In addition to the obscure manner resorted to by Jesus in his speeches, he seldom conversed with any of his countrymen of any distinction. It was always the lower ranks of society to whom he directed his sayings; so that, to the most learned and opulent of the Jews, he was little known; for when the higher powers were about to take him into custody, to them he was unknown. It then became expedient to offer a reward to some one to point him out to the officers appointed to arrest him. Judas Iscariot was the man who seemed willing as well as competent, to conduct this ungrateful business. Jesus had often said that _one of his apostles would betray him_. There is something very strange in the saying of Jesus, that _he had chosen twelve apostles and one would betray him_. If Jesus came to the Jews as the promised and expected Messiah, the very idea of betraying him implies that he did not intend that the Jews should ever know him as _the sent of God_. At all events, Jesus, at the time Judas made him personally known to the chief priest and rulers, complained of the deceitfulness of Judas, which is full proof that he did not wish at that time to be put on his trial. But in what did this betraying consist? The Jewish rulers wished to have the man pointed out to them who had made so much noise and stir among the lower order of the people. Judas took the reward, and if Jesus were really sent by the Lord of all to his nation, this betraying was only giving him an opportunity of openly avowing his Messiahship. Here then was the time for him to show such signs and wonders as to prevent any doubts as to who he was, and of the important object of his coming; for if _he came into the world to die for the sins of mankind_, Judas then was of vast importance in bringing about that which was before ordained by the _determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God_. But if he (Jesus) did not intend to suffer death, then, and only then, had he cause to complain of Judas as a traitor. Jesus, in speaking of Judas, says, “_it had been good for that man if he had never been born:_” but if the salvation of mankind depended on the death of Christ, a more important person than Judas was never born of woman. Whether such a man as Jesus ever lived or not, it is impossible to determine; but admitting that such a man as he is said to have been, did exist, it does appear that his life was a scene of incongruities bordering on insanity. And the whole of his public ministry was so erratic, that it seems as if he had no specific object in view. CHAPTER IV.