The Gospel of Me
by Judas Iscariot, as revealed to Aemilia Scott
There comes a time in a man's afterlife when he thinks he has seen it all. That time for me came in AD 33. And then in 1359. And then in 1520. And then in 1939. But I don't think anything could have prepared me for AD 2006.
Imagine my surprise when I read in the New York Times Underworld edition that my very own Gospel had been rediscovered and finally translated after 1700 years of anonymity. Did you know that gospel comes from the Greek word "euangelion," meaning "good news?" Well, it does. You probably think that the "good news" of Judas might be a fortuitous double-entendre for me, don't you?
Good news, my immaterial ass. I never got to have a last word before I killed myself, or before I was killed — I can never remember which it was. You want some more Good news? Here it is, in five words.
Stop trying to redeem me.
I don't care whether said redeemer is paid in dollars from Harvard or manna from heaven. Theologians who wear burlap sacks want to say that my betrayal of our Lord and Savior was a mistake. Really? A mistake is accidentally releasing your sex video, or telling Oprah that you're a Scientologist. What I did was purposefully betray Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, the Alpha and the Omega. Sure, it sounds paradoxical, but let's just say that it is literally impossible to understand Jesus' public relations strategy. I was on message.
When J.C. pulled me aside three days before Passover for a chat, mano a mano, he made it clear that I was going to play an integral part in his divine PR campaign. At the time I was understandably pissed off to have been given this most terrible of roles to play. But when The Man asks an apostle to jump, an apostle knows what he's supposed to say. Heck, if The Man asks you to be gored by lions or live in a tree for three months, there's really only one answer to give.
J.C. looked into my heart, saw my very serious reservations about betraying Him for some silver, and told me that I would be rewarded. "Seriously?" I thought in my heart. "For Serious," Jesus' heart replied to my heart. "This generation will definitely hate you, but future generations will be all up on you!" I think his exact words were, "You will be cursed by future generations, but you will come to rule over them." It's been a while.
When He started calling me "thirteenth" I began to get worried, because the band had had only twelve people up until this point. J.C. told me, "Well, Judas, you can't exactly betray me and then pretend to be cool with the other eleven, can you?" This was really the hardest part of the breakup. Everyone knew I was one of His favorites because the two of us really worked on the same wavelength. I was like his vice-Christ.
The next few days were God-awful, let me tell you. In 72 hours, I'm kicked out of the band, I'm either crucified upside-down or I wander out to the desert to hang myself, and condemned to eternal damnation in the lowest circle of hell. Hell is really terrible, like you'd expect. And of course, the first 300 or so years are the hardest. I'm freezing my kiester off down in hell while the Apostles, including Matthias (my yes-man replacement) are relaxing up in Eternal Salvation, and nothing on Earth had changed.
By about AD 1300 I'm ready to write J.C. an angrily worded codex, when I notice something. Giotto makes this thing called a "fresco" — a bunch of frescos, actually — about me. And then Giotto puts me right next to Jesus in his painting of the Last Supper. And so does Michelangelo. And so does Tintoretto! Before you know it, Milton is writing six million lines about me, Shakespeare is referencing me like he's getting paid by the word, and Dante is devoting an entire canto of his poem to me! I learned three things from Dante: first, the rest of hell is very hot; second, heaven is really, really boring; and third, canto means "chapter."
Suddenly eternal damnation isn't looking so bad. I also learned that since the beginning of time the upper circles of hell have had an influx of literally billions of souls of the damned, and I haven't had to change the sign that says "Now Entering: Ninth Circle, Population: 3" since I first got here. The thought of sharing one circle of hell with every single fornicator ever to have lived makes getting chewed alive by Lucifer seem like an umbrella drink!
Although Jesus and I haven't talked in a while, if I could behold The Guy now, I'd weep for having doubted him. Infamy was the best gift J.C. could have given me. By the end of the Renaissance any painter or author worth his salt has tried his hand at depicting me. Every day someone new learns my name. I go from infamy, to celebrity, to household name, to adjective! My name is an adjective!
Who do you remember, Benedict Arnold or Henry Knox? Benedict Arnold is the adjective, Knox is the gelatin. Brutus or Cicero? Brutus is the adjective, Cicero is a suburb of Chicago. Do you say, "Hey, I'm going to party like my name is Emperor Diocletian?" No, you party like your name is Nero. Does anyone care that Diocletian was the mastermind behind the longest period of peace for the Roman Empire? Of course not! Nero burned Rome! Party on!
To think I was jealous of the other apostles is funnier than Jesus' act in my Gospel. Do you know how Bartholomew died? Do you even know Bartholomew? He was flayed alive, for the record. Other than Peter and Paul, can you name another apostle? Exactly. I'm the Eric Clapton of Cream. I will never die.
And Matthias, my replacement? Let's just say that there hasn't been much scholarship about him over the last 2000 years. Giotto didn't paint any images of him making a pact the Devil. They could have easily written him into the Last Supper, but the truth is, I am more important to the last supper than any of the other apostles! What would the story be without me? The band is called Judas Priest, not Matthias Priest.
To the skeptics I ask: would you rather live in the penthouse of hell or a six-thousand-floor walkup in heaven? Would you rather play Iago in Othello or Sword-Bearer #3? I may have played the villain, but I still got more stage time than John.
Believe me, the last thing I wanted was to have my reputation redeemed. The last thing I wanted was to be regrouped as a company man with the other twelve apostles. The last thing I wanted was to hear Sunday School students wonder, for the rest of eternity, "Judas, wait, which apostle was he? What did he do? How did he die?"
Talk about betraying someone with a kiss.
E-mail Aemilia Scott at aemilia at gmail dot com.
