Judas Betrays Jesus

6th century
Mosaic
Church of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna

This is one of the 13 mosaics of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ along the upper band of the right wall of the nave. The event is narrated in Matthew 26:47-50, Mark 14:43-45, Luke 22:47-48, and John 18:2-3.

The mosaic mostly follows John's gospel, the only one that says mentions soldiers (the two men in boots and short tunics) among the crowd that came to arrest Jesus. John is also the only one who specified that it was Peter who drew his sword to attack someone in the crowd. Behind the soldiers the "priests" mentioned in the gospel accounts are represented by a man dressed as a 6th-century ecclesiastic, with a white dalmatic and brown chasuble. The same man hustles Jesus off to the Sanhedrin in the next scene.

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Photographed at the church by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.