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 too – and this I say especially to those entrusted with the care of Hearts – it is necessary to learn by studying Judas."

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

"Why highlight the figure of Judas? Many ask me. I answer them: The figure of Judas has been too distorted over the centuries. And, in recent times, it has been completely misrepresented. In some schools, he is almost glorified as if he were the secondary and indispensable agent of the Redemption. Many others think he succumbed to an unexpected, fierce attack from the Tempter. No. Every fall has its preparation over time."-

Origin

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

Appearance

Judas is "attractive and youthful." 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 (Apostle) 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 possess intelligence, boldness, instruction, promptness, bearing," Jesus said to him. "You have so many assets. But all of this is wildly scattered within you and you leave everything in that state."

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

"You are a demon. You have stolen from the Serpent his prerogative to seduce and deceive to detach from God. Your behavior is neither stone nor stick, but it wounds me more than a stone or stick would. Oh! In my atrocious suffering, there will be nothing greater than your behavior to make the Martyr on the Cross suffer."

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:

"Her," he said in a monologue speaking of the Virgin Mary, "Her, I am sure to fool her at will. She is slow to understand like a sheep (...) 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 possessed, 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," Jesus says. "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:

"Fear my son, he is greedy, he has a hard Heart, he is vicious, proud, unstable."

The Virgin Mary herself had this intuition:

"I do not like that one, Son. His eye is not clear, nor his Heart even less. He scares me. If you should disappoint him, he would not hesitate to take your place or try to do so. He is ambitious, greedy, and vicious. He is made to be a courtier of a king of the earth rather than your apostle, my Son."

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

"Judas was secretive, cunning, greedy, lustful, a thief, but on the other hand, intelligent and more cultured than the others, he had imposed himself on everyone. Bold, he paved the way for me, even when it was difficult. What pleased him most was to stand out and assert his position of trust with Me... This also allowed him to keep the purse and approach Women. These were two things he loved madly, along with a third: his privileged office."

"This serpent could only horrify the pure, humble, detached from earthly riches Woman that my Mother was. I myself felt disgust. The Father, the Spirit, and I alone know how much I had to overcome to bear his Presence."

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 follow me for a human idea, Judas. I must dissuade you. I did not come for this."

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

"I reject no one, 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 so little understood me until now? Why lower me to make Me a earthly power and even an ambitious man seeking that power? And do you not realize that this diminishes my Mission and even hinders it? Yes, hinders it (...)"

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 (Sintica) 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 (EMV 119 to EMV 132), 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 no longer want to feel its fascination. Because I feel so good now that I am good. I feel free and 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 distrust myself," he admits. He also questions the death.

Jesus still hopes

Jesus encourages him:

"There is still time, Judas, to choose between my path and that of the Jews you approve. But think: mine leads to God, the other to the Enemy of God. Think and decide, but be frank."

Judas briefly confesses to Jesus:

- "Master, it is difficult to say: 'I have sinned.'"
- "I know, friend," replies Jesus. "Now I forgive you and heal you. What joy you have given me, oh 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:

- "It is because of You that I have no more power. Because you took it away from me to give more to John, to Simon, to James, to all, except me. You do not love me, that's it! And I will end up not loving you and cursing the hour when I loved you," he said to Jesus.

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

"You smell like hell more than Satan himself!" Jesus tells him.

But Judas no longer believes in Hell or in Satan:

"Satan, you neither see nor feel because he is 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 came to hate God," comments Jesus, "never having loved truly his father and mother, nor anyone else as his Neighbor."

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 wish I had not taken a flesh uselessly for you," Jesus said to him. "But now you belong to another father, to another country, you speak another 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! My Father! And can you perhaps accuse me of having left something able to save him? You know it is for his soul, not for my life, that I struggle to prevent his crime... Father! My Father! I beg you! Hurry the hour of Darkness, the hour of Darkness, the hour of the Sacrifice, for it is too atrocious 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 cleverest demon has merged with the most corrupt man who could approach the Woman (Mary) and thus treacherously bite her. Cursed be the monstrous hybrid who is Satan and is man! Do I curse him? No. This is not the word of the 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 Judas had thrown himself at the feet of the Mother saying: '[[Pity, Mercy, Compassion|Mercy],' the Mother of Mercy would have received him like a wounded one."

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.
Maria Valtorta interprets the words of Peter as follows:

"Judas acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his intestines gushed out."

An atrocious, eternal suffering

There was no predestination of Judas’s Soul:

"Between the soul of John the Baptist, and yours, Jesus told him, there was no difference when they were infused into the flesh. You were placed before good and evil. You chose evil."

"(...) I could do nothing with Judas because his soul was possessed; I could not even enter it because he forbade me access. If he followed me, it was because some purely human hope pushed him. He betrayed me out of human greed. He sold the Christ to his torturers and his soul to Satan, at whose instigation he had acted for years; because Satan is not like God, who gives even if you do not give yourself to conquer him. Satan wants to receive a hundred for one. He wants you forever, in exchange for an hour of false triumph. Remember this.

If I bore this viper in the group, it was to teach men to endure and insist to To Save. Not a single thought of Judas was unknown to me. His presence by my side was an anticipated passion, a torment you do not imagine, but no less bitter than the others. I taught you to bear unpleasant things and people, because who inspires more repulsion than a traitor?"

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 greatest pain in the ocean of my pains. The other pains ended with the Sacrifice. But that one remains. I loved him. I burned myself out in my effort to save him... I was able to open the gates of Limbo and bring out the just, I was able to open the gates of Purgatory and bring out those purifying themselves. But the place of horror had closed on him; for him, my death was useless."

Judas is damned, Jesus specifies:

"He is the damned deicide, infinitely guilty as an Israelite and disciple, as a suicide and as a deicide, in addition to his seven deadly sins and all his other faults."

He is in hell for eternity:

"In truth, Jesus says, I tell you that if Hell had not already existed, and existed perfectly in its torments, it would have been created for Judas even more horrible and eternal, because of all sinners and all damned, he is the most damned and the greatest sinner, and for him there will never be any mitigation of his condemnation."

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

"The Blood will have had for him the power to damn him and he will eternally experience another Fire in which he will burn vomiting blood and swallowing blood, because he will see blood everywhere he sets his mortal or spiritual gaze, since he 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?

EMV 35

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

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

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

Election of the Apostles: EMV 160 EMV 161 EMV 162 EMV 163 EMV 164 EMV 165 EMV 166

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Resurrection of Lazarus: EMV 547 EMV 550

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

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

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

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

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

Learn more about this character

In other works by Maria Valtorta

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

"John was the youngest in the group of Apostles. It was Judas Iscariot who came after him in Age. And, because of his Age, he could have been like John too. But he was not. And if he was not virgin, he did not become chaste, not even after knowing me. He was impure. And impurity prevents God’s action in the Hearts and favors that of Satan more than any other passion.

His Face is known to you. This is it. He showed himself to you as the Seductor. Indeed, by his Beauty, he resembled the Most Beautiful who rebelled Against God and who is the father of all Enemies of God.

Beauty itself is a weapon in Satan’s hand, and he does not neglect to imprint its seductive character on his instruments. He thus attracts them to his abysses and there can reach their Hearts by inoculating the triple sin. And Judas had in his Heart the concupiscences for money, flesh, and power..." Read more

Catechesis of January 15, 1944 :

"(The man instructed by Satan) believes in a sacrilegious way that the greatest sinner of all humanity, the beloved son of Satan, who was a thief as the Gospel says, lustful and greedy for human glory as I say, was Judas Iscariot who could have been saved and reached me in successive phases, while, driven by the triple concupiscence, he became a merchant of the Son of God, and for thirty pieces and a Kiss as a sign – a trivial monetary value and an infinite affective value –, he handed me over to the torturers. No. If he was the sacrilege par excellence, I am not. If he was the unjust par excellence, I am not. If he was the one who disdainfully spilled my Blood, I am not. Forgiving Judas would be a sacrilege against my divinity which he betrayed, it would be an injustice against all other men, always less guilty than him and who are nevertheless punished for their sins, it would be to despise my blood, finally it would be to disregard my laws." Read more

In other sources

Excerpts from the Dictionary of Gospel Characters, Salton Maria Valtorta (Mgr 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.