Books & Poetry

The myth of Judas Iscariot, the great betrayer reviled from the New Testament Gospels onwards, is revisited in this novel by a contemporary scholar. Literary reimaginings of the Judas myth have a sound pedigree which takes in De Quincy, Borges and Kazantzakis. Currently ‘The Gospel of Judas’, a curious Egyptian manuscript from the third century that casts the archetypal betrayer as the willing linchpin in the divine plan, is being closely scrutinised (and fiercely contested) by Biblical scholars. The Vatican – which, if one believes conspiracy theorists, has suppressed such gnostic texts in favour of the politically orthodox Gospels that form the New Testament – has dismissed the central and revisionist tenet that Judas was acting under divine orders in his betrayal of Christ to the authorities as heresy, in line with the beliefs of the early Christian church.

Stead takes a rather different tack, dissecting the personality cult of Christ from boyhood poverty in Galilee to the Crucifixion, as told by his childhood friend Judas of Keraiyot, now transformed 40 years later from a sceptical disciple into an elderly Greek merchant. The mythical Judas’s place in the burgeoning Christian cult is secure; the betrayer hanged himself with remorse, and it is the contrast between the arch rationality of Idas of Sidon (as he now calls himself) and his younger self that is most effective here.

Along the way, the familiar elements of Christ’s upbringing and ministry are reinterpreted from the same position of rational scepticism. A Lazarus bedridden by torpor is inspired by Christ’s teachings. Even Judas himself becomes a disciple not through faith in Christ’s divinity but through his own grief at the death of his wife and in response to his old friend’s compassion. The narrative is weakened by the artifice of closing each chapter with forced and clumsy verse. While at times the novel seems rather flat, the charisma of Jesus is plausibly drawn against the backdrop of Roman colonial oppression.