CONTENT.

INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………..3

CHAPTER I. Formation of L. Andreev’s artistic method……………………………...5

1.1 The writer’s life path………………………………………………………………………………...5

1.2 The place of the story “Judas Iscariot” in the works of L. Andreev………………………...8

CHAPTER 2. Origins and interpretation of the plot of the betrayal of Judas Iscariot in world culture. Specifics of philosophical issues……………………………10

2.1 Biblical basis of the plot……………………………………………………10

2.2 Interpretation of the image of Judas in world literature…………………………………14

2.3 The main moral and moral ideas of the story and the nature of their presentation in the story…………………………………………………………………………………………...16

CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………………….21

LITERATURE………………………………………………………………………………………………...22

INTRODUCTION.

The work of L. Andreev is relevant for any time and any era, despite the fact that the peak of his popularity was in the distant years 1902 - 1908, when the main works were written and published: “The Life of Vasily of Thebes” and “Darkness”, “Judas Iscariot” and "Human Life". There is no doubt that the writer was one of the most published and read authors in Russia. His popularity was comparable to that of Gorky; in terms of circulation, he was hardly inferior to Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. But even during the years of his creative heyday, Leonid Andreev continued to be the object of attacks from critics and a variety of publicists, who accused him of anarchism and godlessness, lack of a sense of proportion and too close attention to psychopathology.

Time has put everything in its place, and descendants and today’s researchers of L. Andreev’s work have no doubts about either the artistic value of his work or the depth of the philosophical, moral and ethical issues raised in them. The socio-historical and literary-philosophical processes of the past century indirectly justified the paradoxical and largely provocative method of Leonid Andreev, showing that his seemingly artificial tragedy is a property of time, and not the arbitrariness of the playing artist. Therefore, the philosophical problems touched upon by the writer are both a reflection of the time and era in which he lived and worked, and also carry the concept of “eternal” themes and universal ideas. This characterizes the relevance of our essay, since in the short story “Judas Iscariot” this topic is central.

Quite a lot of work has been written about Andreev. During Andreev's lifetime they wrote about him very often, especially in 1903 - 1908, when his talent reached its culminating height.

These are, first of all, articles by Merezhkovsky, Voloshin and Blok, in whose work philosophical issues also occupy a prominent place.

Soviet literary criticism (late 50s - 80s), despite the forced sociological and ideological contexts, strove for the most objective reading of the work of Leonid Andreev and generally assessed him as a talented artist who quite adequately experienced the crisis of his time and reflected it in complex , contradictory images on the border of realism and modernism.

The work of L. Andreev was also intensively studied in the 90s of the last century. These are: Andreev’s work in the context of Russian classics; Andreev and the 20th century: the problem of influences and typological contacts; Andreev and foreign literature: the problem of a single ideological and aesthetic space; philosophical foundations of the Andreev method; religious subtext of Andreev’s creativity; poetics and its linguistic aspects; Andreev's creativity in the modern Russian school.

However, despite the abundance of works, we believe that Leonid Andreev is an artist whose work cannot be studied to the end, just as it is impossible to grasp at once the entire philosophical depth of his works. Therefore, we chose for analysis one of his stories, “Judas Iscariot,” as the most indicative of the writer’s artistic and moral system.

Thus,purpose of the essay - analysis of Leonid Andreev’s story “Judas Iscariot” in the context of philosophical issues.

Abstract object - philosophical issues of the story by L. Andreev.

Subject of the abstract - raising moral issues in the work.

Tasks:

Studying the main periods of L. Andreev’s work and identifying the place in it of the story “Judas Iscariot”;

Consideration of the evangelical origins of the problems of the story and their refraction in world culture;

Analysis of the features of the author’s moral position in the story;

Synthesis of conclusions about the artistic and philosophical value of “Judas Iscariot”.

CHAPTER I. The formation of L. Andreev’s artistic method.

1.1 The writer’s life path.

For a long time, the creativity and personality of the writer L. Andreev fell into oblivion. Meanwhile, the writer’s multifaceted philosophical system and his undoubted artistic talent clearly do not deserve to be neglected. In addition, from his first steps in literature, Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev aroused acute and heterogeneous interest in himself. Having begun to be published in the late 1890s, by the middle of the first decade of the 20th century. he reached the zenith of fame and became almost the most fashionable writer of those years. But the fame of some of his works was almost scandalous: Andreev was accused of a penchant for pornography, psychopathology, and denial of the human mind

There was another erroneous point of view. In the work of the young writer one found indifference to reality, “aspiration towards space.” Whereas all the images and motifs of his works, even conventional and abstract ones, were born from the perception of a specific era.

The ongoing controversy, albeit with excesses in assessments, testified to the imperious attraction to Andreev. At the same time, of course, about the ambiguity of his artistic world.

This feature of the writer’s individuality was to a certain extent determined by the circumstances of his life. He was the eldest in a large family of an Oryol official. They lived more than modestly. As a young man, Andreev was brave and energetic. However, already in those years he was visited by bouts of depression. Apparently, the joyless situation resonated painfully: the vulgar province, the humiliation of poverty, the bourgeois life in his home.

The complexity of his own experiences and the contrasts of internal motivations gave Andreev his first idea of ​​the ups and downs of the human soul. Painful questions arise about the essence of life, interest in philosophy, especially the works of A. Schopenhauer, F. Nietzsche, E. Hartmann. Their bold reasoning about the contradictions of will and reason largely strengthens Andreev’s pessimistic worldview, nevertheless causing polemical thoughts in favor of man.

Interest in social sciences leads, after graduating from the Oryol gymnasium, to the Faculty of Law of Moscow University. By that time, Andreev (after the death of his father) becomes the head of the family. After completing the course (1897), he practiced law and published judicial essays and feuilletons, often in the newspaper “Courier”.

Since the late 1890s. Andreev establishes contacts with writers. His first story “Bargamot and Garaska” (1898) was highly appreciated by M. Gorky, who attracted the author to collaborate in the famous magazines “Life”, “Magazine for Everyone”, and introduced him to members of a literary circle called “Wednesdays”. Here Andreev became close to his peers N. Teleshov, Iv. Bunin, A. Kuprin, becoming one of the most active participants in these meetings. Andreev also successfully joined the creative team grouped by Gorky under the auspices of the Znanie publishing house.

And yet it cannot be said that Andreev found faithful comrades. The warm friendship that began with Gorky very soon turned into sharp ideological differences between them. Bunin and Kuprin also turned out to be alien to Andreev’s artistic quest. For some period, his work excited A. Blok; their acquaintance took place, but close communication did not work out. The writer began to clearly feel the emptiness around him. Andreev’s confusion was understandable: he highly valued many writers of the realistic movement - Chekhov, Garshin, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky - as his teachers; but he also acutely felt his isolation from the literary traditions of the 19th century. The new era - the era of despair and hope - dictated new content to his work and required new forms for this content.

Andreev remained indifferent to social processes; he was interested in their reflection in the inner being of people. Therefore, the writer was reproached for an abstract interpretation of important social events. And he created a psychological document of the era.

With faith in the infallible perfection of the builders of a new life, in their effective influence on the unconscious human mass, Andreev accepted the first Russian revolution. He wrote to V. Veresaev: “And the blessed rain of the revolution. Since then you have been breathing, since then everything has been new, not yet conscious, but huge, joyfully scary, heroic. New Russia. Everything was in motion." The writer welcomed the explosion of a dead, stagnant atmosphere. And he himself eagerly took part in demonstrations and rallies. Sympathizing with the liberation movement, Andreev provided his apartment to members of the Central Committee of the RSDLP for a meeting, for which he was arrested and imprisoned in Taganskaya prison.

In February 1906, Andreev witnessed the May Day demonstration in Helsingfors, spoke out against the autocracy at the July rally, and observed the congress of the Finnish Red Guard. The suppression of the Sveaborg uprising increased pessimistic sentiments. There could be no other reaction, since Andreev understood the degeneration of the people in a maximalist way. The outcome of 1906 was generally unbearably painful for the writer; he lost his beloved wife (Alexandra Mikhailovna Veligorskaya).

Soon, in February 1907, Andreev finished the story “Judas Iscariot and Others,” where a radically revised biblical story expressed his idea of ​​the meaning and nature of the development of the world. The connection “with the common, the human” took place, although the unrest of the current time was not forgotten. Andreev created an unusually deep, passionate and very complex piece. Lunacharsky rightly classified it as a literary masterpiece. Blok again said the most insightful thing about “Judas Iscariot”: “The author’s soul is a living wound.”

In Andreev’s further work of the late 1900s. there are no large things to match “Judas Iscariot”. However, even in this period of time, the previous trend is visible - a combination of extremely “cruel” (“Darkness”) works with enlightened, even romantic ones (“From a story that will never be finished”, “Ivan Ivanovich”). Both were caused by thoughts about the revolution.

The first Russian revolution brought Andreev deep - not without reason - disappointments, at the same time it saturated his dreams, thoughts about the world and man with new content, and his creativity with bright achievements.

In the last decade before his early death, Andreev experienced many difficult mental hardships. One of the most painful experiences, apparently, was caused by a noticeable decline in interest in his writings among critics and readers. This fact, I think, can be explained by the changing demands of the era.

Some aspects of the writer’s personal biography contributed to Andreev’s separation from his previous literary environment. He married a second time - to Anna Ilyinichna Denisevich, and settled in St. Petersburg. This marriage was not happy like the first, although Anna Ilyinichna idolized her husband. The new family led a secular lifestyle, going to their dacha in Finland in the summer. Having become close to the area, Andreev bought land on the Black River and built a large house, where he spent many months of the year, and with the outbreak of the First World War he lived almost constantly.

The world cherished by the writer was inexorably falling apart, the previous bright ideas were receding. The inhumane wave in literature was perceived painfully. For Andreev, a difficult time of new self-determination was coming.

Andreev's stories of the 1910s. multi-themed. He wrote about the origins of inner devastation or endless fatigue, about the death of the beautiful in an atmosphere of selfishness and vulgarity, about the perverse fate of man.

Andreev reacted with sympathy to Russia's participation in the First World War. It seemed to Andreev that the battle against German militarism would unite everyone for the “common good and sacred goal: humanity.”

Over the five years from 1912 to 1916, Andreev wrote eleven multi-act plays and a number of satirical miniatures. Most of them reflected the tense moments of the characters’ inner lives. In a number of cases, painful conditions were given a self-sufficient meaning. The impact of vulgar everyday life on the human soul has acquired cosmic proportions.

During the life of L.N. Andreev, he was called a decadent, a symbolist, a neorealist - the nature of his artistic worldview was not defined. Decades later, the writer began to be brought closer to the expressionists.

Andreev's legacy, constantly subject to harsh, accusatory assessments, is an integral part of Russian culture. And the writer himself, living in Finland and finding himself in exile, could not exist outside his native atmosphere. Melancholy hastened his death.

L. Andreev was and remains a poetic, romantic, emotionally impulsive person, an original and controversial artist-thinker who created his own unique artistic world.

1.2 The place of the story “Judas Iscariot” in the works of L. Andreev.

The work of L. Andreev and its spiritual and philosophical foundations make it possible to identify many trends in the literary and artistic life of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. Andreev can be called one of the brightest figures of his time; he left an original mark on culture. His creative method intricately intertwined traditional and innovative, realism and the latest trends; The writer’s artistic path reflected all the main signs of his era, which sought to develop an integral worldview and restore the broken “connection of times.” “He is the synthesis of our era,” said his contemporary K.I. about him. Chukovsky, - under a powerful magnifying glass." Indeed, such features of Andreev’s creativity as the desire for the integration of literature and philosophy, the attraction to parables and mythology, the complete denial of the canons of existing aesthetic systems, allow us to speak about Andreev’s phenomenon of synthetism, which simultaneously expresses the essential tendencies of all art at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries. The organic connection between Andreev’s artistic searches and the art of his time became one of the reasons that determined the interest of modern scientists in his figure.

The story “Judas Iscariot” occupies a special place in the writer’s work; it was recognized by many contemporaries, colleagues and critics as the writer’s artistic pinnacle.

The story was written at a difficult time for Andreev, which also undoubtedly influenced the depth of his ideological and problematic plan. It was completed in 1907, and a little earlier - on November 28, 1906 - the writer's beloved wife Alexandra Mikhailovna died. Just a few words of dedication tell us a lot about what this woman meant in Andreev’s life. This is how Andreev describes his life in Capri to V.V. Veresaeva, where he left in December 1906: “...For me, and to this day, the question is whether I will survive Shura’s death or not, - of course, not in the sense of suicide, but deeper. There are connections that cannot be destroyed without irreparable damage to the soul.”

The first thing Andreev wrote in Capri was the story “Judas Iscariot,” the idea of ​​which he had been hatching for a long time - since 1902. Therefore, not only the events of Russian history - the defeat of the first Russian revolution and the rejection of revolutionary ideas by many - caused the appearance of this work, but also the internal impulses of L. Andreev himself. From a historical point of view, the theme of apostasy from past revolutionary passions is present in the story. L. Andreev also wrote about this. However, the content of the story, especially over time, goes far beyond the scope of a specific socio-political situation.

Leonid Andreev's story is an artistic philosophical and ethical study of human vice, and the main conflict is philosophical and ethical.

If we arrange Andreev’s heroes in genealogical chains, then the direct predecessor of Judas should be called King Herod (“Sava”), who brought himself closer to Christ through the torments of self-torture, eternal and terrible penance as punishment for the murder of his own son. But Judas is more complex than Herod. He does not just want to be first after Christ in order to revel in the grief of his betrayal. He wants to stand at least next to Christ, placing a world unworthy of him at his feet.

In the story, based on an evangelical plot, Andreev’s reaction to the events of the current time is easily read. The writer conveys his feelings in all their acuteness: hatred of the cruel and politically cunning authorities (high priest Anna and his minions), painful perception of dark, unconscious townspeople and villagers, irony towards part of the intelligentsia, looking only for themselves a place in the sun (disciples of Jesus ), and - the dream of ascetics sacrificing themselves in the name of saving humanity. But specific temporal accents are only a fraction of the generalizations achieved in the story.

We must pay tribute to the artistic courage of the writer who risked turning to the image of Judas, much less trying to understand this image. After all, from a psychological point of view, to understand something means to accept something. Leonid Andreev, of course, foresaw this danger. He wrote: the story “will be criticized both from the right and from the left, from above and from below.” And he turned out to be right: the emphasis that was placed in his version of the Gospel story (“The Gospel of Andreev”) turned out to be unacceptable for many contemporaries, including L. Tolstoy: “Terribly disgusting, false and lacking a sign of talent. The main thing is why? At the same time, the story was highly appreciated by M. Gorky, A. Blok, K. Chukovsky and many others.

The polarity of assessments of L. Andreev’s work and its central character in literary criticism has not disappeared even today, and it is caused by the dual nature of the image of Andreev’s Judas.

An unconditionally negative assessment of the image of Judas is given, for example, by L.A. Zapadova, who, having analyzed the biblical sources of the story “Judas Iscariot,” warns: “Knowledge of the Bible for a full perception of the story-story and comprehension of the “secrets” of “Judas Iscariot” is necessary in various aspects . It is necessary to keep biblical knowledge in mind... - at least in order not to succumb to the charm of the serpentine-satanic logic of the character whose name the work is named"

Another point of view has become no less widespread. For example, B.S. Bugrov states: “The deep source of [Judas’s] provocation turns out to be not the innate moral depravity of a person, but an integral property of his nature - the ability to think. The impossibility of renouncing “seditious” thoughts and the need for their practical verification are the internal impulses of Judas’ behavior.” R. S. Spivak states: “The semantics of the image of Judas in Andreev’s story is fundamentally different from the semantics of the Gospel prototype. The betrayal of St. Andrew’s Judas is a betrayal only in fact, and not in essence.”

CHAPTER 2. Origins and interpretation of the plot of the betrayal of Judas Iscariot in world culture. Specifics of philosophical problems.

2.1 The biblical basis of the plot.

For many centuries, one of the most durable moral guidelines for world literature has been such an ideological and ethical teaching as Christianity. Undoubtedly, biblical themes and images can be classified as “eternal”, due to the inexhaustibility of their spiritual content and universal, universal meaning.

Judas is traditionally regarded by researchers as “eternal” images. By origin, this is a biblical character.

Many biblical images, to which artists, poets, and musicians have repeatedly turned in their work over many centuries, are usually classified as “eternal.” The definitions of “eternal images” emphasize their repetition (found in the works of writers of different eras and cultures) and symbolism, i.e. the inexhaustibility of spiritual content and universal, universal meaning. Moving from work to work, finding themselves in new contexts, they are rethought each time anew - depending on the time, era, culture that “sheltered” them. “Roaming” from text to text, they enrich the content of the new text, introducing into it meanings “acquired” in previous contexts, and on the other hand, the new context inevitably influences the further understanding of this image.

The Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, one of the most authoritative pre-revolutionary reference publications, says about Judas: “Judas Iscariot is one of the 12 apostles who betrayed his Teacher. He received his nickname from the city of Keriof, from which he was from (Ish-Keriof - a man from Keriof); however, opinions differ in this regard. In any case, he was the only Jew among the apostles, who were all Galileans. In the company of the apostles, he was in charge of their cash register, from which he soon began to steal money, and then, deceived in the hope that Jesus Christ would appear as the founder of a great earthly kingdom, in which all the Jews would be princes and drown in luxury and wealth, he sold his Teacher for 30 silver coins (or shekels: 3080 k. = 24 gold rubles), but out of remorse he hanged himself. There have been many attempts to unravel his transition from apostleship to betrayal...”

According to the Gospels, Judas was the son of a certain Simon and, probably, the only native of Judea among the disciples of Jesus, who came from Galilee (Galil) - the northern part of the Land of Israel. In the community of Jesus' disciples, I. I. was in charge of general expenses, that is, he was the treasurer and carried with him a “cash box” for alms. It is with this responsibility of Judas that his greed is associated, which served as a kind of loophole for the devil’s suggestion. This is especially obvious in the interpretation of the Gospel of John. So, when Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, anointed Jesus’ feet with precious spikenard oil, I. Judas said: “Why not sell this ointment for three hundred denarii and give it to the poor?” . According to the evangelist, “he said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief: he had a cash box with him and carried what was put in it.”

According to the Gospels, Judas went to the “high priests” and offered to hand over Jesus for a certain bribe: “And he said: What will you give me, and I will betray Him to you? They offered him thirty pieces of silver...” However, researchers have long drawn attention to a certain paradox: thirty pieces of silver was too insignificant an amount at that time to satisfy greed, and even at the cost of such an act; in addition, the very action of Judas turns out to be strangely insignificant to be subject to payment at all, for Jesus was not difficult to capture, since He was, based on the Gospels themselves, well known to the “high priests and scribes,” especially the latter, for in many ways they the views were in contact with the views of the preacher from Galilee.

According to the Gospels, from the moment of his agreement with the “high priests,” Judas was looking for an opportunity to betray his Teacher. Such an opportunity presented itself in connection with the onset of the Jewish Passover and some of the laws for its celebration. At the Last Supper, which is the first festive meal in Jerusalem, where it is forbidden to gather openly to celebrate the holiday, Jesus and the apostles recline, as befits the Jewish custom of that time, on special couches around the banquet table. Apparently, Judas finds himself in the closest proximity to Jesus, as well as one of the disciples “whom Jesus loved” and who “reclined at the breast of Jesus”; Church tradition unanimously identifies the latter with John the Theologian. Simon Peter asks this disciple, “whom Jesus loved,” to ask the Teacher whom He had in mind, uttering bitter and terrible words: “... truly, truly, I say to you, that one of you will betray Me.” The student, “falling to his chest,” asks: “Lord, who is this?” Judas, who is nearby, hears the answer, and it is to him that Jesus gives a dipped piece of bread, indicating the traitor: “Jesus answered: “He to whom I will dip a piece of bread I will give.” And, having dipped a piece, he gave it to Judas Simon Iscariot.” According to the rest of the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus does not indicate a traitor, but simply says that he is one of the twelve who are at the same table with Him. At the same time, Jesus again mysteriously says that this is how it should be, that is, the betrayal of one of his closest disciples is a necessary link in the overall plan of Salvation, but “woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed: it would have been better for this man not to have been born.” Thus, the Gospel text itself sets up a strangely disturbing dialectic between the “benefit” of betrayal and the “programmed” nature of Judas’ act, which will further cause contradictory and rather “seditious” interpretations. According to the Gospel of John, it was after Jesus’ specific indication of the traitor, inaudible to others, that the devil’s plan finally matured in the soul of the annoyed Judas, and Jesus read in his soul and even urged him to act as quickly as possible: “And after this piece Satan entered into him. Then Jesus said to him, “Whatever you are doing, do it quickly.” // But none of those reclining understood why He said this to him” (John 13:27-28). Judas gets up from the banquet table and goes into the night. Then, while Jesus and the rest of his disciples are already in Gethsemane, Judas leads a whole crowd to a place known to him - “a multitude of people with swords and stakes, from the high priests and elders of the people” - and betrays him with his kiss (“the kiss of Judas,” the proverbial ). However, this episode also contains a certain amount of paradox and even illogicality: it was hardly necessary to point out to the people Jesus among the twelve with any sign, for the people already knew Him; It was perhaps necessary to indicate for the Roman legionnaires, because for them all these Jews were “alike.”

However, after the Teacher was arrested, i.e. even before the trial, scourging and execution on the cross, something happens in the soul of Judas that is not entirely explainable logically and is not psychologically motivated: he repents, admits his terrible guilt and returns thirty pieces of silver to those from whom I received them. At the same time, he publicly admits his terrible sin: “...I sinned by betraying innocent blood” (Matthew 27:4). After this, he commits suicide: “And throwing away the pieces of silver in the Temple, he went out and went and hanged himself” (Matthew 27:3). The “high priests”, after consulting, decided not to leave the pieces of silver in the temple treasury, for they were desecrated with blood, and “to buy a potter’s land with them for the burial of strangers.”

It is noteworthy that Judas’s suicide looks like an act of a person’s judgment over himself, a judgment of conscience, which does not quite fit with the image of an unscrupulous and initially selfish traitor and gives rise to mysteries and different interpretations. Moreover: it is Judas who experiences what happened most acutely and painfully, while Peter renounces the Teacher three times, that is, he also commits betrayal, but pays for it not with his own death, but only with tears and mental anguish. It is also important that Judas deliberately chooses the method of death that was considered the most shameful and disgusting according to the laws of the Torah: “...cursed before God is anyone who is hanged on a tree...”. After the betrayal and suicide of I.I., his place among the twelve apostles was transferred to Matthias in order to restore the sacred number, symbolizing completeness.

Subsequently, many legends arose about the death of Judas. According to the legend recorded by Papias of Hierapolis, Judas was taken from the tree while still alive and then died of some mysterious illness, from which his body monstrously swollen. A huge amount of artistic, scientific and popular science literature is developing around the image of Judas, trying to solve the “riddle of Judas”, the paradox given by his image in the Gospels: on the one hand, a traitor, painted in absolutely black colors, a pole of evil, an instrument of the devil, on the other, the chosen one , who is in a strange proximity to Jesus, loving Him so much that he cannot stand even His arrest and commits suicide even before His execution, working, in essence, for the posthumous glory and greatness of the Teacher.

And yet, let us note that in the majority of humanity, under the influence of Christianity, Judas became a symbol of the blackest betrayal.

However, in the 19th and 20th centuries, under the conditions of the general process of de-Christianization of culture, a new tendency clearly emerged in world literature and art - to comprehend the motives, penetrate into the psychology of the gospel characters, and imbue them with “the blood and flesh of the world.” And this, in turn, led to an unconventional interpretation of canonical biblical stories and images. The image of Judas also underwent rethinking. Of course, this trend caused sharp rejection among the majority of readers brought up in the traditions of Christian culture and morality. Many people perceived the appeal to the image of Judas, to his “merchant businessman” negatively, seeing in this only a desire to justify the traitor. L. Andreev rebelled against this understanding of the author’s position with resentment and was surprised at the lack of understanding of what he wrote: “Or do you also think,” he wrote to one of his correspondents, “that I justify Judas, and I myself am Judas, and my children Azefs.”

The riddle of Judas is generated by the Gospel itself, which lacks the psychological background of this key episode. After all, as we have already discussed above, the canonical Gospels do not explain the events and actions of the Gospel characters, but only set them out and narrate about them. And, of course, they do not contain psychological motivations. This is the peculiarity of the Old and New Testaments and their mystery. It is a mystery because, despite its brevity, lapidary nature, and external impartiality, the text of the Holy Scriptures has been exciting and attracting people for almost two thousand years. The Bible, in particular, has such an impact on the reader because it does not explain anything, but fascinates with its understatement.

Let us note the following: despite the fact that in the literature of the 20th century this biblical story was repeatedly addressed, researchers rarely paid attention to the image of Judas. Most of the works on this topic concern, first of all, the analysis of L. Andreev’s work “Judas Iscariot”. There are also many studies examining the biblical plot in Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita.” However, there are few fundamental articles where the image of Judas is considered from the point of view of its evolution in fiction and in connection with the historical process.

S.S. Averintsev in the article “Judas” in the encyclopedia “Myths of the Peoples of the World”, in addition to the Gospel plot, mentions the existence of a tradition of ambiguous interpretation of this image: “The Gnostic sect of Cainites understood the betrayal of Judas Iscariot as the fulfillment of the highest service necessary for the redemption of the world and the prescribed Christ himself." Averintsev notes that such a point of view, contrary to the Christian tradition, arose in the 2nd century and found echoes in the literature of the 20th century, for example, in Voloshin and the Argentine writer H. L. Borges.

But Judas throughout human history is perceived not only and not so much as a gospel character, but also as a universal metaphor expressing the dark part of the soul of man, of humanity. And this metaphorical image was brilliantly guessed by the evangelists; it is deeply justified psychologically. Z. Kosidovsky, for example, based on the earlier testimony of the Apostle Paul in comparison with the Gospels, in whose description of the Last Supper Judas is not mentioned, suggests that “under Paul, the legend about Judas did not yet exist, this is a legend that arose several decades later.” But even if the legend of Judas is not based on real historical facts, its appearance, regardless of its sacred content, was natural and inevitable from the point of view of the psychology of perception: a “hero” is obliged to have his own “anti-hero” in order to realize, externalize his inner essence. Outside of this antinomy (the confrontation between “light” and “darkness”), the hero can exist only potentially. The genius, the inspired originality of the mystery of Christ lies, however, in the fact that in this case the “hero” (Christ) strikes his antipode not with the power of weapons, but with the power of love, the Innocent Blood.

2.2 Interpretation of the image of Judas in world literature.

The contradictory and multifaceted image of Judas in such a multidimensional quality has become entrenched in the world literary tradition, where, unlike the Bible, he is by no means interpreted unambiguously as a traitor, at least in modern times.

The constant relevance of biblical themes and the symbolism of the images allowed writers to create in their works completely different, but equally striking heroes who have a single prototype - the Gospel Judas Iscariot.

Many outstanding works of world literature, primarily Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy, secured Judas the “glory” of a traitor. In Dante, Judas, along with other betrayers (Brutus and Cassius, who betrayed Emperor Caesar in Ancient Rome), is in the most terrible place of Hell - in one of the three jaws of Lucifer. What Judas did did not allow him to be placed in any of the circles of Hell, since this would be too small a punishment for him.

The “canonical” image of Judas, the idea of ​​the moral essence of his black villainy, were fixed in the consciousness of mankind for many centuries. And in the 19th century, A. S. Pushkin again branded the betrayal of the “world enemy”, the very idea of ​​betrayal in the poem “Imitation of the Italian.”

An interesting article by Yu. V. Babicheva “Biblical images in the space of Russian fiction”, in which the author examines how “a biblical character, having turned into an artistic image, was actively introduced into the sphere of pressing social problems of different stages of Russian social life.” Yu. V. Babicheva identifies three “episodes,” each of which gives its own interpretation of the image of Judas, depending on the socio-historical situation in the country.

So, Yu.V. Babichev associates the first stage with classical literature of the 19th century, when the gospel plot was considered, first of all, as a “trading business.” During times of monetary triumph, material values ​​came to the fore; during this period, just as in ancient times, “the words “betray” and “sell” were perceived as synonyms.” This is exactly how Babicheva explains the “sin of Judas” of the criminal elder in Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.”

In the same light, an ancient myth penetrated into the structure of M. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s famous novel “The Golovlev Lords”: the money-grubbing hero Porfiry was nicknamed by his family “the blood-drinking Judas.”

As a concentration of the trend, Pavel Popov’s poem “Judas Iscariot” appeared in 1890. The entire story of the title character from the moment of conception, when his father, a “Pharisee lender,” violently blasphemed against God, and until his shameful death on an aspen tree, is an exposure of the “restless and corrupt age” of the domination of capital.

The divine curse for the sins of the father and the vicious upbringing of Judas are intertwined here into a chain of reasons that formed the betrayal, but the second reason clearly dominates. Having presented ancient history in a new light, the author of the poem admits that his hopes for the educational significance of the ancient legend are small: the corrupt age daily gives rise to so many moral crimes based on acquisitiveness that the literary (“paper”) Judas seems almost harmless against this background.

Yu. V. Babicheva attributed the next stage of writers’ interest in the Eternal Image to the Stolypin reaction, “when the socio-psychological problem of betrayal became topical in connection with the mass renegade in the ranks of yesterday’s adherents of the revolutionary dream. For a while, the biblical figure became something of a hero of the hour.” A new trend has emerged in world literature - to trace the psychological motivations for Judas’ act. Babicheva connects the interpretations of the gospel theme of this period with wisdom: “To understand means to forgive.” We can observe such a psychological background in Thor Gedberg’s story “Judas, the Story of One Suffering”, in A. Remizov’s drama “The Tragedy of Judas, Prince Iscariot”.

Also in this “episode” Yu. V. Babicheva included L. Andreev’s story “Judas Iscariot”, in which the author does not justify betrayal, but exposes “other, not so obvious, but typical forms of it.”

Babicheva describes the third episode as a period when Judas became for 20th-century writers not a hero, but an “instrument of villainy.” Iscariot takes on the appearance of “an ordinary man in the street - without ideals, without principles.” Babicheva connects this episode with M. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita” and G. Baklanov’s story “The Lesser of the Brothers”, in the latter the soft, kind, weak-willed, naive Judas commits a chain of petty betrayals.

Bringing the biblical image closer to the topic of the day, Bulgakov, in a modern satirical layer of the narrative, depicted the newest double of Judas - the dirty trick Aloysius Mogarych, who filed a false denunciation against the Master and received a fee in square meters of vacated living space. The all-powerful Woland advises the Master, if he has exhausted the topic of Pilate, to take up Aloysius. The master answered briefly: this is not interesting. The Master made a mistake and underestimated the vitality of the phenomenon. But the writer himself, according to the testimony of the widow, did not lose interest in him until his last breath and already on his deathbed he dictated pages about the “strange” friendship of Aloysius with the Master.

As a result, Yu. V. Babicheva concludes in her article that the image of Judas “helped domestic literature at different stages of its development to fulfill its social and educational role, intervening in the complex problems of changing social systems, the bankruptcy of religious foundations, sick tendencies of social psychology - with the goal is to establish certain absolute, universal moral foundations.”

Thus, we can note that the reception of the image of Judas in the world literary tradition is carried out in line with a variety of interpretations. A special place among interpretations of the 20th century. occupies a “seditious” interpretation from the point of view of official Christianity and essentially going back to the teachings of the Cainites by H. L. Borges in the short story “Three Versions of the Betrayal of Judas”, where the writer in an extremely laconic form gives a very complex system of motivations for the act of Judas, which have a single basis - the infinite love for Jesus, His deepest understanding and highest service to Him, while stipulating as different from the three versions that “Judas betrayed Jesus Christ in order to force him to declare his divinity and incite a popular uprising against the oppression of Rome.”

And, of course, one of the most remarkable interpretations of the story of Judas, in our opinion and in the opinion of other researchers, is L.N. Andreev’s story “Judas Iscariot,” which deeply explores the psychological reasons for betrayal.

2.3 Basic moral ideas of the story and their nature

presentation in the story.

Andreev's philosophical story is about the enormous role of the creative free mind in the destinies of the world, about the fact that the greatest idea is powerless without the creative participation of man, and about the tragic substance of creativity as such.

Interpreters of L. Andreev’s story usually ignore the peculiarities of poetics, which in works of a complex structure can serve as guides into the labyrinth of the author’s thoughts. The poetics of L. Andreev's story clearly signals to the reader about the structure of the philosophical metagenre, the features of which are deeply meaningful.

The main plot opposition of L. Andreev's story: Christ with his “faithful” disciples and Judas - has, as is typical for a philosophical metagenre, a substantial character. Before us are two worlds with fundamentally different life attitudes: in the first case - on faith and authority, in the second - on a free, creative mind. The perception of the plot-forming opposition as substantial is facilitated by the cultural archetypes embedded by the author in the images that make up the opposition.

In the image of Judas, we recognize the archetype of Chaos, marked by the author with the help of pronounced expressionist (i.e., openly conventional and rigidly conceptualized) imagery. It is repeatedly embodied in the description of the head and face of Judas, as if divided into several disagreeing parts arguing with each other, the figure of Judas, now likening him to a gray pile, from which arms and legs suddenly protruded, now giving the impression that Judas had “no two legs, like all people, but a whole dozen.”

In these and other sketches of the appearance of Judas, the motifs of disorder, lack of formality, changeability, inconsistency, danger, mystery, and prehistoric antiquity, which are assigned by cultural consciousness to chaos, are persistently repeated. The ancient mythological Chaos appears in the darkness of the night, which usually hides Judas, in the repeated analogies of Judas with reptiles, a scorpion, an octopus. The latter, perceived by the disciples as a double of Judas, recalls the original watery Chaos, when the land had not yet separated from the water, and at the same time represents the image of a mythological monster inhabiting the world in times of Chaos. Judas does not deny his connection with the demonic forces of Chaos - Satan, the devil. The unpredictability, mystery of Chaos, the hidden work of elemental forces, invisibly preparing their menacing release, manifests itself in Judas as the impenetrability of his thoughts to those around him. It is also no coincidence that, in terms of association with Chaos, images of mountains and deep rocky ravines are associated with Judas. Judas either lags behind the entire group of disciples, then moves to the side, rolls off a cliff, peeling off on the stones, disappears from sight - the space is rugged, lying in different planes, Judas moves in a zigzag manner. The space in which Judas is inscribed varies the image of a terrible abyss, the dark depths of Hades, a cave, closely associated with Chaos in the ancient consciousness.

In the description of Jesus and his disciples, all the main attributes of the archetype of the Cosmos come to life: orderliness, certainty, harmony, divine presence, beauty. Accordingly, the spatial organization of the world of Christ with the apostles is semanticized: Christ is always in the center - surrounded by disciples or in front of them, setting the direction of movement. The world of Jesus and his disciples is strictly hierarchical and therefore “clear,” “transparent,” calm, and understandable. The figures of the apostles most often appear to the reader in the light of the sun's rays. Each of the students is an established integral character.

But in the author's concept of the story, archetypal parallels take on an unconventional meaning. In mythological and cultural consciousness, creation is more often associated with ordering and together with the Cosmos, and much less often Chaos receives a positive assessment. Andreev develops a romantic interpretation of ambivalent Chaos, whose destructive force at the same time represents a powerful vital energy, seeking the opportunity to be molded into new forms. It is rooted in one of the ancient concepts of Chaos as something living and life-giving, the basis of world life, and the ancient Jewish tradition of seeing the God-fighting principle in Chaos. Russian cultural consciousness of the early twentieth century often emphasizes the creative principle in the idea of ​​Chaos (V. Solovyov, Blok, Bryusov, L. Shestov). And in Andreev’s Judas, Chaos declares itself with the powerful force of subjectivity, manifested in brilliant logic and daring creative thought, the crushing will and sacrificial love of a free rebel. In this regard, the author’s attitude towards Judas in Andreev’s story is fundamentally different from the attitude of evangelists and recognized authors of theological works (D. F. Strauss, E. Renan, F. V. Farrara, F. Mauriac) - as an assessment of his role in the history of mankind, and the very problematic of his image.

Judas's opposition to Christ and the future apostles is not identical to the antithesis between evil and good suggested by the Bible. As for other disciples, for Judas Jesus is the moral Absolute, the one whom he “sought in anguish and torment... all... his life, sought and found!” But St. Andrew's Jesus hopes that evil will be defeated by humanity's faith in his Word and does not want to take reality into account. Judas's behavior is dictated by knowledge of the real complex nature of man, knowledge formed and tested by his sober and fearless mind. His “betrayal,” as he conceives it, is a last desperate attempt to interrupt the sleep of reason in which humanity resides, to awaken its consciousness.

Why, according to Andreev, did Judas betray Christ? L. Andreev pointedly rejects the Gospel version of selfish calculation. It is easier to assume that it was Christ’s permission to freely take money from the community treasury that pushed Judas to betrayal, since it made his theft and deception senseless. And Judas makes the wasteful purchase of the precious world, which, according to the Gospel, served as the impetus for betrayal, from L. Andreev himself.

Maybe vanity? Andreev told Gorky: “He, brother, is a daring and intelligent man, Judas... You know, if Judas had been convinced that in the person of Christ Jehovah himself was before him, he would still have betrayed him. Killing God, humiliating him with a shameful death, this, brother, is not a trifle!” However, it seems to us that Judas loves Christ too much to want to humiliate Him or to enjoy His humiliation. Maybe L. Andreev was not talking about the hero of his story, but about the development of this image?

S.S. Averintsev believed that the motive for St. Andrew’s betrayal of Judas was “a painful love for Christ and the desire to provoke the disciples and people to decisive action.”

The act of Judas Iscariot is in many ways reminiscent of the “actions” of the Socialist-Revolutionary terrorists - contemporaries of L. Andreev: the same disregard for one’s own and others’ lives, the same absolute confidence in the correctness of one’s own views on the world, the same desire to “push” history, to awaken sleepy and dull people .

The betrayal of Judas is, rather, a natural stage and the last argument in his dispute with Jesus about man. “The horror and dreams of Iscariot have come true,” he won, proving to the whole world and, of course, first of all to Christ Himself, that people are unworthy of the Son of God, and there is nothing to love them for, and only he, a cynic and an outcast, is the only one who has proven his love and devotion, must rightfully sit next to Him in the Kingdom of Heaven and administer Judgment, merciless and universal, like the Great Flood.

That's what Judas thinks. What does the author think? L. Andreev called the kingdom of heaven “nonsense,” said A.M. To Gorky (who, however, did not agree with him): “I... don’t like Christ and Christianity, optimism is a disgusting, completely false invention.” If the above words are correlated with the story, then we have the right to assume that, according to Andreev, the appearance of Christ to the people was unnecessary, for His “false optimism” is not capable of changing the nature of man, but can only elevate him for a short time, like the wind lifting up rubbish. Judas is a tragic person, because, unlike the apostles of Christ, he understands all this, but, unlike Anna and others like him, he is capable of being captivated by the unearthly purity and kindness of Jesus Christ. It follows that the author of the story “boldly reshapes two-thousand-year-old images in order to reshape the reader’s consciousness with them, to force him to experience the nonsense discovered by the author and be indignant at it.”

Judas’s act did not prove anything to anyone: the Sanhedrin ridiculed him - he did not deceive them, they knew who was crucified; and for the disciples of Christ, he remained what, in essence, he was - a traitor, guilty of the death of their Teacher. “Why are you alive when he is dead? - Judas reproaches the disciples of Christ. “...you took on all the sin.” This is Judas' truth. But we, like L. Andreev’s contemporaries, are well aware that the Bible does not end with the death of Iscariot. The final texts of the New Testament and the Holy Tradition are devoted precisely to the history of the emergence of Christianity, which was started by the apostles of Christ, most of whom paid for their missionary death with martyrdom. This means that Iscariot is not absolute. Moreover, by declaring shameful things natural and conscientiousness unnecessary, cynicism destroys the system of moral guidelines, without which it is difficult for a person to live. This is why the position of St. Andrew's Judas is devilishly dangerous.

The ideological impasse of the main character of L. Andreev’s story also predetermined his personal tragedy, for his selfish, misanthropic path to Christ could not lead to a different ending. Yes, Judas was capable of loving, even if only Jesus. But the cynic’s love, like the kiss of the Demon, ultimately turned out to be mortally dangerous for Christ and unnecessary for everyone else. His death did not touch anyone, which means that no one needed his life.

Thus, the relationship between Iscariot and Jesus in Andreev’s work remains a mystery; there is a combination of the beautiful and the ugly. The traitor loves the teacher and seeks to prove to Christ that he is right. Andreev writes that it was precisely provocations and relationships with other apostles that forced Judas to deceive everyone and give the “innocent” into the hands of the servants.

In Andreev’s work, the relationship between the Traitor and other disciples of Christ is shown ambiguously. Just as in the Gospel text, Andreev has twelve of them. But in the story “Judas Iscariot” itself, Andreev introduces the reader to only five students, whose images play a certain, rather important role in the work. The apostles in Andreev’s text are completely different: each has their own character, their own vision of the world, their own special attitude towards Jesus. But they all have one thing in common - love for their teacher and... betrayal.

The disciples do not like Judas, because they do not understand him, they see his ambiguity: “And thieves have friends, and robbers have comrades, and liars have wives to whom they tell the truth, and Judas laughs at thieves, as well as at honest people, although he himself steals skillfully, and his appearance is uglier than all the inhabitants of Judea.”

Thus, Judas and the rest of the disciples are united by another common feature - they are all, to varying degrees, characterized by the presence of a dark, unenlightened, unspiritualized principle, in contrast to Jesus. But only Judas does not hide his duality, his “ugliness,” his dark sides. This makes him stand out from other students. Peter and John do not have their own opinion. They do what they are told. Everyone except Judas cares what they think of them. They depend not only on the teacher's opinion (when Jesus said that Judas could take money, they did not argue with it), but they even ask Judas who will be the first disciple of Jesus.

Paradoxically, Judas himself betrayed so that everyone would know that Jesus was “innocent and pure.” Why is he so persistently trying to slander his beloved Teacher? Judas does this deliberately: perhaps, deep down in his soul, he hopes for a miracle - the salvation of Jesus - he wants to be deceived. Or perhaps he betrays in order to open the eyes of the other disciples to himself and force them to change - after all, he persistently offers them ways to save Jesus.

The result was not what Iscariot wanted it to be. Jesus dies in public. Students, having renounced their teacher, become apostles and bring the light of new teaching throughout the world. Judas the traitor betrays and deceives, ultimately, himself.

Thus, the relationship between Judas and other disciples of Christ not only reveals many qualities of his personality, but also largely explains the reasons for his betrayal.

Andreev describes the death of Judas “on a mountain, high above Jerusalem.” The hero’s speech addressed to the deceased Jesus is oversaturated with interrogative sentences: “Do you hear, Jesus? Now will you believe me? I am going to you. I'm very tired...But maybe you will be angry with Judas from Keriot there too? And you won't believe it? And will you send me to hell? Well then! I'll go to hell too! And on the fire of your hell I will forge iron and destroy your sky. Fine? Then will you believe me?

The traitor in the story “Judas Iscariot” knows the place where he will die even before his terrible act. He chose “one tree, crooked and torn by the wind. It extended one of its broken crooked branches towards Jerusalem, as if blessing it or threatening it with something.” Iscariot was going to make a loop on this branch. This means that a traitor, when committing a crime, knows the outcome in advance. Andreev repeatedly emphasizes that Iscariot “willingly admitted that sometimes he himself lies, but he assured with an oath that others lie even more, and if there is anyone deceived in the world, it is he.” So, “afraid” of being deceived again , Judas, in the last minutes of his life, thinks that even a rope can betray him.

The betrayal of Judas in Andreev's story is a betrayal in fact, but not in idea. Andreev's interpretation of Judas' betrayal once again exposed the problem of the relationship between ends and means, which had been relevant since the 19th century for Russian public consciousness, and which seemed to have been closed by Dostoevsky.

The plot of Andreev's story contains a historical justification for Judas' betrayal. And the silence of St. Andrew’s Christ is different from the silence of Dostoevsky’s Christ. The place of meekness and compassion in him was taken by a challenge - a reaction to an equal. Andreev's Christ, like Dostoevsky's Christ, also does not allow himself to break the silence, but for a different reason: he does not consider it moral to canonize any one (for all and forever) solution to the problem.

In the minds of contemporaries of the Silver Age, the eternal problem of the relationship between ends and means was transformed into an opposition: creativity - morality. This is how it is set in Andreev’s story. Against the background of the tendency to glorify the creative act, Andreev returns to the concept of the tragic nature of creativity, revealed in its relation to morality. In Andreev’s depiction of the betrayal of Judas Iscariot, the well-known romantic motifs of mental turmoil, madness, rejection and death of the creator, the secrets surrounding him, and his infernality come to life. Unlike the betrayal of the apostles, which belongs to the empiricism of life (it was not even noticed by eyewitnesses of the events), the betrayal of Judas is placed by the author in the sphere of the substantial.

The depiction of Judas' betrayal in Andreev's story bears all the signs of tragedy recorded by the well-known aesthetic systems of Hegel, Schelling, Fischer, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. Among them is the death of the hero as a consequence of his guilt, but not a denial of the principle in the name of which he dies, and as a sign of the victory of the “moral substance as a whole”; the contradiction between the desire for freedom and the need for stability of the whole with equal justification; the strength and certainty of the character of the hero, who in the tragedy of modern times replaces fate; historical justification of the hero's guilt and the hero's resignation as a consequence of enlightenment through suffering; the value of the self-aware reflective subjectivity of the hero in a situation of moral choice; the struggle between the Apollonian and Dionysian principles, etc. The listed features of the tragedy are marked by different aesthetic systems, sometimes denying each other; in Andreev’s story they serve one whole, and their synthesis is characteristic of the writer’s creative method. But a tragic collision does not imply an unambiguous moral assessment - justification or accusation. It is characterized by a different system of definitions (majestic, significant, memorable), which emphasize the large scale of the events that make up the tragic collision and the special power of their impact on the fate of the world.

The tragic collision with which the betrayal of Judas Iscariot appears before the reader in Andreev’s story is not an example to follow and not a lesson of warning; it is not in the sphere of action, but in the inner work of the spirit, an eternal subject of comprehension in the name of human self-knowledge.

CONCLUSION.

Leonid Andreev has been read for a century. The peak of his popularity occurred in 1902 - 1908, when the main works were written and published: “The Life of Basil of Thebes” and “Darkness”, “Judas Iscariot” and “The Life of a Man”. Andreev was one of the most published and read authors in Russia. His popularity was comparable to that of Gorky; in terms of circulation, he was hardly inferior to Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. But even during the years of his creative heyday, Leonid Andreev continued to be the object of attacks from critics and a variety of publicists, who ironically denied the quality of his prose and drama. Andreev was accused of anarchism and godlessness, lack of a sense of proportion and too close attention to psychopathology.

The years that have passed since the writer's death have shown that interest in him was not an accident, nor was it the will of a reader striving for mass culture. Now we can say that Andreev’s creativity is a bridge between the 19th century, primarily the artistic worldview of Dostoevsky, and the creative quest of the 20th century. For many years, literary scholars have been trying to define Andreev's method terminologically. He has been called a realist and a symbolic realist, a decadent and an expressionist, an existentialist and a symbolist. Apparently, such a variety of definitions indicates that there is no point in searching for a single term that reflects the essence of poetics. St. Andrew's artistic world is a premonition and harbinger of the aesthetic systems of the century, the quest and suffering of its heroes is a prophetic sign of future catastrophes, many of them occur in the sphere of consciousness. The socio-historical and literary-philosophical processes of the past century indirectly justified the paradoxical and largely provocative method of Leonid Andreev, showing that his seemingly artificial tragedy is a property of time, and not the arbitrariness of the playing artist.

L. Andreev's story “Judas Iscariot” is a work that, of course, deserves a serious conversation both for its artistic merits and for the relevance of the problems posed there. And a hundred and a thousand years ago we ask ourselves all the same questions: what rules the world, good or evil, truth or falsehood? Is it possible, is it necessary to live righteously in an unrighteous world, when you know for sure that it is impossible to strictly observe the beautiful Christian commandments? Thus, we have before us a most interesting artistic study, which is not easy to fully comprehend. For example, because of the “cosmic pessimism” inherent in the author. The peculiarity of the story “Judas Iscariot” lies precisely in the fact that in it the author polemicizes with himself, testing the strength of the “devilish” unbelief in man with the faith of Jesus Himself. There is another obvious difficulty - the need to know the Primary Source - the Gospel, its interpretations and assessments that were popular in those years.

Judas Andreeva is a classic tragic hero, with the whole set of attributes that belong to him: contradiction in the soul, a sense of guilt, suffering and redemption, an extraordinary scale of personality, heroic activity that defies fate.

LITERATURE.

1. Averintsev S.S. Judas Iscariot // Myths of the peoples of the world: Encyclopedia: In 2 volumes. M., 1990. Vol.1.

2. Andreev L.N. Judas Iscariot // Prose. - M.: AST Publishing House, 2003.

3. Babicheva Yu.V. Biblical images in the space of Russian fiction // Russian culture on the threshold of the third millennium: Christianity and culture. - Vologda: “Legia”, 2001.

4. Basinsky P.V. Comments // Andreev L.N. Prose. Journalism, - M.: LLC "Firm" Publishing House AST", 1999.- (Series "School of Classics" - for students and teachers).

5. Block A. In memory of Leonid Andreev // Block A. Collection. op. In 6 volumes. T. 5. M., 1971.

6. Brodsky M. “Eternal questions” of human existence in Leonid Andreev’s story “Judas Iscariot” // School Library. - 2002. - No. 1.

7. Bulgakov S.N. Judas Iscariot - the apostle-traitor // Bulgakov S.N. Works on the Trinity. - M., 2001.

8. Zapadova L. A. Sources of the text and “secrets” of the short story “Judas Iscariot” // Russian literature. - 1997. - No. 3.

9. Mikhailov S. Justification of Judas, or the Twelfth Wheel of the World Chariot: Apocryphal Research // http://www.skrijali.ru/

10. Mikheicheva E. A. The artistic world of Leonid Andreev // Literature at school. -- 1998. - No. 5.

11. Spivak R. S. The phenomenon of creativity in the understanding of Russian literature of the early twentieth century: (“Judas Iscariot” and “Samson in Chains” by L. Andreev) // Philological Sciences. - 2001. - No. 6.

“The psychology of betrayal” is the main theme of L. Andreev’s story “Judas Iscariot”. Images and motives of the New Testament, ideal and reality, hero and crowd, true and hypocritical love - these are the main motives of this story. Andreev uses the Gospel story about the betrayal of Jesus Christ by his disciple Judas Iscariot, interpreting it in his own way. If the focus of the Holy Scripture is the image of Christ, then Andreev turns his attention to the disciple who betrayed him for thirty pieces of silver into the hands of the Jewish authorities and thereby became the culprit of the suffering on the cross and the death of his Teacher. The writer is trying to find a justification for the actions of Judas, to understand his psychology, the internal contradictions that prompted him to commit a moral crime, to prove that in the betrayal of Judas there is more nobility and love for Christ than in the faithful disciples.

According to Andreev, by betraying and taking on the name of the traitor, “Judas saves the cause of Christ. True love turns out to be betrayal; the love of the other apostles for Christ - through betrayal and lies.” After the execution of Christ, when “horror and dreams came true,” “he walks leisurely: now the whole earth belongs to him, and he steps firmly, like a ruler, like a king, like one who is infinitely and joyfully alone in this world.”

Judas appears in the work differently than in the gospel narrative - sincerely loving Christ and suffering from the fact that he does not find understanding of his feelings. The change in the traditional interpretation of the image of Judas in the story is complemented by new details: Judas was married, abandoned his wife, who wanders in search of food. The episode of the apostles' stone-throwing competition is fictional. Judas' opponents are other disciples of the Savior, especially the apostles John and Peter. The traitor sees how Christ shows great love towards them, which, according to Judas, who did not believe in their sincerity, is undeserved. In addition, Andreev portrays the apostles Peter, John, and Thomas as being in the grip of pride - they are worried about who will be first in the Kingdom of Heaven. Having committed his crime, Judas commits suicide, because he cannot bear his act and the execution of his beloved Teacher.

As the Church teaches, sincere repentance allows one to receive forgiveness of sin, but Iscariot’s suicide, which is the most terrible and unforgivable sin, forever closed the doors of heaven to him. In the image of Christ and Judas, Andreev confronts two life philosophies. Christ dies, and Judas seems to be able to triumph, but this victory turns into tragedy for him. Why? From Andreev’s point of view, the tragedy of Judas is that he understands life and human nature deeper than Jesus. Judas is in love with the idea of ​​goodness, which he himself debunked. The act of betrayal is a sinister experiment, philosophical and psychological. By betraying Jesus, Judas hopes that in the suffering of Christ the ideas of goodness and love will be more clearly revealed to people. A. Blok wrote that in the story there is “the soul of the author, a living wound.”

Rethinking the image of the traitor in the story “Judas Iscariot”

In 1907, Leonid Andreev, returning to the biblical problem of the struggle between good and evil, wrote the story “Judas Iscariot.” Work on the story about Judas preceded work on the play Anathema. Critics recognized the high psychological mastery of the story, but had a negative attitude towards the main thesis of the work “about the baseness of the human race” (Lunacharsky A. Critical Studies).

L.A. Smirnova notes: “In the Gospel, a sacred text, the image of Judas is the symbolic embodiment of evil, a character, from the standpoint of artistic representation, conventional, purposefully devoid of a psychological dimension. The image of Jesus Christ is the image of a righteous martyr, a sufferer, who was destroyed by the selfish traitor Judas” (26, p. 190). Biblical stories tell about the life and death of Jesus Christ, about the miracles that he performed on earth. The closest disciples of Jesus were preachers of the truths of God, their deeds after the death of the Teacher were great, they fulfilled the will of the Lord on earth. “Very little is said about the traitor Judas in the Gospel teaching. It is known that he was one of Jesus' closest disciples. According to the Apostle John, Judas performed the “earthly” duties of treasurer in the community of Christ; It was from this source that it became known about the price of the Teacher’s life - thirty pieces of silver. It also follows from the Gospel that Judas’ betrayal was not the result of an emotional outburst, but a completely conscious act: he himself came to the high priests, and then waited for the right moment to fulfill his plan. The sacred text says that Jesus knew about the fatal predetermination of his fate. He knew about Judas’s dark plans” (6, p.24).

Leonid Andreev reinterprets the biblical story. Gospel sermons, parables, and the Gethsemane prayer of Christ are not mentioned in the text. Jesus is, as it were, on the periphery of the events described. Sermons are conveyed in dialogues between the Teacher and students. The life story of Jesus the Nazarene is transformed by the author, although the biblical plot in the story is not changed. If in the Gospel the central character is Jesus, then in L. Andreev’s story it is Judas Iscariot. The author pays great attention to the relationship between the Teacher and students. Judas is not like the faithful companions of Jesus, he wants to prove that only he is worthy to be next to Jesus.

The story begins with a warning: “Judas of Kariot is a man of very bad reputation and one must beware of him” (Vol. 2, p. 210). Jesus kindly receives Judas and brings him closer to himself. Other students do not approve of the Teacher’s affectionate attitude towards Iscariot: “John, his beloved disciple, moved away with disgust, and everyone else looked down disapprovingly” (Vol. 2, p. 212).

The character of Judas is revealed in his dialogues with the other disciples. In conversations, he expresses his opinion about people: “Those who know how to hide their deeds and thoughts are called good people” (Vol. 2, p. 215). Iscariot talks about his sins, that there are no sinless people on earth. Jesus Christ preached the same truth: “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her (Mary)” (Vol. 2, p. 219). All the disciples condemn Judas for his sinful thoughts, for his lies and foul language.

Iscariot confronts the Teacher on the issue of attitude towards people, towards the human race. Jesus completely distances himself from Judas after an incident in one village, where Iscariot saved Christ and his disciples with the help of deception. But his act was condemned by everyone. Judas wants to be close to Jesus, but the Teacher does not seem to notice him. Judas' deception, his betrayal - the desire for one goal - to prove his love for Jesus and expose the cowardly disciples.

According to the Gospel story, Jesus Christ had many disciples who preached the Holy Scriptures. Only a few of them take an active role in L. Andreev’s work: John, Peter, Philip, Thomas and Judas. The plot of the story also mentions Mary Magdalene and the mother of Jesus, women who were also close to the Teacher during the events of two thousand years ago. The rest of Christ's companions do not participate in the development of the action; they are mentioned only in crowd scenes. It is no coincidence that L. Andreev brings these students to the fore; it is in them that everything important that is necessary for understanding the problem of betrayal, which is fundamental in the work, is concentrated. The evangelists recognized by the church are depicted in detail by the author; it is their revelations that are the truth; The Gospels of John, Thomas, Peter, and Matthew became the basis of the Christian faith. But L. Andreev offers a completely different point of view on the events of that time.

L. Andreev portrays the disciples of Jesus realistically; as the plot develops, the images of the evangelists are revealed. The author moves away from the ideal image of a martyr, recognized in the Bible, and “Judas was entirely created from destroyed habits, and not even merged, but only ugly clung to impressions” (3, p. 75). For L. Andreev, Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot are, first of all, real images in which the human principle prevails over the divine. Judas becomes the author's personality who played the greatest role in history. In Jesus, L. Andreev sees, first of all, the human essence, affirms the active principle in this image, equates God and man.

All L. Andreev's heroes make a choice between sacrifice in the name of saving the human race and betrayal of the Son of God. It is on this choice that the author’s assessment and resolution of the conflict depends: loyalty to a spiritual ideal or betrayal. The author destroys the myth about the disciples' devotion to Jesus. Through mental trials, the writer leads all the characters to the highest point in the development of the plot - the choice between serving a higher goal and betrayal, which will remain in the history of peoples for centuries.

In L.N. Andreev’s description, the character of Judas is full of opposites, which corresponds to his appearance. He is at the same time not only selfish, angry, mocking, insidious, prone to lies and pretense, but also smart, trusting, sensitive and even gentle. In the image of Judas, the author combines two seemingly incompatible characters and inner worlds. According to Andreev, the “first half” of Judas’s soul is a liar, a thief, a “bad person.” It is this half that belongs to the “moving” part of the face of the hero of the story - “a sharply peering eye and a loud voice, like a woman’s.” This is the “worldly” part of Judas’s inner world, which is addressed to people. And short-sighted people, of whom the majority, see only this open half of the soul - the soul of a traitor, curse Judas the thief, Judas the liar.

“However, in the tragic and contradictory image of the hero, the author seeks to create in our minds a more complete, holistic inner world of Judas. According to Andreev, no less important for understanding the soul of Judas is the “reverse side of the coin” - that part of his soul that is hidden from others, but from which nothing can escape. After all, nothing could be read on the “frozen” half of Judas’s face, but at the same time, the “blind” eye on this half “did not close either day or night.” It was this wise and hidden Judas who had a “courageous and strong” voice that “you wanted to pull out of your ears like rotten, rough splinters.” Because the words spoken are the merciless, bitter truth. A truth that has a worse effect on people than the lies of Judas the thief. This truth points people to mistakes they would like to forget. It was with this part of his soul that Judas fell in love with Christ, although even the apostles could not understand this love. As a result, both the “good” and the “bad” rejected Judas” (18, pp. 2-3).

The relationship between Jesus Christ and Judas is very complex. “Judas was one of the “rejected and unloved,” that is, those whom Jesus never rejected” (6, p. 26). At first, when Judas first appeared among the disciples, Jesus was not afraid of evil rumors and “accepted Judas and included him in the circle of the elect.” But the Savior’s attitude towards Iscariot changes after an incident in one village, where Jesus was in mortal danger, and Judas, risking his own life, with the help of deception and prayer, gave the Teacher and disciples the opportunity to escape from the angry crowd. Iscariot expected praise, recognition of his courage, but everyone, including Jesus, condemned him for deception. Judas accuses the disciples of not needing Jesus, and they don’t need the truth.

From that moment on, Christ’s relationship with Judas changed dramatically: now Jesus “looked at him, as if not seeing him, although as before, even more persistently than before, he looked for him with his eyes every time he began to speak to his disciples or to the people” (T .2, p.210). “Jesus is trying to help him with what is happening, to explain his attitude towards him with the help of the parable of the barren fig tree” (6, p. 27).

But why now, besides Judas’s jokes and his stories, Jesus began to see something important in him, which made the Teacher take him more seriously and turn his speeches to him. Maybe it was at that moment that Jesus realized that only Judas, who loves Jesus with sincere and pure love, is able to sacrifice everything for the sake of his Teacher. Judas experiences this turning point in the consciousness of Jesus very hard; he does not understand why no one will appreciate his such a bold and wonderful impulse to save his Teacher at the cost of his own life. This is how Iscariot speaks poetically about Jesus: “And for everyone he was a tender and beautiful flower, a fragrant rose of Lebanon, but for Judas he left only sharp thorns - as if Judas had no heart, as if he had no eyes and nose and was no better than he understands everything about the beauty of tender and immaculate petals” (Vol. 2, p. 215).

Commenting on this episode, I. Annensky notes: “L. Andreev’s story is full of contrasts, but these contrasts are only tangible, and they arise directly and even inevitably in the floating smoke of his fantasy” (3, p. 58).

After the incident in the village, a turning point is also outlined in Judas’ consciousness; he is tormented by heavy and vague thoughts, but the author does not reveal to the reader Iscariot’s secret experiences. So what is he thinking about while others are busy worrying about food and drink? Maybe he is thinking about the salvation of Jesus Christ, or is he tormented by thoughts of helping the Teacher in his difficult ordeal? But Judas can help only by committing betrayal, and betrayal involuntarily. Iscariot loves the Teacher with pure, sincere love, he is ready to sacrifice his life, his name for the sake of a higher goal. “But for Judas, to love means, first of all, to be understood, appreciated, recognized. The favor of Christ is not enough for him; he still needs recognition of the correctness of his views on the world and people, justification for the darkness of his soul” (6, p. 26).

Judas goes to his sacrifice with great suffering and understanding of all the horror, because the torment of Judas is as great as the torment of Jesus Christ. The name of the Savior will be glorified for centuries, and Iscariot will remain in the memory of peoples for many hundreds of years as a traitor, his name will become the personification of lies, betrayal and baseness of human actions.

Many years passed before evidence of the innocence of Judas appeared in the world, and for a long time there will be disputes about the reliability of the gospel information. But L.N. Andreev in his work does not write a historical portrait; in the story, Judas is a tragic hero who sincerely loves his Teacher and passionately desires to alleviate his suffering. The author shows real events two thousand years ago, but “Judas Iscariot” is a work of fiction, and L. Andreev rethinks the problem of Judas’ betrayal. Iscariot occupies a central place in the work, the artist depicts a complex, contradictory character during a period of great life upheaval. We perceive Judas' betrayal not as betrayal for the sake of selfish interests; the story depicts the complex emotional trials of the main character, the sense of duty, and Judas's readiness to sacrifice for the sake of his Teacher.

The author characterizes his hero with the following epithets: “noble, beautiful Judas”, “Judas the winner”. But all the disciples see only the ugly face and remember the bad reputation. None of the companions of Jesus Christ notices Judas’s devotion, fidelity and sacrifice. The teacher becomes serious and strict with him, as if he begins to notice where true love is and where false love is. Judas loves Christ precisely because he sees in him the embodiment of immaculate purity and light, in this love “admiration, sacrifice, and that “feminine and tender” maternal feeling are intertwined, nature prescribes to protect his sinless and naive child” (6, p.26-27). Jesus Christ also showed a warm attitude towards Judas: “With greedy attention, his mouth half-opened like a child, his eyes laughing in advance, Jesus listened to his impetuous, loud, cheerful speech and sometimes laughed so much at his jokes that he had to stop the story for a few minutes” ( T.2, p.217). “It seems incredible, but L. Andreev’s Jesus does not just laugh (which would already be a violation of Christian tradition, the religious canon) - he laughs (18, pp. 2-3). According to tradition, cheerful laughter is regarded as a liberating principle that cleanses the soul.

“Between Christ and Judas in L. Andreev’s story there is a mysterious subconscious connection, not expressed verbally and nevertheless felt by Judas and us, the readers. This connection is felt psychologically by Jesus, the God-man; it cannot help but find external psychological expression (in the mysterious silence in which hidden tension and expectation of tragedy are felt), and absolutely clearly on the eve of the death of Jesus Christ” (18, pp. 2-3) . The Savior understands that a great idea may be worth the suffering of other people. Jesus knows about his divine origin, knows that he must go through difficult trials in order to carry out “God’s plan”, in the implementation of which he chooses Judas.

Iscariot is experiencing mental anguish, it is difficult for him to decide to betray: “Judas took his entire soul into his iron fingers and, in its immense darkness, silently began to build something huge. Slowly, in deep darkness, he lifted up some mountain-like masses and smoothly laid one on top of the other; and raised it again, and put it on again; and something grew in the darkness, expanded silently, pushed the boundaries. And somewhere distant and ghostly words sounded tenderly” (Vol. 2, p. 225). What were those words? Perhaps Judas was considering Jesus' request for help in carrying out the "divine plan", the plan for the martyrdom of Christ. If there had been no execution, people would not have believed in the existence of the Son of God, in the possibility of heaven on earth.

M.A. Brodsky believes: “L. Andreev pointedly rejects the Gospel version of selfish calculation. The betrayal of Judas is, rather, the last argument in his dispute with Jesus about man. The horror and dreams of Iscariot came true, he won, proving to the whole world and, of course, first of all, to Christ Himself that people are unworthy of the son of God, and there is nothing to love them for, and only he, a cynic and an outcast, is the only one who has proven his love and devotion , must rightfully sit next to Him in the Kingdom of Heaven and administer judgment, merciless and universal, like the Great Flood” (6, p. 29).

It is not easy for Judas to decide to betray the man whom he considered the best on earth. He thinks long and painfully, but Iscariot cannot go against the will of his Teacher, because his love for him is too great. The author does not directly say that Judas decided to betray, but shows how his behavior changes: “So simple, gentle and at the same time serious was Iscariot. He did not grimace, did not make malicious jokes, did not bow, did not insult, but quietly and imperceptibly did his business” (Vol. 2, p. 229). Iscariot decided to betray, but in his soul there was still hope that people would understand that before them was not a liar and a deceiver, but the Son of God. Therefore, he tells the disciples that they need to save Jesus: “We need to take care of Jesus! We need to take care of Jesus! We need to intercede for Jesus when that time comes” (Vol. 2, p. 239). Judas brought the stolen swords to the disciples, but they replied that they were not warriors, and Jesus was not a military leader.

But why did the choice fall on Judas? Iscariot experienced a lot in his life, he knows that people are sinful by nature. When Judas first came to Jesus, he tried to show him how sinful people were. But the Savior was faithful to his great goal, he did not accept the point of view of Judas, although he knew that people would not believe in the Son of God; They will first put him to death as a martyr, and then only realize that they killed not a liar, but the Savior of the human race. But without suffering there would be no Christ. And the cross of Judas in his trial is as heavy as the cross of Jesus. Not every person is capable of such a feat; Judas felt love and respect for the Savior, he was devoted to his Teacher. Iscariot is ready to go to the end, to accept martyrdom next to Christ, to share his suffering, as befits a faithful disciple. But Jesus orders differently: he asks him not for death, but for a feat, an involuntary betrayal, for the sake of a higher goal.

Judas experiences severe mental anguish, having taken the first step towards betrayal. From that moment on, Iscariot surrounds his Teacher with tenderness and love, he treats all his students very kindly, although he himself experiences mental pain: “And going out to the place where they went to relieve themselves, he cried there for a long time, writhing, writhing, scratching his chest with his nails and biting his shoulders . He caressed the imaginary hair of Jesus, quietly whispered something tender and funny, and ground his teeth. And for so long he stood, heavy, determined and alien to everything, like fate itself” (Vol. 2, p. 237). The author says that fate made Judas an executioner and placed a punishing sword in his hand. And Iscariot copes with this difficult test, although he resists betrayal with all his nature.

In the work of L.N. Andreev’s “Judas Iscariot” the biblical plot is completely rethought. Firstly, the author brings to the fore a hero who in the Bible is considered a great sinner guilty of the death of Jesus Christ. L. Andreev rehabilitates the image of Judas from Kariot: he is not a traitor, but a faithful disciple of Jesus, a sufferer. Secondly, L. Andreev relegates the images of the evangelists and Jesus Christ to the background of the narrative.

L.A. Smirnova believes that “turning to myth made it possible to avoid particulars, to make each hero a bearer of the essential manifestations of life itself at its breaking point, a sharp turn.” “Elements of biblical poetics enhance the weight of each small episode. Quotes from the sayings of ancient sages give an all-epochal meaning to what is happening” (26, p. 186).

In the work, the author raises the question of the hero’s betrayal. L. Andreev portrays Iscariot as a strong, struggling personality in a period of great mental turmoil. The writer gives comprehensive psychological characteristics to his hero, which allows him to see the formation of Iscariot’s inner world and find the origins of his betrayal.

L. Andreev solves the problem of betrayal this way: both the students who did not protect their teacher and the people who condemned Jesus to death are to blame. Judas occupies a special position in the story; the gospel version of betrayal for the sake of money is completely rejected. L. Andreev’s Judas loves the Teacher with sincere, pure love; he cannot commit such a cruel act for the sake of selfish interests. The author reveals completely different motives for Iscariot’s behavior. Judas betrays Jesus Christ not of his own free will; he remains faithful to his Teacher and fulfills his request to the end. It is no coincidence that the images of Jesus Christ and Judas are perceived by the writer in their close contact. Andreev the artist paints them crucified on the same cross.

Scientists interpret the theme of betrayal in L. Andreev’s story “Judas Iscariot” in different ways. A.V. Bogdanov, in his article “Between the Abyss Wall,” believes that Judas had only one option left - to go to the slaughter with all his aversion to the sacrifice, “suffering for one and shame for all,” and to be remembered in the memory of generations only as a traitor (5, p. 17) .

K.D. Muratova suggests that the betrayal is committed by Judas in order to test, on the one hand, the strength and correctness of the humanistic teachings of Christ, and on the other, the devotion to him of his disciples and those who so enthusiastically listened to his sermons (23, p. 223).

V.P. Kryuchkov in his book “Heretics in Literature” writes that the divine and human principles appear in interaction in L. Andreev’s story. According to Kryuchkov, Judas becomes a personality in the paradoxicalist Andreev, who played a huge role in history; Jesus is presented in his human flesh, physicality, in this image the active principle, the equalization of God and Man, predominates (18, 2-3).

Despite the difference in views, researchers agree on one general opinion - Judas’ love for Jesus was great in its strength. Therefore, the question arises: could a person so faithful to his Teacher betray him for the sake of selfish interests. L. Andreev reveals the reason for the betrayal: for Judas it was a forced act, a sacrifice for the sake of fulfilling the will of the Almighty.

L. Andreev boldly reshapes biblical images in order to force the reader to rethink the opinion established in the world and in the Christian religion about the traitor, the villain Judas. After all, the blame lies not only with the individual, but also with people who easily betray their idols, shouting “Crucify!” as loud as “Hosanna!”

History of creation and analysis of the story's problems

The work was written in 1907, although the idea appeared 5 years earlier. Andreev decided to show betrayal based on his own thoughts and fantasies. At the center of the composition is the narration of a new take on the famous biblical parable.

Analyzing the problems of the story “Judas Iscariot”, one can notice that the motive of betrayal is being considered. Judas envies Jesus, his love and kindness towards people, because he understands that he is not capable of this. Judas cannot contradict himself, even if he behaves inhumanly. The general theme is the philosophical theme of two worldviews.

The main characters of the story “Judas Iscariot”

Judas Iscariot is a two-faced character. His portrait causes hostility among readers. He is shown either courageous or hysterical. Unlike the other disciples, Judas is depicted without a halo and is even outwardly uglier. The author calls him a traitor, and in the text there are comparisons of him with a demon, a freak, an insect.

The images of other students in the story are symbolic and associative.

Other details of the analysis of the story “Judas Iscariot”

Judas's entire appearance coincides with his character. But his external thinness brings him closer to the image of Christ. Jesus does not distance himself from the traitor, because he must help everyone. And he knows that he will betray him.

They have mutual love, Judas also loves Jesus, listening to his speeches is breathy.

The conflict occurs when Judas accuses people of depravity and Jesus moves away from him. Judas feels and perceives this quite painfully. The traitor believes that those around Jesus are liars who curry favor with Christ; he does not believe in their sincerity. He also does not believe in their experiences after the death of Jesus, although he himself suffers.

Judas has the idea that after dying, they will meet again and be able to get closer. But it is known that suicide is a sin and the teacher is not destined to meet his student. It is with the death of Jesus that the betrayal of Judas is revealed. Judas committed suicide. He hung himself on a tree growing over an abyss, so that when the branch broke off, he crashed on the rocks.

An analysis of the story “Judas Iscariot” would not be complete if we did not note how the Gospel narrative fundamentally differs from the story “Judas Iscariot”. The difference between Andreev’s interpretation of the plot and the Gospel is that Judas sincerely loved Christ and did not understand why he experienced these feelings and the other eleven disciples had them.

This plot traces Raskolnikov’s theory: to transform the world by killing one person. But, of course, it cannot be true.

Undoubtedly, the work was criticized by the church. But Andreev put in the following essence: an interpretation of the nature of betrayal. People need to think about their actions and put their thoughts in order.

We hope the analysis of the story “Judas Iscariot” was useful to you. We recommend reading this story in its entirety, but if you wish, you can also read

The Gospel story of Judas Iscariot’s betrayal of Jesus Christ could have interested Leonid Andreev as a writer because it could be “literaryized,” that is, brought into line with the principles of depicting and evaluating a person in his own work, while relying on the traditions of Russian literature of the 19th century (Leskov , Dostoevsky, Tolstoy) in the processing of works of educational literature.

Just like his predecessors, Andreev saw in the situations of didactic literature a significant tragic potential, which two geniuses - Dostoevsky and Tolstoy - so impressively revealed in their work. Andreev significantly complicated and deepened the personality of Judas, making him an ideological opponent of Jesus, and his story acquired all the signs of the genre of spiritual drama, examples of which were known to the reader from Dostoevsky’s novels of the 1860-1870s and the works of the late Tolstoy.

The author of the story follows the plot of the gospel story selectively, while preserving its key situations, the names of its characters - in a word, creates the illusion of its retelling, but in fact offers the reader his own version of this story, creates a completely original work with an existential characteristic characteristic of this writer (a person in world) problems.

In Andreev's story, the ideological beliefs of the characters are polar (faith - disbelief) - in accordance with its genre specificity; at the same time, the intimate, personal element (likes and dislikes) plays a decisive role in their relationship, significantly enhancing the tragic pathos of the work.

Both main characters of the story, Jesus and Judas, and especially the latter, are clearly hyperbolized in the spirit of expressionism professed by Andreev, which presupposes the gigantism of the heroes, their extraordinary spiritual and physical abilities, the intensification of tragedy in human relationships, ecstatic writing, that is, increased expressiveness of style and deliberate convention images and situations.

Andreev’s Jesus Christ is spirituality embodied, but this artistic embodiment itself, as happens with ideal heroes, lacks external specifics. We hardly see Jesus, we don’t hear his speeches; his mental states are episodically presented: Jesus can be complacent, welcoming Judas, laugh at his jokes and the jokes of Peter, be angry, sad, grieving; Moreover, these episodes mainly reflect the dynamics of his relationship with Judas.

Jesus Christ, a passive figure, is a supporting hero in the story - compared to Judas, the real protagonist, an active “character”.

It is he, in the vicissitudes of his relationship with Jesus, from the very beginning to the end of the story that is in the center of attention of the narrator, which gave the writer the basis to name the work after him. The artistic character of Judas is significantly more complex than the character of Jesus Christ.

Judas appears before the reader as a complex riddle, as, indeed, for the disciples of Jesus, and in many ways for their teacher himself. He is all “encrypted” in a certain way, starting with his appearance; it is even more difficult to understand the motives of his relationship with Jesus. And although the main intrigue of the story is clearly described by the author: Judas, who loves Jesus, betrays him into the hands of his enemies, the allegorical style of this work makes it much more difficult to understand the subtle nuances of the relationship between the characters.

The allegorical language of the story is the main problem of its interpretation. Judas is presented by the narrator - on the basis of a kind of plebiscite - as a person rejected by all people, as an outcast: “and there was no one who could say a good word about him.”

However, it seems that Judas himself does not particularly favor the human race and does not particularly suffer from his rejection. Judas evokes fear, shock, and disgust even among Jesus’ disciples “as something unprecedentedly ugly, deceitful and disgusting,” who do not approve of their teacher’s act of bringing Judas closer to them. But for Jesus there are no outcasts: “with that spirit of bright contradiction that irresistibly attracted him to the outcasts and unloved, he decisively accepted Judas and included him in the circle of the elect” (ibid.). But Jesus was guided not by reason, but by faith, making his decision, inaccessible to the understanding of his disciples, by faith in the spiritual essence of man.

“The disciples were worried and grumbled restrainedly,” and they had no doubt that “in his desire to get closer to Jesus there was hidden some secret intention, there was an evil and insidious calculation. What else can you expect from a person who “staggers senselessly among the people... lies, grimaces, vigilantly looks out for something with his thief’s eye... curious, crafty and evil, like a one-eyed demon”?

Naive but meticulous Thomas “carefully examined Christ and Judas, who were sitting next to each other, and this strange proximity of divine beauty and monstrous ugliness ... oppressed his mind like an unsolvable riddle.” The best of the best and the worst of the worst... What do they have in common? At least they are able to sit peacefully next to each other: they are both of the human race.

Judas’s appearance testified that he was organically alien to the angelic principle: “short red hair did not hide the strange and unusual shape of his skull:
as if cut from the back of the head with a double blow of a sword and reassembled, it was clearly divided into four parts and inspired distrust, even anxiety: behind such a skull there cannot be silence and harmony, behind such a skull one can always hear the noise of bloody and merciless battles.”

If Jesus is the embodiment of spiritual and moral perfection, a model of meekness and inner peace, then Judas, apparently, is internally split; one can assume that by vocation he is a restless rebel, always looking for something, always lonely. But isn’t Jesus himself alone in this world?

What is hidden behind the strange face of Judas? “The face of Judas also doubled: one side of it, with a black, sharply looking eye, was alive, mobile, willingly gathering into numerous crooked wrinkles. On the other there were no wrinkles, and it was deathly smooth, flat and frozen; and although it was equal in size
the first, but it seemed huge from the wide open blind eye. Covered with a whitish turbidity, not closing either at night or during the day, it equally met both light and darkness; but was it because there was a living and cunning comrade next to him that one could not believe in his complete blindness.”

The disciples of Jesus soon became accustomed to the external ugliness of Judas. The expression on Judas’s face was confusing, reminiscent of a mask of an actor: either a comedian or a tragedian. Judas could be a cheerful, sociable, good storyteller, although he somewhat shocked listeners with his skeptical judgments about a person, however, he was also ready to present himself in the most unfavorable light. “Judas lied constantly, but they got used to it, because they did not see bad deeds behind the lie, and it gave special interest to Judas’ conversation and his stories and made life look like a funny and sometimes scary fairy tale.” This is how a lie, in this case an artistic fiction, a game, is rehabilitated.

As an artist by nature, Judas is unique among Jesus' disciples. However, Judas not only amused his listeners with fiction: “According to Judas’ stories, it seemed as if he knew all the people, and every person he knew had committed some bad act or even a crime in his life.”

What is this - a lie or the truth? What about Jesus' disciples? What about Jesus himself? But Judas avoided such questions, sowing confusion in the souls of his listeners: was he joking or was he speaking seriously? “And while one side of his face was writhing in clownish grimaces, the other was swaying seriously and sternly, and his never-closing eye looked wide.”

It was this, either blind, dead, or all-seeing eye of Judas that instilled anxiety in the souls of Jesus’ disciples: “while his living and cunning eye moved, Judas seemed simple and kind, but when both eyes stopped motionless and the skin gathered into strange lumps and folds on his convex forehead - there was a painful guess about some very special thoughts, tossing and turning under this skull.

Completely alien, completely special, having no language at all, they surrounded the pondering Iscariot with a dull silence of mystery, and I wanted him to quickly begin to speak, move and even lie. For the lie itself, spoken in human language, seemed like truth and light in front of this hopelessly deaf and unresponsive silence.”

Lies are being rehabilitated again, because communication - the way of human existence - is by no means alien to lies. Weak man. Jesus’ disciples understand this kind of Judas; he is almost one of them. The tragic mask of Judas exuded cold indifference to man; This is how fate looks at a person.

Meanwhile, Judas clearly sought to communicate, actively infiltrating the community of Jesus’ disciples, winning the sympathy of their teacher. There were reasons for this: over time it would turn out that he had no equal among Jesus’ disciples in intelligence, in physical strength and willpower, and in the ability for metamorphosis. And that is not all. Just look at his desire to “someday take the earth, raise it and, perhaps, throw it away,” Judas’s cherished desire, similar to mischief.

So Judas revealed one of his secrets in the presence of Thomas, however, with the full understanding that he obviously would not understand the allegory.

Jesus entrusted Judas with the cash drawer and household chores, thereby indicating his place among the disciples, and Judas coped with his responsibilities excellently. But did Judas come to Jesus to become one of his disciples?

The author clearly distances Judas, who was independent in his judgments and actions, from the disciples of Jesus, whose principle of behavior is conformism. Judas treats Jesus’ disciples with irony, who live with an eye on the teacher’s assessment of their words and actions. And Jesus himself, inspired by faith in the spiritual resurrection of man, does he know the real, earthly man, the way Judas knows him - at least in himself, a fidget with a quarrelsome character, ugly in appearance, a liar, a skeptic, a provocateur, an actor, for whom as as if nothing is sacred, for whom life is a game. What is this strange and even somewhat scary man trying to achieve?

Unexpectedly, demonstratively, in the presence of Christ and his disciples, obscenely arguing about a place near Jesus in paradise, listing their merits before the teacher, Judas reveals another of his secrets, declaring “solemnly and sternly,” looking straight into the eyes of Jesus: “I! I will be near Jesus." This is no longer a game.

This statement of Judas seemed to the disciples of Jesus to be a daring trick. Jesus “slowly lowered his gaze” (ibid.), like a man considering what he had said. Judas asked Jesus a riddle. After all, we are talking about the highest reward for a person, which must be earned. How does Judas, who behaves as if he consciously and clearly opposes Jesus, expect to deserve it?

It turns out that Judas is as much an ideologist as Jesus. And Judas’s relationship with Jesus begins to take shape as a kind of dialogue, always in absentia. This dialogue will be resolved by a tragic event, the cause of which everyone, including Jesus, will see in the betrayal of Judas. However, betrayal also has its motives. It was the “psychology of betrayal” that interested Leonid Andreev primarily, according to his own testimony, in the story he created.

The plot of the story “Judas Iscariot” is based on “the story of the human soul,” of course, Judas Iscariot. The author of the work shrouds his hero in secrets by all means available to him.

This is the aesthetic attitude of the avant-garde writer, who entrusts the reader with the difficult task of unraveling these mysteries. But the hero himself is in many ways a mystery to himself.

But the main thing - the purpose of his coming to Jesus - he knows firmly, although he can entrust this secret only to Jesus himself, and even then in a critical situation for both of them - unlike his disciples, who constantly and importunately, in rivalry with each other, assure teachers in their love for him.

Judas declares his love for Jesus intimately, without witnesses and even without the hope of being heard: “But you know that I love you. “You know everything,” the voice of Judas sounds in the evening silence on the eve of the terrible night. - Lord, Lord, then, in “anguish and torment, I searched for You all my life, I searched and found you!”

Did Judas's acquisition of the meaning of existence with fatal inevitability lead him to the need to hand Jesus over to his enemies? How could this happen?

Judas understands his role near Jesus differently than Jesus the teacher himself. There is no doubt that the word of Jesus is the holy truth about the essence of man. But is the word capable
to change his carnal nature, which makes itself felt constantly, in the eternal struggle with the spiritual principle, crushingly reminding itself of the fear of death?

Judas himself experiences this fear in a village in which its inhabitants, angry at the denunciations of Jesus, were ready to throw stones at the accuser himself and his confused disciples. It was Judas’s fear not for himself, but for Jesus (“overwhelmed by an insane fear for Jesus, as if already seeing drops of blood on his white shirt, Judas furiously and blindly rushed at the crowd, threatened, shouted, begged and lied, and thus gave time and opportunity Jesus and his disciples must go."

It was a spiritual act of overcoming the fear of death, a true expression of man's love for man. Be that as it may, it is not the word of truth of Jesus, but the lie of Judas, who presented the religious teacher to the angry crowd as an ordinary deceiver, his acting talent, capable of bewitching a person and making him forget about anger (“he rushed madly in front of the crowd and charmed them with some strange power "(ibid.), saved Jesus and his disciples from death.

It was a lie for salvation, for the salvation of Jesus Christ. “But you lied!” - principled Thomas reproaches the unprincipled Judas, alien to any dogmas, especially when it comes to the life and death of Jesus.

“And what is a lie, my smart Thomas? Wouldn’t the death of Jesus be a bigger lie?” - Judas asks a tricky question. Jesus, in principle, rejects all lies, no matter what motives the liar may have to justify himself. This is the ideal truth that you cannot argue with.

But Judas needs Jesus alive, because he himself is the holy truth, and for her sake Judas is ready to sacrifice his own life. So what is the truth and what is a lie? Judas decided this question for himself irrevocably: the truth is Jesus Christ himself, man, like God perfect in his spiritual hypostasis, a gift from heaven to humanity. A lie is his departure from life. And therefore Jesus must be protected in every possible way, because there will be no other like him.

Death awaits the righteous at every step, because people do not need the truth about their imperfections. They need deception, or rather, eternal self-deception, as if man is an exclusively carnal being. It is easier to live with this lie, because everything is forgiven to the carnal man. This is what Judas says to Thomas: “I gave them what they asked for (that is, a lie), and they returned what I needed” (the living Jesus Christ).

What awaits Jesus Christ in this sinful earthly world if Judas is not next to him? Jesus needs Judas. Otherwise, he will perish, and Judas will perish with him,” Iscariot is convinced.

For what will the world become without a deity? But does Jesus himself need Judas, who believes in the possibility of spiritual enlightenment of humanity?

People do not particularly believe words, and therefore are unstable in their beliefs. In one of the villages, its residents warmly welcomed Jesus and his disciples, “surrounded them with attention and love and became believers,” but as soon as Jesus left this village, one of the women reported the loss of a kid goat, and although the kid was soon found, the residents why - they decided that “Jesus is a deceiver and maybe even a thief.” This conclusion immediately calmed passions.

“Judas is right, Lord. These were evil and stupid people, and the seed of your words fell on the stone,” the naive truth-lover Thomas confirms the rightness of Judas, who “told bad things about its inhabitants and foreshadowed trouble.”

Be that as it may, “from that day on, Jesus’ attitude towards him changed somehow strangely. And before, for some reason, it was the case that Judas never spoke directly to Jesus, and he never directly addressed him, but he often looked at him with gentle eyes, smiled at some of his jokes, and if he did not see him for a long time, he asked: where is Judas? And now he looked at him, as if not seeing him, although as before, and even more stubbornly than before, he looked for him with his eyes every time he began to speak to his disciples or to the people, but either sat down with his back to him and threw his words against Judas, or pretended not to notice him at all. And no matter what he said, even if it’s one thing today and something completely different tomorrow, even if it’s even the same thing that Judas thinks, it seemed, however, that he was always speaking against Judas.” In a different guise - not as a disciple, but as an ideological opponent - Judas revealed himself to Jesus.

The unkind attitude of Jesus Christ towards him offended and puzzled Judas. Why is Jesus so upset when his disciples, that is, all people, turn out to be petty, stupid and gullible? Isn't that what they are in essence? And how will his future relationship with Jesus develop now? Will he really lose the meaning of his existence forever if Jesus finally turns away from him? The time has come for Judas
comprehend the situation.

Having fallen behind Jesus and his disciples, Judas headed into a rocky ravine in search of solitude. This ravine was strange, as Judas saw it: “and this wild desert ravine looked like an overturned, severed skull, and every stone in it was like a frozen thought, and there were many of them, and they all thought - hard, boundless, stubbornly.” .

In his many hours of immobility, Judas himself became one of these “thinking” stones: “... his eyes stopped motionless on something, both motionless, both covered with a whitish strange turbidity, both as if blind and terribly sighted.” Judas is a stone - one of the metamorphoses of his multifaceted personality, meaning “stone” Potentially, the power of his will.

Inhuman willpower - like the deathly flat side of Judas's face; willpower that will stop at nothing; she is deaf to man. No, Peter is not a stone, but he, Judas, because it is not for nothing that he comes from a rocky area.

The motif of the “petrification” of Judas is plot-forming. Judas initially experiences a similar kind of awe before Jesus, as do all his disciples. But gradually Judas discovers in himself the qualities that define human dignity. And above all, the willpower to follow one’s path, to which a person is destined by the very order of things. This is the meaning of the metaphor: Judas is a stone.

We find the development of the “petrification” motif in the scene of the competition between Judas and Peter in throwing stones into the abyss. For all disciples, including Jesus Christ himself, this is entertainment. And Judas himself enters into the competition in order to entertain Jesus, tired from a long and difficult journey, and to earn his sympathy.

However, one cannot help but see its allegorical meaning in this scene: “heavy, he struck briefly and bluntly and thought for a moment; then he hesitantly made the first leap - and with each touch to the ground, taking from it speed and strength, he became light, ferocious, all-crushing. He no longer jumped, but flew with bared teeth, and the air, whistling, passed his blunt, round carcass.

Here is the edge, - with a smooth final movement, the stone soared upward and calmly, in heavy thoughtfulness, flew roundly down to the bottom of an invisible abyss.” This description is not only about the stone, but also about the “history of the soul” of Judas, about the growing strength of his will, his aspiration for a daring act, for a reckless desire to fly into the unknown - into the symbolic abyss, into the kingdom of freedom. And even in the stone thrown by Judas, he seems to see his likeness: having found a suitable stone, Judas “tenderly dug into it with his long fingers, swayed with it and, turning pale, sent it into the abyss.”

And if, when throwing a stone, Peter “leaned back and watched it fall,” then Judas “leaned forward, arched and extended his long moving arms, as if he himself wanted to fly away after the stone.”

The motif of Judas’ “petrification” reaches its climax in the scene of Jesus’ teaching in the house of Lazarus. Judas is offended that everyone so quickly forgot about his victory over Peter in throwing stones, and Jesus, apparently, did not attach any importance to it.

The disciples of Jesus had other moods, they worshiped other values: “images of the path traveled: the sun, and the stone, and the grass, and Christ reclining in the tent, quietly floated in their heads, evoking soft thoughtfulness, giving rise to vague but sweet dreams about what something eternally moving under the sun. The tired body rested sweetly, and it was all thinking about something mysteriously beautiful and big - and no one remembered Judas.” And there was no place in this beautiful, poetic world for Judas with his worthless virtues. He remained a stranger among Jesus' disciples.

So they surrounded their teacher, and each of them wanted to somehow be involved with him, even if only by a light, imperceptible touch of his clothes. And only Judas stood aside. “Iscariot stopped at the threshold and, contemptuously passing by the gaze of those gathered, concentrated all his fire on Jesus. And as he looked, everything around him went out, became covered in darkness and silence, and only Jesus brightened with his raised hand.”

Light in a dark and silent world - that is what Jesus is to Judas. But something seems to disturb Judas, peering at Jesus Christ: “but then he seemed to rise into the air, as if he had melted and became as if he all consisted of a lake-like fog, permeated with the light of the setting moon; and his soft speech sounded somewhere far, far away and tender.”

Jesus appears to Judas as what he is - a spirit, a bright, ethereal being with a charming, unearthly melody of words and at the same time a ghost floating in the air, ready to disappear, dissolve in the deep, silent darkness of man's earthly existence.

Judas, constantly concerned about the fate of Jesus in this world, imagines that he himself is somehow involved in Jesus differently than his disciples, who are concerned about being closer to Jesus. Judas looks into himself, as if he believes in himself to find the answer to this question: “and, peering into the wavering ghost, listening to the tender melody of distant and ghostly words, Judas took his entire soul into his iron fingers and in its immense darkness, silently, began build something huge.

Slowly in the deep darkness, he raised some mountain-like masses and smoothly laid one on top of the other; and raised it again, and put it on again; and something grew in the darkness, expanded silently, pushed the boundaries.

Here he felt his head like a dome, and in the impenetrable darkness a huge thing continued to grow, and someone was silently working: raising huge masses like mountains, putting one on top of the other and lifting again... And somewhere distant and ghostly words sounded tenderly.”

With full exertion of his will and all his spiritual strength, Judas builds in his imagination some kind of grandiose world, recognizing himself as its ruler, but the world, alas, is silent and gloomy. But Judas has little power over the world; he needs power over Jesus, so that the world does not remain forever in darkness and silence. It was a bold desire. But this was also the key to solving the problem of Judas' relationship with Jesus.

Jesus seemed to sense a threat coming from Judas: he interrupted his speech, fixing his gaze on Judas. Judas stood, “blocking the door, huge and black...”. Did the insightful Jesus see a jailer in Judas if he hurriedly left the house “and walked past Judas through the open and now free door,” assessing the real capabilities of his opponent, his power over himself?

Why doesn't Judas directly address Jesus, unlike his other disciples? Is it not for the reason that in the artistic world of the story Jesus and Judas are separated by some order of things independent of them, an irresistible logic of circumstances, a semblance of fate, as in a tragedy? For the time being, Judas has to come to terms with the fact that Jesus “was for everyone a tender and beautiful flower, a fragrant rose of Lebanon, but for Judas he left only sharp thorns.”

Jesus Christ loves his disciples and is coldly patient in his relationship with Judas, the only one of all who sincerely loves him. Where's the justice? And jealousy flares up in the heart of Judas - the eternal companion of love. No, he did not come to Jesus to be his obedient disciple.

He would like to become his brother. Only, unlike Jesus, he does not have faith in the human race, which truly does not understand and does not appreciate Jesus Christ. But no matter how much Judas despises people, he believes that at a critical moment for Christ, people will wake up from spiritual slumber and glorify his holiness, his divinity, which are as obvious to everyone as the sun in the sky. And if the impossible happens - people turn away from Jesus, he, only he, Judas, will remain with Jesus when his disciples run away from him, when it is necessary to share unimaginable suffering with Jesus. “I will be near Jesus!”

Judas’s idea was fully matured; he had already agreed with Anna to hand over Jesus, and only now he realized how dear Jesus was to him, whom he was giving into the wrong hands. “And, going out to the place where they went to relieve themselves, he cried there for a long time, writhing, writhing, scratching his chest with his nails, biting his shoulders. He caressed the imaginary hair of Jesus, quietly whispered something tender and funny, and gritted his teeth.

Then he suddenly stopped crying, moaning and gnashing his teeth and began to think heavily, tilting his wet face to the side, looking like a man who was listening. And for so long he stood, heavy, determined and alien to everything, like fate itself.” So this is what was hidden behind the dual face of Judas!

The awareness of his power over Jesus humbles Judas' jealousy. Here he is present at the scene when “Jesus tenderly and gratefully kissed John and affectionately stroked the tall Peter on the shoulder. And without envy, with condescending contempt, Judas looked at these caresses. What do all these ... kisses and sighs mean compared to what he knows, Judas of Kariot, a red-haired, ugly Jew, born among the stones!

Isn’t Judas’ only way of meaningfully expressing his love to imagine himself as Jesus’ caring jailer? Watching how Jesus rejoiced, caressing the child whom Judas had found somewhere and secretly brought to Jesus as a kind of gift to please him, “Judas strictly walked aside, like a stern jailer who in the spring himself let a butterfly into the prisoner and is now feigningly grumbling , complaining about the mess."

Judas is constantly looking for an opportunity to please Jesus with something - secretly from him, like a true lover. Only Judas doesn’t have enough love that Jesus doesn’t even know about.

He would like to become a brother to Jesus - in love and in suffering. But is Judas himself ready to hand Jesus over to his enemies in order to meet him face to face, which is what he so persistently strives for?

He passionately begs Jesus to make himself known, to enter into dialogue with him, to free him from his shameful role: “Free me. Take off the heaviness, it is heavier than mountains and lead. Can't you hear how the chest of Judas from Kerioth is cracking under her? And the last silence, bottomless, like the last glance of eternity.

I'm coming." The world responds with silence. Go, man, wherever you want, and do what you know. Jesus Christ is simply the Son of Man.

Here Judas appeared before Jesus face to face on the fateful night. And this was their first dialogue. Judas “quickly moved towards Jesus, who was waiting for him in silence, and plunged his direct and sharp gaze like a knife into his calm, darkened eyes.

“Rejoice, Rabbi! “he said loudly, putting a strange and menacing meaning into the words of an ordinary greeting.” The hour of testing has come. Jesus will enter the world victorious! But then he saw the disciples of Jesus huddled in a herd, paralyzed by fear, his hope wavered, “and the mortal sorrow that Christ experienced before was kindled in his heart.

Stretching out into a hundred loudly ringing, sobbing strings, he quickly rushed to Jesus and tenderly kissed his cold cheek. So quietly, so tenderly, with such painful love and longing that if Jesus had been a flower on a thin stem, he would not have shaken it with this kiss and would not have dropped the pearly dew from the pure petals.”

It is finished – Judas put all his tender love for Jesus into his kiss. Is he really ready to subject Jesus to a terrible test for this kiss? But Jesus did not understand the meaning of this kiss. “Judas,” said Jesus, and with the lightning of his gaze he illuminated that monstrous pile of wary shadows that was the soul of Iscariot, “but he could not penetrate into its bottomless depths. - Judas! Do you betray the Son of Man with a kiss? Yes, by kissing, but by kissing love: “Yes! We betray you with a kiss of love.

With the kiss of love we hand you over to desecration, to torture, to death! With the voice of love we call the executioners from the dark holes and put up a cross - high above the crown of the earth
we raise crucified love on the cross with love,” Judas pronounces an internal monologue. It's too late to explain things to Jesus now.

It so happened that Judas, tormented by unrequited love for Jesus, desired power over him. And wasn’t it the love of Jesus Christ for the human race that became the reason for the enmity of the powers that be towards him, hatred that knows no bounds? Isn't this the fate of love in this world? Be that as it may, the die is cast.

“So Judas stood, silent and cold as death, and the cry of his soul was answered by the screams and noise that arose around Jesus.” Judas will remain with this feeling of “a kind of double existence” - painful fear for the life of Jesus and cold curiosity about the behavior of people whose spiritual blindness is inexplicable - until his death.

The suffering of Jesus will somehow strangely bring him closer to Judas, which the latter so stubbornly sought: “and among all this crowd there were only the two of them, inseparable until death, wildly connected by the commonality of suffering - the one who was given over to reproach and torment, and the one who betrayed him. From the same cup of suffering, like brothers, they both drank, the devotee and the traitor, and the fiery moisture equally scorched clean and unclean lips.”

Ever since Jesus found himself in the hands of the soldiers, senselessly beating him for no reason, Judas lives in anticipation of what is inevitably going to happen: people will understand the divinity of Jesus Christ. And then Jesus will be saved - forever and ever. Silence fell in the guardhouse where they beat Jesus.

"What is this? Why are they silent? What if they guessed it? Instantly, Judas’s head was filled with noise, screaming, and the roar of thousands of frenzied thoughts. Did they guess? Did they understand that this is the best person? - it's so simple, so clear. What's there now? They kneel in front of him and cry quietly, kissing his feet. So he comes out here, and behind him they crawl obediently - he comes out here, to Judas, he comes out as a winner, a husband, the lord of truth, a god...

Who is deceiving Judas? Who is right?

But no. Again screams and noise. They hit again. They didn’t understand, they didn’t guess, and they hit even harder, they hit even more painfully.” Here Jesus stands before the court of the crowd, the court that must resolve the dispute between Judas and Jesus. “And all the people shouted, screamed, howled in a thousand animal and human voices:

Death to him! Crucify him!

And so, as if mocking themselves, as if in one moment wanting to experience all the infinity of fall, madness and shame, the same people shout, scream, demand in a thousand animal and human voices: “Release Barrabas to us!” Crucify him! Crucify!

Until Jesus' last breath, Judas hopes for a miracle. “What can keep from breaking the thin film that covers people’s eyes, so thin that it seems
not at all? What if they understand? Suddenly, with the entire menacing mass of men, women and children, they will move forward, silently, without shouting, they will wipe out the soldiers, drench them up to their ears in their blood, tear out the cursed cross from the ground, and with the hands of the survivors, raise the free Jesus high above the crown of the earth! Hosanna! Hosanna!". No, Jesus dies. Is this possible? Is Judas the winner? “Horror and dreams came true. Who will now snatch victory from the hands of Iscariot? Let all the nations that exist on earth flock to Golgotha ​​and cry out with millions of their throats: “Hosanna, Hosanna!” - and seas of blood and tears will be shed at its foot - they will find only a shameful cross and a dead Jesus.”

The fulfilled prophecy elevates Judas to the level of pride that is inherent in the rulers of the world: “now the whole earth belongs to him, and he walks firmly, like a ruler, like a king, like one who is infinitely and joyfully alone in this world.” Now his posture is that of a ruler, “his face is stern, and his eyes do not dart in mad haste as before. So he stops and examines the new, small land with cold attention. She has become small, and he feels all of her under his feet.

Infinitely and joyfully alone, he proudly felt the powerlessness of all the forces acting in the world, and threw them all into the abyss.” The world has appeared in darkness and silence, and now Judas has the right to judge everyone and everything. He denounces the members of the Sanhedrin for their criminal blindness, and betrayed you, the wise, you, the strong, to a shameful death that will not end
forever" and the disciples of Jesus.

Now they look at it from above and below and laugh and shout: look at this land, Jesus was crucified on it! And they spit on her - like me! But without Jesus the world lost its light and meaning.

To be close to Jesus means to follow him from this desolate world. “Why are you alive when he is dead?” Judas asks Jesus’ disciples. Jesus is dead, and only the dead are not ashamed now. Judas is ready to continue to endure Jesus' dislike for him, even in heaven, even if Jesus sends him to hell. Judas is capable of destroying heaven in the name of love for Jesus in order to return to earth with him, embracing him brotherly, and thereby wash away the shameful name of the Traitor. This is what Judas believed, the one who truly loved Jesus and who, in the name of love, doomed him to torment and death.

But he entered the memory of people differently: “and everyone - good and evil - will equally curse his shameful memory; and among all nations, which were and are, he will remain alone in his cruel fate - Judas of Kariot, Traitor.”

People evaluate in their own way a person whose behavior disturbs their conscience. The story of one love and the betrayal committed in the name of it was told to us by Leonid Andreev in the story “Judas Iscariot”.

Analysis of the story “Judas Iscariot”

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The story “Judas Iscariot,” a summary of which is presented in this article, is based on a biblical story. Nevertheless, Maxim Gorky, even before the publication of the work, said that it would be understood by few and would cause a lot of noise.

Leonid Andreev

This is a rather controversial author. Andreev’s work was unknown to readers in Soviet times. Before we begin to present a brief summary of “Judas Iscariot” - a story that evokes both admiration and indignation - let us recall the main and most interesting facts from the writer’s biography.

Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev was an extraordinary and very emotional person. While a law student, he began to abuse alcohol. For some time, the only source of income for Andreev was painting portraits to order: he was not only a writer, but also an artist.

In 1894, Andreev tried to commit suicide. An unsuccessful shot led to the development of heart disease. For five years, Leonid Andreev was engaged in advocacy. His literary fame came to him in 1901. But even then he evoked conflicting feelings among readers and critics. Leonid Andreev greeted the 1905 revolution with joy, but soon became disillusioned with it. After the separation of Finland, he ended up in exile. The writer died abroad in 1919 from heart disease.

The history of the creation of the story “Judas Iscariot”

The work was published in 1907. The plot ideas came to the writer during his stay in Switzerland. In May 1906, Leonid Andreev told one of his colleagues that he was going to write a book on the psychology of betrayal. He managed to realize his plan in Capri, where he went after the death of his wife.

“Judas Iscariot,” a summary of which is presented below, was written within two weeks. The author demonstrated the first edition to his friend Maxim Gorky. He drew the author's attention to historical and factual errors. Andreev re-read the New Testament more than once and made changes to the story. During the writer’s lifetime, the story “Judas Iscariot” was translated into English, German, French and other languages.

A man of ill repute

None of the apostles noticed the appearance of Judas. How did he manage to gain the trust of the Teacher? Jesus Christ was warned many times that he was a man of very ill repute. You should beware of him. Judas was condemned not only by “right” people, but also by scoundrels. He was the worst of the worst. When the disciples asked Judas what motivated him to do terrible things, he answered that every person is a sinner. What he said was consistent with the words of Jesus. No one has the right to judge another.

This is the philosophical problem of the story “Judas Iscariot”. The author, of course, did not make his hero positive. But he put the traitor on a par with the disciples of Jesus Christ. Andreev’s idea could not but cause a resonance in society.

The disciples of Christ asked Judas more than once about who his father was. He answered that he didn’t know, maybe the devil, a rooster, a goat. How can he know everyone with whom his mother shared a bed? Such answers shocked the apostles. Judas insulted his parents, which means he was doomed to death.

One day a crowd attacks Christ and his disciples. They are accused of stealing a kid. But a man who will very soon betray his teacher rushes at the crowd with the words that the teacher is not at all possessed by a demon, he just loves money just like everyone else. Jesus leaves the village in anger. His disciples follow him, cursing Judas. But this small, disgusting man, worthy only of contempt, wanted to save them...

Theft

Christ trusts Judas to keep his savings. But he is hiding several coins, which the students, of course, soon find out about. But Jesus does not condemn the unlucky disciple. After all, the apostles should not count the coins that his brother appropriated. Their reproaches only offend him. This evening Judas Iscariot is very cheerful. Using his example, the Apostle John understood what love for one's neighbor is.

Thirty pieces of silver

During the last days of his life, Jesus surrounds with affection the one who betrays him. Judas is helpful with his disciples - nothing should interfere with his plan. An event will soon take place, thanks to which his name will forever remain in the memory of people. It will be called almost as often as the name of Jesus.

After the execution

When analyzing Andreev’s story “Judas Iscariot,” it is worth paying special attention to the ending of the work. The apostles suddenly appear before the readers as cowardly, cowardly people. After the execution, Judas addresses them with a sermon. Why didn't they save Christ? Why didn’t they attack the guards in order to rescue the Teacher?

Judas will forever remain in people's memory as a traitor. And those who were silent when Jesus was crucified will be revered. After all, they carry the Word of Christ across the earth. This is the summary of Judas Iscariot. In order to make an artistic analysis of the work, you should still read the story in its entirety.

The meaning of the story "Judas Iscariot"

Why did the author depict a negative biblical character from such an unusual perspective? “Judas Iscariot” by Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev is, according to many critics, one of the greatest works of Russian classics. The story makes the reader think, first of all, about what true love, true faith and fear of death are. The author seems to be asking what is hidden behind faith, is there a lot of true love in it?

The image of Judas in the story “Judas Iscariot”

The hero of Andreev's book is a traitor. Judas sold Christ for 30 pieces of silver. He is the worst of all who have ever lived on our planet. Is it possible to feel compassion for him? Of course not. The writer seems to be tempting the reader.

But it is worth remembering that Andreev’s story is by no means a theological work. The book has nothing to do with the church or faith. The author simply invited readers to look at a well-known plot from a different, unusual side.

A person is mistaken in believing that he can always accurately determine the motives of another’s behavior. Judas betrays Christ, which means he is a bad person. This suggests that he does not believe in the Messiah. The apostles hand over the teacher to the Romans and Pharisees to be torn to pieces. And they do this because they believe in their teacher. Jesus will rise again and people will believe in the Savior. Andreev suggested looking at the actions of both Judas and the faithful disciples of Christ differently.

Judas madly loves Christ. However, he feels that those around him do not value Jesus enough. And he provokes the Jews: he betrays his beloved teacher in order to test the strength of the people's love for him. Judas will be severely disappointed: the disciples have fled, and the people are demanding that Jesus be killed. Even Pilate’s words that he did not find Christ guilty were not heard by anyone. The crowd is out for blood.

This book caused outrage among believers. Not surprising. The apostles did not snatch Christ from the clutches of the guards not because they believed in him, but because they were cowardly - this is, perhaps, the main idea of ​​Andreev’s story. After the execution, Judas turns to his disciples with reproaches, and at this moment he is not at all vile. It seems that there is truth in his words.

Judas took upon himself a heavy cross. He became a traitor, thereby forcing people to wake up. Jesus said that you cannot kill a guilty person. But wasn't his execution a violation of this postulate? Andreev puts words into the mouth of Judas, his hero, that he might have wanted to utter himself. Didn't Christ go to his death with the silent consent of his disciples? Judas asks the apostles how they could allow his death. They have nothing to answer. They are silent in confusion.

Difficult, difficult and perhaps thankless
approaching the mystery of Judas easier and calmer
not to notice it, covering it with the roses of church beauty.
S. Bulgakov 1

The story appeared in 1907, but mention of its idea was found in L. Andreev already in 1902. Therefore, not only the events of Russian history - the defeat of the first Russian revolution and the rejection of many revolutionary ideas - caused the appearance of this work, but also the internal impulses of L. Andreev himself. From a historical point of view, the theme of apostasy from past revolutionary passions is present in the story. L. Andreev also wrote about this. However, the content of the story, especially over time, goes far beyond the scope of a specific socio-political situation. The author himself wrote about the concept of his work: “Something on the psychology, ethics and practice of betrayal,” “A completely free fantasy on the topic of betrayal, good and evil, Christ, etc.” Leonid Andreev's story is an artistic philosophical and ethical study of human vice, and the main conflict is philosophical and ethical.

We must pay tribute to the artistic courage of the writer who risked turning to the image of Judas, much less trying to understand this image. After all, from a psychological point of view understand means to accept something (in accordance with the paradoxical statement of M. Tsvetaeva understand- forgive me, nothing else). Leonid Andreev, of course, foresaw this danger. He wrote: the story “will be criticized both right and left, above and below.” And he turned out to be right: the emphasis that was placed in his version of the Gospel story (“The Gospel of Andreev”) turned out to be unacceptable for many contemporaries, including L. Tolstoy: “It’s terribly disgusting, false and lacking a sign of talent. The main thing is why ?" At the same time, the story was highly appreciated by M. Gorky, A. Blok, K. Chukovsky and many others.

Jesus as a character in the story also caused sharp rejection ("The Jesus composed by Andreev, in general, the Jesus of the rationalism of Renan, the artist Polenov, but not the Gospel, a very mediocre personality, colorless, small," - A. Bugrov 2), and the images of the apostles ("From the Apostles there should be approximately nothing left. Just a little wet,” - V.V. Rozanov), and, of course, the image of the central hero of “Judas Iscariot” (“... L. Andreev’s attempt to present Judas as an extraordinary person, to give his actions high motivation was doomed to failure The result was a disgusting mixture of sadistic cruelty, cynicism and love with anguish. The work of L. Andreev, written at the time of the defeat of the revolution, at the time of the black reaction, is essentially an apologetics of betrayal... This is one of the most shameful pages in the history of Russian and European decadence,” I.E. Zhuravskaya). There were so many derogatory reviews of the scandalous work in the criticism of that time that K. Chukovsky was forced to declare: “In Russia it is better to be a forger than a famous Russian writer” 3 .

The polarity of assessments of L. Andreev’s work and its central character in literary criticism has not disappeared even today, and it is caused by the dual nature of the image of Andreev’s Judas.

An unconditionally negative assessment of the image of Judas is given, for example, by L.A. Zapadova, who, having analyzed the biblical sources of the story “Judas Iscariot”, warns: “Knowledge of the Bible for a full perception of the story-story and comprehension of the “secrets” of “Judas Iscariot” is necessary in different aspects. You need to keep biblical knowledge in your memory.. - for this at least not to succumb to the charm of the serpentine-satanic logic of the character whose name the work is named" 4 ; M.A. Brodsky: “Iscariot’s correctness is not absolute. Moreover, by declaring shameful things natural and conscientiousness unnecessary, cynicism destroys the system of moral guidelines, without which it is difficult for a person to live. That is why the position of Andreev’s Judas is devilishly dangerous.” 5

Another point of view has become no less widespread. For example, B.S. Bugrov states: “The deep source of provocation [Judas. - V.K.] is not the innate moral depravity of a person, but an integral property of his nature - the ability to think. The impossibility of renouncing “seditious” thoughts and the need for their practical verification are the internal impulses of behavior Judas" 6; P. Basinsky in the comments to the story writes: “This is not an apology for betrayal (as some critics understood the story), but an original interpretation of the theme of love and fidelity and an attempt to present the theme of revolution and revolutionaries in an unexpected light: Judas is, as it were, the “last” revolutionary, blowing up the very the false meaning of the universe and thus clearing the way for Christ" 7 ; R.S. Spivak states: “The semantics of the image of Judas in Andreev’s story is fundamentally different from the semantics of the Gospel prototype. The betrayal of Andreev’s Judas is a betrayal only in fact, and not in essence” 8 . And in the interpretation of Yu. Nagibin, one of the modern writers, Judas Iscariot is the “beloved disciple” of Jesus (see about Yu. Nagibin’s story “Beloved Disciple” below).

The problem of the Gospel Judas and its interpretation in literature and art has two facets: ethical and aesthetic, and they are inextricably linked.

L. Tolstoy had this ethical line in mind when he asked the question: “the main thing is why” turn to the image of Judas and try to understand him, to delve into his psychology? What is the moral meaning of this in the first place? It was deeply natural that in the Gospel there appeared not only a positively beautiful personality - Jesus, the God-man, but also his antipode - Judas with his satanic beginning, who personified the universal human vice of betrayal. Humanity also needed this symbol to form a moral coordinate system. To try to look at the image of Judas in any other way means to attempt to revise it, and, consequently, to encroach on the system of values ​​that has been formed over two millennia, which threatens a moral catastrophe. After all, one of the definitions of culture is the following: culture is a system of restrictions, self-restraints that prohibit killing, stealing, betraying, etc. In Dante's "Divine Comedy", as we know, the ethical and the aesthetic coincide: Lucifer and Judas are equally ugly both ethically and aesthetically - they are anti-ethical and anti-aesthetic. Any innovations in this area can have serious not only ethical, but also socio-psychological consequences. All this gives an answer to the question why the image of Judas was banned for a long time; it was as if a taboo (ban) was imposed on it.

On the other hand, to refuse attempts to understand the motives of Judas’s action means to agree that a person is a kind of puppet, the forces of others are only acting in him (“Satan entered” into Judas), in which case the person is responsible for his actions does not carry. Leonid Andreev had the courage to think about these difficult questions, to offer his own answers, knowing in advance that the criticism would be harsh.

When starting to analyze L. Andreev’s story “Judas Iscariot”, it is necessary to emphasize once again: a positive assessment of Judas, the gospel character, is, of course, impossible. Here, the subject of analysis is the text of a work of art, and the goal is to identify its meaning based on establishing relationships at various levels of elements of the text, or, most likely, determining the boundaries of interpretation, otherwise - the spectrum of adequacy.

A few words about Leonid Andreev

Once in the Russian National Library I happened to get acquainted with the first issue of the magazine “Satyricon”, which was published, as you know, in 1908. The reason was to study the work of Arkady Averchenko or, more likely, to collect materials for writing a novel in which one of the chapters takes place in St. Petersburg in 1908. On the last page of "Satyricon" a cartoon portrait of Leonid Andreev was placed. The following was written:

“Rejoice that you are holding an issue of Satyricon in your hands.” Rejoice that such a person is your contemporary... He once looked into the Abyss, and horror froze forever in his eyes. And from then on he laughed only with a blood-chilling Red laugh.”

The cheerful magazine ironized the darkly prophetic image of Leonid Andreev, referring to his stories “The Abyss” and “Red Laughter”. Leonid Andreev was very popular in those years: his elegant style, expressiveness of presentation, and boldness of subject matter attracted the reading public to him.

Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev was born on August 9 (21 n.s.) 1871 in the city of Orel. His father was a land surveyor and tax collector, his mother was from the family of a bankrupt Polish landowner. At the age of six he learned to read “and read extremely a lot, everything that came to hand”. At the age of 11 he entered the Oryol gymnasium, from which he graduated in 1891. In May 1897, after graduating from the Faculty of Law of Moscow University, he was planning to become a sworn attorney, but unexpectedly received an offer from a lawyer he knew to take the place of a court reporter in the Moskovsky Vestnik newspaper. Having received recognition as a talented reporter, two months later he moved to the Courier newspaper. Thus began the birth of the writer Andreev: he wrote numerous reports, feuilletons, and essays.

Literary debut - the story “In Cold and Gold” (zvezda, 1892, No. 16). At the beginning of the century, Andreev became friends with A.M. Gorky and together with him joined the circle of writers united around the publishing house “Znanie”. In 1901, the St. Petersburg publishing house “Znanie”, headed by Gorky, published “Stories” by L. Andreev. The following were also published in the literary collections “Knowledge”: the story “The Life of Vasily of Fiveysky” (1904); story “Red Laughter” (1905); dramas “To the Stars” (1906) and “Sava” (1906); story “Judas Iscariot and Others” (1907). In “Rosehip” (an almanac of modernist orientation): drama “Human Life” (1907); story "Darkness" (1907); "The Tale of the Seven Hanged Men" (1908); pamphlet “My Notes” (1908); drama "Black Masks" (1908); the plays “Anfisa” (1909), “Ekaterina Ivanovna” (1913) and “The One Who Receives Slaps” (1916); story “The Yoke of War. Confessions of a Little Man about Great Days" (1916). Andreev's last major work, written under the influence of the world war and revolution, is “Notes of Satan” (published in 1921).

I. Repin. Portrait of L. Andreev

Andreev did not accept the October Revolution. At that time he lived with his family at a dacha in Finland and in December 1917, after Finland gained independence, he found himself in exile. The writer died on September 12, 1919 in the village of Neivola in Finland, and was reburied in Leningrad in 1956.

More details biography of Leonid Andreev can be read , or , or .

L. Andreev and L. Tolstoy; L. Andreev and M. Gorky

With L.N. Tolstoy and his wife Leonid Andreev do not have mutual understanding found. "He's scary, but I'm not scared" - So Lev Tolstoy spoke about Leonid Andreev in a conversation with a visitor. Sofya Andreevna Tolstaya in a “Letter to the Editor” of Novoye Vremya accused Andreev of “ loves to enjoy the baseness of the phenomena of vicious human life" And, contrasting Andreev’s works with her husband’s works, she called for “ to help those unfortunates come to their senses, whose wings they, Messrs. Andreevs, are knocking down, given to everyone for a high flight to the understanding of spiritual light, beauty, goodness and... God" There were other critical reviews of Andreev’s work; they made fun of his gloominess, as in the micro-pamphlet from Satyricon cited above; he himself wrote: “Who knows me among the critics? No one, it seems. Loves? Nobody either."

Interesting statement M. Gorky , very close acquaintance with L. Andreev:

« To Andreev, man seemed spiritually poor; woven from the irreconcilable contradictions of instinct and intellect, he is forever deprived of the opportunity to achieve any internal harmony. All his deeds are “vanity of vanities,” corruption and self-deception. And most importantly, he is a slave to death and all his life

The story of Leonid Andreev is also "gospel of Judas" since the Traitor is the main character there and performs the same function as in the heretical treatise, but the interaction between Judas and Jesus occurs more subtly:

Jesus does not ask Judas to betray Him, but by His behavior forces him to do so;

Jesus does not inform Judas about the meaning of his atoning sacrifice, and therefore condemns him to the torments of his conscience, i.e., to put it in the language of the special services, he “uses in the dark” the unfortunate Judas. Andreev’s “shifters” are not limited to this:

Judas not only overshadows many of the heroes of the gospel narrative, since they turn out to be clearly stupider and more primitive than him, but also replaces them with himself. Let's take a closer look at St. Andrew's “gospel inside out.”

Illustration by A. Zykina.

The appearance of Judas in the text of the story does not bode well: “Jesus Christ was warned many times that Judas of Kerioth was a man of very bad reputation and should be avoided. Some of the disciples who were in Judea knew him well themselves, others heard a lot about him from people, and there was no one who could say a good word about him. And if the good ones reproached him, saying that Judas was selfish, cunning, prone to pretense and lies, then the bad ones, who were asked about Judas, reviled him with the most cruel words... And there was no doubt for some of the disciples that his desire to get closer to Jesus had some secret intention hidden, there was an evil and insidious calculation. But Jesus did not listen to their advice, their prophetic voice did not touch his ears. With that spirit of bright contradiction that irresistibly attracted him to the outcast and unloved, he decisively accepted Judas and included him in the circle of the chosen ones.».

The author at the beginning of the story tells us about some oversight of Jesus, excessive gullibility, improvidence, for which he had to pay later and that his disciples were more experienced and far-sighted. Come on, is he really God after this, to whom the future is open?

There are three options:

either he is not God, but a beautiful-hearted, inexperienced person;

either He is God, and specially brought closer to Him the person who would betray Him;

or he is a man who does not know the future, but for some reason it was necessary for him to be betrayed, and Judas had a corresponding reputation.

The discrepancy with the Gospel is obvious: Judas was an apostle of the twelve, he, like the other apostles, preached and healed; was the treasurer of the apostles, however, a lover of money, and the Apostle John directly calls him a thief:

« He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief. He had a cash drawer with him and wore what they put in it"(John 12:6).

IN it is explained that

« Judas not only carried the donated money, but also carried it away, i.e. secretly took a significant part of them for himself. The verb here (?????????), translated in Russian by the expression “carried”, is more correctly translated “carried away”. Why was Judas entrusted with a box of money by Christ? It is very likely that with this manifestation of trust Christ wanted to influence Judas, to inspire in him love and devotion to Himself. But such trust did not have favorable consequences for Judas: he was already too attached to money and therefore abused the trust of Christ».

Judas was not deprived of free will in the Gospel, and Christ knew in advance about his betrayal and warned of the consequences: “ However, the Son of Man comes, as it is written about Him; but woe to that man through whom the Son of Man is betrayed: it was better if that person would never have been born "(Matthew 26, 24). This was said at the Last Supper, after Judas visited the high priest and received thirty pieces of silver for betrayal. At the same Last Supper, Christ said that the traitor was one of the apostles sitting with Him, and the Gospel of John says that Christ secretly pointed him to Judas (John 13:23-26).

Earlier, even before entering Jerusalem, addressing the apostles, “ Jesus answered them: Have I not chosen you twelve? but one of you is the devil. He spoke this about Judas Simon Iscariot, for he wanted to betray Him, being one of the twelve "(John 6, 70-71). IN “Explanatory Bible” by A.P. Lopukhina The following interpretation of these words is given: “ So that the apostles do not fall into excessive arrogance about their position as constant followers of Christ, the Lord points out that among them there is one person who is close to the devil in his attitude. Just as the devil is in a constantly hostile mood towards God, so Judas hates Christ, as destroying all his hopes for the foundation of the earthly Messianic Kingdom, in which Judas could take a prominent place. This one wanted to betray Him. More precisely: “this one was going, so to speak, to betray Christ, although he himself was not yet clearly aware of this intention of his.” ».

Further, according to the plot of the story, St. Andrew's Jesus constantly keeps Judas at a distance, forcing him to envy other disciples who are objectively stupider than Judas, but enjoy the favor of the teacher, and when Judas is ready to leave Christ or the disciples are ready to expel him, Jesus brings him closer to himself and does not let him go. There are many examples that can be given, let’s highlight a few.

The scene when Judas is accepted as an apostle looks like this:

Judas came to Jesus and the apostles, telling something that was obviously false. “John, without looking at the teacher, quietly asked Peter Simonov, his friend:

- Aren't you tired of this lie? I can't stand her any longer and I'll leave here.

Peter looked at Jesus, met his gaze and quickly stood up.

- Wait! - he told his friend. He looked at Jesus again, quickly, like a stone torn from a mountain, moved towards Judas Iscariot and loudly said to him with broad and clear friendliness:

“Here you are with us, Judas.”.

St. Andrew's Jesus is silent. He does not stop Judas, who is clearly sinning; on the contrary, he accepts him as he is, into the number of his disciples; Moreover, he does not verbally call on Judas: Peter guesses his desire and formalizes it in word and deed. This is not how things happened in the Gospel: apostleship was always preceded by a clear calling by the Lord, often by repentance of the one called, and always by a radical change in life immediately after the calling. This is what happened to the fisherman Peter: “ Simon Peter fell at the knees of Jesus and said: Depart from me, Lord! because I am a sinful man... And Jesus said to Simon: Do not be afraid; from now on you will catch people "(Luke 5, 8, 10). So it was with the publican Matthew: “ Passing from there, Jesus saw a man named Matthew sitting at the toll booth, and he said to him, “Follow Me.” And he stood up and followed Him"(Matthew 9:9).

Leonardo da Vinci. Last Supper

But Judas does not abandon his way of life after his calling: he also lies and makes faces, but for some reason St. Andrew’s Jesus does not speak out against it.

« Judas lied constantly, but they got used to it, because they did not see bad deeds behind the lie, and it gave special interest to Judas’ conversation and his stories and made life look like a funny and sometimes scary fairy tale. He readily admitted that sometimes he himself lies, but he assured with an oath that others lie even more, and if there is anyone deceived in the world, it is he, Judas." Let me remind you that the Gospel Christ spoke quite definitely about lies. He characterizes the devil this way: “ When he tells a lie, he speaks his own way, for he is a liar and the father of lies. "(John 8:44). But for some reason St. Andrew’s Jesus allows Judas to lie - except for the case when Judas lies to save himself.

To protect the teacher from the angry crowd, Judas flatters her and calls Jesus a simple deceiver and a tramp, diverts attention to himself and allows the teacher to leave, saving the life of Jesus, but he is angry. This was not the case in the Gospel, of course, but they actually wanted to kill Christ more than once for preaching, and this was always resolved successfully solely thanks to Christ himself, for example, with the admonition:

« I have shown you many good works from My Father; For which of them do you want to stone Me?"(John 10:32) or simply a supernatural departure:« Hearing this, everyone in the synagogue was filled with rage, stood up, drove Him out of the city and led Him to the top of the mountain on which their city was built in order to overthrow Him; but He passed through the midst of them and departed"(Luke 4, 28-30).

St. Andrew's Jesus is weak, cannot cope with the crowd on his own, and at the same time condemns the man who made great efforts to save him from death; The Lord, as we remember, “welcomes intentions,” i.e. White lies are not a sin.

In the same way, St. Andrew's Jesus refuses to help Peter defeat Judas in throwing stones, and then pointedly does not notice that Judas defeated Peter; and he is angry with Judas, who proved the ingratitude of the people in the village where Jesus preached earlier, but for some reason he allows Judas to steal from the cash drawer... He behaves very contradictory, as if tempering Judas for betrayal; he inflates Judas’s pride and love of money and at the same time hurts his pride. And all this in silence.

“And before, for some reason, it was the case that Judas never spoke directly to Jesus, and he never directly addressed him, but he often looked at him with gentle eyes, smiled at some of his jokes, and if he did not see him for a long time, he asked : where is Judas? And now he looked at him, as if not seeing him, although as before, and even more persistently than before, he looked for him with his eyes every time he began to speak to his disciples or to the people, but either he sat with his back to him and threw words over his head. his own towards Judas, or pretended not to notice him at all. And no matter what he said, even if it was one thing today and something completely different tomorrow, even if it was the same thing that Judas was thinking, it seemed, however, that he was always speaking against Judas. And for everyone he was a tender and beautiful flower, fragrant with the rose of Lebanon, but for Judas he left only sharp thorns - as if Judas had no heart, as if he had no eyes and nose and no better than everyone else, he understood the beauty of tender and immaculate petals."

Naturally, Judas eventually grumbled:

« Why is he not with Judas, but with those who do not love him? John brought him a lizard - I would have brought him a poisonous snake. Peter threw stones - I would have turned a mountain for him! But what is a poisonous snake? Now her tooth has been pulled out, and she is wearing a necklace around her neck. But what is a mountain that can be torn down with your hands and trampled underfoot? I would give him Judas, brave, beautiful Judas! And now he will perish, and Judas will perish with him." Thus, according to Andreev, Judas did not betray Jesus, but took revenge on him for his inattention, for his lack of love, for his subtle mockery of the proud Judas. What kind of love of money there is!.. This is the revenge of a loving, but offended and rejected person, revenge out of jealousy. And St. Andrew’s Jesus acts as a completely conscious provocateur.

Judas is ready until the last moment to save Jesus from the inevitable: “ With one hand betraying Jesus, with the other hand Judas diligently sought to thwart his own plans" And even after the Last Supper he tries to find a way not to betray the teacher, he directly turns to Jesus:

“Do you know where I’m going, Lord? I am coming to deliver you into the hands of your enemies.

And there was a long silence, the silence of the evening and sharp, black shadows.

-Are you silent, Lord? Are you ordering me to go?

And again silence.

- Let me stay. But you can't? Or don't you dare? Or don't you want to?

And again silence, huge, like the eyes of eternity.

- But you know that I love you. You know everything. Why are you looking at Judas like that? The mystery of your beautiful eyes is great, but is mine less so? Order me to stay!.. But you are silent, are you still silent? Lord, Lord, why, in anguish and torment, have I been looking for you all my life, looking for you and finding you! Set me free. Take away the heaviness, it is heavier than mountains and lead. Can't you hear how the chest of Judas from Kerioth is cracking under her?

And the last silence, bottomless, like the last glance of eternity.

- I'm coming."

And who is betraying whom here? This is the “gospel inside out,” in which Jesus betrays Judas, and Judas begs Jesus just as Christ in the present Gospel begs His Father in the Garden of Gethsemane to carry the cup of suffering past him. In the present Gospel, Christ prays to His Father for his disciples, and St. Andrew’s Jesus condemns the disciple to betrayal and suffering.

Icon “Prayer for the Cup” by Caravaggio. Kiss of Judas

Even in the Gnostic Gospel of Judas, Jesus is not so cruel:

Video fragment 2. "National Geographic. Gospel of Judas"

In general, Andreev’s Judas often replaces the disciples, Christ, and even God the Father. Let's look at these cases briefly.

We have already said about the prayer for the cup: here Judas replaces the suffering Christ, and St. Andrew’s Jesus acts as Sabaoth in the Gnostic understanding, i.e. like a cruel demiurge.

Well, it is Judas who contextually appears as Andreev’s loving “God’s father”: it is not for nothing that, observing the suffering of Jesus, he repeats: “Oh, it hurts, it hurts a lot, my son, my son, my son. It hurts, it hurts a lot."

Another replacement of Christ by Judas: Judas asks Peter who he thinks Jesus is. " Peter whispered fearfully and joyfully: “I think that he is the son of the living God.” And in the Gospel it is written like this: “ Simon Peter answered Him: Lord! who should we go to? You have the words of eternal life: and we have believed and known that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God"(John 6, 68-69). The twist is that Peter’s gospel remark is addressed to Christ, not Judas.

Appearing to the apostles after the death of Jesus, St. Andrew’s Judas again creates an inverted situation and replaces the risen Christ with himself. "Jesus' disciples sat in sad silence and listened to what was happening outside the house. There was also a danger that the revenge of Jesus’ enemies would not be limited to him alone, and everyone was waiting for the guards to invade... At that moment, Judas Iscariot entered, slamming the door loudly».

And the Gospel describes the following: “ On the same first day of the week in the evening, when the doors of the house where His disciples were meeting were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst and said to them: Peace be with you! "(John 20:19).

Here the quiet and joyful appearance of the risen Christ is replaced by the noisy appearance of Judas, denouncing His disciples.

The denunciation of Judas is permeated by the following refrain: “Where was your love? ... Who loves... Who loves!.. Who loves! Compare with the Gospel: “When they were dining, Jesus said to Simon Peter: Simon the Jonah! Do you love Me more than they? Peter says to Him: Yes, Lord! You know I love you. Jesus says to him: Feed my lambs. Another time he says to him: Simon the Jonah! do you love me? Peter says to Him: Yes, Lord! You know I love you. Jesus says to him: Feed My sheep. He says to him for the third time: Simon the Jonah! do you love me? Peter was saddened that he asked him for the third time: Do you love Me? and said to Him: Lord! You know everything; You know I love you. Jesus says to him: Feed My sheep."(John 21:15-17).

Thus, after His resurrection, Christ restored the apostolic dignity to Peter, who had denied Him three times. In L. Andreev we see an inverted situation: Judas three times denounces the apostles for their dislike for Christ.

Same scene: “Judas fell silent, raising his hand, and suddenly noticed the remains of a meal on the table. And with strange amazement, curiosity, as if he saw food for the first time in his life, he looked at it and slowly asked: “What is this? Did you eat? Perhaps you slept the same way? Let's compare: " When they still did not believe for joy and were amazed, He said to them: Do you have any food here? They gave Him some of the baked fish and honeycomb. And he took it and ate before them"(Luke 24:41-43). Once again, Judas exactly the opposite repeats the actions of the risen Christ.

« I'm going to him! - said Judas, extending his imperious hand upward. “Who is following Iscariot to Jesus?” Let's compare: " Then Jesus said to them plainly: Lazarus is dead; and I rejoice for you that I was not there, so that you might believe; but let's go to him. Then Thomas, otherwise called the Twin, said to the disciples: come and we will die with him"(John 11, 14-16). To the courageous statement of Thomas, who, like the other apostles, could not confirm it with deeds on the night when Judas betrayed Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, L. Andreev contrasts the same statement of Judas, and Judas fulfills his promise, showing greater courage than the other apostles.

By the way, Andreev’s apostles are shown as fools, cowards and hypocrites, and against their background Judas looks more than advantageous; he outshines them with his sharp paradoxical mind and sensitive love for Jesus. Yes, this is no wonder: Thomas is stupid and cowardly, John is arrogant and hypocritical, Peter is a complete ass. Judas characterizes him this way:

« Is there anyone stronger than Peter? When he shouts, all the donkeys in Jerusalem think that their Messiah has come, and they also start shouting." Andreev completely agrees with his favorite hero, as can be seen from this passage: “A rooster crowed, resentfully and loudly, as if during the day, a donkey, who had woken up somewhere, crowed and reluctantly, intermittently, fell silent.”

The motif of a cock crowing in the night is associated with Peter’s denial of Christ, and the braying donkey obviously correlates with Peter weeping bitterly after his denial: “ And Peter remembered the word that Jesus had spoken to him: Before the rooster crows twice, you will deny Me three times; and started crying"(Mark 14:72).

Judas even replaces Mary Magdalene. According to Andreev’s version, it was Judas who bought the ointment with which Mary Magdalene anointed Jesus’ feet, whereas in the Gospel the situation is completely opposite. Let's compare: " Mary, taking a pound of pure precious ointment of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped His feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the world. Then one of His disciples, Judas Simon Iscariot, who wanted to betray Him, said: Why not sell this ointment for three hundred denarii and give it to the poor?"(John 12:3-5).

Sebastian Ritchie. Mary Magdalene washing Christ's feet

And in the light of what has been said above, the outburst of Judas does not look at all strange, who, to the public question of Peter and John about which of them will sit next to Jesus in the Kingdom of Heaven, answered: “I! I will be near Jesus!”

One can, of course, talk about the inconsistency of the image of Judas, which was reflected in his behavior, and in his speeches, and even in his appearance, but the main intrigue of the story is not this, but the fact that St. Andrew’s silent Jesus, without uttering a word , was able to force this smart, contradictory and paradoxical man to become a great Traitor.

« And everyone - good and evil - will equally curse his shameful memory, and among all nations, which were and are, he will remain alone in his cruel fate - Judas of Kariot, Traitor" The Gnostics, with their theory of a “gentleman’s agreement” between Christ and Judas, never dreamed of this.

A domestic film adaptation of Andreev's story "Judas Iscariot" - "Judas, the Man from Kariot" - should soon be released. I wonder what emphasis the director made. For now, you can only watch the trailer for the film.

Video fragment 3. Trailer “Judas, the Man from Kariot”

M. Gorky recalled this statement by L. Andreev:

“Someone proved to me that Dostoevsky secretly hated Christ. I also don’t like Christ and Christianity, optimism is a disgusting, completely false invention... I think that Judas was not a Jew - a Greek, a Hellenic. He, brother, is an intelligent and daring man, Judas... You know, if Judas had been convinced that Jehovah himself was in the face of Christ before him, he would still have betrayed Him. Killing God, humiliating Him with a shameful death, this, brother, is not a trifle!”

It seems that this statement most accurately defines the author’s position of Leonid Andreev.

The story “Judas Iscariot,” a summary of which is presented in this article, is based on a biblical story. Nevertheless, Maxim Gorky, even before the publication of the work, said that it would be understood by few and would cause a lot of noise.

Leonid Andreev

This is a rather controversial author. Andreev’s work was unknown to readers in Soviet times. Before we begin to present a brief summary of “Judas Iscariot” - a story that evokes both admiration and indignation - let us recall the main and most interesting facts from the writer’s biography.

Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev was an extraordinary and very emotional person. While a law student, he began to abuse alcohol. For some time, the only source of income for Andreev was painting portraits to order: he was not only a writer, but also an artist.

In 1894, Andreev tried to commit suicide. An unsuccessful shot led to the development of heart disease. For five years, Leonid Andreev was engaged in advocacy. His literary fame came to him in 1901. But even then he evoked conflicting feelings among readers and critics. Leonid Andreev greeted the 1905 revolution with joy, but soon became disillusioned with it. After the separation of Finland, he ended up in exile. The writer died abroad in 1919 from heart disease.

The history of the creation of the story “Judas Iscariot”

The work was published in 1907. The plot ideas came to the writer during his stay in Switzerland. In May 1906, Leonid Andreev told one of his colleagues that he was going to write a book on the psychology of betrayal. He managed to realize his plan in Capri, where he went after the death of his wife.

“Judas Iscariot,” a summary of which is presented below, was written within two weeks. The author demonstrated the first edition to his friend Maxim Gorky. He drew the author's attention to historical and factual errors. Andreev re-read the New Testament more than once and made changes to the story. During the writer’s lifetime, the story “Judas Iscariot” was translated into English, German, French and other languages.

A man of ill repute

None of the apostles noticed the appearance of Judas. How did he manage to gain the trust of the Teacher? Jesus Christ was warned many times that he was a man of very ill repute. You should beware of him. Judas was condemned not only by “right” people, but also by scoundrels. He was the worst of the worst. When the disciples asked Judas what motivated him to do terrible things, he answered that every person is a sinner. What he said was consistent with the words of Jesus. No one has the right to judge another.

This is the philosophical problem of the story “Judas Iscariot”. The author, of course, did not make his hero positive. But he put the traitor on a par with the disciples of Jesus Christ. Andreev’s idea could not but cause a resonance in society.

The disciples of Christ asked Judas more than once about who his father was. He answered that he didn’t know, maybe the devil, a rooster, a goat. How can he know everyone with whom his mother shared a bed? Such answers shocked the apostles. Judas insulted his parents, which means he was doomed to death.

One day a crowd attacks Christ and his disciples. They are accused of stealing a kid. But a man who will very soon betray his teacher rushes at the crowd with the words that the teacher is not at all possessed by a demon, he just loves money just like everyone else. Jesus leaves the village in anger. His disciples follow him, cursing Judas. But this small, disgusting man, worthy only of contempt, wanted to save them...

Theft

Christ trusts Judas to keep his savings. But he is hiding several coins, which the students, of course, soon find out about. But Jesus does not condemn the unlucky disciple. After all, the apostles should not count the coins that his brother appropriated. Their reproaches only offend him. This evening Judas Iscariot is very cheerful. Using his example, the Apostle John understood what love for one's neighbor is.

Thirty pieces of silver

During the last days of his life, Jesus surrounds with affection the one who betrays him. Judas is helpful with his disciples - nothing should interfere with his plan. An event will soon take place, thanks to which his name will forever remain in the memory of people. It will be called almost as often as the name of Jesus.

After the execution

When analyzing Andreev’s story “Judas Iscariot,” it is worth paying special attention to the ending of the work. The apostles suddenly appear before the readers as cowardly, cowardly people. After the execution, Judas addresses them with a sermon. Why didn't they save Christ? Why didn’t they attack the guards in order to rescue the Teacher?

Judas will forever remain in people's memory as a traitor. And those who were silent when Jesus was crucified will be revered. After all, they carry the Word of Christ across the earth. This is the summary of Judas Iscariot. In order to make an artistic analysis of the work, you should still read the story in its entirety.

The meaning of the story "Judas Iscariot"

Why did the author depict a negative biblical character from such an unusual perspective? “Judas Iscariot” by Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev is, according to many critics, one of the greatest works of Russian classics. The story makes the reader think, first of all, about what true love, true faith and fear of death are. The author seems to be asking what is hidden behind faith, is there a lot of true love in it?

The image of Judas in the story “Judas Iscariot”

The hero of Andreev's book is a traitor. Judas sold Christ for 30 pieces of silver. He is the worst of all who have ever lived on our planet. Is it possible to feel compassion for him? Of course not. The writer seems to be tempting the reader.

But it is worth remembering that Andreev’s story is by no means a theological work. The book has nothing to do with the church or faith. The author simply invited readers to look at a well-known plot from a different, unusual side.

A person is mistaken in believing that he can always accurately determine the motives of another’s behavior. Judas betrays Christ, which means he is a bad person. This suggests that he does not believe in the Messiah. The apostles hand over the teacher to the Romans and Pharisees to be torn to pieces. And they do this because they believe in their teacher. Jesus will rise again and people will believe in the Savior. Andreev suggested looking at the actions of both Judas and the faithful disciples of Christ differently.

Judas madly loves Christ. However, he feels that those around him do not value Jesus enough. And he provokes the Jews: he betrays his beloved teacher in order to test the strength of the people's love for him. Judas will be severely disappointed: the disciples have fled, and the people are demanding that Jesus be killed. Even Pilate’s words that he did not find Christ guilty were not heard by anyone. The crowd is out for blood.

This book caused outrage among believers. Not surprising. The apostles did not snatch Christ from the clutches of the guards not because they believed in him, but because they were cowardly - this is, perhaps, the main idea of ​​Andreev’s story. After the execution, Judas turns to his disciples with reproaches, and at this moment he is not at all vile. It seems that there is truth in his words.

Judas took upon himself a heavy cross. He became a traitor, thereby forcing people to wake up. Jesus said that you cannot kill a guilty person. But wasn't his execution a violation of this postulate? Andreev puts words into the mouth of Judas, his hero, that he might have wanted to utter himself. Didn't Christ go to his death with the silent consent of his disciples? Judas asks the apostles how they could allow his death. They have nothing to answer. They are silent in confusion.