Saint Matthew - Chapter 27
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| Judas returns the pieces of silver. J-J Tissot |
And when morning was come, all the chief priests and ancients of the people took counsel against Jesus, that they might put him to death.
But when the morning was come (Syr. when it was dawn), all the chief priests, &c. “See here,” says S. Jerome, “the eagerness of the Priests for evil,” their feet were swift to shed blood (Ps. 14:6). They were urged on by their bitter hatred of Christ, and by Satan’s instigation. It was the morning of Friday, only a few hours before His crucifixion, when Caiaphas, who had already tried and condemned Him the night before, summoned thus early the great Council of the Sanhedrim. It was to obtain His condemnation by the whole Body, which would ensure the subsequent condemnation by Pilate. S. Matthew omits the proceedings of this Council, as being a mere repetition of what he had already recorded (chap. 26:59 seq.). But the narrative is supplied by S. Luke (22:26 seq.), as explained above (see ver. 59).
S. Leo says strikingly, “This morning, O Jews, destroyed your Temple and altars, took away from you the Law and the Prophets, deprived you of your kingdom and priesthood, and turned all your feasts into unending woe” (Serm. iii. de Pass.).
To put Him to death. That is, how they could do it without hindrance or tumult, and also by what kind of death, as, e.g., that of the Cross, the most ignominious of all. Some members of the Council were probably Christ’s followers and friends; and these most likely absented themselves, or were not summoned, or sent away elsewhere, for fear they should defend Him. But if any of them were present, they either gave sentence in His favour, or were forced by the clamour of the rest to remain silent; as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathæa (Luke 23:51). Here notice, this wicked Council erred not only in fact, but in faith. For it gave sentence that Jesus was not the Christ nor the Son of God, but that He was guilty of death, as having falsely claimed to be both: all which statements are erroneous and heretical. This, however, was only a small and particular, not an Œeumenical Council. These latter, as representing the whole Church, have the gift of inerrancy by the power of the Holy Ghost and by Christ’s own promise. But you will say the whole Jewish Church at that time fell away from the faith. It was not so, for many of Christ’s converts in Judæa remained steadfast, and there were true believers among the Jews who were converted at the day of Pentecost (Acts 2).
[2] Et vinctum adduxerunt eum, et tradiderunt Pontio Pilato praesidi.
And they brought him bound, and delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor.
And when they had bound Him, they led Him away, and delivered Him to Pontius Pilate the governor. “For,” as S. Jerome says, “it was the Jewish custom to bind and deliver to the judge those they had condemned to death.” Here then was Samson bound by Delilah, Christ by the Synagogue. Origen says truly, “They bound Jesus who looseth from bonds; who saith to them that are in bonds, ‘Go forth’ (Isa. 49:9); who looseth the fetters, and saith, ‘Let us break their bands asunder.’ ” For Jesus was bound that He might set us free by taking on Himself the bonds and the punishment of our sins.
They brought. Caiaphas, i.e., and all the other members of the Council, to crush by the weight of their authority both Jesus and Pilate alike. For if Pilate refused to ratify their sentence, they would be able to accuse him of aiming at the sovereignty of Judæa, and being thus an enemy of Cæsar, and so force him in this way, even against his will, to condemn Him to death.
Delivered to Pontius Pilate. Why? Some think from what is said in the Talmud that the Jews were forbidden to put any one to death. But see Deut. 21:23; Num. 25:4; Josh. 13:29; 2 Sam. 21:6 and 9.
But the fact was that the Romans had taken away from the Jews the power of life and death (John 18:31). Ananus was deposed from the High-Priesthood for killing James the Lord’s brother and others, without the consent of the Roman governor. The stoning of S. Stephen was only an outbreak of popular fury.
There were also other reasons.
1. To remove from themselves the discredit of His death, as though it had arisen merely from envy.
2. To dishonour Him as much as they could, by getting Him condemned by Pilate to the ignominious death of crucifixion, the punishment of rebels. They themselves had condemned Him of blasphemy, which was punished by stoning (Lev. 24:16).
3. To dishonour Him the more by causing Him to be put to death as a profane person, by one, too, who was himself profaning the holy feast of the Passover (see S. Chrysostom, Hom. lxxxvi. in Matt.; S. Augustine, Tract. cxiv. in John; and S. Cyril, Lib. xii. in Joan. cap. 6).
But a retaliatory punishment was inflicted on the Jews; for as they delivered up Christ to Pilate, so were they in turn delivered up to be destroyed by Titus and Vespasian (S. Cyril on John, cap. xviii.; Theophylact, and Victorinus on Mark xiv.).
[3] Tunc videns Judas, qui eum tradidit, quod damnatus esset, pœnitentia ductus, retulit triginta argenteos principibus sacerdotum, et senioribus,
Then Judas, who betrayed him, seeing that he was condemned, repenting himself, brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and ancients,
Then Judas, which had betrayed Him, when he saw that He was condemned, &c. Judas, when he sold Christ, did not expect that He would be killed, but merely seized, and either render them some satisfaction, or in some way escape, as before, out of their hands. But on finding Him condemned to death, he felt the gravity of his sin. And repenting, when too late, of what he had done, he was self-condemned, and hanged himself. “The devil is so crafty,” says S. Chrysostom, “that he allows not a man (unless very watchful) to see beforehand the greatness of his sin, lest he should repent and shrink from it. But as soon as a sin is fully completed, he allows him to see it, and thus overwhelms him with sorrow and drives him to despair. Judas was unmoved by Christ’s many warnings; but when the deed had been wrought, he was brought to useless and unavailing repentance.”
That He was condemned. By Caiaphas, i.e., and the whole Council, and that he would shortly be condemned by Pilate on their authority, and by their urgent importunity.
Repented himself. Not with true and genuine repentance, for this includes the hope of pardon, which Judas had not; but with a forced, torturing, and despairing repentance, the fruit of an evil and remorseful conscience, like the torments of the lost. In Gr. μεταμεληθεις.
Brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the Chief Priests. To rescind his bargain. As if he had said, “I give, back the money; do ye, on your part, restore Jesus to liberty.” So S. Ambrose (in Luc. xxii.), “In pecuniary causes, when the money is paid back, justice is satisfied.” And S. Hilary, “Judas gave back the money that he might expose the dishonesty of the purchasers.” And S. Ambrose, “Though the traitor was not absolved himself, yet was the impudence of the Jews exposed; for though put to shame by the confession of the traitor, they insisted wickedly on the fulfilment of the bargain.”
[4] dicens : Peccavi, tradens sanguinem justum. At illi dixerunt : Quid ad nos? tu videris.
Saying: I have sinned in betraying innocent blood. But they said: What is that to us? look thou to it.
I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent Blood; Gr. ἀθῶον; for what more innocent than the immaculate Lamb? what purer than the purity of Jesus Christ?
But they said, What is that to us? see thou to that. Carry out what thou hast begun. Bear the punishment of the guilt thou ownest. We own no fault in ourselves. But He is guilty of death as a false Christ, and therefore we insist on it. Now, as they refused to take back the money, Judas cast it down in the Temple, and hung himself, despairing of the life of Jesus and of his own salvation. For assuredly he would not have thus acted had the Chief Priests taken the money back and set Jesus free. Up to a certain point, then, his repentance was right, but when it drove him to despair it was wrong. “See how unwilling they were,” says S. Chrysostom, “to see the audacity of their conduct, which greatly aggravated their fault. For it was a clear proof that they were hurried away by audacious injustice, and would not desist from their evil designs, foolishly hiding themselves the while under a cloak of pretended ignorance.”
[5] Et projectis argenteis in templo, recessit : et abiens laqueo se suspendit.
And casting down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed: and went and hanged himself with an halter.
And he cast down the pieces of silver in the Temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself. He first took them to the house of Caiaphas, or certainly to that of Pilate, where the Chief Priests were prosecuting their case; and afterwards, on their refusing to take them, threw them down in the Temple for the Priests to pick up. Some of the Chief Priests were probably there, but anyhow by throwing them down in the Temple he devoted them, as the price of the Most Holy Blood, to sacred and pious uses, if the Priests refused to take them back.
And he went and hanged himself. The Greek writers are mistaken in thinking that he did not die in this way, but was afterwards crushed to death (see on Acts 1:18). Judas then added to his former sin the further sin of despair. It was not a more heinous sin, but one more fatal to himself, as thrusting him down to the very depths of hell. He might, on his repentance, have asked (and surely have obtained) pardon of Christ. But, like Cain, he despaired of forgiveness, and hung himself on the self-same day, just before the death of Christ. For he could not bear the heavy remorse of an accusing conscience. So S. Leo (Serm. de Pass. iii.; S. Augustine, Quæst. v., and N. Test. xciv.). David had prophesied respecting him, “Let a sudden destruction,” &c. (Ps. 35:8). Thus S. Leo, “O Judas, thou wast the most wicked and miserable of men, for repentance recalled thee not to the Lord, but despair drew thee on to thy ruin!” And again, “Why dost thou distrust the goodness of Him who repelled thee not from the communion of His Body and Blood, and refused thee not the kiss of peace when thou earnest to apprehend Him? But thou wast past conversion (a spirit that goeth and returneth not); and with Satan at thy right hand, thou followedst the mad desire of thy own heart, and madest the sin which thou hadst sinned against the King of Saints to recoil on thine own head; that thus, as thy crime was too great for ordinary punishment, thou mightest pronounce, and also execute, the sentence on thyself.”
Some say that Judas hung himself from a fig-tree, the forbidden tree of Hebrew tradition, and one of ill-omen. Hence Juvencus—
“Even as his own wild punishment he sought,
He hung with deadly noose on fig-tree’s height.”
Now it was avarice that drove Judas to this fate. “Hear ye this,” says S. Chrysostom; “hear it, I say, ye covetous. Ponder it in your mind what he suffered. For he both lost his money, and committed a crime, and lost his soul. Such was the hard tyranny of covetousness. He enjoyed not his money, nor this present life, nor that which is to come. He lost them all at once, and having forfeited the goodwill even of those to whom he betrayed Him, he ended by hanging himself.”
This confession of Judas, then (not in word, but in deed), was a clear proof of Christ’s innocence, and it assuredly ought to have kept the Jews from killing Him, if they had only had the smallest amount of shame. But their obstinate malice could not be restrained even by this strange portent.
Symbolically: Bede remarks (in Acts 1), “His punishment was a befitting one. The throat which had uttered the word of betrayal was throttled by the noose. He who had betrayed the Lord of men and angels hung in mid-air, abhorred by Heaven and earth, and the bowels which had conceived the crafty treachery burst asunder and fell out.” S. Bernard, too (Serm. viii. in Ps. xc. [xci.]), says, “Judas, that colleague of the powers of the air, burst asunder in the air, as though neither the Heaven would receive nor the earth endure the betrayer of Him who was true God and man, and who came to work salvation in the midst of the earth” (Ps. 83:12, Vulg.). Again, S. Augustine (Lib. Hom. l., Hom. xxvii.), “That which he wrought on his own body, this was also wrought on his soul. For as they who throttle themselves cause death, because the air passes not within them, so do they who despair of the forgiveness of God choke themselves by their very despair, that the Holy Spirit cannot reach them.”
[6] Principes autem sacerdotum, acceptis argenteis, dixerunt : Non licet eos mittere in corbonam : quia pretium sanguinis est.
But the chief priests having taken the pieces of silver, said: It is not lawful to put them into the corbona, because it is the price of blood.
But the chief priests said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury. Corban is the same as offering. It here signifies the treasury into which the offerings were cast. In Arab. the house of offerings (see Joseph, de B. J., i. 8).
Because it is the price of blood. What hypocrisy! They suffer not the price of Christ’s blood to be paid into the treasury, whereas they had taken money out of it to procure His betrayal and death.
[7] Consilio autem inito, emerunt ex illis agrum figuli, in sepulturam peregrinorum.
And after they had consulted together, they bought with them the potter's field, to be a burying place for strangers.
And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in. “They saw,” says Origen, “that it was most fitting that, as the price of blood, it should be expended on the dead and their place of burial.”
Strangers: for the inhabitants had their own burial-places. And God so ordered it that this field should be a standing witness both of Judas’ repentance and of Christ’s innocence. “The name,” says S. Chrysostom, “proclaims their bloody deed with trumpet tongue, for had they cast it into the treasury, the circumstances would not have been made so clearly known to future generations.”
Symbolically: It was thus signified that the price of Christ’s Blood would benefit not Jews only, but strangers, the Gentiles, i.e., who would hereafter believe on Him. So Hilary, “It belongs not to Israel, but is solely for the use of strangers.”
[8] Propter hoc vocatus est ager ille, Haceldama, hoc est, Ager sanguinis, usque in hodiernum diem.
For this cause the field was called Haceldama, that is, The field of blood, even to this day.
Wherefore that field was called Aceldama. A Chaldee word. The Ethiopic and Persian versions agree as to its meaning. Adrichomius (Descr. Jerus. Num. 216) describes the spot, and a peculiar property of the soil, that it destroys within a few hours the dead bodies which are placed in it, a property which it preserves even when taken elsewhere. Some of it the Empress Helena is said to have taken to Rome, where it forms the Campo Santo. “It still retains,” says Cornelius, “the same property.”
Tropologically: “The field bought for strangers with Christ’s Blood is the Church (S. Chrysostom in loc.; S. Augustine, Serm. cxiv. de Temp.), and particularly the state of ‘Religious,’ who count themselves strangers upon earth, and citizens of Heaven, and of the household of God,” &c. See also 1 Pet. 2:11, where S. Chrysostom says, “Nothing is more blessed than this burial, over which all rejoice, both angels and men, and the Lord of angels. For if this life is not our life, but our life is hidden, we ought to live here as though we were dead.” So S. Paul, Col. 3:3. It was perhaps for this symbolical reason that this soil possessed the remarkable property mentioned above. See Comment, on Acts 1:18, 19.
[9] Tunc impletum est quod dictum est per Jeremiam prophetam, dicentem : Et acceperunt triginta argenteos pretium appretiati, quem appretiaverunt a filiis Israel :
Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremias the prophet, saying: And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was prized, whom they prized of the children of Israel.
Then was fulfilled, &c. See on Zech. 11:12, 13.
The price of Him that was valued; Gr. τὴν τιμὴν τοῦ τετιμημένου. Christ, who is beyond all price (Theophyl.), Whom the Chief Priests bought of the sons of Israel, of Judas, i.e., who was one of them. (So Titelman and Barradeus.) This is stated to add to the ignominy of the transaction, viz., that He was sold not by a Gentile, but by an Israelite, and one, too, who was called after the Patriarch’s eldest son. The plural is here put for the singular. Theophylact explains it otherwise, that Christ was valued, or bought, by the Chief Priests for the thirty pieces. Euthymius and others, that this price was put on Christ by those who were of the sons of Israel, i.e., Israelites.
The Syriac version has the first person, agreeing with Zechariah, “And I took,” &c. (Zech. 11:13).
[10] et dederunt eos in agrum figuli, sicut constituit mihi Dominus.
And they gave them unto the potter's field, as the Lord appointed to me.
As the Lord appointed me. These words can be taken:
1. As the words of Christ speaking by the Prophet, and signifying that God would suffer nothing which concerned Him to come to nought, so that even the field purchased with the price of His Blood should not be unoccupied, but serve for the burial of strangers.
2. As the words of the Prophet, “God ordained that I should by my own act, as well as by my word, prophesy and foretell this, and even the goodly price,” as he says in irony, “at which Christ should be valued.”
From The Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by J-J Tissot (1897)
It is still early morning. Jesus has just heard the ratification of His sentence and that it was decided He should be taken before the Roman Governor. Then Judas, "which had betrayed Him", when he sees that his Victim cannot possibly escape death, realises at last the full extent of his treacherous wrongdoing, and his soul is seized with remorse. He repents, but his repentance is the repentance of despair, and, eager to get rid of the torture which overwhelms him, he hastens to the Temple, determined to confess his crime and to give back the money he had received on the evening of the day before. The Jews are in the Temple, wearing on their foreheads the phylacteries always put on for morning prayer. If, however, the miserable man had had any hope that the step he was about to take would save Jesus, the revolting reply he received must very quickly have convinced him of his mistake. Then his despair reaches its height, he flings down the pieces of silver in a great hurry and rushes away to go and kill himself. We have laid at the scene of this tragic incident in the Court of the Jews in the lower part of the Temple.
Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam
Ad Jesum per Mariam
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