

List of used literature

1. Andreev L.N. Judas Iscariot // Andreev L.N. Collection. Op. in 6 volumes. T.2. - M.: Artist. lit.,
2. Borges H. L. Three versions of the betrayal of Judas // Borges H. L. Prose of different years: Collection. -
3. Hegel G. V. F. The Life of Jesus // Hegel G. V. F. Philosophy of Religion. In 2 volumes. T. I. - M.:
4. Lossky N. O. Conditions of absolute good: Fundamentals of ethics; The character of the Russian people. - M.:
5. Nemoevsky A. God Jesus: Origin and composition of the Gospels. - Pg.: Gosizdat, 1920. -
6. Neamtsu A.E.. Myth. Legend. Literature (theoretical aspects of functioning). -
7. Popov P. Judas Iscariot: Poem. - St. Petersburg, 1890. - P.6.

“Bible and Culture”, 2008, No. 10. pp. 231-235
National Library of Ukraine named after V.I. Vernadsky, Kiev

One of the important characters in the novel "The Master and Margarita" is Judas. Judas is a negative hero. Using this character as an example, the author shows us a reflection of the essence of a person who does not believe in God, who can betray all his principles, thoughtlessly commit sinful acts, in order to make his dreams come true.

Judas is similar to the biblical representative, but unlike him, he is controlled not by God's conscientious thoughts and messages, but by simple mortal desires. therefore, this character should not be represented as a Biblical hero. This character is individual, he has his own life positions and norms.

In the novel, Judas betrays the righteous Yeshua. He shamelessly kills him with a knife in the back. Judas commits such an act because of a difference of opinion with Yeshua, namely regarding preaching. Judas was constantly busy and thought only about his own things, without even trying to delve into anything new. Should he be condemned for this? Judas is a man with clear life values. Judas invited him to his home to betray Yeshua.

You should not look at this situation from one side; such an act can be justified. After all, Judas committed this act under the influence of a great and beautiful feeling - love.

Judas's heart belonged to the married girl Nisa. Nisa, in turn, was not happy in her marriage. Judas did not want his beloved to suffer and wanted to take her away from her tyrant husband. This was not without difficulties; it required material costs. Therefore, betrayal did not become a problem for him, as long as he had money. But the outcome was not what he expected; he was betrayed by the one to whom his heart belonged.

The author describes a young man with a pleasantly attractive appearance. Everything in his image was calculated down to the very last detail; he did not neglect his appearance and kept it in order. He used his appearance to communicate. But not everything is as simple as it might seem; behind all this beautiful image lies a selfish personality. Even love could not fix him and she was selfish. He thought only about himself and wanted Nisa to be only with him and no one else.

Judas from Kariath did not want to live according to God’s commandment and decided to live a mortal life. He does not think about the future and what will happen to him after death. He lives in the moment, here and now.

If you think carefully, at present there is a part of Judas living in everyone. Often, we think only about ourselves and act as our selfish principles tell us, without thinking about the laws of God. We turn a blind eye to the mean things we commit and consider them the norm in modern society. The author conveys to us the idea that any action is punishable.

2 options

If Judas of Cariath is not the very first traitor on earth, it is only because he has a prototype - Judas Iscariot. It would seem that everything is extremely simple. Approach a person, gain their trust, invite them into your home and treat them as if they were your own, and then betray them, even sell them for thirty pieces of silver, kissing them in front of the executioners. An absolutely 100% feasible plan, which Judas successfully carried out.

How does Judas of Cariath appear in Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita”?

First of all, a young and quite handsome, even very handsome man. Quite careful about his image. Every detail of his clothing, his entire appearance suggests that the young man specially combed his hair, cut his beard, dressed up, choosing all the details of his clothes and even put on new sandals for the occasion, again, creaking ones.

Doesn’t this mean that, in addition to the passion for money indicated by Afranius, Judas of Cariath had another obvious passion - love for himself. He was seriously concerned about how he looked. Even somewhat intoxicated by his beauty and proud of it.

But, most likely, he dreamed of something more than working all his life in his relatives’ money change shop. He even seemed to be in love and was ready to take his beloved away from her disgusted, jealous husband in order to marry her and start a family. After all, why did he need money? But for some reason Nisa herself betrays Judas into the hands of Pontius Pilate’s executioners following on his trail. Once again, again and again, proving that retribution awaits every traitor.

The knife plunged into Judas's back appears as an instrument of justice. Restoring justice on earth. The dirty betrayal of the treacherous scoundrel could not wait for heavenly punishment. And Pontius Pilate took care to rid Yershalaim of a young, handsome man who could sell anyone for just thirty tetradrachms. Judas never had the opportunity to use his wealth, as if it had never existed...

The plan was one hundred percent. Judas managed to betray a wandering philosopher without a clan or tribe. But it was impossible to escape from the procurator’s watchdogs. They overtake their prey much more quickly and quickly.

Essay on Judas of Cariath

Bulgakov's Judas repeats the image of the biblical one, but at the same time the author creates a slightly original and non-canonical hero who is distinguished by his own characteristics. If in the canonical scripture Judas’s betrayal is determined by cowardice, then in The Master and Margarita he is simply a person greedy for money.

In fact, in the image of Judas, Bulgakov conveys every person who deviates from the faith for his own benefit. In particular, Judah of Kiriath wants to make his happiness with a woman named Nisa, who has a jealous husband. It is clear that without money the young man cannot claim any productive actions, so he chooses a reward for betraying the wandering preacher Yeshua.

Judas does not want heavenly happiness, or rather sees earthly happiness as something more tangible and necessary for himself. Therefore, he quite easily betrays Yeshua and chooses his own happiness with Nisa.

Can we blame this hero? Hardly. After all, many people choose earthly happiness, which they exchange for heavenly happiness.

A characteristic detail is the beauty of this hero; this detail allows us to talk about why Nisa chose him, about his passion for pleasure and possible vanity. Judas is probably prone to simple carnal pleasures. He loves money and therefore specifically works as a money changer.

Of course, the philosophy of Yeshua attracts this hero, just as it attracts anyone. However, for this man, his money and Nisa are much closer than any sermons.

The outcome of such a person who turns out to be avenged by those who condemn Yeshua himself is also quite logical. Pontius Pilate seeks to restore conditional justice and himself remains, as it were, aloof from this action. Here we see a rather detached attitude towards the world of the procurator.

After all, Pilate himself wanted to take Yeshua to his own residence, and also, in fact, to gain some kind of earthly happiness (smart conversations and treatment), and Judas wanted to give Yeshua, also for earthly happiness. So is there a difference between these urges? The difference is not significant.

In fact, Yeshua betrays the world to which he preaches his sermon. Judas simply personifies the very common man who is capable of betraying Ha-Nozri. It is not for nothing that later the name Judas became a household name in human culture and quite common as a kind of accusatory name for a person who behaves unworthily.

Judas Iscariot

« Judas Iscariot" - a story by the Russian expressionist writer Leonid Andreev, first published under the title "Judas Iscariot and Others" in the almanac "Collection of the Knowledge Association for 1907", book 16.

Character images

Jesus

The image of a peripheral character belongs to the teacher of Judas - Jesus.

Judas

The image of Judas, according to the writer’s contemporaries, was mysterious and therefore especially attractive to the “paradoxalist” Andreev. Judas from Kariot was treacherous, prone to betrayal and lies. He left his wife and earned bread by stealing. “He had no children, and this once again proves that Judas is a bad person and God does not want offspring from Judas.” He brought with him quarrels and misfortunes. Both good and evil people treat him with skepticism. The image of Judas is formed in the mirror of other people's opinions. The first lines reflect the attitude of the apostles towards Judas. Not yet knowing Judas, they claim that he is a bad person. And the negative assessment “red-haired and ugly” is perceived as a biased opinion of the disciples, dissatisfied with the fact that Jesus accepted him into the circle of the chosen ones. The students do not trust this “redhead” and believe that there is nothing to expect from him other than deceit and evil. Judas's coming to Christ is not accidental. He was unconsciously drawn to people who were pure and bright. A freak despised by everyone with a dual face that serves to reveal Iscariot’s nature, for the first time in his life he felt warmth from a person. And following his commandments he tries to love his neighbors.

Apostles

Andreev’s apostles have “earthly”, human qualities. They are not perfect. Unlike the unpredictable Judas, the disciples are devoid of contradictions and are monotonous in all situations: Peter is loud, cheerful, and energetic; John is naive, ambitious, concerned with only one thought: to maintain his place as the “beloved disciple” of Jesus; Thomas is silent, serious, reasonable, but overly cautious.

None of the students took Iscariot seriously. Everyone was lenient towards him. The students condemned him for lying and pretense, while at the same time they made fun of his stories, which were just another lie. The apostles expected another lie from him, and the “red-haired” Jew lived up to their expectations: “he lied constantly.”

History of writing. Motives. Publication

Leonid Andreev had the first plot ideas and themes for the work at the end of March 1906, when he lived in Switzerland and corresponded with his brother Pavel. At the same time, Andreev asked him to send books by Ernest Renan and David Strauss, among which was the theological and philosophical work “The Life of Jesus.” In May of the same year, he told Alexander Serafimovich that he planned to write “something on the psychology of betrayal.” However, this plan was finally realized only in December 1906 in Capri, where Leonid Nikolaevich moved from Germany after the unexpected death of his wife.

In his memoirs, Maxim Gorky reproduced a conversation with Andreev, in which the latter described his impression of Alexander Roslavlev’s poem “Judas.” Peshkov also noted the influence on the story of the tetralogy “Judas and Christ” by Karl Weiser, the work of Georg Thor “Judas. The story of one suffering" and the drama in verse "Iscariot" by Nikolai Golovanov. Judas Iscariot was written very, very quickly in two weeks. Andreev showed the first edition to Gorky. He noticed a large number of factual and historical errors in the work. The author reread the Gospel and rewrote the story several times. The last remarks were made on February 24, 1907, after which Andreev turned to the publishing house “Znanie”, which decided to publish the work in one of its almanacs. During Leonid Nikolaevich’s lifetime, “Judas Iscariot” was translated into German (1908), English (1910), French (1914), Italian (1919) and other languages.