It is equally difficult to understand why Jesus
submitted to such an insult, and why Peter should not have smitten down
its perpetrator. Peter was able to draw his sword, and it would have
been safer and more natural to kill Judas than to cut off the ear of the
high priest's servant. John, who shows a special dislike to Judas,
knows nothing of the kiss. According to John, Jesus asked the soldiers
whom they sought, and then stepped boldly forward and declared Himself.
"Judas," adds John, "was standing with them." As John took such
particular notice of what happened, the absence of the kiss in his
account can hardly have been accidental. It is a sound maxim in
criticism that what is simply difficult of explanation is likely to be
authentic. An awkward reading in a manuscript is to be preferred to one
which is easier. But an historical improbability, especially if no
corroboration of it is to be found in a better authority, may be set
aside, and in this case we are justified in neglecting the kiss.
Whatever may have been the exact shade of darkness in the crime of
Judas, it was avenged with singular swiftness, and he himself was the
avenger.
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