Full of romantic error.

The Judas tree, with it's array of pink flowers and clusters that flow over one another like a river, is said to be the type of tree that the disciple Judas Iscariot hung himself on after betraying his lord.  In Christian mythology his death has been said to happen in many different, conclusive ways - but one thing that is certain is that, as a man, his kiss to Jesus was an impious act forever branded as treacherous and deceiving.
It only seems fitting, then, that Katherine Anne Porter's "Flowering Judas" has intense themes connected to that very Christian story.  The Mexican revolution she portrays has no room for religion, and Laura, having been raised Catholic, sneaks off to church like a cat in the night.  Ironically, Braggioni is like Jesus, in that he leads his men with a glowing tenderness formed from the pure belief of himself as a savior; they, in turn, believe his character to be that of "real nobility, a love of humanity raised above mere personal affections".  But he is also cruel, sullied by war and yet his cruelness, as the story progresses, becomes more apparent that is an act shaped from a young age to be who he is now.  (If Jesus had lived - had not died on that cross - would he, too, have become like Braggioni?)
Laura, on the other hand, seems to have no reasoning behind her part in the revolution.  She seems to just exist, to be helpful, and yet she aches and yearns to run away.  Like a disciple, she does the bidding she is asked of and like all human beings, questions the very notion of it.  (Her un-attachment to anything in peculiar is fascinating, as at twenty two I could not imagine myself with my passions at all all time high, not attaching to a belief, a boy, etc.)
Porter's end, with Braggioni coming home to his weeping wife who washes his feet and asks for forgiveness, is exactly the kind of correlation to the infamous bible story you see throughout the earlier parts.  Like the unnamed woman who washed the feet of Jesus in oil and tears, the representation marks an important thing: leader of men or not, even the exalted ones are only men, and a moment of weakness spills when Braggioni bursts into tears.
Laura's dream, also, of Eugenio and the flowers being his flesh and blood, goes back into the 'Last Supper', with Jesus breaking bread and symbolizing it as part of himself.  Eugenio, even in her nightmare, will always be with her in some way because of the guilt she felt with being the supplier of the pills he overdosed on.
Fancy that the biblical themes presented by Porter are like some horrific style of each story.