Other Versions of Judas

The character of Judas in the New Testament fascinated the Middle Ages, even so far as creating more stories about him that take place after his death. One of the common places to find him is the various versions of the voyage of Brendan. Whether there is an original, authentic version of this tale is unknown; what is true is that 1) almost every version of the tale (and there are about 100) includes the encounter with Judas, and 2) the accounts do not all match. Different authors produced different versions of the meeting.

Judas is found on a rock in the ocean. One version does not tell of the encounter in "real time," but has Brendan mention it afterward to his companions. His companions, set with the cold and hail they've been enduring, complain that the warmth of Hell would not be worse. Brendan says:

We have seen Judas, the betrayer of our Lord, in a dreadful sea, on the Lord’s day, wailing and lamenting, seated on a rugged and slimy rock, which was now submerged by the waves and again emerged from them somewhat. Against the rock there rushed a fiery wave from the east, and a wave of coldness from the west alternatively, which drenched Judas in a frightful manner; and yet this grievous punishment seemed to him a relief from pain, for thus the mercy of God granted this place to him on the Sundays as some ease amidst his torments. What, therefore, must be the torments suffered in hell itself?

Some think that, because this is such a simple way to describe it, that this is an earlier version that gave later writers the motivation to expand with more detail.

Another version describes a devil that appears on the ship, visible only to Brendan, who questions why he is present. The devil explains that he is being tortured in the deep dark sea, and shows Brendan a vision of Hell. There Brendan sees various torments, and, at the very bottom of Hell, hears weeping. There he sees Judas on a rock in the sea (but this is in Hell), being buffeted by fire at the front and ice from behind. Judas looks up and explains that this will continue until Judgment Day. There are no mollifying circumstances because of any good deeds he may have performed in his lifetime, as we say yesterday.

(Interesting that Dante also puts Judas at the very bottom and that ice is involved.)

An Anglo-Norman version has him clinging to the rock himself lest he be washed away, and he tells Brendan his whole story, claiming that his punishment is because he despaired of Christ's mercy and killed himself instead of asking forgiveness. This Judas lists two Hells, and that he is the only soul tortured by both: one is a hot mountaintop, one is a cold and odorous valley, with a sea in between. Six days of the week he is tortured in a different way, and on Sunday he gets to cling for life to this rock in the middle sea.

Scholars have tried to match details of Brendan's voyage with geography, linking the voyage to the Canary Islands, the Azores, Faroes, or even as far as Greenland or North America. One person thinks the rock on which Judas is found is Rockall, a granite islet of <8500 square feet (see illustration).

But away from geography and back to literature. There is a lot of variety in Judas' suffering because of his status as (probably) Hell's most famous citizen. Writers felt comfortable outing various methods of suffering. So what was the medieval concept of Hell? Was there a uniform, agreed-upon version of what Hell was for, who went there, and how souls were treated? Let's take a very un-Dante-esque trip starting tomorrow.