as.

The legend about Judas may without exaggeration be described as one of
the most foolish legends of antiquity; that it has been believed is one
proof among thousands of the indescribable simplicity of mankind. Few
legends carry like it the stamp of lie on their faces and few legends
have millennium after millennium caused so many evils and horrors. It
has tortured and murdered by hundred thousands.

According to the supposition the story is impossible. The supposition is
that a man in possession of superhuman attributes, a god or a demi-god,
day after day goes about and speaks in the open air in a town and its
neighborhood. So little does he make a secret of his doings that a short
time before he had made his entry at broad daylight, welcomed with
exultation by the whole population. He is known by each and all, by each
woman and each child. So little does he want to hide that he walks about
accompanied by his disciples, preaching day and night, sleeping among
them. And to think it should be necessary to buy one of his disciples to
denounce him and deliver him, to betray him, and that--for the sake of
the effect--with a kiss! Indeed if he had hidden in some cellar, then
there would be some meaning in it; but as things are, those who seek
him need only ask: which of you is Jesus? He would not have tried to
deny his name.

Judas is then not only quite superfluous, but an absurdity, the origin
of which is to be found in the desire to place the black traitor
opposite the white hero of light and in the hatred of Jews arising among
the first Gentile Christians, who later made the world forget that not
only this straw-doll, Judas, but also Jesus and all the Apostles, all
the Disciples and all the evangelists were Jews.

Nevertheless, in the conception of the rude masses this Judas--as he was
called--has become the Jew, the typical Jew, the traitor, and the spy.

Still as late as in the last decennium of the last century, Capt. Alfred
Dreyfus fell a victim to this old foolish legend.

And now it is again rehashed against the Jews in Russian Poland.

The pogroms have, by virtue of these Judas accusations and the many
other dreadful accusations, spread all over Russian Poland and there
they are spreading more and more, while Galicia as well as Posen has
proved susceptible to the incitations which have not failed. Many
hundreds of innocent people have fallen victims to them.

Here are a few instances from many:

In th