JUDAS'S RED HAIR 2 Though it is an old and familiar tradition that Judas Iscariot had red hair, the actual evidence is rather scattered and not very abundant. In the colored glass of the Middle Ages Judas is frequently to be recognized by his yellow robe or red hair or beard. There are, for example, wall paintings at Ramersdorf, on the lower Rhine, portraying him with red hair, a window in the cathedral of Chartres, and a miniature in an Emblemata Biblica, all of the thirteenth century. In Leonardo's Last Supper his hair and beard are a dull red. The sixteenth-century Flemish painter Jean Stradan pictured him with red hair and beard, a green girdle, and a red purse.33 But there is no indication that the Renaissance painters created anything like a type face or figure for Judas, though he usually has a beard and his hair is usually red or yellowish-red. In Giotto's three pictures of Judas there is no marked similarity; and Holbein's Judas at Basel has gray-blond hair and beard. In popular belief the tradition appears, for example, in the German poem― Worüm hadd Judas en roden Bård In France it is sometimes said that red hair debars a man from the priesthood, because Judas had red hair. Wright's English Dialect Dictionary gives "Judas-born" as meaning born with red hair. Moscherosch's Philander von Sittewald, meeting in hell one who spoke of having sold Our Lord, came closer "umb zu sehen, ob er, wie man sagt, einen rothen Bart hätte." Abraham a Sancta Clara, who knew and made such lively use of all the canonical and traditional information about 1 Kinkel, Jahrb. des Vereins von Altherthumsfreunden im Rheinlande, XII, 109 f. (Wackernagel.) 2 Bibliothèque Nationale, ms. 37: Auber, L, 307. W. Porte, Judas Ischariot in der bildenden Kunst, Jena diss., Berlin, 1883, pp. 15, 67; Solovev, K Legendam ob Iudie Predaltelie, Kharkov, 1895, p. 53; for a few other examples see Solovev, pp. 30-31. Gilhoff, Zeitsch. für den deutschen Unterricht XXII (1908), 116. Revue des Traditions Populaires XXV (1910), 288. • Wunderliche und Wahrhafte Gesichte, Strassburg, 1650, I, 390 Judas which had accumulated by the end of the seventeenth century, duly records the 'fact' but vigorously repudiates the implication. "Gesetzt aber, es hätte Judas eine solche erwähnte Rubrikam um das Maul gehabt, was folgt dann daraus? Vielleicht beliebt dir zu reden: Judas habe einen rothen Bart gehabt; ergo, alle die rothe Bärte haben, seynd Erz-Schelmen. Wann dem also, so wäre kein einiger Bart von grossem Schimpf befreit. Der Teufel ist in Gestalt eines Manns mit einem braunen Bart in die Wüsten gangen und Jesum versucht; ergo, so seynd alle Männer mit braunem Bart Teufel. . . . Die zwei alten, mehr beberlonischen als babylonischen Richter bei Susannam haben weisse Bärt' gehabt; ergo, alle die weisse Bärt' haben, seynd solche bockbergerische Ehebrecher . . . O wie ungereimt lauft dein Argument! Des Balaams Eselinn hat gered't; ergo, wird dein Esel zu Haus auch mit Sprach' heraus und dich salve Frater: willkomm' Bruder! anreden." The phrase Judas color and the adjective Judas-colored seem to have been current chiefly among the Elizabethan dramatists and their imitators. The earliest example I have met is in Kyd's Spanish Tragedy: "And let their beardes be of Iudas his owne collour."s In As You Like It, Act III, sc. iv, Rosalind says: "His hair is of the very dissembling colour." And Celia replies: "Something browner than Judas's.” Other instances are: "Sure that was Judas with the red beard," in Middleton's Chaste Maid in Cheapside, III, ii; "That's he in the Iudas beard," in Robert Daborne's A Christian Turn'd Turke, I, iv;10 "I ever thought by his beard he would prove a Judas," in Marston's The Insatiate Countess, II, ii. Dryden writes in Amboyna: "There's treason in that Judas-colour'd beard"; and his lines on Tonson are well known: 7 Sämmtliche Werke, Passau, 1835, I, 162 f. 8 Act III, sc. xii (ed. Boas, Oxford, 1901, p. 68). The passage in which this line occurs was not in the first version of the play, but appears first in the edition of 1618. Cf. Manly, Specimens of Pre-Shaks perean Drama, II, 557. The date assigned for the phrase in N.E.D. ("c. 1594") is therefore probably wrong. An entry in Henslow's Diary makes it likely that the addition was made by Ben Jonson; the point, however, is not certain; cf. Boas, p. lxxxvii. 'Shakspere has also "Cain-colour'd," Merry Wives I, iv. 10 Ed. Swaen, Anglia XX (1898), 215. With leering looks, bull-fac'd and freckled fair, With two left legs, and Judas-colour'd hair. Sir Roger L'Estrange inserted an allusion to Judas's hair in his translation of Quevedo's Sueños: I next went down a pair of Stairs into a huge Cellar, where I saw Men burning in unquenchable Fire, and one of them Roaring, Cry'd out, I never over sold; I never sold, but at Conscionable Rates; Why am I punished thus? I durst have sworn it had been Judas; but going nearer to him, to see if he had a Red Head, I found him to be a Merchant of my Acquaintance." In the poets of the last century there are occasional examples of this notion; as in Tennyson's Queen Mary, written in the Elizabethan manner: First Citizen. I thought this Philip had been one of those black devils of Spain, but he hath a yellow beard. Second Citizen. Not red like Iscariot's. First Citizen. Like a carrot's, as thou say'st. (III, i). And R. S. Hawker, the Cornish poet, has: "The sickly hue of vile Iscariot's hair."12 A variation of the usual tradition appears in the North of England, that Judas had black hair and a red beard. This matches the German proverb: "Schwarzer Kopf, rother Bart, böse Art," and the French Barbe rouge et noirs cheveux There can be little doubt that this tradition is simply the application of the old belief-much older than Judas Iscariotthat red-haired men are treacherous and dangerous, to the Arch-traitor, sometime during the early Middle Ages, when the popular imagination was busy making up biographies and biographical details for the saints and martyrs of the Church. The combination is natural and appropriate enough, and would be supported or reinforced by the general belief in red as a " Visions, London, 1702, p. 159. There is no allusion to Judas in the Spanish original. 12 Poetical Works, London, 1897, p. 189 ("The Quest of the Sangraal'). 13 Denham Tracts (Publ. of the Folklore Soc. XXXV, 1895), II, 24. 14 F. Pluquet, Contes Populaires, Rouen, 1834, p. 112. color of evil significance, and perhaps also by the conventional color symbolism of the Church. Red has not always an unfavorable connotation, however. Rothi Farb, schöni Farb; Schwarzi Farb, Tüfelsfarb, runs a German song. "Gegen die rote Farbe kämpfe der böse Zauber vergebens an," say the East Prussians. Red appears as the color of sacrificial blood in various Hebrew and Egyptian traditions. Tombs have been frequently painted red, both within and without, not only by early European peoples, but today also among primitive tribes elsewhere. Red is the color of dawn, of the sun, of wedding garments and of Thor, the God of marriage, and of love, especially passionate love, of burning zeal, energy, courage. On holidays the Romans often decked the statues of the gods with red. The daughters of Israel were clothed in scarlet by Saul, "with other delights" (2 Sam. 1, 24). Roman senators wore togas of reddish purple; whence probably the scarlet robes of the cardinals. Indian priests often wore red. The Pope wears red when he hears mass, and is buried in red. Red is used on the feast-days of the martyrs, as the color of blood that was shed for Christ; and at Whitsuntide as the color of the tongues of fire which descended upon the apostles. "Rubeus color igneus est et sanguineus: caritati Spiritus et effusioni sanguinis consimilis," says the pontifical of Bishop Clifford. Red was worn on Good Friday and during the Passion week generally. Indeed, on all occasions of show and pomp it is a favorite color. But on the other hand red is the color of adultery (and compare Rahab and her "scarlet line"), of murder and hangmen, of anarchy and violence, of anger, of shame, of destructive fire, of Thor-Donar (the lightning is his red beard), of gnomes and dwarfs, both kindly and malignant; and so on. It affords a pointed contrast to black death, as in "aussen rot, innen tot,' "heute rot, morgen tot"; and poetically put, in Walther von der Vogelweide diu werlt ist ûzen schoene wiz grüen unde rôt, und innân swarzer varwe, vinster sam der tôt.15 15 Ed. Wilmanns, Halle, 1883, p. 412 (124, 37 f.). The angry Lord in Isaiah 63, 2 is apparelled in red. The armies of God coming against Nineveh are clad in scarlet, their shields and chariots colored red (Nah. 2, 3). The soldiers at the crucifixion put upon Jesus a scarlet robe (Mat. 27, 28; but Luke 23, 11 has λаμπрós). According to Olaus Magnus a northern tribe worshipped a red cloth fastened to a lance-like (in the opinion of some) our own Bolsheviks. "Red-coat," partly descriptive, of course, was an opprobrious term in America during the Revolution; and in Ireland (Dearganach) as well; and similarly in Germany it stands for traitor. In Canton the Chinese call a European "fanquai" (red devil). This very 'law of opposites,' by which a color has contrary significations, is a regular feature of the color symbolism of the Church. Yellow is the color of gold and therefore of splendor, nobility, wisdom; but also of jealousy, treachery, felony. Judas is often distinguishable in medieval stained glass by his yellow robe. Green is the color of spring, youth, vigor, and of the Trinity; but also of envy and jealousy. Blue is the color of truth and faith; but sometimes the Devil in the medieval pictures has a blue body or Judas a blue robe.-To some these convenient antitheses may appear to be a begging the question; a symbolism which is constantly going in two directions will arrive nowhere. But this would be simply to ignore the ways of mediæval thinking. Hugo of St. Victor, in his Bestiary, anticipated this cavil: "If any one asks why Christ is sometimes symbolized by unclean animals, such as the serpent, the lion, the dragon, the eagle, and others, let him know that the lion when it stands for fortitude represents Christ, and when it stands for rapacity represents the Devil." And thus the colors. Obviously then the evil associations of the color red do not give us the whole story. We must look further for an explanation of Judas color, and specially in the ill-omen of red hair. This itself took its beginning no doubt, like so much else of popular tradition, in the shrewd observation of natural phenomena. The common German proverb, "Roter Bart, untreue Art," represents a condensed popular judgment. Even to-day a red-haired man is assumed to be hot-headed and quick-tempered, and so not quite to be counted on. After the connection had been perceived a few times, it would naturally |