Jesus and the Vampire Apostle
“Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the flesh.” -Deuteronomy 12:23
“And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them.” -Revelation 9:6
Popular vampires as descended from Eastern Europe folklore have their history so entwined with Christian symbols, that it’s appetizing to hunt for biblical references. And if ye hunt, ye shall find. Nevermind that belief in vampires, even in Europe, predates the arrival of Christianity.
But here’s one to contemplate over bong hits — what if a vampire drank Jesus’ blood? Would they, like, become really powerful? Or would Christ’s blood have the effect of reversing their vampirism? Or maybe — dude, don’t bogart the smoke — maybe Jesus would become a vampire?
Can we use apocryphal texts to determine whether an apostle — and perhaps Jesus himself — was a vampire?
Prrrrrrrobably not. But I’m halfway through this package I got for my, um, glaucoma, so let’s follow this thread.
Seriously, Thou —
In the 2000s a book surfaced in Jerusalem, written in Aramaic, that is said to have been written around year 843. Called The Book of Alugah, it’s a recording of several Hebrew legends, including the tale of Judas’ punishment for betraying Jesus.
Since I don’t have the dough to purchase this book and my Aramaic is rusty, I’ll have to rely on the summaries provided by others.
If you remember the Book of John, you’ll remember that after getting his thirty pieces of silver, Judas was racked with guilt and hung himself. The Book of Alugah relates that God revived Judas and cursed him to walk the Earth for the rest of his days, fearing the sun and living on blood.
For just a moment, if we can decouple this tale from it’s all-too-easy association with popular vampires, we can reflect on how it compares with other parts of the Bible. Particularly when it comes to blood and the Old Testament proscriptions against drinking blood.
“ You shall not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off.” -Leviticus 17:10–14
Blood was strictly for sacrifice in atonement for sins. In other words, God reserved blood for Himself, not for you lowly non-omnipotent plebes who can’t even separate the Heavens from the Earth.
But now Judas is set up as a being who must live the inverted law, by only drinking blood. It’s a negligible difference from the popular literary vampire, who spits in the face of God’s law by drinking blood exclusively.
God supposedly went on to curse Judas with some boss-level voodoo, including but not limited to — get this vampire fans — “you betrayed Jesus for silver, and silver shall betray you.” Starting to see where this is going?
God cursed Judas’ descendants with the same bloodlust and aversion to the sun/silver. So now we have a family tree that doesn’t grow in the sun and can only be watered with blood.
And the vampire’s aversion to crosses? Guilt and/or poetic justice over what Judas had done, natch.
Garlic? Um… it was served at the Last Supper? Hang on, I’m losing my thread and I think I just ashed in my drink.
WHAT I’M SAYING IS, someone has provided a tidy explanation for the existence of vampires. Judas betrayed Jesus and became the first vampire and had a bunch of baby bats and here we are. So I guess that wraps up this blog series.
But I have issues
I mean, it’s partly satisfying, right? The Book of Alugah is the Aramaic version of Snitches Get Stitches. But it certainly is at odds with other key parts of the Bible. (Yes, yes, sophomore version of me — the Bible is replete with contradictions. Now go smoke a clove and tell yourself how free-thinking you are.)
See, The Book of Alugah works as literature and as legend. Hebrew and early Christian legends of beings that were cursed by inverting God’s law exist; and of course there are Bible verses that certainly read like a warning against joining the Lost Boys:
“There are those whose teeth are swords, whose fangs are knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, the needy from among mankind.” -Proverbs 30:14
BUT to buy into the tale found in the Book of Alugah, you must also buy into the idea that the Great Miracle , the cornerstone upon which Christianity rests, the resurrection of Jesus Christ… was just a warm up for God’s resurrection of Judas. Further, God would spirit Jesus up to Heaven but leave his other big resurrection down on Earth to multiply and feed off the very flock that Jesus came to save. Huh?
The point is, it’s far more likely that The Book of Alugah and early vampire literature independently decided to assign traits to the vampire that would make them a stand-in for All That Is Ungodly, than it is that Judas fathered a vampire race that still walks among us. That’s based entirely on my belief that Judas couldn’t get laid.
But here we are with this virtual bong in front of us, so let’s get as high as Tommy Chong pretends to be and just run with this —
Because the one thing we know about vampires, is that they must die and rise as the undead. Furthermore, if to God all things are known before their time, then Judas could have acquired his vampire gene At The Very Moment Of Betrayal.
In the instant Judas kissed Jesus, Judas both became a vampire, and imparted his vampire nature to Jesus. So BOTH of them, after death, rose again. Hosanna! And today, Christians continue to celebrate the vampire resurrection by pretending to drink the blood of their savior in communion.
Still think church is for nerds? Nah, it’s for badass Renfields that eat the flesh and drink the blood of God’s kid. And if you can’t handle that, you sure can’t handle what Elisha did with the she-bears in the Book of Second Kings.
The Church has largely ignored the Book of Alugah, and I can’t blame them, for all the reasons listed above and more. Profiteers have attempted to exploit the darkly-inclined among us by suggesting they could form a supernatural bond with all-father Judas by… purchasing an overpriced ring? You’d really think they would sell silver coins instead; but then I’m not the marketing genius — you can tell by how poorly I hashtag my tweets.
**Addendum: several friends have pointed out some similarities between the tale woven in Alugah and the film Dracula 2000. I have not been able to find documentation of a link between the two but it’s perfectly plausible that one influenced the other; either the movie cribbed ideas from the book or the book was forged based on some ideas in the movie. If you’re in the know, please comment!
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Image sources: DaVinci, Thomas Byers, unknown engraver from 1870, unknown fresco artist from 1340, Shutterstock
