The Remorse and Death of Judas (Matthew 27:3–10)

The texts below are quoted verbatim from public-domain English translations; nothing is paraphrased.

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St. John Chrysostom (c. 347–407)

Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, Homily 85 (on Matthew 27:3–10) Source: trans. in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 10. Public domain. Full text: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf110.iii.LXXXI.html

On the double charge, against Judas who repented too late and against the priests who repented not at all:

This was a charge both against him, and against these men; against him, not because he repented, but because he did so, late, and slowly, and became self-condemned ... and against them, for that having the power to reverse it, they repented not. But mark, when it is that he feels remorse. When his sin was completed, and had received an accomplishment.

On why the casting-down of the silver was acceptable but the hanging was not:

For to condemn it, and to throw down the pieces of silver, and not to regard the Jewish people, were all acceptable things; but to hang himself, this again was unpardonable, and a work of an evil spirit. For the devil led him out of his repentance too soon, so that he should reap no fruit from thence; and carries him off, by a most disgraceful death, and one manifest to all, having persuaded him to destroy himself.

On the traitor's own sentence as a witness against those who condemned Christ:

For indeed even the very end of the traitor stops the mouths of them that had condemned Him, and suffers them not to have so much as any shadow of an excuse ... For what could they have to say, when the traitor is shown to pass such a sentence on himself.

On the tyranny of covetousness:

Hear, ye covetous, consider what befell him; how he at the same time lost the money, and committed the sin, and destroyed his own soul. Such is the tyranny of covetousness. He enjoyed not the money, neither the present life, nor that to come, but lost all at once, and having got a bad character even with those very men, so hanged himself.

On the field of blood as a standing witness to the treason:

And this also became a witness against them, and a proof of their treason. ... For if they had cast it into the treasury, the thing would not have been so clearly discovered; but now having bought a piece of ground, they made it all manifest even to subsequent generations.

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Origen of Alexandria (c. 185–254)

Commentary on Matthew (on Matthew 27:3–5) As preserved in the Catena Aurea on Matthew. Public domain. Full text: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/catena1.ii.xxvii.html

(Origen is quoted here as preserved in the Catena; some of his speculations were later condemned in 553, and the note that follows on a seed of virtue in every soul reflects his own opinion.)

On the seed of virtue from which even the betrayer came to confess his sin:

Let the propounders of those fables concerning intrinsically evil natures answer me here, whence Judas came to the acknowledgment of his sin, "I have sinned in that I have betrayed righteous blood," except through the good mind originally implanted in him, and that seed of virtue which is sown in every rational soul? But Judas did not cherish this, and so fell into this sin.

On the Devil turning a true repentance into a fatal despair:

Something like this took place in Judas, who after his repentance did not preserve his own heart, but received that more abundant sorrow supplied to him by the Devil, who sought to swallow him up ... But had he desired and looked for place and time for repentance, he would perhaps have found Him who has said, "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked."

On why the servant of God must not take his own life but wait for God's sentence:

Or, perhaps, he desired to die before his Master on His way to death, and to meet Him with a disembodied spirit, that by confession and deprecation he might obtain mercy; and did not see that it is not fitting that a servant of God should dismiss himself from life, but should wait God's sentence.

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St. Jerome (c. 347–420)

Commentary on Matthew (on Matthew 27:3–10) As preserved in the Catena Aurea on Matthew. Public domain. Full text: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/catena1.ii.xxvii.html

On Judas returning the money as though he could change his persecutors:

Judas, when he saw that the Lord was condemned to death, returned the money to the Priests, as though it had been in his power to change the minds of His persecutors.

On the priests who scrupled over the price yet shed the blood:

Truly straining out the gnat, and swallowing the camel; for if they would not put the money into the treasury, because it was the price of blood, why did they shed the blood at all?

On the prophecy being found in Zacharias, not in Jeremy:

This is not found at all in Hieremias; but in Zacharias ... who is the last but one of the twelve Prophets, something like it is told, and though the sense is not very different, yet the arrangement and the words are different.

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Blessed Augustine of Hippo (354–430)

The Harmony of the Gospels, Book III (on Matthew 27:9–10) As preserved in the Catena Aurea on Matthew. Public domain. Full text: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/catena1.ii.xxvii.html

On why the name Jeremy stood in the text by the Lord's own determining:

It might be then, that the name Hieremias occurred to the mind of Matthew as he wrote, instead of the name Zacharias, as so often happens ... had he not thought that his memory, being guided by the Holy Spirit, would not thus have called up to him one name instead of another, had not the Lord determined that it should thus be written.

On the wonderful consent of the Prophets who all spake by one Spirit:

And why He should have so determined, the first reason is, that it would convey the wonderful consent of the Prophets, who all spake by one Spirit, which is much greater than if all the words of all the Prophets had been uttered through the mouth of one man; so that we receive without doubt whatever the Holy Spirit spake through them, each word belongs to all in common, and the whole is the utterance of each.

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St. Leo the Great (c. 400–461)

Sermon 52, On the Passion (on Matthew 27:4) As preserved in the Catena Aurea on Matthew. Public domain. Full text: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/catena1.ii.xxvii.html

On the confession that was no faith, and the mercy Judas might have obtained:

When he says, "I have sinned, in that I have betrayed innocent blood," he persists in his wicked treachery, seeing that amid the last struggles of death he believed not Jesus to be the Son of God, but merely man of our rank; for had he not thus denied His omnipotence, he would have obtained His mercy.