circle of all, in the very bottom of the pit, where the
worst of all sinners and the basest of all sins are undergoing
retribution. It is a lake not of fire but of ice, beneath whose
transparent surface are visible, fixed in painful postures, the figures
of those who have betrayed their benefactors; because this, in Dante's
estimation, is the worst of sins. In the midst of them stands out,
vast and hideous, "the emperor who sways the realm of woe"--Satan
himself; for this was the crime which lost him Paradise. And the next
most conspicuous figure is Judas Iscariot. He is in the mouth of
Satan, being champed and torn by his teeth as in a ponderous engine.

Such was the mediaeval view of this man and his crime. But in modern
times opinion has swung round to the opposite extreme. Ours is an age
of toleration, and one of its favourite occupations is the
rehabilitation of evil reputations. Men and women who have stood for
centuries in the pillory of history are being taken down; their cases
are retried; and they are set up on pedestals of admiration. Sometimes
this is done with justice, but is other cases it has been carried to
absurdity. Nobody, it would appear, has ever been very bad; the
criminals and scoundrels have been men whose motives have been
misunderstood. Among those on whose behalf the attempt has thus been
made to reverse the verdict of history is Judas Iscariot. Eighteen
centuries had agreed to regard him as the meanest of mankind, but in
our century he has been transmuted into a kind of hero. The theory is
of German origin; but it was presented to the English public by De
Quincey, who adorned it with all the persuasiveness of his meretricious
genius.

It is held that the motive of Judas was totally different from the one
hitherto supposed: it was not filthy lucre. The smallness of the price
for which he sold his Master--it was less than four pounds of our
money, though the value of this sum was much greater then--proves that
there must have been another motive. The traditional conception is
inconsistent with Christ's choice of him to be a disciple; and it is
irreconcilable with the tragic greatness of his repentance. His view
of Christ's enterprise was no doubt of a material cast: he expected
Christ to be a king, and hoped to hold a high place in His court: but
these ideas were common to all the disciples, who to the very end were
waiting to see their Master throw off the cloak of His humble