Judas was a great Initiate

Questioner:
I have tried to feel remorse of conscience, but the remorse overwhelms me. I cannot forget that it was from remorse that Judas hanged himself.

Gurdjieff:
Why do you speak of Judas in this case? What do you know of Judas? He was a great initiate. He was the second disciple after St. John the Baptist. All that is told about him is false. If you wish to know, he was even the master of Christ.

Meeting in Paris 20. April 1944

But in fact, not only was this Judas the most faithful and devoted of all the close followers of Jesus Christ, but it was solely thanks to his Reason and presence of mind that all the acts of this Sacred Individual could produce that result which, if it did not lead to the total destruction of the consequences of the properties of the organ kundabuffer in these unfortunate three-brained beings, was nevertheless, during twenty centuries, the source of nourishment and inspiration for the majority of them, and made their desolate existence at least a little endurable.

Beelzebub Chapter "Religion"