Carl Jung on “Judas” – Quotations
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The Judas legend is itself a typical motif, namely that of the mischievous betrayal of the hero. One is reminded of Siegfried and Hagen, Baldur and Loki: Siegfried and Baldur were both murdered by a perfidious traitor from among their closest associates ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 42
Why should the pious Abbé Oegger worry about the old Judas legend? We are told that he went out into the world to preach the gospel of God’s unending mercy. Not long afterwards he left the Catholic Church and became a Swedenborgian ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 43
Now we understand his fantasy: he was the Judas who betrayed his Lord. Therefore he had first of all to assure himself of God’s mercy in order to play the role of Judas undisturbed ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 43
But the case of the Abbé Oegger shows that his doubts and his hopes are only apparently concerned with the historical person of Judas, but in reality revolve round his own personality, which was seeking a way to freedom through the solution of the Judas problem ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 44
What would Oegger have said had one told him in confidence that he was preparing himself for the role of Judas ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 45
Because he found the damnation of Judas incompatible with God’s goodness, he proceeded to think about this conflict. That is the conscious causal sequence ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 45
Hand in hand with this goes the unconscious sequence: because he wanted to be Judas, or had to be Judas, he first made sure of God’s goodness ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 45
For him Judas was the symbol of his own unconscious tendency, and he made use of this symbol in order to reflect on his own situation its direct realization would have been too painful for him ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 45
In this sense, too, Judas would be his [Christ’s] dark brother, since in the story of the Temptation the devil of worldly power stepped up to Jesus in much the same way as Mara tempted the Buddha. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1747
But just as Judas is a necessary link in the chain of the work of redemption, so is our Judas betrayal of the hero also a necessary passageway to redemption. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Footnote 107, Page 242.
He [Jung] felt, we had to view him like that, that Hitler is not to be taken primarily as a human man, but as an instrument of ‘divine’ forces, as Judas, or, still better, as the Antichrist must be. ~Esther Harding, Conversations with Jung, Page 12
And thus was the fate of the people: The murder of one was the poisonous arrow that flew into the hearts of men, and
kindled the fiercest war.
This murder is the indignation of incapacity against will, a Judas betrayal that one would like someone else to have committed.
We are still seeking the goat that should bear our sin. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 241
The Draft continues: “But just as Judas is a necessary link in the chain of the work of redemption, so is our Judas betrayal of the hero also a necessary passageway to redemption” (p. 71).
In Transformations and Symbols ef the Libido (1912), Jung discussed the view of the Abbe Oegger, in Anatole France’s story Le Jardin cf. picture, who maintained that God had chosen Judas as an instrument to complete Christ’s work of redemption (CW 8, §52). ~The Red Book, fn 107, Page 241
