girard on the betrayal of jesus by judas

To prove beyond a doubt that in the Gospels we should not overemphasize the classic structure of betrayal, we can show that the final element in this structure is not to be found -- the punishment of the traitor. The only difference between Judas and Peter resides, not in the betrayal, but in Judas's inability to come back to Jesus. Judas is not condemned by anyone; he commits suicide, despairing of himself and seeking to make the rupture definitive. The underlying factor here is the idea (a truly evangelical one) that men are never condemned by God: they condemn themselves by their despair. When he takes himself to be solely and uniquely responsible for the death of Jesus, Judas makes a mistake that is the exact opposite (though in the end the equivalent) of Peter's, when Peter states that even if all the other disciples are scandalized, he never will be. Basically, the same pride governs all people; they refuse to recognize that they are all equal in relation to the murder of Jesus, and therefore that they all take part in it in a more or less equivalent way -- however much external factors may appear to differ.