This is a remarkable play by a young poet who is, undeservedly, little known. As the title indicates, it deals with the character of Judas, but it finds very unusual motives for his betrayal. Judas is not the mean and miserable wretch of tradition, nor does he betray his Master through greed of gold. The play is built on the conviction that he betrayed Him solely with the idea of forcing Him, through the stress of danger, to show that He was the all-powerful God, and of precipitating, in this manner, his triumphant vindication.

The Judas of tradition would naturally not suit that motive. He is abandoned in favour of a Judas who is a dreamer and a thinker, a man far removed from the rest of the disciples.

‘Judas is not of us,’ says Simon the Leper,
‘For he is learned, wise in many tongues,
And dwells apart from men;.’

He is a man who has thought over the problems of existence in a profound manner, and who is deeply concerned with the obvious physical suffering of mankind. In his thinking he is constantly seeking a remedy to this state of affairs. He is an idealist, for he has always in his mind the vision of what man could make of the world, but his state when the action of the play commences is one of despair at man’s impotence and indifference. He has abandoned hope in